You've Got Mail: Future Destinations, Productivity Tricks, and This Year's Reading List
The first mailbag of the year.
Because some questions require far more nuance than others on Instagram, I’ve decided to begin writing responses to certain “AMA” questions on the newsletter. This was written in a stream-of-consciousness style so all typos are there to make sure you’re paying attention. Read all of the mailbags here.
Here are all the questions answered in this week’s mailbag:
“I hate my job and I can’t get a new one. Advice on how to get through it?”
“What’s the ideal way to order a martini that’s not a Gibson?”
“Where are you traveling to in 2026?”
“Do you have any plans for when Sunday Scaries hits 1 million followers?”
“What tricks do you have to stay productive and fresh?”
“What’s currently in your ‘everyday carry’ bag?”
“What’s on your reading list this year?”
“Tell us the most recent random wormhole you went down.”
Word Count: 2,359 (18-minute read)
Here are answers to all of them.
“I hate my job and I can’t get a new one. Advice on how to get through it?”
The year was 2011 and I was living with my parents. I was working a job that largely required little expertise, I felt like I needed to squeeze something more out of my life, and I hadn’t heard back about a job interview in an embarrassing amount of time. Sprinkle in that I was desperately single and probably suffering some seasonal depression? You get the picture.
Work-life balance has always been a trending problem in my life. I come home with baggage, I throw it all over the house, and I let things bother me far more than I should. This was true in the early 2010s and something that still flares up today.
My key? Distractions. Positive distractions. Anything that makes you feel like your head is clear. Anything that takes your brain somewhere distant for even 15 minutes. Anything that leaves you excited to wake up and do the next day.
Before Sunday Scaries, I started several “blogs” that never came to fruition. At that point in my life, I was far more into American sports than I am today. I was also deep into Tumblr, Wordpress, and anywhere else people would share their thoughts. But even just toying around with those things helped me clear my head after a day of work that I’d rather forget.
I’d tinker with the design of the site, I’d write entries, I’d try to figure out ways to get anonymous people to read everything. While I’m not sure entrenching myself in online culture was the healthiest of distractions, it was a distraction nonetheless. When all the roads ended and I found Sunday Scaries, I had already developed all the skills I needed to make it good enough to be sustainable.
Something I often forget is how fortunate I am to work a job that’s completely derived from something I built myself. Without that desperation for distraction, it simply never would’ve happened.
“What’s the ideal way to order a martini that’s not a Gibson?”
I get a lot of martini questions which means I talk a lot about Gibsons. For the uninitiated, a Gibson is the following:
Ingredients
2½ oz gin
½ oz dry vermouth
1–2 cocktail onions (garnish)
Method
Add gin and vermouth to a mixing glass with ice.
Stir until very cold (about 20–30 seconds).
Strain into a chilled coupe or martini glass.
Garnish with the onion(s).
Unfortunately, I’ll well-aware people don’t love onions as much as I do. So here are a couple alternatives:
