It's Quiet Uptown

I love Uptown Minneapolis. Despite it's misnomer of a name (it's def not Uptown of Downtown tbh), I LOVE Uptown. But not everyone feels the same. The most concerning aspect of this trend is that not all businesses feel the same love as me, and we rely on the business strip in Uptown to give it the vibrance that makes it feel like home for so many people.

Living in Uptown is convenience exemplified. I can walk to Target, Lund's, Cub, and (if I take a long walk) to Whole Foods. I'm walking distance to 8 great coffee options (Black Walnut, Canteen, Dunn Bros, Isles Bun & Coffee, Curioso Coffee Bar, Corner Coffee, Lake and Bryant Cafe, Uncommon Grounds Coffeehouse... the list actually goes on).

My favorite bar and restaurant (Sooki and Mimi) and bookstore (Magers & Quinn) are around the corner from each other. My bank (Chase) is one block from my home.

And yet Uptown is quiet. Businesses are leaving left and right. We recently lost Kitchen Window, Stella's Fish Cafe, Urban Outfitters, CB2 and H&M.

On the other hand, a new era is upon us. Arts and Rec and Curioso Coffee are some of the newcomers who are helping revitalize the business district that we know and love.

I called around to my favorite coffee shops in the blizzard hoping to find one that was open. I finally got lucky with number 5, Curioso. I had only been in once before, because their default milk is oat (for planet saving reasons), and I have a strong preference for almond milk (sorry planet). Despite this setback, I was able to enjoy a delicious skim milk flat white in a total blizzard in my neighborhood.

If that doesn't convince you to give Uptown another try, I don't know what will.

Ps! Curioso now offers almond milk! Big win!

MAGGIE <3

Well shiiiiiiit. Maggie Rogers absolutely destroyed Minneapolis last night.

Some of her best moments were: first, asking all the single people in the crowd to raise their hands and asking us to look around at all of the hot, single people in the crowd. Next, Maggie's "I'm Speaking" moment: when she was expressing heartfelt love for the crowd, this one guy was yelling some compliments at her. She totally called him out and asked him to stop yelling and to listen. She reflected that the world would be a better place if more men took the time to listen. The crowd absolutely lost their shit. And finally, Maggie restarted two separate songs after messing up the lyrics once (or twice). She was so sweet about it, and the crowd just seemed to love her more for it.

My other big takeaway was how much fun Maggie was having. She was living her dream and seemed genuinely elated to be doing it and to have us there with her. I felt very loved and seen by the performer, which is rare. She stuck to her set list most of the time and didn't chat with us too much, but when she did chat it felt meaningful. 13/10 performance.

Dare to Be Different

I remember so clearly walking into Valley View Middle School one day in sixth grade to find two of my friends wearing the same T-shirt. With a strong sense of irony even as a sixth grader, I enjoyed the fact that both of their shirts boasted the phrase "Dare to Be Different" along with a cute turtle. As a sixth grader, I didn't really think deeply about why a cool brand like American Eagle or Hollister would sell a T-shirt proclaiming "Dare to Be Different" to tween girls.

Since that day, I've had a lot of time to think about it. There is something so incredibly alluring about individual free choice. Even in the field of public health, individual interventions are often seen as the way to change societal problems. Worried you are gaining too much weight? Try intermittent fasting or a new gym routine. Worried about mental health during the pandemic? Surely there is an individual therapist who could help you with that. We love individual agency, free choice, the American Dream of self reliance.

But sometimes that breaks down. There are larger systems at play. And by not acknowledging these lager systems and institutions, we are setting ourselves up for failure in our quest for individual change.

One of our most deeply held cultural Western beliefs is the morality of good health (sometimes called Healthism). After all, one contributes more to society when they are in good health. However, our society does not do everything possible to promote the good health of its individuals. A large amount of burden is left to the individual - to find housing, to secure a good food, to secure work, and even to secure healthcare. When one fails to secure these things for oneself, it feels like a personal failure.

In addition, we have visual markers of health and success that we have internalized as a society. At some point, we switched from viewing fat people as those who could afford to eat more to viewing fat people as those who are gluttonous. We view people in large bodies as having made poor individual choices which have reduced their health, and therefore their worth as a member of society. We have extrapolated our belief that good health is morally good and decided that being overweight is morally bad. However, we have not generally stopped to question whether good health is, in fact, tied to being a certain weight.

So, what's the deal? Can I be fat and healthy? Beyond this important question, it's important to recognize that one's worth is not in fact tied to their health. But to answer the question - yes. You can absolutely be fat and healthy. Weight is not a good proxy measure for health. There's a ton of research on this and I won't get into the weeds.

Let's Dare to Be Different and explore the ways in which we think about weight, health and morality. It's more complicated than it seems, but I'm on this journey with you.

Until next time,

Sarah