The 📖📺🎧🔪🛍️ List

Griselda, incredibly easy and delicious tomato soup, and disposable camera prints

Happy February to all! You did it. You made it out of the first month of 2024 in one piece. I’m proud of you. Onwards and upwards, as they say.

I re-downloaded Instagram yesterday and shared a round-up of January snapshots along with this caption that I wanted to share here in case you, like me, are backing away from IG (or have never been into it):

Hi, I’m Emma and I’m a recovering IG-holic.

I spent January off of Instagram and didn’t miss it at all. Instead of spending hours doom-scrolling and quietly comparing myself to complete strangers, I leaned into my offline life. Instead of viewing every moment of every day through a “is this content?” lens, I simply lived. I took pictures for myself and my friends and family. I inundated my group text threads with minute-by-minute updates about nonsense instead of sharing a million little dashes via my IG story. I had good days and bad days and kept them to myself. I leaned heavily into my writing via Substack and it was life-affirming and freeing.

There are good and bad sides to being so online, and I’ve experienced them all. I know “my little corner of the internet” is an overused phrase, but that is exactly what this is to me, and I do cherish it so much. But this past month proved something that’s been lost on me for years now — there *is* validation offline. Sounds ridiculous, but I’ve been conditioned for years now to seek recognition and praise inside this app and finally realized all the validation I need is usually sitting next to me or across from me whether it’s a friend or family member, watching me look for what they are ready and willing to give me right now if I’d just set my phone down and look up.

I am a writer and storyteller above all else. The intention was never to become someone who relied more on her pictures and quick snippets to reach people, but her words. It’s why I started my blog EMMASTHING back in March 2010 (!!!), and why I pivoted to Substack (a fancy and interactive writing platform, more or less) last year. I’ll still be around here, just nowhere near as much. If you want the good* stuff in its full, unfiltered form, you can find me there (the link lives in my profile).

*Good is subjective here. Everyone’s definition of “the good stuff” is different.

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WATCHING

First thing’s first. My favorite curly-haired influencer and stylist, Manes By Mell, put out a 2024 hair trends video at the beginning of the month, and I found it to be not only entertaining but incredibly informative. Give it a watch.

I started watching The Crown years ago, but sort of fell off the horse-drawn carriage at some point. I’ve fired it back up, finally wrapped up season 4 (the height of Charles and Diana’s painstaking incompatibility), and have moved into season 5 (the divorce). I watch an episode every time I get on the Peloton (because they introduced the ability to stream shows on there now!), which is rare nowadays so hopefully I’ll get through season 5 by next year.

Season two of the US version of Love on the Spectrum dropped recently, and I just… there is nothing more pure (purer?) than this show. While the dates can be hard to watch, the entire premise is so magical and touching. Every time we watch this show, I feel the calling to work with autistic adults, but I don’t know how? If you’re based in Dallas and have any insight into volunteer opportunities, let me know. Please.

They (as in Netflix) have been pushing Loudermilk quite a bit, so we took the bait and started watching last week. It’s a show that originally aired in 2017 starring that guy from Office Space, and while we liked the first two episodes, I quickly lost interest. The premise of the show is great (a recovering addict and once-famous music critic with biting commentary who can’t seem to hold his tongue and gets through to people via tough love and witty words), but the writing is just not there for me. I don’t think any of the main characters are intriguing enough to keep me around, and they’re trying to do way too much with way too many ancillary characters. Also I cannot get over his last name. LOUDERMILK? No.

Now, let’s talk about Griselda. Sofia Vegara fucked this shit up in the best way possible, and I loved every second of this limited series. Griselda Blanco was a real drug lordess who took over Miami’s economy with her coke-wielding ways in the late 70s and early 80s and was beyond ruthless. In fact, the show opens with a quote from Pablo Escobar: “The only man I was ever afraid of was a woman named Griselda Blanco.” They attempted to make Sofia less attractive for the role because Griselda was no looker, but it should be a case study in truly beautiful people not being able to help their beauty because she was still somehow stunning even as an “unattractive woman".” I’m so happy Sofia got to show her true acting chops in this role — she really did so amazing, and I hope she is rewarded for it.

LISTENING TO

Maybe it’s knowing that Reputation TV is gonna drop any week now, but I can’t stop listening to this album. “Put the money in the bag and I stole the keys, that was the last time you ever saw me” has been in my head for days now, which is hilarious considering that my best friend Whitney has a vivid memory of me pre-Taylor lover making fun of “Getaway Car,” saying “who the fuck names a song GETAWAY CAR?” I know I’m the worst, guys. You don’t need to tell me.

In podcast land, I’ve been listening to this one called Who Killed JFK? hosted by Rob Reiner and Soledad O’Brien (who is great and all but her news anchor voice is A LOT on a podcast). It’s not an amazing podcast by any means, but it’s fun to listen to because the JFK assassination is the biggest murder mystery in American history and HE WAS 100% KILLED BY THE GOVERNMENT, BABES. Trust no one, that’s all I have to say.

MAKING

Did you know that all it takes to make incredible homemade tomato soup is an onion, butter, a can of whole peeled tomatoes, and broth? We made grilled cheeses and this soup earlier this week, and it was comfort wrapped in a faux fur blanket under an electric blanket with a heating pad. You can doctor the soup however you like (add spice, herbs, whatever), but we kept it pretty simple and it was perfect.

I told Zac the third bowl was for Elijah. He didn’t get it. (Only my fellow Jews and Jew-adjacent folk will LOL).

SHOPPING

I need another sweat set like I need something else I don’t need at all, but I couldn’t resist this blue number (matching pants) from Abercrombie. I got it in a medium and love it so much.

Our dogs love a bed with a head rest, and I can’t blame them. Who doesn’t want a built-in pillow? I got each of them one of these beds and they are in love. Honestly, I’m jealous. They are super sturdy yet soft and have a fucking memory foam insert. I want one.

My sister bought this belt for her wife who had no interest in it, so she asked if I wanted it, and I said yes, obviously. I love free belts. I love the retro 80s vibe of it; the chunky hardware is really fun to style.

While I struck out on the majority of Sézane pieces I ordered in January (I got into detail about those strike outs in the latest TIBAR letter), I did end up with this incredible black overcoat and this extremely me button down I couldn’t NOT get. Took both in a US 8/FR 40.

I fancied myself a Gen Z’er over the holidays and got a couple disposable cameras for old time’s sake. Joke’s on me because Walgreens and CVS seem to always be out of the envelopes needed to send the cameras out for development, so I stopped wasting time driving from drug store to drug store, and sent it out to The Dark Room in California. They uploaded the images into an album for me so I can view and save my pics, but I probably won’t be getting cute with a disposable camera ever again. Not worth the effort.

…although some of the pics are pretty cute.

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That’s all for this week’s list, guys. Have a splendid weekend, and I’ll see you here next week.

— EGM