Hello! Happy Friday! Wow! This week lasted 45,000 years. And you mean to tell me that NEXT week…I’m gonna have a whole ‘nother week?! Unheard of.
Look, since early March, I’ve been meaning to tell you: Pot roast.
Let me elaborate. Earlier this year I got a crock pot, which is great because I’d been shopping around for a new personality. I’ve made exactly one “meh” meal in the ol’ slow cooker, and salvaged it by turning the recipe into one of those cream cheese-centric ones that your old babysitter keeps sharing on Facebook.
The pot roast has no cream cheese. The pot roast–colloquially known on Reddit, where I learned about it, as Mississippi pot roast–has only five ingredients. The pot roast is also a suppertime staple of my friends Amy and John, perhaps the only two people whose food opinions I trust unequivocally, and they often make the recipe with chicken thighs instead of beef because they’re geniuses.
The pot roast is:
a chuck roast (2-3 lbs)
a packet of ranch seasoning
a packet of au jus mix
a stick of butter
a handful of jarred pepperoncini peppers
You chuck (hehe) all that in your slow cooker and then you put it on low and you wait 8 hours. And then you have perfect, forkable, buttery, salty, meaty goodness. Witchcraft! Witchcraft. As a midwesterner, I innately trust any recipe that asks me to add a whole stick of butter, and while I’m not typically a pot roast girl, ever since I first made/tried this recipe, I’ve wanted to make it again. Tonight, my friends, is that night.
Music Recommendation: Black Box Recorder
On my Discover Weekly playlist, I got this song, Child Psychology, and couldn’t wait to listen to the rest of the album by Black Box Recorder. Apparently their debut, England Made Me, was recently remastered + uploaded to Spotify for the 25th anniversary of its release. Great news for me, a person who unabashedly loves moody guitar tunes with spoken-word interludes about depression! The narrative element of selective mutism reminded me of the novella "Such Small Hands," while other parts reminded me of the character Lottie from Yellowjackets. Give the song and the album a listen, let me know what you think.
And on LAST week’s “new releases” playlist I heard THIS, the latest gay cowboy anthem in…well, a string of several very good years for the yeehaw agenda. How do I recreate Orville Peck’s handpainted horse shirt? How do I get invited to hang out with Willie Nelson at his ranch??? If I listen to this song enough, perhaps the answers shall reveal themselves to me.
One more music question. I was listening to Indigo Girls and Sheryl Crow a lot this week, and I got to thinkin’. Do you think Sheryl’s friend, the communist, knows the doctor of philosophy who the Indigo Girls consulted?
NaPoWriMo: Eclipse Poem
Luckily for annoying girls everywhere, the moon is doing some CRAZY stuff during this year’s National Poetry Writing Month! So, I got to write a poem about the eclipse. When the eclipse happened, I was still in Boston, and I watched it from the sidewalk outside a bed & breakfast, in my sweatsuit and Birkenstocks and leopard coat.
Then, like any good documentarian, I wrote a poem about it.
I’ll continue writing a poem every day in April, and I’ll continue sharing drafts with you, too. In fact, because you’ve been so good, here’s a bonus! A shortie:
Home Alone on a Thursday Haiku I am allowed to watch No Country for Old Men as much as I want.
Peep Show
I love Peeps. I love Peeps. Do you want to know something? Do you want to know my worst opinion. If you tell me you don’t like Peeps–marshmallow Peeps!–well, I don’t believe you. You are lying for fun, and a deceiver. You like Peeps. And now, you and I will revel in our shared love of Peeps together.
The Easter Bunny brought me a lot of Peeps this year because I was pretty good. I know God is smiling upon us because this year, Peeps released their S’mores Graham Cracker Flavored Marshmallow Chicks, which have butts dipped in chocolate. I am waiting patiently for these to go on clearance at my local drugstore so I can buy every last one. Also new to Hattie this year, we have Dr. Pepper Peeps (Dr. Peeper), which taste exactly as advertised. My Easter basket included some other classics in the genre: Sour Watermelon, Sparkly Berry Bunnies, Cotton Candy, Birthday Cake. And finally, there are now sweet delicious Peeps Gummies, which have the FLAVOR of marshmallow but the TEXTURE of gummies. Again, I say: an era of abundance!!!
Okay. This has been my Peeps Update. Thank you for appreciating Peeps with me.
A Brief Moment of Genius
I recently finished off a lipstick (read about it in my Empties column here!), and I wanted to use the remaining dregs of makeup as a blush. And then I remembered a “handy travel beauty tip” from many moons ago.
I got an old contact lens case, scraped the remaining lipstick chunks into it, then placed it under a lamp for just a few minutes, so the lipstick would melt down to an even surface. Voilà. Blush. I’ve got another old feeble lipstick that will go in the left-eye compartment, OR I could do some concealer/primer in that half and take thing thing with me as an all-in-one on-the-go face-prettier-upper. Also highly recommend this method as a hack for having cleanser/moisturizer in your purse at all times.
You Should Read Read Max
Max Read writes
(I KNOW, the most brilliant newsletter title of all time, though Helen Sword’s is a pretty close second). Today he published this piece, “Why do we use social media?” which really resonated with me.In particular:
“‘Staying in the loop” and “consuming information” are, at best, tertiary reasons for using social media. What about, you know, the social? If information was the point, you could just read plain old media; what makes TikTok and Instagram and whatever else special is the sociality…As everyone who’s had pain in their thumb from scrolling knows, the actual point of “screen time” is the time part--the hours it allows you to numbly burn up. There’s no “more efficient” version of social media because you can’t pass time any more quickly.”
And this excerpt from The Twittering Machine: How Capitalism Stole Our Social Life, by Richard Seymour:
"We are only up for addiction to mood-altering devices because our emotions seem to need managing, if not bludgeoning by relentless stimulus. We are only happy to drop into the dead-zone trance because of whatever is disappointing in the world of the living. Twitter toxicity is only endurable because it seems less worse than the alternatives.
Read below, subscribe today:
Dottritus
Just thought you may want some photos of Dottie.
She was happy to see me back in the office after a long weekend away:
While in Boston, I made myself sad by looking at a baby photo of her:
And yesterday I committed the ultimate betrayal, by eating cheese and only sharing one small piece of the cheese. Her reaction:
WIDNBTW
And finally…the moment you’ve all been waiting for…the official signifier of weekend shenanigans…it’s What I Did Not Buy This Week! Weewoo weewoo, awooga awooga!
A very cute alarm clock shaped like an apple
An OMIGHTY zodiac shirt…put out the Libra version you cowards!
This cheese bag, which sounds like an insult but is actually just an accurate description:
Maybelline’s Dream Matte Mousse Foundation??? Did you guys know this is still on the market?????
Hermes lipstick in the same shade as all my other lipsticks
Something at my grocery store called PUFF COOKIES???? When I finish my Easter candy…it is so on!
And with that, I bid you adieu. Wow, I dilly-dallied enough on sending this newsletter that I can actually show you my pot roast before logging off! Okay, I gotta go eat. Peace out. Be good. Godspeed. Love you, love crock pots. Love Peeps.