Attention Inventory: Cardamom pastilles, Freud's granddaughter, rewritten notes

+ new Moon Lists prompt booklet is coming July 1

This month’s list: things that have been accumulating in the background. A record of distractions, inputs, or escapes (depending). The things I notice without meaning to.

Hope you’re all taking care,
LP

1. Books as Signals

A friend told me that reading Loved and Missed ruined her for weeks. Then, separately, a stranger at a wedding said it was the most honest book about motherhood she’d ever read. I’m not a mother, and I wasn’t necessarily wrecked, but I do think there’s something about the echo of two people, completely unrelated, handing you the same title. (It was the first I’d read of Susie Boyt’s writing, who is the great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, and daughter of Lucien. I’d recommend to fans of Tove Jannson’s The Summer Book.)

Other things I read this month that were all good, AND incredibly hard to try to explain at a dinner party: A 2016 Justin Bieber profile that still holds up and remains a work of genius. I liked this (in general For Scale is excellent). Revisiting Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees.

2. Oral Fixations

I once chewed so much gum that I had to get Botox in my jaw to undo the TMJ damage. These delicate cardamom pastilles and soooo-minty-they’re-painful (French!) peppermint lozenges are my current replacements. Trigger warning: I can only find them on Am*z**.

Ahead: a subconsciously gratifying note-taking method; a sneak peek at a new Moon Lists book (coming July 1!); a menu of summer snack-meals for in-between moments; and more...