The Monday Dispatch: March 9, 2026

Hellloooooooo and happy Monday! It is FINALLY NICE OUT in NYC. It’s not technically spring but it is spring, because yesterday, I had the season’s first ice cream cone from the ice cream truck near my house. That means it’s time for sunshine and nice warm weather, no takebacks!

I’m going to start this email off really boring. Hope you’re excited!

I’d planned to write a post at the end of 2025 that was “10 boring things that improved my life this year.” Then I kept listing boring, powerful things, and I wound up with waaaay more than 10. So this’ll just be a semiregular installment!

Putting a power strip in your suitcase – When I say boring, I mean BORING. Last year, ahead of a two-week work trip to the west coast, I bought a couple of extra power strips. This, because I knew I’d be charging between three and five devices each day (bluetooth mics, work phone, computer, ring light), and because I know hotels are generally not outfitted for my copious energy consumption. As it turns out, this was a great idea! And a month and a half later, when Myles and I were packing for our wedding and subsequent honeymoon road trip, he bought a power strip for his suitcase, too.

This was helpful for wedding day prep—I did my own hair and was heating a bunch of curlers + a curling iron—and kept all our electronics in one location. Before the Power Strip Thing, I would often find myself plugging my electronics into obnoxiously-placed outlets throughout an ill-equipped hotel room. Not anymore! Now I can charge my Kindle and not worry I’ll forget it behind the hotel room coffeemaker.

The most important part of this tip: YOU NEVER UNPACK THE POWER STRIP. When you get home, the power strip stays in your suitcase. It is NOT to be used in YOUR house, where it will be subsumed by your contemporary electrical needs. This is your Special Travel Power Supply and you must treat it as such.

Compression socks – For over a decade, my beloved brother has been writing a variation of “Wow! You’re really over the hill now…” in my birthday cards. Yet he has been mercifully silent on my enthusiastic embrace of compression socks! Longtime readers of this publication may recall that my feet are monstrous and my cankles are unmatched. I am a frequent flyer, and I go to a lot of concerts, especially music festivals which have me on my feet for days at a time. And you know what flying and dancing have in common? They make my ankles EVEN MORE SWOLLEN AND HORRIFIC!

I bought compression socks, initially, because I wanted my feet and ankles to be less unsightly after long-haul flights. And also to prevent blood clots!¹ Last year, I ordered a multipack of inexpensive and very basic knee-high compression socks. I was delighted to discover that, along with preventing swelling, they also significantly limit foot pain after a long-ass day of standing around. In fact, when I dressed in casual Sailor Moon cosplay for Warped Tour last year, it was primarily because I’d found a package of red compression socks and I built the rest of the outfit around them.

I’ve only really tried the knee-high, tall compression socks, though I know there are crew- and ankle-cut versions too. I have a pair of crew-cut ones from World’s Softest Sock Company, which I need to try! Maybe next time I have errands all day.

Going back to my Clarisonic – This was another pre-wedding decision that has continued to improve my daily life. Readers, did any of my fellow millennials spend their teen years obsessed with the Clarisonic? I remember saving up to buy my first Clarisonic Mia on eBay when I was in high school. I got a polka-dot one, and I used it for years, until the battery simply stopped taking a charge. Around this time, the going rhetoric around facial exfoliation pivoted. Physical exfoliants (brushes, St. Ives scrub) BAD and chemical exfoliants (acid peels) GOOD. Since they were “good” they were also proliferative, and cheap! Certainly cheaper than a replacement device. So, I fell off the Clarisonic train for many years, and eventually the company folded into L’Oreal and discontinued the full range of products.

I’ve dabbled in various chemical exfoliants throughout the years. Last winter and spring, I got really into the blood-red peeling mask from The Ordinary, which makes my skin look GREAT but is also pretty strong. I only use it once per week, at the most, and it's not a great choice when I have, say, dry flaky winter skin.

But you know what IS great for that kind of dry skin? A CLARISONIC. And you know what’s cheap on eBay now, because it’s no longer cool? A CLARISONIC!!! I made a low-ball offer on an already-cheap Clarisonic Mia, which was accepted, and ordered a two-pack of the “sensitive” brush heads. It’s EXACTLY what I wanted and perfect for every day or every-other-day exfoliation. My personal favorite technique is to put a blob of face oil or cleaning balm on the brush head, use it for a full cycle, and then follow up with a second Clarisonic cycle, using a gentle face wash or Noxzema. Perfect, soft, hydrated, glowy human flesh. Replacing the brush heads is the only annoyance, but now that Clarisonic is not the hot-ticket item and I’m no longer a broke college student, it’s certainly less of a burden. Still, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a bargain price on the Clarisonic silicone exfoliator brush head! Mostly out of curiosity. 

For close to five months now, I’ve been taking French classes (!). This has been enormously helpful for conversational fluency, especially as I approach four years of learning French independently through apps and reading (!!!). One thing that really helps with language learning is immersion, and it’s something I could be better at practicing.

The problem is, I mostly don’t wanna. I started watching Dix Pour Cent (Call My Agent! in English), a very funny and engaging French series about a talent agency. And I really liked it! And I’m bad at TV so I fell off and stopped watching. Myles, who is learning German, will sometimes put on an episode of The Simpsons in German. Since he has a lot of the original episodes memorized, he immediately recognizes much of the dialogue in German. It’s a great learning tool! But I don’t know which, if any, TV shows I have memorized. Movies, yeah—Notting Hill and Overboard. That’s a more limited range of exposure, though. What is my Simpsons?

And then…when I was poking around in the Nintendo Switch e-shop…I found it.

Have I played every Pokémon game multiple times? No. But have I played Pokémon generations one through four multiple times? Yes. And of those, I’ve played the Kanto-region games approximately four bajillion times. Conveniently for Li’l Hattie, Nintendo just re-released two classic Kanto games on Nintendo Switch, Fire Red and Leaf Green. Rouge Feu et Vert Feuille, if you are nasty!!! WHICH I CERTAINLY AM!

I have these games memorized, but not in an obvious way. I don’t sit around reciting dialogue from Pokémon gym leaders.² Instead, years’ worth of muscle memory and my weirdly eidetic textual memory have made Pokémon en français an intuitive way to learn a lot of French, really fast. Most of the localization changes are very instinctive: the rock-type gym leader Brock is named Pierre, which is also the French word for rock or stone; instead of being set in Pewter City, Pierre’s gym is in Argenta, a city named after silver. The one thing that does not come naturally to my brain—and which is VERY FUN to explore—is the localization of Pokémon names.

Squirtle, for example. In English he is "squirt turtle." Makes sense! In French, he is Carapuce. "Carapace," meaning shell. And "puce," in French, is a pet name meaning "cute" or "little.” Which I did not know, because I have only heard “puce” as part of the term “marché aux puces.” FLEA MARKET.

Jigglypuff is Rondoudou (round, plus "doudou," which is like a word similar to "blankie" or "wubby" or "binky," a cute sweet kid's toy.) Bulbasaur = Bulbizarre. Adorable.

Pikachu is Pikachu, but you say it with an accent.

When I’m not joue à Pokémon, here’s what I’m up to lately.

* I’m about 85% of the way through North Woods, by Daniel Mason, a book I’ve heard positive things about for months. I was spurred to read it, though, by a Reddit thread, where someone posted, “I just finished North Woods and now I don’t want to read anything else. What are books that can give me the same feeling as the world of North Woods?”

Because I love the “ugh I miss being inside that book” feeling, I was confident I’d like North Woods. And so far, I’m very right! This novel³ focuses on a single plot of land in northern Massachusetts, and what happens there across the centuries. In that way, it’s similar to Our House, a children’s chapter book by Pam Conrad, which my parents gave me when I was 10 or 11 and which I think of very often. North Woods is very much a nature book, and also a ghost story. I’m a little nervous to see where the book ends, just because it’s felt so expansive, backwards and forwards throughout time, and I don’t want my linear human experience of time to get in the way of the magic! AAAAAHHH!!!!

*My in-laws recently visited Japan, and my mother-in-law brought me a whole host of goodies. Including: a puffy white keychain with a beautiful and cute bird on it. What I did not know? This bird is FAMOUS.

The Shima enaga is a long-tailed tit (hehehe), native and exclusive to Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island. They are white. They are fluffy. They are so round as to look artificial. Sometimes they are called snow fairies or snow sprites or snowballs. They're like if a bunny could fly. I highly, highly recommend looking them up next time you need to bleach your eyeballs.

*I have spent a lot of time in this newsletter talking about the American musical artist Underscores, who just put out a new music video.⁴ I was just telling a friend on Friday that of all the musical artists I’ve yet to see live, Underscores is at the top of my priority list.

WELL. I got a notification that she would be playing in New York City!...while I was out of town for Warped Tour. Dang! But then I thought…hmm…maybe…since she’s on tour…a different date would work…?

WELL, WELL. Underscores will be in Washington, D.C., where I am going to attend Warped Tour. In fact! She gets there the same day my brother and I do!!! So it looks like we are going to go see Underscores!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hip hip hooray and yay!

Also, my mom and I painted our nails the same color, without talking about it first! This happens a lot. We both went with Siren’s Deceit, by Live Love Polish. Here, I have it over Umi, by Illimité, with a splash of Ocean Ever After from NAILS INC because it was not quite enough glitter.

I want to point out that, while I learned about the Shima enaga last week, other people are much much more informed than I am and have been producing merch with this cute bird on it for a WHILE. Yet I did not buy any of it, nor did I buy any Cinnamoroll stuff even though Cinnamoroll’s birthday was Friday. Am I a paragon of self-control?! See what I did not buy this week, and then you tell me!

Okay, I have to go outside immediately because it’s 68 degrees. Thank you for reading. May spring leach into your bones and rewire your brain.