The Sunday Digest 145
"I've found more clouds of gray than any Russian play could guarantee."
Welcome to The Sunday Digest — a free Sunday newsletter featuring long (and some short) reads, original columns, things I’ve saved over the last week, relaxing playlists, episodes releases, exclusive product drops, and more. Yes, you can reply to this email. I’d love to hear from you.
Sale › Sunday Scaries Scented Candles
Some Sunday news! A few of our classic Scaries scents have gone on-sale over the last week. Through Vellabox, each of the following candles are currently discounted:
Sunday Scaries (8-ounce) — Scent Notes: Sage, Orange, Grapefruit, Lavender, Oakmoss, Amber, Tonka Bean, Ozone, Citrus, Sandalwood, Benzoin, Amber, Dark Musk, Cedar, and Powder — Shop Here
Panic Room (8-ounce) — Scent Notes: Powder, Amaretto, Tonka, Balsam, Rum, Light Musk, Oud, Citrus, Sea Salt, Ozone, Plum, Cardamom, Amber, and Dark Musk — Shop Here
Two-Day Hangover (8-ounce) — Scent Notes: Bergamot, Mandarin, Thyme, Jasmine, Ginger, White Tea, Chrysanthemum, Pine, Eucalyptus, Rosemary, Green Floral, Sage, and Cedar — Shop Here
We’re clearing out some of these candles to make room for some new, updated candles later this fall. So yes, it may be your last opportunity to buy them for a while.
Sunday Read › The Elegance of Digital Disappearance
by Janu for Miss Typed
One of the first columns I ever wrote for the original Sunday Scaries blog was about the time I drunkenly fell in the water leaving a brew fest and went without a phone for the next three weeks. Simply put, it was one of the more freeing times I’ve had in my adult life.
While I did communicate with people through iMessage on my iPad, I clearly was not bringing it out in public with me. Instead, I found myself doing things the old fashioned way: showing up and hoping everyone else showed up as well. At that time in my life, no one was as addicted to social media as they are now. If anything, going back to that time feels like more of a pipe dream than ever.
But through this week’s Sunday Read, I’m realizing that maybe it’s not the worst idea. Here’s an excerpt:
Without social media, I became an enigma, but I also became inconvenient. People forgot to invite me to things because the invite was sent via Instagram group chat, an app I no longer had. Friends stopped reaching out because I was no longer passively present in their feeds. There were no casual “saw your status or post, let’s catch up” messages, because there were no posts to see. The world, I realized, is built on passive connection, on the low-effort maintenance of relationships through shared content, mutual voyeurism, and the occasional emoji reaction. Without that, you become a ghost, haunting the edges of people’s lives but never quite materializing.
I spent weeks like this, existing in my own private reality, and it did something strange to my sense of time. Without the constant influx of updates like what everyone was doing, wearing, eating, thinking, I started to lose track of what was considered current. Trends that had once felt urgent, necessary to participate in, now passed me by unnoticed. I didn’t know which micro-celebrity was being canceled, what niche aesthetic had overtaken TikTok, what manufactured discourse was dominating Twitter/X that week. And none of it mattered. Without it, life continued, undisturbed.
Read in full here.
The Sunday Haiku
Wait, where is my phone?
Do I have my credit card?
Nevermind, found them!
New Episode › Retail Therapy 123: Tiny Meals and Fall Lookbooks
GLP-1s are shaping the size of meals at some restaurants, going over some Retail Therapy survey results, a peek at some fall lookbooks (Noah, Howler Brothers, Stussy), Will's favorite Indian restaurants are coming to the states, the ridiculous Prada visors, a new travel hoodie, wishlist items, and more.
Listen to Retail Therapy on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and anywhere else podcasts are found. You can also follow Retail Therapy on Substack.
Things I Saved This Week
My Sunday To-Do List
Leaning into the garden hard today after a lazy week. May even hit the nursery to see what we have going.
If I’m feeling ambitious, I could see myself cleaning out the closet. I did it around this time last year and I desperately need to do an inventory going into the fall months.
There’s a half-off sale at my favorite record store that I may need to sneak by.
Manchester United vs. Arsenal.
Am I about to fill my nighttime Love Island void with some Challenge? Perhaps.
I’ve got a couple scented candles to burn through, specifically one that I’ve been holding on to for far too long: Mad Et Len’s Terre Noir.
Feels like a good day for a BLT, eh?
Have a generational Sunday, everyone.
— Will
“How can I support Sunday Scaries?”
Buy our zine, Scenes of Note.
Listen to Retail Therapy.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Subscribe to all Washed Media Podcasts.
Or, you can simply subscribe here:
I deleted my Instagram in mid-November (because of the *gestures broadly*) and everything that article says about the inconvenience of it rings true, some of it echoes exact thoughts I’ve shared with friends over catch-up lunches. I’ve gotten last minute invites I can’t make because they realized too late I didn’t know, but it feels special when people do remember to take a little extra step to include me when they realize it. I’ve self-selected myself out of the way people currently interact, and so it’s my responsibility to make up for that by being a overly-inquisitive and proactively asking: hey, is there anything going on this week? I’d been nearly 9 months and I’m still building that muscle.