How Do You Honour and Celebrate Your Friendships On A Regular Basis?

Sunny Side Updates with The Brain is a Noodle || Week 40

Greetings!

Welcome to a new week, and a new newsletter format!

Newer, cleaner, more straightforward, with all of the prompts (daily, weekly or monthly), gathered together in one place under “Active Challenges!”.

This week’s prompt is inspired by a piece that I wrote on Valentine’s Day:

A Day of Celebrating Friendship

Happy Valentine’s Day! Today, I’m celebrating friendship.

medium.com

I had such a rough February with hospitalizations of a mystery pain that was ultimately dismissed as “womanly pain” 👀

And I sincerely only got through it with the support of friends.

Seeing this poem again reminded me that it shouldn’t just be Valentine’s Day or anniversaries, or birthdays that we celebrate our friendships and relationships with others,

which is why this week’s shortform prompt will be a space for us to reflect:

How do you currently honour and celebrate your friendships on a regular basis? Is there more that you want to do? Is there stuff you used to do that you really liked and want to make more of a point of doing?

I’m really curious to hear about what everyone has to say!

Until next week,

Lucy 🍳 EIC of The Brain is a Noodle* Podcast || Twitter || Instagram || Redbubble || Newsletter *This is factually incorrect. Please absolutely do not go out and eat brains.

✍ Active Challenges

July Interview Challenge How to join || #July2021TBINInterview Responses

Weekly Shortform Challenge How to join || Prompt Archive || Responses

This week’s shortform prompt
How do you currently honour and celebrate your friendships on a regular basis? 
Is there more that you want to do? 
Is there stuff you used to do that you really liked and want to make more of a point of doing?

Daily Poetry Challenge Prompt Archive || Responses

🔴 day 1 prompt
🟠 day 2 prompt
🟡 day 3 prompt
🟢 day 4 prompt
🔵 day 5 prompt
🟣 day 6 prompt 
🟤 day 7 prompt

#OngoingAdventure Fiction Series Submit your chapter here || Start reading here

🍜 Piping Hot New(dle) Pieces of the Week

Challenge: *highlight* the ones you bookmarked/ read and make sure everyone gets highlighted at least once! ❤

🧠🍜 [1] Into the Grassy Green by Mark Tulin ‘Green sprawling fairway, like Berber carpet Stretched over a hilly pool table Manicured and given a crew cut’

🧠🍜 [2] My Tattoo Story by Rachella Angel Page ‘I have always loved tattoos and the stories behind them.’

🧠🍜 [3] Imagine This by Crystalclearcandace ‘TW: rape, suicide.’

🧠🍜 [4] The Things Which Are Absent Are As Acceptable as the Things That I Have by Ruchi Thalwal ‘I never thought of tattoos they don’t evoke any feeling It is wonderful if somebody has And amazing even if they are on the shelf’

🧠🍜 [5] Cool Summer by Haider Jamal ‘At night we looked up at the sky. Summer will go in all its flowers, And in the twinkling of an eye,’

🧠🍜 [6] Daffodil by Luke DeLalio ‘Emily Has love crushed you yet Daffodil of a girl?’

🧠🍜 [7] My Cousin Got a Tattoo by Jennifer Dunne ‘My cousin and his fiancee tattooed each other’s names across their stomachs to show their everlasting love. Then, they hopped on his motorcycle and drove to Vegas.’

🧠🍜 [8] The Boring But Still Kinda Lit Story Behind My First Tattoo by Nia Simone McLeod ‘I spent the first paycheck from my first job, at a bagel shop, to get my first tattoo: a semicolon on my wrist. Since learning about the mental health organization Project Semicolon, I wanted it tattooed.’

🧠🍜 [9] My Tattoo & The Meaning Behind by Shivangi Patel ‘I questioned life, existence and purpose ever since I remembered breathing air on this beautiful planet. I was not depressed, I was just very different than my peers.’

🧠🍜 [10] A Long Overdue Poetry Prompt Response by Divina Grey ‘Shivering In the house of clowns and mirrors’

🧠🍜 [11] I Spy Green by Thalia Dunn ‘Green barely shows in the arc of colors, colors of the rainbow hugging the sky. Sky of blue reaches the ground, ground of brown opens to field,’

🧠🍜 [12] My Battle With Chickory Coffee Is NeverEnding by Allison Gaines ‘Don’t come for me, New Orleans. I have to be honest and speak my piece. This isn’t betrayal. I promise. ‘

🧠🍜 [13] Spread the Love That You Have Caged in Your Heart by Ruchi Thalwal ‘A person takes on many roles Even categorize the people, According to their habits, relation, and differences’

🧠🍜 [14] My Whole Life is Consumed by My Menstrual Cycle by Earl Grey Sea ‘My last period was just like a week ago, and I am already feeling the effects of ovulation. I sit on the toilet a little longer. I get more bloated. I get more mood swings.’

🧠🍜 [15] Why Do I Write? by Candy Marie ‘I write because I have to, for pleasure, but I would like to know how to write well, and I feel that to do, so I need to expand my vocabulary and knowledge.’

🧠🍜 [16] To Tattoo — Or Not? by Barbara Dalton ‘I could never understand why someone would feel the need to get tattooed. As a kid, I can remember our neighbour having a whopping one on his upper arm and I was both intrigued and spooked by it. I was brainwashed into thinking only bad people had ink, probably because of the biker gang members who were heavily branded with scary-looking ones.’

🧠🍜 [17] Thoughts About Sleeping by Las siete y más ‘Have you ever heard that we need at least eight hours of sleep every day?’

🧠🍜 [18] You Make My Heart Warm and Happy by Divina Grey ‘Just last week, I was chatting with my schoolmate about her vine and flower tattoo — a tat that started on her left deltoid, traveled up her neck, and stopped behind her left ear.’

🧠🍜 [19] #Ongoing Adventure: Hum for Google by Jennifer McDougall ‘“I don’t know,” Siri chucks back at you. “But you should give up any hopes of being a famous singer.”’

🧠🍜 [20] #Ongoing Adventure: Call Your Friend Reveille Back by Jennifer McDougall ‘“Siri, call Reveille,” you command. Still seeing your home in shades of neon your eyes are gradually returning to normal. The wilted aloe is once again the shade of your neighbor cat’s gifts of furry dead mice. The leftover takeout containers are no longer construction vest orange.’

🧠🍜 [21] I Got a Tattoo But You’ll Never See it by Karen Schwartz ‘When I’m asked if I have a tattoo, I don’t know how to answer.’

🧠🍜 [22] A Cat Woman by Kyomi O'Connor ‘Out of love you’d draw me in my favorite rouge and flamingo’

🧠🍜 [23] Lule by Cameron Sidhe ‘And in this phantasm, flu-dream: the slender hind, oak-bodied elk trumpets out in the foggy elms, soak-mossed and frog-hailed, weeping of their tribulations from the fires of ages, horns scorched by human thunder;’

🧠🍜 [24] The Helper by HerPrivateLife ‘The helper who helps The helper who provides’

🧠🍜 [25] Killer Abs by CARMEN F MICSA ‘Since the pandemic started, my teenage kids and I have used YouTube for our exercise.’

🧠🍜 [26] What We See on Four-Inch Screens Is Only Part of Reality by Evan Wildstein ‘Stories exist before (and after) what you see on the cellphone video. We Internet bystanders have no real idea what preceded or followed.’

🧠🍜 [27] Excessive* by Dr. Fatima Imam ‘Green-eyed monster visits me whenever you spend more time with others.’

🧠🍜 [28] I Thought I Was Moving by America Zed ‘I thought I was moving Stretching out and seeing but I was just frozen in my time.’

🧠🍜 [29] Clutter or Keeper by Niru ‘My hoarded items scream You might need us someday Greedily not allowing space For things I need today.’

🧠🍜 [30] Dear fellow cat lovers, by Karen Schwartz ‘You see, although I already own a cat — a perfect one at that — she’s stopped giving me writing material.’

🧠🍜 [31] More Red Lady by Luke DeLalio ‘I’m too alive to sleep tonight, red lady Been alternating between beer and peaches Ghost stories and The JavaScript Bible The wind has come home to roost in my belfry and there are puppies in my stomach’

🧠🍜 [32] Silence by HerPrivateLife ‘Silence rings in my ears Silence echos through my brain’

🧠🍜 [33] Sleep — The Underrated Healer by CARMEN F MICSA ‘My relationship with sleep has been like a roller coaster ride. I slept between 10 to 12 hours as a teenager till my early 20s, after which I turned into a night owl during my 30s.’

🔊 Voices to Amplify

We don’t have to leave it to the algorithm to suggest our favourite pieces! Here are some of my archived faves!

Holidays- Traditions or Spirit

Analyzing Fact and Feelings

medium.com

The Purpose & Pursuit

Turn your plans into action and give way to the flow

medium.com

What Medium Means To Me

How my expectations and outlook changed regarding the platform

medium.com

Use Miso to Introduce Umami to Your Dishes

One ingredient, three ways

heated.medium.com

Asian Hate Toward Black Bodies Still Exists

Ryan Le-Nguyen Charged in Shooting of 6-Year-Old

medium.com

Thank you to Niru, TC Hails, Paul Douglas, Kaki Okumura, Q U I N T E S S A for writing these pieces!

🧠🍜 Thank you to the Noodle Team!

challenge: pick 3 writers you haven’t met yet and get acquainted with their pieces!

Ps, if any of these links are outdated, please leave a note to let me know!

🚿 parting shower thought

Question: How has your culture influenced what your romantic relationships “should” look like?

The responses on this thread have been so enlightening, from people who don’t really think it impacts their relationships at all, to people who started living different after realizing that they didn’t align with some of the values imposed on them!

What are your thoughts?