Third Thursday Third Things — June Edition
Summer desert cozy aesthetic
Not Thursday, I know, but the power went out last night as I was wrapping this up and this is the best I got.
I was supposed to be on a paddleboard right now, floating through Ruby/Horsethief canyon outside of Grand Junction, but I am instead hunkered down in my basement on this 103-degree day with winds gusting up to 50mph. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be inside a giant convection oven, this is it!
Living in the desert means that indoor, bad-weather days look markedly different from, say, those in the Pacific Northwest. Instead of curling up with a hot mug of tea while an atmospheric river hammers the house, I am curled up with an icy glass of watermelon-flavored electrolytes while the wind whips trees sideways under a piercingly cloudless blue sky.
It’s an adjustment to see the sun shining and acknowledge it's an indoor kinda day. But considering we get about 250 days of sunshine a year (compared to only 70 days a year with any kind of measurable precipitation), there really aren’t that many options for those kinds of storybook gray, drizzly, cozy days.
We make do by getting cozy in less traditional ways.
Cozy summer desert aesthetic is all salty beverages in sweating glasses, flowy pants and loose tops, wide-brimmed hats, hair slicked back and pinned up off of damp, dewy foreheads. River dips. Bare feet scrubbed clean before slipping into cool, cotton sheets. Lounging. Draping. Cold noodle salads. Crisp, refrigerated fruit. Sprawling. Snoozing. Popsicles.
Below are a few things to check out in your summer desert cozy time:
—Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment [feel like I’m going to make some enemies with this one, and there are plenty of other reasons it’s a questionable technology, but the environmental argument is actually really insubstantial]
—I do nothing at work and no one cares [just going to leave this here]
—We’re Focused on the Wrong A.I. Problem in Journalism [writers have to put out so much junk for the algorithm and SEO that outsourcing it should not be the problem we focus on]
—Sorry Hun 👏 That’s a Pyramid Scheme ✨ [just a delight]
—What if the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning? Our research suggests it may have taken place inside a black hole [this makes earthly problems seem a lot less significant]
—In a Digital Age, High-End Outdoors Magazines Are Thriving in Print
—Welcome to the ‘infinite workday’ of 8 p.m. meetings and constant messages [after working late several days last week, I’m really taking this to heart]
—Latigo N’ Lace Equestrian Drill Team [I think a lot of people assume bucking bulls or broncs are the hardest thing in rodeo, but I’d like to argue that coordinating horses like this at speed is WAY harder]
—How This 300-Year-Old Pastel Stick Maker Creates Nearly 2,000 Colors
—Inside The Last Fabric Flower Factory in America
—Audrey Hobert - Sue me (Official Video) [high school me would have THRIVED on this]
—Sabrina Carpenter - Manchild (Official Video) [they fit an entire movie into a music video]
—But You Seemed So Happy: A Marriage, in Pieces and Bits by Kimberly Harrington [A fantastic collection of essays on how marriages just sometimes fall apart]
—The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief by Francis Weller, Michael Lerner [Research for my book, but phenomenal grief wisdom in general]
—Béla Fleck’s new album
—Amy Poehler’s new podcast Good Hang
—This interview with Craig Mod
Bonus bun video for making it to the end!