ashley elizabeth miller

Manhattan – 10:00 a.m.

As I read about the corrupt nature of capitalism from a how-to book procured from an n+1 book fair in Green Point, Brooklyn, I listened to the excitement of shouts echoing up my fifth-floor walk-up’s spiraling, sad, cement staircase. Was the staircase sad, or was I? 

It was New Year’s Eve, that is, last night. Young adults rivaling my 24-year-old age sipped champagne, flirted among friends, danced, laughed, and sang while I sat and read about the history and potential for a progressive uprising (fueled by the labor movement, but that’s for another post). The point is, I was reading in my living room, stoned, alone, but notably happy, while others my age were out celebrating the start of a promising new year. Is there something wrong with me? 

I moved to New York at the end of August, five months ago, to begin my graduate career at Columbia University’s School of Journalism. I’m taking advantage of my off-time to expand my mind. What does that mean? Read. Read. Read.

My yoga friend, Stephanie Schwartz, who teaches on 77th and Amsterdam, tossed me a cliché: How do you want to set the tone for 2024?

I know my noisy neighbors are nursing hangovers this morning. Me? I woke to more reading, but a new text this time. I finished Confronting Capitalism last night; spoiler alert, we’re doomed.

Today’s morning mag included a feature on life in Russia amid the ongoing economic sanctions from Harper’s Magazine by Mario G. Mian, titled “Behind The New Iron Curtain” and a fascinating find, also in the January Harper’s roll-out: a first-person reflection of the life lived by Dr. Andrew Weil, a man who testified for marijuana safety after producing a landmark study on the drug’s nominal effects on the human psyche in 1968, titled, “Saturn Returns.”