This chunk of the year SUCKS. I’m tired of February. I am so ready to get past the doldrums of winter. Everyone is sick. It’s cold. Then it’s hot for some reason. Then it’s cold. This time of year feels like madness to me. It’s been tough for me to be present. I was talking to a friend about it recently, and he suggested I may have a case of the “zoom outs,”—Which is a much more fun way to say “existential.”

I struggle to stay grounded in the winter months. It’s often too cold to spend time outdoors, and any exercise might as well be wishful thinking. That makes it easy for me to get too caught up in life’s who, what, when, where and whys. By the time I realize what’s happening, I’m already in the clouds.

Let me know if you have any tricks for zooming back in.

Let’s get to the fun stuff.

What I’m Reading

New York Times: ‘Why Don’t We Hang Out Anymore?’

Jancee Dunn penned this piece in the New York Times to explore why adults don’t hang out anymore in the same way that children do. Adults feel compelled to make everything productive—Activities, network, parties, dinners, drinks. While those activities can be great, we also truly benefit from relaxing with our friends. Dunn even suggests turning mundane tasks like running errands into a chance to hang out with a friend. Sounds kind of nice to me. Make unstructured hangouts A Thing in 2024.

What I’m Listening To

Tracy Chapman
Like most of the Internet, I went on a Tracy Chapman journey after her performance of “Fast Car” with Luke Combs on the Grammy Awards. “Talkin’ Bout A Revolution,” a modest radio hit in 1988, feels especially relevant today. But don’t take my word for it:

What I’m Watching

The Great Night in Pop
In January 1984, more than 40 of the most popular stars in American music gathered inside a Los Angeles studio in the middle of the night to record “We Are The World.” The charity single written by Michael Jackson and Lionel was produced to raise money to address the famine in Africa.

It’s a fairly straightforward doc that leans mostly on archival footage and a few new interviews with stars like Richie, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross and a few others. The song itself is heavy on the cheese factor, but the truly fascinating thing is watching the world’s most famous singers interact with each other.

“If a bomb drops on this place, John Denver is going back to the top!” – Paul Simon

Her
So Many Sequels is exploring love throughout February and we recently tackled a scifi-romance turned premonition. Spoiler alerts: It’s a lot. In 2024 people are getting lonelier, dating is getting harder and AI is getting better. Is the fiction of “Her” now a warning?

This made me laugh a lot.

@kaylee_payment1021

he had no mercy🤠

♬ original sound – 🦋