November 2025

28 days later [2002], 10 things i hate about you [1999] 

Michael Ruhlman - The Reach of a Chef: Professional Cooks in the Age of Celebrity 

October 2025

flight! so i watched movies: materialists, flow [2024], lee [2023], good fortune

wanted to read more this month. purposely didn't bring a book to europe to do so, but then ended up spending a lot of time on chinese homework (midterms!!) and sleeping from both sickness and exhaustion.

the atlantic - Why Is Everything Spicy Now?
taste - The Expansive, Absurdist Canvas of Tiramisu
airmail - She Faked Her Way into Yale. Then Things Unraveled
the atlantic - The Dangerous Legal Strategy Coming for Our Books
the guardian - Five o’clock dinner crowd: why are young Americans eating so early?
the guardian - Sephora workers on the rise of chaotic child shoppers: ‘She looked 10 years old and her skin was burning’

the ringer - The Age of Corporate Capitulation Won’t Work 

LA times -  Why do poor Americans eat so unhealthfully? Because junk food is the only indulgence they can afford
"For parents raising their kids in poverty, having to say “no” was a part of daily life. Their financial circumstances forced them to deny their children’s requests — for a new pair of Nikes, say, or a trip to Disneyland — all the time. This wasn’t tough for the kids alone; it also left the poor parents feeling guilty and inadequate.... Honoring requests for junk food allowed poor parents to show their children that they loved them, heard them and could meet their needs."

september 2025

more reading this month. spent a total of 7 HOURS at pepboys (over two visits) for new tires and alignment, plus an oil change. ...don't even ask why it took so long... also, i made an effort to finish my book since i'm not taking one to europe next month. 

edge of tomorrow [2014], the squid and the whale [2005]

best american food writing 2019 (ed: samin nosrat)

the guardian - ‘Being short is a curse’: the men paying thousands to get their legs broken – and lengthened

the atlantic -  Modern Dentistry Is a Microplastic Minefield
"A plastic-bristled toothbrush may add approximately 30 to 120 microparticles of plastic to your diet with each brushing, according to one study. Another put the estimate at an average of 39 particles a day. Either calculation suggests that a plastic toothbrush adds tens of thousands of particles to one’s yearly load of microplastics, which is significant when considering that estimates of microplastic exposure from food, air, and water put a person’s yearly particle load at more than 100,000."

the atlantic - The States Where It’s Riskier to Have a Baby 
"...although the overall risk of dying from pregnancy is low, mothers living in states where abortion is banned were nearly twice as likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth compared with mothers living in states where abortion is accessible. In states with abortion bans, Black mothers were more than three times as likely to die as white mothers. ProPublica found that when Texas banned abortion after six weeks in 2021, rates of sepsis increased by more than 50 percent for women hospitalized with miscarriages in the second trimester, likely because women were being made to wait until either there was no fetal heartbeat, leaving them at higher risk for an infection, or their infection became life-threatening. ProPublica also found that after Texas banned abortion, blood transfusions during emergency-room visits for first-trimester miscarriages increased by 54 percent, suggesting that doctors were avoiding performing D&Cs. At least four women in states with near-total abortion bans have died because they were denied an abortion, according to news reports. In a 2023 survey from KFF, a health-care nonprofit, four in 10 ob-gyns in abortion-ban states said the Dobbs ruling made providing care during miscarriages or other pregnancy emergencies harder."

August 2025

bit more reading this month since we went away to acadia a few days and i didn't both to bring a book. 

Punch drink love [2002], the last letter from your lover [2021], tick, tick... boom! [2021]

the atlantic - Inside the USAID Fire Sale
the atlantic - Naturalized Citizens Are Scared
the atlantic - The Anti-Anti-Feminist Election
vox - Gen Z created a new type of man to avoid
natgeo - Inside the Controversial World of Slum Tourism
vox - What happened to the bestselling young white man?
bustle - Your Friends Deserve A "Millennial Thank You Note"
the atlantic - How a Recession Might Tank American Romance
the atlantic - The Least Common, Least Loved Names in America
pc gamer - I Just Found Out What Wi-Fi Means and It’s Sending Me
huff post - This Aggressive Baby Name Trend Is 'Alarming' Experts
stylist - Dreaming About Your Ex? A Psychologist Explains What It Really Means
vice - ‘It’s Unsettling’: The School Where American Kids Rehearse Militia Warfare
bbc - In the country with the world's lowest birth rate, fertility clinics are booming
npr - Ultramarathon runner breastfeeds her baby 3 times on her way to a surprise win
usa today - He’s decided to die. Strangers are sending him prayers — and dinner invitations
the independent - With fewer renters than ever having a living room, this is why the death of the communal space matters 

vox - Trump isn’t a toddler — he’s a product of America’s culture of impunity for the rich

the atlantic - You’ll Never Get Off the Dinner Treadmill
"...as of 2016, the last time the government counted, one-third of American adults ate fast food on any given day..."

vox - 3 takeaways from the most authoritative autopsy of the 2024 election yet 
i HATE all these analysis articles of why the dems lost the 2024 election because no one mentions the number reason: CONSERVATIVES LIE. that's basically it. the candidates, the party, the news media, they all LIE consistently, constantly, and about everything. and, obviously, it's hard to win an election when people are being fed what they want to hear, regardless of it being true or not. 

atmos -  The World Wants Matcha. Japan’s Farms Can’t Keep Up.
"Matcha as a flavouring—in ice creams, in coffee-adjacent drinks—only began in Japan in the 1990s when Western corporations like Haagen Dazs introduced products using lower grade matcha. “If you talk to an older Japanese person, they only drink matcha when they go to temple and there’s a special ceremony, like a wedding,” said Liu, adding that it was mostly white yoga moms, rather than her Asian customers, who sought out matcha at Miro when she first started the business."

"Some are using matcha fever to illustrate the glorification of Japanese culture, and erasure of Chinese history (powdered green tea originated in China during the Tang dynasty, before Buddhist monks introduced it to Japan); others compare the mainstreaming of matcha to chai, predicting Thai tea and Vietnamese coffee to be next in line for whitewashing."

july 2025

now that pocket is gone, i've switched over to instapaper, which is a similar read later app. i don't find it as easy to use, but i'm sure i'll get used to it soon. i actually felt bad about migrating over all my unread articles over between the platforms, so i spent a little more time this month reading my articles. a little more about that. i had nearly 4600 articles saved in pocket!!! i do have a number of those read and favorited waiting to be archived once i put them into my blog, but that's not more than a handful. i also have maybe a few hundred archived articles (because only until recently did i archive rather than delete articles of note). and i have a couple dozen read but hanging out unarchived since they're recipes or travel things i wanted to come back to. but yeah... of that 4600, i'm pretty sure a good number over 4000 were really and truly unread. =\

flight home, so movies! also, much more reading this month since we had guests in boston (so no tv at night), and I went back to my parents' for a week plus.

f1, past lives [2023], get out [2017], beyond zero [2020]

Norman doidge - the brain that changes itself: stories of personal triumph groom the frontiers of brain science, Rita Golden gelman - tales from a female nomad: Living at large in the world

the atlantic -  The New Sun Worship
vox - Student loans are about to get worse
vox - The stunning reversal of humanity’s oldest bias
axios - Prison debt is crushing Black women, advocates say
the atlantic - My Super-Special 79th Was Not Super Special
vox - The US government’s war on wildlife, explained in 3 charts
sf gate - If you use this word, you’re probably not from California
nyt - For the Future of Water Conservation, Look to ... Los Angeles?
npr - Have all girls or all boys? Study suggests the odds aren't 50/50
the atlantic - That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was on Purpose.
wsj - Inside the Shadowy, Lucrative Business of 'Superfake' Luxery Handbags
usa today - Come for the hot dogs, stay for the gold bars: How Costco hooks shoppers
the guardian - ‘Do you have a family?’: midlife with no kids, ageing parents – and no crisis
the guardian - Eleven-minute race for food: how aid points in Gaza became ‘death traps’ – a visual story

sydney morning herald - ‘Nice girls’ and Uber: Why the rating system is a gender trap

business insider -  What happens when you let employees pick how much they want to be paid? This company decided to find out.

quartz - The myth of your phone's airplane mode
honestly, not against this. some people (my mother included) have very poor phone etiquette (why always speakerphone?!) and already bug the shit out of me. i would *die* if i was trapped next to someone like this on a plane.

the atlantic - The Myth of the Gen Z Red Wave
"Another distinct possibility is that, going forward, Gen Z will vote for whichever party is not currently in office. Gen Z is a uniquely pessimistic generation... If young people’s attitudes persist as they get older, Gen Z might never be pleased with how things are going in the country. They’ll want to “vote the bastards out” in the next election no matter which party is in power. Compared with the idea of a new and persistent conservatism in young voters, a generalized pessimism bodes better for the Democrats in 2026 or 2028. But if Democrats regain power, Gen Z might turn on them once again, repeating the cycle in an endless loop of political dissatisfaction."

June 2025

Reality [2024], miranda's victim [2023], next exit [2022], all i see is you [2016]

Geraldine brooks - nine parts of desire: the hidden world of Islamic women, felicity Lawrence - not on the label: what really goes into the food on your plate

well, i had read some interesting articles but have "lost" them since I migrated from pocket to instapaper and those likes didn't import over. oh well. it appears that the rest of my articles, including tags and previous archived articles did import correctly, so at least there's that! thankful to have had the export/import option at all.