A new! monthly report about nice things

I’ve been trying to figure out the when/whether/how of producing dedicated content for paid subscribers ever since I opened up paid subscriptions back in January. On the one hand, I’d like to give paying readers something a little extra as a thanks for their support, and on the other hand, I find obligatory content production to be a creative boner-killer. I used to think this was just because I was a lazy asshole; in recent months I have come to better understand this as a manifestation of my ADHD.

But a thing I can and would like to do is start a monthly conversation about shit that doesn’t suck, because I am really getting into making myself comfortable these days. So here it is: Only Nice Things Monthly. Because I know the rest of my newsletter is kind of a drag.

Here, I can brag about good shit I’ve found in the post itself, y’all can brag about good shit you’ve found in the comments, and we can spread the good shit around. In a nice shit-spreading way, not a bad shit-spreading way.

I’ll do this first installment for free because maybe some of y’all wanna get in on this thing before it becomes a paid-only feature, and because that is how I learned to get people to buy shit by watching QVC with my Mema (more on that below). Comments will still only be open to paid subscribers. I gotta maintain some kinda mystique, so please direct your hate to my Twitter where I probably won’t see it.

So: let’s spread ‘em. (SORRY)

NICE THINGS, APRIL 2023

for your food

• HANDS-FREE ZIPPY FOOD BAG HOLDER — My cousin gifted this thing to me four million years ago at Christmas and I both never bothered to try it out and never threw it away, because some part of my deep-deep animal brain knew: this business is actually useful. I realized this mid-pandemic when the only things I found myself capable of doing were cooking and crying. Basically it holds plastic baggies open for you so that you can use two hands to fill them/wipe salmonella all over your face but not on your food storage apparatus. I find it’s particularly useful when I’m marinating meats and don’t want to wash my hands five thousand times, or for when I’ve thought to designate a Raw Chicken Hand (#adulting) but immediately forgotten which hand is Raw Chicken Hand (#adhdadulting). Stay tuned for next month when I discover kitchen tongs.

• PRECIOUS FAT TEAPOT AND WEE JACKET FOR YER TEAPOT — I begrudgingly gave up coffee a couple of years ago due to its rude exacerbation of my many and various IBS/reflux issues, and assumed I was destined for a life of boiling cup after cup of water, one at a time, for tea. But my friend Paula (read her cookbook newsletter!) hipped me to these delightfully chonky Zero Japan teapots, the 24-oz version of which holds two and a half big cups of brewed tea, just enough to get me through a morning of hollering on the internet. I bought this Irish tea cozy to keep my lil pot toasty, and it’s just perfect. Next month I’ll hype my favorite teas. Now you can’t leave!!!!!!

for your body

• AFRICAN NET SPONGES, Y’ALL — I sort of vaguely understood that your average loofah was an attractive colonizing space for bacteria but never bothered to really care about it until my last one gave out a few months ago and I figured I’d see what the hubbub was about re: African net sponges. Well, the hubbub is real. These big, netty tea towels are better exfoliators than loofahs, and you can hang them up so that they fully dry out between showers, which means less ~ microbial activity ~. Luv Scrub is a Black-owned shop that sells them in several lovely colors.

• IN-SHOWER LOTION — Man, having a body is the fucking worst! The last thing I want to do after I have cleaned my dip-ass body is spend ONE MILLION YEARS getting it dry and then spend ANOTHER ONE MILLION YEARS putting lotion on it before waiting YET ANOTHER ONE MILLION YEARS for the lotion to set enough so that I can put clothes on my aforementioned dip-ass body. I was a big devotee of the Nivea in-shower moisturizer until it started making my entire body itch like the dickens and I switched to the Frank Body in-shower moisturizer, which does not have whatever thing made me itch like the dickens before. Whatever in-shower moisturizer you choose (I really, really miss the way the Nivea stuff smells, so soapy and fresh!), it is better than fucking with lotion after your shower.

for your look

• MEMA-ASS HOUSEDRESS — I don’t know what kind of Mema you had, but my Mema wore something like this for all occasions besides holiday church, to which she wore a seasonally themed, appliquéd sweatsuit and about forty pounds of Kirks Folly costume jewelry purchased off QVC. I’m recommending this sassy number on the advice of my friend Rachel, who is my most mema-ass buddy in the best way (watch her rasslin’ in Austin!). This perfect body sack has pockets big enough to hold everything you need: your phone (to call city code enforcement on your neighbors), your cigarettes (to smoke while spying on your neighbors), your Certs (for when the city shows up and wants your side of the story), your hairpins (to keep your rollers in place if things get messy), and your keys (because Papaw passed out during Matlock reruns while you were on the porch keeping an eye on everything). I bought mine in seafoam green and it’s opaque enough to wear while walking the dog without giving Tammy from around the corner a reason to post on Facebook about how some people these days have no sense of decency.

• HEATLESS CURLERS — Speaking of hair rollers: stop fucking around with curling wands and straighteners and get on the heatless jam! I expect this doesn’t work for absolutely every hair type or length, but for the price, you can’t not give these Kitsch thingies a try since it might mean significantly reducing or even abandoning your standard, time-consuming, and damaging heat styling praxis. I came to this via TikTok (honestly, search it there or on Insta to see a whole world of amazing results) and you can even give it a shot with scarves/socks/robe ties if you’re not ready to invest in something more, uh, dedicated to the purpose.

for your general wellbeing

• A SLEEP MASK (THAT DOESN’T MUSH DOWN YOUR EYELASHES) — The Manta Sleep Mask looks like some fucked up, inside-out Spiderman business but boy howdy if you like staying asleep after you’ve won the interminable fight to fall asleep, this is your finest weapon in the battle of the bed. I’m an obnoxious evangelist for sleep hygiene and have been a dedicated sleep masker for years, but never found one bubbly-eyed enough to accommodate my lashes until I snagged this one from a Wirecutter travel recommendation. I’ve been sleeping in this thing for a little over a month, and it does an incredible job of blocking out light and keeping my eyes from being entirely squished into my pillow, which means that on the rare occasion I ~ put my face on ~ to leave the house, my mascara application requires neither lash curler nor third coat.

• BAMBOO BLANKET, MOTHERFUCKERS — Look, I don’t feel the need to explain myself to you, but I will. As a gift to you. I both run hot and need an entire fucking blanket covering my whole entire body at all times while I am relaxing on the couch watching my stories. I need a blanket as badly in Texas August as I do in Texas February when our governor ceremonially shuts the heat off to make money for his buddies to teach us average fuckos a lesson about what ungrateful sons of bitches we are about not dying at the hands of the state every other month of the year (when we also die at the hands of the state). Anyway: bamboo blanket. Single-fold when it’s hot, double-fold when it’s not.

for your follows

• GREEDY PEASANT — The garden of queer internet delights is deep and wide, but rarely does it bloom alongside my lifelong interest in medieval European history. Enter Tyler Gunther, aka the Greedy Peasant, whose TikToks and Insta posts and YouTubes complicate and animate this under-appreciated and oft-derided time period. I had the pleasure of seeing Gunther perform as the Greedy Peasant at Austin’s Fusebox Festival last weekend, and I just cannot overstate what a delightfully gay, in every sense of the word, experience it was.

• ADAM POWELL ON AUSTIN HISTORY — IDK how the TikTok algorithm works (Who among us does? It’s a rhetorical question, Kevin, sit down!), but after months of scrolling past endless Austin techy-type transplants trying to convince me that videos of [REDACTED EMPLOYER] offering on-site gym memberships and vegan breakfast buffets consisted of #engaging #content, the platform finally showed me Adam Powell’s thoughtful, well researched, and nonetheless snack-sized dives into Austin history. Powell names and explains parts of Austin’s backstory that don’t fit neatly into narratives about either its past or its future, including difficult but fair reckonings about its racist, white supremacist underpinnings and what that history means for how the city looks and operates today.

YOUR TURN

Look, I don’t even know if you have the time or the inclination to comment on these kinds of things, and I don’t know why you’d do so considering you have no idea who else is in the space. But I can tell you that I’m not aware of any active chucklefucks in my paid subscriber stable, so if there’s neat stuff you’re currently into, tell us about it in the comments! And if you’re into any of the things I’ve recommended here, I’d love to know whether you had similar experiences with them, or whether I’ve entirely fucked up by recommending them.

If you’re not already a paid subscriber but you’d like to get next month’s installment of reccy nonsense (or be able to comment on this one), it’s just $5/month or $50/year for this (absolutely priceless, come on now) jibber-jabber.

THANKS Y’ALL!

-AG