5 Quick Things, #180 📚

Storytelling, tigers in lifeboats, art heists, and nameless things

Hey there,

What a difference a week makes! 🤯 Earlier this week we reached an 80-degree high and you’d never guess that just a few days prior snowmageddon reached fever pitch on poor ol’ Texas’ infrastructure. Our family is doing just fine; thanks to the many of you who’ve asked. School, work, daydreaming about raised garden beds when someone should be writing their book manuscript… 🤔 Basically, life is back to normal.

Surfing in Fujisawa, west of Tokyo, Japan. #

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5 Quick Things ☕️

1. There’s a real, actual reason humanity is drawn to fiction.

2. The pressure felt by a short afternoon walk – “It feels as if I’m your lover, friend, and therapist all wrapped into one and, frankly, it’s making me uncomfortable.”

3. Why am I fascinated by these Ocean’s Eleven-esque real-life art heists? I don’t know, but I am.

4. Looking forward to reading more of this.

5. And finally, two things: This week Seth and I talk about why we have to find meaning in our work for it to sustain us — I love this topic.

And… we also moved the podcast to its own Substack! Yep, you can now subscribe to A Drink With a Friend’s newsletter, where you’ll both get all new episodes, plus eventually enjoy some exclusive extras like essays from the both of us and additional after-the-show recordings (we also envision it as a safe space for those of you who really want to wrestle with faith questions and issues in a private, understanding community). We’d love you to sign up so you know when we publish the goodness!

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Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 🎧

• Rereading my well-worn copy of The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan as well as my find from last year, Grow Food for Free by Huw Richards

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Quotable 💬

“The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around him will create community.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer #

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From the Community 🏠

This week I asked what everyone’s currently reading, and as always, it’s a lively discussion (it’s one of the favorite questions asked!). I shared that I’m in a fiction slump and you guys did not disappoint with great suggestions. Seriously, get to that thread with a pencil in hand.

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Elsewhere (by someone else*) 📍

Owl! at the Library 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze

use too many exclamation points in an email and you sound like a maniac; use only periods and you sound like a man narrating the tale of his trip to the South Pole where the rest of the crew was devoured by some nameless thing

*Because I’m not on social media much these days while I work on another writing project. But I agree with these wise words. 👆

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Have a good weekend!

xo, Tsh

p.s. This is so chaotic and weird and funny. (And as an aside, I love the ‘I love you’s.)