FMG Newsletter: A Note on Timelines

Plus, is Cast Away a Christmas movie???

Happy Friday! It’s approximately 0 degrees outside here in Chicago, I’m fighting a cough, there are drones in New Jersey (!?!?!), and Notre Dame just handed my UConn girlies their first loss of the season — but alas, it is my duty to find the positives, so find the positives I shall. That being said, happy 35th birthday to my best friend Taylor!! May your whole day feel as good as I feel when I sing your music in the car :)

• Movies/Christmas/Running: At the risk of sounding like an absolute pick-me, my favorite hobby of late has been to head downstairs to my building’s basement gym, turn on the TV, set the treadmill to a reasonably jog-like running pace, then forget I’m running and lose myself in whatever’s on TV. I’m historically an Outside Runner (slash one-time marathoner, lest you forget!!!!!), but I fell in love with the treadmill during this year’s Olympics and haven’t really looked back. The other day, Avatar was on TV when I first turned it on — and seeing as I am a human being with a heart, a soul, and excellent taste in film, I gasped with delight. I LOVE Avatar, and I happily watched the final 20ish minutes. When it ended, the movie Cast Away immediately started, and I had left the remote control on a bench and therefore didn’t want to get off the treadmill and ruin my flow to change the channel. This is how it came to be that I watched Cast Away for my first and second time, two nights in a row. I only watched the first 40ish minutes on the treadmill, then the next night I went to my sister’s house and was talking about it with such excitement that she said, “Should we just watch it right now?” So watch it we did! I absolutely loved it, and I think that Tom Hanks guy should seriously consider doing more acting. (Side note: Tom is also in my other favorite “this is not technically a Christmas movie but a lot of it takes place at Christmastime so therefore it feels very Christmasy” movie, which is Sleepless in Seattle. He is SO HOT in Sleepless in Seattle.)

  • A definitive yet non-exhaustive list of movies that are not Christmas movies but feel like they are so therefore they kind of are:

    • Cast Away

    • Sleepless in Seattle

    • While You Were Sleeping

    • When Harry Met Sally

    • All the Harry Potter movies (but especially 1, 3, 5, and the first 7)

    • Silver Linings Playbook

    • Die Hard (No, I would not put it in the “Christmas movie” category, I would put it in this category.)

• Books: Despite the fact that I’m alarmingly far away from hitting my book goal this year (I will not make it), I have not been doing a lot of reading lately. I think it’s because I’m much more likely to spend a weeknight evening in December with Nora Krank than I am to crack open a book (it is only December 13th and I’ve already watched all three The Santa Clauses and Bad Moms Christmas twice each). I am, however, very close to finishing my audiobook listen of Stanley Tucci’s What I Ate in One Year (and Related Thoughts), and it’s been such a great companion on my commute. Stanley is so delightful (albeit unapologetically pretentious), he makes me want to cook more, and the very mini chapter about Harry Styles lit me up inside.

  • Over in the fiction category, I just finished Here One Moment, which is the latest from Liane Moriarty (of Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, etc. fame). I love all her books, so I of course loved this one too (I love how distinctively she writes, it’s serious but also silly) — but it didn’t quite grip me the way I wanted it to. I’ve now moved on to P.S. I Hate You by Lauren Connolly. I got it as my November Book of the Month pick, and it’s a cute yet kind of dark rom-com about a woman who goes on a roadtrip with her late brother’s best friend to spread said late brother’s ashes. I’m in the bad habit of picking it up before bed, reading approximately three pages, then falling asleep. Please note that this says very little about the quality of the book and a LOT about the quality of my sleep patterns.

• Basketball/Inspiration: Go with me on a journey here. I received an email on Thursday morning, from a newsletter I like called The Next, titled “Kate Martin becomes the face of Golden State Valkyries in expansion draft.” Allow me to share (for those who don’t know) why this is noteworthy. One year ago from right now, Kate Martin was a starting player on the Iowa Hawkeyes basketball team, playing alongside her teammate and good friend Caitlin Clark. We all know about Caitlin Clark. Just named Time’s Athlete of the Year, Caitlin has spent the last 12 months breaking records, as well as being picked #1 overall at the 2024 WNBA Draft. At that very same 2024 WNBA draft, Kate Martin sat in the audience with the expectation to support her friend and teammate — but ended up walking away as the newest member of the Las Vegas Aces. The team’s only rookie for the year, Kate Martin quickly became a vital piece (both game-wise and morale-wise) for the Aces, the league’s reigning champs and home to now-three-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson. She went from not knowing if she’d play professional basketball to becoming one of the most talked-about rookies of the year — only to just this month be chosen to join the roster of the league’s newest team, the Golden State Valkyries, after only one year with the Aces. (This was because of an expansion draft. You can read about that here because there is no world in which I could explain it well.) Despite her team’s and fans’ disappointment that she’ll be leaving Las Vegas, Kate Martin is now poised to be, just as the newsletter stated, a face of the league’s newest team. To go from being potentially undrafted to one of the stars of the league and its future — in under a year!!!! — makes me so emotional for her, and I feel like it’s a really great lesson for all of us. Those who don’t know better might’ve labeled Kate as a sidekick/backup dancer to Caitlin Clark’s main event/superstar — but as we look to the future, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that their paths aren’t worth comparing and their legacies are destined to be different. A good reminder for those of us who frequently compare our careers, timelines, and personal milestones to others :) Cough cough, me :)

• Dating: Speaking of which, my singles’ cornhole league has come to an end, praise be to God!!!! While it was certainly a unique experience, and I’m proud of myself for gEtTiNg OuT tHeRe, I’m thrilled to return to Monday nights spent at home and in bed by 9. Just as Kate Martin bided her time to become the face of the future of the WNBA, I myself am biding my time to wait for Harry Styles or West Wilson to move to the Windy City. All in good time!

Have a great weekend — and happy Taylor’s birthday!!

XO, Gail

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