On Making New Friends

Hi friend,

We began working on this newsletter during the early years of the Covid pandemic, and occasionally we’d receive constructive criticism about our intros being too much of a bummer. Striking the right tone since that time has been hard, we’re not going to lie. Every day brings fresh bad news and scary info. We don’t ignore it all, but rather are trying to stay tuned in without hitting the “despair” or “fury” register over and over.

We’re not the only ones. We took note when big newsletter’er Anne Helen Petersen of Culture Study tried to strike this balance with her piece, “The World Has Always Been on Fire: What Now?” a few weeks ago. “If no one wrote about romance or frivolity or joy or fantasy because times were too dark then we have nothing but despairing, didactic drama,” she says. “Apart from a few seismic events, we live our lives and live our lives and live our lives and keep living them, usually without the promise of glory or recognition.” 

We thought of it again when writer Rachel Miller published this essay about how she’s thinking about politics at the moment. In an attempt to learn about local issues, she decided to choose a “major” and a “minor” to focus on. She’s “majoring” in housing, with a “minor” in street safety. “The idea is that I’m pushing myself to go really deep on those two issues for the next several years (which is how long it takes to get anything done anyway) so that I can be truly effective,” she says. Smart!

While the news will continue to be chaotic, we will continue to be responsible and do things like parent, work, and psych ourselves up for colonoscopies. Such is the life of an adult.

Speaking of personal quests, this week’s feature is about one woman’s volunteering, which brought with it an unexpected perk: deep new friendships. Read on for that, plus a few recommendations for your weekend.

Bye,
Your friends at Gloria

“This is one of the puppies who ate their owner.”

I sent this to the group chat of my closest friends, along with a photo of an impossibly cute bat-eared mutt with what looks like a perpetual frown on his face, a la Grumpy Cat. He is small and light brown and sitting in a kennel next to a soiled blanket.

“They were found in an apartment with a decomposing body and the police are pretty sure they were eating it,” I write. The dogs, and their deceased owner, were in the home for over a week, maybe more, before they were discovered by the NYPD. My friends express various levels of shock, disgust, and concern as my phone dings in succession.

“Whose body was it?”

“Why were they in there?”

“Have you considered therapy for what you see at the shelter?”

I think of how I must come across to these people who have known me for over two decades. A monster. So jaded that I don’t even bat an eye at this story. It’s not that I’m numb, but that I’ve seen and heard much worse. I think: Only my volunteer friends would understand this feeling. 

For the past three years, I have spent every weekend, save for those I’ve been out of town or sick, walking dogs at New York City’s municipal animal shelter. As the city’s only open-intake shelter, that means the dogs tied up in parks, the cats left to die in apartment buildings once their humans moved without them, and the animals rescued from hoarding cases all come through those doors. 

I have renounced a social life on weekends to spend hours with the animals who need to feel hope and some semblance of being a real dog again, if only for 15 to 20 minutes during a leisurely walk or playtime in the yard. Who need the committed volunteers who take photos and videos, and write their bios, so they can make it out alive. The decision has given me immeasurable peace, purpose, and clarity. 

I have also found immense value in the friendships with my fellow volunteers, a group of women mostly in their late twenties through forties, all child-free, mostly if not all by choice, whose love for these dogs either matches or exceeds mine.

We communicate daily about who was adopted and who went on a shelter break for the day and how we should coordinate our schedules so that there are fewer days with no volunteers at all, and if you’re coming in on Friday then I’ll come in on Saturday. We text each other to note who we took to the yard today so if you’re coming in later you can skip them and give someone else who needs it a little time off leash. Sometimes, our collective concern for the minutiae of the lives of creatures who cannot speak our language, and who may not exist the next day or week, makes my eyes well.

If there is one thing I am certain I was not seeking when I began volunteering at age 39, it was new friends. My social life has never been lacking; I am lucky to have a lot of close friends who I see and communicate with regularly, but I was already struggling to maintain these relationships.

I was certain, however, that I wanted to spend a pathologically large amount of time with dogs in need. It turns out, this unexpected network of wonderful women — empathetic, hilarious, sharp, kind, with progressive worldviews — also had intentions that aligned with mine. It has been one of the great joys of my forties, and I've learned so much from each one of them. In this fraught political climate, with a handful of familial and other personal relationships feeling frayed due to opposing beliefs, it is comforting to have these women as one of my constants.

They are teachers, playwrights, epidemiologists. All are friends who I likely would have never made otherwise, were it not for our shared passion for what we do. They are the sole individuals who understand the particular type of grief of losing a shelter dog you’ve gotten to know only through weekly walks, through fetch sessions, through sliding some chews under kennel doors to help mitigate the intensity of the boredom that leads many to deteriorate quickly. They understand that it is not the same type of grief attached to losing one’s own pet. It is somehow even worse. Our own animals are loved. They know what safety and routine feels like. When the time comes to say farewell to any one of them, we’ll do so knowing their world was big and bright and comfortable, with fluffy beds and human feet to end their every night resting upon.

But no one came for these animals. They were not wanted, they spent their final months or weeks in a near-constant state of stress, feeling neither particularly safe nor comfortable. And while we did our best to make their stays a little more joyful, in the end, their fate was beyond our control. This cycle of grief is one of the elements that connects this intergenerational group of volunteers, with varying livelihoods and interests, on a profound level.

These Mary Janes from Rothy’s are a total game-changer. We’ve been wearing ours all over the city, and in terms of walkability, they’re up there with sneakers. They’re incredibly lightweight and breathable, and are actually really cute (and washable!). Impossible, but true. We’re also eyeing these slide-on sandals, and we might also have to get these slingbacks in the mesh fabric and these casual clogs for cooler days. #partner

TO WATCH Middling reviews be damned, we will be watching the new Dakota Johnson romcom Materialists (out today in theaters). In it, she plays a matchmaker torn between two very different men. FYI: Johnson just appeared on Amy Poehler’s podcast and it made for an enjoyable episode.

TO REVISIT Score restaurant specials, beauty treatments, and fitness classes at up to 70 percent off, all updated daily. Groupon curates the city’s hottest offerings so you can spend less time searching and more time enjoying. See deals near you. #partner

TO LISTEN Not to make this entire section about Materialists, but we are enjoying the A24 film’s official soundtrack. There’s a new Japanese Breakfast track, plus music by Cat Power, St. Vincent, The Velvet Underground, and John Prine.

TO GET Classic ‘80s “crazy shirt” brand Gecko Hawaii has reissued its 1987 tee collection, including its thermochromatic color-changing tees (for adults and kids), and we want one. As they say, “Thermochromatic technology has improved dramatically since the 1990s, but most apparel companies don't make it, because they are afraid to take risks, and it is REALLY expensive to make.” The kid color-change tees are $32.95, and the adult ones are $34.95.

Whew, this pelvic-organ prolapse story… • “Day-care-parent small talk, translated.” • Another exciting cancer-detection breakthrough. • Interesting takeaways on how women are recommended on LinkedIn vs men. • The moms trying to prevent their daughters’ early puberty. • This is very sad, please get your mammograms.

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