I love the feeling that a stranger has left something for me to find. Not a physical object per se—I'm not talking about "little free libraries" or random stoop giveaways—but more like the way good art feels. Or a message in some graffiti. Or the above tableau, this poolside garden gnome, which I stumbled upon outside an estate sale a few weeks ago. Clearly someone had taken this gnome and placed it perfectly, deliberately, on the lounge chair. They probably had a chuckle to themselves about this chill dude, and then went about their day. Maybe they thought, "I'm just going to leave this here to amuse someone else, too." I was that someone else. And I was instantly appreciative. 

I thought about this silly scene and the stranger who created it as I consumed the news about the Doomsday Clock reset, and pondered guaranteed environmental destruction, and listened to senators plead for truth and rightness, and discussed that tired old "will a woman ever be president?" question, and read Michelle Goldberg's column about "the future" evoking feelings of dread. The big narrative is awful, the long arc does not seem like it's bending toward progress. But we all still get to decide, in the now, that we want things to be different later. We get to punctuate this doom with smaller acts of hope. We get to choose to do something positive, take incremental actions in the right direction, leave something delightful for future humans to find. 

A life without pain. "The woman has to be better than average. She has to shine. Then she conforms. Then she disappears..." The search for Selena Not Afraid, and what has and hasn't changed for Native women who go missing. A new novel identifies the white appetite for Mexican pain and exploits it. How "weird news" stories monetize misery. You know about Ella Baker, right? Many great stories about quitting things. (If you like "how I walked away from" stories, I hope you listened to Going Through It.) "There is a cancer camaraderie I’ve never felt." On menopause. Tech investors flock to fertility startups. A young woman denies her pregnancy until she's forced to confront the truth. Inside the Border Patrol's Boy Scouts-like program for kids. On raising kids in an era of climate crisis. Conservative states contort themselves to avoid using the words "climate change." Would a 37-year-old woman be where Pete Buttigieg is? Rethink what you know about the invention of the vibrator. How Instagram went from respite to burden, and what 10 years of personal Facebook data reveals. The pros and cons of buying in bulk. A life in online shopping carts. The bizarre art of WikiHow.

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D'Angelo's Voodoo, which is now 20 years old. Hrishikesh Hirway's new podcast about creative partnerships. Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo (founders of one of my favorite shops, the now-shuttered Of a Kind) on their experience with unemployment and inertia.

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The Gentlewoman mini-magazine, aka "a decade of fabulousness—in miniature." It features all of the magazine's cover profiles in a roughly 2x3-inch compendium. I am admittedly biased, as a longtime reader, a friend and fan of visionary editor Penny Martin, and the author of two of the cover profiles included in this tiny publication. But I am just so charmed by this way of commemorating a decade of work! A small good thing from the past to take into the future.