All the Pretty Girls drink Espresso, After Midnight
A Friday Night Likes for hard dancing and soft living
It’s time for another Friday Night Likes - where we play a game of Gratitude Ping Pong™ naming all the free or low-cost highlights of the week. You know, the best things in life.
Rules: One “like” kicks us off, we riff until it gets weird, then bring it back to the original “like” for a full circle TGIF moment.
This week, we begin and end with Espresso and take a detour to Fainting Couches in the middle – but we’ll let you connect the gratitude dots for yourself.
Rachel: I like Espresso. Not the drink, the summer jam of 2024, which has been on a loop in my Spotify playlist for the last few months.
Jamie: I like the drink and the song, and this video of a woman complaining about getting “I’m working late, cuz I’m a singer” stuck in her head. She is me. I am her. We are each other.
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Rachel: I like how clever Sabrina Carpenter is, but also how every single woman in pop music right now is so clever, or at least collaborates with clever writers.
Jamie: Like Taylor and Renee and Billie and Olivia and Megan and Cardi – and my new personal favorite, Chappell.
Rachel: (sings) “I like … what you like …”
Jamie: Like how we like Chappell Roan?
Rachel: Like how we like driving to Chappell Roan?
Jamie: Like how we like cooking to Chappell Roan?
Rachel: Like how we like talking about how much we like Chappell Roan?
Jamie: Like how you texted me the other day saying you wanted to go to a dance party where they played Femininominon, and then I said, I’m going to die if we don’t go to a dance party where they play After Midnight, and then that very same day my #1 DuoLingo "Friends Quest" partner and favorite new LinkedIn connection (Moss) found us a dance party to go to right here in New York where they played both songs within one single hour?!
(DuoLingo champ, Moss, at right)
Rachel: First, I like that there was such a party to go to. Second, I like that the first song the DJ played was Robyn (swoon) after which it ONLY GOT BETTER.
Jamie: I like this adorable DJ from that party.
Rachel: I like dancing to pop music, but I really like dancing to pop music now because it’s bursting with sex-positive queer femme energy that is quite literally healing my traumatized teenage soul.
Jamie: I like leaning into practices like dancing that center the body because our collective minds and hearts are being battered by the news we read every single day.
Rachel: I like how we spent the day traveling to DC for work this week and we took the train which is the most body-friendly way to travel (that’s engine powered). It moves at a pace that is soothing to the body and is basically a visual meditation practice.
Jamie: I like how when we got to DC, we walked or took the subway everywhere and it was a beautiful day and everyone was helpful and kind.
Rachel: Unlike NYC?
Jamie: This is Friday Night LIKES. Not Friday Night Unlikes.
Rachel: Right … I like the DC (Diet Coke) I had on the way back from DC. It was a delicious ice cold fountain soda. I don’t always drink diet soda, but sometimes it's what you gotta drink so you can later turn it into an acronym in your newsletter.
Jamie: I like fountain soda so much I have it on my dating profile. And I really like the Hebrew National hot dog I ate on the Amtrak for dinner at 10:00 PM.
Rachel: I like that trains and hotdogs, and the nation's capital are all very phallic, but we have described them in soft and lovely terms.
Jamie: I like how Jaqueline Novak redefined how we talk about the penis just by breaking down the pronunciation of the word. I can no longer think of a penis without imagining it as a lady on a fainting couch.
(Jacqueline Novak on what appears to be a fainting couch. C/O Refinery 29)
Rachel: I like the idea of a couch that is there just to catch you when you faint. Imagine a world in which, if you were so tired you needed to take a nap, you could just faint on a nearby couch and everyone would look at you and say: Good, that’s why we put that there. Now rest.
Jamie: I like that the couch in my house is kind of like a fainting couch, where I’ve been sitting and resting every morning in an effort to feel less anxious and lower my cortisol levels. In fact, I’ve been doing a few things to lower my cortisol levels like getting more sleep, doing low impact exercise, eating a high protein breakfast and waiting 90 minutes after waking to drink my … espresso.
TGIF!
XOXO, J&R