Cruel compendium #26 💉

Gagging for intimacy, extraordinary routines and post-vaccination plans

Jillian Anthony

Mar 2, 2021

Welcome, new subscribers! 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. If you have any feedback, I’d love to hear from you! And ICYMI, last Tuesday I wrote about my week in Austin’s deep freeze. Thanks for being here.

I’m reading

Is divorce the only answer to an unequal marriage? by Jessica Valenti in her newsletter, All in Her Head. She’s the author of the excellent (but tough) memoir, Sex Object.

Why you should talk to yourself in the third person by Shayla Love. Something I do often!

Melanie Hamlett writes about the deep love that is possible after you stop allowing people to give you breadcrumbs

If you’re good, say you’re good by Adrienne Maree Brown

Inside all of the circumstances, there’s the possibility of this being one of the most beautiful, connected, grounded, liberating, fertile, creative, abundant times of your life.

Take some time to take the Audre Lorde questionnaire this week, in Aminatou Sow’s newsletter

True relief lies on the other side of substance abuse by Alex Olshonsky in his newsletter, the oLo

A comic about drawing grief by Yao Xiao

Inside Britain’s sexual recession by Chanté Joseph

Most of us are gagging for intimacy right now. In the words of Pooja, we’re asking for it; we’re dying for it. I miss the sharp heat that catapulted through my body when a man pressed his hand against the small of my back before he was surely going to ruin my life. I miss the pointless tension-filled chatter before succumbing to natural urges. I miss men laughing at my random musings during pillow talk as I question things like: “isn’t it strange that to fall asleep we have to pretend to sleep?” Yet here we are, living through a double-dip sexual recession.

I’m listening to

The Sunday Soother: Catherine Andrews interviews Madeleine Dore

I’m on week five of The Artist’s Way right now as part of a community course with life coach Catherine Andrews. Her conversation with Madeleine Dore—author of a newsletter I love, Extraordinary Routines—all about recovering your creative self is a really good one:

Questionable self-care advice

rosemary donahue @rosadona

might fuck around and cry in the bath

Support system

natlue

A post shared by Natalie Lue (@natlue)

Vision board

thesorrygirls

A post shared by The Sorry Girls (@thesorrygirls)

I won’t rest till my tub time looks like this.

Obsessions

🏡 Devendra Banhart gives a tour of his kooky LA home while recovering from food poisoning. I love him so much.
📚 What are the world’s most interesting people reading?
✔️ The most interesting list I’ve read in a long time.
👍 This study reveals some of the silver linings people are finding through Covid lockdowns. “…When asked the question -- ‘Do you think there are any positive to come out of this pandemic and of the social distancing restrictions?’ -- 88% of respondents said 'yes'.”
☄️ This week I learned that gas stoves cause significant indoor pollution and contribute to illnesses like asthma.
🙌 50 ways to donate in support of Asian communities
⚡ A tool to help you find that elusive same energy
👌 The first six months of Denver’s program to dispatch mental health workers to help troubled, nonviolent people instead of the police have been a success
✨ Austin Kleon says Texas isn’t grand, but it’s home, and even though I’ve only spent a month here, I get it
💻 New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz gives great insight in the dips and curves her career took to get where she is today in this Q&A.
🍀 Start keeping a glimmer list
🍺 I miss my bar
❄️ Did you know you can roll snow?
🎶 Sure, us millennials are super uncool with our side parts and skinny jeans, but at least we get the 2021 remix of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” that we deserve