Iโve been so wildly distracted this week I almost neglected to finish writing the SWEETIE Weekly. What a horrific loss that would be. Luckily for literally everybody on this gorgeous green earth, I pulled through.
Letโs goooooo.
๐ SWEETIE RATES ๐
Emily Mariko
Despite being the same age, running a Substack and having an affinity for salmon, I could not be less like Emily Mariko if I tried.ย
Emily Mariko runs in matching activewear sets. She meal preps. Sheโs able to touch raw meat with her bare hands. Sheโs engaged to a software engineer, with a Van Cleef & Arpels ring encrusted with sapphires. Her kitchen is impossibly spotless. When she speaks, she does so in a calm and even cadence. She doesnโt snort when she laughs and she probably swears very tastefully.ย
Itโs so easy to spiral when watching Emily, projecting a moral goodness onto her. I bet she doesnโt ever have crumbs in her bed. I bet she gets laser hair removal and never dribbles toothpaste onto her clean shirt and she never forgets anybodyโs birthday.ย
She is an enigma to me. I am her Wario.
She inspires within me a crippling crisis of self esteem and an acceptance of my shortcomings. In the best way possible, she makes a public effort to try. Her sense of effortlessness comes only from painstaking, concerted effort. To watch Emily is to hope, in vain, to be a type-A personality and to understand that to do so comes with a workload I am not interested in pursuing. I love her as much as I envy her.ย
Three hash browns
The perfect snack is three hash browns. Pan fried. Sprinkled with salt, pepper, chives and a sprinkling of dried onion. Pair with Kewpie and Sriracha, you can mix the two condiments together, or donโt. To be eaten in the kitchen late at night, alone.ย
The Man Who Loved Grizzlies
This 2004 piece for Vanity Fair by Ned Zeman is what I consider the ideal non-fiction long read. Even if youโve seen Werner Herzogโs Grizzly Man, this story is, at least, an excellent accompaniment worth reading or revisiting. Itโs about a 40 minute investment, but the pacing and tension will capture your attention immediately. Zemanโs retelling does justice to the genuinely nuts series of events that led to the deaths of Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard at the hands of their own hubris.ย
There were rumours after the publication of The Man Who Loved Grizzlies that Leonardo DiCaprio was set to play Timothy Treadwell in a film adaptation. While Iโm oddly glad it didnโt happen, I like to think about a Sliding Doors-esque alternative universe where the existence of that film meant Leo didnโt take on The Revenant (too much bear attack content) and therefore never won an Oscar.
I dunno, I just think itโd be neat. I have beef with him.ย
๐ SWEETIE HATES ๐
Manicures
Every six months or so I get very insecure and panicky about having bare nails, then cave and rush to get a manicure. I hate, and I do mean hate, the experience literally every single time.ย
Getting a manicure is a sensory nightmare. From the fluorescent lighting that permeates almost every single salon, to the acrid smell of chemicals and the decision paralysis, it never fails to stress me the fuck out. Getting my nails sanded and filed makes me want to throw up. I was grateful for the introduction of masks after covid hit so that I didnโt have to hold my breath quite as much to prevent inhaling the buffed nail particles flying around in the air.ย
I also just feel like a dickhead. On multiple occasions, my hand has been slapped (!) by a manicurist because I have weirdly flexible pinkies that tend to splay out uncontrollably. Manicurists despise flexible pinkies. Sometimes manicurists are also mean, once I asked for a forest green colour and the manicurist said โAre you sure?โ and then laughed when I said yes. Humiliating.ย
Iโve tried shellac, SNS and a regular old manicure, and no matter what, 48 hours after Iโve gotten my nails done I inevitably have chips. By the time the polish comes off, my nails are destroyed, brittle, thin. If it werenโt for worrying endlessly about fitting into some stupid, finger-based beauty standard I would have wonky, plain nails until my dying day.ย
Fellow women, we must rally against the shackles of nail etiquetteโฆ To benefit me and my nails personally. Just think about it.ย
Elon Musk
What a boring, sad, evil little man.ย
My life decisions
I made a promise to myself in 2021 to watch 100 movies before the end of the calendar year. Iโm not sure why, though Iโm certain it was to do with a man, but I actually ended the count with 118. Smug, I decided I would complete the feat again in 2022, but this time, it had to be 100 movies Iโve never seen before. โEasy,โ I thought. I was wrong.ย
It turns out, thatโs a lot of new movies to make space for. Worse, I canโt seem to sit through most of the movies Iโve chosen. Drugstore Cowboy? Yawn. I made it 15 minutes in before lying to myself and saying I would come back for it later. I turned on an ancient episode of The Real Housewives of Whatever.ย
I donโt want to be a cinephile. I donโt want to give myself movie homework. I want to watch When Harry Met Sally for the third time this year. The count is now at 75, so I have two months to watch 25 movies โ yes, I can do maths. Will she make it? Stay tuned.ย
Love youuuuuuuuu MWAH.