The In Case You Missed It Remedy
Occasionally Impervious has been up and running off and on since 2022 - here are a few of the pieces you may have missed along the way.
I’m in the Netherlands and then the United States for a few weeks so doing my best to be mostly offline during that time. After vanquishing jet lag, there’ll be lots of biking in Amsterdam (the sun doesn’t set until about 10PM/22:00 in the summer) hanging out, eating all the vegetarian options at my husband’s brother-from-another-mother’s restaurant Ladybird Fried Chicken, enjoying a slice of Dutch apple pie and fresh ginger and peppermint leaf tea at Winkel 43, exploring the city, the canals, and the farmers and flea markets. In the States, there’ll be meetups and gatherings with people I love and time dedicated to stocking up on stuff I can’t get in Japan - namely haircare products for curly-headed folk like me and mine.
On July 13th, look out for the latest interview in the Eleven Questions series. I can’t tell you all how much I am enjoying creating them and I think you’ll like this next one. In the meantime, I invite you to catch up on some summer reading with a mix of some of my favorite writing (both old and new) and the first four Eleven Questions respondents.
Let’s gooooo!
ELEVEN QUESTIONS: (An interview series by way of questionnaire, featuring writers, artists, and other creatives in New York, Tokyo and beyond.) Check out:
ESSAYS & OBSERVATIONS:
White Bread & Miso Soup: On growing up vegetarian and my introduction to Japanese food.
The Thrill of Possibility: What I learned from my teenaged children.
Kakigōri, Japan's Icy Summer Treat: There are variations of shaved ice desserts the world over. Kakigōri is Japan's take.
Get Good (at Japanese): In order to get good, you have to get comfortable being bad.
Accentuate the Positive: How much longer before New York accents disappear?
You Say Oyaki (おやき), I Say Knish (קניש) Nostalgic New York eats and yummy Nagano treats.
Puzzle Flow: Or why I spend countless hours attempting to fit small irregularly shaped, multi-colored cardboard pieces together.
A big thank you to my Day 1 readers and a big thank you to all you new subscribers! (Randomly, I got the biggest jump in readership earlier this year from a photo I shared in Notes.) Clearly I need to post more pics 😆 :
A Few Things:
The death of BET and MTV video host Ananda Lewis, due to breast cancer last month and my own scare with colon cancer earlier this year, can serve as reminders of the importance of health screenings. Please get your annual check-ups, and encourage your loved ones to get them as well.
This piece by
over at The Pithy about the difficulty she is having as an American citizen getting a RealID is a worthwhile read. Because her married name does not match the name on her birth certificate, she is at risk of becoming ineligible to vote in future elections.Despite reading and loving so many Judy Blume books when I was kid, I never got around to “Forever…”. Published in 1975, it centers two teens as they navigate love, intimacy and sex in their burgeoning relationship. In the ‘80s, “Forever…” was hard to get a hold of, folks passed it around secretly, and if it wasn’t banned at the library (it, along with a lot of Blume’s books, remains one of the most consistently banned titles in the US) it had a hold list miles long. That said, I wasn’t prepared for how much I have been enjoying the Netflix series inspired by the novel. Set in LA in 2018, the themes are the same but the protagonists are Black. And it’s so, so good.
Speaking of banned books, add PEN America’s List of Banned Books for 2025 to your TO-READ-LIST. (“PEN America has documented nearly 16,000 book bans in public schools nationwide since 2021, a number not seen since the Red Scare McCarthy era of the 1950s. This censorship is being mobilized by conservative groups— and has spread to nearly every state— and predominantly targets books about race and racism or individuals of color and also books on LGBTQ+ topics as well those for older readers that have sexual references or discuss sexual violence.”)
Tell Me:
What are you up to this summer? Reuniting with family or loved ones? Diving into any good books? Let’s talk about it in the comments! 🍓