Well, well, well, if it isn't April! The month when we must prepare to deploy either shorts or mittens at a moment's notice, and when brutal frosts threaten our freshly-bloomed lilacs while we slumber. Spring and winter, life and death—April closes its talons around the great dichotomies of existence.

Might as well read something good in the meantime!

What I'm reading

What If?, Randall Munroe

If you've always thought science education would benefit from a bit less memorization and a bit more nuclear fission, you'd enjoy What If? It's an insane collection of science questions asked by internet yahoos and answered by Randall Munroe, a former NASA physicist. They range from the physical (What would happen if you threw a baseball at the speed of light?) to the chemical (What would happen if you made a real-life periodic table?) to the astronomical (What would happen if we made a planet out of moles?). Beautifully, the answer is nearly always the same: everyone would die. But learning precisely how makes for some of the most entertaining reading I've done all year.

Also, ALSO, should you have a firm grip on your early '90s heart, the audiobook is read by Wil Wheaton. You're welcome.

Boyfriend Material, Alexis Hall

Unlike some recent hard-core romance books with misleading cartoon jacket art (it's a whole thing and yes, it's on purpose), Boyfriend Material is one hundred percent deserving of that bright rom-com cover. It's hilarious, it's British, and it's CUTE. Luc and Oliver are fake dating for the sake of their public images—as you do—and they may or may not fall in actual love in the process. (...Okay they DO.) This is an addictive, joyful read and frankly I wouldn't trust anyone who doesn't like it.

What I'm watching

The Super Mario Bros Movie

Is Super Mario Bros a great movie? No. Is it a good movie, Chris Pratt notwithstanding? Ehh...still no. But is it a satisfying movie, particularly for those of us who have frittered away many of the best years of our lives in the Nintendo universe? Unqualified yes. You will see Donkey Kong throwing barrels and Mario jumping on brick platforms. There's side-scrolling and there are toads. Also, considering it's made a bajillion dollars, Super Mario Bros might get us a Zelda movie—and THAT would be a true red mushroom for humankind.

What I'm listening to

Wiser Than Me, Lemonada

I could be obsessed with Julia Louis-Dreyfus's new podcast, Wiser Than Me, in which she interviews, as she says, "old ladies with wisdom from the front lines." There are only three episodes so far, featuring Fran Lebowitz, Isabel Allende, and Jane Fonda, but that gave me plenty of time to listen slack-jawed with gratitude. The raison d'être for this podcast? "By ignoring older women, we're missing the wisdom of half the population," Julia says. Judging by the treasure trove she's amassed so far, I'd say she's exactly right.

What I'm thinking about

I'm thinking about exercise and dopamine addiction. Specifically, I'm wondering how it is that while my phone can compel me to tap its screen every four minutes like a socially-bereft chimpanzee, my Peloton is lucky to be used as a drying rack.

Clearly, we have the technology to make people do things. Checking Instagram at stoplights wasn't my idea, and I might even stop doing it were such a thing under my control. But it isn't. So why can't someone take away my power to not exercise? Why can't there be a hedonic treadmill for the ACTUAL treadmill?

Peloton bills itself this way, of course. It has the answer, the one you've never, ever thought of before: home fitness classes. They will cure you, they say, because exercising with the image of someone more attractive than you—someone who is sweating less than you, smiling more than you, and calling you 'fam' more than any human who knows you—is supposed to be irresistible.

It isn't.

I don't want to be on my Peloton any more than I want to be doing anything else I don't like. That's not my fault. That's a failure of modern behavioral science.

Peloton is kind of on the right track with Lanebreak, I suppose, which turns your workout into a MarioKart time trial. It does make the exercise itself more tolerable—although it could do with fifty percent more banana peels, in my opinion—but it still doesn't give me the dopamine shakes when I walk away like my phone does.

Is there not money to be made here? Get me addicted to exercise, corporate America! You have the model already—just slap a little red notification symbol on my Peloton and threaten my sense of social inclusion if I quit. Couldn't we add some intermittent rewards? Or some cocaine?? What is science even FOR?

Writing updates

I'm still gathering the necessary software and wherewithal, but recently I decided I want to make my blog available in audio format. A podcast, sort of, only without the co-hosts, chummy banter, or ads for high-end loungewear. A blogcast.

It has come to my attention that some of you are busy. You need to read while doing other things with your hands, such as stirring risotto or hammering sheet metal. Others of you are new and weren't around for the blog in its original recipe. So I'm going to record all my posts, even the WAY back ones, and release them this summer. Just like Taylor Swift! Only without the intellectual property rights thing.

Otherwise, I'm still working on the rom-com novel. It's a delight. To make it better, I'm trying to read a ton in the romantic comedy genre, which, like all genres, has wild variations in quality. If you've read any really good ones lately, please send them my way. And if you've read any really bad ones lately, especially bad ones featuring gruff but loveable British leads or small-town pastry chefs, please send them my way discreetly.

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If you read this far, I don't believe you. Reply to this email. You can include a cat GIF or something. It doesn't matter. None of you are doing it. I can say whatever I want here without consequence.

I'm going to steal the Declaration of Independence.

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