Issue #258: low-stakes hobbies, succulents, french onion everything 🌱

Happy Friday, readers! As you might have guessed, I love a good newsletter. And right now, no one does newsletters as well as Anne Helen Petersen. Equipped with the same astuteness with which she wrote the seminal piece on "millennial burnout," Petersen's Culture Study newsletter is a treasure trove of some of the best writing on modern culture and life. The newsletter asks out loud the (big/important and small/silly) questions we're already asking ourselves, like: What keeps people on Facebook? Why does Candy Crush feel so "blah" while Wordle feels wonderful? Why, exactly, did the Nap Dress take off during COVID?!

So without further ado, I'm thrilled to introduce today's guest edit by Anne Helen Petersen, in which she shares some musings on puzzles, a few good recommendations, and a slew of interesting reads. Enjoy! —Alisha

(P.S. Anne has a new book out about the brokenness of work and office life.)

I spend a lot of time thinking about hobbies: what they feel like, what they’re for, how to start them, and why so many millennials have none at all. (Hint: it has a lot to do with work). Hobbies don’t have to be intricate, like stamp-collecting, or cost much money, like sailing. In fact, I feel pretty strongly that the best hobbies are ones that you’re just decent at—it makes it all the easier to avoid the millennial hustle temptation to monetize them. In the summer, my hobby is gardening. (I’m a passable but certainly not even close to expert gardener, and that’s part of the joy of it.) In the winter, my hobby is skiing, but the mountain is too far away and the lift ticket is too expensive for it to really form an additional axis of my life. 

Enter: puzzles. My family has long puzzled, but it was always a background activity. But this year, I’ve reacquainted myself with its truly soothing and immersive properties. It’s a perfect way to be present with family at gatherings that doesn’t involve furtively sneaking glimpses at your phone. It’s bonding, it’s low stakes, most puzzles require very little skill other than back stamina. A few weekends ago, I spent the weekend in a cabin with my best friends—and their kids, who I’ve known since they were born, and are now between the ages of 3 and 7. 

One of the older boys often does puzzles with his grandmother, and after the adults got the border going, he wandered over and took a spot next to us. For the next few hours, we puzzled along, making jokes and made-up songs. For the first time since those kids were born, I had a clear view of the next act in our friendship: when they kids transition from, well, kids into something like friends, peers, teens, adults. What a journey, and what a joy that will be—to sit beside them, trying to find that hiding piece, talking about everything and nothing at all….exactly the way I always have with their moms. 

—Anne Helen Petersen, author of Culture Study

weekly picks

• Some recs from Anne Helen...
  • Here’s the great FOWL LANGUAGE puzzle (see above!) we worked on (and finished!), and a puzzle mat for those who need a way to put the puzzle away when not in active puzzle mode. 
  • When I can’t garden outdoors, I focus my energy on my indoor plants. I’ve tried a lot of online places, and Succulents Box has the best quality/price/variety hands down. 
  • My favorite gardening Instagram follow: Floret
  • My all-time favorite small gift/treat: these fridge magnets, which you can create by linking your Instagram account.

• A food trend we can get behind... Anyone else notice that everything seems to be getting French onion-ified these days? We are very here for it. See: French onion skillet gnocchi (Kitchn), short rib onion soup (Smitten Kitchen), French onion pizza (The Original Dish).

• It's not your fault you can't pay attention... "I listened to this Ezra Klein podcast episode on paying attention while I was showering. His conversation with author Johann Hari of book Stolen Focus made me think about how our society today undervalues wandering, creative mental downtime and opened my eyes to how nutritional and sleep health affect our ability to focus." —Megan on the team

• New stuff on our radar...
  • To cook with: Eat Jahan, a new pantry brand featuring Afghan spice blends in flavors like "Rustic Rice Masala" and "Savory Tandoori Kabob."
  • To read: Love in the Time of Contagion, about how relationships—including author Laura Kipnis's own—have changed in pandemic times

• Take pleasure into your own hands... This cult-fave vibrator necklace is designed to be worn as sex-positive jewelry or used as a discreet vibe. It's a statement piece that looks as good as it feels. Sponsor

• Hilarious but definitely rated "R"... Ali Wong's new special on Netflix!

• Shameless plug... We would be remiss to have a note about puzzles without mentioning Whiled, our sibling brand. All puzzles are currently sold out (check back in April!), but there's some cool swag (a beanie! a very big tote!) still available.

• P.S. It's that time again... We're doing another round of the GNI Happy List. This time, we want to know, what has you really psyched for spring? A perfect pair of cropped pants? An extremely aspirational picnic spread? Visions of reading a novel while on a hammock? Let us know!

• Chris La Tray’s newsletter, An Irritable Métis, is the most nourishing thing in my inbox every week. Here’s a recent fave.

• Meg Conley is doing some of the best writing on caregiving and home culture out there. I loved her recent piece in Harper’s Bazaar on what’s left out of the conversation about The Great Resignation. 

• The title of this—“How Reading Queer Authors Helped Improved My Relationships”—undersells the magnificence of this piece. 

• My favorite feminist philosopher on the immorality of diet culture.

• Do you want to marvel at a fruit and its biological magic? Do I have the piece for you.