Voting + Tacos = Love

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

I gotta be real, y'all: I struggled with this week's newsletter at first. I haven't been feeling very positive about much of anything lately, especially now as the holidays creep closer, but I realized that there are still plenty of things I love in this world and that keep me going, no matter how stressful the last month/year/decade has been. Last week it just happened to be waiting in line to vote on a sunny morning, trashy but smart prestige T , color-coordinating accessories, and young folks finally getting the recognition they deserve that kept me going (among others!):

Voting in the 2022 Midterms

As a registered Democrat in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, you’d think I would hate elections. And honestly, I do—but I absolutely love voting.

I have not missed an election in 20 years; my first was the 2002 midterms, and it’s been a wild rollercoaster along the insanity of our political process ever since. Voting is vitally important to me, even though I know my districts are gerrymandered to make my vote count less than the Republican next door to me, and national Democratic organizations have basically abandoned Kentucky as a lost cause. I think the biggest reason I continue to vote and fight for progressive action is because when I turned 18, women in the United States had only had the right to vote for 82 years. Less than a century. And I’ll be damned if I let that right go to waste.

I know the system is far from perfect and needs a massive overhaul if not a complete do-over, but when I saw the line to vote snaking out the door of my polling place on Tuesday morning, I wasn’t just stunned—I was thrilled. A first-time voter stood in line behind me, and I genuinely thanked him for coming out and voting. He ducked his head shyly and replied, “Gotta do my civic duty, I guess.” And that’s also what makes voting so precious to me: if we do not vote, none of this works, no matter how shambolic and pointless it seems right now.

And honestly, that’s what conservatives, Christian fundamentalists and white supremacists want—for progressives to hang our heads in defeat and never vote again so their power remains unchecked and unlimited. But their power was absolutely checked and limited this year, even here in the deep red Bluegrass. That’s why I vote.

Many Moons Lunar Planners

Fun fact: I always got a calendar for Christmas as a kid, and it was secretly one of the gifts I loved most. I deeply enjoyed opening it up and marking all the important dates for the year ahead, a portent of my lifelong love of list-, schedule-, and yes, calendar-planning. I love a new year all laid out blank before me, fresh and ready to be filled with life, no matter how mundane.

Planning is also (still) comforting for me in a world where we don’t have control of anything beyond our own tiny spheres of influence (it's also my job!). In 38 years on this planet, I’ve learned very few things go as planned, no matter how hard you work to plan them. Realizing that control is an illusion and change the only constant is actual hell for an ADHD perfectionist, but artist Sarah Faith Gottesdiener's Many Moons Planners have gotten me through the better part of the last decade with at least some of my sanity intact.

I just received my 2023 planner, which contains a year of lunar and astrological insights, tarot spreads and journal prompts, and little nuggets of mindfulness breaks and reminders. Sometimes when I get too busy, I skip checking my planner  while rushing around in a morning tizz or at the end of the day if my brain is fried, but I always feel a little better and a little more in control when I do, even if it’s just checking off one item for the day. I can set multiple reminders and calendar alerts on every device I own, but nothing sticks in my mind better than something I’ve written down, officially, in my planner or on my wall calendar.

P-Valley and The Serpent Queen

Something interesting is happening at Starz, the D-list premium cable “channel” that every so often finds itself with a genuine hit (Outlander, specifically). Somehow its gritty modern offerings are lining up more with its trashy historical offerings, and I’m here for every last bit of it. Much as I loathe monarchy in principle, I have a soft spot for the badass queens of the Tudor/Renaissance eras, so I had The Serpent Queen, their new series about Catherine de Medici all queued up the moment it was announced. Samantha Morton is fantastic as usual, having played Catherine’s younger nemesis Mary Queen of Scots in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (and also frankly one of the best parts of that unnecessary sequel, along with a severely underutilized Clive Owen). It is a pretty standard premium-cable historical drama with some modern touches, including queer characters, selective fourth-wall breakage and the Palladino-esque playing of anachronistic modern songs over end credits.

But I also just started watching their sleeper hit P-Valley, a Southern Gothic and messily operatic soap created by Pulitizer-prize winning playwright Katori Hall about a Mississippi delta strip bar and its various employees and clientele. I binged the whole first season during election week and while it still has that signature Starz tackiness, it’s also a deeply appreciative examination of agency, sexuality, athleticism, and layered relationships amid behind-the-scenes scheming, pole-related injuries, racist baby daddies, real estate buy-outs, small-town corruption, and wire fraud (to name just a few). The dialogue has been called Shakespearean and it is clearly written from a place of love for the region, the people, and the distinct cadence and musicality of their "slanguage" patterns. I just started the second season and now a third is in the works, so I’m firmly on board. Even if you just watch it for the pole performances (which are INSANE btw) and the excellent soundtrack of classic Dirty South jams and original tracks, it’s well worth the cost of admission.

Plus now there’s a new Dangerous Liaisons series, slingshotting us back to trashy historical drama side of Starz, but I’m hoping this trend of smart, sexy leading women and femmes continues to hold up. They’re not going to win any awards with these shows, but as far as I’m concerned, who cares if they’re entertaining, engaging, and more intelligent than many “prestige” programs out there?

Multiple Pairs of Glasses

Remember when new glasses were insanely expensive? So expensive that you’d hold onto a pair for years without changing them even as your eyesight worsened? Yeah, me neither, because now I can get three pairs for less than what one pair cost fifteen years ago! And so one of my not-so-guilty pleasures is now to match my glasses to my outfits. Right now I have a black pair, and two translucent pairs—one pink and one blue, which covers pretty much all of my wardrobe.

It takes real effort for me to not be too matchy-matchy, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love a fully coordinated look. My 99 year-old grandmother is mostly blind but still manages to make sure her outfits go together, so if it works for her, it’s absolutely good enough for me. I also quit wearing contacts many years ago due to my aggressive astigmatism, so glasses are an integral part to my overall aesthetic, and now that most of my professional interactions are from the chest up on a video chat screen, the right accessories make all the difference.

Sad Indie Girl Jams: Girlhouse, "Paul Blart Mall Cop"

I never considered myself part of the Sad Girl™️ zeitgeist aesthetic, but I guess I kind of am given how many queer, wistful and whispery-voiced women artists are ending up on my playlists this year. Girlhouse’s terribly named but absurdly good track “Paul Blart Mall Cop” is already one of my most-played  songs this year, in the way that Christine & the Queen’s “People I’ve Been Sad” fully encompassed my 2020 experience. It’s deceptively simple and even upbeat in parts, with a carnival-esque melodic interlude that evolves into a big, crunchy, satisfying electric guitar riff. And truly, I can't help but love a lyric like: “Crying my eyes out in a Chili’s parking lot / Praying to God that I’m not alone". It’s sad, sure, but it also self-aware and relatable on many levels, and I’ve been hooked on this song since I first heard it back in like March. Sometimes a song just sticks with you before you really know what it means for you, and this absolutely is one of them.

Just a Bit More

🗳 Millennial Mayors FTW: I don’t live in Cincinnati, but my spouse and I both work there, so what happens in the city affects us all the way over here on the southern side of the Ohio River, and I was thrilled when Mayor After Pureval was elected last year. Here’s a profile of the Tibetan-Indian-American 40 year-old new dad who’s driving positive efforts on progressive policies in the Queen City, and we truly love to see it.

😎 (Millennials are 40, BTW): You heard me—the oldest Millennials are turning 40, so you can’t keep blaming us for the death of brick & mortal retail (among others) and telling us to stop buying lattes and avocado toast to save money. Bazaar has a great series of essays on this milestone, including an excellent piece by author Mira Jacob on rejecting the broader narratives that are still foisted upon women as we age as well as essays by fellow elder Millennials Emily Gould, Leslie Price, and more.

🪦 The Vonnegut Century: This weekend was the 100th anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut’s birthday, and while I must admit that I’m not as familiar with his works beyond the iconic ones like Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions, his philosophy of story structure and overall advice on writing well are what I appreciate most. Is there a better sentence in American literature than “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt”, especially within the context of war, absurdity, and time travel?  If you ever find one, let me know.

🌮 BREAKING NEWS: TACOS ARE HEALTHY! I mean, we all already knew this, because the beauty of a taco is that it can encompass any and all food groups as needed, but there has been a distinct call to stop categorizing “ethnic” or “exotic” (aka non-Western) foods as inherently unhealthy and changing their cultural significance by “healthify-ing” (barf) them. I fully co-sign  because guess what: MSG and rice are also not as “unhealthy” as we’ve been conditioned to believe in American food/diet culture. Eat more tacos! Try new cuisines! It’s far better for your health to try new things with different fruits, vegetables, proteins, than to keep eating the same bland cardboard “healthy foods” every day.

Apologies again for the delayed delivery this week, babes–I'm still working out which days are best to regularly send this out AND what days will be good for soon-to-come-I-promise subscriber-only content!

Irregardless, thank you as always for reading The Enthusiast. If you're not a subscriber, now is a great time to sign up (it's free!) and make sure to click the confirmation link your email. If you've been enjoying this newsletter, why not send it to a friend?

Until next weekend, thank your local progressive organizers, skip the holidays and start planning for 2023, eat more tacos, and don't break a hip (or worse) attempting any P-Valley pole routines!

In love & planning,
LKH