What a week, people. With all the (very good, exciting, but sometimes scary!) changes in my life, I have been struggling with a depression/anxiety combo that has me feeling as uneasy as a Taco Bell/KFC combo. Not to mention the terror in Charlottesville. Well, here’s some stuff I read this week:

1. Charlottesville and the Effort to Downplay Racism in America, The New Yorker. “The belief that America is somehow better than its white-supremacist history is sometimes an excuse masquerading as encouragement, and it’s part of the reason the K.K.K. is back in business. What happened in Charlottesville is less an aberrant travesty in a progressive enclave than it is a reminder of how much evil can be obscured by the appearance of good.”
2. To Be More Productive, Try Angling Your Morning Toward What Brings You Joy. I have been living alone in a new house for about a month now, and mornings have been the best part. Today, I sat on the floor with my back against an overstuffed pillow with a book and a cup of coffee. I like this idea of starting your morning with joyful tasks.
3. Finally Reading Nora Ephron, The Attic on Eighth. This is a lovely little essay on Nora Ephron’s writing and that jives with me because I recently devoured The Most of Nora Ephron, which includes almost all of her food writing and feminist essays as well as Heartburn in full and the screenplay for When Harry Met Sally. She’s truly one of my writing heroes because she sees her life as material and can turn a dark twist into something quotable and often redeemable. The touches of melancholy and anger are subtle enough to bear repeated re-reads and re-watches, and will guide you through.
4. How to be a Contemporary Writer by Roxane Gay. Classic advice that is sound and centralizes the dedicated practice of writing.
5. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby. I haven’t finished this book yet but it’s dark and damn funny and so good so far.