*This is a long one, to make up for the fact I won’t be newslettering over the holidays - if this post appears truncated in your email, click on "View entire message" and you’ll be able to see the whole thing*
The Townsend's Warbler is still here! I repeat, the Townsend's Warbler is still here in Fort Greene Park! It appears that a juvenile Yellow-bellied Sapsucker has been drilling sap wells so he now has plenty of food and is sticking close to the tree where the picnic tables are. I wrote about him when he first appeared a month ago if you feel like circling back.
The caterpillars in my office have also completed their metamorphosis (previous installment here). We now have two of three out of their cocoons, chomping on some rotting raspberries.
Landon gave us some paperwhite bulbs along with these gorgeous hand-drawn instructions and they’re slowly inching up, finding the light every day.
All of this to say… there’s a lot of life growing under the hood, despite the cold, the wind and the darkness. I am just now looking up from all of this, having gotten a handful of writing submissions in by the skin of my teeth. Is anyone else still scrambling as well, feeling somewhat like the Berlin aquarium?
In that spirit, I offer you an evergreen reminder that “time as we experience it is a technology rather than a fundamental part of the universe”… as well as the world’s most last-minute gift guide:
Flo is a baking wizard. She baked hundreds of cookies for our vaccine pop-ups, and most recently made a glorious cake for Chelsea’s one-year-old’s birthday. You order via this form, all custom everything - truly there is nothing this woman cannot create for you.
Jessy’s readings are amazing, I get one for myself every year and love gifting them to friends who are going through a tough transition, or having a big birthday. She’s so insightful and has a real way with words.
If you are pregnant and looking for a doula, Clancy is in LA and Sophie is in New York, they also happen to be two of my most favorite people.
Ollia is the brain behind Mila Christina, she sells her onesies, sweaters and baby blankets at the Fort Greene artisan’s market and online. They’re insanely soft, 100% cashmere and I have my eye on her bodysuits now that she’s branched out into adult sizes.
Michelle’s Pilates classes will you break you down and build you back up, her knowledge of anatomy is unparalleled and her playlists are killer.
I met Eve on a plant walk in the park, her tattoos are like tiny, life-long jewels.
Kristine is the brain behind Paz Home, the joy-filled candles come from José who has been making them for four generations with his family in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca.
Lindsey is a coach for creatives, an absolute force of nature and is nothing short of life-changing. This newsletter may or may not have been born from her badass encouragements…
Becky and her wife Alexis own Melt, they are massage goddesses with healing hands.
Carla started baking the most delicious bread out of her apartment during the pandemic, that she would lower in a little basket from her apartment window. She’s now making mirrors framed with real bread coated in a clear lacquer. They’re out of this world.
Landon’s photography makes me swoon. Now I just need to find some frames…
Lisa’s tinctures and teas are the best - her immune drops are truly delicious and have been saving my ass this season.
My sister Kira’s non-profit Yao Collaborative (formerly known as China Residencies) is doing tremendous work sustaining artist exchanges. Your monthly recurring donation goes a long way towards intercommunal solidarity between China, Hong Kong, the global diasporic Sinosphere & the world.
The folks behind EVLovesNYC have cooked nearly 333,000 meals since the pandemic started. Every week, volunteers get together at the Sixth Street Community Center in the East Village to prepare meals that reflect the cultural heritage of the chef in charge (and jam out to some great tunes.)
Send gifts to trans youth in need, safely & anonymously through Transanta.
Inspired by Phylisa who gave me the Hanukkah gift of a subscription to
's Substack... some of my favorite newsletters include:The aforementioned
- a Brooklyn-based writer and cook, based in Puerto Rico, covering food from the lens of politics, climate change, culture & labor. - musings from the great brain of who is somewhere between an archivist, a critic and a diarist (and is funny as hell.) - is a beauty editor gone rogue, now on a mission to help us all break free from beauty standards. - run by the sharply astute who every week interviews a new person about the gift of getting to grow older, or "what it means to travel through time in a human body." - a weekly dispatch from journalist who injects some much-needed hope and possibility in these times of political gloom.Inspired by Jólabókaflóð, or "Christmas book flood,” an Icelandic tradition where books are exchanged as Christmas Eve presents and the rest of the night is spent reading them and eating chocolate… give the gift of a public library card.
Nothing I love more than signing up an unassuming friend, who then gets free access to endless books… as well as e-books, audiobooks, newspapers, magazines, movie streaming, admission to dozens of NYC cultural institutions and grab-and-go at home COVID tests.
And if you too are outraged that our unhinged mayor is trying to slash public library funding, thus hindering one of the only truly public spaces in New York, join me in sending a message to the Mayor’s Office. The Council’s next stated meetings, during which a vote on the proposals may occur, are planned for Dec. 21 and Jan. 4.
Another gift that’s zero dollars? You can get free COVID tests delivered to you again from the government.
Gas up your friends in the comments! Celebrate people who create something out of nothing! Recommend your own work, we salute self promo here!
Till next year,
ASK
Love you & your brain 🧠! Happy holidays! ❤️