Happy New Year, I’m Still Here

Apologies for arriving in your inbox three days late.

Hello dear readers!

It’s been over a month since my last post and in that time a lot has happened. I turned 24 and the earth got a year older. I started a new job, finished my first novel, and implemented a new water spray bottle system to get my cat to stop scratching me.

In the time I’ve been away, I’ve also wrestled with the future of this newsletter. What kind of content do I want to write? Should it continue at all? What started as a fun way to sort through my thoughts and feelings about graduating college (with unsolicited recommendations and outfit photos) has turned into a place where I occasionally showcase labor-intensive writing that I’m proud of. That’s a good thing! Only, I’m not sure this is the best place for it. These days, I feel more pressure to keep improving the quality of my work with each post. I don’t want to let anyone’s expectations down, but I also don’t want to lose the fun, stress-free writing environment I created this Substack for. I also can’t help but wonder,¹ if the knowledge that my audience includes many friends and family members shapes what I allow myself to write about. Talking to an anonymous void about sex and dating culture² would certainly be easier.

“preface to my memoirs” isn’t going anywhere. I plan to keep this publication active and continue posting once a month. I owe this group a lot, and I truly appreciate those of you who take the time to read my experiments, unfortunate typos and all. It’s because of you that I feel ready to expand beyond the bubble of Substack. See if someone else will publish my “serious” work for a change.

I’m telling you my plans because submitting my essays to outside publications may mean less consistency on my part.

Also, I need someone to hold me to this resolution.

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Now, onto some fun!

Last year I shared five resolutions with you all:

1. Stop over-apologizing.

2. Go to the dentist.

3. Finish Marilyn Monroe’s filmography (or at least make a decent dent).

4. Be an open and honest communicator.

5. Move out.

I moved out, which was the biggest feat by far. Overachiever that I am, I made it happen by the end of January. I also visited the dentist. A necessity, which was just as harrowing as moving my record collection and speaker system up four flights of stairs.

I don’t think I succeeded at apologizing less. I still mumble sorrys to strangers on the subway and at the grocery store after they’ve bumped into me. I also abandoned my Marilyn watchathon in the first month of 2023 in favor of mediocre romantic comedies I could do my dishes during. I believe it’s always good to work on being a strong communicator, so all three of these resolutions will roll over into this year.

Five of My New Resolutions For 2024 Include:

1. Go to Europe (Italy to be specific).

2. Remember to refill my humidifier.

3. Read my writing aloud at some organized venue.

4. Throw a drag party.

5. Care less about what other people think of me.

Number five is a throwback to a bygone era.

When I was in high school, I’d start every semester with the resolution to “be more confident.” I’d write it boldly in pencil and with a period at the end, internally repeating Sally Bowles’s sad refrain: “Maybe this time.” 

For so long, confidence was my white whale, eternally out of reach. I couldn’t tell you when, but somewhere along the road I thought I’d paved with failure, I did find confidence and more importantly self-acceptance. Insecurity never dies out completely, of course; it morphs. Apologizing to the people who bump into me at grocery stores remains my instinctual response. All I can do is try to be more assertive. Try to care less. I know the self-doubts that currently seem insurmountable I’ll one day flick away with ease.

There was a time when tripping and falling in public would make me cry. It happened on several occasions, but the time I remember most happened while walking through Times Square with my dad. “Making the rounds”³ in and out of Broadway theaters, always made me feel like a big shot. I was on top of the world when I face-planted between 8th and 9th Avenue. With a ripped a hole in my favorite jeans and a bleeding knee, I ran to the theater bathroom to collect myself. Only my dad had seen what happened, but I was still mortified. At that time, I couldn’t laugh at myself or brush it off. I felt foolish and hated myself for it.

Last week, I faced a similar plight while leading my friends to my apartment to toast my birthday. On the minute I was born, my friends stopped mid-walk to cheer. I looked back at them, smiling and basking in the show of love. Then, as I turned around, I made my first action of my 24th year on the earth twisting my ankle and falling face-first into the street.

Again, my knee was bleeding and my silver heel was a little mangled, but this time when my friends rushed over to check that I was okay, they found me sitting on the ground, unable to stop laughing.

The girl who cried in that theater bathroom would be in awe of how far we’ve come. I eat alone at restaurants. I walk into parties where I don’t know anyone. I wear blue eyeshadow, which many think should have been banned after the 80s. But as we’ve established, insecurity is like Whac-A-Mole. No amount of effort kills it completely.

I recently read that my generation is statistically more risk-averse than our predecessors. We’re afraid of sending emails, getting into relationships, and leaving the house without our phones. Our nihilist sense of humor and cynicism have been discussed to death. Can you blame us? There’s a lot to be afraid of in the world. Rising sea levels. Insurrections. Social faux pas. Inflation. Date rape. Plague. War. Yes, none of it is new, but there must be some reason every adult over fifty tells me they think the world is getting worse.⁴

We have a lot to do if we’re going to fix the planet we’re stuck with. That involves activism, voting, volunteering, speaking truth to power, and much more. It’s the more mundane things that call for confidence. Not only confidence in our identities and beliefs but also the assurance that we are capable of surviving embarrassment, discomfort, and failure.

The first book I’ve picked up this year is Cookie Mueller’s Walking Through a Clear Water Pool Painted Black. A true product of the free love and hippie movement, Cookie waltzes through grand and horrifying adventures with ease and optimism that’s incredible to behold. She embraces any offer to see a new place, try a new drug, or own a new animal. She has only a small dose of healthy suspicion about people and almost no judgments. Within the first sixty pages of her memoir, she outruns abductors, Satanists, and rapists (I’m not kidding) and manages to turn all her worst experiences into a fun story.

The cover of her book. I can’t get enough of this image.

She encompasses all the spontaneity my generation seems to be lacking. Thus, I’ve sought her as my inspiration for the New Year. Cookie is certainly not perfect, but I think we too often prize perfection these days. Whether Cookie’s adventures are a success or not, she’s never deterred from the next one. She’s not afraid to stand apart from the crowd physically or spiritually. I won’t emulate all her life choices (I like having a savings account and am too afraid of my subconscious to ever try LSD let alone heroin), but her attitude screams total confidence and no fear.

2024 Ins and Outs!

I was going to turn up my nose at the widespread influx of In & Out New Year’s lists, thinking I was far too cultured and original to partake. Then, while listening to André Leon Talley’s memoir, I was reminded of the WWD⁵ origins of the In & Out list, so I decided to stop being a snob and join in.

IN

• Truman Capote

• Afternoon Tea

• Pins and brooches

• Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers (FINALLY)

• Watercooler talk

• Puffy Sleeves

• Romance

• Lighting things with matches

• Portraiture and multi-panel medieval paintings

• Hand cream

• Cultivating a complex vocabulary

OUT

• Cat scratches

• Coquette-core⁶

• Presidential Election Polling

• Losing your phone

• Girlboss think pieces

• The Golden Globes

• Calling too many things trauma

• Linked In updates⁷

• Mumbling

• Paying for Ubers to meet a man after midnight

Plus, my favorite In & Out Substack list aside from my own.

Outfit of This Era:

I had many to choose from this month, but my birthday fit wins because of the pin!

Recommendations for This Era:

• Walking Through a Clear Water Pool Painted Black by Cookie Mueller

• Journaling (always)

• The Chiffon Trenches: A Memoir by André Leon Talley

• Wearing hats

• Nyad (2023) on Netflix

• Patti Smith’s A Book of Days

• The bookworm app as an alternative to Goodreads

• Percy Jackson and the Olympians on Disney +

• Alka-Seltzer Cold and Flu Relief

1. A tribute to all you Sex and the City devotees.

2. A topic I’ve found myself drawn to lately.

3. This was our name for checking in on the shows during tech rehearsals and between performances.

4. We could get into the argument that the internet and social media’s ability to put these issues front and center has warped our brains for the worse. Then again, it’s been made so many times by smarter people than I, so why bother?

5. Women’s Wear Daily

6. I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.

7. It’s been out and it remains out.