<![CDATA[Magpie’s Substack]]>https://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TbEB!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cd56dbf-326a-4fa2-b0bc-7536174fc116_491x647.pngMagpie’s Substackhttps://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.comSubstackMon, 24 Aug 2026 03:29:43 GMT<![CDATA[Things That Improve With Time.]]>https://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/things-that-improve-with-timehttps://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/things-that-improve-with-timeWed, 25 Feb 2026 15:55:48 GMT+Cast-iron skillets

+Opinions (at least, when informed and updated according to intervening experience)

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+Red wine and cognac

+Skill

+The accuracy of our priorities

+Slow-simmer sauces

+Laugh lines

+Scars (physical and emotional — they fade!)

+The good jeans

+Parmesan, kimchi, dry-aged meats, egg nog

+Trees — few things more stately than a mature oak

+Leather watchbands and unvarnished brass (patina!)

+Sense of self

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]]><![CDATA[Mick/Stevie Energy.]]>https://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/mickstevie-energyhttps://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/mickstevie-energyTue, 03 Feb 2026 20:28:43 GMT+Carrying a mug of coffee — no lid — on a walk or in the car

+Not knowing or caring where your phone is

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+Wearing your hair gray

+Being noticeably in love with your partner — demonstrating active interest in them in public, never putting him/her down (rare, gem-like, and rock-and-roll)

+Signing notes with one or two initials

+Being unfazed by the weather (“it’s just a little water”)

+Listening to records

+Wearing clothes that have stories to tell — i.e., authentic old sweatshirts and t-shirts — not ones purchased to look vintage, but real ones, with a hardware store logo or childhood camp on it

+Handling your own brows, waxing, haircuts, hair-dying, etc at home — wow, wow, wow

+“I have a pen somewhere here” [pats clothes; retrieves an old, capless Bic]

+Uniform of a perfect white tee and lived-in jeans

+“What email?”

+Sitting cross-legged or on the floor in places you’d least expect someone to

+Wired headphones

+Tucking a pencil behind the ear (or into a hair updo) — I had a rough-around-the-edges piano teacher who did this and I found it very Mick Jagger

+Willfully luddite with certain technologies (only reads print newspapers; refuses to upgrade phone; etc)

+“I’m good with my hands” energy

+Bends cover of book to the back while reading

+A ballcap tucked into a back pocket

+“Go your own way”

What would you add? What’s your rock tell? (Do we all have a little Stevie/Mick in us?)

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]]><![CDATA[Things I Didn't Know I Needed.]]>https://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/things-i-didnt-know-i-neededhttps://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/things-i-didnt-know-i-neededSun, 01 Feb 2026 19:10:19 GMT+Purse scissors

+A clear no instead of a slow maybe

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+Permission (from myself) to read as I please

+A talisman — less for apotropaic qualities; more to touch when I need to center myself by remembering “I’m alive and I will feel things”

+An extra layer (I’m always cold)

+“A midnight book” on my nightstand for when I can’t sleep

+An open text thread my with my sisters

+The line “Paris loses all its luster without him” from Heart the Lover

+Green instead of concrete outside my bedroom window (this changed me)

+A pocket umbrella

+My dad telling me he’s proud of me (I’m 41, and it still matters)

+A calendar with big stretches of white space

+The new Olivia Dean album

+Connell and Marianne leaving Skype on while they sleep in different countries in Sally Rooney’s Normal People

+A lot of time alone

+Self-forgiveness at the end of the day

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]]><![CDATA[The Sage List.]]>https://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/the-sage-listhttps://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/the-sage-listThu, 15 Jan 2026 14:07:07 GMT+Old, orphaned cords and cables

+The overflow in the linen closet (especially old shower curtains — we don’t even have a shower that asks for a shower curtain in our house — and tattered towels)

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+Makeup I don’t like

+Books I DNF — donate to a little library!

+Clothes that make me feel uncomfortable or unkind to myself

+Any decorative object I no longer like — I’d rather a bare corner than a grimace

+“Shoulds” — trying to avoid this word (anytime I use it, I’m training myself to ask: says who?)

+Tight underwear and mateless socks

+SWAG (and stop accepting it in the first place!)

+A calendar low on white space

+Guilt over silly things; I am the grand maestro of inventing reasons to be guilty for anything I do

+The disillusion that I am in control of how other people will respond to me

+Those shaggy scraps of wrapping paper that are never actually big enough and instead collect dust in my basement (will repurpose in my kids’ craft drawer)

+Memories that bring me agita

+Negative self-talk

+Things that are broken that I haven’t managed to fix in the last year

+Any paper version of something I can scan

+Expired spices, medicine, and skincare

+Grievances from 2025 — let the past belong to the past

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]]><![CDATA[January, Played Adagio.]]>https://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/january-played-adagiohttps://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/january-played-adagioSat, 10 Jan 2026 17:11:42 GMTNo-meeting mornings / going analog until 9 / overnight oats and slow-rise, multi-step baking / “I’ve got nothing but time” energy / lighting an incense stick and watching it burn all the way down / routine practice of la passeggiata (the art of the leisurely evening stroll) / the tea kettle and the crossword puzzle and “don’t let go yet” hugs in the kitchen / afternoon cards the way your grandmother taught you / cocktails at 5; bedtime at 9 / a cheeseboard put out at 4 and cleared sometime later that evening / low-key entertaining, where the point is presence, not production / reading, in big draughts, and in the most comfortable ways possible: by an open window while it rains; by the hearth beneath a mound of blankets / watching anything out the window: the wind, the birds, your children / the sun slowly stretching the days / letting this slow season hold its notes as long as it likes

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]]><![CDATA[Fresh Slates.]]>https://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/fresh-slateshttps://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/fresh-slatesThu, 01 Jan 2026 18:02:01 GMT

  • Page one of a new book

  • Clean sheets on a freshly-made bed

  • Shower after air travel (a true rebirth)

  • Getting your peeling gel nail polished removed

  • A full tank of gas

  • A hair trim

  • Cracking the spine on a new journal

  • Monday mornings and Septembers

  • Ordering something other than “the usual”

  • Putting all the clutter on the drying rack away

  • Realizing something that used to bother you no longer does

  • The way the house feels after Christmas has been put away

  • Real, round forgiveness

  • Returning library books or packages that have been sitting on the kitchen counter

  • The first flame of a new candle in a recently-cleaned room

  • “Results are normal”

  • New pen with strong ink flow

  • Vacuum tracks on the carpet

  • Cracking open a window on a cool day to air out a room

  • January 1st

  • The daybreak realization that you can begin anything today, and with no one’s permission

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    ]]>    <![CDATA[The Legato List. ]]>https://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/the-legato-listhttps://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/the-legato-listSat, 27 Dec 2025 22:02:24 GMT

  • Morning coffee

  • Cursive

  • Exhaling

  • Breathing in general

  • Becoming an expert in yourself

  • Kissing

  • Shampooing your hair (stop rushing! a hot shower is a true joy)

  • A postprandial walk

  • Reading poetry — per Billy Collins: “take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide”)

  • Writing in Sharpie

  • Waking up

  • Responding when angry

  • Walking in the dark (literally and figuratively – i.e., take your time feeling your way through unknowns)

  • Stretching

  • Forming judgements

  • Melting butter

  • Winding down before bed (you can’t park a car going 80 mph)

  • Risotto

  • Aging – what a gift, to do this slowly

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    ]]>    <![CDATA[Coming soon]]>https://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/coming-soonhttps://magpiebyjenshoop.substack.com/p/coming-soonWed, 08 Feb 2023 22:54:11 GMTThis is Magpie’s Substack.

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