The Best of the [Virtual Latte] 2024
a year in review
‘Twas circumstance, not best laid plans that birthed this weekly digest. The [virtual latte] started in May of 2021, morphing from my ‘regular’ unpaid monthly newsletter into a paid something or other, motivated by necessity and the opportunity to earn an extra $50. It’s been a beautiful weekly anchor - a place to share the bits of writing that feel maybe ‘too good’ to feed to the social media algorithms, and also might keep the literal lights on (and don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere). First, when the pandemic started I read The Great Influenza, a review of the happenings of the Spanish Flu one hundred years previous, during which I learned literally no one wrote about it as it unfolded. I committed to keep writing during the unfolding. Then, when my person started to heal from the big bad thing, folks asked how they could continue to support me financially, and this felt like a lovely invitation.
The process of weekly writing and publishing is at times incredibly generative and rich, and at others a source of tremendous anxiety. For more than a year I would wake myself at 5:00 am or earlier on Sundays and race the clock to polish or sometimes rewrite entirely. Occasionally I give up on a draw that has made it to second or third review, and once abandoned I rarely attempt to reanimate.
In 2024, I will publish 51 [virtual latte]s, including this one. I give myself the grace of two weeks off, and try desperately to have a few in the works for weeks that feel bereft of inspiration or burdened with other attentions. A new subscriber asked for a year in review, and so this one is for them (and also, for you).
My twelve best, in chronological order:
Habit Hacks
Up for making (or breaking) a habit or two in 2024? Here’s some inquiry and refinement for you.
Habit Hacks - (with 5 hearts, the most views, and the most upgrades to paid) included a small directive about the dialogue between habits and resolutions as well as a story about how I lost and found my car keys. I agree with readers, that the lesson of this and the execution was pretty good. If you’re going to pick one to re-read, this might be it.
Happy Hysterectomy
I’m sitting to write this on my 43rd birthday, five days after my hysterectomy, and for the first time in 30 years I am not in pain. While I haven’t been consciously aware of pain, four days post op I realized the profound absence of pain.
Happy Hysterectomy - (I did not send this to you, you had to seek it out, but it is well sought out and quite useful to a very small collection of humans) was a very, very long and winding narrative along with robust listing and linking to the processes and products that helped me through this event.
How to Get What You Want
A few weeks ago a neighbor asked me if we could go out to coffee so that she could pick my brain about her job search. Normally, my answer for job-related feedback and insight is that it costs more than coffee, but in this case I was intrigued that a neighbor outside of my industry wanted my perspective, and also, since watching Only Murders in the Building I’m doing my best to be neighborly. Not because I’m afraid of being murdered, but because I’m afraid of being left out of the motley crew of amateur sleuths.
How to Get What You Want - (four hearts, a paid subscriber AND did indeed get the asker her friggin dream job…) was the methodology about how to figure out which things to work towards and also how I decided to double-down on med school. If you’re lost in the woods of not knowing what you actually want… this is for you.
You Deserve More Than Five Minutes - (four hearts and loads of direct messages! AND I read it aloud) was about how I was not hired to teach yoga at a big fancy new gym, even though I am arguably the absolute best yoga teacher of all time. But no, really, it’s about how sometimes we use absolutely inane metrics to making hiring/dating/etc kinds of choices.
The Magic of Moonstone
It was almost perfect, as everything seems to be these days. A little morning light microbiology textbook reading with a cup of earl grey and the last berry bar, someone else’s dog on my lap, and the spacious, quiet gardens in my favorite place spread out in front of me.
The Magic of Moonstone - (four hearts and narrated aloud by me!) was about how insufferable we can be on vacation. How petty and ridiculous we are when small things ruin an otherwise overwhelmingly amazing thing, and how adorable that is.
How to care for yourself
This week, as I run precariously close to my publication deadline, I’ve had to turn back to the archive of forgotten drafts I start periodically - often in the bathtub or on an airplane….
How to Care for Yourself - (four hearts and otherwise a listicle) about how to care for yourself when you’re caring for someone else… because SURPRISE! We did a little in and out and in and out and boomerang about with hospital antics. Caregiving, even in the best of circumstances, is absolutely bat-shit impossible. Monumental piles of impossible. Save this one for the when.
How To Do It All
I love the adorably American pastime of pretending we can ‘do or have it all’ just about as much as I love the meme that says you have to pick between having a social/family life, physical fitness, lucrative work. You know the one I’m talking about? That suggests you can two of like… five essential life options? I love it because it’s true, and also, I …
How to Do It All - (four hearts and a new paid subscriber, as well as comments and personal replies). People often ask me 'how I do it all’ and of course I do not, but also, this is how.
Sinister superimposition (and snakes)
Nestled on the north side of Paradise Island in the Bahamas is a quaint cluster of almost buildings, a bustle of orange and yellow clad devotees, and a surprising Hebrew-tinted version of English, French, and Sanskrit language wafting on the breeze. I arrived in this other world just days after hurricane season ended with my own silent inner tempests swirling. For sixty days I endured a wholly bizarre cultural mashup on a tropical paradise surrounded by equal parts poverty and gluttony. Many of the buildings and roadways on the main island crumbled as the colonizers had vacated 30 years prior, leaving European architecture that was built without much care for tropical storms or salty sea breezes. To the east of the Ashram is something far worse - lavish late stage capitalism, with a revolving door of visitors from the Jersey Shore there to blow a year’s worth of savings on a combination of vices over the course of week-long stints.
Sinister Superimposition (and Snakes) - (four hearts and a lot of personal replies on this bad boy) which is a mashup of Bhagavad Gita and Organic Chemistry, oh and also the three snakes I saw in one week on the trail I walk multiple times a day and have otherwise essentially never seen a snake. Why do you folks like this one???
Self-Selection
In the book I finished last week, I was reminded of my favorite paradox in the context of dating apps. They are, from the perspective of an armchair anthropologist, a terrific palm-sized portal into the mating or coupling or thrupling or posturing customs of a particular people - a social commentary on the ways we demonstrate value, “
Self-Selection - (four hearts! dating solidarity!) this narrative story of my first proxy encounter with dating apps and the directive that part of the game is getting out there and finding out. Leave the house. Interact with humans. On Purpose.
WaChaa
The City of Golden was born around Clear Creek, which runs at the edge of downtown, north of both the enormous Coors factory, which bottles it into beer, and the School of Mines, which studies it’s mighty power. Over time it has been improved, controlled, and maintained, and now sports a smooth paved trail on both banks with seven bridges to encourage m…
WaChaa - (four hearts and narration by me!) this one is my version of the ‘chop wood, carry water’ ditty whereby we keep doing the work whether the good thing happens or the horrible thing happens (which it did!) and how disorienting it feels when it seems like everyone else is playing a game that doesn’t make any sense to you.
So, so, sola
This past week I have considered writing something substantive, meaningful, or useful regarding how to cope with elections, or the chemistry of synthesizing estrogen from yams and horse urine, but the feed is saturated with the former and the latter is so far afield. I have nothing much useful other than a short story about that one time I doula-ed a scorpion out of my room in 2016, The (unofficial) November of Scorpions.
So So Sola - (four hearts!) scorpions and elections that go sideways. Also for me a frightening reminder that so much of my writing circles the same territory, and why I so desperately need your help with prompts.
Stripper Money
Last year a friend texted me from the airport, asking for a miracle. She had spent weeks planning a tropical vacation with her two tweenage boys, and spent the night prior to their flight chiding each one to pack appropriately for the climate. Sunblock. Hats. Footwear ideal for the icy jet bridge
Stripper Money - (five hearts and SO MANY notes that the final paragraph was wow wiz bang wow). Seems like it’s about packing, but it’s actually about trust.
I’m always eager to receive your inquiries… it’s how teachers teach anyway. We listen and connect, and writers seem to noodle quite often between the lines (and between the deadlines) wrestling the demons in our own minds as well as those in our communities.
Thanks for reading,
K