“While you’re strapped to the lie detector they ask you if you’ve ever had sex with an animal,” he told me.

“Right,” I replied, squinting at the horizon, feigning a nonchalance one must muster to get the best stories out of strangers. As he had passed the lie detector test, I could only assume his answer was no.

“Want to shoot an AK-47?” he asked.

I perked up.

I have a vegan friend who eats animal products when offered by their hosts while traveling abroad. I felt shooting a gun while on a remote farm was of similar moral consequence. I was being a good guest.

If time is a flat circle, then I was indeed just doing research for a role; I played Annie Oakley in an eighth grade production of the musical Annie Get Your Gun. In the production, I pretended to shoot a (prop) gun into the audience, bending over to aim between my legs. Pew pewing at my friends’ parents. (This was when there were only a few famous school shootings. It was a different time).

How different could this be, shooting at clay pigeons and painted bullseyes in a big empty field by a walnut orchard?

I alternated between pressing the cold can of beer to my neck to cool me and sipping it to satiate my nerves. Was I a hypocrite? A bad leftist? An Anthony Bourdain-esque open minded explorer? As riddled with cognitive dissonance as the Village People performing at Trump’s inauguration?

Never trust the activism of a capitalist venture. But there’s plenty of gay singers, and plenty of gay cowboys.

On the train across California I listened to Orville Peck (pictured above), a certified Macho Man and the perfect soundtrack for hours staring out a window at scenery straight from Steinbeck’s East of Eden. I like to describe Peck’s music as gay Johnny Cash. His honeyed baritone voice and cinematic stories make you feel like an outlaw.

I admire Peck’s preference for hiding his face in public, focusing on the music and persona, a world to explore, a character to inhabit, not his appearance. For new fans such as myself, I suggest his songs “No Glory in the West,” “The Curse of the Blackened Eye,” and “Daytona Sand.”

Peck’s twang stuck in my head, I convinced myself that this was what unemployment was all about. I might as well get into some trouble before I find out if the TV show I worked for is renewed for another season. Like cigarettes, I know that movies have tricked my brain into making guns look cool. Yesterday was the 14th anniversary of the Aurora, Colorado mass shooting during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises. I’ve thought of that shooting every time I’ve been in a movie theater since.

But besides, who would ever find out that I shot a gun? I mused over this while absorbing details for this very essay. But I found little to be said about the weapons. The shots were loud, the guns were heavy. I tried three guns, and liked the pistol best. I’m not sure I ever hit anything but dirt and grassy hills. The target was too far away to really tell, and my clay pigeons fell to the earth intact.

Fear is funny. I’ve had plenty of panic attacks as my blood pressure has been taken at the doctor’s (a blood pressure cuff going off every ten minutes all night in the hospital leaves a lasting impression) but I wasn’t afraid of holding the guns. Neither did I feel empowered.

The man from the lie detector test drove me back to the farm when I overheated. A self-proclaimed snake charmer, he handed me a small snake that twisted itself between my fingers. The snake proceeded to poop on me. It was a day of firsts.

I didn’t argue politics with him. In fact, politics didn’t come up, at least not in conversation. (Here I acknowledge the privilege and safety of being white and cisgender and straight passing in this scenario).

He told me he was a third generation sheriff, hence the lie detector test as part of his interview process. I knew his position wouldn’t change, an argument would only serve to upset a man I barely knew in the middle of nowhere, this family member of a friend of a friend. Maybe this was cowardly of me. Maybe I used up my bravery on the guns and snakes.

Speaking of snakes, I’ve called senators’ offices to ask for gun control since I’ve been old enough to vote. And as a pre-voting teen I once cast a spell with a witch friend to end mass shootings. Neither strategy has worked so far but I am open to suggestions.

In his truck, he confessed to me he worried about being a good dad to his kids. I told him everything I knew about being a daughter and about what I needed from my dad. This whole day was reminding me of the movie True Grit, a favorite of my father’s, who was such a lefty he was arrested for protesting the Iraq war back in the day. But perhaps I shouldn’t have given fatherly advice, as I haven’t heard from my dad in years.

I washed the snake shit and gunpowder off my hands. It was the 4th of July. I fell asleep before I could watch fireworks, loud and polluting. You have to draw a line somewhere.

I finished a rewatch of Better Call Saul this week. I’m wrecked. I earnestly believe it’s the greatest TV show of all time. It’s a slow burn, sure, but it’s like a thick classic novel or a long symphony, once you’re truly in it, you’re transported. You’ll never go back to who you were before it. Maybe a little boring is good for you. I can’t decide if I sound pretentious or like a corny simpleton. Lately I’m trying to challenge my mind so it doesn’t atrophy in the vat of toxic goo that is media and AI and whatever is happening in the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool.

I also finished Lena Dunham’s touching, juicy, brilliant new memoir Famesick. I was raised on HBO’s Girls (another all time great TV show). I want to be a professional writer/TV maker and am a chronically ill gal myself so I am essentially every quadrant her publishers were hoping to reach. Not to mention I grew up with hairless dogs and also want to live in Wales. IYKYK.

I adored her repeated uses of the words “jaunty” and “kidney bean” in her book, so I decided to tell the internet. Lena kindly reposted me on Substack (below).

What a delight and honor to be seen by one of your favorite artists! I soon discovered she posted me on her Instagram story as well! And for the (embarrassingly many) times I checked her stories that day, she didn’t post anything else to compete with it!

I sent this screenshot to a few friends who are fellow fans and we all squealed. Time passed, and then… a grubby, lecherous thought. “Why aren’t I gaining more Substack and Instagram followers from this?” Vile.

Announcing that you think you deserve more success and acclaim is about as appealing as a man whining that he deserves a blowjob.

But the wretched thoughts continued. An inner tantrum stormed. Years and years working as an assistant in Hollywood. Countless open mics, newsletters, bar shows, scripts shown to peers, a sold out Fringe run, networking drinks, and somehow surviving attending a high school for the arts. I wallowed and wondered: when will I be plucked from obscurity, when will my income be more than my bills? (Like the Never to Own a Home Zillennial I am, I treat myself to a cold foamed matcha every time I spend more than a hundred dollars at the pharmacy. Happens more often than you’d think).

But sickness and success are not based in a meritocracy. So much of life is luck. “Be so good they can’t ignore you,” says Steve Martin. I guess the chronically ill version would be “take such good care of yourself that your new symptoms stump your doctors.”

Even as I write this, I am interrupted by my blood sugar alarm screaming at me for committing the crime of eating an apple. I must pause to double check my blood sugar and give myself a little extra from the vial (the insulin pump is conservative to avoid lows). At least I have a delightful Trader Joes candle on a gorgeous table cloth gifted to me by my hilarious friend Grace. (A thematically apt name).

And then another wild internet encounter: Stephen King! He loves the show I’ve been a small part in helping to bring to life the last year and a half. Watch it please, so that a season 2 exists and I can continue my health insurance! Will his tweets lead to more viewers? I wonder the impact of celebrity opinion. Election results would indicate it is very low.

Either way, as I prepare to go on COBRA and head to another three hour long open mic, I can smile knowing that Stephen King and Lena Dunham are (from afar, parasocially, for an instant) on my side.

And that makes me feel like a jaunty kidney bean.

Buy me a matcha? <3

I don’t want to take pictures of children and put them online, so just imagine bowling shoes in your mind, but make them tiny.

What a month.

I’ve been fighting relentless fatigue that’s often hard to differentiate from the apathy of dysthymia. According to the bloodwork results I received yesterday, I am very low on iron and vitamin D, so a visit to Erewhon’s supplement aisle is in order. There’s also something wonky going on with my thyroid. One problem at a time. Google says I should eat more Greek yogurt, but I already eat it every day. Robots don’t know anything. Somebody feed me oysters in the sun!

To speak of things that give me the will to live, I’m voraciously rewatching the best TV show of all time, Better Call Saul. I was lucky enough to work alongside its Emmy-winning editor Skip MacDonald on the TV show I went to NYC for, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed (out now! please stream it on Apple TV and tell your friends about it so they make a season 2 and my health insurance can continue!!!!)

I’ve been reading East of Eden. Devouring it, really. I’ve been in an Americana mood, between Saul’s New Mexico and rewatching There Will Be Blood at a Cinematheque screening and listening to every cover of the folk song 500 Miles. I was picturing Florence Pugh as Cathy before I knew she was actually cast in the Netflix adaptation by Elia Kazan’s granddaughter! (He directed the film back in the day!) Sometimes Hollywood gets it right.

Another reason to go on: friends’ art!!!! To keep with the Americana theme, I have been enjoying the soapy Dutton Ranch, which my lovely friend Hayley Tibbenham wrote on. Sometimes you just need to look at a shirtless cowboy on a horse. (Just to support your friend’s show, of course!)

Also to support the art of friends, I found myself in a warehouse in Frogtown, watching queer couples load and unload a real life U-Haul truck as they bickered about their relationships. Jay Stalder wrote the hilarious “Keep Yourself Safe, or U-Haul Play” directed by Brian Eckert, with a standout performance by Jill Young. Ever since the motorcycle at the ballet in the film Center Stage, I love real vehicles involved in theatre. Let’s get immersive, baby! AI ain’t got shit on that.

I’m a huge fan of Jay’s play/short film “A Definitive Ranking of My Closest Friends.” Both works wrestle with what we’re allowed to share with our friends, our partners, our friend’s partners, and our partner’s friends. You’re damned if you tell the truth, and damned if you don’t. Just try not to have a public permanent record of any shit talking.

Speaking of vehicles, my car broke down. She’s only 11! I got through it thanks to help from my friends. A fellow comic Leah Folta and her husband made me dinner before she drove me across town for a set. Have you heard of a little thing called community?! Turns out it’s more than just an old NBC sitcom! And now my car is fixed. Fingers crossed she lasts me until I make more money than my bills cost.

Finally, I debated writing about this because I don’t want to whine, but I had some of my most brutal diabetes experiences to date last week. Multiple nights in a row of all nighters with stubborn highs due to multiple failing CGMs and leaking pumps. My pump fell off at the Renaissance Faire due to sweat. I needed an emergency pen delivered to me while at work. I’m exhausted. It’s painful, it’s expensive, it’s dangerous, it’s scarring. Do not recommend.

To cap it off, at work we were moving one office over, staying on the same floor. We were set to have the movers shift our things on a Friday. It was Tuesday, and the week before I got a month’s worth of insulin from CVS and kept it in the office mini fridge. I planned to keep it there (to diversify my holdings in case my fridge at home ever failed) but worrying the fridge could be unplugged too long later in the week, decided to bring my insulin home that night.

The next day I found that the movers had come early. And seeing that a new and improved mini fridge was in the new office, they had thrown the old mini fridge away. Without checking its contents. Insurance does not cover lost or stolen or damaged prescriptions. I would be out thousands of dollars to replace it had I not been paranoid the night before. Not to mention they threw away my kombucha.

The studio lot manager I emailed replied with “glad it worked out.” But I was shaken and in a rage the rest of the week at the close call.

But you can always rotate a cow in your mind. Or a cowboy.

Buy me a kombucha? :)

I had just finished the best chicken biryani of my life and was on my second glass of champagne. It was that magical crepuscular time of day where one must muster up the courage to leave imminently for an event lest the lure of staying supine on a couch grow too strong.

I decided that art and friendship were more important than becoming horizontal post-meal. (This is not always the case).

And so I left for “F*cking Famous,” a solo show by Molly Sharpe, my favorite clown. In fact, I took my first and only Clowning Class because of Molly, where I learned a lot! Most importantly, I learned that I am Not a Clown1 (at least, creatively. In my personal life, sure).

The show was held in the back of the iconic Outfitters Wig on Hollywood Boulevard. Right on the Walk of Fame, where everyone from drag queens, to strippers, clowns, and sketch comedians shop their fine wares. (If there’s a Hell, I want to be assigned to that section!)

A previous solo show of Molly’s, “Murder, Oops!” won the Hollywood Fringe award for Best Comedic Theater after a sold-out run in 2025. It was absurd, perverted, and hilarious.

In “F*cking Famous,” a pop star’s tour van has gotten into a terrible accident. The injured superstar (Sharpe) limps to the stage, covered in blood, determined for the show to go on. It’s outrageous. And brilliant. And ultimately, a pop show.

A layman might compare the show’s visual aesthetic to Charli XCX, but it actually reminded me far more of Lana Del Rey’s infamous 2012 SNL performance. I remember watching that show live as a kid, thrilled at the idea that my favorites Daniel Radcliffe and Lana Del Rey would be on the same show. Critics ripped Lana apart at the time, but true Lana fans know that her performance became an instant classic in the SNL canon. It was simple, haunting, unique, iconic, bizarre. Now it’s a highlight of her long lore. A decade and a half later, it’s pure camp. Lana married a swamp boat tour guide. She doesn’t care what you think.

It was a relief to enjoy an affordable night out (parking cost more than the ticket price). For over half my life I’ve bought any magazine with Lady Gaga on the cover, but I missed her Mayhem Ball tour both in New York and Los Angeles because resale nosebleed seats were in the 700s. Who is in the center of this venn diagram: someone with a grand to spare (don’t forget fees, parking, and drinks!) who is willing to sit in the nosebleeds?! I think you should be able to hand write write a five page essay (no AI!) on how much you love an artist and that should give you $100 tickets to their shows for life.

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Lately I have been more and more frustrated by the algorithm’s vice grip on the neck of artists. If I want to have any chance of becoming a successful stand-up, I have to edit short clips of my jokes in hopes they go viral. And even then, virality is no guarantee of success. Lindy West’s controversial new memoir “Adult Braces” has been the topic of much discourse, but apparently her book hasn’t become a bestseller, far from it. Lindy spilled her guts and damaged her spouse and her spouse’s girlfriends’ reputation on a national stage didn’t make a profit. More brutal than a car crash.

“F*cking Famous” (censored for the all mighty algorithm) challenges the idea that artists need all the pomp and circumstance. The show also manages to satirize what we expect of artists. I’m thinking of Halsey, chronically ill and bedridden after a miscarriage, forced by her team to go on stage and perform.

Molly’s show injected me with hope. AI just can’t pull off a wig. The industry itself may be absurd, but we have the art. Broken and limping, still we entertain. It’s all we have.

Tickets for Molly’s Hollywood Fringe show go on sale May 1st here. In the meantime, give your local wig store a visit.

The Thoughts in My Brain the First Five Minutes of Waking Up, in Real Time

Can’t snooze again. Open eyes. Okay, we’re alive, the war didn’t kill us. Nice. Check my blood sugar app. The insulin pump kept me in range overnight. Type 1 diabetes didn’t kill me. Nice.

Okay. Open banking app to check my balance. I was paid yesterday but then I had to pay all those bills and I got groceries and picked up my prescriptions and filled my car with gas so, let’s check the balance… AHHHHH!!! AHHHH!!!! Closing banking app.

What do I eat for breakfast? There’s my usual yogurt, berries, and chia seeds, ch-ch-ch-chia. I keep hearing protein is important for you for some reason but that fiber is more important to prevent colorectal cancer. Oh god I had a dream last night that I had cancer. Dreams are not visions! Thoughts do not manifest reality! Except for the good ones. Those do.

Okay I’ll have berries, but what’s in season? Were they picked by, essentially, slaves? Well technically migrant workers, who I do want to have jobs, I don’t want them deported. Or worse. So as long as the food is organic. Except that farmer I dated taught me that organic actually means new chemicals that could be even more harmful but aren’t classified as pesticides. Yet.

Could I get yogurt in glass containers? Nobody talks about the micro plastics of yogurt sitting in plastic containers! What is the alternative?

I’m not about to start a farm commune with my friends, I hate when people say that they’re going to do that. No you aren’t. Like, I love my friends, but we can’t organize a weekend away or keep a houseplant alive, we’re not gonna run a farm.

Okay I’m getting out of bed now. Bathroom time. Uh oh bathroom scale, forgot about you. Time to step on to see what we’re working with. Okay stepping on the bathroom scale. AHHHHH!! AHHHHH!!!! Stepping off bathroom scale.

I know I have student loans but! What if I paid a surgeon the equivalent of my student loans to carve out parts of my body and face. That could be cool.

Sitting on the toilet to pee, don’t forget to put your feet on the squatty potty to protect your precious colon.

Time to scroll Instagram. Open Instagram. Picture of dog :). Picture of genocide :(. Post by a gorgeous girl who is better than you at the things you love. Awesome!

Ad for GLP-1 :(. Ad for GLP-1 class action lawsuit for its side effects :). Ad to sell my eggs to afford GLP-1s! Oh wait, they don’t want eggs from people who have chronic illness. Could I sell my hair? Look it up. Oh, no, they’re buying it from women in India. My hair is worthless.

Okay time to wash my hands, aim for 20 seconds to actually kill germs like we learned at the beginning of the pandemic. But it’s sooooo borrrringggg.

Okay 20,

19.

18.

17.

16.

15.

14.

13.

12.

11.

10.

9.

8.

7.

6.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

I’M FREE!!! Dry hands. Time to change clothes.

Okay, looking through the options in my underwear drawer. I once dated someone who preferred g-strings, so I have a bunch of those, but then, remember, the next person I was with found them unsanitary, so I switched to cotton high waisted underwear, so I could grab those. Then the next person said the high waist reminded them of their mother, so I got low cut panties which made me feel bad, but pleased them. Why did they like those panties? Who did they remind them of? Is it too much to ask to want to remind someone of ourselves? There’s only so much about ourselves we can change, thank god we can change our underwear. We can change it every day.

We can change it every day.

It wasn’t an ad, or even the algorithm that introduced me to Nadia’s work. A friend DMed me a viral reel of a type 1 diabetic artist who was creating her own “diabetic armour.” I knew I had to order one and eagerly awaited its arrival in the mail.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Nadia about her process. I told her I had to wait to switch my Omnipod from my stomach to my arm before I wore the armour (you change your insulin pump’s position every two to three days) and she told me she’s working on waistband armour next. I told Nadia that waistband armour would be a perfect look for the Renaissance Faire (because I’m really cool).

Note the Canadian spelling of Armour, which I think is better, along with their superior healthcare. “If I was diabetic without coverage, I’d be on the street,” Nadia tells me. Her Canadian healthcare costs per year are what mine are monthly. God Bless America!

SB: How do you feel the reception has been?

NJ: It’s been overwhelmingly positive. I had this idea a few years ago and I was just too busy to go through with it, and one day I just sat down and decided that today was the day I’m going to experiment with some wire. I posted a silly little video about it and immediately got responses from people about how much they loved it and how much they would appreciate having something of their own to boost their confidence. The idea came from my own insecurities about wearing a medical device that makes my medical condition visible.

SB: I think visibility is such a double-edged sword because having my medical devices visible has sparked a lot of really cool conversations and had me connect with other diabetics in public. But then at the same time, like yesterday at work, one of the guys saw my device and he goes, “oh, is that for diabetes?” And I go, “yeah,” and he goes, “oh, well, actually my dog has diabetes and the diabetes made him go blind. Isn’t that so funny?” And I go, “Oh, cool.” Like, what am I supposed to say to that?

NJ: I think the same thing. I love being able to connect with other diabetics, but I definitely feel a different type of way when it’s other people. I’m okay educating people, but in becoming diabetic, I didn’t sign up to be a teacher. I’m fine with people being curious about things and I’m not going to respond negatively if people approach me out of curiosity. But I think people don’t realize that you don’t get to choose whether you’re diabetic.

SB: If you don’t mind sharing, what is your journey with type one diabetes? I was only diagnosed a little over two years ago. It was life changing, a real shock well into adulthood.

NJ: I kind of got a bit lucky in terms of finding out because my mom had just been diagnosed with type one a few years earlier, and she was diagnosed at 45, I think. I started showing the same symptoms she did where I was always really thirsty and had to pee all the time and was always exhausted, and so on a whim, I asked her if I could use her blood testing, little finger prick, and it was at like 30 mmol/L [540 mg/dL in American units], so then we’re like, oh, great. I guess we’re spending tomorrow in the ER. I’m lucky I didn’t, like many people, get really sick… I still have moments where I forget I’m diabetic, and it’s been six years.

At 19 I was surrounded by people that were always making jokes like “Oh, if you eat this, you’re gonna get diabetes” or whatever. At the time I didn’t think anything of those jokes because I wasn’t diabetic before. I knew they were insensitive, but I didn’t fully know. I regret not not thinking further into it but now I can really relate to how harmful those comments can be.

SB: I love to fall asleep to old sitcom episodes, and there’s so many jokes about diabetes. It’s so crazy, how much of it is truly just rooted in fatphobia. Like “I can make this joke because I associate this body type with type two diabetes. I associate this with certain body types so I can be mean about it.” And it’s just like, hang on, hang on. Can we not do this about a disease?

NJ: Yeah, and I think it also, it really dilutes the complexity of it and how dangerous it can be. Most people I talk to really don’t realize that every day I’m fighting for my life and every day I have to physically put in effort to be alive. There’s a real lack of education, I think, because of how desensitized people have gotten to these type of jokes.

“I’m not fragile because I’m diabetic, I’m stronger because of it. I think armour is a symbol of strength,” Nadia tells me.

From Pixel Bunni Studio’s Instagram (@pixelbunnistudio):

“[The above] diabetic armour was a custom [piece] made specifically to match a prom dress. She sent me photos of the dress so I was able to colour match the particular tone of purple and asked for stars to be included in the design.

When I received these photos from @dorieextraandordinary I was quite literally in tears. Not only were the photos and outfit absolutely gorgeous but the omnipod was highlighted in all of them. It made me think of all the times I’ve turned my body to the side in photos to keep it hidden and it makes me so happy to see that this narrative can be changed.”

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My podiatrist showed me the gay smut he was reading. More on that in a moment.

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I was at a podiatrist for the first time to do a diabetes foot check (all good there!) and to get some answers on the debilitating pain I felt when I tried to go on a jog the week before.

“How long has this pain been going on?” The foot doctor asked.

“Well, it’s only when I run.” I explained.

“And how how often do you run?” He asked.

“Uh, once?”

I’ve never been a runner. Even when I was taking a dozen ballet classes a week as a teen, I had a 16 minute mile in PE class. But running is free, unlike pilates (which I deeply enjoy, but is now up to $60 a class in some studios!)

I like to move my body. I’ve even heard some crazy rumors that exercise helps your mood and sleep and health, but if that were true, I think we would have heard about it by now.

I’ve always loved dancing and long walks and tree-lined hikes, and have even gotten better at swimming, but running felt physiologically opposed to how I’m assembled.

And I was proven right! Medically!!

The podiatrist did some scans and x-rays of my feet, and turns out, I have not one but two (essentially harmless) “deformities” inside my foot that make specifically the act of running excruciating. This was very validating, especially when I was bracing myself for him to tell me to just stretch more and lose some weight, the cure-all for female hysteria.

“We could do an experimental surgery, or, you could just, not run?” The podiatrist offered.

You can guess which option I chose.

I’ve recently gotten back into taking ballet classes. It took over a decade of grieving my erstwhile ballet career to even fathom attending a ballet. Some breakups are too painful.

I used to take the city bus by myself to ballet class after school. I TA’d the little kids classes to make my classes more affordable. I was determined. It was my dream. But I didn’t have the feet. So here I am, working in TV as an assistant, and working unpaid as a stand-up comedian and writer, where the height of my foot arches hardly ever comes up.

I needed to get a new leotard (my body has committed the high treason of not looking like a teenager’s anymore), so in the meantime, I wore a Baywatch swimsuit and some shorts.

It’s not an allusion to Baywatch, it’s a collaboration with the beach goddess herself. I got it at an event where I got to meet the Pamela Anderson a couple years ago. Talk about a career and creative Renaissance. It’s never too late.

The Oscars are over, so don’t worry, this won’t be another think piece unpacking Timothée Chalamet’s views on ballet. To quote legend Nathan Lane on the matter, “who deemed this meeting of the minds necessary?”

It’s much more fun to celebrate Misty Copeland’s Oscars cameo and the success of Sinners. I've been a fan of hers over half my life. As a kid, I hoped her “late” start in ballet at 13 years old meant I had a chance, since I didn’t start as a tot like most professional ballerinas.

The fun news is, I do have a chance. Likely not soloing for ABT, but a chance to achieve so many of my creative dreams, and a chance to move my body to music, which is what it’s all about anyway.

Oh yeah, the podiatrist’s gay smut. He saw I was carrying a library book and we exchanged reading recommendations. He flipped his tablet around to show me his double screen use, my x-rays on one side, his Libby app open in the other. The Libby page I glanced at appeared to use the word “nipples” quite a few times. Now that’s a man living his dream.

Speaking to Hanne Daguman (née Engan) on the phone as she walks her dog, our call is interrupted by Hanne saving a lost puppy. She apologizes to me for pausing our conversation to post about the dog in her neighborhood Facebook group. I hear her asking her neighbors about the dog. She DMs me a picture.

This is so kind as to be a trope in screenwriting (Save the Cat!) to show a character’s good nature. This is my second impression of Hanne, saving a lost dog. My first impression of her was that she was worried I’d be too tired after a long day at work to speak with her.

Before speaking with Hanne, I read the article about her in Newsweek and watched her interview with Diabetech. I know repeating a traumatic story can be more triggering than it is therapeutic. I ask Hanne if there’s anything she hasn’t had the chance to share about her experience enduring medical neglect while in custody for nine days.

She considers for a moment. “I haven’t talked a lot about the aftermath of going viral. The negativity, the hate comments, people telling me I should kill myself.”

“I’m not conspiring, I’m not saying any hateful things, I’m just sharing my truth and my story, and a lot of people have a problem with that,” Hanne tells me.

She’s seeing a therapist, which is helpful, but expensive. And she’s still dealing with the aftermath of the infections she obtained when her blood sugar was high and her hours of pleading to the staff were ignored.

After coming to the US from Norway on a student visa, Hanne stayed with a work visa, eventually meeting and falling in love with her husband. According to lawyers they advised, they were doing everything by the books. But she was arrested at her green card interview.

She lost access to her medical supplies, including her CGM and insulin pens. “I was like, oh, if it’s just a week, maybe I could just not eat anything.” When she finally got a dose of long acting insulin from the medical staff, it was too high, and she had to rely on a fellow detainee giving her crackers so she wouldn’t go into a coma or have a seizure from hypoglycemia.

“Most of the people I met in there, they had either asylum cases or their visa had been retracted or other types of paperwork issues. Some had been there for months, some had been there for almost a year. And they all kept telling us, don’t worry, you will get out of here soon, maybe in three months.”

While not everyone has a condition as immediately life-or-death as type one, many people can relate to relying on accessibility aids as common as glasses and contacts. Hanne kept her daily contacts in for the entire stay to much pain and eye irritation, risking further infection, knowing if she took them out, she wouldn’t be able to read signs, see the guards’ faces, or look at the clock on the wall.

“I paid to go to college here, and then worked and paid taxes, and I don’t know, I feel like I’ve been very productive.”

According to Hanne, her credit card was stolen while she was in custody. Thankfully she was able to dispute the fraudulent charges. She still doesn’t know who in the ICE detention staff took her card. Filing charges to gain access to security the footage would mean further effort, expenses, and trauma. Thankfully she has a good support system in her husband and friends.

“All my friends here in San Diego have been so supportive and very helpful. It’s funny though, people back in Norway are not so supportive, maybe they don’t understand how this works. Especially after I had a lot of media coverage [in Norway], I was kind of misrepresented, I would say. They just kind of framed what DHS said as the truth, and when I was released, they didn’t say I was innocent, they just said I was released on bond. So it’s almost framing you as a criminal, even though it has nothing to do with criminal trials. Saying, ‘oh, DHS meant that she was breaking federal laws.’ And when you frame it like that, maybe a lot of people believe it, you know? At least I’m not in danger of deportation anymore because I had my case terminated. For all the haters out there.”

While in custody, when her health worsened, they put her in isolation to keep a closer eye on her.

“I feel it’s important to highlight how insane it is. How mentally damaging it is. It’s classified as psychological torture. It should absolutely not be used unless you’re a danger to others or contagious. It was challenging because there’s no distractions, there’s no shower in isolation. Every comfort was limited. You can’t call your lawyer or husband. I still didn’t receive good enough care so I was worried about my life… I had to beg for hours for insulin. I’m tired, weak, starving, using my energy to keep myself alive. I don’t know how long I could have made it in there. Of course there’s no therapy, no one is checking in on you. It’s a private company, they’re trying to save money. They don’t have enough doctors or nurses.”

You can follow along with the many horrific absurdities of the experience on her social media (@hanne_engan). She shares that once released, her ankle monitor (which has since been removed) had verbal announcements only in Spanish.

“I am white, that is a privilege. Many people can’t speak up,” she tells me.

“My degree was in economics, and I’m also a licensed insurance agent, but I don’t know if that’s what I want to do now. I feel more of the urge to actually do something for people that need help, like advocating for medical care in prison and detention, maybe.”

Hanne’s GoFundMe can be found here

Hanne and I happened to speak the day after Norway won its first Best International Feature Oscar for Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value.” Hanne says she was “happy about that.” (On a personal note, his film “The Worst Person in the World” is one of my all time favorites).

In his acceptance speech, Trier said: “I want to end with paraphrasing the wonderful American writer James Baldwin, who makes us remember that all adults are responsible for all children. Let’s not vote for politicians who do not take this seriously into account.”

CLOSER TO THE EDGE

DENIS CABRERA RODRÍGUEZ AND THE COST OF BEING SEEN

Before he was a detainee number, before he was a medical liability shuffled between concrete walls and emergency rooms, Denis Cabrera Rodríguez was a man who paid attention. He was a photographer in Cuba, drawn to ordinary people and unguarded moments, documenting daily life with the quiet insistence of someone who believes that showing the truth matter…

Read more

8 months ago · 100 likes · 4 comments · Closer to the Edge

When I was a teenager, trips to IKEA were about reinvention. The perfect desk lamp would surely solidify a new identity and propel me into a flawless future. In one of these pilgrimages of self discovery, in its Scandinavian endless maze, I came across this poster and took the above photo. Having no idea it was a Sophia Loren quote about her curves and Italian heritage, I thought this ugly-fonted “art” was Lorem Ipsum nonsense a decade and a half before ChatGPT existed. I thought it was hilarious. Perhaps it was an ode to The Flying Spaghetti Monster, the deity of Pastafarianism. (Worth a Google).

The phrase stayed with me for days, with different emphasis each time. Everything YOU see I owe to spaghetti!!! Then a smart friend kindly corrected me about the phrase’s origins.

After some recent weight gain due to trivial medications that allow me to do inconsequential activities such as breathing and eating, I bought a “Smart Scale” that was in fact quite dumb. It was broken and read 500. (Halfway to my goal of 1,000!) A wink from the universe not to take these things too seriously. And a silver lining, (skip to the next paragraph if we’re related or we work together!): my tits measure at a Double D now, whatever that means. So that’s fun.

It’s a privilege to get older, but what a drag to have to start to focus on things like cholesterol levels and bone strength to prevent osteoporosis. And in a time of humiliatingly mainstream health misinformation, it’s vital to listen to actual scientists and to keep snake oil consumption to the bare minimum.

I just had to close a heretofore sane wellness article that near the end demanded we stop wearing sunscreen! Yes, as an Irish lass in Los Angeles with a family history of skin cancer, I’m sure that would go over great. But hang on, the Smart Watch that I got to tell me my blood sugar numbers at a glance is telling me I need to stand up now!

“When I write about the pursuit of pleasure, I find it much easier to focus on wine and sex and dancing, and much more complicated to look at exercise and health. The language and behaviours we have adopted over the years towards our bodies and what we do to them are not particularly suggestive of sensual dreaming or embodied fun. Exercise can become purely instrumental very quickly, a way to chisel and shape yourself, or a way to cleanse yourself of sins you don’t want to name. Self-surveillance is increasingly touted as a normal way to engage with your physical presence: transforming food into micronutrients, miles into statistics. It can numb me out so easily, distance me from experience so quickly.”

-Ismene Ormonde in her Substack piece “having a body is supposed to be fun!! on putting the poetry back into exercise”

By now we’ve all heard that many of the CEOs who orchestrated and profited off of our teenage eating disorders and hyper-sexualization were in the Epstein cohort. Vile. May they get exactly what they deserve. But enough about them.

To cleanse your mind of those odious losers, an angel among us:

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Bodies are gorgeous, disgusting, perfect, flawed, resilient, fragile, flesh sacks, political footballs, ours to mold, and often completely out of our control.

The thinnest times of my life were during my anorexia as a teenage ballerina (cliché!), during my time surviving a physically abusive relationship (yikes!), and when I was hospitalized with DKA and organ failure and sepsis (whoops!) Goals, am I right ladies?

And I say this as a white, cisgender, straight-sized woman! So it’s way fucking harder for a lot of people to navigate the world in our very temporary bags of bones. I recently enjoyed comedian Cara Meyers’ one woman show “Show Me Your Dick: A Lifetime of Dating in a Larger Body.” See it if you can!

A friend of mine who survived cancer recommended the book Body Neutral by Jessi Kneeland, which I read half of and forgot about until now. Perhaps on its completion I’d be cured! But one of its concepts stuck with me: that in an attempt to change our bodies, we are seeking a certain outcome. Can we achieve that outcome or the feeling that outcome could provide without starving and hating ourselves? In my mind, if I had the perfect body, I’d have a career I’m proud of and lots of love in my life. But wait… I already do have those things… much to consider…

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I’d like to get better at not letting the Sisyphean tasks of human maintenance grind me down. Changing the car’s oil, washing the dishes. This morning I went to the dentist, a win for self care if you can stomach the pain of sharp instruments and high bills. I did enjoy spotting an open pack of cigarettes on the receptionist’s desk. There are cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see.**

I like books where nothing happens and movies where things don’t stop happening.

The other night I finally watched If I Had Legs I’d Kick You which I previously avoided due to its reputation for body horror. I adored the movie (and personally found the body elements to be medical and relatively mild, but don’t take my word for it, I can’t even get through a Cronenberg trailer but my friend in nursing broke a sweat watching it).

I find films with endless tension strangely calming, the same way I felt watching Whiplash, Zola, Uncut Gems, Shiva Baby, and Anora to name a few. All movies I’ve seen numerous times, especially when attempting to comfort myself. Perhaps this micro genre should be called Stressful But Secretly a Comedy? (That’s life).

I have little stomach for horror, the gruesome images repeat over and over in my head without my permission (again, hence the medication for my anxiety) but thrillers and the like tend to put me in a trance. Perhaps because I’m not in those situations? After talking to a lawyer about being sexually assaulted (I didn’t have enough evidence according to the lawyer) I rewatched Uncut Gems. I went to Whiplash’s theatrical rerelease twice to cope with diabetes stress. Could it be the former ballerina in me?

Speaking of which, I want to take adult ballet classes. I’d also love to get back into pilates to strengthen and stretch while protecting my body, preparing it to dance.

I passed by a new pilates studio walking distance from my work and decided to pop my head in in case they had a cheap intro month. $60 a class. Jesus Christ. Joseph Pilates is turning over in his grave (with excellent form). I settled on getting a $10 serum from CVS instead.

Sure it’s worth it to spend hundreds at the dentist, but beyond the immediately medically necessary, where do we draw the line on spending money to take care of ourselves?

“The problem with what I’ll call ‘new age self-care’ is that it can become too capitalistically driven and centered on luxurious pampering that has very little to do with sustainable nurturing and all to do with spending money, which for the communities that actually need the most care, they cannot access!”

-“There is No Self-Care without Community Care” by Aimaloghi Eromosele for URGE (Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity)

Okay, so how do we fill our well and build community and actually effect positive change for the world?

Like anything else, I guess. One decision at a time.

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Last weekend I walked around the Silverlake Reservoir with a fellow type 1 friend. We didn’t spend a dime, we stopped to smell the flowers, and she and I commiserated about living with chronic illness, giving each other tips and sharing resources.

Taking care of yourself can be radical, just look at gold medalist Alysa Liu. (And watch her skate videos if you need a free mood lift!)

Soon enough one of these nights I’ll have a glass too many of sparkling wine and a plate too many of microwave nachos and an hour too many of playing The Sims 4 and I’ll call it self care. Is it? I’m not sure. It’s a little poison, but it carries me to the next day, where I hopefully can help someone else and make the right decision. And create art. And avoid using AI. (Always the right decision).

I hope the rest of your week feels like this:

**

Don’t forget to drink water.

“Let me put it this way,” the allergist sighed, looking over the welts on my back from my skin prick test. “You go near a horse, something bad will happen.”

“Does the horse have a gun?” I asked. No one laughed. Not even the nurse who helped administer my lung strength test minutes before, which I failed. Oops! Another inhaler for little old me.

If anyone has experience with allergy shots, reach out to me. The thought of going into the doctor’s office 3x a week for months, then monthly for years, makes me want to just reach for more daily Claritin (and some gin). I'll avoid my dozen or so food allergies, I’ll tolerate what trees and weeds do to my sinuses. I’ll still pet horses at carnivals to seemingly no consequences.

Tell me if it’s worth the extra shots. I’m already an insulin pincushion.

But call me an optimist. I’m wearing red today, because…

Happy Chinese New Year! Today is also the start of Ramadan, Mardi Gras, a new moon, and a solar eclipse! So whatever you believe in, if you have not yet shed your old form this winter, fear not, the time for rebirth is now.

It’s the year of the Fire Horse! I do not identify as a Horse Girl myself, but my mom is one, so you could say I am 50% Horse Girl on my mother’s side. I understand the language but do not speak it.

However I am thoroughly (thoroughbredly? sorry) enjoying the many horse posts I am seeing online. They’re a respite from the endless harrowing reports of billionaire activities on private islands, which I’m trying not to let Break My Soul.

At the Crazy Horse cabaret in Paris, France this past Christmas (scroll down for pics, taken professionally NOT by me, because I respect artists) I told on a gross old man filming a nude dancer with his phone. ACAB, don’t be a Karen, protect your neighbors, but know when to speak up to protect the vulnerable. A server stopped him and I finished a bottle of champagne. Thank god for friends cooler than I am who I crash with so I can travel the world on a budget.

Stay sexy.

Stay weird.

Happy new year.

For a few years, one of my go-to affable self deprecations was the joke “I’m so white, I was crowd surfed at a Mumford & Sons concert!” Which really happened. But more on that later.

I hadn’t listened to Mumford & Sons in years until their song “White Blank Page” became a viral audio clip for social media videos of Minnesota protests. Hearing them sing “a swelling rage, rage / you did not think, when you sent me to the brink, to the brink” over footage of tens of thousands of protestors moved me every time I came across an Instagram reel or Tiktok that used the song.

Like anyone with a working heart and brain, I have been devastated by the news. While my rage has been swelling for years, Alex Pretti’s murder has truly sent me, to borrow from Mumford without sounding trite, to the brink.

ICU nurses saved my life. (More importantly, they wiped my ass when I couldn’t, so I really owe them).

My dearest friend of 20 years is in nursing school. He could have been Alex. This thought has kept me up the past few nights.

Of course, this kind of violence is nothing new. I hesitated about how to word my grief without sounding like it suddenly mattered because the issue felt closer to me.

But ultimately, it’s not about my feelings at all. This is not about finding the most eloquent wording or aesthetically pleasing activism. No one is winning a medal for Most Politically Correct. There is no cash prize for perfectionism. All that matters is action. This has been going on far too long.

And of course there are countless marginalized people who have been brutalized whose names will never be front page news. The ripple effects of this violence on our communities feels unfathomable.

Okay, so what do we fucking do? Thank goodness for the people far smarter than I am who are sharing resources. I hope by passing some along to you, you are encouraged to take action, however small.

Organizations to donate to in Minnesota:

MN NOICE: One-stop resource for allies and advocates

“MN NOICE is a trusted directory of Minnesota organizations that support immigrant communities. Allies and advocates can use this site as a resource directory to trusted groups and information specific to Minnesota.” - https://mnnoice.com/

How to call your representatives:

5calls.org

Read up! (without getting hopeless)

I have found Ben Sheehan (author of WTF Does the Constitution Actually Say) a helpful resource, especially the past few articles on his Substack which explain why calling your reps really works and why we have two weeks to make a real difference!

Expand your knowledge on these issues! This is all intersectional!

Badass disability activity Wrenn Brooks recently posted about the below book, which I intend to read:

“The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability by Jasbir K. Puar is a 2017 book that argues states use the concept of “debility”—bodily injury and social exclusion from economic/political factors—to control populations, often by creating a category of people “available for injury” rather than outright killing them, as seen in Israel’s policies toward Palestinians. Puar combines queer theory, disability studies, and biopolitics to analyze how liberalism paradoxically expands care for some while simultaneously producing widespread debilitation, linking disability to imperialism, neoliberalism, and racialized capital.”

More ways to help:

• Host a phone banking party! Crack open a few beers and make some calls with friends. Or host a craft night where you can write postcards to reps, make protest signs, cook food for unhoused neighbors, or gather unopened toiletries to donate

• Give your money to vulnerable businesses, like buying out a street vendor’s fruit so they can stay inside

• Boycott businesses that support ICE! (Looking at you, Home Depot, Lowes, and Target!)

• If you are able, protest! Before the pandemic I was an avid protestor, but now that I am insulin dependent I do not feel safe to do so. Do what you can with what you have.

Okay, now for the Mumford & Sons story.

When I was a young teenager, a wealthy friend invited me to the Coachella music festival with her family. We stayed in their gorgeous house in Palm Springs. (The best experiences of my life have been thanks to the generosity of others).

We attended the festival before Instagram existed, and this was years before I tried weed or alcohol, so the entire experience was fully sober and mostly undocumented. It was hot as hell and water bottles cost more than our pocket money so we sweat so much that my friends and I didn’t use the festival’s potties for days.

I got to see Mumford & Sons, my favorite band at the time, perform up close. I waited by the stage for hours. But a few songs in, the crowd got to be too much. My feet lifted off the ground as I was sardined and swayed. I was genuinely afraid of getting crushed and had nowhere to go. I shouted, but the music was too loud for anyone to hear me.

So I lifted my arms and leaned back. A man scooped me up, and soon I was lifted by many unseen hands, floating above the crowd until I reached the edge and could walk away safely. It was surreal, ridiculous, glorious, terrifying.

Lift up your arms. Lean on each other. Get to safety.

Years ago, when wandering Chicago alone on an eight hour layover, I had a life changing interaction with a bookseller.

I went upstairs to Exile in Bookville, which is conveniently near The Bean. I asked if they had books to recommend, (an inane question for a bookseller, I’m sure) and they asked me a follow up question I’ll never forget. Not the expected what kind of books do you like, but: “what are you going through right now?”

I described my situation at the time; I was wavering in my relationship to a man addicted to ketamine. I was on the verge of leaving him, but I was not ready. She recommended Parakeet1 by Marie-Helene Bertino: “a darkly funny and warm-hearted novel about a young woman whose dead grandmother (in the form of a parakeet) warns her not to marry and sends her out to find an estranged loved one.” It was fascinating, absurdist, thoughtful. I loved it. I then read Beautyland, the author’s next novel, when I was traveling in Toronto in 2024. I recommend both books.

Over the course of my twenties, I have found myself traveling alone in Chicago more times than I could have expected. I have often returned to this bookstore to visit my Oracle. I love the book culture in Chicago. I have long wanted to get married in the Chicago Public Library’s atrium, but that would make for a bizarre destination wedding, as I have no family there.

So, without knowing exactly what’s going on in your life, I will recommend some books to you. I’ll list my favorites that came out this year, following each with a similar story that I loved from years past. Do with these recommendations what you will. But promise me if you do read them, whether you like them or not, we will talk about them.

I recommend your local library (whether you want to get married there or not) or even the Libby app on your phone, where you can check out ebooks and audiobooks from the library. Thriftbooks is a great site as well, and of course your local indie bookstore, where if you’re lucky, you can meet an Oracle.

For a creative type wistful for Old New York:

Playworld by Adam Ross

“In 1980s New York City, 14-year-old Griffin Hurt navigates his sitcom fame, a disintegrating family, and a complicated, inappropriate relationship with an older woman, exploring themes of identity, performance, and the transition from youth to adulthood.”2

This one is over 500 pages, but worth the many times you’ll sit down with it. My cousin and I have been talking about it for weeks. If it helps, John Mulaney recommends it too.

For someone who has contended with disability or illness, especially suddenly, or wants to empathize with a loved one who has:

The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan

“When an artist in her late twenties awakens one morning to a deep drone in her right ear, she is diagnosed with sudden deafness but is offered no explanation for its cause. As the specter of total deafness looms, she keeps a record of her year—a score of estrangement and enchantment, of luck and loneliness, of the chance occurrences to which she becomes attuned… making meaning becomes a form of consolation and curiosity, a form of survival.”

This one is a three hour read. I highlighted many passages, and sent them to multiple friends who have undergone illness. The sharp prose keeps it from devolving into bleakness, which is a quality I often can’t stand in art, especially about the sick.

If you’d like to quit Instagram and start a commune, and/or if you are a Bi Girl With a Boyfriend:

Trust and Safety by Eve Gleichman and Laura Blackett

“A wry yet tenderhearted novel about a couple who attempt to buy their way into a ‘wild and precious’ existence in the Hudson Valley, where they quickly become entangled with a queer couple living the dream analog life.”

I love a satire. After re-reading these authors’ debut novel a few times since 2020, I was chomping (champing?3) at the bit for their next book.

If you are fascinated by the power of female friendship and/or if you did everything right but want more from this life and find that manifesting in feral lust and shame:

Wanting by Claire Jia

Ye Lian is thriving in Beijing. She has a well-paid job and a nice boyfriend, and she plans to marry and move into a luxury high-rise apartment. She’s wanting for nothing—until her childhood best friend, Luo Wenyu, comes whirling back into her life after a decade in California with seemingly everything. Lian’s own reliable choices are suddenly thrown into high relief.

If grad school still seems like the answer:

First Time, Long Time by Amy Silverberg

“An adrift, sardonic, grieving professor falls for a famous older radio host… and then for his daughter.”

I interviewed the author, a fellow comedian and 1 diabetic in an earlier Substack post!

If you miss Anthony Bourdain and/or if you have ever been an assistant:

Care and Feeding by Laurie Woolever

“A profane, raunchy, freewheeling memoir about addiction and the inner workings of a restaurant kitchen by the former assistant to Anthony Bourdain until his death.”

I’m a former restaurant worker, a current Hollywood assistant, and very familiar with addicts, not to brag. This was written for me, it seems.

AND THAT’S IT!!!! Just kidding, I’m sure I’ll think of another book as soon as I hit send and fall to my knees screaming.

Another all time favorite I have to mention is Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger (I allegedly have a tattoo of a quote from it that I got on my 18th birthday… ) My next read is Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin since I am visiting Paris soon. And I need to finish Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, but I have the hardest time getting into a science fiction vernacular. Forgive me!

Here for your recommendations. Down to gab whenever. Here’s to great reading in 2026.

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I’m turning 30 soon. On the Winter Solstice, for those at home keeping track. Every day my purse jangles full of pills and syringes and vials and pumps and pods and alcohol swabs.

Last week, during a meeting for a comedy festival I help co-produce, the planning committee spent a good portion of the meeting just outlining all our aches and ailments. Sharing Tums for post-pizza heartburn. We are not old. And yet…

The week before my physical, I reduced my alcohol and caffeine consumption, sort of like how one flosses hard right before going to the dentist in an attempt at benevolent trickery.

That’s right, I drink caffeine now. The 14 hour days on set in New York evolved my green tea consumption from decaf to regular, first one cup, then two, then three a day. I have a delicate constitution, but I think the exhaustion kept the caffeine panic attacks at bay. In short, I’m a wild and crazy guy.

Not to sound too much like a commercial where octogenarians walk hand in hand down a beach, but I’m increasing my fiber intake and walking more as well, as that is said to lower cholesterol. Meat and cheese are safe foods for blood sugar, and so while my blood glucose control has dramatically improved since diagnosis, my cholesterol has steadily worsened with every blood test, climbing up as my A1C (blood sugar average) climbs down. You can’t win in this town.

I bought a blood pressure cuff to take measurements at home to show the doctor my average blood pressure, since going to the doctor’s office and getting my blood pressure taken sends me into a full body PTSD panic. When I was hospitalized for five days, the cuff took my blood pressure every ten minutes, waking me constantly overnight in an unforgettable (life saving) torture.

So we do what we can to take care of ourselves.

I’m making follow up appointments with an ENT (for my continued lack of sense of smell from Covid and for my perpetually enlarged tonsils), an allergist (because I am allergic to everything good in the world), an endocrinologist (to keep my type 1 under control), and a psychiatrist (because, well, duh).

All this to say, besides my appointments and tests and medications and medical devices, I think the most important thing I could do for myself as my birthday approaches is fuckin CHILL OUT AND HAVE FUN.

I’m trying. In the last week I got some cheap watercolor paints and attended a lesbian dance party. I finished my latest read (more on my favorite books of the year soon) so I need another book to disappear into. Baths aren’t fun with an insulin pump, but I do love a hammock, if you have one.

Have you gotten your bloodwork done? Have you had some fun? Tell me all about it.

And don’t forget to go sit in the sun and drink a beer with your friends. I love you! Let’s live another 100 years together.

Before Licorice Pizza was a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, it was the name of a record store where my mom worked in the 70s. Ah, the days where you could work a part time retail job and afford your rent and a cocaine habit.

Despite my lineage, I have never been an aficionado at finding music. Most of my favorite songs I have discovered from film soundtracks. Are Simon & Garfunkel beloved to me because of The Graduate? Did The Royal Tenenbaums introduce me to Nico? Are Steely Dan, Duke Ellington, and Tom Jones on my playlists together because of David O. Russell? Do Shrek and Shrek 2 have absolutely flawless soundtracks? Yes, yes, yes, and incredibly, yes! Just this morning I was dancing to the songs from Die My Love.

Last weekend, thanks to a series of fortunate events, (aka knowing someone who knows someone), I found myself a VIP at a strip club. The generous DJ let me sit with him in his second story booth, featuring a balcony view of the entire floor and multiple stages. He let me touch the turn table buttons! I air horned!

And though I had the time of my life as his guest, I quickly realized I am not a DJ. I didn’t even have a strip club appropriate song to suggest. The first one that came to mind was Lily Allen’s “Pussy Palace,” but that is far too melancholy. Thankfully, he was a professional. I said I liked music from the 70s, and he put on ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).” Genius. I will never make jokes about DJs again.

It will be hard to top that New York evening of magenta-lit bacchanal. There were dozens of gorgeous girls, I got free drinks and food, the DJ’s friends were lovely and generous, and I received the best neck massage of my life (don’t worry, I paid her! And nothing was touched below the waist!) I was delighted to visit where one of my favorite stripper movies was filmed (I’ll tell you where if you message me.) While I enjoyed most of the songs, I also observed that strip clubs must be single handedly keeping Drake’s music streams alive.

The only time I’ve successfully found new music and spread it to others was in fifth grade when I brought a Lily Allen CD to school. I introduced my friends to her 2006 debut album Alright, Still whose cover (below) shares the black, white, and pale blue of West End Girl.

A couple weeks into its release, Allen’s latest album is a return to form in every way. It has no skips for me, which is the highest praise I can give an album. I have listened perhaps a dozen times.

I’m a believer in judging a book by its cover. Sorry! People are paid to make appealing book covers that for better or worse should reveal the genre and vibe of the book. Some judgement is necessary.

West End Girl had me from my first look at it. It’s timeless, defiant, classy, whimsical. The puffer is feminine and yet formless, resisting sexualization. Practical and fashionable. It’s why fall is the best for putting together an outfit. It’s not about exposing your body shape to the masses like in summer. It’s a turtle’s protective shell. With the colors of a bird ready to mate. Or perhaps of a poisonous frog.

I’ve been underwhelmed with popular music as of late. Or, even if I think it’s brilliant artistically, I find myself reticent to return to it. For instance, Florence and the Machine and Hozier hold a similar space to one another in my mind. They’re brilliant artists, but I simply don’t have the stomach for their music most days. With their talent, accents, and signature attractive features (Florence’s hair and Hozier’s 6’6” height), I want them to chase me through the foggy moors of Ireland as I hold up my plentiful petticoats until they ultimately catch me and we tumble to the ground. Lovemaking ensues. But one does not have time for that sort of thing every day. Sometimes your petticoats are in the wash.

I’m by no means only into the pop girlies. David Byrne is an angel, Miles Davis is a god. Ever since watching O Brother, Where Art Thou? as a kid I’ve been a sucker for bluegrass. The most recent albums by Jason Isbell and Willie Watson have been on repeat since their releases.

I think it’s respectful to the artist to listen to an entire record uninterrupted the first time you hear it, like on a walk or during a commute or even while folding laundry. Usually the result of this is finding a few songs you carry with you and leaving the rest behind. I haven’t devoured a pop album back to back, over and over, since Brat last summer. 2025 releases have underwhelmed me so far. Mayhem (by love of my life Lady Gaga) had Disease and Killah and Abracadabra, but the rest of the songs weren’t memorable to me. Same with Lorde’s Virgin, I have stuck with Man of the Year, Broken Glass, and If She Could See Me Now. (And thank goodness for this return to form from Lorde! I truly disliked all of her last album Solar Power and I gave that multiple back to back listens on a road trip!)

We should be allowed to critique the ones we love, both in our regular relationships and our parasocial ones. To be unwilling to accept critique and resistant to condemn sycophants followers who will doxx a journalist for daring to disagree with you…

Well let’s just say I find that attitude repugnant, whether you are the president of the country or the biggest pop star in the world. Critique helps us become better artists! (I must repeat this to myself as I get notes back on my pilot and resist jumping into the Hudson River at the slightest criticism).

I’ve loved Lily Allen’s abrasiveness since 5th grade, and was unmoved by Taylor Swift’s first few records when I was in middle school. Then 1989 intrigued me, and Folklore rocked me during the pandemic. After scoring a coveted Eras Tour ticket thanks to a dedicated friend, I diligently did my homework so that I could enjoy every song at the show. And I did! “Let girls like things. What’s the harm?” They say.

But as Taylor’s political silence grew to be as deafening as her private jet engines, it was hard to enjoy even the guilty pleasures. And instead of leaning into the album visuals and title with big band numbers and tour life confessions, her latest album The Life of a Showgirl is essentially a string of internet slang about her haters and her borderline-illiterate fiancé’s big dong. Fine. But I’m not alone in my lackluster reaction. The Guardian gave Taylor’s latest album a Parks and Recreation worthy review headline with: “Dull razzle-dazzle from a star who seems frazzled.” While The Independent calls Lily Allen’s “a brutal, tell-all masterpiece about a marriage in free-fall.”

For the record, Lily Allen is no role model. I devoured Allen’s memoir and her album No Shame during the pandemic, reflecting on a dark time for myself and the world through her cathartic writing about self destruction. I knew I loved No Shame from the album’s opening moments when she sang “Yeah I’m a bad mother / I’m a bad wife.”

Cheating is great fodder for female rage art. But I don’t believe experiencing infidelity makes a victim above reproach. Lily herself cheated on her first husband with female sex workers while on tour, according to her memoir. If her first ex-husband were a musician, he’d have every right to write about that, too.

Three of my favorite writers on Substack, Hunter Harris, Kelly Oxford, and John Paul Brammer have brilliantly covered these topics lately and I recommend their pieces below. (For the record they do not know I exist, which is perfectly fair! I just selfishly want their work read by my loved ones so we can gab about it!)

• Lily Allen’s Innit “Lemonade”

• Did the NFL Replace Taylor Swift With AI?

• Eat Me: On Rosalía’s “Lux” and our collective gut health

• and, as a bonus read I just came across from a writer I was unfamiliar with:

• Negativity Does Not Imply Critical Thinking: The case for critical media literacy in online pop culture discourse

It’s time we sharpen our teeth. After getting some bloodwork done this week I passed by a bookstore and picked up a copy of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, an influential book on visual art from the 70s. Is everything good from the 70s?

Sharpen your teeth, put on a puffer jacket, and let’s gnaw at it together.

In the past month I’ve seen three different women with a prosthetic leg. All of them noticeably stylish. I say this not with the patronizing tone people love to reserve for the disabled, but with true admiration. Each time, as often happens on the sidewalks of New York City, I was struck first by their outfits. Then, scanning their bodies, noticed their mobility aids.

A couple weekends ago I attended a Halloween party hosted by deaf housemates where roughly 95% of the partygoers were deaf. I was dressed as a mushroom. The same costume I wore to the New York Renaissance Faire the weekend before. I plan to wear it to work on Halloween (with less cleavage), and to another Halloween party the day after (with more cleavage). Why buy more than one costume?Reduce, reuse, recycle they said. I love to reframe my neurotic allergy to shopping for clothes as sustainability. I wore the same dress to three weddings in 2023 and I still haven’t shut up about it!

A woman dressed as Princess Bubblegum entered the party hosted by the deaf housemates. Having practiced a few ASL signs before the inter-abled soirée, I was prepared. I signed, “I love your outfit!” She signed, “I love yours!” I signed my name, she signed hers back.

“You’re both hearing,” a passerby told us, squeezing through us to get to the kitchen with an eye roll. She and I burst out laughing. Two hearing people who speak English, both clumsily using sign language at each other. A Bubblegum Princess and a Mushroom trying their best to be inclusive and complimentary. I told my New York cousins this anecdote, and they compared it to a Larry David shenanigan, which is a flattering way to frame a life like mine so frequently filled with buffoonery.

Recently after spending the day at a prison (for work!) I took an endless Uber to get out of Staten Island. Fed up with traffic, I asked the driver if I could just hop out early once we hit Brooklyn and take the train the rest of the way. But I really had to pee, and after almost pissing myself on a stalled A train a decade and a half ago, I vowed not to go underground with a full bladder.

I wandered until I found a cake shop filled with arguing Hasidic men. I asked if I could use the restroom and they all made eye contact with each other, nonplussed by my presence. One man led me to the back and started to walk down a flight of stairs.

This is not unusual for New York. You often pass by open cellar doors on the sidewalk. There’s a whole world underground, from restaurant kitchens to subway stations to whatever Mole People Kingdom that survivors will assimilate to after the nuclear apocalypse.

So I was not afraid of following him downstairs, until he turned to me and said, “there is no reason to be afraid.” Hmm!

In retrospect, I can see why he said this. I proceeded to follow him down seemingly endless poorly lit hallways, around corners and past doors, like a video game. I kept questioning if I should turn around. I kept thinking surely we’d be at the bathroom soon and I’d feel silly, and then at a certain point it felt rude and ridiculous to flee, the sunk cost fallacy overriding any instinct for survival I may have. Finally we reached the dingy bathroom, and I hovered to pee, pushing it out as fast as I could (terrible for your pelvic floor health, but following strangers into basements is fairly bad for your health overall).

I was determined to get out of there as fast as possible. I opened the bathroom door and peeked around the other corner, spotting sunlight. Perhaps a shortcut to the sidewalk? I followed it and peered out, but no, just a breezeway. So I turned back to where I came from. After a couple turns leading me the wrong way, I made my way back to the main hallway, turning a corner into the man who led me down there. I screamed.

“Don’t be scared!” He yelped. “I stayed down here to make sure you could get back up! Follow me!” I trembled the rest of the way upstairs.

Once back in the odd cafe, he said I remind him of his granddaughter and asked me my name. He sighed and shook his head when I told him.

“I have spoken to six Sarahs today, you wouldn’t believe it.”

He gave me a cup of peppermint tea and put a little slice of damp cake into my bare hand. I tipped him three dollars. I am not sure it was a real business. My cousin’s boyfriend says it sounded like a regular basement, despite my cousin’s idea that perhaps it was part of the 2024 Brooklyn tunnel scandal which I hadn’t heard of before. I have no idea. I was just trying not to get Barbarian-ed. All I know is it was none of my business. I’m just glad I got to pee.

Heart racing, I exited and walked in a daze until I found a subway station. I handed the tea and cake to an unhoused man, who lit up at the sight of them.

I walked to my favorite local bar in Bed-Stuy where the bartenders all know me and my favorite drink order. (Elderflower tonic and St George Terroir gin, a sprig of fresh mint on top). Last week I got a $22 glass of wine there for free, don’t tell their manager.

I love bringing bartenders little gifts, food, and especially desserts, which I often find myself in possession of but cannot eat. In my research I have found that a few extra donuts from work trade for a carafe of sake at a Japanese speakeasy in Greenpoint. An extra slice of pizza trades for a beer at a lesbian bar in Park Slope. I love my alone time in New York City. Last week at a bar I found myself talking about old New York to a former lawyer for Mayor Dinkins. (Vote for Mamdani!) The lawyer said he got into law because he could drink as many martinis as he wanted at work lunches. Sure.

After regaling my tale to the Bed-Stuy bartender, I got a free shot of Mezcal. The bar patron next to me told me I needed a true Dominican breakfast to calm me down. I asked where I could get one, and she said her house. She offered me a sip of her drink. I laughed politely, nervously, and explained I’m a germaphobe. I have never labeled myself as this before, but it seemed like the quickest way out of trying her drink, which looked delicious (passionfruit) but not worth illness from a stranger. Her face fell, she seemed crestfallen, not by my minor rejection, but by my phobic state.

“That’s terrible,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry.” As if I had told her of a grave diagnosis. I was still shaken from the basement bathroom adventure.

I had almost missed the train to the bar near my place because the doors opened to two men communicating in ASL, and I was brought back to the deaf party and almost too distracted to step on before the doors closed. Staring at an ASL conversation is as rude as blatantly eavesdropping, so I looked away once on the train. But I find myself wanting to look at people with disabilities longer than is polite. On the way to work the other day I waved to a woman with a visible insulin pump and CGM. I could see her hackles raise, the offensive strategy of an NYC commute. I pointed to my own insulin pump and CGM on my arm and she relaxed. We nodded and smiled at each other. There is something so visceral and immediate about that kind of connection. Veterans of the same war.

Since a certain leader who will not be named mocked a disabled reporter, there’s been an unsettling resurgence ableist rhetoric. The other day I heard an androgynous bookseller in Williamsburg call their friend the R slur. Then at a party filled with mostly PhD students on a rooftop in Queens, I heard it said again. If those demographics are saying it in public, I can’t imagine what’s being said in private by the kind of people I choose not to spend time around.

Growing up, the first time I met my second hairless dog, Cassie, short for Cassiopeia, the woman we adopted her from called her the R slur. Cassie liked to walk straight into trees. My first hairless dog, Elvis, was whip-smart but temperamental. Neither dog was ever trained. Elvis loved to bolt when the door was open, and I spent plenty of time chasing her shoeless around the neighborhood. But when we’d pull up beside her in the car and open the door, and Elvis would hop right in and we’d leash her in the back seat and drive her home.

When my mom had her hysterectomy after decades of debilitating pain, she was mostly bedridden while in recovery. The selfish, nostalgic, overdramatic side of me thought of it as the surgeon taking away my first home. Children are natural narcissists, but with the right guidance and cautionary storytelling, hopefully they grow out of it. Or at least channel it into stand-up comedy and Substacking. Later, the Eaton Fires in Altadena took away the neighborhood I was born into and burnt down my old apartment.

So while my mom was recovering in bed and Elvis got out, I chased after her for hours, breathless and overwhelmed with fear that she would get hit by the train whose tracks were feet from our house. I finally caught her collar and began to tug her towards our house. In my haste I had forgotten to grab her leash, I just didn’t want her dead or lost forever. My mom couldn’t drive because of her surgery, so I knew it was up to me to get her back into the yard.

We were blocks from home and I tugged her, she wriggled, and frustrated, began biting me. Hard. Sometimes when she was at the foot of my bed while I was sleeping, and I’d accidentally nudge her awake with my foot, she’s snap at me, breaking the skin on my ankle. Tugging her away from freedom, she ripped into my hands and arms with her teeth. It was unbelievably painful. I sobbed and pulled her, pleading with her, until we were back home. When my mom lost her job during the 2008 recession and we had to move out of our house, we took the dogs to an animal shelter. Since then I have decided I will not have a pet. But I love animals. The other day I saw a dog in crocs.

God, I hope Mamdani wins. We need a little hope. A friend of mine posted a Tweet from a friend of his that stuck with me for days, turning over in my mind like a smooth stone in my hand. When I asked my friend if he’d mind if I posted the Tweet, my friend told me that his friend who Tweeted had actually recently passed away. I was floored. His name was Kaleb Horton.

There’s work to do. In the meantime, I recommend bringing a bartender some dessert. And enduring the dog biting you, biting you, as you carry it home.

Amy Silverberg (@amysilverberg) is a writer and comedian based in Los Angeles. Her debut novel "First Time, Long Time" is out now.

Amy’s work has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Paris Review, Granta, The New Yorker, The New York Times, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and many other publications. Amy also writes for television, most recently "The Movie Show" on the SYFY Channel. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California, where she teaches.

Amy's stand-up comedy has been featured on Comedy Central, Hulu, NPR, and Amazon Prime. She was selected as a "New Face" at the prestigious Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal.

I loved the book. I devoured it in a couple days throughout New York City, and I documented reading it with a few photos.

I love the photos!

And it was fun, since I'm from LA, to be reminded of LA while I am in New York.

It's so interesting, people keep saying, “oh, it's such an LA book,” which of course, it doesn't even occur to me. I've lived in LA for so long it didn't occur to me that I was writing an LA book, but I guess that's true.

Totally. It's the water you're swimming in, and then the second you're out of it, you're like, wait a minute.

Exactly.

Where are you from originally?

I'm from Orange County, the center of culture.

[both laugh]

Then I went to college at UC Santa Barbara. And then after college, I moved to LA. I did my graduate work at USC, so I've just been in LA since I was 22.

The protagonist in the book is an adjunct professor at a junior college. Before UCLA, I went to Pasadena City College, and I found that a lot of my classes, especially with adjuncts, were more challenging than some of the UCLA classes because I think they wanted to prove like, “this isn't just a community college!”

Yeah, I mean, you name a college in California, I've taught there. And I like it, I like it all. I love complaining about teaching, but I love teaching. It gives my life meaning.

You have to complain about your job, that's part of capitalism.

And I think if I didn't teach, I think writing and stand-up can make you kind of self-absorbed. You're thinking about yourself and your own writing and your own jokes. And yes, in writing, you're looking out at the world and trying to reflect it honestly. But I also just think you're thinking of you, your own writing.

And I think teaching allows me to think about what's going on, not just in other people's minds. Which yes, as a writer, you're always doing that. But also how they see the world and how they want to put it on the page.

100%. I did The Artist’s Way earlier this year and it is a lot of thinking about yourself. Writing pages every day, taking walks, I was in therapy, support groups, journaling, doing stand-up. And I was like, okay, I need to volunteer or something.

Yeah, it makes me feel useful teaching in a way that like writing and doing stand-up feels so un-useful. I know people are like, “but people need to laugh! Art!” But I just think, it's a way to get out of your own head for me. And I'm also equipped to do so few things. I can really only write, talk and read.

Same. I'm wondering, have you ever hosted a book club like the protagonist does in the book?

That's one of my side jobs. I work for a company that facilitates book clubs for women in LA. We all have PhDs and we're all sort of like, not struggling writers, but writers who are working on their first books. A lot of times people will publish a novel and then immediately quit.

And it's another one of those things that I constantly complain about, but I also find it often moving and funny. And I know women in my book club have been reading it and I always worry they are going to think that I think they're dopey when in reality, they make me laugh. Some of them are really good readers.

And I think part of the point, hopefully in the way the protagonist's mind changes, is realizing that they're not nearly as self-absorbed as she has portrayed them to be or thought they were in the beginning.

I really liked the part of the book where they give her an anniversary present and she's very moved by that and shocked that she's seen. I feel like I've had those moments. To get back to themes of self-absorption, I can be in my own head and I think being insecure or self-deprecating, that's like a form of self-absorption.

Yes, totally.

And then when someone reminds you like, hey, we are aware of your presence and your influence in our life, it can be so shocking and humbling almost.

Yes. I think you're also reminding me of one of the themes in the book that I probably didn't realize as I was writing it, is this idea of like in-betweenness or as they say, as the academics say, liminal space.

Not yet here, not yet there. And the book club job is very much a job that feels like, well, I got kind of a career going. I have a doctorate, but I don't have a book out yet. It's an in-between job as you're sort of struggling to piece things together. And I think a lot of the book is sort of a character who's in-between.

Yes. Well, actually that leads me to something I was thinking about with the book, in-between and also humility and self-deprecation, all these things we’re talking about. I'm a big reader and I find that a lot of contemporary books about women, the protagonist is a little bit self-deprecating about her appearance. But it's interesting that also in a lot of these books, somebody falls for her. It's like clearly she's not like an uggo.

And so do you feel like that's just sort of an inherent part of womanhood and that we all a little bit are worried we're ugly, but secretly people still are amazed when we take our clothes off? Like the Emma scene, where she's so ravenous for her body.

I don't know. I think when I'm writing, of course it's in conversation with every book I've ever liked, but I can't think of other books as I'm writing. I'm only thinking of this character moving through the world. I don't even think of her necessarily as self-deprecating.

A friend of mine recently said something that surprised me. She was like, you're saying a lot of this genre is about someone who the world doesn't like her or doesn't react well to [the protagonist]. And in First Time, Long Time everybody likes the protagonist, like she seems to win people over pretty well. And I thought that was interesting.

I mean, maybe it's not interesting to me to read about a protagonist who thinks they're hot. And I guess I'm more interested in characters who in some ways feel like an observer kind of outside of things. It would be difficult for me to write a protagonist who's not kind of on the inside of things.

I completely get that. I actually recently read something where the protagonist was a model and it was kind of atrocious.

I think definitely I make choices that I don't even really understand. In later, later drafts, I was like, what does she even look like? And then stole something from a previous short story I wrote and was like, I like this description. It doesn't end up being as thought out as you might think.

Not to compare it to other books, just thinking of books in general, I find that a lot of novels, the character doesn't have a lot of friends. Like you said, they're an outside observer. Not to be like, “oh, I have so many friends,” but you know, interacting with so many people every day, you'd really have to pare it down for a book.

Well, I am interested in female friendship. And I think in this novel, it's the protagonist is longing for a bygone friendship a bit. And also like, yeah, trying to make a new friend that sort of turns into something else. I think I'm interested in all of the different versions of intimacy. And intimacy that kind of defies categorization.

But yes, I'm a person who I think of myself as having a lot of friends and I, this of course is not a memoir in any way, shape or form. People keep saying like, “how much of it is autobiographical?” Which is always such a surprising question. I'm like, none of it. Maybe of some thoughts that I've had, some feelings that I've had.

Whatever writer said, “we always write in the landscape of our preoccupations.” I think that's true. These are my preoccupations. But nothing plot wise.

You’re not dating Howard Stern.

I've never fucked Howard Stern, never fucked his daughter.

Maybe when I do think of my similarities with the protagonist, I'm someone with a lot of friends, but who often sometimes feels lonely, which I think is the plight of the writer. How would you have a protagonist be constantly texting her friends all the time?

I really love people like Lori Moore and [the writer of] Cowboys Are My Weakness, a collection of short stories. Pam Houston. They're constantly calling this good friend to sort of hash things out and retell things to. I think that happens a lot more in my short stories where a character has a friend that they're constantly processing things with.

I liked that the protagonist defies categorization, liking men and liking women. Having the classic homoerotic youthful best friendship. I had one where you're like, oh, I was in love with this person. But I didn't process it until later.

Do you think of it as a queer book?

My publisher and other people started calling it a queer book and a bisexual book. And I was like, okay, I'm down for that. I'm down for whatever anybody and then some people call it a romance novel, which is stunning to me because I'm like, this is literary fiction. I got a doctorate. I guess I consider it whatever anybody wants to consider it.

You're like, buy three copies and you can call it whatever you want.

Yeah. I like when people say that it's a queer book. I think that makes sense to me. I think when I set out to write it, I had no idea. I sold it on 30 pages. I had sold it on a short story, frankly.

In the first five drafts, which were bad and nothing happened, nothing's going on between her and the daughter. That kind of came after draft, after draft, after draft, it's sort of like they found themselves in that relationship. Just interesting to kind of see where it went.

It's one of the trickiest things for me. A theme in the novel is how terrible it is to be misunderstood. And I think the radio DJ is dealing with that and she's the, our protagonist, is thinking about her brother and the ways in which he's misunderstood and her father and the ways in which he's misunderstood.

It's so painful to me to ever be misunderstood. It's also such a control thing, wanting to control everyone's opinion and everyone's idea view, which is such a comedian thing too. It’s a real letting go of just letting people call the novel whatever they want. Readers do something else with it.

The idea of letting people and not wanting to be misunderstood while being a comedian is so interesting. Because as a standup myself, I remember once saying, “if I could have a superpower, it would be to control everyone's moods in any room.” And someone laughed at me and they're like, “well, Sarah, that's what you're trying to do with standup.”

And that's the definition of codependency.

Yeah, exactly.

Speaking of which actually, I was so shocked by it, my dad was actually a craps dealer in Vegas [like the protagonist’s father].

Oh, I'm also like a poker player and I love gambling. I love poker specifically, but I've spent a lot of time in Reno and in Vegas and in casinos in general.

I don't know if it's because I grew up going to my dad's AA meetings, I would just sit and color in the middle of the circle, but there's something comforting to me about overt degenerates. It's like, no one's tricking you. I like Vegas. I'm like, yeah, I want a stripper to scam me.

It's also adrenaline. It makes sense to me why so many standups play poker, including myself, that it's just like the, you do stand up long enough, the adrenaline starts to wear off and then you're like, what else can I do for that? And then you play poker long enough, the adrenaline wears off there too.

Yeah. I remember loving, I wish I had the exact quote, but the protagonist talks about this feeling of guilt when she starts having the affair, but almost this predetermined guilt. Like she was waiting to do something to assign to the guilt that she was already feeling.

Oh yeah. Like this, karmic guilt.

Yes. I thought that was so fascinating, especially as women who can feel a lot of guilt. I've been there too, doing something that’s what I think I deserve, or that makes myself feel how I think I should feel.

Yeah. I think she's got this guilt from, could she have done something more for her brother? Whatever's going on with the brother and whatever's going on with the dad, I didn't want it to be some defined like mental illness. Lately when I'm teaching on college campuses, they always want to psychoanalyze the characters. Almost like the Instagram stuff where they're like, “he's a narcissist.” And I'm like, well, he's just a character.

Yeah.

I don't know, it's alarming to me the way they want to psychologically diagnose them. And I think I was really interested in this idea of things defying category in every way.

I love that. I am very averse to the armchair psychology of Instagram because I think it's both a cop out and also dangerous to be like, okay, once you categorize someone as something, you're not really open to the idea that they could be something else.

Yeah, yeah.

And obviously, you know, most people doing this on Instagram are not psychologists. I remember going to this support group thing and almost every single woman was like, “my ex was a narcissist, my ex was a narcissist.” And I wanted to be like, I think he just didn't like you that much and stopped calling you?

Right, right. Or maybe he was a jerk, but a jerk is not necessarily pathological. There is not a person in the world that I know of who doesn't think of themselves as a complicated person.

I have a kind of larger problem with Instagram in general, especially for comedians needing to niche-ify yourself. It goes against the humanness of people, which is to say people are complicated. In fiction I’m always interested in the paradox of “while this, also this.” Like while my father is difficult, he's beloved to me.

I completely relate to that.

Two things can be true. I'm always shouting that at my students.

“Free banana for pretty girl,” the bodega man told me. “God made you sweet,” he said, handing me the perfectly ripe fruit. And unbeknownst to him, I later used this banana to treat hypoglycemia. God made me sweet indeed!

If cities were diseases, New York would be Type 1 Diabetes. Full of high highs and low lows, expensive, requiring hypervigilance, and often absurd, unfair, even tragically comical. Los Angeles would be skin cancer. Superficial until it kills you.

New York City is infamous for waxing and waning you between euphoria and despair. I have been tumbled around like I’m in a washing machine in my favorite laundromat/pinball bar/speakeasy that I think I’ll stop by later tonight to wash my sneakers and play Godzilla pinball with a lychee seltzer. It’s a hard knock life.

My gorgeous cousin Hope and I spontaneously saw the American Ballet Theater perform Swan Lake on the last night of their run. It was standing room only in the back (who knew the ballet did that?) and we jumped with glee at the artistry and athleticism. Even over the booming Tchaikovsky you could hear the gentle thuds of the pointe shoes on the stage. More live art NOW! Or else!!!!!!

The next weekend, Hope took me to see a show at The Comedy Cellar, a famous institution in the comedy world, a treat especially for a former diehard Louis CK fan such as myself (scandal noted). I took an unflattering picture in front of the Cellar steps that I hope to post with pride if/when I perform there one day.

Before the Cellar, we had drinks at the historic Stonewall Inn where Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera and their peers were an invaluable catalyst in the gay rights movement. It’s still a working bar! The drinks were delicious! However, to balance the universal scales, sitting outside Stonewall, a cockroach crawled up my arm. My arm! The one attached to my body! Don’t worry, the bouncer stomped it dead on the sidewalk. Gay bars have always been safe havens.

I’ve played too much pool and pinball to count, I’ve had many free drinks and many overpriced drinks. One Saturday afternoon I was shit talking about a rude bartender from the other night and I turned to realize she was walking beside me on the sidewalk. Only in New York!

When my best friend and his boyfriend visited, after pretending not to ogle sunbathers in thongs in Central park, we drank at the bar where they shot Mad Men. However New York isn’t all bars. There’s nature, too. I forget how verdant New York is compared to California’s dry summers.

I’ve been on set for the TV show I’m working on for up to 15 hours at a time, both in 96 humid degrees in the sun and in 60 degrees in the pouring rain and wind. Being on set is like going camping. Constantly trying to stay out of the way of folks setting up poles as you try and figure out how to get in the shade and stay dry and where to pee and what your next snack will be. I love it. Who knew I‘d be changing my insulin pumps in video village?

The other day I woke up and it occurred to me this is the happiest time of my life. Then I bent down to put socks on and threw my back out. It still hurts. Live laugh love! Resist!

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I was drenched all the way down to my underwear. It was as if I had jumped into a pool and then crawled back out of it like the girl in The Ring. I was in my work clothes sitting in the back of a Tesla (yuck) taking a ride share service (I have seen exactly one taxi in the past week in NYC which disturbs me). I got soaked running to the car in a t…

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This weekend I was lucky to attend a dragon-themed birthday picnic and won my first ever game of croquet. I was firmly in last place until the endgame when everyone poisoned each other and I somehow triumphed. There’s a tortoise and the hare-esque lesson in there somewhere. At the picnic I wore a too-big dress with…

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