just saying hi
Man, it feels like a million years ago since I sent one of these out even though the “calendar” says it’s only been “two” “months.” Allegedly!
I’ve been getting settled at Vanity Fair and trying to get used to the fact that my whole job now is to sit around and actually write; it is both amazing and extremely strange to be left alone with your thoughts and a blank Google Doc for the entire day. Any tips on how to not go all Yellow Wallpaper on oneself would be enormously appreciated...my best coping tip so far is to try to schedule plans each weekday, which feels like going against every single introvert instinct.
Speaking of coping: what an extra weird time, isn’t it? If you’re also coming out of this season feeling disappointed with the way hot whatever summer soured so quickly, you’re not alone. I definitely thought a new job and a new sense of purpose and vaccination meant that this was going to be LES TIME OF OUR LIVES; instead, I feel like a total child with no concept for how to conduct myself or what to expect. The way that the sun has started creeping down earlier each day feels like the part in the horror film when things are about to slide off the rails. What to do in the meantime? What’s really going to happen next? Everyone I know is completely depleted—mentally, emotionally, spiritually—but I think the only answer right now is to try to hold onto each other as well as we can. What else is there?
Anyway, me sliding back into your inbox with mumbly existential thoughts is pretty par for the course, but I did want to say hi and that I miss the Deez Links community and am continuously thinking about what could come next for the newsletter in the future. If it isn’t totally indulgent, I’d love to keep sending y’all little updates in the meantime……
Some Toks I’ve loved:
Did you know dog ears can do this
my son Alan Kim makes great faces in NIKI’s new music video; the whole thing is my summer theme song/vision board/mental ASMR
Some links I’m obsessed with:
Vulture’s publishing scammer story is everything the internet says it is. My only desire now is to see this mystery solved in our lifetime.
This entire VF story about the journalistic elite’s obsession with Montclair, NJ. So good!
Allegra Hobbes on bankable characters in reality TV. Required reading as part of your training for the Internet Personalities genre of the incoming Sally Rooney Discourse
Some stuff I’ve written:
I interviewed Lakshmi Rengarajan, a former Match.com director who now hosts a really great podcast about setting people up. It was easily the most interesting and nuanced conversation I’ve had with someone about Tinder and the state of modern dating!
I went to an Ali Wong show and wrote about seeing her perform after a Year of Hate Crimes and Isolation; this is kind of the most personal I’ve gotten in writing but it’s like the only way I’ve begun to process all of That
The new Gossip Girl centers Black cultural authority, and I tried to articulate why, as a result, the show doesn’t feel as “fun” in terms of punching up on (white) privilege in the same vein as all the “cool” HBO shows do now
I also got to interview the pair behind Blackbird Spyplane, i.e. the style newsletter all your cool friends have already been subscribing to for ages
Other things??
I started a “public” IG that has been kind of nice to have; I used to think it was totally unnecessary to have a “work” account and a “personal” account, but in these times I think separating the two is the only way we can stay sane. Maybe.