I was in Painesville. Aren't we all?

PLUS: eccentric and excellent links and recs to enjoy with the AC on

Sunset over Painesville

I don’t want to say I’ll take any excuse for a trip, but I just spent the weekend driving from Vermont to Chicago to transport 80 bucks worth of furniture to my cousin. I insisted on buying and storing this furniture for her when she mentioned spotting it during a trip to Vermont last fall. If anyone can appreciate how jacked-up a find would be in the city where you live versus in a rural antique store located in what is deceptively called the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, it’s me.

On Saturday I drove into a heatwave then on Sunday I drove even further into it. It felt as dumb as it sounds. Without the heatwave? Honestly a delight. Travel like this only demonstrates how much I love being on the road, alone with my thoughts and music and podcasts. Being on the road makes me feel like my life is busting with possibility, unlike being in my apartment which I hate more with each passing month, where I regularly feel my life-force draining out of me.

Anyway, the heat wave compounded what can only be characterized as the worst toll booth system to ever exist which is self-checkout (???) toll booths (???). Have you ever witnessed fallible human beings attempting to feed crumpled up cash or a card the correct way into a parking garage machine? Ok it’s that but instead multiply it by five or seven lanes (???) In 104 (???) degree weather with cars backed up onto the off-ramps (???). All of this fuckery and every toll being a tragedy of poor design added two hours onto my drive. I need Illinois, Indiana, and possibly Ohio to hop aboard the drive-through-bill-us-later train, because fuck’s sake.

Me reliving all my old car overheating trauma at every stand-still toll booth situation

In between all of this I stopped overnight in Painesville, Ohio.

I walked into the lobby of the Holiday Inn Express & Suites and the breaking news had just, well, broken. Which breaking news you ask? Extremely valid question. It was Iran. Welcome to Painesville. What a name, what a time.

I was going to say “no offense to the good people of Painesville” but the following morning I decided to steal an hour to do some writing before hitting the road again, willing to pretend that the umbrella’d shade outside the frontage road Starbucks was nice. An older couple (older than me but not old) was outside too. They were also the only people not on laptops or phones, both reading books. Nice, I thought.

As I walked by to put my MacBook and phone down, I looked over and happened to catch the woman’s eye just as she pursed her lips and eyed my tattoos. Too late because I was about to make some human connection regardless so I chirped, “I wish I was doing what you’re doing instead!” I think I caught her so off guard, so lost in her eyeing of me, that she hadn’t actually heard anything I said. I jumped into clarify, “Reading a book!” She frowned and said, “Oh.” and looked back down. Her husband didn’t look up at all. I hope both their books were terrible.

Anyway.

Shout out to the Holiday Inn Express & Suites though, that legit had the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in

I’ve been working on some deeper dive pieces lately that need more time and focus than this last month straight of being gone every weekend and working full-time during the week has allowed. So in the meantime I’m sharing an excellent recommendations-only installment. I’ve gotten away from doing these on a regular basis (RIP WHAT’S STICKY), but this is a good one and it’s been a long time coming.

What follows is an eccentric and varied mix, from which demographic isn’t in a sex recession to an archival Los Angeles treasure trove, and some new favorite writing and writers to thinking about how time passes during different parts of your life, there is genuinely something here for everyone. Design and art, summer trends that feel good to know about, cognitive dissonance and why, real estate agents who are tools or criminals, PTSD and The West Wing, and more.

Stay cool out there. I wish politically we fucking would.

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• The Soviet-era concept of hypernormalization has seeped into my brain from disparate sources so I thought I’d share them here. It’s really helped me understand why everything feels the way it does and why it’s so disorienting and conflicting. “Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues” and “I think we can actually build on this life-affirming impulse to say we need to take advantage of all the space that is available at any given point.”