Who is she??
A newsletter in which you find out who this is all even for
Is it just me, or does the crisp fall air bring upon you a crashing wave of nostalgia that sort of takes over your entire mind/body/spirit and drowns it in the memories of your past selves?
:)
The leaves falling and the temperatures dropping makes me crave the simple times of yesteryear. I look at a picture of myself as a child, and think about how her greatest care in the world was whether to request Jewel or Sheryl Crow on the car ride to school. I look at a picture of teenage me, and I can almost smell the sweet pungent cloud of Daisy by Marc Jacobs on her Jergens tanned skin. I lament how much more powerful I was when flowery scents like that didn’t give me an instant migraine. Bless them and the things they cared about.
Fall brings other feelings such as seasonal allergies, blisters from wearing boots that haven’t been worn in six months, dry skin that won’t go away no matter how diligently I moisturize, and existential dread about the approaching end of yet another year.
Also, good things! Like the staticky chaos of Santa Ana winds, the honor of participating in the democratic process come November 5th, and cooking stew-like meals such as chili and short ribs and chickpea-forward Alison Roman recipes. Yeah, fall is special.
There’s a certain amount of chaos in my brain as of late. I am searching for answers to questions that maybe don’t have them - such as, who is this all even for? And by this, I don’t know what I mean!
I took a personality quiz just to check-in with myself, and I found it so hard to answer all the questions. Two examples:
“Complex and novel ideas excite you more than straightforward ones.”
I’m not sure. I think about the monkeys, the ones that type forever and ever and eventually they write Shakespeare, and that kind of excites me. And then I think about how the concept of “show don’t tell” when it comes to writing is so unbelievably simple and useful. Or that like, drinking water makes you feel better. I don’t know, I find this question so confusing! Choose middle dot, I guess.
“You feel more persuaded by what resonates emotionally with you than by factual arguments.”
Truth be told, it just depends which side I am arguing. I am a contrarian to my core, born to stir the pot and poke holes. If you give me emotional, I’ll strike back with the power of facts. If you give me logic and sound mind, I will undoubtedly come back with sunny spiritual sentences that melt your cold, hard facts into a puddle. Whatever suits me best in that particular moment. Middle dot, again.
And so on and so forth, until I realize that I have chosen the middle dot for almost all of them and decide to give up because I don’t want a computer to tell me that I’m boring.
The idea of being unknowable, even to yourself, is actually pretty exciting to me. As much time as I spend writing my thoughts and opinions down, I still wonder sometimes what I am actually like, you know, in my nature. Maybe that’s why the pictures of little me have been hitting so hard. I can see in her expressions, the way she carries herself, that she is me - just a girl with a rich inner life and a fuck ass bob. I find it comforting to know, whoever it is that I am inherently, I have always been just that way.
This self-reflection is all very Sally Rooney coded. My favorite quote from my second favorite book of hers, Conversations with Friends, is the type of writing that gives me the motivation to wake up in the morning and keep working on my own sad girl novel.
“I enjoyed playing this kind of character, the smiling girl who remembered things. Bobbi told me she thought I didn’t have a ‘real personality’, but she said she meant it as a compliment. Mostly I agreed with her assessment. At any time I felt I could do or say anything at all, and only afterwards think: oh, so that’s the kind of person I am.”
Unironically, powerful stuff.
Speaking of Sally, I am in the midst of reading her newest release Intermezzo and am really enjoying it so far! I’m sure I’ll finish it by next week, so expect thoughts then. Shoutout to the girl at the SFO Hudson News who sold it to me two days early, thus giving me a jump on all the other girls in the world. I really love to feel special.
Yet, the world must remind me every goddamn day that I am not special. There’s this trend on Substack of writers making a hyper-specific list of who their newsletter is for. The first version of this trend that I saw reminded me how I’ve never had original thought in my whole little vida. Would be comforting, if I weren’t trying so hard to be unknowable!
Years ago on this very newsletter, I adjudicated the concept of pumpkin spice lattes. I still have not tried one, mostly because I straight up don’t think I’d like the taste.
In ideating for my own “who is this for” list, I thought about making my first line item “people who have never tried a pumpkin spice latte.” But that would be lame and way too limiting. I genuinely want all you pumpkin spice freaks!! No judgment.
So let us tackle the ultimate question. What is the purpose of this newsletter? Who is it even for??
If you’ve ever gotten your nails done and thought – huh, it would be really fun to be the person who names these colors.
Cajun Shrimp. Big Apple Red. Lincoln Park After Dark. Russian Navy. Ballet Slippers. Funny Bunny. If this collection of words means nothing to you, you are one of my five male readers and I love you! If these words mean everything to you, I love you even more.
You desperately want another season of The OA.
This show occupies a little file cabinet in my brain that randomly busts open when anyone does sinister quick breathing and/or weird little hand flips and arms waves. If I could have anything, it would be peace on earth and a third season of the OA.
Anyone who has watched someone let a sports team’s loss ruin their day and thought “I wish I cared about anything that much.”
I like to observe sports fans as an anthropological exercise. Adult men and women, letting their happiness be determined by a cohort of strangers - sometimes who are teenage boys - and their ability to hold onto and let go of a ball at the right time. It’s actually stunning to me, and I find myself wishing I could be like them. It would be cool to share in that collective experience of caring about that. My brain, unfortunately, does not allow for it.
You’ve been moved to tears by a strip mall parking lot sunset.
I don’t know what to say about this other than that I feel like the fleeting sense of happiness I get when I see the sunset while in a parking lot that is surrounded by a European Wax Center, a Pick Up Stix, a bougie grocery store, a gourmet dog food retailer, and a tailor that is surely some sort of front for illegal activity - is some of the most profound happiness I’ve ever felt.
You’ve leaned against a window while riding on a train and pretended you were Serena van der Woodsen making her triumphant return to New York City in the pilot of Gossip Girl.
Young Folks by Peter, Bjorn and John. Ever heard of it? Of course, you have. And if you think of the pilot of Gossip Girl every time you hear those little whistles, you are where you belong. Honestly, the third thing I want most in this world is for someone to see me leaning my head against the window of a train and think to themselves … who is she??
You read The Bell Jar only because that’s what Kat reads in 10 Things I Hate About You.
Surely, I cannot be the only one?
You rewatch Fleabag (season 2) or Normal People when you want to feel something.
AKA you find tragic romances somehow comforting, or perhaps just distracting enough to make you forget about the real tragic romance that is your non-existent relationship to Robert Pattinson </3
You wanted to go to Yale, have your dreams of being a foreign correspondent crushed, steal a boat, get arrested, and quit school just so a Jess Mariano type could emphatically say to you “WhY dId YoU dRoP oUt Of YaLe?”
One of the more specific criteria, but I believe there must be some who relate. For the record, if I had gotten in to that blue bulldog school, I surely would have gone. And maybe then my life would have been perfect!
Do you know about the monkeys? The ones that type forever and ever and eventually spit out the complete works of William Shakespeare? I mentioned them already.
I think about them a lot. I relate to them. Because I am type type typing in the hopes that I write something that could bring a modicum of happiness to anyone at all.
For real though, the ultra-specific criteria I listed are just things I personally want to write about because I think it’s fun. Because talking about any of those topics with anyone at all would genuinely bring me so much joy.
I’m earnestly trying to build a community of people who want to engage with my nonsense and laugh and be random as hell!
Oof, is this whole thing just an attempt to make cool friends who indulge my annoying ways?
That reminds me of another personality test question that I had difficulty answering -
“You regularly make new friends.”
Ummm, you tell me, guys! I’m just a girl who thinks she’s funny, using the power of the internet to feel something.
P.S. If you read this far, then this newsletter is unequivocally for YOU! xo