Hello! Happy Friday, loved ones and assorted readers. Tomorrow is my pyrite birthday! That is to say, it is NOT my golden birthday1, but it is CLOSE. I will be 29, which means I am finally entering the last of my Awkward Teen Years, and next year, I will flourish into a beautiful butterfly.
I am still working on my book and making good progress. It’s hard not to be mad at myself because I’m writing plenty, and having great ideas, and I’m still not done. I do know I’ll be done soon — I can picture, in my mind, exactly what needs to happen on the page in order to get from point A to point B — but I can only write so many words per minute. Paid subscribers can expect a longer missive on this topic Monday.
In the meantime, I have a mixed bag of assorted thoughts for you to nibble on!
Hey Jell-ousy
On the phone with my mom a couple weeks ago, I said, “Hey, do you remember this keychain I had as a kid, which I think was from the dollar store, and it was NOT a Tellytubby but it LOOKED like a Tellytubby, and it sang a song like, ‘the jellybean kind, the jellybean kind, we all want to be in the jellybean kind?’” And she said “Yeah! What WAS that?!”
I’ve had a small handful of these things over the years, little “what the hell was that thing I liked as a kid?!” half-memories. Dot and Dash, the Canadian puppet show, was one. The Hugga Bunch movie also. I’ve logged hours trying to figure out what each of these memory mysteries is and was, and I had a pretty good track record. My mother is a bona fide genius at it. But we both labored for a long time over my little jelly person song, and couldn’t figure it out.
Then, Wednesday night, I was scrolling through a slideshow of early 2000s nostalgia photos on Instagram when I saw this image.
In the comments, someone had said “OMG what is that show? I remember it!” and the original poster responded, unlocking a part of my brain I did not think I’d ever have access to. The show, called Jellabies or Jellikins, is a UK kids show from the late 90s that features a cast of 6 rainbow creatures living in a sea of jelly. Imagine my relief! A mystery solved! If you’re so inclined, you can listen to the song I vaguely remembered, which is actually called “the Jellikin gang,” and starts at the 35-minute mark of this video:
I Swear I Am Using Post-Its Correctly
When I go to the Dollar Tree, I always look out for fun surprises and oddities. Like a Jellabie! Like a signed first edition of Aimee Bender’s book, The Butterfly Lampshade, which I recently found for $1.25 in Queens. Invariably, I buy post-it notes. Do I need more post-it notes? Eh! I certainly use them, though I think some people make take umbrage with my methods. There are some post-its I tape to the surface. I recognize there’s an adhesive already on the paper; however, sometimes I want to affix a really good idea to the wall, or I need to turn on the ceiling fan, and that’s when I thank God for the extensive variety of products on offer from 3M. I also tend to KEEP a lot of post-its. Which…no. I know. That’s not correct. I have a post-it spindle, the greatest invention of all time, upon which I impale those brief treatises that have outlived their use. But I also have a separate, much larger pile of post-its on my desk, which I sort through every week or so, and always fail to file properly, containing lines of poetry, titles of books, birthday gifts ideas, little drawings of birds and cats, work stuff, chores to do, and math equations. All of which, for some reason, I need to keep.
Two types of post-it I want to turn you on to: the long ones, a little thinner than an index card, which are great for meetings because you can divvy them up into sections. And the notes with the full-adhesive backs—I always try to keep one of these on the back of my planner because it creates a flat “clipboard” surface that I can use as a scratchpad.
Reading Recommendation Rerun
In this newsletter, I’ve previously mentioned Parakeet, by Marie-Helene Bertino, which is one of my two favorite books ever. I’ve brought it along for my birthday weekend so I can reread it. The most recent section of dialogue I wrote in my book doesn’t sound like real people, or people at all, so I decided I need to remember how to write real quick. Since I’m going to be away from my desk all weekend, I figured, time to re-learn how to do this! The first time I read Parakeet was on a “reading vacation” I went on with my friend Chloe, where we just read books and ate snacks in a cabin for a long weekend. It’s time to revisit!
What I Didn't Buy This Week
* I was served an Instagram ad for this Tiffany horse ring, which is, unfortunately, six thousandish dollars. However, I now know that I desperately want a less expensive huge horse ring.
* Waiting to try this Eggo “brunch in a jar” liquor til I visit home and can get waffle-drunk with my family!
* I clicked on an ad for a website that sells custom mugs and Christmas ornaments. When I can’t sleep, I go on this website and make designs that feature me, my family, my boyfriend and/or my friends. It’s like those dress-up doll games that were popular online in the early 2000s, but they all say stuff like, “to my besties — because of you I laugh harder, cry less, and smile every day!”
* I haven’t bought any of the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce stuff but I’m extremely glad that all my non-sports-oriented friends are hopping on the KC bandwagon. Or, sorry, traylor.
* I may have an Etsy gift card in my near future, and if that happens, I’m spending it on this “I always wanted to be a Tenenbaum” sweatshirt
* If it weren’t upside down (and therefore bad luck) I would buy this rainbow horseshoe necklace:
* During my most recent dollar store jaunt, I planned to get a sudoku puzzle book. Instead I got a book of weird number games? Called “fill-in numbers.” It’s like a crossword but with numbers??? It’s super fun. It reminds me of Picross, another fun numbers-and-logic game. I had to cheat a little on the first puzzle, just to get it started, but once I had it figured out I started churning through them. I still haven’t bought a sudoku book — but it’s on my list!
Anyway. Thats all for this week. Next time I write you, I’ll be 29 years old! Maybe I’ll be super wise and give you all great advice. Guess you’ll have to keep reading to find out! Thanks for reading now, while I am young, dumb, and full of puns.
I’ll turn 30 on 9/30 next year, making THAT my golden birthday.