Childbirth, Happiness, Instagram?
Plus comics from Sanibel
Hi, I’m Edith, and this is a newsletter with links, personal writing, and comics. It’s a work in progress, and I’d love to know what you think. (Please feel free to reply to this email!) Once a week or so I send out a bunch of links to stories I enjoyed, with excerpts and illustrations. This is that bunch of links!
Remaining upright also appears to facilitate labor progress and, aided by gravity, descent of the baby in the birth canal.
The Conversation. Fascinating story about childbirth. (“I’m an OB/GYN who attended thousands of deliveries before wondering why Americans give birth in bed.”)
Google analytics tells me that almost everyone looks at eriebasin.com on a phone, which is a shame because each week I spend an embarrassing amount of time laying out how the new arrivals will look on the desktop version of the website.
Instagram/ErieBasin. I was struck by this moment of candor and frustration from Russell Whitmore, who runs the Brooklyn antique jewelry store Erie Basin, perhaps because I also feel weird about the shift from desktops to phones. It’s also another excuse to link to Erie Basin, which I have been drooling over for more than a decade. Also, the site’s desktop layout is truly fantastic. Also, I’m beginning to think I started a newsletter in part because I enjoy drawing jewelry…
14th-Century Illustration of Venice Is the Oldest Found Yet
Smithsonian. I had a whole joke about this, but then it seemed stupid, so I deleted it, but basically the gist was “Imagine living in the 1300s and drawing a ‘comic,’ and then someone trying to explain to you that people 700 years in the future would be blogging about it…” The joke wasn’t funny, but now I don’t know how to explain the drawing. Anyway, it is cool. Copying an old drawing feels very intimate.
While we prepared to go up to the pediatric ward, my older son was 20 miles away, swallowing spoonfuls of peanut butter spiked with a single dose of medication that costs $426. “Yes,” he’d said when we explained his brother would be gone for a little while. “His head is an oval. It needs to be a circle.”
The Cut. A beautiful essay from Jen Gann.
Meals are rare in the deep sea.
The Deep Sea/Neal.fun. I was riveted by this scrolling internet dive to the bottom of the ocean. I started scrolling with a dish in my hand that I meant to put down, and by the time I reached the bottom, I was still holding the dish, fully entranced!
What would be the scariest thing about going there?
I’d be worried about my spacesuit leaking and my blood boiling or whatever…
The Outline asked people if they’d want to go to the moon. For the record, I do not want to go to the moon.
In her suicide note, ... she wrote: “Should your sensibility ever awake, remorse will find its way to your heart; and, in the midst of business and sensual pleasures, I shall appear before you, the victim of your deviation from rectitude.” Be happy then but, if it turns out you are human, you’ll be thinking of me when you fuck her.
I liked this Aeon essay on the history of the “happy emotions.” I’m thinking that the modern equivalent of “happily ever after” is maybe the phrase “I just want you to be happy.” Both are arguably meaningless and yet suggest easy attainment. Personally I find that I often have weeks of relative happiness followed by weeks of mild down-ness, and both feel like they’re going to last forever. And then I’ll usually realize that they precisely reflect my menstrual cycle. Well, sometimes. Actually, maybe never.
I woke up embarrassed by my unconscious. I stayed embarrassed — too embarrassed, for a while, to look at her Instagram.
N+1. I was hypnotized by this essay about Twitter and Instagram from Dayna Tortorici.
Regardless of where you put the hors d’oeuvres, people will still want to congregate by the kitchen when you’re in there finishing up.
Draining pasta just before serving may not be the facial you want or need before sitting down for dinner.
Dinner Party Resolution (via Chris Duffy). Meredith Gringer resolved to have more dinner parties in 2019, and I liked her list of 10 things she’s learned from the experience. It makes me want to do the same thing. Or, it makes me wish my friends would resolve to do the same thing...
Pinwheel Is the New Coins
Mason Dixon Knitting. Knitting content! I want to knit these pinwheels. Behold this gorgeous scarf.
And now for some diary comics…
January 19, 2020
January 20, 2020
