November 2024: What I Wrote, Read, Liked, and Disliked
I went to Spain, read a lot of great feature articles, and my cat wore an alligator costume to the vet
November had a few extremely big L’s, starting with the end-times presidential election, which I wrote about in a post that lost me 10 free subscribers but gained me three paid subscribers. America continues to give Fall of the Holy Roman Empire vibes and I simply cannot wait to see what 2025 brings.
The next L was John Krasinski beating Glen Powell for People’s Sexiest Man Alive, a savage undermining of the only celebrity millennial women have to live for now that the Eras Tour is ending.
We completed Satan’s Trifecta with Cartoon Network villain Jake Paul defeating (also not-great guy) Mike Tyson in a depressing boxing match with a leadup straight out of Black Mirror.
Happy start of the Six Weeks Where No One Wants to Work. Here’s stuff I read, did, tested, liked, and disliked in November.
November Breakdown
The biggest thing this month was a 10-day trip to Mallorca, which I will write about in a future post when I want to procrastinate on something else. The purpose of the trip was a workshop retreat in the center of the island to work on a Big Project, but I spent the first five days solo on the coast. This was personal challenge to get over the intimidation of traveling abroad alone. I’ve traveled overseas a lot in the past few years, accompanied by my well-traveled partner. Matt is entirely unfazed by everything. I, on the other hand, am fazed by everything, so this was good for me.
The travel back was an absolute nightmare thanks to United and Luftansa removing me from my itinerary because of an algorithm error, but don’t worry! I have my complaint forms into the airlines which will collect dust in the growing archives of airline consumer misery.
Then home to do more work that actually makes me money, even though it was really hard to motivate after being in Spain working on stuff I actually care about. I hosted Thanksgiving with an absolutely lovely group of people. Everyone went so hard on their dinner contributions that it wouldn’t have mattered if I ruined the turkey for a third year in a row. Which, for the record, I did not.
What I Wrote
November goal was to secure new, low-maintenance clients who let me write fun pieces to supplement the never-ending gear guides. These chill SEO articles pay decently and are fun to write, leaving room for pitching stories I care about. I landed several new outlets, including Well + Good, Shape, and GQ. Thanks to my writer besties who let me name drop in my cold emails.
The Shape editor assigned a simple one-source SEO piece which came together quickly, and I wrote a fun piece for GQ and wound up with tangible takeaways. Well + Good will be first-person (yay!), and should be coming out next month.
Otherwise I have a monstrous long-term project that is taking up all of my spare time and brain cells. If it comes to fruition, you will hear about it. If it doesn’t, we’ll pretend it never happened.
Signs Your Wellness Habits Are Contributing to Burnout (Shape)
Archive: Backpacking is the Sport of the Below-Average Athlete (Backpacker 2022)
What I Loved
Janji Run All Day Tank: Love the fit and material of this top. It has a longer hemline, is slightly fitted through the waist, flares at the hips, and has enough of an S-curve to be flattering without gaping. Plus it’s lightweight and quick-drying. It does retain odor more than a natural fiber, so you should probably wash yours more than I do.
FreeFly Clothing for Traveling: I’ve written about FreeFly as my travel clothes, and this company can do no wrong in my opinion besides the high prices. The clothes pack down small, go together well for mix-and-match outfits, and are just the right combo of drapey and comfortable without looking sloppy. I brought five pieces of FreeFly to Mallorca and was able to combine layers the whole time.
OXO Rapid Brewer: The PR rep for this company emailed me three times before I finally relented and said I’d test this single-serve brewer, and I’m glad she bullied me into trying it. I’ll never make coffee at home any other way. Think of it like an upgraded Aeropress without the disposable filters. It makes about four ounces of super concentrated coffee in five minutes, and I throw two more ounces of hot water for an Americano.
I Can’t Figure Out if I Like This
Future Fitness App: My other writer friends who tested this app really liked it, but I’m not sure if the level of integration is a good fit for me. Future is a fitness app that matches you with a remote trainer (yes, the trainer is a real person), who coaches you throughout the week. The trainer provides customized workouts, responds to messages, and gives feedback. There is nothing nothing wrong with the app, but it’s little too involved for my liking. I have designed my life to combine 80% own whims with 20% responsibility, and I get annoyed when I feel like I have to answer to someone.
After the first few weeks I started to bristle at the amount of communication, especially since I’m motivated on my own and loathe being told what to do. However, I am learning new exercises and my trainer puts together interesting splits. If anything, he’s making me do things I avoid on my own (deadlifts and back squats), while still programming exercises I love (bench press and lat pulls).
I see why people like the app, and I understand the accountability and personalization benefits, but we’ll see if I finish the entire six-month membership or if I go back to doing my own thing after writing the article.
Reading List
My Life As A Homeless Man in America (Esquire)
The Influencers Going Viral in Aisle 8 (Cosmopolitan)
The Print Magazine Revival of 2024 (Bloomberg)
My Body in Water (Hazlitt)
City Of Glass (Biographic)
Doctors Agreed Her Baby Would Die 3 Months Before She Was Forced to Give Birth (Rolling Stone)
I Who Have Never Known Men: Translated from French, this post-apocalyptic novel is in print for the first time since the late 90s, and everyone seems to be reading it. Told from the perspective of a girl raised in a cage with dozens of other women and guarded by men who crack whips through the bars but never speak, it’s a brilliant story that shows the prowess of a writer capable of creating a fully realized world from an extremely limited first-person point of view.
Other Stuff I Like
Transanta: This program offers a streamlined way to buy anonymous gifts from trans kids’ wish lists. You can sort by country and hover over the grid to see which kids have had gifts sent, and who hasn’t. I am so sick of trans people being the punching bag for political gain, and this is simple way to make a small difference.
The snow is here and I’m trying to not be crabby. Hailey and I went skate skiing for the first time in two years and I almost passed away. But as god’s strongest soldier, I will keep living in a place where winter is nine months out of the year, I suck at every snow sport, and complain the entire time.
Enclosure Enrichment: My friend Amelia tipped me off to former NYT editor Tim Herrera’s writing workshops, so I signed up for one about structuring long-form narratives. I don’t have a technical reporting background, and integrating reporting and narrative and exposition has always been hard for me. The 90 minutes spent breaking down a reported feature was well worth the $20 and I learned a lot. If you know of any other good online seminars, send them my way!
Heisenberg in alligator costume. He is perfect.