One of the best things about writing Pocket Visuality has been the ability to look back at my past newsletters, which are more polished versions of what’s on my mind, in my journal. Writing this week’s letter, I took a peek at last week’s hi from london! on navigating transitions post, and it’s amazing how differently I feel now. As in, I’m a little obsessed with London?! And see so much more charm in it compared to (dare I say) NYC? Call this the honeymoon period of our relationship. Anyways, here’s a report!
R: Reading
I want to repair my relationship with reading, invest it in it a bit more. Spend our quality time. When I was younger, I’d spend hours on end getting lost in a book, and I remember that delicious feeling of luxuriating in a character’s environment, trusting a good writer to pull you along into their world. Billy Collin’s poem Reading Myself to Sleep bottles up that feeling best.
But somewhere along my way in high school and college (‘uni’), I lost that slow joy. I shifted to speed-reading for the argument—to get through the book. Which doesn’t make the nuance, and the details, details, details sticky. Reading is the key to everything, I think. Reading widely and curiously. I’m trying to relearn that. I’m particularly enjoying The Matter of Black Lives, which are essays published in The New Yorker from James Baldwin, Zadie Smith, and more. The essay format is helpful for me as a relearning reader—I need tune in. Everything is condensed.
E: Eating
What have I been eating? I need to say something for the simple (deceptively so) dish that unexpectedly blows you away. Makes you remember how good cooking one thing perfectly and in the right conditions makes you rethink how you thought an ingredient tasted. I don’t know the name of this stand at Exmouth Market, but that’s what their plate of chargrilled chicken, salad, and brown rice did for me. The skin on the chicken was roasted to a crisp—spicy, smoky, and caramelized in the best way possible.
The plates were topped with fried onions, and a sriracha mayo. And a word on the brown rice—it had a bite. Like a bouncy sticky rice bite. Amazing.
P: Playing
Relationships. Maybe this whole newsletter is implicitly about relationships. Thinking about myself in a relationship with London, with reading. And with you—the ethernet. The out there. Following this current, I’ve been playing and experimenting with ‘social architecting’ recently. As in, seeing what might happen bringing different people together. And working on my ‘group’ social muscles. I know I thrive in deeper 1:1s, where I can connect with one person and give them all of my attention. And I feel less comfortable in larger group situations, if I don’t know everyone well yet. I get distracted trying to balance the entire group and simultaneously being active in the conversation, but also giving individual people my deepest attention. I get tired trying to do all of those things at once, so I protect myself by retreating.
So, exposure therapy. And questions: How can I show up in larger group settings while still connecting how I’d like to? Or, how can I shift my social energy to be feel more emotionally sustainable in larger groups? How can I lean into being a little sillier, a little looser, a little lighter?
O: Obsessed with
Martin Wong: Malicious Mischief at the Camden Arts Centre. American Sign Language (ASL) codes in his work. Brick façades. How he captured the Lower East Side in the 1980s. The retrospective closes September 17th.
R: Recommending
Urania’s Children Queer Magic Perfume. Oh my goodness. I don’t obsess over perfume or fragrances typically. I spritz on Kiehl’s Orange Flower and Lychee scent (totally discontinued in like 2013) and I head out the door smelling like a juicy Concord grape. But I love floral, fruity, green, and “gourmand-oriented” scents. I can’t justify buying this bottle right now, but I can’t stop thinking about it because this would be my number #1 beauty purchase. It hit all of my favorite notes—cardamom and FIG! Of course. It’s delightful and gender neutral too.
T: Treating
My ‘I need a sweet treat ASAP’ version of an Eton mess. Store-bought meringue nests are everywhere, so I’ll roughly crumble one up. Add all of my favorite fruits (namely: figs), a boatload of whipped cream (what else), and toppings (also fig jam, crunchy peanut butter, a little salt). This dessert takes five seconds and has every single thing I love in it. Treated!
Next week is my first week of orientation! Be it a week of a first, a middle, a last—I'm wishing you a wonderful week too! Until next time.
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