5 Quick Things, #123 🥂

Old sport, short fiction, not Mockingbird, and showing up on time...

Hey there,

We wrapped up The Great Gatsby in my English class this week, and I was reminded how even though there’s no character to root for, it’s a depressing ending, and the themes are bleak, it’s one of my all-time favorite novels because of just how good the writing is — and how good writing can carry a sad story because it conveys the timelessness of it all. Those characters in the early 1920s can be copy + pasted into 2020, I tell you (just replace “old sport” with something ...more current. I’ve got no examples, which shows how hip I am).

Also, we’ve been having some WEIRD weather here in central Texas! Highs in the mid-70s all week, muggy as heck... It feels like a solarium at an indoor water park. Nothing like mid-January. I hear weather’s weird in a number of spots in the world right now. How about where you are?

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5 Quick Things ☕️

1. I made a BIG announcement I’ve been sitting on since September. It feels so good to finally let you know! And I’ll share more in-depth throughout 2020 about how I feel about all this.

2. Andrea lists 10 artists she loves following on Instagram — now this makes the app redeemable to me. I love finding good artists!

3. In this weeks’ The Good List episode, I share an unassuming Twitter account all about micro-storytelling — and why I love it so much. (p.s. New episodes officially drop on Thursdays, so make sure you subscribe!)

4. The New York Public Library’s shared their most check-out books of all time (it took me a million guesses to name number one — I ended up naming almost all of 2 through 10 — and then my teen daughter called it!).

5. Wasn’t Tom Hanks’ Cecil B. DeMille Award acceptance speech just a delight? “Show up on time” and “You’re a dope if you don’t steal from everybody you work with” is just the best advice ever.

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Quotable 💬

“If every event which occurred could be given a name, there would be no need for stories.”

 ―John Berger

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Time Machine ⏰

Three years ago (has it really been that long?), I wrote about making friends and partial solutions.

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Have a great week!

xo, Tsh

p.s. On my current reading wish list: this, this, and this. Read ‘em yet? And I’m super excited for the release of this one.