Amado en Mexico

Welcome to The Enthusiast, a newsletter thats all yum, no yuck! Every weekend, I'm sharing five things I'm loving right now. The challenge for me is keeping it to just five...

It's another late-breaking Sunday Edition, which is late this time because I was on vacation in Cancun with my mom and sister last week! It was the first trip we've taken just the three of us in nearly two decades, and it was so good to relax, kick back, enjoy several many all-inclusive beverages and theme nights, and catch up, chat, and laugh like we haven't in years. Here are just a few things I loved from our little getaway:

Flying First Class

Please allow me to be bougie for a moment, because I’ll be fully transparent, too—I did not think that I would ever in my life actually fly first class. And let me tell you: all the hype is real. The leg room is great, but for me, the booty room is what’s really good. My hips have actually been bruised by economy airplane armrests in the past, and being able to fit comfortably instead of squishing myself up against the wall AND have a seatbelt that fits with room to spare instead of squeezing my guts? Incredible, even if it does feel like a fat tax to have the extremely basic “luxury” of not being injured by my mode of transportation.

The hot towel? Real. The hot nuts? Real! Adorable flight attendants with gorgeous eyelashes who mix your vodka tonics up for you and keep the refills coming with wild abandon? So very real. I wanted this trip with my mom and my sister to be a real vacation, even if we were only in Cancun for three full days, and flying first class made it that much more special and fun. I will probably never do it again because it is a pricey way to travel and I'm not quite on that level yet, but hot damn if it wasn’t absolutely as g-l-a-m-o-u-r-ous as I’ve always imagined it to be.

BONUS: Hot TV Celebs in First Class

Apparently in first class you might see a dreamy heartthrob from a teen mystery soap opera you didn’t watch until adulthood with his equally adorable wife and three kids and you silently lose your shit while trying to be cool and act right and not be an annoying fangirl in front of this man who is just trying to spend time with his fam and he catches you texting your spouse in all-caps freakout mode over your shoulder and then lightly touches said shoulder with a very smooth, cool hand, and says “I’m right here,” and you want to crawl in a hole and die from embarrassment but you turn bright red and laugh because you are thirty-eight goddamn years old and tell him that you were in fact trying to be cool and that you’re a big fan and he says thanks in the calmest, nicest way possible and then sits across the aisle from you, right behind your mom who has no clue who he is for the whole three hour flight. He could be an amazingly cute dad, and your mom may compliment and strike up a conversation because she's also amazing and can talk to literally anyone anywhere, and he tells you to have a nice trip and you can only mumble out some word salad of gratitude as you blush so hard your face hurts and want the ground to open up and swallow you whole, hiding behind your blessedly taller sister trying to be incospicuous, but that's probably the least possible thing you could be at that moment. Maybe that might happen in first class. Theoretically.

Cafe de Olla

I’m kind of pissed at myself that I didn’t discover this treat until the morning of our last full day at the resort. Tucked to the side I noticed two massive clay pots with ladles sticking out, so after I put away some amazing chilaquiles verdes, I went to check it out. I’m a coffee lover, yes, but not a coffee freak or snob, and this traditional blend of coffee, sugar, and spices smelled amazing as I ladled it out. Fam, it was among the best coffee I’ve ever had. Not overly sweet, just enough to cut the any bitterness, with cinnamon and other spices giving it delightful warming sensation. It had a lovely silky texture, too, and even though I almost always want some cream, this stuff didn’t need any for me (but I did try another cup with cream after my first cup, and I loved it even MORE). I’ve been reading about the importance of cafe de olla to Mexican history and culture, and I’m an even bigger fan. The question now becomes: do I try to make some myself, or do I throw down on a specialty blend? Those of you who know me well can probably guess the answer…

Awkward Pelicans

I’m not usually much of a bird person, but for some reason, I’ve always found pelicans fascinating (same goes for puffins). There was a small pelican pod on the beach of our resort, dive-bombing into the water at regular intervals and bobbing up to float on the waves demurely, like giant dinosaur swans.

As my sister and I jumped in the waves on a windy afternoon too rough for us to snorkel as we'd planned, one pelican kept diving closer and closer to us, landing so near at one point that he splashed me and floated nonchalantly within arms’ distance of my sister (who, as a veterinarian, was DYING to touch him, in that weird, primordial way that humans want to touch creatures we know we shouldn’t). We guessed he was probably a young pelican—he still had fluffy tufts of down on his head, and his coloring was browner than the rest of his flock. Plus, he kept getting knocked over by waves just like the rest of us, which was objectively hilarious.

Anyway, have a few fun (but mostly useless) facts about pelicans:

• The oldest known pelican fossil is 34 million years old, from the Eocene epoch in the Cenozoic era
• Brown Pelicans were listed as endangered in 1972 as a result of DDT, but have since recovered to a population of 300k+ and are no longer on the list
• The ancient Egyptians believed pelicans prophesied safe passage through the underworld
• Queen Elizabeth I adopted the pelican to symbolize herself as the “mother of the Church of England,” referring to its Christian theological symbolism as a devoted parent

Swimsuits That Don't Suck

If you are a human being, odds are you hate buying swimwear. If you’re a woman, your probably hate it more than most things in this world because it reinforces everything we’re self-conscious about. Thighs, tummy, booty, boobs—nothing usually looks or feels good for me in terms of a swimsuit. I’m happy to report that I’ve found a one-stop solution for all kinds of beach and swim needs, and that’s Swimsuits for All. I’ve picked up three suits from there over the last few years, and all of them are made well and fit well, even as my body shape and size has changed over the last five (ten, fifteen) years.

For this trip, I also treated myself to a gauzy white crop top and absurdly wide-leg pant lewk for the resort’s White Party night. Frankly, I otherwise would never wear all-white anything, especially pants and extra-especially not anything potentially somewhat translucent. But y’all: I felt awesome in this outfit! It fit great, the pants billowed beautifully and dramatically in the ocean breeze, and I still felt covered and comfortable enough to cut loose and enjoy myself on the final night of trip. I want to find some kind of turban now to complete the entire look, and I rarely wear hats too! Who am I?!

TSA Pre ✅

I know there are a half-dozen newer, sleek, VC-backed travel expediting services out there now, but for me, TSA Pre-Check has paid for itself in convenience and lower stress several times over since I signed up. Never was this more apparent than on this particular trip; I forgot to add my Known Traveler Number when I got the tickets, and had to go through standard security before departing Monday morning. Fortunately for me, it was a very sleepy Monday at the Louisville International Airport, so it wasn’t too harrowing, unlike coming home through Charlotte on Friday where my mom and sister got barked at and herded angrily through security re-entry after we spent nearly an hour going through customs. Just not having to take off my shoes or take my laptop out is worth it for me, not getting yelled at by angry TSA agents is just icing on the cake.

A Libra in Need

I have shirked my Libra Season duties, babes, but there’s a beloved Libra out there who needs our help now more than ever. WNBA player Brittney Griner has now spent 8+ months in a Russian prison on bogus, racist charges, with no real attempt at a serious effort to bring her home (that we know of). She had to spend her 32nd birthday (10/18) in this prison, and her condition is apparently declining rapidly. Griner stated recently that playing basketball in prison would be "too painful" for her, which is worrying. Sign this petition to get her back home safely where she should be, and follow her wife Cherelle's #WeAreBG campaign on social for more.

Queens to Love

💯 Art Queen: Literally Iconic artist and designer Barbara Kruger was interviewed in The Drift, discussing everything from the eerie prescience of her work and how it’s been appropriated by overpriced street wear brands to the brilliance of Bojack Horseman, which I guess I should watch now?

🥰 Pleasure Activism: The Boston Review published an excerpt from my eternal queen adrienne maree brown’s revolutionary book by the same name, inspired by the work of Audre Lorde. Everyone should read everything they both have ever written, as far as I'm concerned. The world might just be a better place.

🔪 Final Girls: While the final film in the second reboot of the Halloween series was meh for me at best, here’s a great article on just how incredible Jamie Lee Curtis is at embodying and portraying the many traumas of the OG fnal girl, Laurie Strode. For what it’s worth, I did think Halloween Ends was better than its predecessor, Halloween Kills, but neither lived up to the promise of the new Halloween reboot from 2018, and none of them will ever be on the level of the original 1978 Carpenter classic.

💋 Las Reinas: Gorge your exhausted eyeballs on the power of Mexico’s top luchadoras (who are also phenomenal athletes) using makeup to shape their style and personas–disculpe la belleza!

💅 Stay Ready: Lizzo’s on the cover of Vanity Fair with some truly baller high-fashion, high-concept lewks and still not holding back the honesty and originality we all know and love. I hope she continues to thrive and keep putting out music that speaks to pretty much anyone with even half a soul.

That's all for this Yucatan vacation edition of The Enthusiast! Thank you for reading – if you're not already a subscriber, you can sign up here (it's free, and I'll be adding subscriber-only content soon, so now's the time). If you like this newsletter, share it with a friend!

Until next weekend, call your mom, memorize this classic limerick about pelicans, and seriously–watch Veronica Mars.

Mucho, mucho amor!*
LKH