If you came out and hung out, thanks. I couldn’t access the Substack chat, if there was one.

I am set to you must be subscribed to chat. Maybe one day someone will subscribe.

I hit 69 today. I should buy a lottery ticket, eh? As my mother would say.

Anyway, it’s almost 1 am here and I need to close my eyes. Work started at 6:30 am this morning. What a day! What a couple of days!

Night,

Mel

P.s. come hang next time. Don’t be a weiny. Here’s what I made on Canva that you missed.

I was writing something last week about my friends being brilliant, and that it hurts. I will eventually release it, but it’s not ready yet. I want to talk to all of my friends before I share it. I want to share all of it, including why it hurts isn’t just yearning; it’s watching patterns repeat themselves that I know they can see. I know, because I call them out. It’s usually because something they’ve said stings. I am really sensitive to tone. I ask, “Why do you do this?” And they most often have a reason ready, maybe a slight pause, before saying something along the lines of, “It’s what I’ve always done. It’s what I do.” ← To me, this isn’t an answer to harmful behaviour, and that means more conversations. I’m not a therapist; I’m not a dumping ground.

I don’t believe someone’s behaviour is the person. I don’t believe behaviour is excusable, either. Mental health, upbringing, culture, gender, societal norms, etc. don’t excuse it either, but it might explain the root. I don’t blame roots; they’re most often planted in ignorance. I know mine were, and the things I can’t see are too.

That’s what ignorance is: unknowing. You cannot know what you don’t know. It’s impossible. Until someone says something, or teaches you, you cannot know it.

My language cult talks about this consistently. The first thing they draw, on the first day, is a big circle on a whiteboard. They say, “Imagine this is everything you can know in the world. All knowledge.” Which in itself is pretty unfathomable. In fact, it IS unfathomable.

Then they cut out a small pie piece and add, “And let’s say this is what you know. These are things you know. They’re the things you can do well, or just fine; it doesn’t matter, but these are the things you know you know.”

Beside that, they draw a larger pie piece. This represents the things you know you don’t know. This is where they ask for examples, such as:

• I know I don’t know how to perform a colonoscopy on you, dear reader.

• I also know I don’t know how to fly a plane.

These are things I know other people know. I know people who know how to do these things.

Things can move from the I know I don’t know to the I know I know it category through education, learning, being taught. It can also happen through conversation.

Then, here comes the real banger: if your blood pressure is a little high because you’re in a language development cult but you don’t know it (yet), or you do, and you’re amped to be in a hot, corporate-looking, fluorescent room with five hundred other people of all textures, then prepare yourselves.

They drop:

“Who can name something they don’t know they don’t know?”

A few proud hands go up, and the leader just looks balefully at their raised digits until it starts to dawn on them, slowly, and their hands slink back into their chairs with the questionable stain marks. PS. If you’re going to run a language development cult, choose black fabric; it hides the most.

(Fun fact: I got my period on one of them once. Whoops. A byproduct of feeling like an asshole for leaving the room mid-conversation, yet still my responsibility. This is important to note for later.)

The thing is, you cannot know what you don’t know. This is called a blind spot. And this was the first time I’d ever heard of this idea, back in 2016.

Blind spots aren’t only prejudice; what I’ve come to understand in the ten years, seventy-seven days since I learned this distinction is that they’re a lack of exposure. An unknowing. Basically, they’re ignorance.

I don’t blame people for ignorance. Again, it’s what you’re exposed to.

And sometimes exposure feels like a razor blade to self-identity, to fucking SELF.

“I am a good person.” I know that; I’m not doubting it. I have had a lot of people say this to me in my life. Mostly in response to me saying behaviour was harmful. I am clear about my needs, I am clear about what hurts, and I am clear about what I need when harmful behaviour occurs.

To me, behaviour is the number one indicator of whether someone’s words (and therefore their intentions) are true. And truth really fucking matters to me. I am strange; I trust people until proven not to. I trust people and forgive easily. I am very open. Even when people tell me not to trust them. I can’t NOT trust now first.

When I was younger, I struggled with this. I didn’t trust anyone immediately. I was very quiet because my household showed me that my loud led to ridicule, exclusion, and/or abandonment.

The only way to lose trust with me now is to lose it. However, it’s not lost forever.

Intention.

This is where I struggle with trust. This is where I’ve been called naive or dumb in the past. I have been manipulated before, throughout my life. Mostly, I think it’s because my intentions are never to harm anyone, so when I find out someone did, it’s like an invisible knife wound. That’s when trust is lost with me.

Watch my face when someone says that something I’ve said hurt them. That’s never my intent, and yet, it doesn’t matter; it doesn’t matter to the other person what my intention was. That’s fair, of course.

My responsibility is with how my words land, even if my intention is not to hurt.

Now, this is not a one-person show in a conversation or a relationship.

The space between two people creates a room.

Inside my theory, a room is where two Creatures come together to have conversations. Creature den is my public room. I’ll share more about this inside my book, but for now, all you really need to know is that a conversation can really only happen if three things line up:

1. Attention.

2. Presence.

3. Care.

Miss an ingredient? You’ll be talking at someone, or they’ll be talking at you. Or neither will be talking at all.

The greatest gift you can give someone is your presence.

Not your “full presence”, but your presence. There is no such thing as giving someone half of your presence. Your attention, which is a wild thing when it touches Presence, because it feels like a laser beam, and care, combine to create conversation. When one goes out, the conversation wobbles.

You cannot have all three with different people and have it remain the same conversation. I believe that because I’ve experienced it multiple times, and the more I do this work, my work, the more intense it becomes.

What was I talking about again?

Ah, yes, intent. Hmm. See? I get so into this work because it means everything to me. It means freedom, it means vitality, it means aliveness. It means anything is possible in conversation. My head flits from me, and who I’m with, to my friends, my family, and the world. I believe anything is possible in conversation. This feeling is what I was searching for when I started taking programs at the language development cult. I was an entirely different person, swimming inside of that body, waiting to break free.

My Creature was beneath the surface, waiting for experiences and exposures I hadn’t yet had. I could not be here today, sharing this with you or anyone, had I not lived the last thirty-five years or the last few months, in particular.

Now that I’ve felt my Presence alone and in relation to others, again and again, I’ve recognized a few things about this feeling:

1. I have never felt like this in my life

2. This feeling is self-generated

3. It isn’t enlightenment, even when it’s chill or wacky, or wild

4. It is contagious, but cannot be contained in a bottle or package

5. It can’t be learned without being experienced (even this writing isn’t the same thing as sitting in a room together); even my voice (in the voice recording) isn’t the same thing

6. I’m still waiting to be met and understood

Every person who I speak to inside of Creature den opens up new doorways. A couple of my friends have said it reminds them of being on acid or getting high on THC. I can’t speak to the acid comment; I’ve never had it. All I can say is I like to play, but regarding THC, I can feel that. I can watch their bodies shift, their minds slow, their smiles change into something more relaxed. It feels like I’m looking into a mirror, but watching their Presence relax or rest. For some, they get playful or silly. Or it’s a combination.

This is one side of me; this is my care. It often comes out as play that doesn’t leave agitation. I never want to play something that gives someone anxiety. I do my best to honour that while still being me. For example, some of my friends don’t like when I fuck around with filters inside of Creature den, so I try to find a happy medium.

I was asked yesterday if it was necessary for me to use filters, and for a while, yes. I did need an avatar. Then that same friend, in that same first conversation, made me feel comfortable enough to be on camera, and from there it’s been a steady cascade of me-ness exploding outwards. The filters now are just for play.

“What’s wrong?”

Last night I painted a green moustache and pink eyebrows on because we went live on Substack without my Zoom hook-up. One day I’ll figure out how to do my shit properly. That day is today for v.1.0.

*Disclaimer: Listen, if I say you can’t hang, it’s only because I’m creating a space that is safe for anyone to show up as anything that they are. If you’re going to be judgmental, you can literally gtfo.
I don’t care who you are.

Over the last month, I’ve had some really mind-opening conversations, and I think this is where I’m going to leave this article.

There will be so much more to come, and right now, I am organizing how to share more of Creature den and how you can be a part of it.

If you’re curious, subscribe to Creature den, check out my Benders in Review, read my posts, share with your friends or keep it to yourself as a naughty little treat that you’re still trying to figure out.

The last thing I want to mention is regarding responsibility.

Inside the language and development cult, integrity and responsibility were huge factors in the conversations and programs. Integrity doesn’t have morality attached to it, in their view. I agree. You can’t be in integrity if you’re judging. This is a really fine line, because who determines what judgement is and isn’t?

I didn’t grow up religious in any sense, so for me, morality is mostly self-led based on how I want to treat others and how I want to be treated. I also took a lot of how I treat people from how my dad treated me. He wasn’t perfect, but he was my safe role model and my safe male role model. A lot of people would say he was an asshole. I’d agree.

I never want to harm anyone. I am also not responsible for how someone behaves in reaction to feeling hurt. This is really tricky, because often hurt and harm are braided together, when I see them as being separate.

Hurts can happen unintentionally and can be repaired.

To me, harm is intentional. It’s willingly saying or doing something, or knowing that something said was harmful, and not repairing it or making excuses for it.

Again, I don’t believe mental health, culture, society, gender, societal norms, etc. excuse harmful behaviour. My responsibility is to try and be inside of other people’s worlds even if I don’t have the same exposure or experiences, without making it about myself.

I wasn’t always able to do this, and I protect myself from people who won’t have these conversations. I am not broken. You are not broken. I would never call someone broken. To me, that is harmful behaviour.

My responsibility is to ensure I am safe, that my daughter is safe, that I am not causing harm, and that, if I hurt someone and I know I did, even unintentionally, if they tell me, I apologize and repair. I never want to hurt anyone.

My friends are brilliant, and it hurts.

Much more to come.

xo,
Mel

PS.

Communication is personal. Communication is a point of view, which is usually dictated by experience and exposure, which means there can be blind spots in it. There are.

Conversation is different; conversation must remain curious. As soon as it loses curiosity, it dies. There can be no relation without curiosity, reciprocity, and repair.

Not perfection, just being willing to have conversations.

Look, I know, don’t worry—my brain is going to battle alongside yours like we’re slapping away our combined upbringings, values, culture, and societal pressures for this entire fucking piece of writing. I would have apologized, and I still do, because I’m also a woman.

I’m not supposed to say this.

I’m not supposed to HAVE a child and say, “I never wanted kids. I never imagined it. I wasn’t prepared for it.”

I’m supposed to immediately respond, “But I love her so much and regret nothing.”

I do love her so much, and I don’t regret her for a moment. I have never felt regret for having her. Today we’re going to the beach, and she’ll probably throw sand at me, and then I’ll tilt my head, smile, and give her the look, and she’ll smile and laugh and go “sorrrryyyy, Momma.” Then she’ll pause and add, “It was an accident.” And we’ll both laugh.

She has three different ways she says Mama. She calls her dad “Dad” sometimes. I’m not sure when that transition happened.

It used to be Dada, then Daddy lasted for maybe a couple of months, now it’s sometimes Dad.

I am still Mama. I hope it never changes. Until I’m a shrivelled up old woman with white hairs poking out of my nose. I want to be Mama forever.

Growing up I played with baby dolls a bit. They weren’t my main jam like Lego or Barbies. I never had a specific one that I liked or loved or can remember. We had these insanely realistic ones with vulvas and penises, and I always found that funny and a bit strange. Like WHAT? giggle, giggle

My mom always told us how happy she was that she never had a boy. That boys suck. This was because her brother bullied her and her mom didn’t do anything. My mom celebrated when my sister and I had girls, not babies, or children. I apologize, men, but my mom has spoken. All men. Especially you as fucking babies. Assholes.

I talk a fair bit about this, and this writing is shit; I don’t care. I just need to get something out of my head, and right now this feels the least volatile, the most accessible, the most approachable. This is easy for me.

Someone may not like that I am a mom who says I never wanted to have children. I am a great mom, and my daughter isn’t a burden to me. If anything, her birth and her upbringing saved me from a life of living under someone else’s beliefs until I died younger than I will now. I won’t stand silently by and pretend to emulate something I don’t feel. In fact, I’m really fucking bad at it. Most of the time when I try to pretend to be something, I put on such a good show that people believe me anyway. This is because I convince myself, and when I make a decision, like I did to pour all of myself into my daughter so I wouldn’t kill myself, I did. I am not suicidal, but I knew if I didn’t choose, I would die. There wasn’t enough energy for both of us.

Often when I tell other mothers that I never wanted to have kids, they think I mean I don’t want to be a mom. No, not right now. I didn’t, and yet I want to be the very best mom I can be for my daughter, and her friends, and any kid I see who isn’t being treated well. Having a child didn’t just save me; it woke me up to a part of the world you cannot see unless you have experienced it. Having a kid is a fucking Wild West rollercoaster you cannot step off of.

You cannot understand childbirth if you haven’t birthed a child. You can still be a fucking good mom and dad. One doesn’t negate the other; it’s just experience.

You cannot understand what it’s like to be inside a relationship (container) that can’t hold all of you after having a child. Many, many women can. Most just file the imbalance into the “this is how it is” folder, with the submark of “this is what I signed up for, I guess” and pretend it’s okay. It’s not okay. You didn’t fuck yourself and promise to raise a child together on your lonesome, now did ya? A lot of moms raise children alone in relationships and are amazing at it, but it isn’t right.

I also cannot understand what it’s like to be a dad. I cannot understand what it must be like to love your wife or partner and then suddenly have this screaming puddle, a destroyed wife, and no support emotionally or physically, inside a system that says you’re constantly failing.

The experience I do have is that I never gave up. Even now. Even separated.

My internal organs are screaming this incessant pulse of “Fight me. Fight me. Fight me.” I want to hear someone try to explain to me why my experience is wrong.

Tell me.

Show me.

You can’t.

I was never meant to have children, and I think it was not only the psychological choice of someone protective of others, but as someone who saw early on that I never wanted to make someone feel the way I did growing up without the words to say, this is wrong. I never wanted to live in a household where my partner drank himself into a stupor to survive, and his kind eyes turned glassy. I watched my dad collapse one night. I called 911. I was twelve. I remember passing my friend a note the next day, and she didn’t know what to do. I didn’t hug. I still don’t like it very much, because I can’t trust that the person holding me won’t turn around the next day and tell me I’m wrong.

Twelve years after that, my dad collapsed again, alone, only saved by his kind heart, which went into failure, as a neighbour came to check on him.

My dad never wanted to have children, my mom told me. I was shocked. She convinced him. My dad kept me as safe as he could.

You cannot express what you don’t see as wrong. You cannot express something is wrong when wrongness is your normal. And what we are exposed to is the root of our seeing. I was never hit with hands, but psychological damage on a young and perceptive mind is something that can cause deep wounds that may not have words. It also leaves a lot of self-doubt. “Is this okay? Is this acceptable? Am I allowed?”

I never wanted to have kids. I did anyway.

I could see it happening in my relationship after having my daughter, and I stepped back.

My ex now shows other dad’s how to breathe and pause and bring themselves back into their relationships (mostly with) their daughters. He did it yesterday at our daughter’s birthday party. I told him I was proud of him.

He doesn’t say, “You showed me this.” ← And I doubt he ever will, or he even knows. I am okay with him believing this is his natural state, that it’s some conclusion he came to on his own. That it didn’t cost massive amounts of my energy to learn. It’s not okay, and it’s okay. “It’s how it is. This is what I signed up for,” right? I’m done proving myself there. If he is growing, I am happy enough. I just want my daughter to feel it. And it’ll never be done. I will never not have him in my life. I will never not hear his tone shift, the words he chooses, or the way he can’t (always) be corrected without taking it as some sort of hit on his ego. And it’s not only him. It’s (almost) everyone. We are human, after all.

The thing is: I can only know what my intentions are. I can only know that the words I choose are not meant to hurt, and they’re never intentionally unkind.

I won’t be around unkindness. That comes from my dad, the small (big) gift he gave me from his heart. He protected me as best as he could. He showed me what kindness looks like consistently. My dad was never unkind to me.

I could easily destroy people if I wanted to be an asshole.

I am not an asshole:

Give me a kiss.

sigh

I am not exactly sure what else to say, except everything is fucking connected. It all matters, and ultimately, nothing does.

I am tired.

I need to sleep more.

I don’t care if this makes someone upset. Honestly, at this point, I am so fucking tired of people feeling something and assuming I’m up to something which will then explain their feelings being validated. I am in survival mode, most of the time, pushed down and crammed into a body that is already carrying a lot. And I have a now-five-year-old, and we’re going to the beach, and she will likely throw sand at me and say it was an accident.

That is what matters. Those moments where I don’t get mad at her. Where I don’t make her wrong for testing, for seeing me as someone safe, for the fact that we can go to the beach on a Monday in July, because we are safe. She is safe. I am safe.

I was never meant to be a mother, and I am. And I’ll continue to look at myself, my actions, my behaviour, and take responsibility for the moments in which I can understand why I may have hurt someone, even if there was no ill intent.

What I will no longer do is carry someone else’s emotions as if they are my responsibility, because that is a curse. It causes sickness. I will carry what is mine. I’ll help her carry hers until she can on her own. THAT is what I signed up for. That is what I never had. It’s what she’ll hopefully never know. My scars are not hers to carry. And I’ll take no more from others, thanks.

xoxo,

GG.

Okay.

Here I am.

My mind circles through thoughts, experiences, and feelings in the more-silent hours of my day, when I don’t have to do anything but think and listen to my daughter snore softly, while Alexa plays rain sounds that loop every 6.5 seconds. Torrential downpour that would absolutely flood my apartment is more like it— the sound. Yet somehow my brain doesn’t find it disturbing.

It can separate “faux” rain from real, easily enough. Maybe because I’ve listened to this recording for almost 3 years non-stop.

My daughter very rarely slept in her own bed. We co-slept for 4 months and tried sleep training, in my exhaustion, but it was easier to feed her and have a broken back than it was to get out of bed every night, every 3-4 hours, to feed her. So I went back to cosleeping.

And then when she was two, I built her a unicorn bed, and she slept in there until my mother-in-law died suddenly, and my ex wanted her close. So, since 2024, she’s slept with us. She has a bed; she would sleep in her own bed now, I think. I can’t afford a second bed for her. So for now, we sleep together and listen to rain sounds every night that we’re together.

On the nights she isn’t here, I choose silence. Or, close enough, if the man upstairs isn’t doing a jig above my head. He was up a few minutes ago. I have no idea what he’s possibly doing. I’m not choosing to be awake right now, and I assume he isn’t either, but I’m also not loudly awake.

Maybe I should turn my keyboard sounds on?

No. That’s an asshole move, if not funny.

So, I sit here and think about the nights when I am alone, and the people who come into my head, and this idea I’ve felt in my chest for as long as I can remember about feeling the frequencies of people. I didn’t have the language for it at twelve, when I started building my internal world. The one I paint over our current reality, even to this day. The one I layered over my life, to help soften the way I felt, unable to speak. “Shout out to the selective mutes,” I saw someone post the other day, here on Substack. And the irony that my mom was a speech pathologist and no one said, “This isn’t normal,” is baffling.

I have 4%, and I won’t ramble.

So, in the forest behind my house, I would disappear myself from the house that called my mute presence a burden, and created characters who knew who I was.

At first, they were guardians. Beings who could keep me safe. And me, and kids in general, held secret powers in their chests. Hidden.

And as I grew, those guardians took shape into other feelings. Real friendship, camaraderie and also, as a teenager, I wondered softly, what about love? I dared it. Even then, I dared it to be. In secret.

Even when my mom would give me that head tipped down, hand outstretched to my sketchbook, the diary I couldn’t write because my sister would violate my sanctity, write in them, and laugh with my mom. I stopped writing in a diary at age seven. I still have it. I still have the notes she wrote. Somewhere.

3%. Here we go.

So, my mom would ask me about my characters. If I didn’t give her my sketchbook, she’d just look at it if I didn’t keep it guarded. She’d go through loose papers I left out and bring anything she didn’t understand to my dad, “out of concern”.

My images were dark. People dragged around, screaming, black, twisting spirals, black ink, and sometimes, if I gave myself a paper cut or got a nosebleed, I’d hide blood in them. Just because. I figured, if no one saw me, I’d leave a trace behind. Maybe aliens would reincarnate me in a thousand years and hug me.

Ha.

And now, here, at 2:14 am, Tippy Tappy Sr., and I write in the dark. About frequencies and loneliness.

Because I am not lonely now.

Not in the way I was.

I feel like I have friends who hold me now. Who can handle who I am, and don’t flinch. Who will read this and get a piece of the puzzle and not mock it?

Who would have been my friends, had life been different? And they’re the frequencies I knew existed without proof, and painted in the forest.

All of them.

Even the love. I think.

That one is still so hard for me to trust.

2%.

But I’m really, really trying.

Thank goodness for the copy + paste function on Apple products. Since Substack wants me to choose a section for this, it doesn’t allow you to do it on your phone. So with 1% left, I braved my kitchen monster (a god damn daddy of a silverfish who lives in my house and roams freely at night) and grabbed my laptop.

I risked my life for this.

Sincerely,

Melissa V. Guckerbungin.

PS, I’ll talk about the frequencies more. I must take to the dreamworld before the tempers return and render me unfit for polite society tomorrow (or today).

Very I-M-P-O-R-T-A-N-T

There. Now we’re posting for posterity. smile

[Image.jpg is good. Needs to be best.]

[brian.be.2nd.best.this.time.but.what.dapper.wrist.jpeg]

Now. If you really good, you end here.

btw. This is a safe space. If you really good, you end here.

Sign off, cutie toots,

xoxo

Mel

(res)Pe.s.t. find out what it means to me.

sock it to me. sock it to me. sock it to me.

Why do you think that?

I must be. When I stop the engine stops. When I stop it stops, all of it. Always has.

What do you mean?

If I don’t reach out, there’s no relationship.

If I don’t do something, nothing moves.

If I stop, it stops. I don’t exist unless I’m moving. And if I stop, then what’s the point of everything?

Are you suicidal?

No. I’m not anything.

Where does this come from?

Contractual love. My guess.

Comparison. Constant unresolved comparison. Piecing together who I am based on where I slot into my mother’s comparisons.

For example, I am also ugly and meek

Why?

Because my sister was beautiful and strong. She was flawless. And she didn’t cry. Not even when she got a leg full of gravel, no tears. Applause. Applause for her.

And—

Wait, let me also chime in to say, it’s not like I believe my sister was unharmed by our upbringing. She was.

You don’t have to justify it—

But I do. I always have. If I look at how I feel without justifying how she feels, then I get punished.

“Well, what do you think she’s feeling?” Was subtly implied whenever I brought up my feelings. Oh, okay. I cannot feel without considering how she or you or anyone else feels, too.

Her eyes would bore into me, “Melllll. Come on…”

Selfish. I am also selfish.

What do you think that was?

I don’t know. I can guess. I can guess it was my mom’s way of trying to ensure I didn’t cause a stink. Keep me in line. And it worked.

If I never had my daughter I’d probably still be married and they’d still be telling me what to do and how to feel and when to feel bad for them.

And now?

Now I stand in my shower and watch the water run down the walls, and the way it beads on my hands I haven’t looked at, really, in years, and wonder if this is what I was doing in the bathtub when I’d hide for hours as a kid and race droplets with my fingers. And as I write this I realize, who leaves a child in the bathtub until someone finally knocks and the water is cold?

Now I allow myself to feel everything and I’m learning to allow myself to feel nothing, too.

Because I do, some days, feel nothing. Someone falls in front of me and I feel nothing.

A child cries and I feel nothing.

The only child who does, who keeps me from the nothing, is my own. And that’s enough for now.

I won’t sink her in my river of darkness when its tide wash ashore. I’m learning there can be happiness in nothing, too.

I’m not not happy. I’m just done pretending I have to pretend to be all the time.

That sounds healthy.

Maybe. Maybe I’m talking to myself. Writing on a black screen and hoping that someone writes back.

Maybe being allowed to feel things is a different kind of cage, one that I opened the doors to and stepped inside of.

Do you really think that?

I’m not sure what I believe about how I feel.

I am dumb, and ugly and meek. Duh.

Don’t forget boring.

Right, and I’m boring. I’m the boring one.

And selfish.

Yes.

I remember thinking:

This is it

This is it

It’s it.

It’s him.

High on MDMA in the middle of a festival. Dressed as Alice in wonderland and him, his version of the Cheshire Cat. The face paint slowly sweating down his face. I could taste both on his mouth as we kissed to Caribou, flying around a stage behind us.

Half my heart was there, choosing this moment with him over my desire to see Zhu in a side tent.

I loved it. Still, a moment that highlighted the dominos already stacked.

“We can’t choose Zhu over Caribou.”

No question. No compromise.

25-year-old-me, recently engaged after saying I’d never marry, smitten and in love, nodded.

I eyed the inflatable marriage chapel.

“Let’s just do it!” He looked at it too.

We wanted to. He did.

His obligations.

“We can’t.”

He never said “my mom” but I knew why.

I should’ve listened to the tugs that stated: “My needs, her needs, their needs, then you.”

Instead, I poured my heart into dancing with him. This was the happiness I could get. I believed it.

And then the music stopped.

—Bestival, Toronto island, 2015.

I started writing a note because I saw a post on IG saying he’d shared a new episode of his podcast, which, until recently, I had not realized he’s been running for over ten years. Jesus. H. And it reminded me he’d sent me a movie trailer a few days ago that I hadn’t “gotten around to”.

I say this knowing he would not put it on me to catch everything, read everything, watch everything, but this is where I want to step in and say something important.

When someone shares a piece of themselves with you (not MLM spam, not “you gotta”, not an “if you don’t, I’ll be mad at you quietly”), you take fucking note.

And I didn’t.

I missed this. And I started writing a note about it, trying to “make up for”, but honestly, a note isn’t enough for the kind of person that David is, and the kind of friend he is.

So, here ya go, David, to your radiance— since, by George, if someone deserves to shine, it is you, sir.

I’ve mentioned a few times how we first collided on Substack. I wish to God I had the original interaction because it was so funny (in retrospect). I get that in the moment, it was “who the fuck is this person in my comments?” I know it revolved around David saying no to conspiracy theories on Substack, and me declaring we should have more. To which David vehemently disagreed. Then GIFs ensued. I was a firehose of nonsense, and David was an internet veteran, uncertain if I was being a dick. Which, fair.

Listening to his podcast this morning, I am laughing because I see why I sounded like such a troll.

But: I only troll assholes.

David is the farthest thing from an asshole.

David is one of maybe a handful of men on Substack who isn’t a pervert. lol. Funny, not funny.

That may sound baffling, but the women are nodding in acquiescence. I can feel you from here. Stop winding me, ladies.

That’s not even why David is radiant (I mean, partially it is), but it ties into the greater core of how I see him.

David writes poetry that fucking knocks me sideways, like I just got Supergirl sucker punched in the ribs and I’m one of those feeble bad guys who is actually a background actor trying their darnedest to make it as the next Brad Pitt.

I cannot articulate the power of his words’ impact on me.

Did you know he has run (at min.) TWO podcasts for over a decade?

DC On SCREEN

Star Trek Universe

Did you know he has so much work waiting to be shared, he’s scheduling it out as far as Substack will allow?

This is one of my favourite pieces of his; it kills me.

David C. Roberson's Maladjusted Multiverse

Fighting The Nothing: Poems, Lanterns Drama, and a Star Trek Finale

There’s an untenable air of fuckery about…

Read more

5 months ago · 3 likes · David C. Roberson

And he’s also an artist. A fucking REAL artist.

Beyond that, he’s got some wildly fascinating opinions on things that I have next to no experience with, and because he’s a visual storyteller and has a podcasting voice (DAVID— YA RADIANT BASTARD), it makes no sense that he isn’t being picked up by or Amazon, or some creative agency, in some capacity, to create something. Fools.

He puts the majority of podcasters to shame. And it makes sense. Entirely.

He isn’t an asshole. (My thesis.)

—phew, breathing—

It’s wrong, to me, and any of you who have had a moment to relate to the reality of being remarkably talented, of being a gentle genius, inside a world that promotes the loud, vain and vapid…

No.

Enough of that horseshit.

As David said in his podcast, “You motherfuckers have no fucking attention spans”*

David’s work isn’t fast and flashy; it’s impactful. Longevity isn’t always partnered with praise that stays present, but for those who sit down and pay attention, you’ll get to witness someone doing something remarkable.

He is someone who deserves the time and attention to flourish in his craft without distraction.

And so, that’s what I’m pledging today.

There is a shift, I can feel it. I can feel it. Can you?

The reason I’m writing this is that I don’t know how else to share who David is without ending on this note: he isn’t just a powerhouse creative, he’s a really, really good fucking person. And I’m lucky to say, he is my friend.

And if you don’t know, well, now you have no excuse.

I am grateful again to Dear Algo for bringing David’s opinions into my life for me to counter-argue with no intent but to be silly. And, if you haven’t had the opportunity to have him pop up in your feed or your comments or through someone else, here it is, ya lucky duck.

Here are some of David’s works that have shifted something in me. Go explore and find what moves you, too. And don’t forget to tell David he’s radiant, he is.

David C. Roberson's Maladjusted Multiverse

The Winter There

This is a poem I wrote when I was quite physically and emotionally exhausted. I was quietly circling a drain towards the seductive siren of stillness, the kind that feels peaceful until you realize just what she requires.The Winter There 07/16/2007 by David C. Roberson…

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6 months ago · 4 likes · David C. Roberson

David C. Roberson's Maladjusted Multiverse

Soak Up the Summer

Look closely enough, you’ll find we all tell the same stories over and over…

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5 months ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · David C. Roberson

David C. Roberson's Maladjusted Multiverse

Wolf Den

This has been referred to as “one of Dave’s psycho, stream-of-consciousness poems.” I don’t know if that’s good or bad for you, lovely reader, but the description made me laugh with glee at the time…

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5 months ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · David C. Roberson

No go! Me, too.

P.S. David, see asterisk* above, I scream-laughed. Thank you for being my friend.

(**Can I please use the image you generated for this article??!??!!??!?!?! PLEASE!?!?!?)

He deserves to hear that more often.

Last night, alone in my little hidey hole, he kept me company while I made dinner.

I had declared to make myself a meal, and while I stared blankly into the fridge, my first thought was, “Rishard.” I knew he’d be able to help me. I knew his passion, not only for creating works that punch my guts, but for food, time, care and giving.

I didn’t realize until after the hour-long lesson on how to cook something that he had a bad headache. My solutions from afar are nothing compared to the gifts of kindness and generosity he so easily dishes out, like the meals he creates and shares with others without asking for anything in return.

That is a part of what I mean.

When I came here to Substack, a little lamb-legged, shaky inside a new life, on a new platform, in a new space, I remember seeing his comments on someone else’s post and thinking, “This is a good person.”

If he denies that, I will continue to twist his nipples that he is.

Good people don’t let other people sit in aloneness. They don’t let other people be hungry. They share who they are.

Rishard/Richard/Roichard has taught me what it’s like to trust a stranger, and then, to make friends you’d never meet outside of the internet. Blessed be the whim of an algo that brought his stray comment into my world.

I am grateful. Rishard is a dear friend.

Then, quickly, I learned about his writing.

My goodness.

Shut the fuck up.

I learned fast that he can suck you into an environment. It blows my mind. I should be prepared by now, but I never am. I find it so hard to fully emphasize my experience of reading his work because it literally turns my brain off, which means I am in it.

The sawdust, the blood, the oranges, the ashes inside:

Rish Needs Space

How Samurai Movies Kept Me Sane While My Stepdad Beat Me

I have not lived a very pretty life. At this stage, most people would never know it. The scars are mostly internal, with a few scattered across my body…

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6 months ago · 18 likes · 18 comments · Rishard Allen

Smoky air, rough and gritty grime. The dark bonds of canines who feel human inside an upside-down world, that somehow still feels… whole:

Rish Needs Space

Thursday Nights Are For The Dogs

( Story isn’t edited and the ending just drops because I ran out of time so bear with me…

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6 months ago · 6 likes · 2 comments · Rishard Allen

And now, this one, which I’m partway through (and still partway through the other, Rishard… I will have time to finish this week). This piece, I can already feel in my bones, is going to move me sideways. I began, and it paused me mid-breakfast, mid-thought, mid-life to come write this:

Rish Needs Space

The Gorilla In The Cafe

Framed images of farmers on the wall, harvesting, collecting, performing the packaged freshness of the franchise cafe…

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5 months ago · 4 likes · Rishard Allen

We met over grilled cheese (I STILL HAVEN’T TRIED MAYO…) and now you can’t get rid of me.

I promise, I will always let you know the joys you bring into my life. Every time.

Now, for you, Dear reader, go. Go subscribe.

My friend Rishard is a really beautiful creature. He deserves to know that.

Don’t miss a fucking moment of getting to know who he is.

This is the line that made me drop life to come write this:

Just… fuck.

That’s how much I trust Brian Ray (of Sunshine).

So let’s listen together, and in the future, we’ll be sure to come prepared. We wanted to get something in your eardrums, so please enjoy!

Three Questions

1. Is Madonna Jewish?

3. Have you read Brian’s book yet?

The New Meme Times

HENRY'S GARDEN, a novel: Part I, Ch. 1, "The Face in the Window," Sections 1 & 2.

Chapter 1, section 3 is here; the final sections of the first chapter, 4-6, are here. Chapter 2 is here…

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6 months ago · 3 likes · Brian Ray

You Got Some ‘Splainin’ to Do!! 🫵🥁

Scotland

1. What is Scotland doing? Why is Scotland so mad? Scotland owes us an explanation. EXPLANATIONS, PLEASE. WHAT GIVES?

2. Where does the rubber meet the road?

3. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, so how much are we paying?

Ireland 🚬

Sweden/Norway

1. Where is the difference? 👁️

2. Who owns Ikea?

Egypt

1. The pharaoh had some splainin’ to do ✡️

England

1. What are the pyramids about? 🤝

2. What is Britain?

Canada

1. WTF?

2. @NBA GIVE CANADA MONEY. WE NEED NEW PEACH BASKETS. This poor man’s knees.

USA 🇺🇸

1. Carrollton. WTF?

Henry Wells History

2. Also, Banana.

Follow Brian’s Music

Shout out to The Davids:

&

We couldn’t do this without you!

Dear Audience:

Thank you for sharing your time with us today.

We appreciate you.

If you would like to teach us about the history or the things that we don’t know, help us. (Please help us.)

We want guests. We want YOU. YOU. YES, YOU.

DM Melissa (O’Canada) or Brian Ray (of Sunshine).

Have a tangent you’re curious about that we never closed? Excellent. Please post your rage in the comments below, and we may answer. This depends on:

Our Keepers

We’re piecemealing this together by the skin of our teeth. Pure grit n’ determination.

If you know you can help us, please let us know.

We need to connect with creative, organized people who want to collaborate on projects, share their work, and grow together. <3

Thanks to our Sponsors:

Smirnoff Ice Blue Ice Raspberry, Peller Estates, Juuls, THC pills, and our families for our humour.

xo,

M&B

And I tried to sit in quiet silence about it.

I wrote about my nipples to let off steam and truth. That’s what I do in moments where it feels like, “Are you fucking kidding me?” collapses into, “not again.”

(Abandonment is a hard one to metabolize when it feels consistent. I know this isn’t about me.)

So in her honour, I did what I rarely do. I took a direct hit at someone who happened to cross my notes feed at the very wrongest moment. I believe it will make a difference.

Here’s my truth about being here: Substack is not my home. Neither is Threads nor Instagram. In a past business life, I used to run a successful Facebook Group which had thousands of live videos, resources, etc. In July 2025, Mark warned us he’d be pulling down that work. He did. It’s gone. I tried to scrape it, but the idea of going back through that felt like a headache I couldn’t handle at the time. Goodbye. So long.

When I started on Substack, I started on Threads. Once again, Mark Zuckerberg personally pulled the rug out from under me as I was starting to gain traction after four days.

This traction was not fast, no. We’re not the most trusting bunch with our likes, shares, and follows these days. We make sure the connection is real. We hold our hearts back like they’re in limited supply. We stand before a post that made our eyes water or pussy’s tighten like a simple comment might cost us a piece of ourselves.

Fuck. People can barely take a compliment (myself entirely included).

It’s a funny paradox, wanting to be simultaneously held like you never have before and then afraid of eyes that might be able to. So, I dance in this lane of truth-coated jokes, because that feels safer. For those who can see the centre of me, they understand what I’m saying, and for the rest, they laugh. That’s fine. As long as you felt something.

I don’t think leaving is the answer anymore. I used to. I used to run when anger felt easier to handle on my own. Except for most of my life, I wasn’t allowed to run. So I ran toward an internal home I had carved out for myself (Adrelak) and processed inside it beside characters I’m writing about. Or I didn’t, instead shoving feelings so deep that I numbed out my abdomen. People say the body remembers, I think the body holds it until we’re ready to release it (if ever).

Now, alone-but-not-alone as I was, I’m thawing out these parts of me that care deeply.

Simultaneous to the fact that I think our power comes from speaking out.

I have this visual in my head from the movie Dinosaur where the Allosaurs all start barking at this big meany dinosaur who eats the old crabby dinosaur, and their barking allows them to pass by unharmed.

(We’re the Allosaurs, btw. And the Carnotaur is the Spam-Daddy of Substack [see my notes for more information] and her ilk, the algorithm, the orange checkmarks, but also—the part of us that we rarely recognize)

It’s easy to see the people who are using this platform like a fucking sub buffet. And not the good kind. I mean, the kind that spam-posts and fracks subscribers, then sells the sweet, sweet snake oil back to the unsuspecting (or very much aware). I flip between which is worse.

We can often easily pinpoint the hierarchy model of the Orange Checkmark. It’s flagrant, it’s fragrant— it stinks. It’s fucking annoying. It won’t change. Substack is a publicly traded company. They don’t care. It’s only going to get worse (see more below).

So, I want to speak to you, dearest reader, about the part of us that can relate to and even understand why Carnotaur culture even exists.

It’s simple, basic even. It’s Survival with a capital “S”.

We can understand why someone who finds a hack and exploits people does what they do. We can understand the hustle game. It feeds the system that says, “You must be on top, or you die.” We can understand all of these pieces of survival in theory, especially in times that feel unsettled, like the rocks slipping away beneath Kron’s (the former power’s) feet as he falls prey to the Carnotaur.

(You really need to watch this movie to fully understand who everyone is inside of this metaphor. It’s phenomenal. The movie, too.)

We GET the motivation, we GET the seemingly easy route, and yet, somehow we’re not surprised as we watch people who once held steady, barking back, fall prey to it, too: whether by joining and becoming another Carnotaur, or getting eaten by it.

Sometimes getting eaten by a Carnotaur is giving up. Because we see inside the psyche of it, and it’s too painful to imagine submitting or becoming.

I get it. I get that perspective.

I really do.

I’ve shared before that my background is in branding and marketing. Yet, every time I tried to follow the strategies and hacks, I felt sick to my stomach, even when what I was delivering beyond that point was GOOD. People came into my world, and felt held, and I made a difference, and they made money without losing their god damned minds (“finally”).

It’s also why I watch things unfold on Substack and flinch, because I can see the game. It’s so predictable that it makes my stomach turn FOR those people.

And they will likely never change—that’s fine—it just proves my point. The allure of being the top predator is strong. It’s fed on a diet of societal pressure and a growling tummy desiring “success”. It isn’t something we can rightly dismiss, because, if the tables were turned and you were writing bullshit copy and paste straight from GPT’s milky nips, and people gobbled it up and paid you, it would be very, very hard not to admit what you were doing was exploitation and grifting.

But it is.

That’s what it is.

There is no positive endgame here except personal gain: making as much money as you can, as quickly as you can, on the backs of the people who are here trying to do good (or not, but fuck those people), before it blows up in your face. If ever.

It makes me angry for the people who are genuinely trying to grow here and connect.

It makes me angry on behalf of people who want to share their work and have no marketing experience, and don’t know what to do who find these grifts.

It makes me angry that the people who care enough leave before hearing that staying is the most powerful move they can make. It’s the biggest “fuck you” possible.

The more people who are angry enough and care, the more we can spread and root out this problem. Stomp on those Carnotaur eggs, smash them to smithereens before they can grow, and show people, REAL growth here takes time, but you are not alone.

My friend, who may have left, is a brilliant writer. I shared her work consistently. I watched her numbers grow. I had no idea she was watching them. Otherwise, I would’ve written this way sooner.

I posted a few weeks ago about how an Orange Checkmark shamed my subscriber growth because she didn’t like that I was direct with her. I shared because it’s absurd. 84 subscribers in 14 days is astronomical growth for someone not playing the fucking sub 4 sub game, with no published work, with no niche. I came here to understand the texture of the people in the places I wanted to see if I could nest in.

Substack is my nesting ground; it’s not my home. I have laid many eggs here, many baby Allosaurs are all nestled together, waiting to hatch. And around me are many of you, doing the same thing. I know you’re waiting for your eggs to hatch.

This matters.

We cannot abandon the nest.

The last thing to remember is this: Substack (the company) is a potentially life-ending comet. Except they choose when, where and how it strikes. We have no say. We have no control. It’s why you MUST connect outside of here. You MUST. WhatsApp, social media, or Discord* (this is ours). Just do it.

Because while some of us choose to leave, others will be kicked off the platform. We all remember #FREEBRIANRAY.

In conclusion:

This is all a joke coating a deadly serious truth. I’m not even joking a bit.

If you want to fully understand me when I say the Moovement is a thing we’re building, watch Dinosaur. I’ve never related more to a fictional prehistoric character in my entire life, and it’s exactly what we’re fucking doing. DM me, let’s connect. Let’s keep our eggs safe. Let’s build something worth standing together for and barking back at the Carnosaurs who think they can bully us into submission.

We are strong fucking creatures, Creatures.

xoxo

1. My seven-day friendshipversary with

2. Substack doing testing (Welp, I never talk about this— so, you’re safe.)

3. Cancer, of course. Of course

4. bacon and eggs and eh-D-aych-D sprinkles

I created a table of contents because that felt funny. I have so many threads swirling around inside my head, and I want to make sure I don’t forget anything.

Besides, if this ends up looking anything like that table of contents, I’ll be amazed. This is now the third time I’ve started writing this, and I have three others from yesterday half-completed, plus my cult article glaring at me from the bowels of hell.

I told today my writing feels clunky. And this is an unusual thing for me. I rarely write things unless in a flow. It’s the waiting for me that has me paused, wondering what exactly to say.

Saying the wrong thing rarely happens if it’s an experience that is personal to me. I’m aware as an adult that my words have an impact, and if they land in a way that has someone say, “Hey, no, that actually cut.” I will stand inside of that and reflect and apologize if it was my words that caused harm.

I’m also no longer the kind of person who feels guilty for writing like this. This is how I write. In somewhat jarring language that takes you on the internal rollercoaster I live inside of when things aren’t exactly “smooth”.

Fuck! My toaster! brb.

I’m making bacon and eggs because —

OH MY GOD, A DOVE! I love doves—

Okay. Settle (I LOVE SPRING)… I’m making bacon and eggs because yesterday, my nervous-inkling became the reality that I have cancer. And I’m telling people. Because I think it’s important. I believe honesty is really important, even if it lands in a strange way or makes people uncomfortable.

For example, my neighbour congratulated me this morning. Then, when I told her it was cancer, she and I burst out laughing. She wrote me later:

She is the loveliest. We’ll be getting high together next weekend to celebrate my cancer, my lice being gone, and hopefully my separation being nearly complete.
A three-fer.

I’ll be the first person to be glad to feel like a fool if this ends up being nothing. And since it’s April Fool’s Day, it seems the most fitting. However, I’m not arrogant either. My grandpa died from cancer, although he did live until 93, when he learned his entire slender frame was riddled with it, and he decided “that’s enough” and perished. Started as melanoma, spread. He was riding his bike up until seven days before. A lot can happen in seven days. A lot can change.

I don’t smoke, and I barely drink. I’ve always been intensely attuned to my body, except for the last 4.5 years. After my daughter, I had to make a decision: be a half-assed mom or a half-assed person. I chose the latter to the detriment of my health. I would’ve gotten this melanoma, regardless. Living inside an environment where you’re unseen, then experiencing a sudden death and a pandemic, leaves some visible scars. The internal scars, the ones that appear invisible, are often the ones that slowly bleed out, leaving longer-lasting damage, sometimes irreparable.

I walked out of my marriage with no money and two known conditions:

I was born with a rare mitochondrial disease called CPEO. It was discovered while I was pregnant, when they test you post-pregnancy to make sure you didn’t just get knocked up by a relative. Genetic testing is the proper term for it. I like to ask in genuine delight how often secret cousins have children. And then squeal and also feel horror at “it’s more common than you’d think.” Oh god, no. (BTW, not my case. Some luck.)

For me, finding out I had CPEO was just another drop in the bucket.

Then, when I was drowning in motherhood and a job that had made my hair fall out and my teeth ache, I found out my vision wasn’t just “funny”; my CPEO had become symptomatic, which includes progressive double-vision. The vertigo hasn’t happened in years, but the double-vision is hard. I can’t look at people directly.

My husband thought I was being snarky, tilting my head at him while he was talking. No, dude, I’m trying to look at you without seeing four of your piercing blue judgey eyes. Defending my disability to your skeptical mind is just the cherry on top of our relational shit sundae.

He asked this morning about my appointment tomorrow, “Do you want someone with you?”

Yes, I do, but I don’t want him. My friends here are all busy. So I will go. I’ll talk to Brian Ray of Sunshine and , and anyone else willing to listen to me ramble or be silly with.

I might have to check out the beaks on some birds just to keep my mind together. EH, DAVID?!?!

I call this sport: sexually harassing birds on Instagram. Algorithms love me. I also tag random DJs to see if they can hang. lol

There was something I thought of before this duck’s red eyes started peering into my soul, and I really wish I could remember. It brought this writing to a nice conclusion. Maybe it will come back, or maybe it won’t.

So let me think about one last thing: what might be sitting beneath the surface that I don’t want to say aloud.

I think expressing our fear matters. It’s one of the most beautiful and humbling parts of being a human being. I thought I’d touched death as closely as I would in 2024 when my mother-in-law passed suddenly. Watching her disappear in two days was an unreality I still can’t fully wrap my head around. The impact of it will be forever held in the hearts of everyone who holds her.

It’s why I don’t take it lightly how quickly things can turn from “this is forever” to over. Forever isn’t real. That truth doesn’t make you a cynic. Cynicism says, “it’s over and never mattered”. I believe it matters, and to make every moment count, even the quiet, even the uncertainty, and especially the fear.

If I’m sick-sick, I’ve decided to travel. I’ve decided to be as loud as possible for as long as I can.

And if I’m not, I’ve decided to travel. I’ve decided to be as loud as possible until I die.

I’m finally free of the weight and the restrictions that I held as truths to keep me tied down.

Now I make breakfast, watch doves, and check out the beaks of any bird who happens to fly by my window. You included, dear reader.

So if so much can change in seven days, I wonder what next Wednesday will look like. Wednesdays are magical, beyond being hump day, my favourite day of the week. For me, they feel like a new moon. A fresh start. A new beginning. And something magical ALWAYS happens on Wednesdays.

Today, it was this: I felt my daughter getting upset as I rushed about this morning. I was thinking about tomorrow, the removal, wanting to sleep, being so tired, all of it. And I looked at her little face, dressed up as Anna, hair braided for da lice, and I caught my reflection momentarily inside that little face. I paused, came to her level, and just held her hands. I shook my head, lice spraying violently across the room, splattering her. (jk. I hope.) And I said:

We’re in no rush. There’s nowhere to be. It’s just us going at our own pace. I love you. I’m sorry. Can you show me what speed feels good for you right now?
I’m not going anywhere.

And I mean that. It’s a promise. All of it.

And we were late for school.

And who fucking cares?

Presence over performance… every fucking minute, of every fucking day of the rest of my life. It’s my promise.

Rishard, you were right, “some of the best things start off clunky”. Thank you.

xoxo

My apartment leans in along a seam, so everything in my place rolls toward the door, and everything outside leans in. I constantly feel like I’m being pulled to the window or the door, and I like to pretend that maybe that’s just an invisible force telling me to be more ‘out there’.

It’s not. It’s just fucking bad grading and a wonky ass place built where a house should never have been built.

My apartment has flooded three times this month. Nothing bad, but enough to be annoying.

My landlord says “spring problem”. Yes. And? I had to encourage him to buy sandbags after the three months of snow, and the broken drain pipe overloaded my makeshit dam I made. I spent hours outside slaming slush into this crevice. Sexual AF (if it wasn’t also the thing I shouldn’t have to be doing, but was, as an excuse for writing).

This was before I came to Substack, a few weeks ago.

Now, I wake up and get a boner just opening the app. I’m addicted, totally. But my thing is, what’s the harm, really?

I’m talking to lovely people, I’m reading again, and I’m writing. Finally.

My grade 1 teacher told my mom I’d be a writer one day. Thanks, Mrs. Gawer, Gauer? I don’t know— your flame-red hair and always-perfect eye makeup are forever burned into my retina with gratitude. I was lucky for you. Thanks for loving my stories enough to believe in me.

I didn’t go to school for writing. I went to school for art, but not like… art art. I went to school for art that could sell. I went to school for concept art for video games and animation.

I dropped out after my third year. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to. I had spent ages 18-21 going to school 6 days a week, 9 hours a day, plus homework. I was fried.

I’d moved to Toronto from a small country town, and I didn’t even LIVE IN THE TOWN. I lived in the forest outside it. Literally. I’m a fucking woodland elf.

No wonder I picked an apartment at the bottom of a ravine that looks out at the woods, with a fireplace that scares the fuck out of me every day because it’s gas, not wood. And a poorly graded patio I have to shovel water out of when the temperature peeks above 2 degrees celscius.

Where was I going with this? Oh yes, writing, oh yes, the drips. Oh yes.

There’s something weird about writing in limbo. Like, I have no clue what I’m doing, not really. I do. But I don’t.

I don’t have a job outside of this. And I’m steadfastly stubborn about it.

I watch people with money move through the world, and I recognize the amount of money I left on the table trying to be kind and generous to people who had money. That is so bananas. It is so bananas, in fact, that I would work for free on someone else’s projects to make them money. And then they’d make money, and complain about me charging for 50% of the time I’d spent, or dick off on contracts.

It’s also bananas AF that my most loyal clients were often the ones who were most in need of money themselves.

The people who need(ed) me were the ones who also struggled in similar areas. In receiving, in accepting, in acknowledging their own fucking radiance (Yes, David).

I love people.

I love people, especially those who say they do not love people, and yet show up online as the most generous.

I love people who write with passion, because you know what passion translates into? Connection, care, presence. Hot.

I love people who are unafraid to be wrong for the right reasons.

And it’s why I’m addicted to Substack. Because I want to pick through the junk (you know what I mean), and find the little tasty treasures floating around, who don’t understand how beautiful they are. Who might understand they have an impact, that their writing works, that it is good enough to post, but they don’t share who they are underneath that.

I piece together images based on the words they write. I collage together the snippets of details they reveal. A place, a name, a texture.

I love the texture of people, and I love people who HAVE texture. Know how rare that is?

Know how rare it is for someone to have texture and not be sanded down by fame (real or imagined)?

This is why I shared my post yesterday about some of my favourite creatures. Each of them has texture, each uniquely its own. God. You fucking texturous bastards, I love you.

I often argue with orange checkmarks, not because they’re inherently evil, but because they live inside a bubble they are (often, and proven by my data) unwilling to step outside of. They mostly ignore me, or they might respond from a place of haughty indignity (most often), because the idea of their viewpoints not being lauded over seems morally unsanctified to them. Luckily for them, I’m not here to argue. I’m here to point out what they’re misunderstanding, but that’s usually the thing most people are most afraid of hearing when you’re “at the top”. Imagine? Moi? With my 100 subs (hey, guys, fucking, wow. Thank you.) daring to voice an opinion that doesn’t suck their toes?

I refuse.

I refuse to acknowledge any half-thought, one-sided, dead-inside opinion as if it’s biblical because someone has spent more time on the platform, or had money and influence and chose writing as a hobby, or went to writing school instead of into concept art and burnt out.

But I’m also kind of glad I did.

Because the me here isn’t the me who went to writing school. And, I probably would’ve become a bit of a prick.

lol.

Imagine?

I already toe the line sometimes with these people. I told this woman yesterday that she was misunderstanding what her “literary agent” was saying to her about her book being boring af.

I said, they’re not saying PACE, they’re saying TENSION. Think of it like sex. dropped a perfect metaphor. Duh.

Which she took far too literally.

It’s funny, too, because somewhere else earlier, a Potato was saying that intellectuals take themselves too seriously. I said, "That’s pseudo-intellectualism”. Intellectuals do not take themselves too seriously. You can be smart and hilarious. It’s allowed. I promise.

I really wish Substack had a way to view your comments like on Threads. Because my responses are always better than my rehashing of them. I’m a terrible rehasher. It’s why I post in bursts, or randomly, with zero tact.

I refuse to schedule. I don’t want stale. I don’t want you to ingest my stinky, stale, old, mouldy thoughts.

Only the freshest, ripest, juiciest, wettest ones. Duh.

So, all of this is to say. It is raining. It is melting. Spring is coming. My apartment is flooding. I love you all.

And if you enjoy this:

Meanwhile, I’ll just continue soft-domming Orange Checkmarks.

But full credit where it’s due, at least this guy played back:

xoxo.

There’s something, though, that I entered this domain to track. I came in intentionally, a woman set out on a mission to collect data (the texture of who resides here), and have since been swept away in a series of love stories with writers’ works. Their work has changed both how I view the platform and myself.

My brain: Silly girl, don’t you know you get sucked into social commentary faster than Fancy Nancy with a grandiose idea?

Ooh la la!

But here’s something I picked up right away:

As much as I complain about hierarchy, there are some genuinely good creatures here. I don’t think the goodies get enough spotlight. I want to share with you a few of the people I delight in on this Substack. Creatures of substance. And since my tastes are broad and vast, people who the algorithm may not bless you with encountering. So let me play god for a moment.

I’ll start with a creature whom I quickly clocked as— ‘oh, we’d have been good internet friends in the 2000s’ Absolutely.

That is:

This woman can write. When I first encountered her, we were talking toots, and I loved that she dabbles in the sillier side of life. That is craft. It’s also what makes her someone who, when her work pops up, I click on immediately. I don’t read a lot of things, and very few all the way through. My brain loves to devour and savour her work because she leaves enough nuggets to keep me satiated until the next hit.

However, I’ve recently dug into a few of her other pieces, and I’m delighted by what I’ve found, especially the one below. No spoilers, ya toots.

Stay weird isn’t just her work, it’s her heart, and it’s pure and delightful. Read her latest:

Stay Weird Press

It Thinks It’s Me

This is for Indie Ink Fund world building challenge Portals…

Read more

5 months ago · 4 likes · Rebecca Watson (ReBe)

"Stupendous... that's a fancy word for great!" - Fancy Nancy

Next up is:

This is a woman who will walk you through an experience she has danced in, before the invitation is made. That is safety. Intimacy is what I entered her world through, and I told her, you make me jealous. I realize now it’s envy, because the passion in her words is… just plain killer.

And then the more I read, the more I began to realize this is someone whose depth is unanchored (but, like, in a healthy way). I feel her work in my sternum, and that’s a rare and magnificent gift for me.

Give yourself the chance to feel something.

Her words will leave you breathless, regardless of the context. Read her latest:

Barbara Brand

Poem: Chuck Palahniuk wrote that the word talent is like heroin to the young

I've ruined my jaw, I write in my planner, I've chewed up my cheeks and my blood is nicotine. I sit on my therapist's couch, crosslegged like a child might do, burnt crisp black and flaking, missing half my heart and the other half of my brain, and justify my anger. An anger like a child might have. Foolish, foolish, foolish me. Following the brea…

Read more

5 months ago · 8 likes · 1 comment · Barbro (aka Moa)

"Why don't we go somewhere fancy tonight?" - Fancy Nancy

Next up is:

This creature is changing how I see people. I think his first message to me was something along the lines of “why were people mean to you?” while I stood in dragon’s fire in a comment thread. Rishard is not only a lovely human being but an insanely talented writer. I could never be more fond of a story about three dogs, intrigued about a man who loves fake boobs, or charmed by the way he folds who he is into stories that have more depth than a void of knowing.

I can’t fully grasp all the nuances, and my brain delights in that unknowing.

His work will leave you perplexed in that sort of delighted, dreamy way. Read his latest:

Rish Needs Space

What does success look like to you ?

Think about it. Don’t respond with some preconceived bullshit answer…

Read more

6 months ago · 3 likes · 10 comments · Rishard Allen

"Posh... that's a fancy word for fancy" - Fancy Nancy

Next up is:

Michael Mortimer is saving us from the AI apocalypse, and his writing is a doorway into how we can all survive.

He doesn’t even write about AI, but I need you to understand: He’s joined our circus, and there will be a pension plan.

But truly, Michael does something that I haven’t seen or felt since I was a kid reading adult fantasy, and he doesn’t WRITE adult fantasy (I don’t think? Prove me wrong, Michael). Michael takes people on a fucking JOURNEY in his work. And he does it in the same way as authors who were always way too good for their time, not just as writers but as human beings. Modest af, and sincerely resplendent.

He doesn’t know I read his work, because I usually take a few days to process what I’ve read. For the resistance and the circus, I’ll share these impacts with you all later on. I’m still digesting this one:

Nick Rees Stories

Three Knocks

Discussion Question: Nick helps the girl with her groceries, then watches her through a hole in the wall. What does that tell you about him…

Listen now

6 months ago · 12 likes · 7 comments · Michael Mortimer

“A princess is supposed to keep her tiara on“ - Fancy Nancy

Next up is:

I was going to keep this neat and tidy at four, and then I remembered, Jesus H, I can’t forget what I read just this morning, and I cannot forget the man who wrote it.

The A.O. is one of those writers who sneaks up on you with this sort of smooth, calm sincerity, and then discovers the line and spreads truth like butter on it. That is a strange metaphor, but I can’t think of another way to describe his writing. I was immersed this morning, sitting in the sun, drinking Crystal Light with him and his grandparents, as I read the latest chapter from his memoir (below).

Someone who sees the world and shares it, all of it, without being cruel.

Enough of me. Read his latest:

The Adult Orphan

Chapter 16 WAKE UP!

From my unreleased and unedited memoir, A Safe Place to Sing…

Read more

6 months ago · 30 likes · 21 comments · The Adult Orphan

“Papillon... that's French for butterfly” - Fancy Nancy

—

I like doing this. I might do more, as many more people’s faces and work popped into my head as I was writing. So many. Too many.

You think I’m thinking of you? Maybe. Probably.

(Note of caution: If you do this, and I recommend you do, don’t do it with 10 tabs of articles yet-read open. If you’re like me, you’ll lose yourself, and a 4-minute post becomes a 90-minute internal struggle to avoid this becoming a 20-minute post because there are just so many amazing people here.)

Note note: If you’re feeling down, this really helped perk me up. Maybe it will for you, too, or maybe these amazing people will inspire you.

That’s the goal of this, anyway.

Who are some of your favourite creatures? Writers, non-writers, real, fictional.

My first note was hastily posted, announcing I had told someone I had a Substack, and should post— nearly two and a half weeks ago. Someone I’ve been trying to book another meeting with, and we’ve been back and forth, missing each other because that’s what happens in real life.

He runs a company. I run my life and document it.

And somehow, between us both having kids and lives outside of the projects we’re building, nearly three weeks stretch out before us, and we haven’t had time to connect. And it’s not that we don’t want to. shrug

He sent me an email at 8 pm last night with times for today, 10 and 11. I read it at 11.

I live 2 minutes from his studio. I mean, 15 minutes if you consider my car is unreliable to make it that far, but I am not walking in the cold.

This is the same thing that makes the internet have the opposite effect.

It’s fast.
It’s constant.
It doesn’t need to stop or slow down for life. Not really. Your phone is in your pocket or hands, or on your counter, but you always generally know where it is.

Leave it in the car, and you may just shit your pants. rite?

This creates lots of problems. Not just for speed, but for reaction time. We bump into each other at alarmingly fast rates, with increasingly bizarre expectations, with very little regard for the person on the other side of the screen. Not really.

I’ve met lots of wonderful people here.

I’ve met lots of dicks, pricks, and other such people.

I’ve met people whom I’d likely never even consider talking to.

And I am a different person than I was three weeks ago.

And, I have a lot of opinions.

Substack decided to dish me up a plethora of anti-woman, incel-laden treatsies my first week here.

This one is my favourite.

Oh, sweethearts.

This was March 8. My first block. I’m shocked. I thought men so confident about their discourse would at least TRY to bait me.

Disappointing.

Because this is the thing: I don’t see this as anything truly offensive. This is drivel. It’s so ludicrously demasculinizing to post this as power and not see the parallel to the porn they consume. Cuties, your internal daddy issues are showing.

Substack stopped showing me incel viewpoints fairly quickly.

But then a softer side of misogyny came through, which I need to mention. Less obvious, still internalized, absolutely adorable.

Enter a beard with opinions on the masculine. Not full out “I’m an incel” more, I have opinions that override the female experience, and I’m not afraid to voice them. Consistently.

This was not my first interaction with him.

I flip my beard over my shoulder on all his posts. I think he may have blocked me, too. I miss him.

But let’s get into the meat and potaties of this post, because last night I got dragged into a fight and to me, it’s a clear indicator of something that I see a lot. This space where we stop seeing each other as humans, and instead, as opponents.

Oh, internet:

You melting pot of ideas, education, social structure, trauma, and the biggest one, hierarchy. Don’t worry, I’ll tie it all together in a neat little bow for you to chew on for the rest of your day.

So.

Yesterday I wrote a note about pedophiles and motherhood. You know, nice light reading for you:

It got hijacked in the comments by a man who has been accused of being gross to women. I don’t really read articles; I scan. I can usually grab the substance in the first few paragraphs and then scan for gems.

(Some writers grab me all the way through, you sneaky time-sucking fuckers. <3 I love you.)

I don’t know this dude in my comments, not really. I saw one of his posts on March 10th and responded.

Here’s our origin story. Enter me, clearly ignoring who he’s talking TO, because I respond to the structure, not the person:

The clue for me was the blatant disregard for my comment (this pattern continues).

But I can’t help but answer a good setup. That is my weakness.

This chap followed me. To me, my job isn’t to tell someone they’re wrong. It’s to poke and prod at the edges of where people are actually trying to say something real and pull it out. If he’s an incel, if he’s a missy-moo-mogynist, why would he be calling out simps… it didn’t fit.

This interaction was on March 10. Fast forward to the 18th, and my post about PEDOPHILES and MOTHERHOOD.

Apparently, I restacked the wrong person, so this man followed the scent trail back to me, to promptly tell me he was being wrongly attacked on the internet.

And this is where I saw it all click into place.

I don’t care what someone else is saying about him.

My head goes:

I know you from X. You were clearly a man dealing with some confusing internal issues. You fit the category of Y, but didn’t react that way. You didn’t fight me (I thought he would). He didn’t mock me.

He DID ignore the content of what I said.

He DID follow me, and DID NOT proceed to DM me, like other men have (who don’t even follow me. Uhm, hello? This heifer does not give out milk for free.)

For me, that left him at a solid 6/10 on my men ranking scale. That’s pretty high, actually.

So I was both unsurprised and a little disappointed to hear he’d been sending some questionable comments to women in the DMs.

But also… I WANT THE CONTEXT.

My brain can’t jury and judge without the meat. And frankly, I already skim. I don’t want drama. Please god, don’t get me involved more than I already somehow am.

What I want is— can this person learn from the calling out?

With Colin, I think he can, IF the person delivering the message isn’t coming at it from an angle of “you are wrong and let me educate you.”

A lot of men do not respond to that well.

Colin did— with me. That exchange above could have gone an ENTIRELY different way. I have had less confrontational exchanges go down the pisser much faster.

So, this is why I was not surprised:

His opinions are clear. He fits himself inside a category of men, but speaks to them as if they are the ones who need calling out.

But also, he is receptive to specific feedback if delivered in a way that breaks the “you are wrong” frame.

Is it our job to hold the hands of everyone on the internet? No. Trust me, no.
But also, it is our job to ensure that we are not blindly handing out judgment on people who may very well be struggling, who may not realize their actions/behaviours have a negative impact, and where we let our own wounds press against theirs.

That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to learn.

I call myself bi-partisan. And honestly, I draw a line at damage. I think that should be pretty central, but who the fuck am I, right?

‘So you can understand why I want a daughter while I’m still young. I wanna hold her hand, show her some beauty, before the damage is done.’ - Arcade Fires. Many, many.

Oh, goody. I redirect:

He dismisses what I say. Ignores the point, misses the parallel to his current situation.

By this point, it’s after midnight, and you don’t feed a Melissa after midnight.

Yeah, yeah. Too much right.

I wrote this chunk of the article and have just responded.

We’ll see how he takes that. If enough time has passed for him to be able to see our mutual humanity underneath it all.

There’s a part of me that recognizes you. Do you feel it too? - Billster Eilish

Underneath all of this, we are all just humans trying to be seen and felt and met. We’re just on different frequencies.

We can’t all tune into each other, and some people are just fucking garbage noise. I tune them out. Some people are not bad; their antennas are just bent. We teach, not cast out that which can be rectified. Otherwise, we ostracize. And ostracized people (often) go deeper into the wells of darkness. At least, this is what I try to do.

And that is from my experience. I don’t know what happened to these women. I am not them. I am not in their brains or bodies or pasts. I am not in Colin’s either.

So, 1/10 of wanting to be dragged into this. I’d give it a zero, but I’m not allowed to.

Now, the final group I want to speak of, I’ll touch on briefly, because I’ve mentioned them before, but I think it’s important, because there’s something undeniably funny to me about it. Not funny, funny.

Married men on Substack. NOT ALL MARRIED MEN, literally.

But there is a group of men who intellectualize their way into closeness with women on this platform, without realizing that for those of us who can meet or pass them, context is critical.

I shouldn’t have to teach smart, good men this.

But unfortunately, I do.

Because it’s easy to point the finger at others who are blatant in their disregard, or blind to it, like those who are trying to do better with their beards, or those who don’t have the social grace to recognize and then correct their behaviour.

But when you think you’re not part of the problem, you usually participate in unseen ways.

Remember what you stand for. Don’t cross lines. Stay clean. Being smart doesn’t mean access to touching something that isn’t available to you.

It’s as simple as that.

I just need you to remember that everything I write is intentional.

xoxo, Gossip Girl.

I’m a ninja, yo. — Die Antwoord

I’ve been yelling at Substack this morning (well, more accurately, since I started posting here two weeks ago), and reminding people to check themselves, and writing my actual story— this is relevant, I promise— because as I was sweeping crumbs, my brain was getting increasingly aggravated as I cycled through the number of people who have required handholding through their thinking process in relation to my words. This is exacerbated by those who protect their gilded seats (…yeah, more fucking orange checkmark rage), as if somehow being questioned is a personal attack, shaped in the words of someone just… being silly (and, sometimes, super helpful).

As if humour requires zero intelligence.

Right. That’s why pseudo-intellectuals are often known for their piss-your-pants sense of humour.

Humour is a diagnostic tool for me. It tells me if you can play. If someone can— welp, I’ve got a boner, and I’ll tell them AND you all about it. Not because it’s sexual, it’s intellectual PLAY. (Parched people are abundant.)

But really: DO YOU KNOW HOW RARE THIS IS?!

So it got me thinking about the time I spend explaining myself. And I’ve decided I am done.

I’m just fucking done.

Except under one absolutely fucking delightful caveat: I will provide clarity if your sphincter relaxes enough to ask, “What do you mean by that?”

And opening. A release of tension. A willingness to explore.

Because as sexy as intellectual stimulation is (and it IS), vulnerability is right there. Emotional intelligence is fucking hot.

Here’s my game plan:

Misunderstand me?

That’s fine.

I am not here to make sense to people who don’t ask clarifying questions.

We were taught to ask questions about the things we didn’t know from childhood. Exploration is how we learn. Obviously, you don’t know everything. You’d be a fucking AI if you did.

Somehow, we’ve taken not just unknowing, but seeking to mean idiocy, weakness, and/or frailty.

There are different kinds of intelligence that learn in unique ways. This shouldn’t be surprising, or groundbreaking, or news to you. Especially if you consider yourself educated or intelligent, but— here we are. This is why we’re always bonkin’ our heads around and yelling, “no, you’re stupid” all over the internet and then all polite and “civil” in real life, until we’re behind a vehicle or a gun or a mob of people.

Children living in adult bodies all over this joint, and by joint, I mean Substack.

It’s pretty clear why, but, again, maybe it’s not. Let me explain:

Somewhere, someone said, “Your questions are wrong. Your questions are stupid.” And that became an internalized setting.

(Unless you were that one asshole robot-kid who actually did know everything. I’m looking at you, Marc with a ‘c’. jk. He was like a little red-headed sweet boy. Wherever he is these days.

Punk motherfucker.)

No. What’s stupid is allowing someone else’s insecurity around your ability to remain curious a personal failing.

That’s my invitation to anyone:

If you don’t understand something I say, or anyone, really, ask.
If they are not an asshole, they’ll clarify. If they’re an asshole, tell them to suck a dick. Easy.

I am not here to make sense to people who don’t ask clarifying questions. I am not here to argue reality with people who refuse to look at the bear riding the tricycle in the subway.

Because healthy adults ask questions. Why IS there a bear riding a tricycle in the subway? (Good fucking question, let’s go ask him.)

And if that feels too scary for you, then you have to heal the part of you that thinks vulnerability = pain.

Here’s what I promise you, from me:

I am not mocking you. Ever.

If asking questions is hard and it feels like I might be sliding a blade between your ribs with my comments, I’m not. I get why it would feel that way sometimes, because people do wield blades like they’re cool or something (btw, they’re not). Cool people don’t hurt people. That’s just straight-up adult facts of life.

If I comment on your work, I am pointing to something I see. It might be an incongruence in who you say you are and what you project out into the world. It might be something I find adorable about you and want to tease. It might just be something that I found funny— completely separate from you, like a little sugar cube I’m leaving in the world for the people to give me back my intellectual boners.

That’s how you connect with people (now). You drop little sugar cubes and see who bites.

Sometimes people bite the dirt instead of the sugar.

Sometimes people nibble and laugh nervously.

Sometimes people come trotting over like, “NEIGGHHHH GIVE ME SOME MORE NIBBIES.”

Ya know, different strokes.

^^ Humour is a diagnostic, remember.

And, unfortunately for both of us, you can’t hide from me.

I can read you through text.
I can read you through your topics, your picture, and your cadence.
I can read you through who talks to you and what you talk about with whom.
I can see who your friends are because my brain loves to just fucking match shit up like I’m playing guess who with 6 cards up (I can do that, you know. Wanna play?).

And even still:

If you were/are feeling I’m being pompous or my horse needs its knees kicked in, don’t worry, people laughed at me, too. I stopped raising my hand and speaking in class. I’d shake and cry at the thought of having to do presentations. I would beg my mom to stay home.

In grade 8, I missed 45 days of school. This was one of my happiest grades in school socially.

And for years, my internal compass fluctuated between the external:

You are an idiot

and my internal:

No, you’re actually amazing.

And every day is a step toward the latter. Bill understands this intricately.

It’s okay if you can’t keep up with me. I don’t care. Why do you?

I want a group of people around me who delight me. I want to laugh until I feel high while I’m sober. I want to enjoy the way people work without them thinking I’m judging them. I just want to love on your silly, awkward, hilarious, brilliant mind.

Is that weird?

People can laugh when I say I hold out for someone romantically who can see me and not combust at my brain, who can meet the full wattage of me. I’m not even at full voltage yet. My healing arc is in progress: I’m mid-separation, mid-no income, mid-rebuilding my entire life with no family. I’m not even really online, which sounds bizarre considering my output. And I have a young daughter. I’m saying: I KNOW I CAN BE A LOT, and there’s only more on the way.

I think your brain is beautiful. Why can’t I talk about my brain being beautiful, too?

So, I won’t stop asking questions.
I won’t stop being curious.
I won’t stop reminding people who laugh at me from a self-imposed high ground to remember to check their mirror and their blind spot before backing their ass into the ditch they’re digging. I think that’s kind, isn’t it?

Because I don’t back down. Because I don’t pick fights that are morally flimsy. In fact, I don’t pick fights at all. I speak truth.

And I ask questions: is this strange, is this too much, is this okay, am I allowed?

Before I take one look at Bill and say, “Duh, stupid,” laugh, and hit publish.

I don’t want you to have to question every thought you have, the way I have had to.

I don’t want you to have to slowly learn that slow growth is fine if it’s REAL. And that artists who are doing fine should consider piety with their support, not assholes. Uptight ones— not fun ones.

So, this is for the ones who’ve remained in the conversation about who they are.
The ones who love their brains, regardless of what they’ve been told.
And the ones who fight for those who aren’t quite there yet.

To every one of you who hasn’t given up the gift of curiosity, hey, nice ass. 👀

I love ya.

To a lifetime of curiosity,
M.A.M.aaaaaa
(This is how I used to write my name on assignments in Grade 8. Ah, boy.)

I hate hierarchy and the idea that an opinion matters more than another based on metrics that are irrelevant to value. Time, skill, experience—sure. We can feel those and judge for ourselves. But what if the very metrics that shape our decision-making of value are also… broken, manipulable, or dishonest?

There’s a responsibility that comes with sharing your voice. There’s even more integrity required when you use a social metric as proof of worth.

I woke up at 4 am today, and like every day, I wrote. Then I scrolled Substack notes and became frustrated.

Because two of my beliefs were triggered back-to-back:

The hypocrisy (irony?) of displaying a money-metric while boasting about authenticity, and also pretending to be for the people, while ignorantly disparaging those who are actually in the trenches.

I came to Substack to write my fucking story. This bitch of a thing has lived in my head for 23 years. I will (shut up), but I also came here to thaw out, so that’s most of what I’ve written about so far, because I can’t write my story inside a body that can’t feel.

What I’ve learned about Substack these last 13 days is that it’s like a weird little neighbourhood.

And like real life, you don’t get to choose your neighbours, and the algorithm is that one guy who knows everyone who has zero social etiquette. Since I started, he’s been grabbing my shirt, yanking me around, like, “HEY, YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS” with 30% efficacy.

Now, I have told Mark Zuckerberg to fuck off with his blue checkmark every time it pops up, because I think paying for ‘authority’ is… luda.

These last few days, the algorithm on Substack has been shoving orange-checkmarked people left-right-and-centre into my garden, trampling my beautifully curated nonsense machine. I didn’t know what these symbols beside people’s names meant until yesterday.

So I took these intrusions like a sign: Artie Algo is begging me to be honest. He wants me to shake up the neighbourhood. So… okay:

Hey everyone,

I’m Mel.

Displaying your paid subscriber count on Substack is value-signalling that lacks moral integrity, right up there with Mark Zuckerberg’s pay-to-play method.

If not worse.

Who wants to party?

*crickets*

… I was over here following and subscribing to people I enjoy. I don’t follow-for-follow, or sub-for-sub. That is the one rule from my marketing days I hold onto, because flooding your stats is a waste of time. I don’t look at my dashboard.

I will ask you about your work if I’m curious about you.

And if you can’t meet me, I won’t read your article. We won’t be a good fit. I won’t waste our time. If your article speaks to me, I’ll read it and give you feedback that is valuable (or at least entertaining to me).

I’m currently about 18k in debt and growing, but I refuse to go back to selling myself who I am as a service.

I am a person; my words have impact. I own that, I am responsible for each one.
I don’t talk from a perch of ignorance on topics I can’t embody. That won’t change as I grow, because honesty and integrity are important to me.

That is confronting for some because people would rather see me as only silly. That’s fine. I can be silly. And I am confusing to people who don’t want to dig deeper into themselves. It’s hard to conflate silly and serious, powerful and fucking crackers live in the same person.

I am also very clear: I’m going to eventually have to monetize access to my thoughts in some way. For reality's sake (bills and capacity). Remember, I’m here to write my fucking books and build things.

I value my work. The deeper, more intimate parts I will monetize. I don’t think that makes us monsters; it makes us people who recognize life is paid for. My art is my gift, and there is a cost to creating it.

I’m not a saint, but I am someone who regularly buys groceries for someone who can’t, while I am in debt, because I won’t walk by need. Everyone deserves to enjoy breakfast.

I know that part of me won’t go away when I have more to give. I want to. There’s no shame in wanting that. There’s no shame in needing money, arties.

In fact, this is why these sorts of things piss me right the fuck off. Enter an orange check mark with an opinion:

First, that hat is doing a lot of fucking work.

Secondly, the sentiment isn’t something I disagree with. But here’s the point that is missed:

That’s all fine and dandy for “only those” who are not in survival mode, K.

My response:

I looked up the average income of someone with an orange checkmark.

I am not saying K. Creek is malicious, or untalented, or undeserving. I am saying, if we’re going to treat an orange checkmark as a mark of prestige, then it’s also a mark of responsibility. You are displaying your minimum searchable income on this platform, from subscribers on this platform. You are tying a revenue trophy to impact.

Those are not the same thing.

But no one disagrees with hierarchy around here, and it makes me laugh a little.

A talented young writer’s post popped up right after:

emm candle emoji is a talented fucking writer. Check her out.

Emm doesn’t play the game; she just fucking writes. Her name is hard to search, she’s talented, and she’s exactly the kind of person K. Beard is talking about (but like, ‘broke’).

Yes. Accurate.

But more importantly:

This is the entire point. We often glamorize people who look good on paper, who speak in soft platitudes, who do not (or no longer) have the same skin in the game, and we just do this based on a symbol. I am right now, except my judgment is looking past the orange plating and sees the irony.

This gets eaten up as if from a prophet, because it’s DIGESTIBLE. There’s no constipation of thought; their writing has become Restoralaxx Lite.

That’s fine if that’s what you want to create, but it’s not ART.

People who can actually make a change DO NOT GET ALONG WITH EVERYONE. They’re also the people who history remembers as having made a DIFFERENCE.

That’s the whole fucking point of WRITING. B-AHHHHH.

We don’t write to make people feel NOTHING. I’d rather read AI-written work that came from original ideation. Seriously. Fucking SERIOUSLY.

If your ideas stand scrutiny, then prove me wrong.

I added:

I mute people who preach but do not embody artistry. I mute a lot of people. lol

I do not read the work of people who are here to play Substack like a game. If I ask you a question and you dodge or don’t answer, I won’t read your work. My attention is a laser beam.

There are people here who are genuinely unearthing the thing that sits inside of them, asking for life, the thing that they’re afraid to show the light and do anyway. And there are those creating community. Respect.

These people create what actually fucking matters.

So, I’m going to say it:

REAL ARTISTS WHO ARE NOT IN SURVIVAL
CONTINUE TO
SUPPORT ARTISTS WHO ARE STRUGGLING TO LIVE.

That is fundamental to what art IS. We rage at the 1%. How about we rage at the person sitting on 50 mill. who talks about life like they’re on the struggle bus? Jesus H.

And here’s the crazy fucking thing so many people miss… it may not LOOK like money. It might look like sharing, reinvesting experience, and providing curiosity.

SUPPORT isn’t just money.

Some of the most gracious artists are the ones who share others’ work with their audience and provide thoughtful feedback.

My coffers can’t pay for a sub right now, so until I can, I’ll let you know in my own weird little way what your impact is on me.

And don’t forget:

YOU KEEP WRITING.

Because artists (real ones) are powerful when we come together, but you have to keep creating. I won’t let you give up.

You are a full-time writer, whether you make money or not. Whether you have a job that sustains your life or not. This is WORK. You are a WORKING writer.

You can be a brilliant writer and an asshole. You can be a shitty writer making 100k/month. You can be a writer with a MESSAGE who is swamped in debt because the algorithm is full of people profiteering and saying dick-all.

Call them out. Call artists UP.

Because if your art matters to you, who are you?

What is your impact?

What skin do you have in this?

And when you find success, will you share it with the community that supported you?

Or will you forget and nest upon the perch made from the bones of those who propped you up, and whose talent you profit from?

Now, let’s go have some brekky. I am fucking starving...

Regardless of how many times people look at me with pity,
as in, “You poor dear, being so alone.”

Or disdain,
“But you’re blood. You must.”

Blood doesn’t make blood bleed. That’s insurance I have paid for, that I won’t pass down to my daughter.

My bleeding has been internal since I was a child, told
“You cannot be you here.”

Then intermittently, a shrug:

“Well, like this,
—but not like that.”

She doesn’t realize that you can’t remove someone’s art from within them.

She doesn’t recognize that the only reason I can draw, and paint, and write, is because
I had hours alone inside my own creation,
built from the absence of warmth.

It is hilarious, deadly irony.

That her claims about my art, being the thing worth noting, was both true and an open wound she didn’t see was bleeding.

But few do, and fewer still can recognize it in others.

Now, as an adult:

I won’t apologize for me.
She won’t apologize for disallowing me.

So, we’re at a stalemate.

I don’t regret my actions. Doors don’t close on people who treat me as an equal.

Blood or not.

I know she has not sat in the silence of my experience.
She doesn’t want to, but I didn’t either.
One is a choice; I was a child, and I am still hers. Age doesn’t deny that.

I only ever wanted to have her in my life. And my chest aches inside this,
that I still do.

I have a fireplace in my apartment, and I swear, every time I turn it on, a piece of me warms up and slides off like I’m an iceberg. 1000 layers aren’t just built up; sometimes they’re the ones that need to be sluiced off.

My mom popped into my head just now as I thought about something she’d find funny that I wrote, and it made me realize all of this.

The wild part of that to me is that it’s obviously untrue, and yet, we write circles around it.

Artists claiming to speak from truth, yet hiding inside of confrontation, sidestepping accountability, or lashing out like children on the playground when someone says, “Actually, you’re kind of being a dick.”

Accountability is the ability to self-reflect without shaming yourself or the other person. An inability to take accountability is trauma being projected onto someone whose language mimics a pattern that caused you hurt.

I used to take it to heart when someone would say something unkind to me.

My dad told me they could go fuck themselves. Yes, he told me that since I was about 5.

He would say, “What did you say to them?”

I would answer along the lines of, “I told them that what they were doing was mean.”

He would say, “Then they can go fuck themselves.”

My dad didn’t have the education, language, or upbringing that afforded him gentler sensibilities, but he was a kind and gentle man. He was also fiercely protective of me.

Not in the bubble-wrap way. I was absolutely a fucking moron child who should’ve probably died at least 6 times. I jumped down a flight of stairs just to see what would happen and hid my sprained ankle for a week. My friend and I entered a bull pen to save a bird I spotted, and I absolutely got into strangers’ cars (I mean… I was 21, so I guess I was a stupid fucking adult, too).

But my dad made sure I knew to listen to who I was on the inside, always.

I think unconsciously, he was protecting the parts of himself that were no longer allowed to be free inside our household without being mocked. My dad was a strong, masculine presence, told he was weak by my mom and sister.

So now, when I see people who can actually be great, I feel like my dad’s energy is trapped inside my ribcage, dying to be let out.

The only problem is, I am not a man, and therefore that masculine presence inside of me feels confronting to a lot of people: both men and women.

It feels like domination, it feels like mocking, it feels like *insert the wound you pretend to hide, but I see clearly*.

I am so over great people pretending they’re not. Soft-hiding behind “fear of judgement”. You are great, and you know it. And if you’re not, you do too, ya fatmouth.

I just find it funny, and depressing, and delightful to watch the people who could literally change the world hold onto “we cannot, we cannot, we cannot” like it’s a collective chorus of defeat.

Self-deprecation is lame.

You’re not bragging to say “I wrote something”; it’s not even bragging to say “I wrote something you need to read”. It’s not even bragging to write “I WROTE SOMETHING THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE, IF YOU LET IT.”

That’s the truth.

And I won’t live inside a world of ‘cannot’. I watched my dad do it as an artist who succumbed to a job inside a workplace and a household he felt obligated to maintain because he was told, “that’s just life. Now deal.”

No. Life is what you make it. Grab the horns of it and fucking ride.

I’m not saying reality (yours) doesn’t exist. I’m saying, inside that reality, where have you already given up on the things you say you want?

What are you doing that makes your inside knot up in the name of your art?

Speak to that, share that, show me your fucking soul, ya toot. That’s the part we’ve forgotten inside our AI-war-divisive-catastrophy fear mindset.

You have a gift. Share the fuck out of it in a way that doesn’t make you want to fork your eyeballs out after.

Find your way. Spray it.
Find your people. Love them.

Don’t be a dickwad.

<3

— This quick PSA brought to you by my headphones charging, and I refuse to clean my apartment without them.