a trendy new look
Portrait of a Body, Decorating Cents, and more Marc Maron
Greetings, earthlings!
I didn’t write you last week because I was frantically packing for my first backpacking trip in a long, long time. I didn’t give myself enough time to do everything I needed to before our 1pm push-off time. I prioritized being as prepared as possible for a couple nights in the Adirondacks over writing my newsletter, and it was the right choice!
I also didn’t have anything to say. I sat down to write, and nothing came. I’ve been in my body more than in my head. Instead of reading things, watching things, or looking at art, I’m moving wood chips, mulch, and sod. I’m riding my bike, walking in the woods, dipping in my favorite swimming holes, and spending time with friends I haven’t seen in a long time.
This is the shift into summer. Happy solstice!
Here I am close to the top of Gothics, the 10th-highest peak in the ADKs:
Here are three things I loved this week:
1. Portrait of a Body by Julie Delporte
I went to Montreal for my birthday in April and bought myself a stack of books from Drawn and Quarterly. One of those books was the graphic memoir, Portrait of a Body. I was drawn to the soft colored pencil drawings, and that the entire book is handwritten in a girly, curly script.
It’s a quiet memoir about embodiment, desire, sexual trauma, queerness, and love. I loved it so much.
A blurb:
“Queer liberation comes in many ways, and Julie Delporte delicately writes about the subtleties of this experience, and the process of beginning to accept a body that you once rejected. It is a beautiful, candid book that softly extrapolates how we can begin to love yourselves and others again.”—Fariha Róisín, Who is Wellness For?
A favorite spread:
2. Decorating Cents clips
Dear reader, my TikTok FYP is absolutely fucked up with clips from the 90s show Decorating Cents. I watched this show and so many like it growing up, but I don’t remember it being this unhinged. There’s plenty to make fun of when it comes to 90s home decor, but the insanity on display here is timeless; it knows no decade.
The comments on these videos had me laughing so hard last night that I was crying and gasping for air.
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3. More Marc Maron
My newfound obsession with Marc Maron continues.
This column is excellent and gets at what makes the podcast so special.
I’m tired of my other podcasts (open to recommendations!) so I’ve almost exclusively been listening to Maron’s interviews. My favorites so far: David Spade, Bridget Everett, Robert Sigel, Mike Judge, Paul Giamatti.
I bought my house a little over three years ago.
After reading Doug Tallamy’s Nature’s Best Hope and collaborating with Grow Wild VT and Burlington Wildways, I’ve become obsessed with transforming my backyard into a more vibrant, beautiful, ecologically useful space. Doug Tallamy invites us to create a homegrown national park.
I want cut flowers and berries and herbs and vegetables, but more than anything, I want more space for birds and bugs and other pollinators. I want to decolonize my suburban lawn.
Last summer, my yard looked like this:
I’m slowly working to turn it into something like this:
Or this:
Or this:
Right now it looks like this:
I wrote about this in some Instagram stories this week: I can’t get over how humbling this process is. It doesn’t matter how good my taste is, it doesn’t matter how good my instincts are as a novice gardener and landscape designer, I still have to wait a year or two or three to see the results of whatever I do! I have to be patient. This is hard for me, but it also feels good to stretch in this way.
Thanks to all the friends who have split their perennials for me (hi Sophie! hi Liza!) and given me advice and consultation (hi Julie! hi Jacob!) and moved wood chips with me (hi Mark!) and the many, many people who have dropped cardboard off over at my house (too many to name!). You’re all invited to a celebratory garden party in 2028.
Thank you for being here!
Christine Tyler Hill
Website: tenderwarriorco.com
Email: tenderwarriorco@gmail.com