The Week In Recommendations 3.12.25

Juicy reality goss, skin essentials, surviving the flu, and what to call your reps about this week.

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Our latest subscriber podcast was about “The Traitors” S3 finale. Rich Text is a reader-supported project.

Civic challenge of the week:

Call your reps and ask them to take action on the following:

• The unlawful arrest of Columbia University student activist and green card holder Mahmoud Khalil. A crackdown on free political speech is a chilling sign of a fascist regime.

• President Trump’s escalating trade war with Canada, our closest ally. (He has also expressed a desire to annex Canada, which is beyond-words horrifying.)

Claire has been reading… 📖

Even less than usual, because it was my turn to have the flu this week! Perhaps I summoned it by writing about how much I love vaccines and detest illness in this space last week. Fortunately everyone else in my house has, to date, escaped infection. All I have read are many Bluesky posts about how bad everything was while I was bedridden, and how bad everything remains. Back to calling my senators and representative!

Emma has been reading… 📖

To be perfectly honest, my brain has been short-circuiting every time I try to read this week. I’m struggling with the weight of what’s going on in our country — you know, the whole actively descending into fascism thing — and have been pretty much constantly on the verge of a panic attack. When there is so much to truly be terrified of, it’s hard to self-soothe, even though I know that my position of relative privilege means that I am currently insulated from the worst of the Trump administration’s policies thus far. All this to say that when I go to read a book, I basically immediately start to doze off. I haven’t even been able to finish my dragon smut book which I started in January. 😩😩😩

Claire has been watching… 📺

A motley assortment of lurid docuseries and mindless sitcoms, once I had recovered enough to look at a screen. I finally watched “Scamanda” and “Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke.” Both were shocking, but “Devil in the Family” chilled me to the bone. The horrific details of the Ruby Franke case have been out there for a while, but I had never paid close attention to the story. The show takes its time to introduce you to Ruby, the family, and their cheery YouTube channel 8Passengers before slowly uncovering the escalating emotional and physical abuse of the Franke kids.

I also let the rest of the Kate Hudson vehicle “Running Point” wash over me as I lay shivering feebly under three blankets. It may just be the influenza talking (it’s not) but I believe the uneven first episode was the high point for the show’s comedy, pacing, and ideas. The rest of the season is a drag, stuffed with clichés, oh-so-convenient plot twists, poorly timed punchlines, and an extended plotline in which Hudson’s 19-year-old half-brother adorably and innocently gives chlamydia to half the groupies in a five-mile radius of the stadium.

Emma has been watching… 📺

There’s so much television on right now, and I feel like I’ve been watching it all. “Love Is Blind”! (Which we’ve been covering over on Love To See It.) “The Bachelor” (Ditto.) “White Lotus”! “Severance”! “Summer House”! Inject it all straight into my veins and give me a few blissful moments of dissociation. “Summer House” has proven to be an especially good distraction. I’m loving seeing Paige Desorbo and Lindsay Hubbard’s friendship bloom.

Photo Credit: Kareem Black for Bravo/Canva

I also recently received the screeners for the fifth and final season of “You,” and I truly CANNOT. FUCKING. WAIT. Joe Goldberg seems like child’s play scary compared to the men currently running the country, so should be a nice little cozy escape!

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

Nothing except Greg fighting for his life with the two kids in the other room! At the depths of my illness, I could only lie completely still for hours at a time; even listening to a podcast or music was unbearable. (The flu, folks! It’s one hell of a virus.)

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

The Reality Receipts podcast! Two TikTok/IG reality news personalities, Reality Ashley and Storytime With Rikki, started a podcast and it’s so much fun! They report on a lot of gossip and rumors in addition to their recaps and analysis, and I appreciate that they both value doing some real reporting. They are always explicit about what they have heard or seen to back up information, and if something is truly just a rumor, they will also be explicit about that. These two have been my go-tos for “Love Is Blind” goss for awhile, so it’s fun to see them team up for some more long-form chats!

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

Nothing! And it’s not just the laptop obliterating my discretionary funds this month – it is, in what may be a first for me, a near-complete lack of desire. The state of the country is just too heavy right now; it all feels meaningless. My lost desire to buy dresses and sweaters reminds me of my lost appetite after breakups or deaths in the family. On some subconscious level, my body doesn’t see the point of enjoying the present or planning for a future. I’ve tried to abstain from buying clothes for a while in the past, and I have always failed. I suppose all it took was the collapse of democracy. I’m sure the urge will return – my appetite always does, once the initial shock of grief has passed – but for now I’m buying nothing.

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

I refilled my most expensive — and unfortunately most worth it — skin care product after shaking quite literally every single drop from the bottle: Dr. Diamond’s Metacine InstaFacial Plasma. I went a few weeks without it after my plasma ran out and I noticed a difference in my skin quality (in a bad way) just within that time. So I bit the bullet and ordered a refill. I’ve simplified my skin care routine down to just a few steps, so it feels worth it to me to invest in products that I know work for my skin. Currently, that’s this plasma serum and my CurrentBody Red Light Mask. (Code EMMAGRAY still works for 10% off the mask.)

Claire has been making… 🧶

Whatever tempts my stomach as my body works through the lingering post-flu nausea — ginger tea, plain frozen waffles, scoops of vanilla ice cream. Greg has shouldered family dinner since I got sick. (Actually, he shouldered everything for about three days while I lay in bed looking, as he said, like a black-and-white photo of myself.) Last night he made this super quick and tasty shrimp fried rice, which three of us devoured. The preschooler took a bite and demanded a peanut butter sandwich instead, but what else is new?

Emma has been making… 🧶

So I did make the Harissa Chicken recipe that I said I wanted to test in last week’s newsletter. And it was mostly a success! It was super easy, and I threw the chicken thighs into the marinate for a few hours before putting them in the oven. The veggies crisped up really nicely, especially the fingerling potatoes that I used, and it made more than enough for dinner for two. The one change I would make is that there was not nearly enough salt on the chicken. So when I make the recipe again, I’d add salt to the harissa paste.

---

If you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack!

Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe • Request a free subscription