The Last Weekly Intake + Some Virtual Housekeeping for 2024
a way-discounted subscription price, a restructured posting schedule, and 2023's last roundup post
Happy New Year’s Eve, friends!
Hope your holidays are merry and bright and void of any relatives asking you if you’re getting married. I’ve taken the month away from LA, spending it instead with family between Alabama and Pennsylvania, walking in the woods, playing games around fires, meeting my friend’s newborn, and spending hours at my favorite coffee shop, Side Track.
Time was moving too fast until the last few days, when I came down with a terrible cold that has me leaving a trail of tissues around my parents’ house and dreaming of the LA sun, though it’s beginning to look a lot like last year’s waterlogged winter over there. I’m choosing to ignore reality and look forward to being back in California with a backyard full of oranges and strawberries in January.
As usual, I’ve rounded up ten things I’ve been into lately, but I have a few things I want to tell you first.
First, I’ve discounted the yearly subscription fee to $30. For the whole year! That’s $2.50 a month. Substack wouldn’t let me go any lower than that, and I appreciate them for having more dignity than I do. That’s 50% off the monthly fee of $5 (which is the lowest monthly price Substack will let me set). This discount will run for all of January. Your support—paid or not—truly means the world to me.
Second, I’m changing my essay posting schedule. Instead of striving for weekly essays posted every Wednesday, you can now expect a personal essay from me on the first and third Friday of every month. Don’t worry, you don’t need to remember that. Just know that I will be better at staying predictable and your inbox will have a little more space.
The third change and most relevant to this post is that the Weekly Intakes will now be Monthly Intakes. I’ll include more recommendations in each post but post them less frequently. These monthly recaps will come to you on the last Sunday of each month.
Lastly, I will begin posting some content for paying subscribers only. The essays and monthly intakes will remain free for now, but I will post one-off, unscheduled things like more detailed trip and city recommendations, full recipes, conversations, (hopefully) guest contributors and more. Now is a great time to spend only $30 and get access to everything all year.
I decided to make these changes in large part because popping up in your inbox 2+ a week seemed like way more than anyone needed to hear from me. I appreciate each of you and don’t take your reading eyes and scrolling fingers for granted. I also don’t want to scare you away.
If there’s anything specific (or vague!) you’d like to read or something you want to share or collaborate on, please let me know. I want these posts to add to your life, not take time from it. And I’d love to hear from you.
Thank you for bearing with me. Here’s to a restructured 2024!
And now for the usual: things I wore, read, and used this week.
I mentioned how much I wanted this coat in my December gift guide (which works great for birthday gifts, too!), but I couldn’t give a personal review since I didn’t own it. Evan gifted it to me for Christmas, and I can now confirm it is exactly what it should be—a luxurious, chic, wearable blanket. It’s heavy and soft, closer to a comforter with sleeves than a coat or robe, and it oozes style. The only downside is that I now need it in a few colors since I’m never taking it off.
Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
My neighbor lent me this novel months ago assuring me I’d love it, and I just now got around to it. I already want to read it again. I also want to send the narrator to a psychiatrist and read all the psychiatrist’s notes. He’s very Holden Caulfield if Holden was a few years older and sent to Madrid on a prestigious poetry fellowship. The narrator is privileged, maddening, and aimless, but vastly intriguing and sometimes endearing. It’s a repulsive and well-written account of internalized fear, warring self-loathing and self-aggrandizement, and desire. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who isn’t painfully introspective.
Watercoloring
Why aren’t we all watercoloring all the time? It’s so accessible and meditative. I had only watercolored once before as an adult, and that was seven years ago in a room of architecture interns who were incredible artists. I was terrible and discouraged. Now, with my new watercolor kit (thanks, Evan) and far from all architects, I am actually okay at it. And I think we probably all are. I’m excited to have a new hobby that’s so easy to pick up and put down.
(Beef) Tallow Balm from Toups & Co.
Yep, tallow. Animal fat. Animal fat that you rub all over your hands and wherever else you want to rub it. You’re probably thinking, “Absolutely not,” and I don’t blame you. But it’s good. It smells good and works better than any hand cream I’ve ever tried. Blame my mom for her obsessively natural ways.
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
For some unfounded reason, I thought this would be a mediocre read, but I was wrong. It’s a quick, easy read but not for lack of craft. It turned out to be quite moving, and, by the halfway point, I couldn’t put it down. The story blooms into something really beautiful about love in many forms that runs much deeper than romance.
Cottage Cheese and Ruffles
Ready for another gross thing? This is my favorite snack since girlhood, and I can’t be shamed about it (not for lack of Evan’s trying). Whenever I visit my parents, they have a new bag of Ruffles waiting for me to dip into cottage cheese whenever I please. It’s the little things. I dare you to try it.
Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn
I’m only halfway through this book, but I’m already in *ahem* love. This book explores love in all its forms and at all stages, and it will probably make you cry. I expected it to be a collection of interesting interviews, which it is, but I had no idea how great of a writer Natasha Lunn was when I picked it up. The interviews are incredible—full of honest and profound conversations with Alain de Botton, Roxane Gay, Esther Perel, and more—but my favorite parts of this book are Natasha’s writing. I’ve annotated every page I’ve read so far. I can’t wait to read more of her. Continued
also exist on Substack.The Zen of Seeing by Frederick Franck
Sorry, last book on this list. This is not a novel. I was sitting in Side Track before Christmas and a man around 80 years old came to our table to look at the bookshelf behind me. He told me about a very special book he’d left there that that he’d been thinking about, and he wanted to take it back. We found it and looked at it together. It’s a beautiful guide—handwritten and hand illustrated—to rediscovering the world, actually seeing what’s in front of you. The man took it back home with him, and I ordered two copies.
Going through old family photos
I’ve been obsessed with going through family photos since I was a kid and only more so now. Every time I come home, I spend a few hours going through photos and keepsakes with my parents and learning things I never knew, things that come with age. I always try to record pieces of these conversations on my phone so the emotional memory is preserved alongside the physical one. Big recommend.
A break from podcasts
In LA, I listen to at least a podcast every day. I have a roster of about six different ones, and I run out of content a few times a week. I love podcasts, but I wonder if my affinity for them is a desire for connection and conversations that I’m not always surrounded by when I’m in Los Angeles. I haven’t completed a single episode since I left LA on December 8th because I’ve rarely been alone. It’s been nice to have a break from strangers’ noise, but I’m also excited to have an stockpile of content when I’m back.
I’d love to hear from you! Let me know what you’ve been into these last few weeks or share any thoughts you might have on the newsletter’s restructuring—all feedback is good feedback.
Big hugs, sloppy kisses, and a happy New Year!
XO! Claire