Hi friends. Beau here with your weekly email!

Los Angeles was absolutely incredible and beautiful and I’m still full from all of the damn food we ate and now I miss all of our LA friends omg :( …Before I slip into a post-vacation depression spiral, I’ll just direct you to the Los Angeles blog post to read all about the fun things we did and ate.

Because there’s more stuff to talk about! We wrapped up our modern colorful living room design and so far no one has yelled at us for having a yellow sofa. We love how cozy the space is, and it’s our new favorite place to spend our evenings. You can read about all that and see a whole bunch of photos right here.

But, we don’t have too much time to enjoy the space right now because we’re headed to New Orleans for a staycation during Tales of the Cocktail this weekend with HotelTonight! Tales of the Cocktail is a ginormous celebration/convention of cocktail things, and restaurant and bar people from all over the world come to town to make drinks and drink drinks. We’re so excited to drink everything! Well, not everything. But a couple of things for sure! Follow along on our Instagram stories and egg us on!

*takes a deep breath*

OK and we just found out that we’re going to Berlin Pride NEXT WEEK. It’ll be our first time in Europe! We’ll be spending the end of July and first part of August in Berlin and then (we think) Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. I can’t believe we’re literally trying to book all this just a week in advance but everything in our lives happens this way so let’s get ON IT. Send your recs for any of those cities!

Maybe it doesn’t sound like it but we are SUPER overwhelmed with everything going on and also I’m v excited to eat a big pretzel and so anyway yay let’s see how the next three weeks shake out!

Weekly Reading:

First: Have you ever gone on a date just for the free meal? Apparently that’s a thing? I find myself shaking my head while also, sadly, kind of wanting free steak? Anyway if Matt ever leaves me I’m going on a dinner date every night for free din (kidding!?). When One Person on a Date is Just There for the Free Food (The Atlantic)

And then: Does anyone else get anxiety about how much work they haven’t done? Like during a travel day? Or when you get sick? Or just when you feel bleh and can’t get yourself to do all the things you need to do? I’ve never really worked a normal *cough* real *cough* job, so all of the stuff I’ve done since graduating undergrad has been technically on a freelance basis and has had a pretty clear, “you do this so that you can eat” translation that has kept me motivated. I think if I ever do end up working in an office setting for someone else where a check is a promise, I may have issues with motivation because I’m terrible at doing things I don’t actually want to do. I Have No Motivation to do My Job (The Cut) is an interesting read and there’s also some great advice on getting out of a work rut.

But also: The idea of solitary confinement is horrifying. While activist groups work to get it classified as a form of modern day torture, over 80,000 people in the U.S. are currently in solitary confinement—often being completely alone for 22+ hours a day. “Photo Requests from Solitary” is a volunteer organization that takes photo requests from inmates for something they’d like to see and then a volunteer is assigned to make it happen. It’s beautiful and sad and you can read more about the program in What Do People In Solitary Confinement Want To See? (The New Yorker)

Food stuff: Bon Appetit has a new column on etiquette called “Is It Ever OK…?” in which they answer etiquette questions from people who were apparently raised by wolves. I’m kidding, etiquette can be a weird, classist, and hard thing to navigate but… NO second samples at the farmers’ market are NOT a thing!!! Like, yes I get wanting more but sheesh no obvi it’s uncool why even ask. Yes I may still do it stealthily, though. Is It Ever Okay...To Touch All the Tomatoes at the Farmers’ Market? (Bon Appetit)

Finally: As much as I’ve enjoyed seeing everyone I follow post truly horrifying photos of themselves made “old” with FaceApp, you should probs not use it! I’m really not one to care about privacy, because I’ve signed all that away to social media, but the app has weirdly aggressive ownership of all of your content and it’s kind of creepy. Viral App FaceApp Now Owns Access To More Than 150 Million People's Faces And Names (Forbes)