Hi!
I’ve been sitting here at the kitchen table for ten minutes, tinkering with this newsletter, and still my tea hasn’t cooled. This is why I hate tea.
This was a pretty fun quarantine week. I spent a lot of time reading (Ken Follett’s 900+ page Fall of Giants – would recommend if you feel like sacrificing a week to it), Anne and I binge-watched Season 1 of Riverdale, and we made pancakes and vegetarian enchiladas for the second week in a row. Our TOF (Take Out Friday) selection was Shake Shack, which brings an end to my no fast-food streak, almost six months into the year, and Matt and I tried out quarantine happy hour at Alma (takeout beers on the sidewalk).
This has been a high-volume writing week. I submitted a couple of letters to the New York Times, and can hear them echoing somewhere in the far off corners of the internet. I’m starting to realize how torturous it must be for full time writers to submit their work and then sit around waiting for the radio silence to break. But it feels good to hit the submit button all the same.
I’ve been reading a lot of blogs this week: Derek Sivers, Marginal Revolution, The Dish and Margins (thanks Ian for the recommendation!). It can be a bit discouraging to read all the great content out there. Does that ever happen to anyone? Where you see someone who is great at their craft and just think how incredibly far away you are from getting there? Perfect LinkedIn profiles used to send me down that path, but now it’s hearing a fantastic speech or reading some spectacular writing that makes me feel the most envious (thank God I have Dear Sugar for that).
But it has been too much fun writing for my website to let that hold me back. So for now, I’ll just pretend that what I say is relevant and that I have a large audience, and maybe someday that will come true. Or if I stick with this long enough, and build a large enough body of work, I will at least trick people into thinking it’s a legitimate blog when they stumble across it.
That is why much of what I wrote this week is in response to posts I’ve read on other websites. I guess I’m trying to hone my editorial voice and eventually get a few of my letters published somewhere instead of collecting dust in some editor’s inbox.
In that spirit, I have two requests for everyone (both can be sent to [email protected]):
- Want to write a response to something you read on my blog (even if it’s irate)? Please send it my way and I will publish, with or without your name attached.
Stay positive out there and thanks for reading!
– Emmett
Recent Posts:
Is Sweetgreen Evil? – Ranjan Roy and Jia Tolentino make me second guess everything
The Office Won’t Be So Hard To Leave Behind – A response to Jennifer Senior’s recent piece in the New York Times
How to Start Running – Some guidance as you embark on your new athletic pursuit
Why I Am Loving Picnics – 2020 is the year of the picnic
What I’m Reading:
The Years of Writing Dangerously – Andrew Sullivan, The Dish
Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage – Ranjan Roy, Margins
What I’m Listening To:
Booksmart – Official Soundtrack (Slip Away, Open, oh baby, Cold War)