DELIA CAI'S LOVE/HATE LIST (XL EDITION)
Dream Baby Press asked Delia Cai for a list of 20 things she loves and 20 things she hates ❤️⛔
Delia Cai is a New York based writer. She writes the Deez Links newsletter, where she is currently publishing the internet-acclaimed Hate Reads series, where writers anonymously rant about the things they hate. She is also a senior vanities correspondent for Vanity Fair and author of the novel Central Places.
THINGS DELIA CAI LOVES
Eye contact with babies
Remembering my dreams in vivid detail
Bringing my own food to the movie theater (paninis, a slice of pie, a Haagen Dazs single-serve MiniCup...all is possible)
Having imaginary conversations with my older self (she looks and sounds like Sandra Oh)
Laughing so hard you get a little stressed out because of how much your back hurts
Fresh lychees on Canal Street in June
A party that epitomizes the transcendence of belonging
When someone says, "okay, tell me EVERYTHING."
Where pink bleeds into purple
Yu & Me Books, obviously
Hal’s New York Seltzer Water (Black Cherry)
When someone else does all the planning
Brooklyn Bridge Park, especially at dusk
People who aren't afraid to dog-ear pages, break paperback spines or scribble in the margins of books…I know this is literary desecration, but I also think that's love
Getting a whiff of the fenced-off flowering viburnum bush on the corner of Bedford and Clifton
Dedicated long-term journalling routines. I usually do morning pages and a little check-in at night. Then at the end of every month, I go back and reread all the entries, highlight stuff, and make a master list of “best parts of April 2024.” Then I reread that list, which almost always contains at least 30 items, which is how I remind myself that, on average, something amazing literally happens every day.
This perfect song, 言いだせなくて, by Taeko Onuki
Making pesto in a NutriBullet (use almonds, not pine nuts)
My professionally lucrative ability to always invent the most dramatic narrative
THINGS DELIA CAI HATES
When I wash my hands a little too crazily so that I end up accidentally sticking my fingers in the sink's weird dark overflow hole (interesting texture inside, though)
Being doomed with the kind of crippling motion sickness that prevents me from reading on car rides or flights
Massages that are too gentle. BREAK ME DOWN PLEASE.
Mediocre conversationalists
Sitting across from each other at a table (side by side is more conspiratorial)
When a guy thinks he wants to date me, but he actually just wants to be me (sorry!)
My extreme caffeine sensitivity (I literally cannot eat tiramisu after 6pm unless we're going clubbing or something)
The arrogance of Silicon Valley tech bros who code and sell us these cheap wicked substitutes for human connection
Getting fewer than 9 hours of sleep
My extraordinarily bad vision (-8.5 in my left, -9.5 on the right)
Hotel beds. (Sometimes I bring my own little top-sheet and fold it in half, like a taco, to sleep). I know, I’m a freak.
When there's nowhere to sit down at the function
Accidentally inciting “vanish mode” on IG DMs and not knowing how to undo it. Nothing makes me feel more decrepit.
Cooking. Like oh Jesus Christ this again? Forever?
How much I love my monthly cigarette
Flakiness!
Faux intimacy!
When animals look alarmingly jacked. Have you googled “giant river otters” recently?
White text on a black background?? I am not reading that.
My mentally destructive ability to always invent the most dramatic narrative
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