I often turn to Instagram for distraction.

It can be a good place to go if you need a minute (or thirty) to pause your brain and mindlessly scroll. But lately, my Instagram feed is full of other internet-types hawking quarantine-themed guides with titles like, “5 Tips for Working from Home!” and “How to Work from Home without Ruining Your Relationship”.

And truthfully, I do not care. I do not want to read about what Janie Blogger thinks about time boxing and scheduling her day with Trello. I don’t care about anyone else’s relationship tips. I don’t care about the very best way to clean out my closet. Today, this week, this month, I do not care.

I realize this is hypocritical, as here I sit tip-typing away on my own blog. I get that.

I also get that there is, undoubtedly, an audience for those guides.

But I suspect, if you’ve read Costume Parade for any stretch of time, you might be like me. I suspect that you’re taking this virus seriously. I bet your hands are chapped and cracking from repeated hand washing. I’d guess that right now, next to this post, is another tab that you keep open all day, to constantly refresh the news. I’m positive that you’re worried: worried about the health of your loves ones, worried about your own health, your income, the economy, the most vulnerable in our society, the list could go on and on.

And I highly doubt that a chipper guide about using this time at home to unleash your true potential is what you need today.

So, I’m not here to offer you any advice. Instead, I’m hoping to give you that which I’m sure Instagram isn’t delivering: distraction.

Below are lots of distractions. Some to read, some to watch, some short and some lengthy. I hope at least one of them can give you a few minutes away from your worry in these scary times.

The articles

• The Girl With the Midas Touch - How Billie Eilish, Finneas, and Hans Zimmer rethought the James Bond theme for a new generation (Vulture)

• Job Profile: The Writer Behind Those Chaotic Co–Star Notifications (Man Repeller)

• At 30, Abigail Bruley Forgot Who She Was—Then She Became Someone New (Man Repeller)

• I Think About This a Lot: Jack and Meg White Pretending to Be Brother and Sister (The Cut)

• The Swashbuckling History of Women Pirates (Smithsonian Magazine)

• Women Are Turning Their 40th-Birthday Parties Into Wedding-Level Extravaganzas (Marie Claire)

• 10 Defining Themes of Paris Fashion Week (The Washington Post)

• A Designer Who Wants to Make Your Future Heirlooms (T Magazine)

An Expansive Online Fashion Museum

• We Wear Culture (Google Arts and Culture)

The Newsletters I Actually Read Week After Week

• Ruby Josephine’s The Sunday Pancake - I particularly enjoy “The Good Stack”, a collection of arts and performance inspired links. (Does Ruby sound familiar? She was featured here on Costume Parade in a How They Build It post!)

• Hitha Palepu’s 25 Smart Reads - A round up of 25 articles (5 per day) from the previous week.

• The Anna Edit’s An Edited Life - a monthly newsletter from blogger, and organization aficionado, Anna Newton.

• Fortune Magazine’s The Broadsheet - a daily newsletter featuring headlines spotlighting women in business.

A podcast Episode

• This recent episode of This American Life entitled “The Show of Delights” - In their words, “a show made up entirely of stories about delight.”

A Few Good Instagram Finds…

• Makeup artist, Katie Jane Hughes, has been sharing a daily makeup tutorial in her Instagram stories.

• The Happy Broadcast - routinely shares what they call “ANXIETY-FREE NEWS”

• This post of Josh Gad, of Book of Mormon and Frozen fame, dancing. (He was also Bear Claw on New Girl, one of my personal favorites.)