Welcome to... Pretend It's a Newsletter

number 001

This is an exercise on what I’d write about if I had a bi-monthly newsletter going out, you know, to your inbox. If you’re getting this… well this exercise must have gone well. 

I’d talk about Bridgerton—and how Julie Andrews making thinly veiled cum jokes is hopefully the first in many apologies the year 2020 owes us. 

I’d talk about getting absolutely blasted by CBD bath bombs and how I’m writing this blissfully without a body after using these from Happy Dance. 

I’d write about how in the aforementioned bath I washed my hair in the tub, to try and get back in touch with a childhood part of myself lost to time. I’m not sure if it worked or not, but grinding the base of my spine on the floor of the tub to lean back and rinse somehow helped with my hip knot. 

I’d also write about the hip knot and how last week I went from a depressed puddle, to a depressed puddle who was concerned about a coup on congress by violent white supremacists, to a depressed puddle who took a Teledoc in the bathtub, only to get prescribed steroids and find out within the hour that a favorite aunt has cancer. 

I’d also talk about the fact that you could unsubscribe from this newsletter here, if you want to. If you signed up for the in person social events I used to throw in the before times, or you don’t know how you got here then I really wouldn’t blame you, because even I don’t know what this is. 

I’d say I wouldn’t be offended, except I probably would be if I checked and saw you divorced me from your inbox but that’s my problem not yours! I am a human woman of a tender certain age (30), and in the words of Al Roker during the 2020 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, “This big baby is all business.” He was referring to the Dreamworks’ Boss Baby float, and not me, but I think it’s still applicable.

I’d also talk about how I started the Fran Lebowitz docu-series with Martin Scorcese and I loved it so much. I look forward to dragging it out and making it last as long as possible, savoring the dry seltzer water that is Lebowitz’s comedy prowess. 

I’d also tell you about the mushroom, leek, and cabbage hand pies I started this morning, and how somehow in this in between of lockdown and no-one-is-taking-this-pandemic-that-seriously-anymore-even-though-people-are-dying hellscape we’re living in, I decided to… find cooking? Again? 

I’d also tell you that I answered four emails today, and my computer is on 3% and that’s about how my capacity for work is going in 2021. 

I’d talk to you about the fact that this Sunday, against all odds, it snowed in Austin, TX. The snow covered everything, and somehow—inexplicably—it snapped me out of the fog I’d been in for the past few weeks. The time after Christmas, regardless of whether Christmas is good or bad, is unmooring. I feel an immense amount of gratitude for the snow this week. I needed it more than I knew. 

Lastly, I’d tell you that I don’t know what this email is but I know it feels right for right now. My grandma told me on the phone the other day to keep shining my brightness to the world. I don’t always feel bright or quite like shining, but my next right step is this newsletter and that feels bright today.

P.S. Update:

I lost 1%, but I did two more emails. 

I’ll see you next week.