Caught In My Web 🕸️
Things I am currently reading/watching/contemplating #30
As the wildness and farrago of my youth dissipate into the full-throttle of adulthood, it’s been replaced by righteous rage and fuck this shit o’clockness.
The plangent whimper of past regrets and ancient longings has gone silent. This weightlessness feels like a secret weapon, and with this widened capacity, I’m looking around at America like…Damn Bish, you live like this?1 Which most of us with moral fiber and a beating heart feel in this unhinged time of 2025.
I could write about how they have stretched us so thin and stripped us of our sense of agency that a large majority of people in this country don’t have the energy to fight what is happening. (My French friends are constantly wondering why we are not burning shit down, refusing to work, and taking to the streets. That is a whole other post.) You can’t think about next week when you’re hungry today. I could talk about how colonization and capitalism isolate us and snuff out any sense of community care and feeling of responsibility towards our fellow humans. How this ghastly attitude of, Well, it doesn’t affect me, so why should I care? is precisely what they want you to feel because it buys them more time until they do it to you.
How your need to feel better than your fellow neighbors is the lowest, grimiest parts of this society, and every time you participate in it, you are eating shit sandwiches and communicating, Please sir, can I have some more? BARF. I am begging you to stop playing their nefarious game of internal scarcity and insecurity.
But…I think my subscribers are already aware of this, and if not, I’ve got some books for you to read.
There are days when Joe comes home and asks me how my day went and I’m over here like:
BECAUSE WHAT IS LIFE RIGHT NOW?
I kid. I know a lot, which is why I feel this way.
What I am absolutely sure of is that I’m going to have a good time no matter what may come and how much I have to fight against it. I’m going to keep laughing no matter what. Humor has carried me through the most arduous parts of my life, and I suspect that as we have entered an especially precarious moment in time, humor will continue to see me through to the other side. I’m going to keep loving my people so very hard. I’m going to keep creating, keep having family dance parties, and ride with America (meaning I’m not leaving the country) til the wheels fall off... then be there to put them back on.
I’m going to keep fighting the good fight. Keep using my voice and my vote, keep fighting racism, xenophobia, and all the other hateful ish the dullards try to perpetuate.
There is no other option for me.
Here is this week’s Caught In My Web 🕸️:
🕸️ TOWANDA 2.0.
Joe and I have been taking evening bike rides by the ocean every night. The cool salty air blowing against me as I speed down the boardwalk feels like a meditation on bliss. I’m a staunch believer that it is of the utmost importance to do things daily that inspire gratitude, and these bike rides, accompanied by the soundtrack of crashing waves, are the kind of simple pleasure that keeps the main thing, the main thing. It transports me back to my childhood with Towanda, and I can’t believe it took me so long to hop on a bike again. If you’re contemplating getting back on wheels this summer, whether it’s a skateboard, roller skates, or a bike, this is your sign to DO IT!
My beautiful badass friend
has been biking for years (She RIPS!), and I'm constantly inspired by her posts and stories on Instagram. I recently got my first serious mountain bike as an adult and had to share the news with her. She responded with, "Cycling is freedom and smiling like a giddy kid again." No truer words!!🕸️ Next on the reading list is The Easy Life by Marguerite Duras for book club. One of my most beloved authors! The Lover, which has the best book cover of all time, and The Malady of Death are favorites. I’m really looking forward to this one.
I first discovered Duras at the age of 15 when I saw the film adaptation of The Lover and read the book immediately afterward. Then, of course, I researched her life and became even more fascinated by her work. The clean, cutting lines! The introspection! Swoon!
🕸️ VT Cosmetics Reedle Shot 100. I wrote that I was testing this out in my last post. Everyone I know with head-turning skin uses this product, and now, I fully get it. After a week of using it and staring in awe at my skin in the morning, I am officially recommending this with my complete seal of approval. I’m also a little bit miffed that I waited so long to try it. I use this in the evenings on the nights I don’t use tretinoin (2-3 times a week). Please be aware that it does feel very prickly on your skin, so you don’t want to rub it in. Patting your essence and serums into your skin is the way to go with this product. DO NOT GO NEAR YOUR EYES or LIPS. My skin has never looked better! Ahhhh!!!!
🕸️
‘s Tiny Store has theee most adorable stickers and my only complaint is that it’s based in Australia and the shipping costs are painful. She’s a significant reason why junk journaling has become so popular lately. The cute products she creates are irresistible to stationery lovers like me. I managed to snag her thiccc sticker book through preorder that recently sold out in one minute, and it’s finally on a plane crossing the ocean on its way to me. JOYFUL JOYFUL! If you’re in NYC, Greenwich Letterpress sells Martina’s stickers in store and they also have an online shop but the selection is limited.Haricot Vert and Paper Haunt are my other fav shops for fun stickers and stationery.
🕸️ We look forward to The Gilded Age every week in this house. Unrequited love! Arranged marriages! Séances! Train Daddy! The best part of the show is Joe’s commentary. My favorite quote last week was: This bitch pre-broke the handle! She is diabolical! 😂
I loved this interview with Taissa Farmiga. I, too, would have loved a wedding day showdown with Bertha! This one is also great: How The Gilded Age Pulled Off the Wedding of the 19th Century. Hundreds of tailors, thousands of flowers, and one very unhappy bride.
Be warned, you might fall down a deep rabbit hole of heiresses and their doomed marriages. I was 8 links deep on wiki reading about Gladys Deacon, who became Gladys Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, which led me to the former Duchess of Marlborough, Consuelo Vanderbilt’s second marriage to Jacques Balsan (Coco Chanel’s former lover Etienne Balsan’s little brother). It was love at first sight for Jacques when he first met teenage Consuelo at 17, but they didn’t wed until she was 44—a happier union that lasted over 30 years. WHY DO I KNOW THIS?! 🫠
🕸️ Speaking of the Gilded Age… The Waldorf Astoria, which closed in 2017 for renovations, is now open, featuring 375 hotel suites and 372 condos, replacing the original 1,400 hotel rooms. Described as the New Yorkiest of New York’s million buildings, the reno architects are said to have transformed 96 percent of it. Cole Porter’s piano now sits in the lobby, and yes, visitors can play it, GENTLY!
🕸️ ‘Practical Magic 2’: Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing Set to Return! Hitting theaters September 18th, 2026! 😍 Production is underway and the confirmed cast is below. Lee Pace!!!! Crossing my fingers it isn’t terrible.
🕸️ IT: Welcome to Derry coming to HBO Max in October. Set 27 years before the events of IT, Bill Skarsgard returns as Pennywise for 9 episodes of squealing horror. As always, counting the days to fall/espooky season. 66 more to go. Hang in there, y’all.
🕸️ Mon Roi is a French film that follows the passionate and dysfunctional courtship and marriage of Tony and Georgio. Vincent Cassel’s performance of a forty-something fuck boi is exceptional. He is infuriating. Tony’s infatuation with Georgio is heartbreaking. I first watched this in 2016 when I was going through my own love woes, and it felt cathartic. Grab some snacks, some drinks, and be prepared to yell at the screen.
🕸️ The second season of The Buccaneers has been full of creamy cornball fluff and I look forward to every Wednesday when a new episode drops. It is so ridiculous and everything I need to momentarily forget the current state of the world.
What Has Been Caught In Your Web 🕸️This Week?
🕷️ Thank you for reading JENOVIA’S WEB. Restack on Notes, leave a comment, or hit the heart button if you enjoyed this post. I love hearing from you! 🕸️
Love always,
Jenovia
I was once at a silent yoga retreat with Dianne Wiest, only I couldn’t place her name all weekend and I couldn’t ask anyone because speaking was verboten and it drove me BATTY. I finally cozied up to a woman I could tell was dying to break her silence, so I nodded in DW’s direction and she whispered her name to me. This, after two days of texting Baldy descriptions of DW to see if he could magically guess who it was, to no avail. It was super distracting, but no regrets 🤭
Ok, I’m returning to this thread to report that I just got my Reedle Shot 100 in and tried it last night! I love your recommendations. I didn’t feel any tingling at all though…and I was kind of hoping I would. :) I don’t have sensitive skin so maybe I should try the higher concentrations? And what do you think about using retinol with it? Or better to alternate nights? You’ve become my go-to skincare expert Jenovia, I hope you don’t mind the questions!