Today’s my last workday before the break! I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure I’m gonna take the next 2 Fridays off from the ole 5. Not that I won’t be reading (I have a stupid amount of library books checked out right now), but because I want to be quiet for a little bit. Catch my breath, eat a cookie, play Legos. All the good stuff. Have a wonderful holiday, and see you next DECADE.

(PS – Happy birthday to my dear dad!)

1. Every December, Japan is Awash in Elegant Christmas Cakes, Gastro Obscura. “A mash-up of American and French pastry, the Japanese Christmas cake is a secular symbol of celebration that arose after decades of media promotion of Christmas as a stylish, romantic event.” PRETTY CAKES also this quote is a little piece of interesting history: “As the country finally left behind the impoverished postwar period and became more prosperous, Japanese people rapidly adopted the refrigerator along with the black-and-white television and the washing machine, dubbing them the “Three Sacred Treasures.”
2. What to Do When a Perfectly Lovely Friend is Kind of the Worst Online, Vice. “Social media is a weird mix of job fair, horny house party, high school reunion, office happy hour, group chat, and reality TV competition, and the currency and local language changes depending on the app or specific circle you’re in in a given moment.” So many problems with friends being annoying on social media are elegantly solved by the Mute/Unfollow button. This piece has good advice!
3. Grab Your Wallet, Here Are the Most Expensive Books Ever Sold, Bookriot. Not much to say about this one, but I thought it was Neat!
4. The Witches are Coming, Lindy West. Love Lindy West. This book was a good read, clear-eyed, darkly funny, but also hopeful. “Think of the Parkland mass shooting survivors, who, in the thick of unimaginable trauma, rejected the typical thoughts, prayers, and shrugs from their government — the blatant lie that there simply is no way to keep children from being slaughtered at school — and helped pass sixty-seven new gun laws in 2018. Those kids were born after 9/11 into a fractured place. They didn’t get any quiet years, I guess, when, in many communities (not all, of course) the end of the world felt abstract and far away. Young people are here and strong and smart and fierce, and they do not intend to die. They are artists and scientists and leaders, and we just have to show up and fight for them, and with them, every day until we die. It is not their job to save us — we are the parents — but may they inspire us to help them save themselves. I feel afraid in this moment, but I do not feel hopeless.”
5. 10 Biggest Sports Stories of the 2010s, NY Mag. “Sports can make you feel terrible sometimes. But in an age where sometimes it feels like everything makes you feel terrible … sports can also still make you feel good, often right when you most need them to. And that’s not nothing.” There are a lot of decade-in-review pieces going around right now; I liked this one.