Hello!
Sitting down to write after months of being away is like standing on a dock willing yourself to jump into the water. You know you’ll feel so good after you do it, but the transition between dry → wet and warm → cold seems so unappealing that you stall for as long as possible.
I’m not entirely sure if the shock can be lessened (speaking from personal experience of jumping into a lake every morning for a week this summer), but I think the time to jump can be shortened, and our resiliency to do it over and over again can be increased.
I’ve had a series of transitions this year that have helped force me from the remnants of my pandemic cocoon and engage with the world again. I’ve tried to do it on my own terms, as I’ve learned that it’s just not possible for me to keep all the plates spinning like I used to. Below I’ll share a quick life update before getting into the stuff I love to share, plus a new section for my fellow Seattleites.
In June, my team got laid off. I’ve never been laid off before, but it was such an exquisite feeling to have my entire to-do list and almost everything I was stressed about evaporate that it ended up being a net positive experience for me. Especially because…
I secured a contract job covering my friend Lilia’s maternity leave at Microsoft just a few days after I got laid off. The timing was almost unbelievable (thank u, Lilia 🙏)
While I was at my last startup, I was lucky enough to get to work closely with our head of design and have an awesome mentor through the Fast Track program who both helped me identify design as a potential career path. It’s a very big field, so I’ve been slowly exploring it by taking some UX design and design thinking classes through the Interaction Design Foundation (I signed up for the waitlist for this course too). I also volunteered with the Seattle Design Festival this summer and met some really cool people. If you’re in this field or intrigued by it as well, please reach out! I’d love to start building up my design community.
My contract ends at the end of October, so I’m trying to figure out what’s next in the short term while I figure out a longer-term transition to design. If you have any leads on community, marketing, or project management roles, I’m “open to work,” as they say on LinkedIn.
One last thing that seems relevant – I’ve been off Instagram for almost 1.5 years now! I have zero regrets, but many thoughts (which I hope to detail in an upcoming newsletter). I might try experimenting with it by sharing this newsletter on there, but it’s all still very TBD. Prior experiments of perusing the feed have led me to promptly hop right back off (and I still haven’t checked my DM’s 😅).
Paying $35 for a planner is rough, but I wanted to embody a design student archetype this fall, and the Undated Daily Planner from Papier is highly recommended for a reason. Eventually, I’d like to make my own (I already found a site called Lulu to put it together), but I’m considering this research.
I’d heard a lot about the book “Fair Play,” and read a little bit of it, but found someone recommending the book “Equal Partners” in the comments section of
and liked it a whole lot more. I found it more intersectional and expansive than Fair Play and would highly recommend picking it up if you cohabitate with a partner and/or want to escape falling into traditional gender roles at home.I will always and forever be a Barre Eclipse fan (💖 u Adrienne!!), but sometimes I need a live class format to get myself moving. After going to The Class in NYC this summer, I’ve started taking their livestream classes at home. It’s kinda culty, but they’ve got the best playlists you’ve ever heard in a workout class. If you want to try it out, you can use this link to get a 30-day guest pass.
The podcast that changed my brain chemistry this summer: Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The first two episodes with Jane Fonda and Isabel Allende are my absolute favorites, but each one has so much wisdom and insight packed into it. I’ve been saving the last few as treats because I don’t want it to end!
A ritual idea: my Friday ritual this summer was to take myself to a nearby cafe and journal with a cup of coffee before my morning meetings. Instead of beating myself up for not being able to keep up with my previous daily journaling practice, I changed it to be something I’m more excited about. This has led me to ask: what other habits can I reimagine to make them more engaging and interesting for myself?
My current favorite Seattle newsletter is
by . If you like bagels and want to know where the best ones are, I highly recommend subscribing. My boyfriend (who is also Jewish with NY roots) and I agree with his power rankings so far, but would probably move Mt. Bagel to the #2 spot after giving it a try last week (I went at 10 am on a Thursday and there was zero line!).I gave ballet another try last night at PNB’s Fundamentals of Ballet Series and it was so fun. It runs for 6 weeks and I think you can sign up even if you miss the first class, so lmk if you end up joining!
While Beyoncé will be gracing Seattle with her presence this week, so are two other artists I love: Hermanos Gutiérrez tonight and JUNGLE tomorrow.
Two cool clubs I recently discovered: Silent Book Club which has chapters all over the city (thank you
for the rec!) and Seattle Hot Girl Walk which hosts walk meet-ups in different neighborhoods.Any other picklers here? Like everyone else, I’ve been playing a lot of this locally-started sport over the past few years. This weekend there’s a free Pickleball for All event with drop-in play, round robins, and clinics, as well as food trucks, live music, and a beer garden.
For anyone who is a beginner and interested in playing more regularly this fall, Underdog Sports is hosting a Fall Softcore Pickleball League that starts on 10/8. You can put together your own team, or sign up as an individual (might try to set up a team, let me know if you’d be interested!)
My other new obsession is the NW Troll Project. It’s a public art project that features six giant hand-built troll sculptures by Danish environmental artist, Thomas Dambo (who I randomly saw on the Vashon ferry the day after seeing the West Seattle troll!).
4 of the 6 have already been “awakened” in Portland, Bainbridge Island, West Seattle, and Issaquah. The final two will be hosted on Vashon Island and Ballard and their locations will be revealed in the coming weeks (you can find them using the Troll Map). Highly recommend building a day trip or friend catch-up around seeing one of the trolls.
One last rec to celebrate our approaching transition to fall: apple picking. This article has a list of 6 favorites, but the one that stood out to me was Bailey Family Farm in Snohomish because you can also snag farm-fresh fruits and veggies like raspberries, zucchinis, cukes, beets, corn, and potatoes.
Do you like these recs? Do you wish they existed in their own separate newsletter so you could opt in or out? Do you have a better idea of what this section should be called?? Let me know what you think via a reply email or in the comments (and please forward on to any Seattle-area friends who might enjoy 🤗)
Love the recs! Definitely keep
‘em coming.
Hi! Stumbled upon your newsletter and love it :) Did you end up creating a pickle ball team?