Hello and howdy! It is me, Hattie, a person who maybe ceased to exist in your mind because she did not feel like writing a “real” “beefy” newsletter for nearly four weeks. Luckily, much like the hit show Malcolm in the Middle, I am BACK and with far more promise than anyone would expect!1
My husband and I do a big, year-at-a-glance calendar in our kitchen. It is the best. It’s the best when you’re using it, because you can instantly make decisions about all the stuff you WANT to do (trips abroad! dentist visits! seeing musicals with your friends!) and all the stuff you don’t want to do (gynecology!). If you are bad at making annual medical appointments, I recommend getting a spouse! Because he will be responsible about dental cleaning, and you will see this on the calendar and say “Shit. Okay,” and call your dentist, and then buy an upgraded version of your WaterPik when the next available dentist appointment is in mid-April. If you are not interested in obtaining a spouse, I recommend scheduling an email to yourself immediately after your ____insert obtrusive procedure here____. Subject line: PRIMARY CARE TIME AGAIN. Email contents: the patient portal link and your login info. Schedule it for 11 months from the day of your visit. Done.
We replaced the year-at-a-glance calendar because we needed a new year to glance at. And you know what? It made me understand why I am so tired!!! In 2025, the longest I went with no travel was almost 7 weeks. That was between late-February and the second week of April. March was travel-free! I just had multiple shows most weekends (comedy, poetry, other). Then, from April to July, I was on the road for a total of almost eight weeks. AaaahhhHHHhhh?! A quarter of that was wedding-related, but not all of it! Then, it was intermittent travel every 3 weeks or so until November, the only other month in 2025 where I didn’t travel. It is instead the month where I started a new day job! I shipped back my work laptop on a Friday and clocked in at my new workplace the Monday before Thanksgiving.
And, look, this is not a #humblebrag about how much of a #girlboss I am. I think being busy is quite yucky. The best parts of last year were largely on my honeymoon (where I was, technically, “busy” driving across the country but didn’t have to do anything if I didn’t want to), during music festivals (which were sometimes “busy” but mostly standing around Near Panic! at the Disco fans) and reading in semi-public places (dog parks especially). I’m just saying. It’s no wonder that I ran out of steam, once I got some actual days off, first holed up at my parents’ place for Christmas and New Year’s but then holed up in my own apartment, emotionally reheating, unpacking slowly, recovering from the self-inflicted dairy-based carnage of Christmas and New Year’s.2 I’ve not been doing nothing. I’ve just been doing…other stuff. All the Stuff I didn’t have time to make time for in 2025. Writing by hand, a LOT! Staring into my cat, Dottie! Getting massages! And—okay, this part is an un-humble brag—I’ve read four books so far this year. For the past two years, I’ve set number-based reading goals, and surpassed them both years, so for 2026, I said “Hmm. What would happen if I just read a minimum of an hour per day?” The answer is: I am a lot happier!!!!!!! And I’ve read four books in the first half of the first month of the year! Not bad!
Anyway. Thanks for being patient with me while I do stuff I want to do (read) (cat) and ignore things I’m “supposed” to do (Substack drafts languishing in my computer). So far this year, I’ve noticed a lot of 2016 nostalgia. Why. Mmmmhmmmmm, 10 years ago we were all hot and Harambe was alive. Shut up!!!! I’m rejecting this!!!!
But if we’re so subsumed with nostalgia, let’s take it back, instead, to a different trend, a trend I missed, a trend alllllll the way from…last year. 😎 At the start of 2025, the “ins” and “outs” lists were very big! If you are a late bloomer, like me, remember, it is never too late to participate in a fun internet thing. Just today, I made this little treat “in” and “out” list in Canva! The template I used was a “minimalist cafe menu,” which included the term CLASSIC CROISSANT. Classic croissants are definitely in, so I left it on there for you.
Thank you for reading. I’m glad to be back.
So, Those Books I Mentioned
I ended 2025 in a real reading sprint. This happens when I travel—you may recall that I endure an unusually high frequency of cancelled flights, and this year’s Christmas flight was no exception. But the 7 hours we spent at LaGuardia before being sent home to reschedule afforded me a LOT of reading time!
Here, a selection of books I’ve read since early December, which you may enjoy:
The Princess Bride – If you read one novel from this list, read The Princess Bride. Yes, like the movie. A rare, delightful instance of the book and the movie being nearly exactly equal. I cried at Inigo, I cried at Fezzik, I cried at the Buttercup + Westley scenes (especially the ones early in the book, which are NOT at all represented in the movie). The only thing it is missing: Peter Falk. Luckily, Rob Reiner remedied that for us.
Heart the Lover – Lily King’s other book with this character, Writers & Lovers, is a victory, a masterpiece. This is an exquisite companion, and you don’t need to have read one to love the other. In Heart the Lover, our narrator, a novelist, reflects on her earlier relationships with two college classmates. Things become strained. The strain is remedied in the very last hairs-breadth seconds. I sobbed for the better part of an hour on my rescheduled flight to Kansas City, reading this book, in my second-to-last-row middle seat, in front of Myles. When I got up and turned around, he saw my very snotty very teary face, and I said “STUPID BOOK!”
One Dark Window – The first in a fantasy duology recommended to me by, I believe, and maybe also our friend Emily. A regular girl, Elspeth, isn’t regular. She has magic! She lives in a village where most people use a deck of special cards to control the magic around them (think immediate-gratification tarot cards). But Elspeth gets the Magic Influenza and now a werewolf guy lives in her head and makes her powerful without any cards. Oh, and if anone finds out, she will be killed in a dungeon. Oops! Fun romp with an interesting magic system. I’m looking forward to reading the sequel!
Earthlings – I don’t really know how to describe this novel by Sayaka Murata, who also authored the excellent Convenience Store Woman. When I was home at Christmas, and sick of my Kindle, I asked my brother if I could borrow a book; he brought me Earthlings, Sayaka Murata’s short story collection Life Ceremony (did not get a chance to read, it is on my list!) and House of Leaves. That, my friends, is a damn good brother. To make a short novel even shorter, Earthlings is about a girl who believes she is an alien. This belief is reinforced when her teacher sexually abuses her—huge huge huge trigger warnings!—and her family escalates their own control and abuse. When we pick up with our protagonist again, in adulthood, she is navigating Earth in the best way she can. I found this surprisingly uplifting, in spite of the cannibalism.
Sandwich – A menopausal protagonist, named Rachel but called Rocky, narrates her weeklong vacation. She is “sandwiched” between her young-adult children and her aging parents. Nimble, elegant narrative footwork. Perfect dialogue and interior monologues. Some of the best descriptions of family, vacation, family vacation, mysterious vaginal behaviors, swimming, and saying rude things while drunk. A couple kinda jumpscare trigger-y things happen—there’s one “family trauma revealed!!!!” plot point that made me actually gasp, and which bad-faith readers will probably take as “shock value.” But it’s more like, “Wow, families sure do accidentally keep secrets for generations, huh?” Again, an uplifting book. It will make you be nicer to your loved ones.
The Housemaid – Freida McFadden’s retelling of The Wife Upstairs, Rachel Hawkins’s retelling of Jane Eyre. Wait, Freida McFadden ALSO has a book called The Wife Upstairs? Huh. Okay. Well: The Housemaid is a fun read and the ending is very satisfying! Or you could see the movie, which I have not seen. Choose your own adventure!
The Favorites – A recommendation from the aforementioned Emily, who wants the aforementioned Sydney to read this. My role in life is, really, reading the books these two tell me about, then reiterating the message to whomever hasn’t done the homework yet. You might’ve seen The Favorites in a bunch of year-end lists or on all the Book of the Month club advertising. It’s intense! A pair of ice dancers—NOT figure skaters, ice dancers—rise up from poverty to become superstars of the sport. Buuuuuuuuut theeeeeeere’s betraaaaaaaaaayal! Stylized so the main character, Katarina, is narrating most of the story, but the “bumpers” are talking-head interviews, part of a fictional prestige-TV sports documentary. This leads to some super fun and interesting “reveals” and merges the two timelines very well.
Do Any of You Speak French?
I am entering my next level of French lessons next week, where the focus shifts from “sitting in a classroom learning grammar with English explanation” to “sitting in a classroom, having spoken discussions in French, with occasional interventions from the professor.” I would really appreciate some more-advanced practice partners, suggestions for fun movies and shows to watch in French, or suggestions of books to read! Please let me know if this is you.3
Do Any of You Want to Join a Band?
And are you, perchance, a drummer?
My other “real” resolution this year is to start (or join) a band. So far I have a handful of friends who are interested, can play instruments, and either based in NYC or here very often! I am going to start rehearsals in February. We do not have a drummer (or, rather, the folks who are interested in drumming are not necessarily in a position to make those time commitments until later this year). So, would you like to be our drummer? I hope you are okay with 70% comedy music and 30% very earnest sweet nice songs and/or ska covers. Please let me know if this is you!
WIDNBTW
I’ve been paying BILLS! It’s fun :) I did also buy a Lush perfume that was on clearance for $23, since I have sniffed it a bunch of times since I first wrote about it in May, and I happened to walk by a Lush that had it on their 50% off table. Lucky girl!!!!!
Here is What I Did Not Buy This Week:4
A book at the thrift store titled “1,001 pitfalls in French,” or similar, aimed at French-language learners. The idea is that it walks you through the common mistakes that new French speakers make! It was definitely worth $2, but it was also published in the 1970s, and I am holding out til I find a slightly more modern copy—there are probably linguistic pitfalls related to the internet. I should probably know them.
These dainty little Ardant hoops which, let’s be real, I only want because they have bows.
A Murdle book—I kinda want to try these, but I really don’t want a “logic puzzle” mystery where I chart things. I want something more like these Mini Crimes games, where you uncover select sets of evidence! I like talking out my mysteries.
A hoodie with Cinnamoroll on it, and when you put the hood up, you have a big Cinnamoroll head. This was very VERY cute. I do not regret leaving it at the JC Penney where I found it, because I know I would spill everything on a white hoodie.
This GREAT skinny scarf (for purses, blouses, hair, what have you!). A lot of fun patterns on that website! Be careful.
A frog triazzle. LISTEN: My brother and I had a frog-printed triazzle—that’s a portmanteau for “triangle puzzle”—and still have it, somewhere in our parents’ house, sans one piece that is in a DIFFERENT part of the family home. I considered buying a triazzle of my own, but these are really more fun when you play them less frequency. Eventually, I memorized the working configuration of all the frogs in my childhood triazzle, and it ceased to be a triazzle, but just a triangle with frogs on it.
Governor’s Ball tickets. Should I go?
Silicone penguins!
Silicone penguins…with hats!!!
This aprés-ski perfume, which the ad described as "PURE EFFING EXCESS,” but is described as having notes of whiskey, maraschino cherry and cold musk. Which doesn’t sound all that excessive to me, but what do I know? I don’t ski!
A million of these tiny watercolor and gouache painting kits from Lavender Chai. I bought two, and painted a tiny watercolor scene for my parents. I have a “gemstones” painting kit to do next. They are 2-by-2-inch squares with a little card that has all your colors on it. WHY didn’t I buy a bundle!
This RUFFLEY PANTIES BAG!!! Aaaah! I didn’t even get to the Edie Parker website through this product, it was a DIFFERENT ad that got me—something from their rose purse collection maybe. The tighty-whities bag, also amazing.
This Dick Tracy-looking ensemble at a thrift store.
This adorable but wildly overpriced bag charm:
And, finally, this calculator, which keeps cropping up in a targeted eBay ad. I want to be honest: I am really, really thrilled that eBay knows I am a girl who loves to upgrade her business gear, and I am doubly delighted that the algorithms see me as worthy of the Bling Thing bejeweled calculator.Okay, champs. Thanks for holdin’ on. I still have an onslaught of end-of-2025 content and it’ll make it to you by 2027, 2028 at the latest. Thanks for your patience! Happy New Year, and to all a good weekend!