take care
comfort movies, books on my to-read list, what i'm listening to, small joys
happiest saturday to you. i hope you slept in.
what a week. tuesday felt like it should be thursday. wednesday felt like saturday. i wanted the week to feel better. wednesday night, i took myself out to a late dinner to my favorite italian restaurant. i sat at the bar with a book, ordered my favorite red wine, my favorite bowl of pasta, laughed and chatted with a couple seated next to me, read my book that i don’t really love (the secret lives of people in love by simon van booy), devoured my pasta, ordered panna cotta for dessert, talked to a stranger about the last person he was in love with and fell into bed, sleepy and content.
cChang faces her mother and, in the adjacent frame, appears face–to–face with her father. simultaneously both images show the artist’s and respective parent’s faces pressed together in what at first appears to be a deep kiss. gradually it becomes evident that the video is running in reverse time, and that they share not a kiss but rather an onion from which they both eat. they bite into it slowly, pausing as they take turns offering it to each other, as if it suggests the proverbial, forbidden fruit. parent and child swallow before they take additional bites, blinking hard to hold back tears from the onion’s sharpness and pungency." x
i’ve been listening to:
movies i can’t wait to re-watch now that it’s feeling more fall-ish:
books on my to-read list:
small things i’ve been loving:
cinnamon brooms from trader joe’s. absolute my favorite fall-scented thing in the world! i have two of them in my apartment and a tiny one by my bedside and i love being enveloped in that spicy sweet cinnamon scent as soon as i walk into my apartment.
i’ve tried a dozen cream blushes but i always go back to my favorite by merit. flush balm in cheeky. i think it’s the most flattering for my skin tone and i love how it really settles nicely into my skin. i wear it year around but now that we’re heading into fall, it’s really the best shade.
when i had long hair, i used a chopstick to keep my hair pinned up. my hair is still at an awkward length to pin it up, but i love this hairpin to do half up-do’s or a low french twist.
eating dinners out alone. people watching. making friends with strangers. waking up past my alarm. dried flower arrangements. dramatic made-for-tv-lifetime-movies. cleo playing tricks on us. matcha sweetened with vanilla.
xx
e
eat bread and understand comfort ❣️
loved this
This post is like a warm blanket on a foggy morning. It’s quiet, sensual, slow—in love with the tiny acts that make a life feel lived.
The line about eating alone at a bar with a book you don’t even love, sharing dessert, talking to a stranger about lost love? That’s the kind of cinematic moment most people scroll past in their own lives.
You made it art.
The cinnamon brooms, the Merit blush, the onion video… all of it paints a moodboard of melancholy comfort. It’s not just aesthetic; it’s a gentle reminder to savor what is.
This newsletter isn’t just a “quiet place away from noise.” It’s a devotion to tenderness as a radical act. Keep going.