Happy Monday morning to you from just after 7:30 pm on my Sunday. Y'all, I'm gonna say it again, we're all going through it. Big. Fucking. Woof. If you're not experiencing a crippling existential crisis to some degree, well, I envy you.
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I guess that's where we're starting today. I think now when people ask me what I write about in these newsletters, I can say "oh its just me being overly emotional." Dramatic much? Yep!
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I'm not even sure if it's drama, though, mainly due to having so many people throughout my life telling me to lighten up, stop being so serious, or something like "it's not a dick, you don't have to take it so hard." -sighs in last week's newsletter- So maybe, I'm percievably dramatic because I'm under the impression that words mean things and have been told that actions speak louder than words so like....
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It's just easier to say I'm dramatic than worry about dismantling patriarchy.
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Anyway. I had a thought a couple of weeks ago. In fact, I had many thoughts a couple of weeks ago. I also have many thoughts right now. (Can't sell myself short, ya know?!) It was a Wednesday morning, and I was driving to acquire two 5-gallon glass jugs from a stranger. It was wicked foggy, and it took me back to living in Long Beach, riding my bike down Junipero to the beach early in the mornings to go open Chuck's. The marine layer would be so thick at times that I worried about running into someone. Except for a couple of weeks ago, I was driving my car in western Massachusetts, and had a similar worry about running into someone. What was different this time was the thought, "I wonder if this is what it would be like to wake up dead." It's still relatively cold in New England, so my windows were up, and I'm sure something was coming through the speakers, but it was eerie. Driving into an abyss. On the beach, there was the crash of waves, a spattering of people and dogs out for their morning rituals. There were visible and audible signs of life and movement, not just the oncoming headlights appearing scarily close, and the obvious attention to the act of driving.
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That was the thought. I jazzed it up a bit because if you haven't noticed by now, I have no idea what I'm writing about this week. You're welcome for the jazzing. You're also welcome for the splash of entertainment that isn't some catchy video that leads to another, and another, and another. I think it's all so icky, and this is coming from someone who has shockingly high screen time for having so many hobbies. I remember the taste of freedom from my childhood- leaving home on my bicycle, with some arbitrary boundaries of streets I wasn't supposed to cross (spoiler alert, I crossed them), and only checking in via a friend's landline once I found someone to join me, or if I needed a ride home because the streetlights were on. I remember working in cellular sales in my twenties, and a woman having pause about leaving her phone with us while it updated. Yet, she likely raised children to adulthood before cellphones. Now, here I am, wasting hours witnessing stale glimpses of strangers' highlight reels. Disgusting, actually. Mainly because the world has become so reliant on trying to impress the internet. I feel more disconnected with most things than ever before, yet... there's virtually no distance? I don't know most things, but I do know that I did not sign up for this shit.
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Speaking to that truth, I've picked up my phone at least 4-5 times while trying to type this over the last hour and a half. No alerts, either, just a genuine habit. I saw something on the internet the other day (I abhor how often I say this), and I regret not mentally logging the creator, but it was an artist who had depicted our cell phones as evil amulets that control us. That tickled me. I'm still working out how to break the spell my amulet has on me, because as I typed that, I picked up my phone to see if I at least supported said artist with a like on the content I thought was brilliant enough to tell you about. I did. Their Instagram handle is @trevornvk, credit where credit is due. I've grown so used to the convenience of information at my fingertips, the ability to see my friends' faces in real time, to watch their babies grow, to go anywhere with real-time directions, as if getting lost and asking for help wasn't part of the magic. I have a friend who hates when things are googled in his presence. In his defense, he is older, I won't disclose by how much, mainly because at one point in our friendship, he didn't even know how old he was, and I had to explain how math worked while bellied up to a restaurant bar after hours. Isn't that part of the magic, too? Not looking up the answer, and pondering with the people present, deciding on a reasonable truth before moving on? I think as a species, we have really lost the point. We're so far gone that it feels alienating to choose to do anything unless it's preapproved by whatever fictitious guiding moral compass we adhere to at any given moment.
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Enough, because this, the newsletter you're reading after I've authored it, was not preapproved. No one inspired me to do this; it was something I thought up in my head, and I am mostly following through on it. You wanna know something? It's been pretty fulfilling so far. People reply when they're so inclined, and although the percentage is low, I know that people are reading these. It's much less attention than a selfie with a less thought-out caption would get on Instagram, but that's the point. Quality over quantity. I see who watches my stories about my newsletter, who likes them, and who doesn't sign up. Rejection is everywhere if you know how to look for it.
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Was that enough? Can I be done? What's that? It's my decision? I know best? Shocker.
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I watched The Fox and The Hound with my dog while doing some hand stitching Saturday morning. I bawled my eyes out, because The Fox and The Hound. Hand stitching has been my go-to way to try to curb the time I spend being absorbed by my evil amulet currently, because it requires two hands, is incredibly cheap, and quite time consuming. I'm filling space because I don't know how to end this..
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What's this about donating? It's for Family Resources of the Quad Cities. Now through the end of April, which is sexual assault awareness month, this button will be here. No pressure, I can't afford to donate right now, which is why this is here; I wanted to show support in a way that was feasible for me. If you're a Quad Citizen, I encourage you to go to the pop-up market on April 18 at the Rock Island Bent River. A long-time friend of mine has put together the event, and it would mean a lot to a lot of people for it to be successful.
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