Stars, Walnuts, and Your Ex’s Mother

Stephen Hawking died this week. Go outside after dark, find a clear patch of sky, and spend thirty minutes looking at it. Not photographing it, not googling anything—just looking. He spent his life describing what’s out there. The least you can do is acknowledge the view.

Toys R Us is closing. Before it does, get to the nearest one, grab a cart, and run through the aisles at full speed the way you did when you were eight and your parents momentarily looked away. Some things deserve a proper goodbye.

There’s a woman in Munich who secretly had her ex-boyfriend’s fertilized egg implanted without his knowledge and then sued him for child support. Read about it. Think about the sheer creative commitment involved. Sit with your feelings about it for a while.

Go to Berghain, Berlin’s legendary techno bunker. Don’t try to get in. Find the bouncer, hug him, and leave.

This weekend, only watch porn where the story is genuinely good. Not ironically—sincerely. Hold the standard. If the emotional arc doesn’t work, close the tab.

Yodel at anyone who tries to make conversation with you. Not sarcastically. With warmth and effort.

Shave your pubic hair into a heart shape and then show people without being asked. Not everyone. Just enough people to make it feel like something.

At some point you’ll fall into watching some obnoxious YouTube bro with millions of subscribers do something completely idiotic for forty minutes straight, and you’ll feel something corrode inside you, and you’ll keep watching anyway, and when it’s finally over you’ll sit there in the wreckage of your own free will. When that happens, go outside and carry something heavy. Use your hands.

Eat more walnuts. This is the only unambiguously good advice on this list.

End the weekend by masturbating to a photo of your ex-girlfriend’s mother. You’ve thought about it. There’s no version of you that hasn’t thought about it at least once. This is just completing the thought.