Sunday Peaches!
Smiles and sunny days to you and yours <3
Hello and happy Sunday! It’s been far too long since I sent you a serving of sunshine and I’m very sorry for that. I’ve had some big life changes over the last several months, most notably that I started a new job that required a few months of overworking to catch up, but the horizon is finally in sight and I’m excited to have more time on my hands to do more of the things I love (like write Peachy Keen!).
Memes!
Featured Author!
This issue’s featured creator is writer Juliana Nicewarner! Her work has been published in magazines such as Rabbit Hole Short Stories (whose contest she won last year) and her novella No Regrets was published by an indie publisher in NYC during the spring of 2021. Her new book, Eavesdrop: Conversations Across Time is a collection of short stories published by Hartsfield Press. She also runs a fiction/creative nonfiction/recipe mashup newsletter here on Substack called
.
What do you look back on with the most nostalgia?
From the ages of eight to twelve, I lived on an island shaped like a whale. On one side was the ocean, on the other was the sound, with a twenty-minute walk in the middle. I never wore shoes, wore my swimsuit under my church dress, and ran back and forth from the beach to our various houses with my group of seven friends that my mom referred to as “the amoeba.”
What song(s) or singer(s)/band(s) make you the happiest?
“This Must Be the Place” by Talking Heads is my favorite song. It has been for years, and I never get tired of it. Whether I’m having a bad day or a good day it makes my day infinitely better and either turns over my frown or expands an already existing smile past the breaking point. Also anything by Paul McCartney or Amy Winehouse, each for very, very different reasons.
What’s your comfort show/movie?
“Gilmore Girls.” In my adolescence, I felt like I lived in the title sequence — all that warm, golden light, laughter, and coziness.
I’ve always loved “Gilmore Girls.” I remember when I was that age, living in Virginia, several people asked my mom if she had ever seen the show. They told her she was a lot like Lorelai. And if you knew my mom, you’d know that this was true.
She has all of the strength and wit and ferocity of Lorelai at her best. And, to top it all off, she makes infinitely better life choices.
My dad has always reminded us of Luke. That steady loving nature, quick to help and fix whatever needs fixing, a caretaker and provider to his core.
I have been sworn to secrecy as to whether or not my dad has watched “Gilmore Girls” start to finish, on the edge of his seat, requesting that we watch it every night so that he could find out what happened next. So I will not say.
And also, I lied. It’s a tie between “Gilmore Girls” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Can you tell I have a thing for that Sherman-Palladino patter dialogue? Susie’s speech in Season 4 episode 3 is probably one of the best monologues I’ve ever heard.
What trip would make you the happiest to take?
Ok, my fantasy trip –
I go to Best Quality Daughter in San Antonio, Texas. Then I pop over to March, the Mediterranean restaurant in Houston, Texas. Then I take a quick flight over to Piedmont wine country in Italy and taste at Vietti then eat at Faula Ristorante. Then I meander on over to the Rhone Valley in the south of France before ending the day at Sunset Sunside jazz club in Paris.
I’ve never been to Europe, so I don’t really know if that’s a realistic one-day trip itinerary. But it’s my fantasy, so I make the rules.
What’s the best comedy of all time (film)?
“In Bruges” and “Jojo Rabbit.” They’re dark, dark comedies, but I think they’re brilliant and they have something to say.
What concert or festival experience brought you the most joy?
My husband and I went to see Phil Collins in Denver a couple years ago. We danced to “Follow you, Follow me” by Genesis at our wedding, and on the drive there I asked my husband if he thought that song would be played at the concert. He was like “No, no way. Like that would be awesome, but he’ll probably only play one or two of Genesis’ biggest hits, and that wasn’t one of their biggest hits.” When we heard the first notes a couple hours later, we turned to each other with the biggest smiles on our faces.
Do you have any tricks for cheering yourself up if you’re having a rough day?
I wash my face and put on clothes that are comfy but still make me feel pulled together. I gather up all my back issues of “Bon Appetit.” I make myself a drink – iced decaf coffee with fancy creamer if it’s morning, a fresh and juicy tonic spritzer if it’s midday, or a nice glass of wine or fun cocktail if it’s evening. Then I put on either one of my two aforementioned favorite shows or some food TV (factual or fictional, “The French Chef” or “The Great British Baking Show” or “The Bear”). And then I sip and flip through the magazines and relax.
What day would you relive again and again if you could?
Apparently it was March 13, 2019. I googled “Bomb Cyclone Denver” to find that date. My now-husband lived in this townhouse full of our friends and Dorito-crumb-covered carpet with these big squishy couches that were softer than pillows and, if you were adventurous enough to reach your hand into the cracks, yielded all kinds of goodies from decrepit popcorn pieces to coupons for our local Chinese place called “$1.35 a Scoop.”
All the guys in our group of friends lived in that townhouse, so all their girlfriends (all of whom are now their wives) spent most of their time there, too.
I lived in an apartment just around the corner from the townhouse, and our Coloradan university, which prided itself on the fact that it hadn’t called a snow day since the 1980s, called a snow day the night before. A “bomb cyclone,” the scientific definition of which is “a storm in which pressure drops in the low-pressure mass by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours” and the intelligible definition of which is “a big ass blizzard,” was set to roll through Denver.
All the girlfriends made their way to the townhouse as early as they could muster (like 7am if memory serves), bringing with us whatever pantry items we thought to grab, and we all hunkered down in the townhouse together, making massive pots of spaghetti and vats of hot chocolate, playing cards and board games and lighting candles when the power went out, talking over movies when the power was on. It’s one of my fondest memories of college. I’d relive that day again and again.
When did you feel the most loved in your life?
The morning my novella, No Regrets, was first published, I woke up and walked out into my kitchen to see my husband standing there with a fully baked and decorated cake. He’d snuck out of bed at 3 am to make that for me. And it made the most simultaneously delicious and kind of nauseating breakfast of my life.
For more Juliana, you can follow her on Instagram, check out her website, or subscribe to her Substack
.Seven Things I Have Loved Since Last We Spoke!
1. Daylight! Sunshine! That dizzy feeling of hope that comes with spring nearing. It makes me think of the lines Death Cab sang oh-so-many years ago, “God bless the daylight, the sugary smell of springtime, remembering when you were mine in a still suburban town.”
2. I found out that there was a statewide library card I was eligible for (in addition to my local one that uses Libby) that gives me access to Hoopla and it’s incredible!
3. This young man developing a soap that can help treat skin cancer.
4. I won Best Author in WV Living’s Best of WV contest which was a dream come true and in large part due to many of you, so thank you for voting!
5. I haven’t seen Dune 2 yet, but witnessing the internet experience it and have the reaction to it that they have has been surprising and weirdly gratifying? If you had told teenage me that the Dune books would make a good blockbuster, I don’t know that I would’ve believed it for the same reasons many have already named, but the response has been very exciting to me and I’m really looking forward to seeing it for myself! I’m also hopeful we’ll see Dune Messiah get the go-ahead soon so that Villeneuve can complete his tale.
6. There were new Bluey episodes, which is always a highlight of the year in our family, and then Film Crit Hulk – one of my absolute favorite writers on the planet – wrote about the series. Reader, I SHRIEKED with delight when I saw this in my inbox. “Yes, BLUEY Is As Good As BREAKING BAD” is an irresistible title for me.
7. March Meowness at the library! A Massachusetts library is allowing patrons to pay off fines with pictures of their cat. This is the future I want to live in. <3
I hope you’ve enjoyed this edition of Peachy Keen! I promise it won’t be long before another one makes its way into your inbox.
Have a beautiful day, friends!
<3
Tara
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This was exactly the joy infusion my increasingly nihilistic soul needed. Thank you!