i don't know how but i'm taller

no, i'm not afraid of hard work/i get everything i want

we have survived* february**. here are a few things that made life worth living this month:

• realizing i had not taken a day off yet this year and booking two days off. during one of these days i went to world spa in brooklyn with chase, who got laid off a few weeks ago (do you run a very early stage digital health startup? do you need a data guy? hit my line please). we went from sauna to plunge pool and back over and over, floated in a 99-degree pool, and dropped our body temperatures in the “snow room” (not an euphemism, there is literally snow falling from the ceiling). when we were done we went to roll-n-roaster, my favorite south brooklyn restaurant experience.

  

• seeing chicago on broadway with larissa, mary and jackie, featuring jinkx monsoon in the role of mama. increasingly unsure about not being a “musical” person, as my recent experiences on broadway (chicago; music man; hamilton) would seem to contradict that narrative.

• remembering i got a costco membership last year and using it to buy chase one of those ginormous $25 birthday cakes costco sells that are so good.

  

• doing valentines day at home. i came over to chase’s after work that day and he answered the door with a martini he had just made me, with japanese vodka and the best martini olives speared on a toothpick he carved himself (better than a bouquet of flowers, imo). we made the most incredible prime rib i bought from prospect butcher, and potatoes with butter and chives, and creamed spinach.

  

• saying goodbye to my favorite brooklyn wine bar, tailfeather. i had my birthday party there in 2019 and 2021 and have spent so many nights having a glass (or a bottle) of orange wine sitting at the horseshoe bar. i brought chase there on our second date in 2020, and amid a torrential downpour we stood at the tall tables in the interior doorway and ate two bar pizzas and drank a bottle of wine. i stopped in on a saturday a few weeks ago to say hi to autumn, tailfeather’s owner, and to chat for a while. i bought a few wine glasses and bottles of leftover wine from her, met some neighborhood friends who had also stopped in to pay tribute to tailfeather, and said farewell to the tailfeather spot one last time. it’s not easy for a bar to feel like home but tailfeather was it for me for four years.

  

• we went to bucks county to celebrate papa mike’s 85th birthday at a restaurant where he insisted on planning the entire night himself, with my family and several of his elderly community (he refers to this neighborhood where he lives as “the asylum”) friends.

  

• we hosted a birthday party for chase and i was so moved by how many of our friends showed up for him. we put candles on the aforementioned costco cake and sang happy birthday and ate pizza from the place across the street.

  

• chase got a membership at my gym and now i have a barbell bench press spotter. i promise to not become one half of a revolting gymshark influencer couple.

• hosted a couple events at work — an engineering mixer for ~40 engineers and about a half dozen of our founders hiring engineer talent, and an event we cohosted with another vc firm, during which one of their partners interviewed one of their portfolio company founders onstage for an audience of 100 founders. a bunch of people were out last week when i was hosting the second event and i was very proud of how effortlessly it came together. i’m pretty new to live event programming and still grappling with all of the logistics involved, but it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of my job.

• on presidents day chase and i got to-go beers at gold star on underhill and walked to my favorite park, mount prospect, and watched the dogs up there playing and fetching and running around. it was unseasonably warm, as much of this month has been, and we sat on a bench and watched the sun set and chase told me that one of his upcoming woodworking projects is making us a dining table, which was the most moving, sweet, romantic gesture i could think of. (i cried a little when he told me, which is just something i do—being moved to tears by kindness. i hope i never stop feeling this way.) someone making you something — a spoon, a pair of salad serving utensils, a bowl, a dining table — as chase does for me is such a pure, tangible statement of care and love for another person. i love him so much and i can’t wait to eat at our table.

  

i’ve been revisiting phoebe bridgers’ 2020 album punisher this month. i first heard garden song in february 2020, when i was feeling claustrophobic and panicked, dealing with feeling unemployable and a looming SLAPP lawsuit and not knowing how much worse things were about to become on a macro level. when i could convince myself to leave my apartment i would listen to a playlist that started with garden song and go for a walk or a slow run up and down eastern parkway. february that year felt interminable, but it did eventually end, and even though things objectively became much worse in the short term, they also became better in the most important ways. if february has felt long and horrible for you, know that things are about to get better, or at least warmer and lighter.

*not me, as i currently have a sinus infection, which is not a huge deal objectively but certainly feels as though i’m on death’s door. my right eye will not stop watering, which somehow feels more debilitating than if both of my eyes were watering.

**almost! close enough.