Today's the day! Happy Friday!

You're officially receiving the first edition of Friday Morning at Gail's, which is a good excuse to drink champagne in the morning (in case you needed one).

Good morning! I’m so happy! This newsletter has been a long time coming, and I’m truly so grateful to be here.

To begin, a bit of housekeeping. If you have eyes, you’ve probably noticed that this newsletter is, design-wise, positively bare-bones. This is purposeful — and while I value beautiful design and do believe myself to be a person with a great eye, I cannot insult the graphic designers in my life (cough cough Kelly Etz) by pretending to be one. As a person who has, for years, consumed content from bloggers, influencers, and writers, and has dreamed of creating my own corner of the Internet, I’ve often felt that there’s a barrier to entry requiring top-notch branding when launching a publication. To hell with that! I’m here to write, so write I shall — and in Substack’s default font and style, no less, which I intend to keep using. (An influencer whose outfits I love, Jacey Duprie, hosts a newsletter with this same ethos. I really resonate with it.)

Now that that’s out of the way… Thoughts from the week!

• Books: Because I’m incredibly impressive and also incapable of focusing on one thing at a time, I’m currently oscillating between three books.

  • The first is Dolly Alderton’s Dear Dolly, which is a collection of advice columns and is a super quick read with short, digestible chapters (perfect for reading just one or two before bed). It’s good, but it’s not as good as Dolly’s Everything I Know About Love (which is in my top five favorite books of essays and which you should definitely read).

  • The second is A Court of Silver Flames, the 5th (four-point-fifth?) book in the ACOTAR series. All I can say is that I wish Nesta and Taylor Swift lived in the same universe, because Nesta would’ve positively loved “Anti-Hero.”

  • The last is, most importantly, The Storyteller by Dave Grohl, which I’m listening to on Audible on my walks to and from work and while I do my dishes and fold my laundry (yes, I’m incredibly metal!). While I firmly believe that Dave would find me deeply annoying, I do like to think that he would love knowing that there’s a nice little girl out here in Chicago, confidently dressed like The Rock circa 1990 and walking to her desk job making social media posts for interior designers, and she happens to be knee-deep in a punk rock history lesson and nodding along as he describes drumming for Iggy Pop and bumming hash off of late-80s LA mud wrestlers. Dave and I have a lot in common!!!!

  • P.S. If you’re looking for recommendations for books that don’t involve horny, winged faeries or members of Nirvana, I wrote a little roundup of 10 of my favorite non-fiction books (all written by women!). See it here.

• Dating: On a very different note from my reading habits, I am indeed working on pUtTiNg MySeLf OuT tHeRe and recently re-downloaded Hinge. I sent the below message, did not receive a reply, had a tiny meltdown, then deleted the app. Until next time!

  

• Music: In addition to working on my current hyperfixation playlist (“Songs In Which the Person Writing the Song Acknowledges That They’re Writing a Song”), I also started a one-song-a-day-for-a-whole-year playlist, thanks to this TikTok. It’s a fun practice for marking the days and giving them a soundtrack, and also an interesting exercise in limiting how much Harry Styles I allow myself to listen to in any given week.

• Shopping: I was going to tell you to buy this $10 Target candle because it smells literally exactly like the Diptyque Baies candle but is also cute and shaped like a heart and that I first discovered at Maddie Galassi’s house, but it’s sold out online. So never mind.

  • ****If you find one in-store and purchase it, I will buy it from you. I have never loved anything like I love this candle and I can assure you I will pay you for it plus interest plus a finder’s fee.****

• Trending Online: My Roman Empire of the week has been the online discourse around two feuding standup comedians, Katie K and Mojo Brooks, after they both posted videos about their experiences with each other. To bring you along on the journey: I first saw this video, in which Katie K shares that she recently had an uncomfortable experience with an unnamed comedian who she opened for. I watched it and was like “Wow, this sucks! Good for her for standing up for herself.” THEN I saw the response video from Mojo Brooks, and he shared literal footage and receipts from the event in question — and my mind was completely and firmly changed regarding whose side I was on. The entire experience has been not only a fascinating look at how easy it is for us (myself very much included) to believe strangers on the Internet, but also, more importantly, a firm reminder (including to myself) to fact-check where we’re getting our information and to make note of and question the internal biases we all have. This woman (intentionally or unintentionally, I’ll never know) used her white privilege to get strangers on the Internet to take her side against a Black man who she felt wronged her. ESPECIALLY in an election year, it’s so crucial for all of us to triple-check our sources and ensure we aren’t blindly agreeing with and/or sharing information we hear on the Internet. Note: I honestly contemplated if I even wanted to link to her video, because I personally believe her take to be an egregious misrepresentation of the situation and don’t want to give her more publicity, but I think that linking to both helps showcase my point that it’s really easy to misrepresent details and present them as the truth, and equally easy to blindly believe things you hear and read.

• Laughs: To close, I consolidated this collection of five TikToks that brought me joy this week.

And as a reminder:

I know you don’t need me to tell you this… but again, it’s an election year, and it is my duty to remind you that while newsletters like this are crucial for maintaining sanity and levity, I am not a news source and am in no way a replacement for staying informed. For every newsletter you read that makes you smile or buy a candle, I hope you also read an informed take on politics, world events, and social issues (then fact check it!) — and for every heavy piece of news you take in, I hope you also consume and/or create a piece of art that promotes light, laughter, and joy.

---

If you liked this newsletter, please considering sharing it with a friend! I’m thrilled you made it this far, and I’m so thankful for your support. Happy Friday!