Blood Harmony Volume 34: Delights

It feels like everyone I know is really going through it right now (myself included!). In that vein, the wonderful writer and bookstore owner

Emma Straub

sent out a lovely newsletter yesterday called Hot Tips for Anxiety in which she gave and solicited anxiety coping strategies. It made me think of the things in my life that have been delighting me recently. I wanted to share them in case they might do the same for you.

As Catherine Price wrote in her article “When the World Feels Dark, Seek Out Delights” (gift link):

Noticing and sharing delight is also a form of what psychologists call savoring, the practice of deliberately appreciating positive life experiences. Savoring has been shown to boost people’s moods as well as counterbalance our brains’ natural tendency to focus on the things that stoke anxiety and fear. (Being attuned to potentially threatening stressors is helpful from an evolutionary perspective; it takes work to focus our brains on the positive.)

What’s more, the effects of savoring are stronger if you make a point not just to notice positive things but also to label them and share them. (This is why it’s important to say “Delight!” out loud and put a finger in the air, even if it at first feels silly.)

Picture me putting a finger in the air!

Podcast Delights!

I have been listening to How Did This Get Made for many years. I love it. I have a crush on ‘Zouks, I’m pretty sure Paul Scheer and I would be best friends if we could just connect in IRL and June is obviously a goddess. My favorite episode of all time is the Drop Dead Fred episode featuring Casey Wilson. It is one of the most hilariously unhinged things I’ve ever heard. BUT running a close second is a very recent episode featuring Jessica St. Clair on the first Fifty Shades of Grey. You do not need to have seen either of these movies to laugh your way through both of these podcasts.

In somewhat of the same comedian podcast universe (third favorite HDTGM episode: Ike Barinholtz joining the gang to talk about Cellular), Ike Barinholtz has a new podcast called The Chris Chatman Do-Over in which he plays a bro podcaster who got canceled and is now trying to make a comeback and appeal to female listeners. It’s mainly improvised and two of the episodes so far are supremely funny (the rest are good too but it takes a while for a pod to get in a groove). One stars Jessica St. Clair again as a pickleball expert and the other stars E.R. Fightmaster as a weed expert.

TV Delights!

Love is Blind is back baby! Who wants to listen to a bunch of dum dums talk to each other through walls while wearing prom dresses and then go to the DR and get fucked up and argue and then go home to Charlotte and try to convince their family members that marrying someone after 3 weeks is TOTALLY FINE? Me and a lot of other people I know! Hence this cartoon I drew:

I’m also re-watching Arrested Development. Some aspects of the show do not hold up well at all but a lot of it is still really, really funny. RIP Jessica Walters and Carl Weathers.

Movie Delights!

My fabulous friend Sandy recommended Rye Lane to me recently and I LOVED it. It’s a funny, charming and a touch surreal love story about two young people meandering around London together.

Book Delights!

I did the

Wendy MacNaughton

30 day drawing challenge in January (also a delight!) and she recommended the work of Maira Kalman. Her books are beautifully drawn meditiations on life. Quick and lovely reads (and most available are available at our public library!).

Musical Delights!

Beyonce released two new songs and one of them features Durham’s own Rissi Palmer.

Cookie Delights!

I recently made the King Arthur Baking Company’s recipe of the year for Supersized, Super-Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies and they are incredible. Fiddly and a bit of a pain the first time around but so, so good. I learned about them from The Secret Life of Cookies substack from

Marissa Rothkopf

.

Thanks all! I’m rooting for us.