1. Mabel Magazine No. 5 – Living in the Now, “writing and art and musings from this time we’re all living in, this time outside of anything we’ve ever known before—and the stories and artwork that speak to this are, well, quite extraordinarily true and real. We’re taking pre-orders through 11/30, pre-ordering will get you a copy of Mabel plus a few lovely surprises.” This issue is LOADED with so much good stuff. Added bonus: I have a piece in it.

2. ‘Slow Down,’ ‘Don’t Quit’: Advice From 7 Women Who Overcame Their Pandemic Struggles.

3. Steampunk Busts Sculpted from Resin and Repurposed Objects Evoke Futuristic Relics.

4. ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Sends Chess Set Sales Soaring on The New York Times. “The Netflix show about a chess prodigy has reignited interest in the game and fueled demand for sets, accessories and timers.”

5. Artist Helps Soothe Anxious Minds With Adorably Supportive Cat Comics.

6. New (to me) music: Gracie and Rachel – Sidelines (Official Video). I listened to their whole new album, Hello Weakness, You Make Me Strong, this morning and LOVED it.

7. Here’s how the U.S. government plans to distribute the first Covid-19 vaccines on The New York Times. In related news, Immunity to the Coronavirus May Last Years, New Data Hint on The New York Times, and The Vaccines Will Probably Work. Making Them Fast Will Be the Hard Part on The New York Times, and Rachel Maddow urges people to “recalibrate” their lives after revealing her partner’s COVID-19 diagnosis.

8. Is This Where We Are, America? by Roxane Gay on The New York Times. “Some people oppose student loan forgiveness because they want others to suffer, too.”

9. 15 Signs Your Partner Is Gaslighting You, According to a Relationship Expert. “Gaslighting is a form of manipulation meant to leave you feeling insecure and questioning your sanity. Here’s how to spot it.” Pro Tip: watching the outgoing administration for the past four years has been a masterclass on gaslighting.

10. Ten Thousand Books, a nonprofit organization. “We value diversity in our schools and in our community. Ten Thousand Books aims to add diverse experiences and voices to school classrooms in Minnesota and beyond. Books are powerful tools we can use to teach lessons of empathy and identity. We want students to read about as many different types of people with as many unique voices as possible. As well, we want ALL students to see themselves represented in books in their schools.”

11. Blinking hell: how to keep tired eyes healthy during a pandemic.

12. It’s Not “Just” Anxiety. When you live with an anxiety disorder — it’s not “just” anxiety.

13. The Best of Brevity: A Roundtable Discussion on Flash Nonfiction. “In celebration of this release, I brought together three of my fellow Best of Brevity essayists…for a conversation. We talked about the glories and limits of the flash form, and about our experiences working with editors who don’t share our backgrounds.”

14. Joy Harjo will serve a rare third term as U.S. poet laureate.

15. Be the Priority of Your Own Life (starting now) from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

16. Calm in the Midst of Chaos on Lion’s Roar. “Sharon Salzberg on the power of equanimity.”

17. The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture. I’ve shared this before, but it’s worth a revisit.

18. Wisdom from George Saunders: “So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it: What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.”

19. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön: “Whatever you are doing, take the attitude of wanting it directly or indirectly to benefit others. Take the attitude of wanting it to increase your experience of kinship with your fellow beings.”

20. Meditation: Be Kind to Yourself on Lion’s Roar. “A three-step contemplation to give yourself the compassion you need (and deserve).”

21. The comedy of survival from Austin Kleon.

22. A year-long observation reveals the secret life of a tree and its animal visitors.

1. The Dodo, “At The Dodo, we’re obsessed with creating fun, entertaining and emotional content that makes people fall in love with animals. The Dodo is proud to tell animals’ stories at a time when people care about them more than ever.” Their videos and bloopers (no matter where or what they are from, I just get on YouTube and search “bloopers”) are my go-to comfort content. Sometimes the state of abandoned animals when they are first rescued is hard to watch, but every video has a happy ending.

2. How To Be At Home. “Lean into loneliness — and know you’re not alone in it. Filmmaker Andrea Dorfman reunites with poet Tanya Davis to craft tender and profound animation on the theme of isolation, providing a wise and soaringly lyrical sequel to their viral hit How to Be Alone.”

3. The Bridge Dog, (or what we call at our house “the backup dog”), because this:

I could not believe how much happier I was now that I had Merle in my life. Merely by agreeing to feed her and dispose of her waste, I had opened a portal to a pure, white-light joy that cut through all miseries, personal and structural. We walked and walked, mostly at night, over the bridge, around the town, over the other bridge, in the cool dark. Mere errands became ecstatic experiences because she was with me. “We are together,” I liked to exclaim to her reflection in my rearview mirror. “We are alive, and we are together!” My life was no longer a disaster. It was instead the miracle that had landed this creature in my back seat. I don’t want to say that Merle made me happy, but she made me stop wishing I was dead.

4. Joint Statement by President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris On Diwali, the Festival of Lights. More of this, please.

5. COVID-19 news: Covid-19 vaccines may have potentially unpleasant side effects, and ‘Breakthrough finding’ reveals why certain Covid-19 patients die, and Gov. Polis warns against holiday gatherings as COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations hit record highs, and Moderna announces initial Phase 3 data showing its COVID-19 vaccine is up to 94.5% effective.

6. From Obscure To Sold Out: The Story Of Four Seasons Total Landscaping In Just 4 Days.

7. This Etsy Ad Featuring a Black, Gay Couple Going Home for Christmas Will Make You Weep.

8. Insights at the Edge — Elizabeth Lesser: When Women Are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes. “Tami Simon speaks with Elizabeth about her experience in the early days of the Omega Institute, redefining ‘power,’ and the ways that patriarchy is subtly, and not so subtly, embedded in our culture—how we can become more aware of it, and how we can make changes on the outside and inside so that in the future we can tell a different story, a story that equally embraces the power of women as well as men.”

9. Writing/Contemplating Prompts from John Pavlovitz:

• What have you lost during the past few years? What/who are you grieving? What do you mourn over?
• What have you seen or experienced that has sustained you and given you joy over the past four years? What is worth celebrating right now?
• What has been renewed in you; something you rediscovered that you thought was gone? A beautiful surprise? A resurrected dream or voice?

10. What a Simple Haiku Can Do for a Friendship on The Atlantic. This article is part of a series where the author interviews two friends, and in this installment she interviews, “two friends who have been texting each other a haiku every day during the pandemic. They say that the practice has kept them connected and helped them to live in the moment. They discuss how structure helps maintain friendships, explain the coincidence that brought them back together after falling out of touch for years, and share some of their haikus.”

11. on rage, compassion and boundaries from Karen Walrond on Chookooloonks.

12. Good stuff from the Upaya Election Series: Love, Fear, and Resilience as the World Falls Apart (“Lama Rod Owens looks at systems of trauma. He talks about resilience, compassion, suffering, and the need to embody our feelings and our practice”), and another with Sharon Salzberg, who “talks about having a sense of agency and committing to taking a step even if it doesn’t seem like much. She also talks about moving from grief to resilience and from anger to courage. Lastly, Sharon Salzberg leads a loving-kindness meditation.”

13. On the Power of Essayistic Compression in Flash Nonfiction. “Dinty W. Moore Traces the Growth (Contraction?) of a Genre.”

14. How to make this winter not totally suck, according to psychologists. “The practices involve cultivating different states — social connectedness, a clear purpose, inspiration — but all have one thing in common: They get you to focus on something outside yourself.”