April 21, 2020: An upside of staying at home

In conversations with friends, the silver lining of our current reality often comes up, like not being as hyper-scheduled and living more simply. This commentary piece  urges all of us to resist the forces that will try to rush us back to normal and prevent any reflection about the state of the world, and instead (re)orient our lives and our commitments as we wish. 

Last night Steve and I watched a great documentary! "Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened" profiles the original cast of the Stephen Sondheim-Hal Prince musical "Merrily We Roll Along," which flopped on Broadway in 1981 (but has been staged successfully since). The cast, which included Jason Alexander (!!), had expected the show to be their big break, but ultimately had to use the experience in very different ways. (We read about this doc in What to Stream: Forty of the Best Movies on Netflix Right Now.)

We were pretty pumped to up our home coffee game last week by ordering beans from Handlebar Coffee Roasters in Santa Barbara, one of our favorite coffee shops out that way. It's freshly roasted, semi-local, and ships quickly (arrived 4 days later!). I think I'm even happier after typing this.