On sameness

We’ve been doing this newsletter thing for a while, and I couldn’t be prouder of it—when we started, I never really imagined that we’d be doing it consistently for long enough to get to the point where we’re struggling to come up with things to write about every week, but turns out: we have done exactly that! (Which is so cool!) At the beginning, it felt like there were so many things that we loved and couldn’t wait to recommend. Now, it’s hard to think of new things we haven’t mentioned already, because we’re both still just playing the same games and listening to the same music and doing the same things that we’ve loved for weeks and months and years. There’s not a lot of newness in our lives, and that makes a task like writing this newsletter especially difficult. Summer tweeted something really good about this a while ago that I still think about all the time—the idea that beneath a lot of sameness, you can still search for the tiny, little things that are making your life good. In that way, writing Letters to Summer is kind of like keeping a gratitude journal. I’m so happy I get to keep doing it!

– Jillian

I’m not a routine person, as I’ve discussed on this newsletter, but there are things I gravitate towards for comfort—replaying Fire Emblem: Three Houses, for example, checking HBO Max’s Gossip Girl revival—but those aren’t very recommendable-things; sometimes I am very aware of my depressive states when I review what the last two weeks have looked like in order to put something together for the newsletter. Like, what have I done, really? Cry? Cool. That being said, it is good to think down to the nitty-gritty: what brought me joy? Like Jill said, it is a form of gratitude journal—would I have thought so carefully about my watermelon if my other silly little tasks were the same as they were last every-other-Thursday?

– Summer

We recommend

🎶 boygenius

Ok, classic me to recommend music people already listen to, BUT! “Ketchum, ID” came up on my Discover Weekly a few months ago and since it was soothing I added it to my sleep playlist—a few nights ago I decided to see what other songs were on the album and realized…boygenius! Honestly, I think I like Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Daucus, and Julien Baker the most when they’re together. Just a good set of sad girl music with pretty harmonies.

– Summer

📱 Pixaki

Pixaki is sort of like the Procreate of pixel art—it’s a really beautiful, easy-to-use iPad app for making pixel art that I’ve been using and loving for a few weeks. It’s plenty flexible enough for my purposes (making cute little pixel creations for my friends, mostly) and it’s really the only iPad app for pixel art that I’ve enjoyed using. There’s also a free version, if you want to try it out before committing!

– Jillian

🎙️ Aack Cast

What’s that? I’m recommending another Jamie Loftus project? Yes! This time, she’s delving deep into the world of Cathy Comics, something I truly only know in zeitgeist—the first few episodes have been incredible, already rich with careful research and more thought than you could imagine. Jamie’s journalistic podcasts are truly a blueprint. Check it out!

– Summer

🎮 Threes

You may or may not have picked up on this by now, but I like playing video games. That said, I haven’t really been much into mobile games lately (except for Genshin Impact, which I play on my iPad). I’ve been sort of missing the era of playing games like Flappy Bird and Neko Atsume on my phone, so I subscribed to Apple Arcade and downloaded a bunch recently—so far, Threes is my favorite. Very similar to 2048, it’s a great game when you just need a quick distraction or want to do something with your hands without opening Twitter and then closing Twitter and then opening Twitter again. It’s available on a bunch of mobile platforms, plus you can play it right on their website!

– Jillian