Did you hear there was an earthquake today?
I cannot say that I *liked* the 4.8 magnitude quake that made my entire apartment shake, tricked me into thinking I was having a panic attack, and then gave me an actual panic attack.
But I cannot deny that I did like the subsequent social media responses.
Everyone is so funny!
Here are a few other things I liked, along with some more of my favorite earthquake tweets:
Alison Roman’s Golden Mushroom Soup with Buttered Orzo
I’ve subscribed to Alison Roman’s newsletter for a long time, and while I like her recipes, I have not, until this point, been tempted by one of them enough to bite the bullet and pay her $5/month for access to it.
Then she published this Golden Mushroom Soup with Buttered Orzo recipe and I thought, damn you Alison Roman. You got me. I love mushrooms. I love orzo. And I obviously love butter.
If you’re not a paid subscriber and want to watch a very long, rambling TikTok of me making it that does not fully give you the recipe but I guess shares enough that you could figure out how to make it, click here.
AppBlock
Wasting time on social media is not a unique experience, but I have been grappling with my phone usage, and its impact on my productivity for some time now. I finally decided that I needed to do something drastic if I ever wanted to free myself of this hellscape.
The timing may have to do with some especially illuminating therapy revelations, or finally picking up Jami Attenberg’s book 1000 Words on writing and creativity, which features letters about the writing process from some of my favorite writers (more on that below).
Or it could be the fact that, despite taking care of myself, prioritizing movement, drinking tons of water (out of my Owala bottle, duh) and getting plenty of sleep, my anxiety still feels unmanageable.
Whatever the case may be, I hit some sort of breaking point. In all of my productivity inquiries on Reddit and beyond, AppBlock came up again and again as an effective way to block the most seductive apps on your phone in whatever time increments you choose.
Not only does it prevent you from looking at your phone too much, it also informs you how many times you absentmindedly open the app in question, which is just shaming enough to make me want to stop doing it.
As of today, I have every dreaded app blocked from 9:30 PM to 10:00 AM, and all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when I hope to prioritize a heavier writing schedule.
1000 Words
I constantly grapple with the feeling that I’m not reading enough, or the right thing, or at all, as a writer. The truth is that there is no such thing as reading the “right thing,” but right now, as I’m reading through 1000 Words, which is brimming with writing inspiration and advice from more than fifty writers and Jami herself, I am feeling more creatively inspired and excited about writing than I have been in a long time.
The combo of the book with the app blocker has afforded me way more time to just sit and think and let the ideas bubble up. Highly recommend.
Earthquake twitter… Er… X
Let me start by saying that it will always be Twitter. Much like the Ed Koch bridge will always be the 59th Street Bridge. I will never be referring to Twitter as “formerly known as Twitter,” even if it is technically the accurate journalistic way to cite it.
Moving on.
New York during a natural disaster or weather event has the same energy as the Olympics or the Oscars. Everyone is kind of nice to each other, and funny, and embraces the community we typically avoid.
All of my neighbors crowded outside after post-quake (which apparently you’re not supposed to do!!!), buzzing about how crazy it was. Even a neighbor who has never said a word to me in the decade I’ve lived in my building, opened his door, looked down the hallway at me and said “uhh, what was that?”
Poetic!!!
And that community, of course, extends online. Once I stopped panicking, it was the first place I went for solace. As it has so many times before, Twitter unfortunately did not disappoint.
I am not saying I want there to be more earthquakes. I’m just saying that if we’re going to have earthquakes, at least we also have earthquake Twitter (see note above) to help us come together and soothe the panic.
OK love you have a great (less shaky) weekend!
XOXOX,
Jamie AF