Cruel compendium #23 🛀
Finding optimism, self-soothing with gossip, and loving who loves me
I’m Jillian Anthony, and this is Cruel Summer Book Club, a newsletter about change, heartbreak and healing. In the Cruel Compendium I send out links to everything I’m reading, listening to and thinking about. Here’s to a better week. ✨
I’m reading
Roxane Gay on the joy she found in 2020
The discipline of optimism by Katie Hawkins-Gaar in her newsletter, My Sweet Dumb Brain. Read our interview here.
New newsletter rec: Today in Tabs makes its grand return. For the unstable among us who are beyond addicted to internet and media goss.
Rachel Miller’s links to important reading on last week’s mob of domestic terrorists at the Capitol in her newsletter, Just Good Shit
Recommit to your role in anti-racism in 2021 by Nicole Cardoza in Anti-racism Daily. A friend and I have an appointment to talk about our roles and the actions we will take to make anti-racism a priority this year. May I suggest finding your accountability partner and doing the same? Anti-Racism Daily is also hiring a full-time managing editor at a starting salary of $75K.
There are many ways to define your role, and I encourage you to look closely at the language used by local organizers and community leaders to guide you. But I appreciate this framework created by Deepa Iyer from Building Movement Project. Learn more about the map and definitions for each role (both PDFs linked are via the website).
Poem by June Jordan, h/t Aminatou Sow’s newsletter:
resolution # 1,003
I will love who loves me
I will love as much as I am loved
I will hate who hates me
I will feel nothing for everyone oblivious to me
I will stay indifferent to indifference
I will live hostile to hostility
I will make myself a passionate and eager lover
in response to passionate and eager loveI will be nobody’s fool
I’m listening to
Who? Weekly on the insanity of Hilaria (Hillary!) Baldwin passing herself off as a Spanish woman for all these years
Questionable self-care advice
I’m still trying.
Support system
Vision board
Obsessions
Julio Torres’ kooky Brooklyn apartment (2019). My friend follows Julio so closely that when I sent him this article he could tell that the interior photos were old. No, he doesn’t know Julio and has never been to his place.
Last year at this time I joined Financial Gym to get my $$$ in order. Actually five of my other close friends are members too. They assign you a financial trainer who makes you take a hard (scary) look at all of your expenses, then discuss your short- and longterm goals. Within six weeks I felt so much better and more in control about where my money was going, plus I learned the basics about investing. This is my member referral link, so I get $100 if you sign up, FYI.
This fantastic idea to track joy through the year:
This caption from the wonderful Jessica Dore:
It’s probably one of the first things we should learn in school but don’t, that feelings are always valid but they’re not always a helpful reflection of reality. Sometimes feelings are triggered by automatic thoughts, which bubble up from core beliefs and are distinct from what’s actually happening. You don’t need me to tell you that.
Minerva moment
Anthem
“Good Days” by SZA
”Half of us chasing fountains of youth and it’s in the present”
Listen to the CSBC playlist
Mood
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You are not alone!