— GeistHaus

How to eat pizza

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Apr 17, 2026

<figure><img alt="A photo of two books scissoring. The books are laying on a bed of pink styrofoam hearts." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/a8ee1ebd-b063-4f51-989a-ac4b638e3e45.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>I did a photo shoot with the new book and things quickly went south.</figcaption></figure> <hr/>This week’s question comes to us from Michael Walsh: Can I eat the last slice of pizza in the box? This is the wrong question to be asking. The better question is “Am I hungry?” An even better follow-up question is “Am I the hungriest person here?” And, if you wanna get all Marxist about it (and trust that I do), an even better questions is “Who the fuck ate the other seven slices?” Pizza etiquette is a fucking war zone, so let’s get the easy shit out of the way: Are you the only person in the house? Eat the last slice. Are you the last person left awake? Eat the last slice. (Morning pizza is great, but anyone left awake on the day the pizza is ordered has first dibs.) Have you gone around and asked everyone if they want the last slice? Eat the last slice. Did you just help someone move? You can eat the last slice. (Tell the friend you helped to order more. Helping someone move means endless pizza.) Are you the only person in the kitchen during a party where the pizza was left unattended? Fuck it. Eat the last slice. Did you have an exceptionally shit day? Eat the last slice. Are you super fucking high? You should probably eat the last slice, and then see what else might be in the fridge. Is it a kid’s birthday party? No, you cannot eat the last slice. Is it an intervention for your friend Steve? No, you cannot eat the last slice. Are you at an exorcism? Last slice goes to Elijah. Are you treating your kid’s t-ball team to post-game pizza? No, you cannot take the last slice. As someone who’s hosted events and ordered pizza for people, I always appreciate when the pizza boxes are empty at the end of the night. Finding that last remaining slice in a box is a pain in the ass. I’m now thinking I should eat it just so it doesn’t go to waste. Sure, I could save it for tomorrow, but I’m trying to clean up. I’m in the zone. I’m ready to run these boxes down to the recycling bin (because me recycling four pizza boxes is definitely going to offset the carbon emissions from your “make the boobs bigger” Claude prompts) and now I’m stuck with this lone slice of pizza, which is both a problem and delicious. I will probably end up just eating it, which means I’ve eaten a slice of pizza I most definitely didn’t need, and will probably end up sleeping like shit. So if I invite you to something at my house, please just eat the last slice in the box. Speaking of events at my house, I used to be the guy who’d walk around and ask what kind of pizza people wanted. And because I know both meat-eaters and vegetarians, I’d usually end up with a couple of vegetarian pizzas, and a couple of pepperoni pizzas. And here’s where we go Stanford Prison Experiment. If you put both kinds of pizza out for people at least half the meat eaters will say “oh, that veg (they always say just “veg,” by the way, because saying “vegetarian” is too exhausting and they need to save their energy to, I dunno, hunt?) looks really good” and then taking a slice. Which meant that they were dipping into the resources of people who they knew wouldn’t dip into their pepperoni resources. Their pepperoni resources were safe from counterattack. I’m sure there’s a Marxist name for this, but I’ll just call it violence. This would usually end up with the vegetarians getting understandably upset for being shorted, and the meat-eaters using my bathroom in ways that guests should not. (We should do a newsletter about that soon.) I eventually solved this problem by ordering vegetarian pizza for everyone, and if meat-eaters complained I’d just say “but doesn’t the veg look really good?” Also, I just stopped inviting people over because Covid broke me. Let’s talk about crusts. Some people like pizza crusts. (I am one of them.) And let’s be clear, I’m talking about standard crusts that are just dough, they’re crispy, they’re wonderful. Not some suburban nightmare crust that’s been injected with cheese. (Seriously. Just order mozzarella sticks if you need more cheese.) But some people do not like pizza crusts. They will collect crusts on their plate like the spoils of war. Bones of vanquished enemies. And that is perfectly ok. What is not ok, is taking the crusts from someone’s plate and eating them, no matter how much you like crusts. In the privacy of your own home? Between partners and/or roommates? Sure, go nuts. But I was once in a social situation where someone reached over to someone else’s plate and just grabbed their crusts. Please do not do this. Yes, I’ve got some trauma around this. I was raised in a culture where your plate was everybody’s business. From making comments to how much or too little food was on it. To making comments about which things you seemed to be enjoying and which things you weren’t. (No one wants a carrot that’s been boiled for two hours, mom.) To being raised by a father who would toss whatever he didn’t want onto my mother’s plate like it was the bin. Yes, I admit to having trauma around this. But I’m a firm believer that everyone’s plate is their private space, and even the threat of entering someone’s plate airspace should be viewed as a breach of diplomacy, if not outright war. Also, my dog loves pizza crust. So we’re happy to let him have it. He’s eighteen. He gets to eat what he wants. Yes, I have strong pizza opinions. For reasons. I grew up in Philadelphia. A shitty slice from a Philly corner pizzeria will always soothe my heart more than a wood-fired pie at some fancy restaurant. And your fancy pie might be amazing, but that shitty slice is touching parts of my heart, and awakening memories of thousands of shitty slices that had to be folded to eat. When I was in high school there was a pizza parlor across the street. They made a great shitty slice. If I remember correctly a slice was two dollars. I think it was called Bruno’s. Google Maps tells me it’s still a pizza parlor, but the name has changed now. Bruno is long gone, and it’s quite possible that Bruno was gone way before I ever stepped into Bruno’s. It’s quite possible that everyone running the place just inherited the moniker. It’s cheaper to assume an identity than it is to get new signage. We were strictly prohibited from crossing the street and getting a slice during the school day. Which we of course did anyway. School pizza was not as good as Bruno’s. My last forbidden trip to Bruno’s happened during spring semester of senior year. A point at which everyone had long stopped caring about anything high school related, most especially rules that made zero sense. We walked in and ordered our slices, only to hear a voice from the farthest booth call out our names. Not Mike, but Mr. Monteiro, which was always a sign of trouble. Our principal had decided to set up shop at Bruno’s to bust us for going off-campus. He made us sit in the booth with him as our slices were delivered to our table. Slices he happily ate. It was here that we learned truth and power are very different things. Of all the foods, pizza is the closest to the human heart. Philadelphia has both the best pizza, and the biggest heart. I am being both metaphorical and literal. Every Philadelphia child has walked through a human heart. We have all walked through the giant heart at the Franklin Institute. We are knowledgeable about how it works. We’ve stepped through its valves. We’ve chased our friends through the ventricles. We’ve sharpied our initials in the vena cava. We’ve snuck sloppy kisses in the chambers of the heart. And because we know the ways of the heart, we are uniquely qualified to judge pizza as well. San Francisco, where I live now, has an uneasy relationship with pizza. I’ve heard it’s something in the water. We have great water, but we apparently don’t have great water for making pizza. And we have a tendency to upscale what doesn’t need to be upscaled. But catch me on a good Saturday, after an afternoon of playing Addams Family pinball, and I’ll stop for a slice at Escape from New York, which is pretty good pizza for San Francisco. It’s too crispy to fold. It’s never quite greasy enough. But if I close my eyes, I can almost make it work. Traveling back in time to neighborhoods that are long gone, shared with friends who are no longer here, eaten on nights that are long past, when we were all so much prettier, and the world was less awful. Eaten on the still-warm hoods of Chevy Novas. Coming home from punk shows in the basements of abandoned warehouses. Staring out into empty lots of West Philly and North Philly. Watching lightning bugs dance on sticky summer days. And washing it down with a bottle of RC Cola that still has a styrofoam wrapper around the bottle. Wiping pizza grease off our pants. Wondering who was going to eat the last slice. <hr/>🙋 Got a question? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it</a>! 📓 If you want more stories (with less typos!) my new book <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/how-to-die-and-other-stories?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to die (and other stories)</a> will satisfy that craving! 💰 You can support this newsletter by joining the <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">$2 Lunch Club</a>. 📣 Do you enjoy asking questions? Erika (who also likes pizza) is doing a <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lets-do-design-research-right-tickets-1987575625199?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">research workshop</a> on April 30. You should go! 🧺 <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/gilly-amp-billy-enamel-pin-fpbpz-y2d7t?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gilly & Billy pins</a> are back in stock! 🍉 Israel is an apartheid state committing genocide. Please donate to the <a href="https://www.pcrf.net/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund</a>. 🏳️‍⚧️ Trans people are here. They’ve always been here. They’re amazing. And they could use our help. Please donate to <a href="https://translifeline.org/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Trans Lifeline</a>.

How to feel wonderful

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Jan 9, 2026

<figure><img alt="A recently set up and relatively clean art studio. There's a couple of tables, a rolling stool, and a shelving unit along the back wall filled with assorted crap." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/c8c545bf-efa6-43a2-ab70-fd71d207573f.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>New art studio taking shape!</figcaption></figure> This week’s question comes to us from Kylie Gusset: What makes you feel wonderful? Ok, yeah. So… the last couple of newsletters were heavy. <a href="https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-bury-your-father/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Dead fathers</a>. <a href="https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-attend-a-funeral/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Crazy families</a>. Feelings. (Y’all were so nice with your replies. Thank you.) This was all followed by a two week Christmas break where it rained every day and started to feel like cabin fever. On top of that there’s… the news. And yes, at some point we will talk about the news, especially because it’s unforgiving and relentless and if I were to mention “the incident” at the beginning of this newsletter there’s a pretty good chance “the incident” could mean a totally other incident by the time you read this newsletter. Under fascism, the incidents are plentiful and the horror remains unrelenting. So… For your sake as well as mine, this morning I went looking through the question pile for something a little light to start off the new year and Kylie came to the rescue. Thanks Kylie. Let’s talk about things that make us feel wonderful. And no, this is not a copout. Remembering, and holding on to the things that make us feel wonderful are fuel. In some cases they remind us of what we’ve lost. In other cases they remind us of what we’re fighting for. And, on a really good day, they remind us of what we’re still able to achieve despite the weight of absolutely everything trying to keep us from doing so. Last week I moved into a new art studio. It’s a little smaller than my previous one so when I got all my stuff in there I realized that I’d have to make some hard decisions about what needed to stay and what could go. I spent an hour sitting in the corner annoyed that everything didn’t fit and then I texted my friend Adam a photo of all my crap piled up in the new space along with the message “studio setup day,” which was actually shorthand for “fuck new studio setup day nothing fits and I think I’ve made a horrible decision.” Here’s the thing about my friend Adam: his joy is annoyingly infectious, and it’s 100% sincere. So when he texted back “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8LqMv416mw&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">I love studio setup day</a>!!” (Yes, two exclamation marks.) I realized I needed to adopt his attitude. After sighing deeply and muttering “fuck you, Adam” under my breath, I got out my notebook and measuring tape. I started sketching out where things could fit. I made a list of things I needed. I found my drill in one of the boxes. A couple of hours after getting his text I’d built shelving units, loaded them up with my stuff, mounted my tool chargers on the wall, created a list of next steps, and a list of things I needed to run to the hardware store for. So yes, studio setup day is wonderful. Sometimes you just need to be reminded of how lucky you are to have a place to unpack all your boxes into. I figure it’ll take me another week, maybe two, before I’m making new paintings in that space and it’ll feel wonderful to make those. It’ll also be wonderful to share those paintings with all of you. At the risk of turning the rest of this newsletter into a listicle, while absolutely also turning the rest of this newsletter into a listicle here’s some other stuff that makes me feel wonderful. (Also, small aside: it’s weird to say “wonderful.” I keep wanting to downplay it to “good.” Things that make me feel good. It feels very self-conscious to say something makes you feel wonderful. Also, a little dorky. Fuck it. Let’s feel wonderful this year. Not only do we deserve it, but we fucking need it.) Opening a new record feels wonderful. Going to the record store is great. Finding a record you want also feels great. But getting it home and opening it up? That’s the sweet spot right there. Are you going to attempt to slice it open with your fingernail and tell yourself that this is the one time you won’t get a papercut? (Stop. You will get a papercut.) Are you going to look for the weak seam in the plastic and risk bending the corner? (Stop. You are absolutely going to bend the corner.) Are you going to pull out your trusty pen knife and run it along the opening? (Yes, and here’s a pro tip: the duller the blade the better. A sharp blade will slice right into the cover itself. And never ever use a razor unless you’re a professional vinyl record opener.) But that moment when you first open the new record, pull out the vinyl, and then carefully peek to see if there’s anything else inside (lyric sheet, sticker, etc) is pure bliss. Being in line at a sandwich place for lunch, turning around and seeing a friend you haven’t seen in over a year and immediately hugging each other feels wonderful. This happened to me last week. We ended up eating together and catching up. Totally out of the blue. Yesterday I had to make a small repair in our apartment. It required me to come up with a solution, go to the hardware store, buy wood, make a thing with a saw and a sander, then attach it. And man, when I popped it in and heard that satisfying click that meant it was working as it was supposed to… it felt wonderful. I love being able to fix small shit like that. I’m coursing with endorphins just thinking about it a day later. Hearing “That’s great advice Dad, thanks” will always feel wonderful. Knowing that I was able to help my daughter, even if it was just as a sounding board. Even if it was for the most inconsequential of things like “how do you mix peanut butter” (Pro tip: drill and a clean paint mixing bit. Works for tahini too.) hearing that phrase will put me in a good mood for days. Finding the leading end of the roll of tape feels wonderful. Watching Erika’s face light up when she opens a Christmas gift feels wonderful. One of my hidden superpowers is that I’m really good at giving gifts. A few years ago I watched as she ripped open a large box that was filled with packing peanuts, thrust her arm into it, jumped three feet in the air, and then screamed “What the fuck is that?!?” That turned out to be a stuffed badger. We named her Carol. This year, for reasons we’ve already discussed at length, I didn’t have as much time for Christmas gifting. However, as I was walking back from my father’s funeral I walked past a small gift shop that had mounted ceramic jackass heads that said “We’re jackasses but we’re happy” in Portuguese, and that felt right, so I stopped and grabbed one. Getting new baby photos from your friends always feels wonderful. Listening to Fishbone always feels wonderful. Seriously, none of you are listening to enough Fishbone, and you’ve had the opportunity to be listening to Fishbone for over twenty years. I’m listening to them right now. Some of you younger folks might be wondering who the fuck I’m talking about, to which I say… <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK640dPPhXE&list=RDKK640dPPhXE&start_radio=1&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">you’re welcome</a>. Getting a surprise gift box from friends full of fun stuff from the city they live in is always wonderful. (I’m currently wearing a beanie hat from Movie Madness in Portland. Do I know what it is? No, but I want to!) Riding my bike around town feels wonderful. (Less so when it’s raining, which is a large part of what was driving me nuts last week.) Riding through the city, especially if there’s a warm breeze in the evening, and the sun is in the right place, and I can smell every restaurant as I’m riding through The Mission will always make me feel like I’m a part of the city that I’m riding through. It’s humbling in the most amazing way. People are crossing the street, people are walking home from work, people are picking up their kids, seventeen different types of vehicles are navigating the same stretch of street and absolutely no one is in sync but we’re all making it mostly work because a city is humanity’s most amazing broken machine. And when it doesn’t work it’s tragic, but it mostly does work. All of these things happened in the last couple of weeks. All of these things that happened in the last couple of weeks made me feel wonderful. And yes, there were a lot of things that happened in the last couple of weeks that most certainly did not feel wonderful. In no way I am minimizing those. I am listing these things out as reminders for why we fight. Your list may be very different from mine. I hope it is. (I want to know what’s on your list!) I’m listing these out as reminders of why it’s worth it to hold on to and preserve the things we love so that someday we can sit down together and share those lists with each other, because we shouldn’t be selfish with our lists. I bet there’s something on your list of what makes you feel wonderful that would make me feel wonderful, but it hasn’t even occurred to me! And vice versa. Maybe you’ve got spicy mango on your list. It’s wonderful, right? Maybe you’ve got a good molotov recipe. Wonderful, let’s share it. Maybe one of us will knock an ICE goon on his ass. I guarantee that’ll feel wonderful. Like ice cream at the perfect temperature, or a Thin Mint right out of the freezer. 2026 is the year we win. That’ll feel wonderful too. <hr/>Favor: if you share this newsletter out on social media (not-so-gentle hint), please add something that makes you feel wonderful in your post. ❤️ <hr/>🙋 Got a question? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it</a>. I’ll probably use it to go off on a tangential rant, but hey… 💰 Enjoying the newsletter? <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gimme $2/mo</a> and I promise to use it to make art. 📢 The first Presenting w/Confidence workshop of the year is scheduled for Jan 22 & 23. <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/presenting-work-with-confidence-tickets-1980129910867?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Get your ticket</a>! 🔬 Erika has a Design Research workshop coming up on Jan 15. <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lets-do-design-research-right-tickets-1978474590760?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Get your ticket</a>! 🧺 <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/gilly-amp-billy-enamel-pin-fpbpz-y2d7t?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gilly & Billy enamel pins</a> are back in stock! 💀 Still have a few <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/dont-build-the-torment-nexus-zine?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-feel-wonderful" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Don’t Build the Torment Nexus</a> zines in stock. ❤️ Once again, thank you to everyone who sent a note about my father’s passing. It sincerely meant a lot to read those.

How to usher in an era of abundant donuts

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Apr 10, 2026

<figure><img alt="Box of donuts. Half are iced to look like the Artemis logo. Half are regular glazed. I think they're from Krispy Kreme." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/287bcbf8-520c-4faa-9b86-6848314d4d89.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>photo of Artemis donuts by Mark Jacquet, Engineer at NASA Ames Research Center</figcaption></figure> <hr/>This week’s question comes to us anonymously: What would you say to someone who proclaims, “I want to be a donut maker,” but has never actually made a single donut in their life? You say “That’s awesome. What can I do to help?” Look, I’m going to be totally honest with you. Every week, I go through my bin of newsletter questions, looking for something I want to answer, and I get incredibly depressed. The vast majority of them are from people getting laid off, or being in their sixth month of looking for work, or justifiably freaking out because they heard layoffs are coming to their company. It’s a world of despair and a world of shit which, sadly, only appears to be picking up steam. Meanwhile, half the people I know are wondering how they’re going to pay their rent and go to the doctor, and the other half are proclaiming this the “Era of Abundant Intelligence.” (For who?!?) All they need is half the world’s money (the half not going to bombing school children), half the world’s land, half the world’s water, all of the world’s microchips, and they will eventually deliver [checks notes] something in exchange for all this, just don’t ask them what because it’s really hard to say, but it’s right around the corner. (I promise this newsletter will turn positive soon.) Meanwhile, if I am stupid, sad, or desperate enough to go on LinkedIn for a minute, it’s a sea of people writing letters in praise of the leopard, proclaiming it has always been their dream to work for the leopard, asking the leopard not to eat their face, or hoping to get one of the few jobs at the face-eating factory where they feel like they’ll be safe from the face-eating leopard, which of course they’re not. So, yes, there are a fair amount of questions in my inbox from people upset that the leopard ate their face even though they were happy to help the leopard eat everyone else’s face. (Or I may spiral out of control.) Seriously though, era of abundant intelligence for who?!? Let’s talk about your friend who wants to be a donut maker. Because they may be the smartest person here. First off, everyone loves a donut. Secondly, no one has ever reacted badly to the news that someone is making donuts. But most importantly for us today—not a single human being has ever been born with the ability to make donuts. Like all skills, you learn it, you do it badly for a while, then you do it better. Some people will get amazing at it, and most people will reach some level of competency. So while there’s an incredibly slim chance that your friend will become the world’s greatest donut maker, there’s an incredibly high possibility that your friend will learn how to make good, even great, donuts. Which you will benefit from. And which you should be incredibly grateful for. For the last week, Erika and I have been glued to Artemis updates on the NASA site, because it’s become such a joy to watch people be good at something, and enjoy doing it, and all of this while being incredibly human about it. Seriously, these people sound positively giddy to be in space! And they’re rocking it. It feels like such a luxury to watch these people do their thing, and do it well, and with joy, at a time when we’re surrounded by a government who is very bad at what they do, and does it in the cruelest way possible, and an industry that’s trying to convince us that we are incapable of doing the things we love, and we’re doing them inefficiently anyway. (Because the problem was always that we weren’t breaking the world fast enough.) Competence should not be a luxury. Competence should not be something that we look at with nostalgia. We’re lucky that we get to watch the Artemis crew do their thing, which they can do because they practiced doing it a thousand times. And you know that they made a lot of bad donuts, before they finally made a good donut. You know there was a Day One of learning to be an astronaut, just as there’s a Day One of learning to be a donut maker, or learning to be a designer, dentist, farmer, or teacher. And the only way to get to Day Thousand is to start at Day One, do it 999 more times, and get not just better, but confident enough that you decide you can do it in the confines of space. Confident enough that you can say to yourself and to everyone around you that you want to be a donut maker. Meanwhile a friend who’s deep into a job interview is being asked to bring a passport to their next scheduled remote interview because their skillset shows a level of competence that has the potential employer worried they might be interviewing a deepfake. With one hand they force the slop down our throats. With the other hand they defend against us using the tools against them. Human competence has become a source of distrust. If you don’t trust the results of the tool, stop demanding we use it. The era of abundant intelligence is actually the era of abundant theft. First they stole your work, then they stole the confidence you needed to do the work. This is violence. Your friend is going to make some pretty crappy donuts to start. That’s to be expected. And then the day will come when they’ve gotten all the crappy donuts out of their system and they’ll hand you a good donut. I think you’ll be genuinely happy for your friend when this happens. And for yourself, which is fair. But can’t you just get donuts at the corner bodega or at the donut shop? Yes, you can. And they are good. Donuts are good at every price point. From the waxy little chocolate ones at gas stations, to the funky ones you can buy from someone with a liberal arts degree and a polycule at Voodoo Donuts in Portland, to the boujie made-to-order (lord) donuts at Coffee Movement in SF, all donuts are good. (Bob’s Donuts are the best.) But your friend doesn’t want to buy donuts. Your friend wants to be a donut maker. And that is a very different thing. Human beings crave making things. We make things out of wood. We make things out of wool. We make things out of steel. We make things out of folded paper. We make things out of flour, salt, and sugar. We make zines. We 3D-print whistles. We draw. We paint. We make instruments out of brass so we can make sounds. There is no more flexible word in the English language than “make.” We can make donuts, we can make plans, we can make someone dinner. We can make our cities more walkable. We can make bike lanes. We can make it around the moon. We can even make up our minds. Making is an act of sharing, it’s an act of using our joy, our labor, or expertise, in the service of adding to what’s here. Hopefully, in the service of improving what’s there. We make things so that we can bond with others. And while the sloplords might reply to this by telling me that they enjoy making money, I’d happily reply that the making is actually done with our labor. It’s not the making that drives them, it’s the theft of labor. The theft of joy. And now the theft of competence. You can hear it in their language. They do not make. They disrupt. They extract. They colonize. Their joy is not in the giving, but in the taking. They are so broken, their only recourse is to attempt to break everything else around them. In their psychosis, they call this abundance. I know very little about your friend, in fact all I know is that they want to be a donut maker and they’ve never made a single donut in their life. From this I can safely extrapolate that your friend isn’t currently a donut maker. I can also reasonably extrapolate that whatever your friend is currently doing isn’t what they want to be doing. And from there I can go out on a limb a little bit, from extrapolation to conjecture and guess that your friend isn’t happy doing what they’re currently doing. Happy people don’t generally dream about doing something else. Turns out the Era of Abundant Intelligence isn’t coinciding with an Era of Abundant Happiness. And here’s the thing about donuts: you want one. And the more I mention donuts the more you want one. Maybe you’re thinking of a custard donut, or maybe you’re thinking of a pink frosted donut with sprinkles, or maybe you’re thinking of an old-fashioned, or maybe you’re thinking of a gluten-free donut because everyone deserves donuts, but no one has ever had to be convinced to eat a donut. (The harder part is stopping, trust me.) Donuts are not inevitable, they are anticipated. When you make something you love, and other people also love, and it brings about as much joy as a donut does, there’s very little convincing that needs to happen. No one needs to declare that it’s the Era of Abundant Donuts because it’s apparent anytime you walk into a donut shop. The result of human competence, human labor, human joy, all laid out on baking sheet after baking sheet. Boston Cream. Glazed. Powdered. Chocolate Sprinkle. Jelly. Crullers. These are real. They exist. And they’re fucking delicious. Trust that we are all closer to a good donut shop than we will ever be to AGI. Trust that we are all closer to a good donut shop than we will ever be to AGI, and we should be taking full advantage of what is close to us, and what is possible, and what brings us joy. And that when the sloplords tell us that the thing we need might be right around the corner, maybe consider that they’re right after all. If there’s a donut shop around the corner. We are in the Era of Abundant Donuts. If we want it. We should want it. Because a donut is amazing, and it’s right there for the taking. I hope your friend succeeds in becoming a donut maker. I hope their donuts are amazing. I hope there are lines around the block for their donuts. I hope you end up helping them at the donut shop and loving it so much that you decide you want to become a donut maker too. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s not the donuts that get your attention as much as it is your friend’s joy. Maybe you decide you want the joy, but your joy is found in something else. Maybe it’s making tacos, or opening a bookstore, or knitting, or opening a bar, or designing shoes. I hope that when this happens someone says “That’s awesome. What can I do to help?” <hr/>🙋 Got a question? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it</a>. I will try to answer it. 📣 Trust me when I tell you that you are competent. But they may have stolen your confidence. I can help you get it back. I’ve got a few seats left for the upcoming <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1986010061556?aff=oddtdtcreator&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Presenting w/Confidence</a> workshop. You should grab one. 📕 My new book, <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/how-to-die-and-other-stories?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to Die (and other stories)</a>, is actually uplifting as fuck and you should get a copy. And if you’re in The Bay Area, come see me and Annalee Newitz talk about it at <a href="https://booksmith.com/event/monteiro26?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Booksmith on May 11</a>! 🧺 <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/gilly-amp-billy-enamel-pin-fpbpz-y2d7t?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gilly & Billy</a> enamel pins are back in stock. 🏳️‍⚧️ <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/fix-your-hearts-pins?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Fix Your Heart</a> pins are here. 10 pins for $20, with $5 from each sale going to Trans Lifeline. 🍉 The ceasefire is a lie and Israel is insane. Please donate what you can to the <a href="https://www.pcrf.net/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund</a>.

How to love your neighbors

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Mar 27, 2026

<figure><img alt="25 panels with 24 screaming cartoon ducks. White on black." class="" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/b5a97b8a-3f28-434e-8de7-7f921c4c2b23.jpeg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>More ducks. I may not stop painting ducks.</figcaption></figure> <hr/>This week’s question comes to us from Tuan Son Nguyen: How do you form a circle of like-minded people to keep your sanity when so many horrible things are happening? I’m not exactly sure when this happened, or what triggered it. But I remember it was a nice day. Maybe it was a nice day after a few rainy days, or a few cold days, or maybe I was just up in my feelings. But I got home, locked up my bike, and instead of heading up the stairs to our apartment, as I would normally do, I headed out to the dogpark. The dogpark is a block away, and I visit regularly with my dog so he can do all his dog things. We’re regulars. But this time I didn’t have my dog and I had no need to go to the dogpark. I just wanted to. I wanted to go sit on one of the benches and soak up what was left of a nice day. Which is what I did. Here’s the thing about the dog park, which I’ve written about before. It’s dog-centric. Everyone knows your dog’s name. Everyone knows whether your dog can or cannot have treats (always ask if you don’t know). Everyone’s relationship at the dogpark, with a few exceptions, revolves around the dogs. And that’s been true for as long as we’ve been taking our dog (who is now amazingly close to eighteen years old) to the dog park. This is by design. When everyone is brought together by geography and your dog’s need to take a shit, it’s in your best interest to get along with the people who end up in that shared public space. You wanna keep conversation light. You discuss the weather. If someone is wearing a local team hat, you take it as a sign to elevate the conversation to “did you see the game?” or “this is our year.” (It’s not.) You mention new restaurants or cafés in the neighborhood, or sadly more appropriately these days—you mention restaurants or cafés that have recently shuttered. But mostly you talk about the dogs. “Did Grumble get a haircut today?” “I like Mojo’s Pride kerchief.” In general, it’s best to avoid more complicated issues with your neighbors, which is why I stay off NextDoor, which is just an online Klan rally. Once you know certain things about your neighbors, you’re stuck knowing them, and you realize how much time you spend around them holding a bag of dog shit in your hand. And the temptation becomes too strong. This is how peace was kept in the dog park for years. The occasional flare-up for politics, of course, the occasional flare-up for world issues, as well as local issues. Which will happen whenever folks get together, which is good. But those conversations would eventually subside. A regression back to the mean. Back to the dogs. But neighborhoods are living, changing things. On the day I decided to just go sit in the dogpark without my dog (he was still at work), I realized other people were just sitting there in the dogpark. Yes, some of them had dogs, but some didn’t. They were just sitting there, sometimes talking to one another, sometimes not. Literally in a circle because of how the benches are laid out. And then other people started coming out and wandered over. To be clear, I’m not saying I instigated any of this. If anything, we were all getting pulled in by some cosmic need to be among other people. And for the past few weeks, this has been a regular occurrence. Every day I come home, and I walk to the dog park and sit with my neighbors. Yes, we talk about our dogs, but we also check in on each other, we vent about our day, we trash talk. Sometimes people bring snacks. Yes, we talk about the state of things in the world, which is awful, but having this small community of people that we can hold peace with makes it… well, not less awful. But it makes a difference knowing there are other people on the spaceship with us. Are we like-minded? We’re like minded in some things! For one, we all like sitting in the park in the evening, and that’s nice. We all love our neighborhood. We seem to all like donuts. And dogs. And a little bit of a breeze coming off the mountain. We all believe there’s one neighbor that goes too fucking hard. We all believe in shared spaces, or at least we believe in this shared space. I think we also believe that it’s important to interact with each other with a certain level of kindness. For example, one of our neighbors recently had knee surgery and everyone’s bringing her food. Another neighbor is out of town and there are a few neighbors moving her car around so she doesn’t get tickets when the street cleaning happens. We watch each other's dogs when we’re out of town, or working a long shift at work. We lend records that better be returned in good shape soon. (This one might be a little targeted.) We hold vigils when a beloved dog leaves us. We commiserate together when someone loses a job, and we celebrate together when a new job is procured. We say goodbye when someone moves away, and we widen the circle when a new person moves in. Are we like-minded in all things? Fuck no. Way too many of my neighbors still own Ring cameras. Way too many of my neighbors still believe their “I got this before Elon went crazy” bumper sticker is an act of resistance. Way too many of my neighbors still believe Gavin Newsom is the solution to something. (Gavin Newsom is a piece of shit.) And more than one of my neighbors have sat down next to me and told me that the Democrats need to give a little bit on immigration, not realizing they were sitting next to an immigrant. So, no we are not like-minded in all things. But I do believe there is a shared core of decency to all my neighbors, and within that core there may be unexplored areas that need to be explored a little bit. We all grew up believing certain things, things that we hold to be sacrosanct, that could use a little further exploration. And I’ve been able to have a few of those conversations with people, and they’ve been able to have some with me. It’s easier for people to have those conversations when they’re coming from a place of common decency. That said, not all differences are equal. I don’t sit with Nazis. I don’t sit with terfs. We all avoid the zionist lady. And as much as I’d like to say that I don’t sit with racists, if you are white and you were raised in the US, you are a racist. (I’m including myself here.) So on that one, I must sadly admit that it’s a matter of degree. Although I’ll happily report that there have been difficult conversations in the park that I believe have moved some souls closer to heaven, if not through the gates. We’re getting there. (By the way, no one in the dog park is going to talk to me again after this.) In general, I think the idea of “like-minded” is overrated and a little boring. Sitting with people who agree with everything you agree with feels great for about five minutes. Then (and maybe this is because I am from Philadelphia) I want to fight. I want to argue. I want to argue about who the most influential NBA player of our lifetime was, and why it was Allen Iverson. I want to argue about the best Beyoncé album, and why it was Lemonade. I want to argue about why the park needs public restrooms, and yes I know people will use them—that’s the fucking point, man! I want to argue about which of our cafés makes the best coffee. (Trick question. It’s me. I make better coffee than any of them.) I want to argue about street parking. My god, I love arguing with my neighbors about street parking. (Why should the city be providing storage for your private property? Get a bike. Ride the bus.) Street parking is always guaranteed to start a fight in the park. And I love having those fights with my neighbors. I think they honestly bring us closer together. (They may disagree.) But no, we will not have any arguments about who belongs in the park, because something that every one of my neighbors agrees about is that if you are in the park you belong in the park. If you are in the park, you get the same privileges as everyone else in the park. And if you want to join the community circle in the park we will make room for you. And also, if shit starts coming out of your mouth you will be called on it. Everything is shit. And when everything is shit, minor differences become less important than the things we hold in common. We’ve seen this in LA. We’ve seen this in Chicago. We’ve seen this in the Twin Cities. Punks fighting next to suburban dads. Wine moms fighting next to anarchists. Socialists fighting next to librarians. (I’m kidding here, all librarians are socialist. I love librarians.) We see this when people come out to protect their neighbors. We see this when people yell at the ICE goons. And someday we will see this when we put all these fascists on trial. Roomfuls of people, who may not agree on much, but they agree on this: The shittier they treat us, the more they bring us together. <hr/>💰 Special request: I love/dread writing this newsletter every week. And it is labor. The more folks sign up for the <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-your-neighbors" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">$2 Lunch Club</a>, the more that labor gets converted into rent, and the more that happens the more this newsletter becomes something that helps pay the rent, and less like something distracting me from doing things that pay the rent. So, if you can, please sign up to be a paying member. As promised, everyone will always see the same thing, regardless of membership. I love you all equally. I’d like to love some of you a little more equally. 💰 <hr/>🙋 Got a question for me? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-your-neighbors" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it</a>! All questions answered by a human. (Me.) 📓 Buy my new book <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/how-to-die?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-your-neighbors" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to die (and other stories)</a>! 😠😀 Come see me and Annalee Newitz talk about that book at Booksmith on May 11. <a href="https://booksmith.com/event/monteiro26?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-your-neighbors" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Tickets going fast</a>! 🧺 <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/gilly-amp-billy-enamel-pin-fpbpz-y2d7t?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-your-neighbors" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gilly pins</a> are back in stock! 📣 The next <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1986010061556?aff=oddtdtcreator&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-your-neighbors" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Presenting w/Confidence</a> workshop is scheduled for April 16 & 17! This will help you with the thousands of job interviews you’re all doing. 🍉 Please donate to the <a href="https://www.pcrf.net/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-your-neighbors" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund</a>. Fuck Israel. 🏳️‍⚧️ Please donate to the <a href="https://translifeline.org/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-your-neighbors" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Trans Lifeline</a>. Trans people belong in the Olympics. Trans people belong everywhere. Fuck Gavin Newsom.

How to get through cold, wet, dreary days

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Dec 4, 2025

<figure><img alt="New art studio. Someone else's clutter is still in it. Table. Crates. Lotta white walls though." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/61d74946-074d-4ffd-a0c1-9b4fca71bf92.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>Huzzah. I finally got a new studio. Haven’t moved in yet.</figcaption></figure> <hr/>💰 <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-get-through-cold-wet-dreary-days" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gimme $2/mo if you’re enjoying this</a>. 💰 <hr/>This week’s question comes to us from Jim Christensen: How do you get through cold, wet, dreary days? Last week was pretty great. It was Thanksgiving weekend, which is historically the beginning of human hibernation. At least on my particular half of the planet—which as we all know—but because it is 2025 I feel like it’s important to say in print—is round. The Northern half of the planet—again, round—tilts away from the sun so that the Southern half can have its moment of warmth. Which means it gets colder, and the days get shorter, and—depending on where in the Northern half you live—some form of wetness starts falling from the sky. The scientific term for this is dreary. Shit gets dreary. For some of us dreary begets a state of less activity, which for some of us also begets depression. Which is awesome. (It’s not awesome.) Let me also take the time to admit that I am a total baby about the weather. Because even though I was raised in Philadelphia, where we spent the winter wearing thermal underwear, snow was sometimes measured in feet, and spring was welcomed by the smell of winter dogshit thawing along everyone’s sidewalk, I’ve now lived in California long enough that when I say that it was very cold last week I mean that it was in the low 50s. I can now function at full capacity only within a narrow ten degree band between 60 and 70 degrees. Anything outside that band is either too cold or too hot. In fact, last Wednesday I woke up shivering, turned on the heat and wrapped myself in a blanket because it felt like the end of days and then I checked the weather to find out it was 54º. Jesus wept, in a light sweater. In our defense, our houses are drafty and tend not to have central heat. Just a giant brown space heater, installed in the 30s, and jutting out of that thing in our Victorian living room that maybe used to be a fireplace. Also, we are technically in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which is great in the summer, but not so great in the winter. So while the temperature might not reflect it, it’s a cold that gets in your bones and tends to linger in there. Anyway, last week was cold. For us. My truth is my truth. Thanksgiving aside (because it was a whole thing in and of itself) I spent the majority of the long weekend, sitting in our library reading. I turned the little heater on, put on some nice calming music, and sat there reading for hours. Erika joined me for a lot of it, and we just sealed ourselves off from the world, which is currently not just cold, but awful. Turns out reading is a great way to deal with cold, wet, dreary days. When I was a kid, my dad would hang plastic sheeting over the windows in the living room. The kind of sheeting you heat up with a hair dryer to get it nice and taut. He’d hang the same kind of sheeting across the doorway to the living room as well, but without the hair dryer. Then he’d turn off the heaters in the rest of the house. (I think I’ve written about this before.) My parents couldn’t afford to heat the whole house in the winter. (And by whole house I mean a rowhome in the Olney neighborhood.) Our options for staying warm were either to be in the living room, in the kitchen with the oven on, or in bed fully clothed under the covers. Which is the option I usually took, because it also granted me solitude. And safety. Safety was at a higher premium than heat growing up. So I’d get in bed and read. And at the risk of falling into the old cliché of reading providing an escape from everything going on around me as a kid, there’s a reason why it’s a cliché. Reading did exactly that. And the escape that reading provides is anything but allegorical, it is real. As a kid, reading provided me with the lessons parents were supposed to impart. Reading provided me with escape options. Goals. Heist plans. Reading provided me with proof that other ways of living were possible. Reading provided me with proof that people could love each other. Reading provided me with proof that other people had risen from far worse circumstances than me, which is a really important lesson to a kid who only knows the circumstances they’re growing up in. Reading gave me the triangulation I needed to realize where I fit into humanity which was basically “this sucks, but there’s a way out and you can do it.” I read books for the same reason people buy guns—to feel safe at home. Our apartment has a library. It’s a room in the center of the house. And there are bookshelves along all four walls. And those bookshelves overflow with books. The room is obviously a fort. With all four walls fortified by the safety of books. Thick enough to muffle outside sounds. Thick enough to keep the room warm. Thick enough to throw at intruders. Thick enough to serve as a barrier from what’s cold, what’s wet, and what’s dreary. A library as a safe room. (It’s not lost on me that I’ve created an insulating layer against the cold, much as my father did when we were kids. I’m pointing this out for myself before my therapist does.) Every book is an escape hatch to transport me to a place that’s safer, but even more importantly—every book is a recipe book for making our current place safer. Every book is filled with lessons both allegorical and practical that we can apply to our own life in the here and now. Sometimes they jump out at you, sometimes they plant a seed that takes a little bit to germinate and it hits you a bit later. And that’s ok. I have never regretted a minute I spent reading. My friend Annalee Newitz, who’s an amazing writer, likes to say that they don’t write dystopias or utopias. They write topias. Because every place is both, in some amounts. And that rings true. Because even in our current hellscape, which most of us would describe as dystopian, there are moments and places where we create little pockets of something close to utopian. Places that feel safe. Places where we go, not to hide, but to reload. Places where we go to plot, to learn, to explore possibilities. Places that help us get through the cold, wet, dreary days. There is a reason fascists ban books and not guns. Guns are a tool for one thing, books are tools for everything. I am lucky to have a place where I can go to get past the cold, wet, dreary days. So many people don’t. And that number climbs every day, as our topia tips in the wrong direction. We all deserve to have a place like that. And I am happy that I’ve been able to fill that place with books that make me feel safer and have within them the clues needed to tip things in a better direction. We all deserve to feel safe like that. And I am happy that I’m able to take the time, when I need it, to sit and learn, and stew, and plot. And we all deserve time for that, too. Most of all, I am happy that this room has two chairs, so that as winter—both real and allegorical—washes over us, I am reminded that the second chair is there because love is real. I read it in books. <hr/>🖐️ Got a question you need a long run-on answer to? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-get-through-cold-wet-dreary-days" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it</a>! 📣 There’s one last <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1974520646406?aff=oddtdtcreator&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-get-through-cold-wet-dreary-days" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Presenting w/Confidence workshop</a> left this year. December 11 & 12. Sign up, learn some stuff, meet some nice people, say hello to their pets. 🎅 The <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/2025-sock-of-shit?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-get-through-cold-wet-dreary-days" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">2025 Sock of Shit</a> was a great success and they’re all sold out, however we still have BOOKS! <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/pulp-trash-collection-signed?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-get-through-cold-wet-dreary-days" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">OMG BOOKS</a>! And we will sign them! And they’ll make great gifts! 🧺 We also have <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/gilly-amp-billy-enamel-pin-fpbpz-y2d7t?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-get-through-cold-wet-dreary-days" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gilly pins</a> back in stock and they make amazing stocking stuffers. 🍉 We all need places where we feel safe. Please donate what you can to the <a href="https://www.pcrf.net/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-get-through-cold-wet-dreary-days" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund</a>. 🏳️‍⚧️ We all need homes where we are loved. Please donate to <a href="https://translifeline.org/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-get-through-cold-wet-dreary-days" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Trans Lifeline</a>.