megan weisenberger’s Post

It's 100 degrees every single day and the world feels insane, and this is sticking with me today: https://lnkd.in/eeeFdCmk

"I realized I didn’t really want one friend at all; I wanted a bunch of them. I wanted them to come over for a burrito, to meet after work when someone had gotten laid off, or broken up with, or hired. I wanted a congress of nonexperts to examine my suspicious-looking moles. To pick up my kid when I was stuck at work late. To happen to be around the corner, wondering if I could go for a bagel. I wanted something that no one person could possibly supply, and that was to live better. What I really wanted was something that, for some reason, despite its near-universal popularity, we’ve constructed society to make nearly impossible: hanging out casually when the mood strikes, with a bunch of people who know us deeply and love us anyway."

I'll be in Chicago next week and your pals at F&F are in the mood for warm hugs, cold gin & sparkling conversation with interesting people. There will be printed copies of our zine! Bonkers art on the walls! Lots of jokes! Max Goldstein in a summer beret! Please come say hi <3

I think we've absolutely lost our minds over what constitutes a "trend" these days, but goth gardens are so deeply up my alley that I'll let this one slide.

"It was the first time that many of the participants had heard a man speak about his struggles, in a vulnerable way, in front of other men. For most American adult males — who are less likely to disclose mental distress than women, and who have fewer friends than ever — the prospect of sharing their innermost thoughts in a group setting would be not only novel but frightening. And yet it didn’t take long to see that everyone in the circle was not only willing to talk openly, but hungry to do so."

"Kids, marriage and buying a home used to be the apexes, signifiers of security and success. It’s not that Joseph doesn’t want these things. They just feel less attainable now. You could say that many young people these days, especially those still living at home, are trapped in a sense of prolonged adolescence. Of more time spent just figuring shit out. This is a knock-on effect of financial strain, to some degree, but also a general adjustment in terms of what is thought of as a “milestone” at all, a definition that’s less rigid than ever. These two forces feed into one another, creating a feedback loop that’s pushing young people further away from tradition and, yes, perhaps into the arms of their parents – but also, hopefully, towards a view of their lives that’s both more holistic and realistic."

This is resonating this morning, as I look for something interesting or delightful to read with my morning coffee and find a sea of the same sorta shallow think pieces. Where do you go for the articles and essays that light up your brain these days?

This, this, this. Very few things delight me like wandering around a grocery store in a new place, particularly if it's outside of the US. https://lnkd.in/eWS-widD

Greetings from Seattle, where I’m curled up in a red vinyl booth on a rainy day, reading this Guardian article about possible fixes for modern loneliness: https://lnkd.in/ezDNNkRh I’ve been writing for three hours for the price of a refillable $3 cup of coffee. The older man across from me is drawing superheroes. The woman at the table next to me keeps throwing the word “pedagogy” around like a cudgel. None of us have anything to do with each other, lifestyle-wise, but everyone is calmly existing next to each other and occasionally chatting and smiling. And maybe I’ve just been watching too much Seinfeld recently (where they all seem to while away their *entire* day talking shit in a booth), but it seems so clear to me that we just need more affordable third spaces where kind, serendipitous encounters can occur vs. any sort of “app-based solutions” to the crippling problem of loneliness. So: more diners, please.