still a cat.
Oh, hi.
The other night I woke up in the middle of the night to find my husband using his iphone’s flashlight to inspect the headboard of our bed.
“What are you doing?” I asked with grog-fueled annoyance.
“I’m checking something.”
When I pushed deeper to verify what exactly he was checking, he sighed, tired of explaining his high-level architectural-minded machinations, and went downstairs.
Don’t worry, folks, this is just life with a man who has night terrors. One day, I’ll tell you about the time he fell off a second story indoor balcony after taking medications for a root canal before going to sleep. Thank god he survived with only minor bruising.
In other news:
Reading
If you’re a Glennon Doyle fan (or not), read this New Yorker piece from one of my fave writers, Ariel Levy, of The Rules Do Not Apply. And while we’re at it, just a reminder that Levy’s book, based on her award-winning New Yorker article, Thanksgiving in Mongolia, is just wonderful.
This article on the Coming African-American Missions Movement was an interesting read.
“Some experts say that less than 1 percent of American missionaries are black. In many missions organizations, that actually seems like an overestimate…But some say that because of the history of colonialism, slavery, and white oppression, black missionaries can be more effective than their white counterparts. Star Nelson said that in Haiti, there were people who were willing to listen to her talk about Jesus because she is black.”
This 20-minute exercise will clear your mental clutter.
Watching
Although I haven’t seen it yet, the Britney Spears documentary is supposedly a must-watch. Review here.
Whether or not you’ve gotten hooked on the True Crime genre yet or not, we finally finished The Staircase on Netflix, and it’s a must-watch. I also read his book (recommended for super fans since it brings up so many thing the 13-part documentary didn’t address), and generally inhaled all the things. So much to deep-dive on, especially for Enneagram 5 husbands and Enneagram 5 adjacents like myself who love to deep-dive on anything.
Startups & Investing Stuff
This is a good piece from Brianne Kimmel on The Angel J-Curve to help identify what type of angel investor you are (or might be).
3 Predictions for FinTech Infrastructure in 2021. (I never said all my links were for everyone.)
An article I was liberally quoted in this week came out saying there were ZERO investments into solo female founded companies or companies with all-female teams in Latin America in 2020! Not only was it not true (at Brava by Magma we made 3 investments in 2020 into two such teams), but it happened the same week that two of my fave solo female founders announced big raises.
Congrats, Ashley!


And Cory!


General Dumpster Fires
Most importantly, a man using a cat filter on Zoom broke the internet…

…and I have never felt more seen.

At the end of my own rope 11 months into this pandemic, I am 1000% still a cat.
That’s all for now,
Claire