During my first year of college, I spent most of my time dancing in fraternity basements and leaning against doorways trying to look mysterious, a Four Loko gripped tightly in-hand. These were the types of activities one engages in when one is a Hot Person™ by University of Oregon standards. And it was working, I swear, until the Great Frat Flu of 2023.

It came on suddenly one Monday night. I was lying in my twin bunk bed, procrastinating on an essay, when I felt the familiar ache of an impending fever. “Oh god,” I told my roommate. “I think I’m getting sick.” A local band was performing at a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend’s house on Friday and I was pretty sure my crush was going to be there. I couldn’t miss it.

“Probably whatever the girls in 303 have,” she said, eyes never leaving her textbook. Our neighbors had been hacking out their lungs for two days. “It’s the Frat Flu. I heard it’s going around.”

By 9:00 p.m. I was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and shivering underneath my Target duvet. I slept fitfully. At one point I dreamt I was playing kickball at my elementary school, the teams made up of my college friends and, inexplicably, several professors. When it was my turn to kick, a loud pounding broke my concentration.

“Will you cut that out?” I snapped. “I’m trying to focus.” We were down by one. I was the last hope. The pounding continued, relentless, and the dream dissolved around me.

“Evie Goodman? Open up. It’s the fire department. We received a worrying call and we’re here to make sure you’re okay.”

What the fuck? I fumbled with my covers, trying to untangle myself from the sweat soaked sheets. The knocking continued. “If you don’t open the door in the next two minutes, we’ll have to break it down.”

Finally, I freed myself and flopped unceremoniously to the ground. I could barely stand. “I’m here!” came out as a whisper. The room tilted. I lurched out of bed, unbolted the lock, and half-fell into the arms of a very concerned, very large fireman.

Hello, biceps, I thought. Then promptly passed out.

I came to slumped on the carpet, water dripping down my chin. “We gave you an anti-nausea pill,” said a gruff voice. I blinked up toward a man with a shaved head, adorned with a walkie talkie and a red painted axe at his hip. My eyes were having trouble focusing but I could have sworn he was a dead ringer for Jon Bernthal. I swallowed a suddenly dry throat. “You have a fever of 104,” he said. “We need to get you to the med center. Can you walk?”

I grabbed his outstretched hand and forced myself upwards. Sweat ran down my back. On shaky legs, I tried one step forward and nearly collapsed, grabbing a nearby tattooed arm for support. The owner of the arm winced and gave me a concerned look. I tried my best at a pitiful, yet determined, smile. Tattoo Sleeve was cute, too, in a blonde sort of way.

Then, he said the words I had been hoping for. Words that sent a little thrill down my spine. “We’ll have to carry her.”

Without much effort, I was lifted into the air by the armpit, a firefighter on either side. My feet dangled below me and I frowned. It would have been preferably to be held bridal style but I guess this will do. Glancing back toward my room, I spotted my phone face down on the floor. I wanted so badly to grab it and text my friends oh my god i’m getting rescued by burly men!!! But we were down the stairs and out into the morning light before I could ask someone to retrieve it.

Students on their way to class stopped to watch the procession as we crossed the street and down the main drag of campus. I plastered a weak smile on my face, hoping to convey an image of damsel in distress. Not too much distress, mind you, but enough that I was allowing myself to be carried. I was still a feminist.

Say something, I told myself, maybe one of them will fall in love when he realizes how charming you are despite the circumstances. Because the circumstances, unfortunately, were not improving. My head was pounding and I couldn’t feel the rest of my body. I opened my mouth but closed it immediately when the urge to vomit overcame me.

“Evie?”

I squinted into the sun. Oh, perfect. It was the girl from my high school I’d spent all of orientation week trying to befriend after discovering we were the same major. When we were twelve, she was the first one in our grade to have been kissed. So jealous it made me ill, I couldn’t tell if I wanted to kill her or be her.

Now she was looking at me with a mix of concern and visible recoil. I couldn’t help the smug smile on my face. She wishes she was me right now. Surely my saviors were far more impressive, more mature, than whatever college boys she was entertaining.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I purred, or tried to. It came out closer to a croak, my voice cracking somewhere in the middle of fine. “They’re just helping me to the med center.” I paused. “I think I got the frat flu.”

She took a few steps back. “Right. Well I hope you feel better.” With a glance at the firemen, she continued on her way. I glanced around, hoping to catch a glimpse of my crush. As we walked through campus, I entertained myself by imagining his concern for my well being, maybe a little jealousy that some other man saved me, and overall a sense of admiration for how well I was handling how sick I was.

Jon Bernthal was on the walkie-talkie behind us, reporting that they’d found me and I was, in fact, alive. He walked forward until he was in view and told me my mom had gotten a hold of them in a panic after she called me earlier that morning and had babbled incoherently at her until passing out again. Through my fuzzy memories of this morning, I thought back to our conversation, wincing as I remembered passing out, the phone falling to the floor. I had been too weak to grab it again.

So that’s why they broke down my door. I grimaced.

When we finally reached the sterile walls of the medical center, I was deposited gently onto a hospital bed. The firemen departed with a promise they’d be back to check on me. God, they’re obsessed with me, I thought, looking away as the nurse inserted an IV and left me to rest in a cool, dark room.

A few hours later, when the pounding in my head had dissipated and I could sit up without the threat of dumping my stomach’s content on the floor, a nurse came in to turn on the light and take my temperature. She took out the IV. My phone buzzed with a text from a friend.

I saw you this morning with the fire department, are you okay? You looked… not well.

I looked past the nurse to the mirror hanging on the back of the door. Oh, Jesus. I jumped. Who is— no. No, no, no, no.

My reflection stared back at me in horror. My lips were white, hair a mess, the boxers I wore to sleep twisted around my waist. There was a single shower shoe on my left foot that I didn’t recall putting on and mascara from the day before smudged under my eyes. My right foot was dirty and bare. I looked like a lunatic. Mumbling an apology to the nurse, I stood up on now steady legs to creep towards the mirror for a closer look. I stood in front of the door in shock.

Right then, the door swung open and my rescuers walked through. The three of us stood staring at each other. Jon Bernthal he was not— the sergeant’s belly bulged against his belt, eyes beady and nose crooked. My eyes drifted upwards toward his companion, whose hair was white instead of blonde. A tattoo of a dog licking its own ass taking up most of his forearm. The forearm I had gripped and audibly sighed at. I was close to throwing up once again, this time from the realization that I had been hauled through the morning rush by two old men, my sleep shirt soaked through with sweat, drool crusted down my chin.

I let out a strangled gasp and the blonde— no, the Santa Claus— gave me a pat on the shoulder in a fatherly manner. “Are you feeling better?”

“I— yes. Yeah. Thank you for everything.”

The week passed in agonizingly slow days of fever chills and a wet cough that never let up. Friday’s concert came and went. When I found out the girl from my high school started dating my crush a few weeks later, having met at the show, I couldn’t bring myself to be surprised. I was well and truly cursed. The year was a wash. I decided I’d return as a sophomore, after a summer transformation made me beautiful and alluring. If I ever got sick again, my mom would be under strict orders to call my friends instead. My voice would be raspy à la Scarlett Johannsen, nose would be ever so slightly red from the congestion, but I would maintain my veneer of beauty. There would be no public fever, no parade of my ratty sleep clothes through hundreds of students. The second time around would be different, I was sure of it.

Hey, stranger.

This is the essay I read aloud a few weeks ago. Still don’t remember if people laughed or not— I blacked out. Unfortunately, this is a true story and even more unfortunately, sophomore year did not result in a full body transformation.

I am in Hawaii visiting Mae Ling, who I haven’t seen in over a year. My throat hurts from yammering her ear off but nevertheless… I’m persisting. This is the first trip I’ve taken off completely from work. It felt weird to leave my laptop behind. Before I left, I pulled off a truly seismic lock in where I finished about three weeks of work in one. There should be a study on engineer’s brains when they successfully debug something that has been breaking their mind for days. I’m still riding that high.

Happy August!

xoxo,

Evie

It was my third reading of the week.

For as long as I’ve lived in New York, readings have been a necessary evil for me. How else was I supposed to meet people interested in writing and reading? But the cost— true boredom— was starting to grate on my nerves. As a rule, I refused to read on the principal that I did not want to be the reason someone else was contemplating their attention span.

But the following day I had plans to be in attendance for a magazine launch that I had contributed to. The editor, Tim, had asked me to read and I declined. The launch hung over my head all day as I wondered whether my refusal meant I was a coward.

I had taken the afternoon off to attend ’s table read for his new screenplay, Tuna Melt, and I was hopeful that it would not bore me to tears like the day before.

I walked down the stairs into a restaurant whose blood red walls were adorned with graffiti artwork and photos of the owner celebrating the Knicks’ recent win. Fried chicken bao lined the bar, up for grabs, and people chatted along the narrow hallway. There were cameras hanging from the ceiling, pointed toward a long table set up by the backdoor windows. Outside, I spotted the actors lounging under a covered cabana, glistening Diet Coke bottles and open script books strewn across the table before them.

I spotted Savanna, gave her a hug, and gestured to the scene before us.

“Have you been to a table read before?”

“Once, but that was a long time ago.”

“Hmm.” We found seats next to a man hunched over a laptop; cords crisscrossed in a spiderweb across the table. We ducked underneath them, careful not to screw up whatever audio he was clearly configuring, and I winced apologetically every time I shifted one. There was a plate of noodles untouched before him. His brow was furrowed beyond belief, and he looked up every so often to mark something in his script or gesture incoherently at the man a few feet away with a large camera balancing on top a tripod.

I let my gaze wander through the various characters around me. There were a few too many sunglasses still on for my taste. When we were called to our seats and the actors began reading, I was distracted by a murmur coming from Furrowed Brow.

I looked over. He was holding a pair of large headphones and speaking softly into them every few minutes, between dialogue and the woman reading scene direction. This, paired with the cameraman only a few feet away, was almost too much for my nosy brain. I was more enraptured by watching how much work and process there was than by the actual cast in front of me.

Well, until the sex scene. Eddie and his wife were playing lovers in the film and there were sudden, enthusiastic remarks from her. I couldn’t help the blush on my face or the laugh that escaped me. There were a few hollers and whistles from the audience as we all listened, which was somehow so much more embarrassing than when watching a sex scene with your parents in the room. But they pulled it off impressively composed and I relaxed once more as the scene quickly devolved into a double homicide. Their commitment to the bit was admirable.

From my lap, my phone lit up with a Teams message. Hey Evie, it read, I know you’re out right now but can you take a quick look at this PR? Hoping to get this change in by eod.

On it, I responded. The actors were shouting lines from what sounded like a scene involving arson while I turned my phone’s brightness down and squinted at Github.com, trying to read the two hundred lines of code in size ten font. I had never felt more like Hannah Montana in my life.

After the read wrapped, and we were left to mingle, I got caught in a which-way-are-you-going dance with Joey Badass after leaving the bathroom. I slunk away to the bar to recover.

“Evie! How are you?” Sadie asked, coming up to where I stood nursing a Diet Coke.

“Living the dream, obviously.” I hugged her. “What have you been up to?”

“Oh, you know, running around. I’m going to a comedy magazine thing in an hour.”

“Wait, is it for ? I’m going too.”

She laughed. “Of course you are.”

“I know, I know. I’m going to another magazine thing after. Have you been to Gosh?”

“Yes.” She was smiling, “And I’m going to that too. The party, right?”

“Oh my god, Sadie. We’re twin flames.”

We chatted for another twenty minutes, various friends coming up to say hi, kiss goodbye, remark about the table read. Before long, my internal calendar started sounding alarm bells. “Oh, shit. I better go. I need to eat and lay down for two minutes.” I gave Sadie a quick hug and said over my shoulder as I left, “See you for Thursday part two!”

True to my word, I went home, threw together dinner, ripped off my clothes, and laid on the blessedly cold floor of my room. Psych played from the iPad propped next to my head, Shawn Spencer warning Gus not to be a myopic chihuahua. I closed my eyes and let the familiar dialogue lure me into a half-asleep doze.

Eventually I peeled myself off the floor, threw on the clothes I had just discarded, and reapplied my lip liner before heading once more out onto the street. Through Chinatown, I weaved my way between produce stalls and people clustered on plastic stools, drinking Aperol Spritzes despite the evening humidity. Tucked away between spaces for sale and an old bank was the art gallery The Bowery Review was hosting their Issue Four launch at. I pushed through the glass door and sighed at the blast of air conditioning that hit me like a brick wall. I spotted reading from a printout in the corner. The crowd hadn’t shown up yet, though the rest of the contributing writers were early.

I gave Kate a hug and nodded toward the papers in her hand. “Are you reading? I can’t wait to hear it.”

“Yes, I’m going first, though. I’m nervous.”

“Literally don’t be. You’re my favorite writer.” Just then, came up behind me and gave us both a warm greeting, echoing my sentiment with an added: “Kate, Evie and I talk about your writing all of the time. It’s so good. You’re so good.”

“Well, thank you, I’m flattered.” Kate looked at my hands, devoid of any printouts. “What? You’re not reading?”

“Hell, no.”

“Why? You can’t leave me to read all by myself.”

“I’m not good at it!”

“Who cares? Also, probably not true. You should do it.”

“I’ll think about it…”

Leaving Jess and Kate to catch up, I spotted out of the corner of my eye and walked over. I nodded toward the paper he was holding. “Is that the new piece you’re reading? Tim said you switched last minute.”

“Well, I wanted to read something else, but he got mad at me. And Toby said this one was too sad.”

“Can I read it?”

“Yeah, here. Tell me if it’s a bad idea to read.”

Tucking myself away into a corner, I read through his piece and laughed out loud. Fuck you, Abe. I thought. This is hilarious. Part of my hesitation to read was very much the fear that no one would laugh, which is only a fear that manifests when you’ve written something with the intention of being funny. I had a vision of me standing up in front of the hundred or so people in attendance, all of them stone faced, as I described being carried by firemen through my college campus in boxers and a single shower shoe. But as people started filing into the room, many of them my friends, the need for attention won over my fear of humiliation. I walked back over to my friends. “Okay, fuck it. I’m going to read.” They cheered and I continued. “But I need you guys to laugh the whole time, even if it’s fake. Slap your knee if you must.”

“Of course we will.”

It was just my luck that I had to follow Abe, who made the crowd laugh so hard it left me glaring at him as he walked off stage. I’m supposed to follow that? But I forced myself up to the microphone, wincing as my voice ricocheted too loudly during my introduction. “Okay, sorry. If I’m too loud or too slow or too quiet, just throw something at me.” I cleared my throat and began.

There were a few titters here and there during the first few minutes. When I came to a section of firemen’s dialogue, the actors from earlier that day sprung forward in my mind. I hesitated. Then, before I could back down, I pitched my voice as of low an octave as I could and did my very best to emulate Jon Bernthal.

I don’t remember if people laughed or not. I blacked out. When I came to, I was standing next to Jess, and the next reader was mid performance. It was from the perspective of Texas Instruments HR, releasing a statement that they would no longer allow the sequence 80085 to be displayed on their calculators. Or 8008135. Or 69.

Jess looked over at me. “That was awesome.”

“Did you like my man voice?”

“Yes, so realistic.” She whispered back. I smiled, satisfied, and we turned back to the performance.

After the readings wrapped and I yammered at people until my throat started to ache, I glanced at the clock. It was approaching 9:30pm. Sadie and I needed to go if we were going to make our next destination of the evening.

I found her outside, standing in a ring of cigarette smoke. “You ready?”

“Yes, let’s go. It’s just down the street, right?”

I nodded and off we went, weaving through groups of people coming from dinner dates and stumbling from theaters, blinking at the sudden cacophony of sirens and street noise. We turned left down a dark street, where a line was forming in front of an unmarked door.

“Don’t be shy.” The door girl, whose thick French accent made me lean forward to hear more clearly, scanned us from head to toe and jerked her head toward the velvet rope clearly intended for a line. There was no one in front of us. “Are you guys here for the magazine or…?” She trailed off.

“Yeah, is that okay with you?” I had a bite to my voice that I couldn’t help.

She shrugged and with perfect timing, Ella appeared from behind the heavy black door just beyond her. Ella gave her a charming smile, “Hi! These are my friends. Is it okay if they just come in this way?” The girl gave another shrug, and we quickly followed Ella inside before anything else could be said.

The walls were lined in velvet drapes and low, red lights lined the baseboards. The effect was slightly dizzying, and I felt like I was swimming upstream in the dark as we weaved our way through to the bar.

At the table read, the audience was clad in stylish but worn in clothes. The type of people you’d see out and about in downtown Manhattan on any given weekend. The Bowery Review drew a crowd of people in wrinkled buttons downs, loafers, vintage jewelry and oversized bags. But here, under the maroon glow, the crowd was older, more polished, blazered and coiffed. A woman slid by me in a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress and precariously high heels. She smelled like the Vera Wang perfume my mom wore when I was young. My eyes followed her hungrily— she was about ten years from being one of the women on the Upper West Side, with their little dogs and Zabar groceries and handbags that cost more than my month’s rent and blow outs that left me speechless. I coveted their approval like a pathetic kid. I couldn’t help it.

A man with hair slicked back into a gelled helmet leaned over on one of the neighboring couches and asked “So. What do you do?”

My answer always depended on who I was talking to. “I’m a writer.” I said.

“Where or who do you write for?”

Myself, I wanted to say. But emboldened by my brief foray into acting only a few hours prior, out came: “Oh, I’ll do pieces here and there. Profiles, party reports, you know.” I gestured vaguely. “What about you?”

“The Times, mostly.”

“Of course.” I nodded, putting on an air of oh, The Times? How cute.

“So, parties, huh? Are you writing about tonight?”

“I might be.”

“Really? For who?”

“I can’t reveal my benefactors.” I dodged, “Besides, I said I might. It depends on if anything interesting happens.”

He badgered me for a few more minutes and I lied straight through my teeth about the illusive writing career I may or may not have. Careful, I thought to myself, looking around the room for an out, you’re not a good enough actor yet to be digging yourself this deep of a hole.

“Actually, sorry—“ I cut him off mid sentence. “I see someone I need to get a quote from. I’ll see you around.” It took me only a few moments to cross the room and greet someone I had seen once before at an event months ago, but I threw myself into the last act with gusto.

I caught sight of Wrap Dress greeting the man I had just been talking to. She moved through the room, unhurried, like she had nowhere else to be that night. I checked my phone. I had two more places to be.

Hey, stranger.

When this goes live, I will be be waking up in a cabin in Southern Oregon with my parents and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandma. AKA I’ll be happy as a clam. I hope your summer is turning out to be as sweet as mine.

This time last year, I was dealing with the consequences of blowing up my life to move to New York. There were months on end where I was the only person I knew in any given room. The perspective I had, and still have, was that all of the loneliness and heartbreak and change was worth it.

These days, I know a lot more people in the room. Some are friends I made when I went to something alone, some are those who run in the same circles, and some are people I invited. While writing this, I was overcome with a sense of gratitude for the way my life looks now and for the people who inhabit it. And I wanted to remind whoever needs it that if you are lonely or new or trying to build a life you’re proud of: it will come together if you can weather the uncomfortable bits. One day you’ll look around and realize that you’ve come a lot further than you could have imagined.

xoxo,

Evie

I looked up from the meeting on my laptop to grope around for a pair of headphones in the purse hanging from my chair. Outside, the street’s constant hum of pedestrians had risen to an outright roar. I could hear the World Cup announcers listing off their predictions for the game. Austria versus Argentina. Naturally, the Austrian bar I live above was attracting quite the crowd.

“Yeah, we can hear you fine,” my coworker offered, bringing my attention back to the screen. I cleared my throat, finished giving my updates, and looked up austria soccer team colors in my background browser.

As soon as the meeting ended, I rifled through my closet for anything red and black. Nothing red, plenty of black. Laptop in hand, I rushed down the stairs and onto my street, where long wooden tables had been set up with a perfect view of the mounted TVs along the restaurant’s exterior. I waved at the owner and plopped down next to a group of European men smoking cigarettes and drinking beer from tall, skinny glasses. Rings of condensation littered the table.

For the next hour, I was a full-on Austrian superfan. I looked up every time the Europeans shouted, whether in joy or anger. When a group of Argentinian fans walked by on the street, I shouted “Scoreboard!” in retaliation at their jeers. The game was 0-0. We were still in it.

It was shaping up to be the kind of summer where every night out involved sports of some sort. The World Cup was just the newest excuse for the city to gather on the sidewalk. Only a week prior, I had stood among a crowd in that same street, all of us in orange and blue, watching the Knicks claw back from a twenty-point deficit. The New York Philharmonic had played their free concert in Central Park that afternoon, and my hair was still a frizzy mess from sitting out in the humidity. A woman came up to us only a few minutes after we’d found a good vantage point.

“Do you guys live around here?” she asked.

We nodded. She continued, “Oh, perfect. Here, come with me.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward a few boys standing nearby.

“Guys, guys, say hi. She lives here. You should talk to her.” With that, she drifted back to what was evidently her friends, all well above forty, standing a few feet away.

“Um.” I looked back toward my own friends helplessly.

“Sorry about my stepmom. She just wants us to make friends. We’re here for the week,” one of the boys said, his mop of curly hair barely reaching my chin. The other two, looming far above me, walked off to strike up a conversation with MJ and Grace.

“Right. Well, welcome. Where are you visiting from?”

“Vermont. We’re at UVM.” He gestured down at the lanyard hanging from his khaki shorts. “Do you like New York? I couldn’t imagine living here.” Before I could answer, he continued. “I mean, it’s just loud, you know? There’s so much going on. I would get so tired, I don’t know how you do it. We were shopping all day, just a few streets from here, and it was absolute chaos.”

“Well, it’s—”

“And obviously I’ll probably move here after graduation, because, you know, I can grind it out for a few years before settling down somewhere. It’s the place to be in your twenties, and I can have peace and quiet whenever I want. My parents live not too far, just in Connecticut. Have you been?”

“Connecticut? No.”

“It’s beautiful. And don’t get me wrong, so is New York, but that’s another thing. I’m so used to having nature around, I don’t know what I’d do without it.” He looked at me with an expectant gleam in his eye.

“We have beautiful parks in the city.”

“Yeah, yeah, Central Park is pretty. But it’s not the same, right?”

“As Connecticut? Probably not.”

“So, I don’t know. Should I move here?”

I was half listening, trying to catch Lane or Jess’s eye for backup. But at this question, I turned to face him fully. “It sounds like you would hate it here. I heard Chicago is nice.”

“Oh. Well, everything happens here, and I don’t want to miss out.”

“I wish you the best of luck, then. Don’t go to Soho on the weekends and you’ll be fine.” My feet were already inching away when, like a guardian angel, Jalen Brunson hit a three-pointer and the crowd erupted around me. I took the opportunity to practically run back to the safety of my friends, grabbing Grace and pulling her along with me.

“Thank you,” she whispered, giving the boy who’d cornered her a half-hearted wave.

“Do you think the stepmom thought we were their age?”

“I hope not.”

“I’m old enough to be their mother.”

“You’re twenty-five.”

We reconvened in a tight circle as the Knicks began to score one point after another, the crowd’s excitement building around us. I loved seeing everyone so happy, but I eyed my window, only a few feet above the street, with a wince. Say goodbye to a good night’s sleep, I thought.

My bedtime was indeed pushed far past its limit when the team emerged victorious and the city below erupted into pandemonium. The next day felt like a collective snow day, or the last day of school, or like we’d all been at the same house party. Everyone had something to debrief.

And when the Knicks won it all, I swallowed a secret sadness that it was over and there was nothing left to watch together. But au contraire! Like my father always told me, and I’d been a fool to forget, soccer always saves the day. The World Cup was just the natural next extension of the sports craze that had gripped New York all summer. There would always be another game.

So on Monday I was Austrian through and through. Fuck Argentina, I thought, narrowing my eyes at the jerseys hanging from sidewalk vintage racks. But by Wednesday, I was back to my roots. Scotland was playing.

i don’t own any navy, I texted my friend, standing in front of my closet after work. Then: wait, google says they have an association with pink. thank god

Scotland was fighting Brazil, and I was fighting the New York humidity from the comfort of a wooden pub table. I was gulping water and not peeing, which hinted at severe dehydration and in any other circumstance would have preoccupied my thoughts, but my attention was instead focused solely on the Scottish players. scott mctominay height, I googled under the table. Then: mctominay wife?

Unfortunately for me and my penchant for Northern British Isles men, the rest of the bar was packed with Brazil supporters in garish yellow and green jerseys. When the odd Scotland fan walked by, usually coming outside for a smoke, I smiled at them and positioned my feet so they could see the pink ballet flats I was wearing in support.

In the end, Brazil emerged victorious. McTominay looked disappointed and very sweaty. I could have sworn he was crying when the cameras panned close to his face. It only made me love him more. The bar had dual screens going, so while my heart went out to the Scottish players, I was simultaneously thrilled by the Haiti vs. Morocco game. Haiti had scored early, but Morocco came back with four goals. I couldn’t help but whoop with the rest of the fans when either team scored. I didn’t care who won, just that it was exciting.

Two hours of soccer wasn’t enough, so after grabbing dinner I walked a few blocks to another bar for another game and yet another Diet Coke.

The night hadn’t cooled off as much as I wanted it to, Lane’s beer sweating condensation onto the table every time he set it back down. We were seated behind a group of Korean fans, their chairs pushed up as close to the TV as possible. Jess and I laughed about how the city was turning into a city of collective iPad babies. Everywhere we looked, people stood nose-to-pixels, eyes locked so intently on the game they barely registered what was happening around them.

South Korea, unfortunately, was down by one at the half. The fans were not discouraged. If anything, their intensity began to rub off on us, and I found myself trailing off mid-sentence more than once to watch as the team pushed close to their opponent’s goal.

“We can still pull this off,” Lane said, his phone in one hand playing the Czechia v. Mexico game.

“We?” I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were USA all the way.”

“Well, now I bleed pink.”

I smiled, wiggling my feet out in front of me. My hot pink ballet flats just so happened to match the Korean jerseys. “Me too.”

“Hey, you got Mexico?” one of the guys at the table next to us asked Lane, nodding toward his phone.

“Yeah. They’re up by two.”

“Nice.” He paused. “You guys watch a lot of soccer?”

My friends and I looked at each other. “No, not historically.” Then I brightened. “Actually, we’ve been trying to decide on a Premier League team.”

“Yeah, we’re agnostic but curious,” Jess offered. “Any recommendations?”

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

“Arsenal!” his friend interrupted. “Don’t listen to whatever bullshit he tells you.”

I grimaced. “Arsenal’s too basic. And I don’t like their kits. We were thinking maybe Liverpool, but it’s not really speaking to us. I need an underdog story or something.”

“What about *****” the guy said.

“What did you say?” The name had escaped me entirely. I could have sworn he’d said Asics Martin.

“A*** V****,” he repeated. Helpless, I looked to Jess. What the hell did he just say? she mouthed. I shrugged.

“Sorry, one more time?”

This time I caught the first word. Aston. Pulling out my phone, I searched aston something soccer british ??

Aston Villa. I showed Jess my phone. She clicked through the images and we ooh-ed and aah-ed over the team’s baby-blue, maroon, and yellow palette.

“Oh, this could work. I love the blue. Where are they based?”

“Birmingham.”

“Lane!” Jess grabbed his arm. “You know who’d be their fan, then?”

“Who?”

“Think.”

“Uh.” Lane was still locked into the game in front of us. South Korea had deflated, the players walking instead of running to the ball. “Come on, guys. We need to be hustling.”

“Lane.”

“Sorry. Who’d be fans of who?”

“Peaky Blinders, duh. They’re from Birmingham.”

I gasped. “Wait, it’s meant to be.” We all loved Tommy Shelby. Happy, I made a mental note to search for vintage Aston Villa jerseys the next morning. I turned my attention back to the game. The Korea head coach’s eyebrows were furrowed beyond belief. The team’s chance to tie was dwindling, and they looked like they’d already given up.

“His ass is going to make them run so many suicides,” I said. “Like Kurt Russell in Miracle. ‘You don’t have enough talent to win on talent alone’ for real.”

When Korea lost, and the passersby who’d stopped to watch the final minutes from the street booed along with us, our walk home was still buoyant. We had a Premier team to root for, come September. Scotland was still in it. The USA had a game the next day. And we had another excuse to be out on the street with everyone else all summer long.

Hey, stranger.

I’m spending the month of August in Portland. New York humidity will be missed, friends will be missed, my coffee machine will be missed, but I cannot wait to be with my family. This summer did not feel like summer at all until suddenly I was en route to New Jersey for the 4th, with plans of swimming and eating watermelon and roasting weenies.

My weeks have been chaotic, my calendar disgustingly booked until September, but I’m really proud of myself for maintaining a strong boundary for spending time alone. Taking time for myself and knowing when to say no are the keys to building a sustainable life. I believe in playing hard and working hard and resting harder.

1. Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth was my favorite book I read this month. But I also revisited Nora Ephron’s essays from the 1970’s, read a few of Eve Babitz’s unsent letters via Too L.A, and am loving ’s Tender at The Bone. It’s been a month of savoring books because I don’t want them to end. How lovely!

2. I’ll be reading at The Bowery Review’s Issue 04 Launch next week. Come say hi!

3. Sometimes I have random stretches of the most perfect shopping karma. This month I acquired so many fun things from friends’ closets, which is the best way to shop. But I’m still on the hunt for a good pair of sunglasses to replace my stolen ones…

xoxo,

Evie

I don’t know what it is about working the door that intrigues me. The power that comes from turning people away probably feels awesome, and I love the idea of wearing all black with a walkie talkie at my hip, but mostly I just want to be indisputably a part of something.

Bouncers have been kind to me. They’ve been cruel. They’ve been unclear in their gestures for me to open my purse. They’ve flirted with me and given life changing advice and been seconds away from spitting in my face. But only recently have I realized that a bouncer might have the most important role of all: they set the vibe. And if the bouncer sets the vibe, then the bouncer has a choice: make someone feel like they belong before they even walk in, or make them feel like they have to earn it.

The man in a full tweed suit, hair braided down the middle of his back but shaved on either side, ear gauges adorned with twisting, silver jewelry, was determined to garner a vibe that leaned toward unwelcoming. I had walked thirty blocks after work to a gallery opening I had received an invite to during design week in New York. My knowledge of the art world is dismal at best. I want to keep it that way. But I had dressed the part, and when I approached the tartan clad bouncer, I gave him a knowing smile.

“Thirteenth floor?”

He looked me up and down before responding with an unimpressed tone. “Are you on the list?”

“Um, I should be. One second.” I scrolled through my email inbox, trying to find the RSVP confirmation.

Impatient, he flipped the papers on his clipboard. “Name?”

“Evie. Or Evelyn. My last name is Goodman.”

Seconds passed in excruciating silence. He didn’t nod or give an indication I was on the list, but I caught a flick of his pen as he marked a check next to, presumably, my name. “Do you know how to get in or do you need help?”

“Do I just… go up to the thirteenth floor?”

He rolled his eyes. “Elevator to the left, stairs to the right.”

Biting back a response to rival his obvious contempt, I slid past him and into the linoleum entryway, veering to the left when I saw the gaggle of colorful skirts and chunky glasses. To break the silence on the way up, I turned to an older woman standing next to me.

“Hi. I’m Evie.” I held out my hand.

She took it and glanced down at my outfit. “Patricia.”

“It’s nice to meet you. What brings you here tonight?”

“We know the artist,” she said, nodding toward the group she was with. They all stared back at me, as if I had asked the dumbest question possible.

“Right. I guess that makes sense.” No response. I continued, casting a hopefully subtle look toward the floor indicator as it crept toward eight at a glacial pace. “I actually don’t know anything about the exhibit tonight. What type of art is it?”

“Abstract.” Of course it is, I thought. I nodded and murmured something about being excited to see it before lapsing into silence.

Ten… twelve… with a ding! the doors opened and I darted away. The room was adorned in large, bulbous canvases with nets strung between them. In one corner, a loom sat with a half finished tapestry made of plastic garbage. People milled around the centerpiece: a table heaped with piles of raw vegetables on brown parchment paper. There were globs of hummus and something purple dispersed between the snap peas and carrots. I watched as one woman dragged a breadstick through the communal dip, some of it flying onto the floor as she brought it to her mouth.

I drifted throughout the room, smiling at people in what I thought was an inviting way. They just stared back for a second, vaguely confused, before turning back to their conversation. Eventually, I stopped next to a younger pair of women who looked friendly enough and were far away from the hummus splash zone. “Hi! I’m Evie.”

“Sarah.”

“Zoe.”

“It’s nice to meet you both. Have you been to this gallery before? I haven’t and don’t really know the backstory.”

“Well, I own this space. So yes.” Sarah responded, her face impassive.

“Oh, fuck. I’m sorry.” I laughed nervously. “It’s a cool space. How did you get connected to the artist?”

“She contacted me.”

“Right. That makes sense.” Inching away, I continued. “Well, it was nice to meet you! Congratulations!” I turned around and beelined for the bathroom.

I took a few steadying breaths and enacted my golden rule: talk to two people and then leave. If everyone I spoke to turned out to be as rude as the first few, I would leave and consider it a win that I spoke to anyone at all. But hopefully, my next victim would be kinder. After a few minutes, when I could not hide any longer for fear of the angry line of people waiting outside, I left the safety of the private, gender neutral stall.

There were a few high top tables along the wall opposite of the trash loom, and I wandered over to see what people were doing, their necks all bent in concentration. To my delight, I saw a pile of coloring paper and markers strewn about. People were doodling idly as they chatted. A couple made room for me as I approached and I cast a grateful smile in their direction.

“Hi! Are these open for grabs?” I held up a blank page. They nodded.

“Yeah, we’ve worked our way through a few.”

“Amazing.” I opened my mouth to ask how they knew the artist— a dangerous question, apparently— but before I could, one of the men grabbed his empty drink and nodded toward the bar. “Another drink?” His boyfriend nodded and they threw smiles my way before departing. I deflated.

Just then, I caught sight of a little foot peeking out from underneath the table cloth. I bent down, lifting up the white gauzy fabric. A little boy looked up at me. “Careful! I’m hiding.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Without thinking, I climbed underneath the sheet and sat next to him.

He looked at the empty page still gripped in my hand. “Do you need colors?” He held out a green, pink, and blue market in his fist.

“Why yes I do. Thank you.” I plucked the pink from his grasp and began drawing the outline of a flower. “So. Who are we hiding from?”

“My mom. She made me come after school and I’m hungry. I don’t want to look at the stupid art. It’s not even good.”

I snorted. “No, it’s not.”

The boy held out his drawing for me to see. He had drawn an aquarium with fish of all sizes, their bodies painted like some of the art hanging in the room. I raised an eyebrow. “You’re talented. I’d rather look at this than anything out there.”

He held a hand over his mouth and looked shocked, but I caught a glimpse of a smile. He was pleased. We settled into a companionable silence, him leaning back over his drawing with a furrowed brow, me contemplating how I was going to pull off crawling out from beneath the table in a dignified manner.

In the end, I was saved by his mom pulling back the tablecloth and thanking me for watching him for her. “Anytime.” I said, grabbing my purse. I gave the little boy a smile when we were both standing and he returned it, markers and paper still gripped tightly in one hand. I felt bad as I left him to his fate of boring adult conversation but I had talked to two people. It was time for me to go home.

The bouncer was still leaning against the brick exterior when I left, this time a lit cigarette balancing from his lips as he scrolled on his phone. I didn’t spare him a second glance as I hurried down the street back to the safety of my bed. The tweed bouncer hadn’t just been rude to me, it was like he’d given the whole night permission to be cold. Every eye-roll from Patricia, every clipped answer from the gallery owner, every person who scanned me head to toe, it all started at the door. If it weren’t for the unexpected new friend I had found in a literal child, I would have felt far more defeated.

Still, that night haunted me for days. I ranted about it to my friend over coffee the next day and vowed to never step foot in a pretentious gallery again. If I ever host something like that, I vowed to myself, I am making sure every single guest is friendly. And I will welcome people with a hug and shove my kindness down their throats if they want it or not. My commitment to giving off a good vibe was reinforced violently. On the walk home I kept thinking about what I would have done differently. Not as a guest, but as the person at the door. And then, a few weeks later, I had a chance to find out.

Charlotte and I were volunteering for our friend’s magazine launch party. was releasing a Rhubarb Issue and as per their tradition, they were throwing a themed potluck in celebration. After setting up the venue, we were given the high honor of door girls.

“Oh my god.” I grabbed Charlotte’s arm in excitement. “You do know what this means right? We’re the bouncers.”

“Do we want to play good cop, bad cop or should we be normal?”

“Let’s start with normal.”

Normal, in this case, meant that we took turns checking people in and piling our plates high with the various desserts attendees brought. At one point, a girl walked in to give me her name with a tray of brownies in hand.

“Name?”

“Ella.”

“Awesome, you’re checked in.” I eyed her tray. “Wait. Before you go in, can you tell me what you made?”

“Brownies with a rhubarb jam marbled on top.”

“Oh. my. God. Can you come find me when you’ve found a spot for it? I want to try.”

“Wait, here.” She lifted the lid and gestured for me to take one. I snatched a center piece greedily, taking a bite and stifling a moan.

“You are my favorite guest tonight. Go have fun.” I gave her a smile, chocolate still in my teeth, and she walked away beaming.

After that, every guest with a tasty looking contribution was subject to an Evie tax. I did my best to hype them up, to introduce single attendees with other people who came alone. I was in flow state. I was made to be a bouncer.

When people started wandering in from the street, curious about the event but not on our RSVP list, I politely turned them away but directed them to Produce Parties’ social media and made them swear that I would see them at the next event. I wanted to avoid the exclusivity that our capacity limit required. Unfortunately, when an old woman came up to me with a gleam in her eye and gushed at how cool the event was, how she needed her granddaughter— new to the city, just moved after graduation— to be a part of things like this, how awesome it was to see young people gathering around food, I caved.

She spotted one of the cakes being cut into, the vanilla sponge ribboned with rhubarb and strawberry, and held a hand to her heart. “Oh, that looks delicious.”

Leaning towards her, I whispered, “If I let you in to try some of the dishes, will you promise to pretend you’re on the list?”

She looked at me with barely contained excitement. “Of course!”

I waved her forward and in the direction of a homemade poptart that I had just eaten. As she approached it, a paper plate in hand, I heard her announce loudly to the girl next to her: “Oh, I’m so glad I was able to get tickets to this! I’ve been excited all week.” The girl smiled politely and nodded in agreement. The woman looked back at me and winked.

After that, my grasp on managing the door became a bit looser than I meant to. If someone came looking for entry who did not have a ticket but had great energy, I let them in. If it was a gay couple or anyone over 65, they got in. If I liked their outfit, in. I wasn’t like other bouncers, I was cool, chill, I made their night. I was the Tweed Asshole’s antithesis.

Charlotte snorted as I switched back to turning people away, scared I was going to get in trouble. “Like turning away one person is going to undo the other ten.” I gave her a look. It was worth it to see the look of joy on people’s faces as they got to join in on the festivities.

Yes, it was nice to be a point of perceived authority. People came up to me asking for directions, information on the magazine, questions on how I got involved. The feeling of belonging was finally mine. But it was the way I got to make people feel comfortable before they even entered that gave me the most joy. I liked the way people confided in us that they were nervous to show up alone, excited to meet new friends, unsure of what they were getting into. One girl mouthed “we’re on a first date!” to me as she passed, arm in arm with a man.

Writing this will probably ensure I never get door duties again. I’m pretty sure being a bouncer does require adherence to the list. That’s okay, I had my moment in the sun. All I really want is to connect with someone and make them smile, whether it be a little boy hiding from his parents or anyone who feels the slightest bit out of place.

Hey, stranger.

Imagine Goodfellas but it’s me trying to break into the world of bouncers. Who would watch? In high school I volunteered at Marching Band competitions and worked the concession stands, in college I lifeguarded and coached a swim team, earlier this month I helped Yesterday Tomorrow sell at a market in Amagansett. I love being a part of a team.

In recent news:

1. I’m bored with my hair and with my wardrobe and with my appearance in general. Tell me your favorite way to change up your look that’s not tattoos or piercings. I have commitment issues.

2. I’ve randomly been on a spontaneous SAY YES journey. I’m running a half marathon in October. I’m going to Montreal in like two weeks. You should always have things to look forward to.

3. On Friday morning, Jess and I ran along the West Side Highway and got breakfast (um, the burrito at The Elk is insane). I love pre-work hangs. I also miss having Sunday night family dinners so I’m reinstating them. FRIENDS ARE ALL THAT MATTER!!!

4. Loop earplugs have changed my sleep for the better. I’ve never been more rested.

5. I want to throw a party for my New York readers and writers… who wants to help… who wants to let me use their event space…

xoxo,

Evie

“Do you know anything about Egyptian philosophy?”

“Not a single thing. Do you?” she asked.

“A little, but only because I read that Percy Jackson spinoff series that was about the Egyptian gods.”

“Egyptian art scares me.” Emily chimed in, peering over the shoulder of an older gentleman standing between us. “So I’m hoping we learn something that will help me appreciate it more.”

I nodded. “It should be interesting. I’m so tired of renaissance art and that’s the only thing we studied in my art history courses.”

Emily laughed, “God, I know. Madonna and child this, Madonna and child that.”

We chatted aimlessly as the train lumbered on. By the time we arrived at The Met, peed, and tracked down the meeting location for the club, we were all holding back yawns from the various activities that had kept us busy all day.

“All right, hello Philosophy Club!” A man shouted above the museum crowd’s hum. He was wearing cowboy boots, jeans, and a button up. “Unforetunately, our Egpytian art specialist had to cancel due to being sick, so I’ll be walking us through the Venetian art exhibit instead.”

Emily and I shared a look. Madonna and child this, Madonna and child that.

Streaming past the docents in single file, Philosophy Club measured out to about 45 people, all various ages. Mostly men.

As expected, we worked our way through rooms full of the type of renaissance art I found boring and ugly. My eyes were prepared to glaze over, until Wei said: “Venetian art differs from High Renaissance in that the Florentine painters prioritized structure while the artists in Venice focused on atmosphere.” I nodded along, absentmindedly. I did prefer the light, flowing visuals of the Venetian paintings far more than the rigid, inhuman geometry that I saw in Raphael’s canvases.

“If we think about the role that atmosphere plays in our own lives, what does this mean to you? I want you to orient yourself in each scene. Which landscapes can you see yourself inhabiting easily? Which ones are harder to place yourself in?” Wei asked. Before I could even start to tackle that can of worms, he continued. “And look at how the subjects are reacting to the events transpiring. How would you react? Would it be similar or different?”

With that behemoth of a thought experiment, I did a lap around the room, trying to find a landscape that called to me. I felt the way I did when I walked down a street in the city at night, past restaurants emanating a soft glow, the people inside happily grouped together. Of course I could envision myself in between them. I’d find someone toga-clad to chatter away with if I was in the background of Jesus dying on the cross. There was no shortage of atmospheres and scenes I wanted to try on for size. The problem was not putting myself in those scenes, the problem was I didn’t know which one I’d belong in. If Ben Stiller stumbled across me in Night at the Museum, which exhibit would I have come from? No idea.

Eventually, I stood in front of a Flemish painting that depicted a lush forest landscape, with dreamlike clouds. I smiled. It looked like Oregon in the height of spring. I made up my mind: for now, this would be my landscape.

But the question lingered. It followed me into Monday night and my first ballet class, another room full of people who seemed to belong exactly where they were. My hobbies of choice always seemed to have 3 shared characteristics: solo, physical, and progressive. Activities that I could do alone and were challenging enough to give me a hit of sweet exercise dopamine. Swimming, running, boxing. Ballet seemed like a natural addition.

Walking into the studio, I was immediately struck by the atmosphere. Dancers were stretching in various positions: some had legs up on the bar, some were folding their feet at truly terrifying angles, others were opting for a simple butterfly stretch. I gazed at the golden light streaming delicately through the arched windows. People chatted quietly to one another, some of which had obviously been coming to class for months. There were a few newcomers who glanced around nervously and twisted their hands behind their backs. I wore black leggings and a tank top, my ballet shoes borrowed from Charlotte and marked me, incorrectly, as a dancer, given how broken in they were. I was starting to wish I had a leotard and pink tights just to really play the part.

“All right, class.” A short, stiff backed older woman walked into the room. She was maybe 5 foot tall, her hair pulled back in a low bun with streaks of bright silver laced throughout. “Let’s get started.”

The first 45 minutes went by without a hitch. Sort of. I knew the foot positions well enough and had angled myself to be able to watch and mirror the teacher subtly. My god, I thought, I might have found my calling. Anytime we had a combination simple enough for me to memorize, when the pianist accompanied us and I fell into my body, let it take over, I found a smile worming its way onto my face. I couldn’t wipe it, even if I looked a little too enthusiastic compared to the regal, poised faces of the ballerinas around me.

But then she said the dreaded words: “And now, we stretch.” One by one, we filed the bars to one side of the studio and found open space to sit. People sat straight backed, legs spread in a wide V in front of them. I watched in horror.

My torso is approximately 2 inches and my limbs are long and gangly like a spider. Unlike a spider, though, I have the hip flexor mobility of someone who runs regularly but is not militant about a stretching routine. In short, I am about as flexible as a piece of plastic. Face burning, I tried desperately to even sit up straight with my legs extended. My poor joints screamed in protest.

Our teacher led us through stretches, as she explained, “King Louis liked long, high legs in his dancers. So now we stretch, and we reach our bodies as long as we can. You can thank, or curse, Louis for this part of ballet. I doubt he would care.” Little chuckles rose from some of the dancers, their bodies moving fluidly from deep lunges to splits, to draping themselves over their legs without effort. I sat immobile, still stuck in the V formation, unable to move.

And that was where my hopes of becoming a ballerina ended. I spent the next 45 minutes leaping around the room awkwardly. Trying not to laugh in disbelief when we had to flutter our feet at speeds I couldn’t fathom. When the class was over and we took our bows, I beelined for the door and avoided eye contact with our instructor.

So I satisfied my curiosity on being one of the dancers in Degas’s The Rehearsal. In short: I wouldn’t be. My rigid hips and I would be so far backstage he wouldn’t bother to paint even a little smudge of brown depicting my head ducked away, demoted to laundry duty. But where did I see myself as the subject in a painting fit for the Met? A stunning impressionist piece called Girl Hunched Over Laptop In Her 400 Sq Foot Apartment? A Rothko of beige with a streak of white, meant to depict me running 10 minute miles on my Wednesday morning jog?

2 days later, I got the chance to see if Maurice Prendergast’s May Day was where I belonged. My friend and her boyfriend had generously invited me to The Central Park Conservancy’s summer gala.

I was once again sandwiched between men in suits on the train headed uptown when I realized I forgot to put on deodorant. Upon that discovery, I pulled my arms in as much I dared. Which was not much considering I had a white knuckle grip on the pole. We were on the express line and the conductor was hurdling us along the track at a record speed. My reflection stared back at me and I had to admit, despite the inevitable body odor I would be emitting later that evening, I looked pretty good. I was wearing a turquoise silk dress courtesy of Arden’s closet with cream flats, a white clutch, and my mom’s cashmere shawl thrown over my shoulders. The self tanner I had applied was giving me a bit of a healthy glow and Charlotte had blown out my hair an hour prior. I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of her behind one of the suits.

“I forgot to put on deodorant.”

“I have some, don’t worry.”

Crisis averted. A little thrill always went down my spine when I wore a nice dress among people commuting to and from work. Where is she going? I imagined them thinking to themselves. I liked the air of mystery it gave me and I liked the feeling of feigned importance, even if there were ten other women also dressed in nice clothes headed somewhere with cocktail glasses and a complimentary coat check.

Bethesda fountain looked beautiful as we entered, the lake glittering under the fading sunlight. Couples in row boats paddling awkwardly along and stared openly at the venue full of people dressed anywhere from floral linens to bead studded gowns. I drifted in an out of the crowd, sampling chocolates and tartare from various booths and giggling with Charlotte.

The night wore on and a man entered my periphery, interrupting the conversation I had been having with Eliott and Victor.

“Sorry to interrupt. Can I just say—” He gestured at the two of them with open arms, shaking his head. “—you might be the two best dressed people at this party. I just had to come up and say something.”

The boys bowed their heads in thanks, launching into a discussion on menswear and the inspiration behind their outfits. I tried not to look put out. What am I? I wanted to interrupt. Chopped liver?

We found out our new friend was named Warfield, he was from The Upper West Side, had kids who went to private Catholic School, and whose family had been coming to the gala for years. He fit in perfectly. Eventually Warfield turned philosophical. He had been everywhere, he told us — all over the country, all over the world. And yet.

“Nowhere else,” he said, pausing for effect, “except maybe Paris — would I run into charming young people like yourselves. You’d never be at the benefit in Kansas City I was at last week. You just wouldn’t. You’d be here, where all the best things in the world are.”

Everyone in New York loves to talk about how nowhere in the world is like New York. From Warfield’s perspective, I fit right into the city’s landscape. I was a character not out of place, despite how I may have felt. A flattering idea.

On the train back downtown that evening, I amused myself by imagining that some of the people in the paintings on Saturday night were just in the right place at a weird time. Belonging was just a coincidence. They stumbled onto a scene they had no business being in, just to be immortalized forever as the type of person who defined Venetian art. A priest might have chosen a fur lined robe that his mom had made for him on the day he met Christ and had to bless him. People forever would stare at his likeness, just as we did, whispering to each other “Why is he wearing fur in the summer?”

Hey, stranger.

Happy June and happy bug bite season to all who celebrate. I went to Coney Island this weekend and it was the perfect way to ring in summer. Some notes from my week:

1. Bought a turquoise purse from a sidewalk vendor. Haggled it down by $20 and didn’t even break a sweat.

2. WHAT SHOES ARE WE WEARING THIS SUMMER??? I simply can’t prance around in flip flops for the next four months. Or can I…

3. I know apples are not a summer fruit but Trader Joe’s has been stocked with the most delicious Cosmic Crisps. I’m really enjoying munching on food with a crunch.

4. I wrote a report for Feed Me about a peptides party I went to on Tuesday. My ideal week consists of me being in at least three rooms I have no business being in.

Just a reminder to peruse our shared calendar if you’re bored in New York and want something fun to do. Lots of you have sent things my way, so thank you! Hopefully I’ll see some of you out and about.

xoxo,

Evie

I have long since made a truce with myself. I can enjoy a house party. I can loiter happily in a bar and dance my little heart out on a Saturday night. What I cannot do is any sort of drug or late night beyond two a.m or clubs that employ side-gig DJ’s who work in finance full time. My faults are my own, and I accept them. Every once in a while, though, I feel compelled to poke at my own disinterest the way you’d poke at a bruise, just to confirm it still hurts.

One such test landed me in downtown Manhattan, bouncing from one club to the next, in an area I usually turned my nose up at for crawling with underaged students and aged men in skinny jeans. My two favorite specimens. We approached a nondescript building, whose top floor sported a pulsating red and purple glow.

As we walked along the length of the line, I began to wonder if I was a little underdressed for the occasion. My jeans seemed shockingly proletariat against the backdrop of wrap dresses, sequins, and teetering stilettos. I thought longingly of the delicious little peep toe heels I had forgone for the sake of practicality. Finally tucked safely into the end of the line, my friends and I shared a look we reserved for Let’s Stand In Line For Five Minutes And Then Leave moments. I shifted my weight impatiently from one foot to another.

It was then that our salvation arrived. “You girls want to get in?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Whirling around, I found only a group of college students gnawing on hot dogs from a street cart. I looked down, and there he was: five-foot-four, blonde hair shellacked with gel, a gold lamé shirt unbuttoned nearly to his navel displaying a small smattering of chest hair, tight black jeans tucked into ankle boots. The stuff of nightmares.

My friends and I looked at each other and shrugged. “Yeah, why not?”

The man looked us up and down, nodding to himself. He turned to go, paused, then turned back, looking at me. “You’re 21, right?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, or you at least have an ID that says 21?”

“I— yes, of course. I’m 25.”

“Really? You could be 18.”

“Thank you?”

“Seriously, 25? The short hair and baby face are…” He gestured indecipherably at me.

I blinked. “My hair is not…” I unhooked it from behind my ears and felt the ends brush my waist.

“As long as you have something that says above 21, we’re good.”

“I promise you I’m 25.”

“Sure, sure.”

We followed him inside the club and to the table he pointed us toward, shouting in our ears that that’s where we should stand and he would come find us soon. It took approximately four minutes to understand what kind of place this was. I felt like I’d walked into a GTA club as girls in microminis and cone bras weaved past us carrying sparklers and champagne, delivering them to a table of men who were filming everything in full flash and shouting into their own cameras. Everywhere else, circles of young women danced the best they could to the remixed versions of the Top 100’s from 2025.

“What is happening?” I shouted into MJ’s ear. “What are we supposed to be doing right now?”

“I think we just stand here and dance? Maybe get a free drink from the promoter eventually?”

I knew, without a doubt, that this was not my scene. I was all too aware that I did best in scenarios where I could chat someone’s ear off. In the absence of that option, I default to an expression that has been described, charitably, as unapproachable.

“Right,” I said. “Or we could just go.”

“Yes. Immediately. Let’s go.”

We bolted past the bar with our chins down, avoiding eye contact with our five-foot-four benefactor, and burst out onto the street. The door swung shut behind us and we stood on the sidewalk for a moment, blinking in the relative quiet.

“Okay, I am officially too old for that.” I said.

Test taken and failed, I went home, took off my shoes to feet that were not sore, and resumed my life with relief.

The disinterest had embarrassed me once. There’s a particular shame in not wanting the things you’re supposed to want at a given age and I felt it every time shoved my ear plugs in at 11:30pm on a Friday night, every time I declined a third bar in exchange for my bed with the slightly guilty but mostly relieved feeling of someone skipping school. But that shame has a shelf life. It fades the further you get from 21, and it disappears entirely somewhere around the fourth time you’ve spent the night pretending to enjoy a watered-down whisky sour on a floor so sticky your shoes come away with a permanent squelch.

It was after one of those nights that I woke up and felt the familiar anxiety of being torn between what I should like and what I do like, that a reader sent me a message. I think you’d like this, it said, with a link to a bird watching group that met at 9am every Saturday morning in Brooklyn. I stared at it for a long moment. Then I opened my calendar and blocked off the following Saturday with BIRD WATCHING!!!!!

If I was going to peak at forty-five, I might as well start practicing now for the type of things people unlock as they age. Bird watching being one such activity, followed closely by tennis and golf and playing solitaire and drinking scotch.

When the morning came I laced up my running sneakers, which had seen far too few miles in recent months, and set off across the bridge. It was a gloomy morning but warm enough that I could run in a sweatshirt. I felt like Rocky Balboa during his training montage.

I slowed to a walk as I approached the park and wiped the sweat running down my temples. Under a large oak tree at the edge of the park, a man was greeting people with the full-body enthusiasm of someone who had been waiting all week for exactly this. He hugged everyone. There was a plastic box of binoculars on the ground. I was in the right place.

I stood alone for approximately two minutes before turning to the woman next to me. “Hi, I’m Evie,” I said. We exchanged pleasantries and she nodded toward the man under the tree, asked if I’d been to bird club before.

“Never. I don’t know anything about birds.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s mostly just noticing.”

The man released the woman he’d been gripping by the shoulders and addressed the group. Around me, people settled, cradling their coffees.

“Today,” he said, “we’re going to be wonderfully, perfectly human. Our days are spent looking down, overstimulated by the little boxes in our hands. Bird watching is the opposite of that. We cast our gazes up. We see what we can hear. We notice. It will not always be obvious, but noticing is a skill, and all it takes practice. Don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t see anything right away.”

I left two hours later, completely bought in. My brain felt like someone had taken a powerwasher to it, any abashment from the night before scrubbed squeaky clean. On the run home I thought of nothing beyond the sound of my feet along the pavement. Later, once I had showered and read my book and played sudoku enough times to make any senior citizen proud, I texted my friends: anyone want to go out tonight?

Hey, stranger.

The bird club I reference is and if you’re in the area, I highly recommend. Thank you to for the suggestion.

A few things:

1. I’m still obsessed with dates but a new bombshell has entered the villa: frozen dark cherries. I can’t get enough. One time my younger sister ate so many cherries she threw up a giant pile of red mush and I thought it was blood. The Goodman girls love our cherries and if I can’t eat fresh ones from Oregon, I’ll settle for frozen.

2. I really want to go back to Ireland. I also want to go to France. And Scotland. A solo trip might be in the works, which I’ve never done before. If anyone has recommendations for places to stay, I am all ears.

3. Some brat stole my sunglasses in a bar last week, so I’m on the hunt for a replacement. Also the thief. I’m looking at these or these or these.

4. Hobbies on the docket for this summer include: golf, playing solitaire alone at a cafe, ballet, and I’ve started running again. Hood To Coast is only a few months away…

xoxo,

Evie

It was a deceptively normal Friday night in early February. I wrapped up work and took a brief nap before hauling myself out of bed to get dressed for the evening. Emily sat by the mirror in our living room, doing her makeup, while I tried on various renditions of jeans and a sweater for her.

“Obviously, TGIF,” I started, once I had selected the same outfit I had worn for weeks and flopped down on the couch, watching her try to match her left eye wing on the right, “but it has been an awful week and all I want to do is stay in.”

“No, I know.”

“Maybe we just go for 30 minutes and then come home.”

“That’s fine by me.”

“Although… we haven’t been in awhile,” I continued, referring to the bar our friends had regularly spent six hours in weekend after weekend, “so maybe it’ll be exactly what we need.”

“Maybe we’ll go and thirty minutes won’t feel like enough. Maybe we’ll fall in love. Maybe I’ll get a dirty martini….”

We make eye contact through the mirror and I laugh. “A dirty tini fixes everything.”

With our newly inspired attitudes, only slightly mismatched eyeliner, and fur coats donned, we set out into the night. The 30° weather was an unwelcome addition to the night, but not a deterrent. Even the arctic wind only made us giggle at the awfulness of it. We had smiles on our faces while we approached our least favorite street in downtown Manhattan, heads down and arms crossed to brace against the cold.

The bitter wind had blown my hair back from my face in a straight line and was swirling up detritus from the street, causing pedestrians to shield their eyes against the dust and garbage flecks. I was too distracted by laughing at something Emily said as a large indeterminate shape flew toward me. It hit me dead on and I yelped, shoving it off me and swiping at my face in disgust.

“What the hell was that?” I looked around wildly, trying to identify my assailant.

A few feet away, a lone, dirt-blackened cardboard box was cartwheeling down the street. Its soggy corners leaving a trail of sludge in their wake.

“Oh. My. God.”

Emily had been laughing before but now she was bent over, wheezing. My lip was numb from the impact, and I pulled my frozen fingers from my gloves, running them over my face. To my horror, when I looked down at my hands I saw a mix of trash flakes, sidewalk dirt, and something wet.

“There is no way I just got sidewalk cardboard in my mouth!” I pulled over to the side of the street and spit a clump of brown saliva onto a grate. “I’m gonna be sick.”

Emily grabbed my arms and helped me down the last two blocks into the safety of our favorite neighborhood bar, where I slammed open the doors and shouldered my way to my awaiting friends. “Guys, be honest. Do I have something on my face?”

“... No? I don’t think— wait, yes. Here.” MJ brushed something from my chin. I was still so numb I could barely feel it. I shuddered. “What is this?” She asked.

“Sidewalk cardboard.”

She blanched and wiped it furiously off on a napkin. My night, one envisioned as my return to a social scene that I had been absent from, turned instead into a montage of bathroom visits where I tried desperately to flush the taste of dirt out of my mouth. It didn’t work.

Following that fateful night, it seemed everything followed a similar cadence. One cardboard-to-the-face after another. Disappointments stacked up despite my best efforts until I began to suspect the cardboard had cursed me. At first, the sinking in my stomach when yet another thing did not go my way was manageable but eventually I was so sick of feeling sad that I became desperate to avoid the let down than to get what I wanted. I stopped going to events. I didn’t apply for jobs. I let new friendships fizzle. I worked late into the evening even if I didn’t have looming deadlines. I ignored texts and cried in public and hid in my room on the weekends.

February bled into March and then into April.

A few days after Easter, where an ill-timed food poisoning kept me from brunch in New Jersey with three generations of Italians, I ran into an acquaintance at a Tuesday night reading and she asked me what I had been up to. My mind went blank.

“Oh, you know… nothing much.” I usually always had something fun to share, some new thing I was trying or a funny anecdote from the week before. But when I rifled through my recent memory, there was nothing but work, gym, and reading quietly in bed. I couldn’t get myself to laugh off sidewalk sludge anymore.

“Really? I feel like you’re always up to something.”

I laughed awkwardly, “... Yeah. It’s been a tough winter.”

Earlier that day I walked up the stairs at my gym at 7:28am instead of 7:26am, with my left foot first instead of the right, and as a result had spent most of the afternoon trying to convince myself that the day wasn’t ruined, I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I wasn’t a bad person for being two minutes late to a schedule only I held myself to.

I cleared my throat, “anyway, how have you been?”

Things were getting serious. So I did something I’d never before thought to do: I asked for help.

ella, I texted my friend on a Tuesday morning, i need your help. i’ve lost my sparkle. what are you doing tonight

tonight i’m getting dinner with friends, she responded. My heart sank. But then: wanna come with me to a lesbian lookalike contest on wednesday? my friend is party reporting

yes I texted back immediately yes yes yes yes yes. I had no idea what the hell a lesbian lookalike contest was, so no way to know what a failure would look like. I was out- maneuvering the cardboard.

The next day was gloomy, per the A.C. norm, and I woke up sad, petulant, and annoyed. Ella’s invite taunted me from my calendar. But I was resolute in my determination to find a way out of the dark ages so with a 3pm coffee and a severe pep talk, I forced myself off the couch at 8pm.

As I left the apartment I noticed, in new lighting, that the warm beige of the top I chose clashed with the cold undertones of my even more beige skin. I looked like a moldy piece of sourdough. Stop that, I chided myself, not tonight. Tonight we are positive. Operation Return of The Sparkle is a go.

Ella quickly introduced me to Em, a talented photographer who documents people she runs into on nights out around the city. I spent the following few hours observing as Em displayed an uncanny ability to pick out interesting characters from a crowded room. Em and Ella walked up to people, confident as ever, and struck up conversation from thin air. It reminded me of me, B.C. At each interaction, I stood slightly off to the side, playing with the zipper on my purse and feeling like the socially awkward cousin at a family barbeque.

We walked through Chinatown and stopped briefly to watch a late night ping pong tournament at the park. Above the table, an industrial light was held up by ropes tied to the surrounding trees. Three middle aged men sang karaoke from a cart wheeled up to the group on a kitchen cart.

We watched in rapt attention as a short, blue haired boy absolutely decimated the competition. His partner seemed eager to get a few points of his own in but every time he made a move to volley, the prodigy leapt in front and slammed the ball back over the table. Their opponents didn’t stand a chance.

“I have chills.” Em said.

I turned to a man standing beside us, watching the scene with a slightly bemused expression. “Do you play?” I asked.

He looked over, slightly startled. “I— No. Just watching. You?”

“No. We’re just watching, too.” I thought for a second. “Do you think you’d win, if you had to sub in right now?”

“Hmm. Yeah, probably. They don’t look like they’re trying that hard.”

There was a shout and a few muffled curses as the blue haired boy cut his paddle in a swift downward motion and the ball whizzed past us and into the bushes. A member of the opposing team got back onto his feet from where he had made a desperate lunge to try and return the ball. I raised my eyebrows.

His face grew red, “I think I could at least volley a bit.”

“Sure, sure.”

When I turned back to Em and Ella, I couldn’t help the grin on my face. I was talking to strangers again. I was participating.

Inside a nearby dive bar, we found our next victim: a man wearing indoor sunglasses who was opening a bar in the East Village in a few months. We gave our word that we’d be in attendance. Em and I chatted as Ella finished the interview.

“You’re inspiring me to get back into the world. Ella always helps me clear my head, but I’m especially glad she introduced us.” I told her. It had been two hours but already I could feel a loosening in my chest. I wanted to sit for three hours at a restaurant and befriend the people seated next to me. I wanted to go dancing. I wanted to fall in love. I wanted to get in a fight and befriend my neighbors and invite people over for coffee on the weekends.

We left the bar and ran into our last two subjects of the night: two boys Em had spotted standing around a concrete block in the middle of the street.

“So is this where the party is?” She asked.

They looked at each other and shrugged. “I mean, yeah.” The taller one slapped the rock affectionately. “It’s a pretty good spot. Lots to see.”

I wandered home with a smile on my face. Lots to see indeed, I thought. The night was a cool 60° degrees but people were lounging on any available outdoor seating. There were girls arguing, couples making out in corners, men taking business calls at 11pm, and a few teenagers smoking in an alleyway.

That Wednesday night gave me enough buoyancy to last another week or so, before an onslaught of job rejections, medical bills, and anxiety induced digestive issues reminded me that I was not out of the woods just yet. But I kept trying, in small ways, to hold onto that little thread. I sent calendar invites to friends and booked a ballet class and went to events alone the way I used to, forcing myself to go up to strangers and ask their names until it felt natural again.

While drinking my third cup of coffee on a Monday morning a few weeks later, I checked Instagram and was surprised to see a DM from a mutual friend:

hey! i got your information from Em. i’m a producer and i think you’d be perfect for a role i’m casting for. if you’re interested i can send more information your way.

I sent him my number and eagerly awaited the promised additional information. Role? I thought to myself, scrolling through his Instagram and seeing a portfolio of various photoshoots and brand campaigns. Like as a model? I cringed at the thought of pretending to be a model in front of strangers.

When the project brief was sent my way and I discovered it was in fact a speaking role in a commercial, I was horrified. My acting skills are worse than my modeling ones. I hesitated for all of two minutes before realizing that there was no universe in which I’d say no. It was too good of a story and like Nora Ephron, I had become fond of the saying: everything is copy.

Besides, if I learned anything this winter, it was that saying yes was the only solution, even when it felt like the last thing I wanted to do.

I submitted a last minute PTO request and set out my outfit for the next morning like I was going on a middle school field trip. I was up at 6am, wired.

In the back of my mind it registered faintly that it was technically still After Cardboard. The next disappointment would hit that much harder as a result of having a few good days. Don’t get too excited, I told myself. Then, with a slap to my own wrist, I revised my thought: no, actually, be excited. You’re your best when you’re excited. I reminded myself that going out with Ella was what introduced me to Em which was why I had the opportunity in the first place. Good things did not come from protecting myself against failure.

The first half hour passed without a hitch. I allowed the producers to change my styling, fix my hair, give me blocking and direction for the character I was supposed to emulate. I nodded along the entire time—“Ugh, that’s the worst!” I groaned in mock understanding when they complained of a last minute flake of whoever an AD is— but when it came time for the first shot, I panicked.

The director was down on the street, a huge lens on a tripod staring expectantly up at where I sat on a fire escape and fiddled with the microphone attached at my hip and threaded through my clothes. I turned to the girl assigned with relaying information to me. “This is my first time. I don’t know if I should have said something before but… I’ve never done something like this before.”

She looked faintly alarmed, “Never?”

“Never.”

Surprisingly, she just gave me a smile and a reassuring nod, “Don’t worry, you’ll do great. It should be a fairly simple shoot. The lines aren’t too complicated.”

“Well don’t be afraid to give me as much direction as needed. Maybe I’ll blow your socks off, who knows.” My admission had lightened something in my shoulders.

She laughed but before she could respond, the camera man’s voice crackled through the phone and told us we were all set. She nodded to me, “Okay, I’m going to say action and all you need to do is wait three seconds, then stand and look at the camera, say your line, and look out over the buildings until I say cut. Got it?”

I nodded, palms sweaty.

“Action!”

I stood up instantly. “Oh, fuck. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Let’s do it again.” I sat down. The camera man adjusted something and nodded up at us. “Action!”

We did six takes. On one my line came out weird and flat. On another my hair blew into my lip gloss and I sputtered to spit it back out. On the third I looked at the camera too quickly. Finally I was given the go-ahead to climb back inside.

“See? You’re a natural. Onto the next location.”

From there we moved to the street, where I spent the next few hours walking the same block over and over again, briefcase in hand, waiting for cars to pass and smiling at people who stopped to watch. A group of elderly women walked by and patted me on the shoulder, smiling encouragingly at me.

“You’re doing great!” A delivery man said, hanging out the window of his van.

I felt silly and exposed on the subway, saying my lines to not only a camera four inches from my face but also the entire crowd on the uptown N. Most people, though, looked intrigued for all of two seconds before looking back down at their phones.

When we wrapped, I felt giddy, on top of the world, and for the first time in months, sparkly again.

I walked home smiling to myself. guess who was just in a production thanks to you <3 I texted Em, looking up from my phone to register that I was once again at my least favorite intersection. I had gotten in the habit over the last few months of looking both ways multiple times before crossing the street, wary of flying debris.

My phone pinged. A text from Em: They said they needed a blonde baddie and I said wait a damn minute. I laughed out loud.

It was still A.C., technically. Where this intersection usually inspired a desperation to dodge and weave my way as fast as I could to safety, this time I knew that even if I got hit, I was better equipped to clean myself up. The dark days are numbered.

Hey, stranger.

Sorry for being MIA the last month or so… A.C. and all that… But here are a few things I’ve enjoyed:

1. These silk shorts from Intimissimi that I will be wearing all summer because I refuse to feel restricted in the heinous East Coast humidity.

2. Playing Catan online.

3. Inviting twenty people to a picnic, half of whom are my closest friends and half of whom are people I met once at a party and liked their vibe. It’s the easiest way to expand your multiverse and generally I think the world is a better place when we play God and connect people to each other.

4. Dates with sea salt before the gym. Dates with peanut butter. Dates in oatmeal.

5. I was very kindly invited to a brunch at L’Appartment 4f to celebrate Dae Hair’s new scent. It was the sweetest morning and greeted me with “I love your writing!” She didn’t know it but I had spent the night before banging my head on my (imaginary) desk (my room is too small) because I’ve been mentally constipated and unable to form sentences. Her encouragement is why I was able to eek this essay out. I feel infinitely lucky that people choose to read my writing because all I want to do is keep having fun telling stories. Also, L’Appartment 4f served cinnamon rolls and almond croissants and I think I reached Nirvana at 11:45am on a Thursday.

Last thing: I made a public calendar (you can find it here or here… I don’t know how to use Google Calendar very well) that I’ll keep updated with events I have an eye on in New York. If you have something fun on your radar, send it to me!

xoxo,

Evie

So when I was at a friend’s apartment the other weekend and he pulled down a glass contraption that resembled a loop-de-loop straw with purple liquid at the base, I gazed at it with a raised eyebrow, unimpressed until he said:

“Here, you’ll like this. It’s supposed to measure charisma.”

I perked up at that. “How does it work?”

“Put the base in your palm, like so.”

He held his hand outstretched and we both watched as the purple liquid flowed from the bottom throughout the spiraled chambers. It was mesmerizing in the same way a lava lamp could capture your attention for an hour. I snatched it from his grip eagerly.

I paused, the glass base inches from my palm. “And what exactly is it measuring?”

“The more the purple stuff flies around, the more charming you are?”

Holding my breath, I gripped it tightly in my left hand. Nothing. Not even a ripple. I cleared my throat and switched to my right hand, muttering something about low blood pressure. Still nothing.

He started laughing. “The only other person who had no effect on it was my dad.”

Scowling, I gave it a violent shake and then adjusted my grip, practically strangling the thing. Still nothing.

“It’s broken.”

“No, it’s not. Look.” He grabbed it from me and like before, the purple liquid shot skyward and in a beautiful arc through the glass. “I’m practically erupting with charisma.”

“Well, maybe I’m so charismatic that it doesn’t even register. Like how people’s ears can’t detect a dog whistle. Or like an earthquake breaking a seismograph.”

“Sure.”

“Well and also I have low blood pressure so my hands are always cold and it’s probably something with the heat of your palm activating the liquid.”

“It could be that.”

“I should be erupting with charisma.”

“Don’t take it too personally. Not everyone can have the effect on it that I do.”

I gave a huff and threw a dirty look at the damned thing as I put my coat on.

Later that night, as I embarked on one of my cleaning frenzies, I considered the possibility that I had lost my charisma. For the first time since moving to New York, I didn’t have to work hard to fill my calendar. My friends invited me out as much as I did them. Events found themselves flung at my doorstep with shocking consistency. There was a cast of characters around me that I rotated through for coffee and dinner dates. No matter what I was going to I could generally trust that I’d know someone there or one of my friends would accompany me. I had grown lazy and happy with the comfort of being surrounded by people I loved. All those months of cultivating friendships had paid off. What I hadn’t anticipated was that comfort would dull my edge.

Charisma, after all, thrives on a certain kind of alertness. A little bit of friction. But lately I had been happy to just chat in a corner with my friends, completely enthralled in our world. There was no fear, no adrenaline coursing through my veins when I entered a room, no performance I needed to put on. As a result, I was about as charming as a doorstop.

But like always, just when I thought I had turned a corner into honeymoon bliss with my social life, mid March brought on an unexpected drought. I was used to a weekly routine of going out six nights a week, always something on my calendar with !!!!! in the title that I was looking forward to. So when one by one, my weeknight plans fell away and I found myself staring down the barrel at a practically empty calendar by my standards, I began to itch with a long-forgotten discomfort.

Well, I did say I was going to rest more. I thought to myself on Monday night, changing into my pajamas at 6pm. Like a little Victorian ghost I drifted around the apartment on Tuesday evening, looking down at the bar below us with a pained jealousy. I felt sequestered and alone, the droning voice of Mazzy Star providing the perfect soundtrack for my self pity.

By Wednesday, I really thought I was going to die from boredom. I terrified myself with thoughts of the impending summer and my grand plans of reintroducing myself to society like a debutante on her sixteenth birthday never materializing. Me, with a fresh tan and a silk skirt and a rogue-like smirk, holding a wine glass cavalierly and charming the socks off anyone who crossed my path. All of this self care better pay off, I told myself as I slathered on a face mask and pressed play on yet another episode of Psych.

It’s not the aspect of being alone that sends shivers down my spine. Alone-ness is as familiar to me as anything and I quite like my own company. No, the feeling of wasting away in my room when I’d rather be out in the world is one that has followed me from city to city, boyfriend to boyfriend, age to age. Being an involuntary Rapunzel locked away in a tower by an invisible force.

My self pity really ramped up by Thursday and I shouldered past people on the street with a frown on my walk home after work, vacuuming extra long just to drone out the peals of laughter from the street. Well, this is how it’s always going to be, I thought, stabbing a sweet potato viciously, if I don’t force myself into the world, no one else will. With a blast of hot air, I shoved the pan into the oven and went to lay on the rug, keeping one eye on the timer. True to my overdramatic tendencies, I had convinced myself that people having plans without me was a personal attack. That the friends I had reached out to last were never going to do the same. That my name was never and will never be on the guest list to the things I wanted to attend. That I didn’t party enough as an eighteen year old and now missed my chance.

I ruminated and huffed and considered calling a million people before throwing my phone across the room and staring blankly into space. I Eeyore’d and raincloud-above-my-head’d for nearly an hour until my sweet potatoes finished baking and I sent myself to bed like a child. Enough of that.

On Friday I woke up to sunny blue skies and an ironclad determination to be more positive. All of my usual suspects had plans throughout the city and texts to people I hadn’t seen in awhile were responded to with i can’t tonight but what about tomorrow? My mood soured— Saturday’s plans had already been solidified but I wanted my solitary confinement to end stat. Then, at 6pm, I got a text from Partiful:

Lit Mags Party starts in 2 hours!

It was clear to me that the time had come to don my old armour and venture out alone. Just like old times.

A few hours later, I descended a narrow staircase into the basement of a bar somewhere in Noho, running a hand along the rough stone wall to avoid tripping in the dim lighting. As soon as I entered the throng of people milling about through the densely packed bar, I felt the familiar surge of anxiety hit my veins. Oh, I’ve forgotten this feeling, I thought to myself, winding my way through the room with forced nonchalance. I tried desperately to spot another solo guest, or anyone wearing something I could strike up a conversation about, or another girl my age.

Either my show-up-alone-and-make-a-friend skills had rusted or there were truly no promising victims, because after ten excruciating minutes of leaning against a wall and watching the crowd, I still felt like a rudderless ship. Spotting the bathroom sign across the bar, I beelined for it, shutting myself into a stall with a shaky breath. You just need to talk to one stranger and then you can leave, I told myself, replaying the old line I used in the first few months of living anywhere new. I leaned my forehead against the cool tile walls and willed my heartbeat to slow. You can do this. You’ve done this a million times. I felt like a retired athlete coming back for a glory run.

Straightening my coat, I walked out of the bathroom and directly up to a guy standing slightly apart from his group of friends.

“Hi! Did the readings already happen?”

He turned to look at me. “Yeah, you just missed them.”

“Were they any good?”

“Well, I was one of the readers so I’m biased but yeah, I enjoyed the rest too.”

“Oh, very cool, did you—”

“Sorry. I’m getting a call. One second.” His phone screen was filled by a picture of a man in red face paint with his tongue out. The contact name read: papacita.

Awesome. I blew a raspberry and looked around for one more attempt.

I made another lap around the room before inserting myself into a conversation rather clumsily.

“Hi! How did you hear about this?” I winced at my boring question but within minutes, I was chatting away happily with a new friend. I’ve still got it, I thought smugly.

We sat when the second round of readings started and I followed him to the bar when it was over. My mission of talking to one stranger had been completed but I was starting to enjoy myself and was curious to see where the night led.

“What are you doing after this? A few of us are going down to Clandestino if you want to join.”

“Absolutely.”

And just like that, my planned 10pm bedtime was sullied and I spent the night shaking hands with people and yelling, “No, not Ellie. Evie! Like Evelyn!”

At some point, a very flamboyant gay man had grasped my arm and leaned in conspiratorially to say: “I truly hate to do this but the people who were sitting here before you were so kind so I lent them my shoe insert to level this table.”

“That was very benevolent of you.”

“I know, I’m a saint. And I don’t mean to insinuate that you’re not kind, but I need that insert so I can walk straight.”

“Sure, sure, take it.”

He leaned down and rummaged below the table for a few seconds, reemerging with a triumphant look and a bright orange, slightly worn insert in his hand. He busied himself placing it back into his shoe before sitting back up and pausing to look at me. “Has anyone told you you’re beautiful?”

“No, never.”

“You’re lying.”

I laughed. “Yes, I have heard that before. I just wanted you to feel special.”

“I did feel special, thank you. God, can you imagine if I was your first?”

Grasping his hands, I leaned in. “And what a beautiful first that would have been.”

“Careful, darling, my husband is around here somewhere and he’s the jealous type.”

In that moment, I was sure that if I was holding the charisma wand it would be awash in purple.

I smiled to myself as I walked home later in the misty rain, well past midnight, thumbing the matchbox I had taken from the bar in my coat pocket.

Hey, stranger.

Welcome to how melodramatic my brain is. To my friends: I love you and I would rather have zero charisma for the rest of my life than not know you.

Good news: only a few more weeks of winter uglies before we emerge from our collective chrysalis and can flutter around the city smelling of sunscreen and wearing flip flops regardless of street hygiene. I can’t wait.

I have nothing fun to report from the past few weeks except for my hyper-fixation lunch that I want everyone to try: Japanese sweet potato (baked until caramelized) with chicken and peanut butter and cinnamon. I know, I know. But just trust me.

xoxo,

Evie

“Hmm,” I pretend to think for a moment but know my answer immediately. “I think the point is just to experience everything you possibly can.”

Her eyes widen in agreement and she nods furiously. “Yes, yes, I agree.”

What I don’t say, but know she would probably agree with because we are scarily similar, is that in choosing which things I’d like to experience, I am like a cat after anything shiny. Most of the time, it’s the vibe that attracts me, not the meat of the thing itself.

Which is why I find myself in a two story apartment on a rainy Tuesday evening for a reading I had no interest in but was ultimately enticed by the cursive font and exclusive invite. Apartment is perhaps a stretch. I don’t think an entire two story, crown molded, spiral-staircased living situation should have the same name as the place I live where my full bedframe only fits in one configuration and has no room to walk around it.

Upon entering I was immediately struck at the sea of black sweaters, black jeans, black loafers. I looked down at myself and noted with some embarrassment I blended in perfectly. My armpits already felt damp from the few flights of stairs I had just hiked up. I excuse-me’d my way past a group of women, all with brown hair and tousled bangs and heart lockets, and down the hallway towards the living room, where I could see the microphone set up for those chosen to read. To the left of the arched walkway was a staircase whose banister held an impressive amount of wool overcoats. I stepped past the crowd already forming and up onto the stairs, where I perched my own black overcoat at the very top, away from the rest.

It was a reading hosted and attended by writers from Ivy League MFA programs and I relished the people watching. In the kitchen, past the study and the library and the sitting rooms, there were piles of grapes falling perfectly from silver chalices, little pear tarts and multicolored cheeses. Most people held glasses of red wine cavalierly, gesturing about without somehow spilling it over the eggshell walls.

When the readings began and the Ivy League crowd bowed their heads, tittering politely at all the right moments and nodding profusely at the rest, I pinched the skin around my wrists to keep myself from falling asleep. The writing was probably very good but I have the audio attention span of a third grader and the Serious Literary charm was not strong enough for me to override it. Before I could start really worrying about falling asleep and tumbling down the stairs in a dramatic fashion, a fifty-something man whispered “Excuse me, sorry, I just need to— sorry. Just need to get my coat.”

He wormed his way through the crowd as a baritone voice monologued from the other room. If I had passed him in the hall, I would have assumed he was a professor of British-Literature-something-or-other. A very serious sort. But as I watched him start shuffling coats around carefully, giving a small cringe whenever the material made too much noise, I began to smile. At every shift in fabric, he’d pause, look around and mouth sorry before resuming his pawing. This continued for about five minutes, by which point I was fully invested in this man’s quest for hay in a haystack.

“What does it look like?” I whispered down to him, quietly rummaging through the coats next to me.

“It’s black.”

I looked at the pile before me and then back at him. “You’ll have to give me more than that.”

“It’s thick. And long. And kind of puffy but not a puffer.”

“... Right.”

We continued searching, other audience members joining us half heartedly. Suddenly, the pile of coats began sliding down the banister from where the man was too hasty with his removal of one from the bottom.

“Shit, shit, shit.” He tried in vain to grab them, to stop the disaster before it got too far. But it was too late. The avalanche picked up speed and in a loud whoomp, slid to the floor.

The reading stopped. All faces turned toward the man standing with a guilty look on his face, the linchpin coat hanging from his hands limply. The reader cleared his throat and continued. I was delighted. Here was a man who so easily inhabited the space we were in, so much so that I would have found myself feeling out of place striking up a conversation with someone who came across so highbrow, causing a scene the way I knew even I would’ve avoided. I wondered if he felt as out of place as I did. Then, with some alarm, I wondered if people looked at me and thought I belonged here.

There have certainly been times where I’ve inhabited the right clothes, the right countenance, the right way of walking to blend into whatever aesthetic I was currently trying on. I’ve always held out hope, though, that one day it would be possible to look the part and feel the part. That I may engage in a community and know that I belong to it just as it belongs to me.

Maybe, I thought on the long walk home later that evening, he’s also at those readings just for the vibes. Maybe he has some other space where he does fit in completely.

Determined to find something that both tickled my aesthetic proclivity and was enjoyable, when the Feburary Chess Club date was announced, I put it on my calendar without a second thought. Why wouldn’t I want to wear a turtleneck sweater and be illuminated by candlelight and sip sparkling water from a wine glass?

When the day came, I dutifully donned an all grey outfit, complete with loafers and a wristwatch, before I braced myself against the wind and hurried the two blocks down to the wine bar it was being held at.

The bar was packed despite being a few minutes into the event, people hunched over black and white boards, their chins propped on wrists. I hung my coat on a rack already adorned with wool in varying shades of black and positioned myself over a pair midway through a game. One of the players slid a horse-looking piece across the board and his opponent sucked in a breath, running a hand over the silver hair along his jaw. Uh oh, he’s not happy about that. I wracked my brain, trying to remember which pieces could move what ways and why Grey Beard was stressed. But despite my best efforts, I couldn’t help the yawn that escaped me, or the glazed look that I knew had made its way into my eyes.

Yet again, I liked the way the room looked but didn’t connect to the people creating the room itself.

You can drink from the vibe fountain only for so long before it demands some form of payment. Consistent attendance even when you don’t feel like it, making the extra effort to connect with the strangers around you, a commitment to being really bad at something before you get any better— you have to pay the price if you want to actually inhabit the identity. I could go to Chess Club as much as I wanted but until I actually put my head down to learn the game, played people seriously, spent time improving my game, I won’t really be a girl who plays chess. I’m just trying on the dress.

After tapping out an hour into Chess Club, I donned my scarf and slunk back out into the blustery wind for a State of The Union watch party and debate night happening a few blocks away.

The Bench, a coworking spot in Chinatown that happens to also be one of my favorite event venues, was doing most of the heavy lifting in curating the appropriate atmosphere. The five minute elevator ride to the sixth floor, operated by a short man named Philip who stands in the corner next to an ancient, rusty lever and cracks jokes every so often to dispel the awkward silence, sets the tone brilliantly. The venue itself is resplendent in orange retro-patterned booths, oak tables, a wall adorned with framed covers of JFK Jr’s iconic George magazine. An old TV in the corner was playing political speeches on a loop and wooden folding chairs situated in rows sat facing the front of the room, where two microphones waited patiently in front of a video camera. When I walked in, I was given a bingo sheet with predictions for the evening.

Bad Bunny slander. Calls a centrist Dem “radical”. Doesn’t mention Epstein. Both sides clap. Adds to alien discourse. Visible sweating.

I grabbed a sheet of sparkly star stickers to mark my bingo card and as I wound my way further into the room, I spotted piles of red, white, and blue beads available for the taking. I threw a few over my head and looked around. The crowd was not what I was expecting. There were stylish, tattooed people who look like they would have strong opinions on Chloe Malle’s appointment as the new Editor-in-Chief at Vogue weaving their way past vested Finance Bro caricatures in light blue button downs and brown brogue loafers. I spy a few salt and pepper heads among the mid-twenties to early-thirties crowd and two yippy little dogs.

I felt like a character in a nineties political drama. A little thrill went through me.

At last, after mingling and sniffing out the free pizza, we were called to find seats for the debate portion of the night. My Political Hot Take ballot remained empty in my hand— I’m far too intimidated to speak about politics in public— but I nearly tripped over myself in my eagerness to get a good seat. I wanted to hear something batshit crazy. I wanted to see a fist fight. I wanted someone to announce a mayoral campaign.

I was not disappointed.

“This person’s hot take is,” Grace, one of the moderators, paused and laughed, “Oh, this is good. They think we should liberate Mexico.” There was a collective burst of laughter from the crowd, mixed in with a few boo’s. Two voices bravely whoop’s in support.

Grace looked out at the crowd. “Okay, who wrote this? Who wants to defend their take?”

A short, young guy with his button-down tucked into grey khakis eagerly jumped out of his chair and hurried to the stage. There were already a few people heckling him. A man next to me stood up, arms crossed.

“Okay, okay, okay. Hear me out.” He delved into an explanation, complete with “It’s up to us to save them from their own corruption!” which received another roar of outrage, before trying to hand back the microphone to the hosts. Unfortunately for him, or maybe exactly as he wanted, there were already four people lining up to take the microphone and counter his argument.

Within five minutes the stage was overrun and people were shouting from the back of the room. “Okay, okay, moving on! Next: someone wrote Epstein is still alive. Who here agrees?”

More than half the room waved their mini American flag in assent. I was giddy, sitting back and watching the crowd. For a second, I considered what it would be like to work in politics. Maybe I should— I cut myself off before I could finish that thought. No, I told myself, you’re just getting romanced by the vibe. If there’s anything that should never be romanticized, it’s politics. But I also knew I didn’t belong here, not really. Despite a commitment to participating in elections and staying aware, I couldn’t name a city council member if my bingo card depended on it.

I left decorated in blue and white beads, and approximately zero new political convictions.

It’s a lot of fun to try on different ways of being. Sometimes it’s so much fun that I don’t let any stick before moving onto the next. Despite bouncing between subcultures all day, I still don’t feel like I belong to any of them. At work, sitting silently in team meetings where the rest of the engineers talk excitedly about AI and the future of computing, my mind drifts to the book I’m reading. At the pub on Sundays— a tradition started because I wanted a hit of whatever overtakes young men on the weekends to sit around for hours watching game after game— I enjoy the comforting sound of sportscasters in the background but barely register the score of whatever game is playing. The boxing gym might make me feel like Rocky Balboa but I find even that loses its luster after a few months.

But I was dangling from a single purple hold on the wall, my hand wet with stress-induced sweat, when I decided my need for aesthetic harmony might be going too far. Forgoing chalk for the sake of my black workout set was an idiotic move. God forbid I look all dusty.

“You have a foothold to your left!” Someone shouted from the ground.

“My—” I tried to look down but couldn’t see the wall, just the perilous drop. A fall that I knew was really only three feet. I kicked out blindly with one foot, trying to feel for something to latch onto. My hand was really starting to slip.

“Your other left!”

Oh. I stretched out my other foot and shifted my weight to the pinched toes that had somehow found purchase on a little stone-shaped hold I hadn’t seen on my way up. Not that I was really paying attention. I have a bad habit of clambering up the wall as fast as possible, not bothering to think about how the hell to get down. A bad pattern for someone who doesn’t like to drop from any height over twelve inches.

I made my way down to the ground and thanked the girl standing with her arms crossed, a gleam in her eye, dressed in head to toe vintage-looking Patagonia. She shrugged, “No problem. You probably would have found it without me.”

As soon as I stepped my foot off the mat she surged forward, grasping the starting hold of a red route— I was on green, the easiest— and began picking her way up the wall with a deftness I would like to imagine mirrors my own. On the way up, at least. Descending was always more of a crab-like movement, complete with a flush from the humiliation of dropping to the ground and occasionally falling flat on my ass when the mat gave away too easily.

That was the first time I set foot anywhere near a climbing wall since college, and it has felt like pulling teeth every time I’ve forced myself to go back. Not because I don’t like the act of climbing. The opposite, actually. As I watched the girl swing herself to a hold that I would have deemed impossible, I was grinning and hopping from one foot to the next, adrenaline making me eager to get back on the wall, to try again. I love to climb. The problem, I’ve decided, is that I don’t like the vibes of climbers.

As a vibes-driven person, this is causing extreme cognitive dissonance for me. I’m not sure if there’s a solution. For me to seek an activity out, there has to be some aesthetic appeal. Climbing, unfortunately, lacks that. I don’t like the chalky clothes. The shoes make my feet look too small. I hate that everyone seems to have a hive-mind obsession with Clif Bars. I don’t like the look of hanging from the wall, seconds away from pissing your pants. I don’t like seeing people’s armpits. I just can’t get behind the rock climbing vibes.

Climbing was in every way opposite to chess and politics and readings. It had the enjoyment I wanted, none of the vibes. I never wanted to be caught dead doing it.

I’m giving myself until twenty-seven to keep playing dress up before I get serious about any of them. That feels like an appropriate goalpost for now. Unless I decide that thirty-seven is actually much more realistic. Or I discover something sooner that makes me want to commit to the unshiny bits.

There is an old swimbag with fins and pull buoys in my closet, running shoes with a few hundred miles on them shoved beneath my bed, boxing gloves collecting dust on my shelves. I have old essays professing a deep interest in fashion and files upon files on my computer of abandoned design projects. In high school, my one act of rebellion against my parents was choosing to do the musical on top of swim team and lacrosse and club volleyball and Tuesday night engineering club. A long, glittering trail of things I loved the look of before I loved the thing itself. Sometimes I never get to the loving part.

One day you’ll see me bird watching with a pair of binoculars that are worn just enough that you’ll know I’ve been at it for awhile. I will have found my thing, or things, and maybe I’ll keep trying new ones just to keep it interesting.

Hey, stranger.

Since we spoke last, I:

1. Attended the G String’s screening of Dirty Cash and danced my little heart out on a Sunday at Jean’s. I love talented people and I love women and I love click-clack-ing around before a work week.

2. Saw some magicians at Time Again Bar. I need to stop choosing 69 as my number when they had me to pick one between 1 and 100. I can’t tell if they guess it because of magic or because it’s too obvious.

3. Went to Artists For Humanity’s fundraiser. They employ teen artists around Boston and New York and do some very cool work, plus they were selling some incredible art that made me slightly nauseous at the fact that some people are more talented at 15 than I ever will be.

I’m looking forward to:

1. Going to the JFK Jr. Lookalike Contest later today.

2. SPRING ISIN THE AIR!!!!!

3. I think I’m going to speak with an Irish accent all day for St. Patty’s day. I can’t wait. Talk about a vibes driven holiday.

xoxo,

Evie

Matt’s voice rang out through the auditorium but to no avail, as a second foam ball whizzed past me just inches from my face.

“And remember the rule! You can only hit men in the head, no one else!”

There was laughter from the sidelines but I knew we were all thinking the same thing: it was hopeless. The court had been overrun by the type of people who got weirdly sweaty and intense during gym class in middle school. There was a man clad in what appeared to be a black unitard, barefoot. The guy who threw the ball that I could still feel the imprint of on my chest was wiping the rivulets of sweat from his face.

The thing is, I have a little voice on my shoulder that starts shouting at inopportune times. I can’t tell if he’s an angel or demon. He has a twisted idea of fun and refuses to go away and has gotten me into sticky situations over the years. His only goal is this: a potentially embarrassing moment cannot pass without me first making it worse, then needing to yammer about it to anyone in my direct vicinity.

It was 8pm on a Thursday night in a YMCA gymnasium and naturally, we were playing dodgeball. Obviously, there was a giant punchbowl with spiked Gatorade being served. And before you really start to worry, of course there was also a microphone in the middle of the court. One by one, members from either team walked the gauntlet and read poems, personal essays, letters as the rest of us flung balls at each other in such a way that it was obvious most of the room had been picked last for any P.E activity.

My chest still stung from where the yellow foam ball had struck me, but like the men getting way too passionate about winning, I too was reverting back to my middle school ways. The little voice in my head had already started seducing me. I limped off the court and in a show of true drama, clutched my heart, slid to my knees and eventually onto my back. Eyes shut, I waited eagerly for the sounds of my friends’ laughter. When it came I felt the usual rush and popped back onto my feet, eager to go back into the fray.

All photos of me from that night show a girl who needs to learn how to pull her elbow back further when throwing a ball and who also lost her mind a little bit. I couldn’t help it. Something about the gymnasium lighting, the leg warmers I had chosen to wear, the smell of greasy pizza on paper plates and body odor, it was like I had been transported back into the body of thirteen year old Evie, that terror, and my one mission was the same: make my friends laugh at any expense.

Middle school brings a certain flavor of humiliation for most people. They might think of the awkwardness of puberty, a one sided crush, braces and acne and truly terrible fashion choices. But me? I think about The Letter.

The Letter refers to an incident in seventh grade where I crumpled up a piece of paper, rubbed dirt on it from the front yard, burnt the edges using a Yankee Candle, and in a show of true forgery mastery, wrote a letter to a classmate in shaky penmanship that I was an elf from Middle Earth. I wanted to be her friend and I thought if instead of a 13 year old girl who towered over every boy and had boobs before the rest of her friends, I was a magical creature who could talk to trees and used glamour to hide her more obvious elf features, it would somehow endear her to me. To prove it, I wrote, if you look closely you’ll notice my ears are ever so slightly pointed. I dropped the note in her locker one Thursday after class and hid down the hallway to see her reaction as she read it. I remember her brow furrowing deeper and deeper as she scanned the wiggly handwriting— I thought it would be more realistic if my penmanship was bad— before hastily shoving it in her backpack when a classmate asked what she was looking at. I stood in the hallway for a long moment after she walked away and felt the tingle of embarrassment creep up my spine. Surely she’ll say something tomorrow… In class I had seen her head bent downward as the teacher droned on, a fantasy novel hidden under her desk, just like me. But she never spoke of the letter to me.

Luckily for prepubescent-me, the second best outcome was still available: I could tell my friends at lunch the next day. I watched them all simultaneously cringe and then laugh at my increasingly embellished reenactment of the story.

I am not a performer but I’ve always been an entertainer. Dodgeball, beyond being the most fun I’ve had in weeks, was a rekindling of my childish urge to collect embarrassing moments to then repurpose for laughs. Since then it’s like I’m on a downward spiral and I can’t stop. The other little voice in my head that says hey, Evie, maybe that’s not such a good idea... has gone quiet.

That was the headspace I was in one Saturday morning. I had glanced at my reflection in a passing window, noting with some satisfaction that the dry, red patch of skin around my nose was starting to heal. Distracted, I nearly missed him.

In the nick of time, I looked up and made eye contact with the man walking toward me. Is that…? My heart started beating wildly in my chest. Oh my god. What do I do? Do I— no, I don’t want to be a freak. I cant’t… wait, but I have to. Charlotte will love this. With the thought of Charlotte’s reaction, I reached out and latched onto him by the bicep. Oh wow. Strong. My face was beet red already and I hadn’t uttered a single word.

“Hi. Sorry. Are you Cameron Winter?”

He stopped and looked down at where I was clutching him. I released him hastily. “Yes, I am.”

“I was just watching you… I mean my friends and I just watched your performance on SNL.”

“Oh.” He seemed to be waiting for me to make some sort of point and I opened my mouth but for the first time in many, many, years, I found I had no idea what to say.

“It’s nice to meet you…?” He trailed off and looked down the road, eager to get on with his day.

“No, don’t go!” This time, I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Sorry. Nice to meet you too but— anyway, we’re big fans. We love you guys. I think you’re great.” Suddenly, I couldn’t stop talking. “You sing me to sleep every night. Your songs, I mean. I love your voice. It— anyway, sorry. Have a good day!”

He had a small smile on his face, “You too.”

I practically ran away, crossing the street blindly, to the chagrin of an incoming taxi. “Sorry!” I grimaced at his horn blaring directly into my right ear and ripped off my gloves, texting my friends:

I JUST MET CAMERON WINTER OH MY GOD

Jess responded immediately: what the hell

what do you mean

evie what????

Two minutes later, I was in MJ’s apartment, making her stand in for Cameron as I reenacted our encounter for Charlotte. “And then I realized I was still clutching his jacket while he was obviously trying to walk away.” Charlotte was laughing so hard she was bent, wheezing. My heart rate still hadn’t gone down.

That story did numbers at each retelling. What I didn’t say, and probably won’t say, and am only admitting now because it’s been ten business days, is that his voice genuinely brings me great comfort. He does sing me to sleep every night. When I had gone to get my blood drawn just the other day, it was Love Takes Miles that I played in my headphones to distract me. The encounter became a funny story but there was a very real part of me that shied away from the idea that he might think I was a freak.

To chase away that joyous thought, every time I recreated the scene, I added details so unflattering to me that I sincerely started to believe I was going to receive a restraining order from Cameron within the week. It sustained me until a few days before Valentine’s Day.

I was at a sandwich shop that was serving aphrodisiac smoothies and whose tables were generously decked out in card making supplies for the upcoming holiday. There were pink paperlink chains hanging from the ceiling and my walk through the West Village had been decorated by charming, candle lit tables. I shared every crosswalk with someone holding flowers. I was feeling distinctly reckless and in the mood for something interesting to happen. The type of mood that makes me quite susceptible to the little devil’s ideas.

After a few hours of chatting people’s ears off, I had the brilliant idea to write a valentine to a new friend who also happens to be someone I admire professionally. A really good combination. He laughed when I gave it to him and handed me one in return.

“Don’t open it until I leave, I would throw up watching you read it.”

“Okay, deal.”

Things I like about you: I had written. Your last name. Can I have it?

I was pretty proud of myself for the cheekiness of my letter and had already reached a state of nirvana from my friend’s reactions. But when I opened his Valentine to me on the train, my friend and I craning our necks to read it, I wanted a sinkhole to hit New York and swallow me whole. You’re awesome! Keep doing you! It read. My jaw dropped and I felt a hot flash start in my chest. “Oh my god, Emmy.” She took the letter from my hands and read it, turning it over and back again. “That’s it?” We made eye contact and she let out a nervous giggle, “He’s going to be shocked when he reads yours.”

“I proposed to him! What the hell…. What was I thinking?” I unbuttoned the top of my coat, letting some of the stuffy train air cool my neck off. “I thought I was supposed to be cheeky but what if he thinks I’m actually in love with him?”

“He won’t.”

“Oh my god, what have I done?” I put my head in my hands. “I need to be locked away. I’m a predator.”

This made Emily laugh harder. “No, you’re not. I promise. He won’t think anything of it.”

Who knows if he thought anything of it. I forgot about the situation entirely because a few days later I was once again handing out candy necklaces, rings, heart shaped stickers with Kiss Me printed on them to anyone who was unlucky enough to cross my path. I even had little handwritten cards that read:

roses are red

violets are blue

i’m bad at poetry but i’d like to go out with you

In short, I was a menace. They might not have been letters professing a deep secret of me being a mythical creature, but even that idea was becoming less and less unfathomable to me. What if I ran that back… I thought, writing my number down on the fifth card, maybe that’s how I’m destined to meet my husband.

The little poems were fruitless and by the third time I proposed to a man with a cherry-flavored ring pop, I was bored of the bit. You can only be scared of something the first few times before it becomes stale. When I tell friends at dinner about how I asked someone to hire me at a Blokecore themed house party, distinctly not the vibe for networking, they always say “I cannot believe you did that.” And when we’re out and about, when an opportunity presents itself, they know I can be counted on to say fuck it and spend the night convincing people my name is Cigarette or hopping the barrier to dance on stage to Icona Pop’s I Love It or asking the people seated next to us if I can try a bite of their penne alla vodka.

The real monster under the bed for me is becoming an involuntary wallflower— so concerned about coming off the right way that I end up not making any impression at all. Or saying “oh, nothing” when someone asks me what’s new in my life. Or not being able to contribute anything around the dinner table when the food has been eaten and we’re leaning back in our chairs, letting the conversation putter around because we don’t want to say goodbye just yet.

I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing to be throwing myself around and at people for the off chance that something silly will happen. It certainly hasn’t hurt anyone or anything, beyond maybe my pride. After perfecting a routine of turning it into a bit to rip at parties and coffee dates, the actual feeling of embarrassment stopped happening to me. I can feel it there, like the imprint of a hand on a sheet, but never close enough to stop me.

*I think he actually said Substack star but Substack darling has a better ring to it…

Hey, stranger.

Here’s a few things I got up to this past month:

1. I went to The Bowery Review’s 3rd issue launch and I have not giggled out loud or sweat so profusely in recent memory. The latter is probably due to the 15 layers I chose to wear in Nightclub 101’s basement. That was on me. But the magazine is perfect and I love anything that makes me laugh, so I would highly recommend following, purchasing, supporting, etc. Maybe I’ll write something for the next issue…

2. D8 Time hosted a dating event at Funny Bar— where I have been known to clock in 6 hour shifts at— which made for quite the people watching and a perfect opportunity to get a fake tramp stamp. It took me days to finally scrub off.

3. Had many a friend over for coffee from my pink Smeg machine. The perfect hang.

4. Margaux hosted a pizza making night at Fini Pizza and I got to wear delicious little flats while eating delicious food while hanging out with delicious friends. Best Thursday night ever…

Things I’m looking forward to:

1. St. Patty’s Day

2. Taking myself out for chocolate chip pancakes post Othership visit… tell me your recommendations in NYC or send me your favorite recipe <3

3. The new puzzle Jess gave me for the nights I lock myself inside for forced rest and relaxation (Mom, I promise there will be more of these)

xoxo,

Evie

I move carefully anyway. Quietly. Try my best to minimize rippage.

I’ve spent more time in a hospital room over the last two months than the last two years combined. Where that might drive someone else crazy, getting poked and prodded over and over again, I’m different. I’m special. I have a specific brand of sadistic standards that mean I spend each appointment desperate to be the best patient they’ve seen that day.

“Do you drink?”

I smile. “No.”

“Any broken bones?”

My smile grows, “No.”

“Allergies?”

“Nope.” I pop the p at the end.

I try not to crane my neck to see their computer screen, hoping to see Evelyn: genetic miracle, so polite! scrawled in the notes. It hasn’t happened yet but each year that passes with no cavities, no broken bones, perfect nerve response, I’m almost positive I should be close to getting a gold star.

It is the same pride that I feel when gliding through airport security with a smile on my face and record-breaking speed, a holier-than-thou air about me. My need to be the nurse’s or TSA agent’s favorite distracts me from the objectively awful experience of surrendering control completely.

This particular winter brought me to the hospital more than usual. Not immediately life-threatening, but concerning enough to warrant back to back appointments, monitoring, more tests. Concerning enough that I found myself worried I would not be able to participate in life the way I wanted to.

Luckily for me, the universe gifted me with a hot doctor. His attractiveness was probably skewed by the fact that I go weak in the knees for a man in uniform. This meant that I may have found myself drifting through the fluorescent hallways with dried tears on my cheeks and bandages along my forearms from getting blood drawn, but I still got butterflies in my stomach at each appointment added to my calendar. Maybe this time he’ll ask me what I do for work and I can tell him I also work in the medical field… I thought to myself before each appointment, smiling as I passed by nurses I’d begun to recognize. I was desperate for my test results to show any improvements, waiting with bated breath for his phone call where he’d say “Wow, I’ve never seen such steady liver enzyme levels.” It never came.

Disappointed by the lack of romance between us, I kept myself entertained by people watching in waiting rooms. A man in a suit and briefcase reading the news on his phone, who offered up his seat to a pregnant woman when she walked in. The little boy with a cast on his arms who offered me a pen to sign his cast with. There was an old woman comforting her daughter one day, who I saw a few more times sitting alone reading Happy Place by Emily Henry. By the fourth week, I’d started nodding at her when we crossed paths. She’d smile back, mark her page, and we’d exist in that peculiar intimacy of waiting room regulars who never exchange names. While filling up her water, a pretty woman with curly hair accidentally stepped in the path of a passing doctor, knocking his coffee cup. She apologized profusely as he dabbed up the spilled liquid with the bottom of his scrubs. My heart sank when my name got called and I wasn’t able to watch the rest of their meet cute unfold.

It was jarring the first time I saw that same business man—the one who’d given up his seat—with his head in his hands as I left one day, passing a few nurses chain smoking cigarettes. He was crying openly. I wanted to stop, to say something, but what do you say to a stranger’s grief? I kept walking, thinking about the image of his collapsed posture all the way to the parking lot. Later that week, I jumped in my seat when I heard a whoop of delight and saw two teenagers smiling over a stack of papers in the Starbucks lounge. Next to them was an off duty security guard fast asleep, an empty coffee cup before him. No one seemed very concerned about being presentable.

Sitting once more on that damned 1-ply bedsheet, I asked the nurse disinfecting my arm if she ever drew a celebrity’s blood.

She laughed, “No. It wouldn’t make a difference, though.”

“What do you mean?”

She didn’t look up as she unwrapped a long needle from its package. I looked away and took a deep breath, reminding myself it would only be a little prick. “They’re just another patient at the end of the day. I might gossip with my coworkers after they leave but I would treat them the same.”

“Are you ever impressed with someone who has a perfect medical record?”

“There’s no such thing as a perfect medical record,” she replied. “There’s no good or bad.”

I tried to hide my disappointment that all my efforts to be the perfect patient probably went unnoticed, or uncared about. The needle slid into my vein and I flinched, sucking in a deep breath.

“Okay, well are you impressed when people don’t flinch from needles?”

“Are you asking because you just flinched?”

“No, no! I’ll always flinch. I just want to know if I lose points for doing so.”

She patted my arm reassuringly, “Don’t worry. If you ever feel self conscious, just remember we’ve probably seen way worse.”

She pressed a cotton ball to the crook of my elbow and I held it there, thinking about how embarrassed I’d been every time I cried during a medical procedure, turning my head away in a vain attempt to hide.

My December and January passed in a fluorescent lit blur until finally, in late January, I was able to fly back to New York. The day before a blizzard, no less. As I dazzled the agents with my security prowess—only to be pulled aside and searched because I stupidly packed cinnamon in my carry on (idiot!)—I found myself once again enthralled by the argument of the couple in front of me, the ambiguous flirtation between pilots walking step in step across the concourse. People who can let the world observe their vulnerable moments fascinate me. I’ve never been one of them—or at least, I’ve never wanted to be. In the airport, like the hospital, everyone is witness to how well you can handle bad news, inconveniences, anxiety. There are no gold stars for enduring it well.

Off the plane, after hauling my luggage down the subway stairs, I collapsed into an open seat and found myself fighting back tears. I was exhausted, nervous to reenter life as I left it, annoyed at the broken wheels of my roller suitcase. Around me, people were facetime family members with the volume on full blast, scrolling through TikTok videos about sex advice, sprawled out with groceries and rash medicine on full display. It was not so different from the hospital hallways and airport gates. And maybe it was the reassurance that nothing I could do would draw attentions from New Yorkers, or maybe it was the fact that there was a woman in tears arguing with her boyfriend, but I let myself cry, not doing anything to hide it.

I wiped my face with my sleeve and felt neither better nor worse, just tired.

Back in the city, my week was a blur of hauling boxes and trash bags full of clothes up and down flights of stairs. Because obviously I had signed a lease and set a moving date for the day after I flew in. When Tuesday rolled around, I was over being drained and emotional and stressed. I wanted to feel perfectly put together again. Luckily I had thought ahead and sent the invitation to a single’s chess event to my girlfriends. What better way to be performatively perfect than a dating event? If hospitals and public transit were respites for people to strip back the performance of being a put together person, speed dating was surely a stage. After work, I threw open my closet doors with glee. Finally I could wear something other than sweatpants and a hoodie.

The event was five floors up, a warm yellow glow greeting me at the top from candles lit atop an entry table. There was a stack of little notecards that read I like the way you move and I’ve been checking you out, with a space to write your name. I snagged a few, delighted at the concept of giving a valentine to someone. I was wearing a polka dot dress, my hair was cooperating for once, and the lipstick I had chosen wasn’t washing me out. I was presentable, finally.

I pushed my way through the throng of people and black wool clothes piled on top of each other along the wall and was greeted with a row of tables, each boasting an impressive amount of chess boards and players bent over them, heads close together. At each game there stood a few spectators watching over their shoulder or chatting with wine in their hands. I saw girls tucking and untucking their hair behind their ears, guys swallowing visibly before approaching someone, friends standing in clusters in the corner and watching the room.

In the chaos of people mingling, a man approached me— one who knew how to play chess. I pounced on the opportunity to learn.

“Are you any good?” I asked, suspicious.

“I mean, I’m not bad.”

“You could say you were and I wouldn’t know the difference, to be fair.”

We found an open board in the corner and my first match officially began. Immediately, I moved a rook diagonally.

“You can’t do that.”

I crossed my arms. “Why not?”

“You just can’t.”

The rest of the game passed in a similar fashion: me forgetting each piece’s specific movement pattern, making a play in either five seconds or five minutes depending on the vibe, and finally surrendering to checkmate with my king backed into a corner. I was not a secret prodigy the way I hoped but like a dog after a bone, I knew I’d sign up for Chess.com later that night until I was.

After my defeat and joining my friends to where they were enjoying free wine from the bartender they charmed, I found myself next to two guys who were laughing uproariously at something. I nudged one of them, “can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” The shorter of the two turned to face me.

“What brought you guys here tonight? The chess or the dating?”

“Neither. We actually met at a speed dating event the other week,” He nodded to his friend. “Us and a few guys from that night have been hanging out ever since. We just go to whatever is happening.”

“Did you meet anyone at speed dating? Or you just made friends?”

“No, no, I met someone I dated for a few weeks. But the friends have just lasted longer.”

I laughed, “That’s awesome.”

“What about you?”

“Oh, I’m just here to observe. And play chess.”

“You seem like you don’t need help meeting people.”

I hesitated for a moment but shrugged. “Yeah, not really.”

When I first walked in, I was half convinced everyone would take one look at me and know that I hadn’t worn makeup or a bra in forty days. I hadn’t flirted in double that. The last month of my life probably should have taught me something about vulnerability and not winning any awards for being in perfect control. But the truth is, I like being On. I like knowing what to expect. I like environments where I can control how I’m perceived. And standing amidst the crowd in my polka dot dress, I couldn’t help the sigh of relief I felt at being able to do so again.

That evening after the chess event, I curled up under my duvet and let out wet, heaving sobs. They were tears of relief that I got to come back to this: an apartment with my name on the lease, my clothes, my friends, my stuffed animals. Relief that I do not have to stay in limbo forever, that there is a return eventually. I’m back. My health is top priority and I will have to chip away at healing, piece by piece, but as long as I still get to participate in my life, it feels achievable. There are no gold stars waiting for me except the ones I give to myself in moments I feel my best. Which is always around people, in the city, starting conversations with strangers or going for long runs and feeling strong or getting coffee with a friend.

I do not believe in God but I found myself sending out a message to whatever force governs this universe and has put the pieces in place so that I am here now, in this city, in this year, with these people: thank you, thank you, thank you.

Hey, stranger.

Sorry for the trauma dump but January came in hot! I hope you’re doing well.

I’ve been doing my best to stay informed, attend protests, and fight for the rights of immigrants in the US. I find the actions of our government and ICE utterly reprehensible. Here are some resources I’ve found particularly helpful:

• Minnesota Immigrant Rights Resources

• Immigrant Defense Project

• Protect and Defend Immigrant Communities

I believe we all have a responsibility to pay attention and act in accordance to what we value and the type of country we want to be a part of. Do what you can, show up when you can, and keep yourself educated.

xoxo,

Evie

During my workout, when grabbing a pair of dumbbells, I noticed my knuckles had cracked and the skin between them was red and raw. In the mirror, my attention snagged on the redness of my nose from constant snot dripping down, my chapped lips, the blueness of my veins through skin that somehow lost all of its summertime tan in record time. The edge of my nostril had split from blowing my nose too many times and I could feel where the scab would form by tomorrow.

The problem is that there is nothing more sickening to me than the sensation of lotion on fabric. I knew without a doubt that I would rather walk around in a cloud of dead skin like a calcified mummy than ever slide between my sheets at the end of the day with moisturized legs. I hurried home, a walking husk, googling cheap flights to tropical locations.

I genuinely don’t think it’s possible to feel sexy in the winter. When I work up the courage to leave my apartment in the evenings, I am 15 layers deep and so tightly swaddled in wool that I can’t fathom any sort of looseness. I sit in bars still half bundled, shivering long after coming in from the cold. My skin is pale and lifeless, lips chapped and dry, hair limp and tangled.

What I didn’t expect is how much this would shrink my world. Not feeling sexy, not feeling much like myself at all, really, is more detrimental than you’d think. All summer long I felt buoyant from the small ways I felt completely and totally inhabited in my body. A healthy dose of feeling yourself, of catching a glimpse of your face in a passing window and thinking well, I look rather chic, of making eye contact with someone in a bar and giving a little smile, is good for the soul. It keeps you open. Loose.

But now the last shred of any allure I gave off has fled with the early setting sun. I’ve started dreading evening invitations, plans that require me to be outside longer than 10 minutes. Every date ends with me shaking my leg impatiently, wanting to get out of the cold. I barely glance behind me at the poor guy who was unlucky enough to meet me post-September before bidding them a goodnight and racing up my stairs, slamming my space heater’s level to MAX HEAT and curling into a ball on my bed. I don’t like this version of me.

The following Thursday, after shivering my way down into a bar in the West Village and begging the bartender to make me something non-alcoholic and warm— “you mean… like tea?”— Jane texts me my friend and I are going to her dad’s concert tonight, you should come.

I check how long it’ll take me to get there. Twenty minutes. I open the weather app. 22° but feels like 8°. Awesome.

But I think about how going home to hide would feel and although I can handle dry shins, I can’t handle a small life. i would love nothing more, I respond.

In the summer, I loved slinking up and down the subway stairs in my silk skirts. This evening, the icy blast of December air that hits me as I hunch my shoulders, walking to the venue, is a cruel reminder that I couldn’t slink, sidle, or prowl even if I wanted to. Still, I hurry across town.

After throwing our coats, wool sweaters, scarves, gloves, and hats in a haphazard pile along the benches within the venue, I follow Jane and Bella to the front of the crowd where a group of women in their 50s— groupies or wives of the band members, it was hard to tell— are ready and waiting. At the first strum of the guitar, they begin jumping up and down, screaming along to the lyrics, letting their bodies fly back and forth. I had never seen such energy at 7:30pm on a Thursday.

Despite my pants pinching my waist with the two layers of thermals underneath, I’m determined not to be out-danced. I fling myself into the circle, letting my hips sway with the drums. The bass rumbles in my chest and for the first time in weeks, I feel a stirring in my chest. We dance for the entire set, jumping at the choruses, singing along even when I don’t know the words, twirling around each other in a glorious circle. I throw my arms up and revel in the unencumbered feeling of wearing just a cotton top, no heavy fabric constricting my movement.

Jane looks over at me. “More of this!” She said, eyes wide. “Dancing is a mandatory 3 times a week activity in the winter.”

“Yes, yes, yes!” I shout back, gleeful. More being around people, sweating profusely in the wool sweater you wear because it’s 18° out. More being the only ones below fifty-five in the room. More saying yes to random invitations. More seeing people perform and be supported and dancing like maniacs. More fun, even on school nights.

I don’t need to feel sexy to have fun.

After my back eventually gave out from head banging to REM covers, we scramble up the stairs and onto the street. Cigarettes are lit, scarves pulled over ears, our breath billowing out in frosty clouds as we debrief our week. Eventually, when the air became too frigid to stand in much longer and my toes were sufficiently frozen into numb blocks, I said my goodbyes and headed off into the night.

On the train back uptown, I watched the women in fur coats sitting across from me. They emit enough of an aura of glamour that I smile to myself. Maybe winter won’t be so bad after all, I thought, I just need a fur coat. After all, I might have to vacuum after taking off my 15,000 layers but at least I could still go dancing. At least I could wear my fur hat and wool scarf and wrap my hands around hot mugs of tea. That was its own type of sexy, right?

Lost in thought, when the train lurches to my stop, I glance over to my left and start. There, staring straight at me, is a friend I had only just canceled plans with earlier that day. He points at me.

“You.”

“You.”

We walk up the subway stairs and out onto the street, our chins tucking into our jackets in unison as a blast of icy air hit us. There is a pause in conversation and just as I am about to say goodnight and turn for home, he turned to me.

“Want to come to Othership? I think they have loaner swimsuits.”

I shrug. The Othership saunas have always intrigued me and I’m still riding the high from dancing. “How can I say no?”

As it turns out, the loaner swimsuits at Othership more closely resemble sacks than anything else. In the dim lighting of the locker room, I stare at my reflection. I look like fucking Dobby The Elf. The last available suit is evidently too big for me. It hangs off my frame in potentially the most unflattering way I could imagine— the back billowing out in what can only be described as gunny-sack-esque. The type of swimsuit worn by 85 year old women and newborn children, where it could conceivably hide a diaper beneath its swath of fabric.

Any of the lingering sexiness I had grasped at the concert vanishes instantly. Oh, well. It’ll be dark…

Unfortunately, it is not as dark as I’d hoped. I walk into the main room, the purple and orange light casting an eerie glow on the patrons lounging along the wooden amphitheater benches. Seeing my friend, I head his way and accept a boiling tea. I bring it up to my face and breathe in the steam.

“You know,” he eyes the swimsuit hanging loosely from my body. There is definitely a breeze down where there should not be a breeze. “I think that’s genuinely the most unflattering swimsuit I’ve ever seen.”

I roll my eyes. “Well, thank you.”

“I’m serious. It’s awful. You look like a poor Victorian ghost.”

I start laughing and he continues. “You look like a child beggar from Oliver Twist. A female Gollum.”

I walk to the saunas while he trails behind. “A ghost of Christmas past!”

The saunas are sweltering. We find a corner and talk in low voices. After 15 minutes, I can barely focus on the topic at hand, convinced approximately 70% of my body’s water content has evaporated. I interrupt him mid sentence, “I— sorry. I’m about to pass out.”

“Let’s go. Time for the worst part.”

He leads me to the cold plunge room. Light from the sconces along the wall bounce off the various pools around the room. To my right, a woman lays submerged in a narrow rectangular pool, her head leaning against the lip, eyes closed. I watch closely to make sure she’s breathing. She is. I breath out a sigh of relief. Across from her, 3 men stand around a larger tub, watching it apprehensively. They spot me staring and nod toward the water.

I walk toward them. “Are you all preparing yourselves? Or waiting for me?”

“We’ll follow your lead.”

I look to the wall and note the 40 degree temperature level. “Oh, Jesus.”

A few staggering breaths escape me before I swing my legs in and crouch below the surface of the water. Oh, fuck me. Oh, this is hell. What kind of psychopaths do this for fun. Oh, this is miserable. The guys jump in around me, stretching out their legs and getting comfortable.

“Let’s do 3?” one of them says.

“3? 3 seconds?” I can barely get out the words. He just laughs.

I stay submerged for all of 5 seconds, my breath coming out in short gasps, before deciding I can’t stand it any longer. “Okay, my 3 seconds are up. See you guys later.”

I’ve never leapt out of a body of water as fast, the loaner suit holding onto nearly a gallon of water as I haul myself out. I flatten it to my stomach in a hurry to stop my entire chest from being exposed and splash water loudly along the wet tile. A few patrons look over, annoyed at the interruption from their meditative state. I mouth sorry! and run to a bench, wrapping a towel around my shoulders.

But the strangest thing happens. Instead of body chills and a brain freeze, my limbs feel detached from my body. There's a suspension, like when you take headphones off and the silence feels louder than the music did. My friends comes over and sits beside me, grinning. “Feels great, right?”

I nod and lean my head back against the wood plats. Curious, I try wiggling my toes and am delighted at how foreign it feels. Some of the tension that's made a home along my spine from tensing against the icy weather has dissipated.

We go back into the sauna and again into the cold plunges a few more times, until the staff kicks us out. I head back to the locker rooms and rip the gunny-sack off my body, shaking out my thermals before sliding them on my raw, tender skin. I feel like a newborn baby.

Walking back out onto the street, freshly showered and smiling, I turn to my friend. “I think I might be a convert.”

Never in my life did I think the cold plunge crowd would get me.

“Careful, you’ll start doing ayahuasca and saying things like yeah, but did you show up as your most authentic self in conversation.”

“I can’t wait. New year, new me.”

Safely tucked back into bed, unmoisturized and unbothered by it, I surrender myself to the fact that I may spend my winter standing ashy and knobby knee-d in a grey windsail of a suit, my skin pale and flecked with goosebumps. I might not feel sexy until May. I might not fall in love or get scouted or win an award for Most Charming. But I refuse to let the plummeting temperatures and early sunsets take me away from my body. If I can’t have bronzed skin and pliant muscles, if my body is determined to be dry and sore and stiff, if I look like I haven’t seen the sun in years, then the only solution is to do whatever it takes to feel alive, electric. Dancing body to body in a dark room. Submerging in ice baths. Saying yes when spontaneity is offered.

Hey, stranger.

Some notable updates:

• Arden and I hosted a closet sale at The Bench in December. We got to meet so many of you and it was a blast. I bought more clothes than I sold, unfortunately, so maybe we’ll have to do it again…

• Emily wrote about 2026 being the year of the party reporter. If you’re hosting anything fun, invite me. I don’t drink and love to pull a Cinderella (Irish goodbye and in bed by 1am) but I promise to bring a certain joie de vivre to the function.

• My annual Lord of the Rings > Hobbit > Harry Potter rewatch extravaganza has started. This has no impact on anyone else whatsoever but it’s huge for me.

And lastly, here’s what’s keeping me warm this winter:

• Wool scarf from Uniqlo. And Heattech leggings.

• A knit hood. I’ve been eyeing this one and these from Julia Machi.

• My favorite tea.

• Curling up under a blanket and doing puzzles or learning to crochet. Too bad I can’t generate a ShopMy link for that.

• A good pair of black jeans.

• A vintage Air Force bomber jacket. You can find a similar one here or here.

• Inheriting hand-me-down sweaters from friends. I love to trade clothes with my friends and then see beloved items get a second life.

I hope that you’re staying cozy, wherever you are. Maybe you’re one of those rare people who come alive in the winter. If you are, I don’t want to hear about it. If you’re like me, though, and always struggle this time of year: I am rooting for you. Maybe buy a sunlight lamp. Celebrate Valentine’s Day and St. Patty’s Day extra hard to distract yourself. Get into pears and root vegetables and peppermint mochas. Buy a sauna membership. White knuckle it until April, we’re almost there.

xoxo,

Evie

This fall, Hinge collected the following data points:

72% of Gen Z men have felt pressured to make the first move

85% Gen Z daters say thoughtful questions increase the chance of a second date

62% of heterosexual and 61% of LGBTQIA+ Gen Z daters feel they ask enough questions on a first date. But only 30% of heterosexual and 25% of LGBTQIA+ Gen Z daters feel like their dates ask enough questions.

Gen Z daters are 36% more hesitant than millennials to begin a deep conversation on the first date.

I knew this called for Boots On The Ground reporting. Initially, I thought I’d just ask my matches on Hinge or anyone I was interested in to take me on their ideal first date. Surely initiating and leading with a personal question would solve the issue of connection Gen Z seems to be having, I reasoned. But after the 76th dinner, then a comedy show at the cellar answer, I had a brilliant idea and a change of plans. Why pay for a show when I could get it for free?

I knew exactly who to ask.

“I need you to set me up with a male comedian.” I told Anna, blowing the steam off of my scalding coffee. We were seated in a hotel lobby on a blustery November afternoon, our scarves still on and cheeks red from the cold. I had met Anna, a stand up comic and brilliant writer, at a house party two weeks prior and we fell in love the second she told me her writing style is like if Nora Ephron and Camus had a baby.

She gasped and nodded solemnly, “if there is one thing I can do for you, it’s introduce you to men in comedy.”

“Perfect.”

That afternoon, I sent off my DM’s to the comedians she suggested, asking to take them on a date. I am no stranger to making the first move, but reaching out to strangers about a sponsored date assignment still made me shudder. Before hitting send, I reminded myself: most men probably would appreciate not having to initiate, regardless of whether or not they were interested.

Slowly but surely, responses trickled in. Some thought I was too young, some didn’t want to be written about. But Jared responded with:

That sounds like fun. When?

Well, what’s your ideal first date? I texted back.

Why would I use my ideal date on you? Let’s get a drink at Ding-A-Ling?

2 minutes later: I don’t drink so don’t feel weird.

oh, I don’t drink either

Let’s get dessert then? This place? He sent a link.

YES to dessert… I paused for a moment, my thumbs posed over the keyboard. I thought about Hinge telling me to flip the script, to lead instead of follow. but can we get this banana bread i’ve been eyeing for weeks instead?

That’s my favorite type of bread, so yes

And that was that: date set.

When we sat down at our table, the yellow light along the covered patio casting a warm hue over us, I realized I knew nothing about him beyond the fact that he was a comedian. Hinge’s data told me that half of women my age wait for the guy to initiate deeper conversations. Not tonight. I took a steadying breath and told myself to ask whatever popped into my head.

“How old are you, by the way?” I asked, rearranging my napkin along my lap to settle my nerves. Sweat was pooling under my armpits; I was somehow too hot and too cold at once.

“How old do you think I am?”

“Twenty-six?”

“Let’s go with that.”

“Okay, very ominous start. How old do you think I am?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Let’s go with that.”

He laughed, then nodded at the menu in front of us.

“You do realize that you asked me to take you on my ideal first date but then just took me where you wanted to go, right?”

“You said you wouldn’t waste a perfect first date on me so…” I trailed off. “What’s the worst thought you’ve had today?” I asked.

“That’s your next question? Ask another. I don’t like that one.”

Oh. So much for asking thoughtful questions, I thought.

“Fine. Can you read?”

He jerked his head toward his bag sitting next to me.

I scoffed, “you did not bring a book to this date.”

“I swear to God. Look inside.”

Lo and behold, nestled between Aquaphor, a half finished knitting project, a tissue, and a guest checkbook was a paperback I’d seen in bookstores under signs that read Transform Your Life or Unlock Your Potential. Of course it’s a self help book, I thought. I pulled out the checkbook. “What’s this for?”

“That’s where I write my jokes— wait, so what’s your biggest insecurity? Sorry, I’m very ADHD.”

“I pieced that together.” The girls next to us let out a peal of laughter, hunched over one of their phones. I glanced over, distracted.

“Are you as well?”

“No, no, I’m just an empath. If you have ADHD, I also will have ADHD while we’re together.”

“How considerate of you.” We both look as the doors of the kitchen swing open from our server. He’s carrying a mug, no banana bread in sight. Jared looks back at me, “Okay, what were we talking about?”

“No idea.”

“Alright. This is going great.”

“I can leave, actually. Screw the essay.”

“No, no. This is great. You think I’m twenty-six.”

“That was an educated guess.”

“Based on what?”

“My eyes.”

“I wouldn’t call that an educated guess, that’s… like—”

“Just a guess, actually.”

“Yeah.”

There’s a motion to my left and I glance up as our server sets down our banana bread, topped with vanilla ice cream and caramelized bananas. We waste no time snatching up our spoons and chipping off hunks of the warm dessert.

It’s gone in 4 minutes. “At least we’re both dessert people,” I said.

We spend the next hour only half finishing conversations, starting another, then looping back to them 10 minutes later. I learned he always orders vanilla ice cream, cherry dipped, with rainbow sprinkles. He learned that my left ear sticks out further from my right— we got back around to insecurities— and that I always order something different on the menu. We both learned that spumoni is cherry, pistachio, and chocolate, after heated debate.

After dessert, we stop by CVS and pick out candy. Plain M&M’s for me, Milk Duds for him, Sour Patch watermelons to share. We pop them in our mouths as we walk down to the bar he has friends at.

“My buddy from high school owns it,” he said. “We used to ditch school together.”

“And that was… what? ten years ago? Fifteen?”

“Good try. I’m still twenty-six.”

“Oh, god, you’re forty aren’t you?”

“If I am, I look damn good for forty.”

We end up crashing a Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pepper party— the host made us pose with a pepper that had been in way too many places— and eventually our date comes to an end.

Jared hugged me. “In the essay, make sure to include the fact that I refilled your water and knew the owner of the bar and opened the doors for you. Chivalry isn’t dead, you know.”

“Did you get that?” I pretended to speak into my phone. “Make it very clear that Jared is a perfect gentleman.”

Headed to find the rest of my friends who are a few blocks up, I felt surprisingly victorious. The thrill of asking first, of focusing so much on the probing questions I didn’t stop to consider if they were too probing, all led to the realization that dating follows the same rules as everything else in life: if you want something, you have to go out and get it for yourself. It’s not as complicated as we make it out to be.

Waiting to be approached, to be asked the right question, to be noticed in a crowded room is… just waiting. If 42% of women feel men don’t want deep conversations on early dates, yet 65% of men say they do want meaningful chats, then most of our hesitations come down to misreading one another.

So send the text. DM your crush. Ask the risky question. Tell the man at the bar you think he’s handsome. If nothing comes of it, at least you’ve proven to yourself you’re capable of courage and that, dear reader, will give you more confidence than any person ever could. And if you need a little push? Well, that’s what Hinge’s data is for. Turns out, the person across from you probably wants the same things you do.

Hey, stranger.

Thank you to Hinge for sponsoring this essay! I never write about dating but felt like this was the perfect opportunity. You can read the full 2025 Gen Z D.A.T.E Report here.

And thank you for Jared who so graciously said yes to me taking him on a date and writing about it. I’m happy to say that he is actually funny and not just an Instagram comedian.

I did in fact wake up with a sore throat from that pepper but such is life. Send me alllll of your best date stories, times when you made the first move, best places to get banana bread in nyc, etc.

xoxo,

Evie

We (Evie and Arden) are so thrilled to invite you to our holiday closet sale with your favorite writers on Substack. Come hang out with us on December 13, from 12:00 to 4:00pm at The Bench.

Our lineup of vendors includes: , , , , , , , , and .

We’ll be selling clothes, shoes, jewelry, homeware, and other little treasures. Do your holiday shopping secondhand! Buy something for yourself!

This event is free to attend, and we’re hosting it in collaboration with Partiful and .

RSVP ON PARTIFUL HERE!

See you so soon!

<3 Arden and Evie

P.S the first 30 guests to arrive will receive a little gift bag including our favorite goodies from brands like Raazi Tea and Celisse…

The secret is this: a few weeks ago on a very unassuming Sunday morning, I did my first pull up. Actually, 3 of them. I collapsed from the bars and fell to my knees in shock. I always thought pull ups were a thing of myths, the type of achievement I could maybe hope to accomplish at 30 or some other far away future. Surely not at 24 after staying up until 2am and eating half a box of Annie’s birthday cake bunnies. But alas, the human body will shock you.

Now I shake people’s hand when I meet them with a firm grasp and try to convey without saying it that yes, this is the handshake of a girl who can lift her body weight 3 times over. Take it in. Having a secret feels good. It feels thrillingly illegal to harbor a little smirk in the corner of the room, to think to myself no one at this reading in this random English pub in FiDi knows I have serious rear deltoid strength.

As it happens, having a secret is all part of my plan to bring mystique back into my life. A plan so important to me that at a Substack x Partiful State Of The Union On Socializing event, I insulted Partiful to their face.

Arden and I walked in 30 minutes late, up 6 flights of stairs and over a few piles of wooden planks, to find the venue already packed. People were dressed in their best rendition of Office Chic, which meant a fair amount of neck ties over tank tops, button downs, wireframe glasses. I glanced down at my own black button down with a wince. At least I’m on theme.

We wandered our way through the various rooms, swiping very fun party favors of mugs that read Thot Leadership and branded pins, before stopping in front of a ballot box next to a stack of paper and pencils. The prompt read:

Write your hot take on the state of partying in NYC. I thought for a moment before writing: Partiful isn’t sexy enough.

Do you want to testify? Yes.

A mistake on my part.

After a Q&A with , host of , the moderator began reading some of the hot takes. I realized far too late that standing in front of 200 people to testify against the brand who was so graciously throwing the event was probably not a good idea. With a pit in my stomach, I sat rigidly and hoped my ballot was deep, deep at the bottom of the pile.

“Oh this one is funny” she huffed a laugh. “She thinks Partiful isn’t sexy.”

Fuck me.

There are a few snickers and more than a few boos in the right corner. “Evie, do you want to come up and defend your take?”

I could feel Arden staring at the side of my head, daring me to go up. I swallowed and stood, made my way to the front of the room, took the microphone.

“Um. First of all, I’m so sorry to Partiful.” I squinted against the lights, looking to the direction where the team was sitting. I cleared my throat. “What I meant is that there isn’t enough mystique anymore. In general, I mean. I don’t want to see a guest list, I don’t want all the information presented to me about a party. I want to leave my house not knowing how the night will end up, what the vibe is, who will be there. I miss the days of a single text with a location and time. I miss wondering if my crush is going to be there.”

I find that I mean what I’m saying, even though I wrote it as a joke. Too often I find myself in itineraries that leave no room for experimentation, a night playing out exactly the way I thought it would. And I love knowing what to expect. The problem is that I love it so much that I’m afraid it’s diluting the possibilities of what I could be experiencing. I will avoid certain activities, venues, whole activities based on whether or not I enjoyed myself the last time, leaving no room for 2nd or 3rd chances. Even when those chances may very well redeem the whole thing.

Take, for example, my Thursday evening. I had invited two girls I met at the Partiful event to hop around some gallery openings in Chelsea. An activity I’ve done countless times before, to varying degrees of enjoyment. When 6:30pm came around and I was shoveling the last remnants of my dinner into my mouth as I hurled myself down 9th Avenue, I found myself wishing I had just asked them to drinks instead. I really hope the exhibits don’t suck this time, I whined to myself, sidestepping a stroller with a baby in teddy bear pajamas tucked inside, if they do, I’m declaring gallery hopping an enemy of the state and never doing it again. I had already assumed the openings would be underwhelming, scarred from my last few attempts.

To my delight, the first two we wandered into were stunning. Pastel canvases with gay porn screen printed over the top, whorls of flowers painted intricately over the more intimate scenes. Vibrant, handrawn colored pencil drawings of people running down fields, cars along an open road, a couple intertwined along a bridge. We bopped in and out of a few showrooms along with the rest of the crowd before walking to the Gagosian on 24th.

There was a line down the block, but on principle I didn’t spare a second glance at the queue. I walked straight in, the bouncer raising a hand to stop me for all of 2 seconds before waving me forward. We were greeted with the usual scene: faces adorned with vibrant chunky glasses, long fur coats, a lot of black leather, clothes that closely resemble a pile of fabric draped mysteriously over shoulders, film cameras slung over necks, vibrantly colored scarves. My breath caught when I saw the first painting— an acrylic base of beautiful pastels inlaid with a rich metallic threading of paint. To the left, a sculpture of a woman with her arm flung over her eyes towers over the crowd. She looked dipped in liquid gold but I as I got closer, I could see the metallic coating painted faintly with red on her cheeks, blue around the creases of her dress, green and yellow flowers at her feet.

“Well, this is definitely the most impressive opening I’ve been to.” I murmured to Eliana.

She laughed, “Are they usually this… grand?”

“Hell no. One time the entire exhibit was just a dark room with nothing in it except a man dressed in all black sitting in the corner, moaning.” I paused, suddenly paranoid I might accidentally insult a passing artist. I lowered my voice. “This is a different caliber altogether.”

We ducked and sidestepped our way through the crowd, our collective jaws falling open further and further as we took in each painting, the accompanying sculpture.

Eventually I lost track of my friends, distracted by a conversation with a very flamboyant man who spent 20 minutes waving his arms expressively at me, pointing out the hidden patterns in each painting.

“Don’t you see?” He asked, eyes wide. “It’s all connected. It’s brilliant, just brilliant.”

He turned to grab a passing acquaintance and I pivoted, craning my neck, trying to spot a glimpse of Shelby’s bright pink bag. All of a sudden I saw a blonde bob approaching. My gaze drifted downwards and I registered the dark black sunglasses. Okay, Anna Wintour impersonator. I blinked. Wait. I looked past The Bob to the four men in all black, with ear pieces and severe expressions. Holy shit, that’s actually her.

I had half a second to register that she’s only 5’4 before she brushed past me, bumping against my shoulder. The bodyguards move me and within seconds it felt like the entire gallery was shoving their way past me, following in her wake.

I spotted Eliana in the incoming wave and grabbed her hand, letting out a high pitched, crazed giggle. "You will never believe who just walked past me.”

“Who?”

“Anna Wintour.”

“What? Where the hell are we?”

“I have no idea.” I scanned the room for someone who looked like they would know before beelining toward a man taking photos of the art with an expensive camera. “Do you mind if I ask you what this exhibit is? Photographers always know.”

He stared at me incredulously. “You don’t know who this is?”

A man— late 60’s, navy pea coat, grey ascot— leaned in. “My darling, this is Jeff Koons. One of the most prolific artists of this generation. This is a VIP event, how the hell did you get in if you didn’t know that?”

My cheeks burned and I shrugged, embarrassed. “I just walked in.”

The photographer smiled and shook his head, bringing the lens back up to his face and bending down to get a shot of the gold lattice detail at the edge of a nearby canvas.

I thanked Grey Ascot for his invaluable information and darted quickly back through the crowd to find Eliana and Shelby, who were deep in conversation with a group of very obvious Artists. Before I could tell them we were definitely in the best opening of the night, a baby blue pinstripe suit filled my direct line of sight.

“Who are you?”

I looked up to see a young Patrick Swayze lookalike towering above me.

“Evie.” I held out my hand.

He shook it and once again, a little shiver of delight zipped down my spine when I remembered The Pull Up. No one had commented on the strength of my handshake quite yet but I know it’s not far off.

“Shawn. Are you an artist?”

“No,” I laughed, “to tell you the truth, I just learned who’s exhibit we’re looking at.”

“You didn't know Jeff Koons?”

“No, I only put together that this was probably an important event when I saw Anna Wintour earlier.”

“Oh, yeah. I told her I liked her outfit and she gave me the most withering look imaginable.”

“There’s no way you knew it was withering with those big ass sunglasses.”

“No, trust me, I could feel it.”

Two hours later, sufficiently giddy about getting to see the exhibit, we found ourselves tucked into a table at El Quixote with the group of artists we met earlier. To my left sat two painters, to my right three art dealers. At the opposite end, a museum curator sipped on a dirty martini in a chilled glass, wincing slightly. The night passed in a blur of passionate conversation on the state of dating in the city, what galleries to go to and what to avoid, the best places to cure a hangover.

Walking home, chin tucked into my scarf against the bitter wind, I hid a smile. This was exactly what I meant when I said bring back mystique, I thought. Because the truth is that there exists no better feeling to me than a walk home after a day unfolded completely differently than expected. I abide by my morning routine, stay active on Teams for my allotted time, all for the ability to say yes to a dinner invitation from a stranger. I want my nights to sprawl before me with pungent, bright potential. Even an evening to myself, where I can read whatever I fancy and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because I feel like it and burn a sickly sweet candle without anyone making a fuss, those feel precious and lovely to me. The thought of knowing exactly how my day will play out sends a shudder through me. How boring! If I have to purposely not ask who’s going, what the theme is, when something will end, then so be it. Mystique and intrigue above all else.

Hey, stranger.

I want to hear your hot takes on the state of socializing if you have them! My other takes are: go to more parties alone with the intention of walking away with a new friend, start your night at 8pm so you can be in bed at midnight, go on more breakfast dates, text new friends like you’re 5 years into the friendship, start conversations with just a “Hi, I’m ___.”

None of those are very controversial, sorry.

Wherever you are, I hope you’re staying warm and cozy. I just bought peppermint creamer for my morning coffee and it has been life changing.

xoxo,

Evie

Since the start of October, though, I now stumble onto the street in a puffer and scarf, sweatpants dragging along the pavement. I tip my face up to the morning sun as usual, the sting of frigid air making me sneeze and my nose start running. The man on the CitiBike is still dressed in his little vest and button down, flying down the street without a care in the world. It takes everything in me not to chase after him with a sweater and windbreaker. “You’re going to get sick!” I want to shout at him.

I would know. One winter, my apartment’s heat didn’t work properly and I spent the entire season shivering and huddled inside layers of sweaters. Bedridden from the cold and then, eventually, from an illness that lasted four months. This year, I am cold in the same way again.

I don’t know how to work the heat in my apartment and in typical me fashion, that means I won’t ever ask. Like the time I was 12 years old and got locked in the garage one night as my dad did his nightly check of all the doors. I was sneaking bites from a pint of ice cream in the fridge and figured I would rather stay out in the garage until someone unlocked it and I could sneak back in, then get caught for double dipping my spoon in the family tub. In the morning my mother, frantic when I wasn’t in my bed like I was supposed to be, opened the door to see me asleep under a pile of coats on the concrete floor. When I explained to her what the hell I was doing out in the garage, her fear turned from not being able to find me to oh god is my kid a lunatic? No, mom, not a lunatic. Just deeply, deeply accepting of discomfort.

But this year, I want things to be different. I don’t want to be cold for months on end, trembling in the wind and attached at the hip to my hot water bottle.

The first order of business was to find a warm winter coat. One that I can cocoon myself in, wear to the gym and to parties and to coffee dates. Ideally one that makes me look like a 45 year old Worldly And Cultured Woman.

For most of September, while eating lunch between meetings, I had a habit of scrolling online for the perfect coat. I would waltz into Aritzia and try on their Slouch coat, debating the $375 price tag and trying to picture if it would keep me from my grave when hit with a blast of icy wind. I’d find myself creeping into the range of $1,000 and up, precariously close to looking at Phoebe Philo’s selection, before remembering that spending anything more than a couple hundred dollars is decidedly not in the budget right now.

On an unassuming Thursday, walking to a local cafe, I spotted The Coat. There, in the window display, hung the perfect specimen. A mix of pale beige and speckled tan fur, full length, with little pearl buttons adorning the front and a peter pan collar. I nearly stumbled into the woman in front of me as I passed by, my gaze unable to leave the display. I checked my phone. 12:26pm. My meeting was scheduled at 12:30pm— too little time to try it on. I’ll leave it up to fate then, I decide. If it’s still there when I walk back… it’s meant to be.

Lo and behold, three hours later, jittery from the extra coffee and sweating despite the chilly air, the coat was still there. I shoved my way through the door, the bell jingling faintly, and past the women ogling a pile of vintage sunglasses. My bags jostled them as I passed and I muttered an apology, eyes still trained on the soft halo that was emanating from the fur coat.

Stuck awkwardly between clothing racks, I shirked off my oversized puffer and hoodie, piling them ungraciously on top of my laptop and purse on the floor. My hands, greedy and impatient, snatched the coat from its hanger. I threw it over my shoulders. One arm in, then the other— fuck. I turned to stare at myself in the mirror. The length was perfect, the collar darling, the fur itself complimentary of my hair. But the sleeves didn’t make it past my elbows. Like a doll you force into an outfit not made for her, my wrists stuck out egregiously. My shoulders, though inherited from my mom and brilliant for excelling at the 200m butterfly at a swim meet, were far too broad for the dainty yet unforgiving breadth of the coat. I looked like the hunchback of Notre dame. I looked like my dad when he accidentally wears my mom’s windbreaker. I looked like a NFL line backer.

Dejected, I squeezed my way out of the coat, hanging it back in the window. But I was not so easily defeated. Along the opposite wall hung a row of men’s wool overcoats. Well, that’s serendipitous. Search for wool coat in my iMessage history and you’ll be forced to scroll for a good five minutes. It’s all I’ve been talking about.

“I need to get a good wool overcoat, that will keep me warm.” I tell Kelly, shivering into my trench.

“You know, I really think I could find a vintage coat, one that’s real wool or cashmere, for cheaper.” I say to Charlotte, sitting cross legged on her chair, scrolling through Cos.

“I’m holding out hope,” I swallow the bite of omelette I just inhaled, “that I’ll stumble upon the perfect one.” Kevin nods, drizzling syrup over his pancakes, “No, totally. You’ll find one in some random thrift store for like 20$ and case closed.”

Sight set on the rack of large, bulky jackets, my spirits once again rose. The first one I tried on was too thin. The second was too tan. The third’s sleeves once again barely hit past my elbows. But the fourth, oh the fourth. I shrugged my way into the dark grey material, noting the cashmere and wool blend tag on the inside. Nice. The sleeves brushed my knuckles. Nice times two. I glanced to my left and noticed a subtle padded shoulder. Nice times three. I looked up, into the mirror. It’s perfect.

I left the store 2 minutes later and $60 poorer, but a with a giant grin on my face. The fur coat still hanging in the display was barely given a cursory glance as I practically skipped home. I was one step closer to warmth for the winter.

There are, of course, many other ways to stay warm. Laying a heated blanket over your bed, drinking hot coffee in the morning with peppermint creamer, watching a movie with your friends, sitting in a diner booth while it rains outside, calling your mom on the way home from work. On Sunday, I wanted to chase away all semblance of frost so I met Jess at Wegmans at noon, grocery list for chili in hand. Back at her apartment, she poured coffee into an Eagles mug and we took turns on the single foot of counter space in her kitchen. 20 minutes later, Emily let herself in, a box of chocolate chip cookies in hand.

We chatted and giggled about the same things we had chatted and giggled about the day before as my pot of chili simmered on the stove. Some time later, Charlotte burst through the door, suitcase in hand.

“I came straight from the train,” she panted, “I didn’t want to be late for chili.”

“That’s why I love you.” I said, giving her a hug. “Tell us all about your upstate weekend.”

As she talked, I stirred the pot. The smell was starting to make my mouth water. I ladled some into a bowl to taste, blowing on it softly. Hmm, more cinnamon. Some salt. And let’s see… I ran briefly through the ingredients I had chucked into the mix. Oh, I forgot brown sugar. Humming softly, I sprinkled, poured, dusted until I was satisfied, turning to the girls with a triumphant smile.

“Chili is ready.”

Just in time, MJ and Paige arrived, cornbread lovingly packed with a tub of honey butter. The 6 of us piled into Jess’s living room, steaming bowls in hand. I watched their reactions eagerly, pleased when the compliments started rolling in.

There are many ways to stay warm in the winter. My beautiful new wool coat hanging from the back of Jess’s door is one of them. Making soup in a warm apartment with people I love is another. I fell asleep on Sunday with a full belly and enough gratitude to spill out of me and onto the parts of my life I might be dissatisfied with. Everything felt coated in a golden hue. The power of a well made chili, I suppose.

Hey, stranger.

Because I love you, here’s my chili recipe:

28oz can crushed tomatoes

16oz ground turkey

15oz can black beans

15oz can kidney beans

15oz can yellow corn

15oz can green beans

8oz chicken broth (add more depending on how soupy you like it)

1 onion

1 packet taco seasoning of your choice

1 tbsp cinnamon

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp garlic powder

salt and pepper to taste

Step 1: Brown the turkey over medium heat with chopped onion, garlic powder, taco seasoning, salt and pepper

Step 2: Dump everything else in and bring to a simmer for 30 minutes <3

Other than batch prepping soups and being overly passionate about wool, these are a few things I’m loving, looking forward to, enjoying.

1. It’s about time to watch Twilight. I’m waiting for my trip upstate next weekend but you should be strategizing your first watch of the season.

2. These Gap long sleeves. Still trying to find a good thermal layer for when it gets really cold, but these have been a life saver to wear under everything.

3. Burlap and Barrel cinnamon. Received this in a gift bag from the Produce Parties Apple Party and it’s genuinely the best cinnamon I’ve ever tasted.

4. Annie’s birthday cake bunny grahams. Yeah … get into it.

xoxo,

Evie

It’s a Sunday night and storming outside and I can feel each yawn coming but am powerless to stop it and and my tonsils are swollen to twice their normal size and when I laugh it sounds like velcro and the damn coffee is about to go cold. Before anyone could accuse it of being room temperature, I chug the last of it. Clear my throat. Stifle my yawn.

Diego looks at me, amused. “You need to go to bed at a reasonable hour this week.”

“I know, I know.”

“And get enough rest. Are you boxing tomorrow?”

I nod.

“Do you have plans every night this week?”

I nod.

“Okay, next week we’ll make sure you get enough rest.”

I give him a smile that says we’ll see about that.

Slowing down feels impossible these days and I’d rather chop my right arm off than complain about a busy schedule. No decimated and ragged throat will keep me from talking people’s ears off, that’s for sure. Even when speaking causes me to wince in pain, I am too excited about the conversations I’m having to stay silent. I love to chat. To discuss. To debate, ponder, really get into it.

Earlier that morning, the door to my boxing gym felt abnormally heavier to open than usual, the floor crowded with people watching two of our coaches spar. I opened my mouth to greet another regular and, to my mortification, no sound came out.

“Sorry,” I cleared my throat, started coughing. “Lost my voice.”

“Crazy night?”

I laughed and shrugged, “No, I just talked too much. I was in bed by 11:30.”

One eyebrows raised. “You destroyed your vocal cords by yapping?”

“Listen, I have things to say, people to say them to.” I paused. “Speaking of, how’s your marathon training going?”

We chatted while I wrapped my hands, the methodical winding a balm on my exhausted brain. I told myself to just listen, not interject, but before I know it we launched into a debate on if run clubs are objectively evil or not (they are). Each response feels like breathing fire but I decide that the raspiness is reminiscent of Scarlett Johansson and not a hospital patient. It’s all about perspective.

After class I raced up the stairs to my apartment for a shower and outfit change, slipping on the wet floor afterwards and banging my shin against the toilet. Then I was back out on the street, passing by the boxing gym with a wave and down into the subway, texting Jess I’m on my way!!!! GO EAGLES!!!!!

I’ve been indoctrinated as a Philly fan and have spent a majority of my Sundays this fall in Jess and Lane’s apartment, drooling over Jalen Hurts and eating 5 servings of buffalo chicken dip. This week I spend the first 3 quarters catching up with my friends and eventually sit with my back to the TV, talking to Paige about her date the day before.

Lane laughed at me from the couch, “I see you’ve given up pretending to watch the game.”

“I have not,” I responded hotly. I swung my legs toward the console, bringing the chips and salsa with me.

“Wait, Charlotte, how was your dinner?” Emily asked. I waited for all of 30 seconds, nearly shaking with the effort. Don’t do it, don’t do it. Before I turned back around, game forgotten, my desire to be a part of the conversation stronger than my pride.

Lane snickers.

Eventually the game ends— I thought we were winning, turns out we lost— and I hang out for another hour before changing into the 2nd outfit I packed and sauntering off into the perfect autumn evening air. I headed south through the city and up into Diego’s office. A book is opened, a page attempted to be read, before I’m opening my big mouth once again. “Did you know A24 just opened a restaurant?”

After dinner, the coffee keeping me up well past my bedtime, I look at my calendar and wince. No slowing down for me, it seems.

Monday morning greets me with the sensation of broken glass in my throat, as expected, and yet I crawl out onto the street for my 7am morning walk. I burn my tongue on coffee reheated in the microwave 3 times. I go to the gym and nod off on the leg press machine until one of the trainers came by to tell me I should be able to lift way heavier than I currently do. I’m too tired to be enraged and just smile like ah, yes, thank you, that is totally what I want to hear. I walk home and take work calls from underneath a cocoon of blankets, telling myself it counts as rest. Despite my ravaged throat, after work I go for drinks with a friend and we spent 3 hours breaking down her work crisis and new hobbies and the updated morning routine she’s attempting.

The next day, I’m at a magazine launch in a test kitchen in downtown Brooklyn, the room taken up by a table nearly overflowing with autumn themed baked goods, candles dripping into the parchment setting, the crowd humming with excited chatter. I am midway through my 3rd pile of apple crumble when I notice someone I know, albeit very little, standing a few feet away.

I walk up to her. “Hi! We met the other night— Claudia, right?”

“Yes! Hi! Remind me of your name again?”

I tell her as I adjust my plate so I can better scrape the remains of frosting onto my fork. As we chat I feel my throat catch and sputter, like an engine that desperately needs an oil change.

She gives me a sympathetic smile. “Are you sick?”

“No, I just talk too much.”

Someone taps me on the shoulder.

“Hi, this is so random but has anyone told you that you look like Kate Moss?”

I start laughing. “There is no way you just said that.”

The girl smiles, “I was at your reading the other night and knew I recognized you from somewhere. I’ve read your piece on the Italians.”

I gasp and grab her arm, “I’m going to write this in my journal tonight so I never forget it. Thank you for coming up to me.”

She turns to my friend standing next to me, asks her to sign her copy of the magazine as one of the contributing writers.

I’m watching them interact while I swallow somewhat painfully, trying to lubricate my throat, when I realize that I now can show up to an event like this and run into people I know. So much of my life after moving away from my hometown has felt like a poorly written pilot episode of a show called New Kid On The Block. Every room is full of strangers, I never know the host, I’m not connected to anyone or anything. A lonely, exciting state. But finally, finally, the days of just showing up have paid off even just a small amount. I get to receive a shoulder tap and a “hey, sorry to interrupt just wanted to say hi…”, I can smile and wave across the room to acknowledge a friend of a friend of a friend, my introductions of people to each other become less “oh, we just met” and more “this is my friend from…”

Lovely, lovely, lovely. When I look at it this way, I no longer have any desire to slow down and get enough rest. I’ve found myself thinking I can sleep when I’m dead unironically. Instead, I fill my calendar and overstay my welcome, taking a million years to leave because there’s always just one more thing I have to say.

Wednesday after work I sit at Maja’s for 3 hours and discuss Allie’s new chapter of her book, our work woes, the men we’re seeing or not seeing, the exhibit Jess saw at the Frick.

I shout into people’s ears on Thursday at a variety show and scream when I run into a friend for the first time in 6 years and leave shortly after for dinner at a French restaurant where I get too excited about goat cheese and figs.

Friday I work from the girls’ apartment— the 3 of us crammed into their living-room-that’s-actually-just-a-hallway— and debate the merit of GQ’s Modern Etiquette Guide for Men. In the evening I leave for a party on the Upper East Side where the address reads Apartment 3. Not 3A, 3. As in, the entire floor of a building. I stand by the French windows at some point in the night and let the cool air lift my hair from my shoulders, dry the sweat on my temples. We talk about private libraries and British culture and Paige teaches me how to apply lip liner. I take a cab home and can barely eke out a “thank you”, my voice having left the station 2 hours earlier.

I spent my Saturday eating stale pretzels at Oktoberfest, stopping on the street for an hour to catch up with friends, screaming at Charlotte across a wooden pub table so she can hear me over the crowd. I nurse a room temperature Diet Coke on a patio while I interrogate a stranger on what it’s like living in Philly and his opinion on cheesesteaks and how to layer for an East Coast winter.

Diego and I sit at Sunday dinner once again and the waiter brings me another Americano, piping hot. My throat is no closer to recovered, in fact its worse, but I guzzle the coffee anyway. While I tell him that I haven’t been able to taste anything for weeks because of the burnt roof situation, my voice cracks like a prepubescent boy and I blush, slightly embarrassed by the fact that I spent 12 hours talking the day before. And the day before that. And quite frankly, the last few weeks. I can’t recall a moment I wasn’t yapping someone’s ear off.

I used to love reading dinner parties scenes with socialite characters in a bygone era of New York. While seated uncomfortably in the plastic chairs of my high school desks, I’d daydream during lectures about the kind of life where I got to meet all sorts of people. A life where I got to talk about art and debate politics and learn about all sorts of cultured, varied topics. Nothing like the dull commentary on homework and extracurriculars that filled my time. I was determined that my life would be wonderful and big and interesting.

It’s on its way to being big, I think. The only difference is that I spend more time talking about how my heel got stuck in the subway grates and I nearly shattered my kneecap than I do about any political commentary of note, but still. It’s on its way. I will take a burnt mouth and mangled throat and chronic sleep deprivation if it means I get to keep experiencing it all. No longer do I have long stretches of time after work where I worry that I’m missing out on life. I threw my arm out just in time to catch the elevator and I’m hauling my body through the doors, inch by inch.

Hey, stranger.

Some things I’ve been loving:

1. Maggie; Or, A Man And A Woman Walk Into A Bar by Katie Yee. I was given a copy by Summit Books and now every subway ride passes in the blink of an eye because I am HOOKED, baby.

2. Honeycrisp apples. When they said an apple a day keeps the doctor away I listened and took it to heart. Now that they’re in season I am seeing God every day at 3pm when I have my daily allowance.

3. This song by Tweet.

4. Tea. Right now the two I have on rotation are Raazi’s peppermint tea (code XOXOEVIE for 15% off) and the Celestial Seasonings Apple and Cinnamon tea. They are both single handedly keeping my throat in action (not an innuendo).

5. Honeynut Cheerios. Forgot these existed.

xoxo,

Evie

Boston next week? Tue - thurs?

Looking away from my computer, I have 3 thoughts in quick succession. I’ve always wanted to go to Boston. But I can’t just leave midweek, I’d have to cancel dinner on Wednesday… tell my boss… wait I totally can just leave. How much is a train ticket? I text back within the minute:

Yes

Of course, yes. I would need another hand to count on each finger the amount of times I’ve slumped down at a table and announced, “this is my season for solo traveling” over the last few months. In my West Coast addled mind, the Northeast is Europe. What do you mean I can get to Philadelphia in an hour from New York? Boston in 4? On my post work walks, I look up at the yellowing leaves and think romantic thoughts about Upstate New York and Maine and maybe even Vermont.

We take the 5:30pm train and Jess runs to hug me at the station, all breathless and frazzled. She got in from Chicago earlier that day.

“Sorry I’m all over the place, I packed an hour ago. This is genuinely the worst outfit I’ve ever worn.” I looked down and burst out laughing, “We’re wearing the same thing.”

On the train, I humiliate us further by eating chicken salad and biting into carrots obnoxiously loud. Jess opens a Google Doc titled EVIE IN BEANTOWN and we scheme our itinerary for the next two days. I’m giddy that this is a thing I can do— drop everything to work from a city I’ve always wanted to visit.

We spend our first night up past our bedtime, the 4 hour train apparently not enough time for us to cover every topic under the sun. Like any good sleepover, we are giggly and delirious by the time we’re finally under the covers, laying side by side. There’s a loud creakkkkk and Jess gasps.

“What is that?”

“I think it’s just the ice machine.”

She gets up, goes to check that the door is locked. “Okay, I think you’re right.”

Two minutes later, the sound happens again and we both jump.

“Why does it sound like someone is breaking down our door?”

I laugh. “I promise you it’s just the ice machine. No one can get in.”

“If you weren’t here I’d literally stay up all night in terror.”

“Oh god, Jess. It’s like the cockroach situation all over again.”

“Don’t bring up the B-U-G.”

“You know, when I first met you I thought you were the most chill person I’ve ever met.”

She finishes my sentence, “and yet I am the most neurotic person I know.”

“I wouldn’t say that…” I trail off to indicate I mean exactly that. “But I am shocked at how chill you make me seem.”

We smile at the difference in our reactions to various disasters. Where I would see a bug in my apartment, lose sight of it, and still fall into a blissful sleep, unbothered, Jess would leave immediately and stay at a friend’s, returning only to fumigate the apartment the next day.

The perfect yin and yang we are.

Wednesday is spent wandering the Public Gardens and sitting in coffee shop after coffee shop, working. On my breaks, I watch the college students lean over each other and gossip about their classes, the parties from last weekend, the guys they’re seeing. I walk 20,000 steps and wear an all denim outfit and eat chocolates paid for by the woman in front of me in line and twist my ankles along cobblestones. After dinner, Jess and I eat piles of ice cream and shiver in the autumn air. We stay up too late once again and in the morning pull on our matching running shoes.

She takes me on a route along the water and we whoop with glee as we cross the Charles under a perfect morning sun. There are runners everywhere, rowers on the water, professors strolling past us with coffees in hand. I am perfectly, dizzingly happy. I met Jess when I joined a writers group from saloon— back when living in New York felt like a distant dream and I had no idea what I wanted. All I knew was that I thought it would be fun to talk about writing with people, so I emailed her. Jess, and all of the girls from the group, are now some of my favorite people I know in the city. In fact, my life here would not look half as rich and wonderful if it were not for them.

You really can just do things.

Sometimes they are inconsequential, fun, burning up and fading into memory like a midweek Boston trip, but sometimes you meet people who change your life. Or you find a new hobby that consumes you. Or you stumble into a restaurant that you talk about for years to come. Whether or not god bends to bestow a forehead kiss on you for your effort is trivial. Whatever you want, it’s out there.

The other day, I was walking west down my street when I stopped, paused, and took a few steps back. On the window of the boxing gym I’ve had a crush on since moving is a sign that read Labor Day Sale! I didn’t let myself think twice before I pushed open the doors. A gust of steamy, BO-addled air hit me in the face. A man stopped his furious punching against a heavy bag to look over. A bead of sweat dripped down my spine.

“Hi, uh— can I sign up for a class?” I asked the girl sitting behind the front counter. She nodded, pulled out a form and began filling it out.

“You own gloves?”

“No.”

“You box before?”

“No.”

“Alright. We have a beginner class this Sunday at 10am. You want to sign up?”

“Yes.”

10 seconds later I was back out on the street, a grin slowly creeping onto my face. You really can just do things.

Since that first Sunday, I’ve gone to a class almost every day. The first week, I could barely lean down to put on my shoes. I had to pause on the sidewalk to rest my groceries because I genuinely was fearful of tearing my shoulder, my back aching and sore. But I can’t stop going, sending my friends breathless videos after class when I’m high on endorphins and exclaiming loudly, “god, I’m on top of the world.”

The problem is that I’m built akin to one of those inflatable dolls outside car dealerships. All long, spindly limbs with little to no finesse. After my evening class last Thursday, I ran home and took a video of the shadow boxing drills we did. I deleted it immediately when I saw how unnatural I looked throwing a punch. Like a little kid swinging wildly at a piñata. I decided rather quickly it’s none of my business what I look like while boxing. It’s all for the love of the game.

The next day, one of the regulars who slinks around the gym drenched in sweat, randomly attacking bags and hopping in and out of classes, came up to me to spar after class.

“Come.” He motioned to me to follow him to the door. “Put your hands up. No, closer. Closer. Knuckles on your cheeks. I hit you, yes?” He had a thick Russian accent. I love Eastern Europeans.

I nod. He throws a jab and my hands, limply held up to my face, slam back into my eyes. “Ow!”

“See? You hit yourself. It hurts worse than an opponent making contact, right? You don’t expect it.”

“Okay, I get it. Hands up.” I press the sweaty gloves to my temples and grimace about the breakout I know is looming.

“Now, bend your knees. You’re tall but you lean forward too much. You are practically handing your face to me to hit. Bend more, more— yes. Like that.”

He throws another jab and I brace myself. The hit lands but my gloves don’t ricochet back toward me the way they’ve been doing. I throw one back and he catches it, stops me, shakes his head. “No. You see how far you’re leaning? Get lower.”

Again and again he makes me throw punches, until my post class sweat has returned in full force and my shoulders tremble from the effort to lift them high enough. He jerks his head to motion at us to finish and I limp my way over to the bench, begin the process of unwinding my wraps.

When I finally leave the gym half past 9pm, my body decimated beyond belief and goosebumps rising from the chilly September air, I am once again giddy that this is a thing I can do. I can walk past people sparring in the ring and think oh, that’d be fun to go to a gym like that, do the whole boxing thing and then I can make it happen with nothing more than 10 seconds of courage to go in and sign up. How fun is that?

What I’m really discovering is that I’m not a 16 year old kid anymore. I can take myself out to dinner and get a slice of chocolate cake on an otherwise uneventful Tuesday. That shag coat I’ve been eyeing in the window display could be mine with a quick tap of my card. Sometimes a man will come up to me at a bar, offer to buy me a drink, and I’m momentarily furious that this grown ass man, a beard and everything, is interested in me. You’re twice my age, I want to sneer in his face. Get lost, creep! But then I realize that no, he’s not a creep. He’s just 30. It’s me who has all of a sudden gone and grown up out of nowhere.

I’ve got the keys to the castle now and I have no intention of giving them back anytime soon. Yes, I will go to the ballet with you. The 3rd DJ set this week that’s guaranteed to be so underwhelming it’s boring? I’m there. Yes, I will do a free sailing class. Yes, absolutely, I’ll learn to crochet. Go out until 4am and wake up at 7 for boxing. Spend my Sunday night at a fashion show and then dinner afterwards with girls I just met. Yes, yes, yes.

Hey, stranger.

The middle photo is from a NYFW show that took place at my boxing studio… it was magical. I’m still so bad at boxing but happy to report that I am seeing improvement. I don’t punch myself in the face half as much anymore. Which is still too often for my liking.

The next destination on my list is Philly (then DC, Chicago)— if you have recommendations for day/weekend trips from the city, I’m all ears.

xoxo,

Evie

It’s an insecurity that fades from my memory until I’m running the first leg in a 200 mile relay across Oregon at 2:40am and I can’t see out of my left eye because the headlamp I’m wearing won’t stay in place. My breath comes out in a labored, steady rhythm as I run down the road from Timberline Lodge. I make a concerted effort to only focus on the steady pounding of my feet against pavement instead of the bushes rustling off to my right. Oregon doesn’t have bears. Oregon doesn’t have bears. Wait, what if Oregon has bears? Though I’m running away from it, I can still hear the crowd cheering as the announcer sends off the next heat at the start line. The air is cool and breezy up here— no suggestion of the heatwave about to hit the Portland area in a few hours.

But my damn headlamp won’t stay on my head because one ear doesn’t care to shape up. I’m annoyed at this more than I’m annoyed at running in the middle of the night. I’m sick to death of shoving the strap back up my head. My hair is in disarray already and I can’t fucking see and someone remind me why I’m doing this again?

Because I am a hopeless Type 2 fun addict.

Eventually, inevitably, I finish the 6.5 mile run. The runner exchange seems to get farther and farther as I approach it until suddenly I see Sam, our next runner, and slap the baton into his hands, sending him off.

“Good luck,” I pant, hobbling over to the side of the road to find my way back to the van.

“Thanks.” He gallops off at a pace that infuriates me. I’ve been running with Sam since I was a teenager and have never been able to keep up with him. I take a sick satisfaction knowing that his race legs are far harder than mine this year. Serves you right, I think.

I spend the rest of the morning in leg cramp hell, sliding around in the backseat until I reach a position that stretches my quads just right. We watch the sun come up as we drive through to each exchange.

Hood To Coast is a Goodman tradition and Sam, whose family is like a second one to me and therefore shares the sadistic enjoyment of physical challenges, roped me into running it for the 2nd time. The first time I ran in the relay, I swore up and down that I would never do it again. “I’d rather die!” I told my mom from the floor, where I was trying not to cry as my hamstring refused to straighten fully. Two years later, I’m back because Sam asked nicely and because I started romanticizing the trauma bonds you get from running through the middle of the night with complete strangers.

My 2nd run is 5.4 miles through Portland in the heat of the day and my legs don’t find a rhythm until 3 miles in— the first half hour spent running with a hobbled, uneven gait. I down approximately 17 granola bars and 5 peanut butter sandwiches.

Type 2 fun is all about the idea that you must earn enjoyment, which is to say: it’s best for people who lean a little masochistic. I could just enjoy lazing around a pool with an ice cold Diet Coke and a sandwich, but wouldn’t it be better if I also couldn’t move because I just hiked 10 miles? Why would I enjoy a summer picnic without first backpacking 10 pounds of fruit salad to a scenic outlet along a lake? And don’t even get me started on going to a workout class with a friend on a Saturday morning. Or a Thanksgiving Turkey Trot. Sometimes it's not enough for me to experience pleasure in the moment, I must first suffer then roll around in the joy of having suffered, survived, and doing it all again soon.

On my final leg of the race, I spend 10 minutes swinging my legs to induce any sort of feeling into them. Running on tired legs, any legs really, is just an exercise in how much sway the inner voices in your head have. My brain sounds like this, usually:

“You can do this. You can do this. 2 more miles. Which is really just 20 minutes, maybe 18 if we really turn it on. 2 miles is nothing. You can do this.”

Then:

“This sucks. This sucks. This sucks. Don’t you dare sign up for this again. I mean it. Every time you say that, you end up doing it again. For example, this fucking race. For example, the half marathon last year. For example, walking the length of Manhattan. But I’m serious this time. This sucks.”

Then:

“1.5 miles to go. That’s basically 1 mile. You can do this. You can do this.”

Over and over and over again, I argue with myself in circles, oscillating between extreme self-encouragement and self-beratement for being in the situation in the first place. But at this point, it’s an addiction that I need a fix for every few months. Even daily, if I’m honest with myself. Waking up at the crack of dawn to swim laps at the gym until I can barely make it up the stairs to my apartment, then doing it again the next week. Hitting a leg day so diabolically heavy (can’t even squat a plate) that I’m holding my thighs like an old man at each intersection.

I finish my final leg, send Sam off, and practically float to the van, where I give myself a wet wipe shower and try to ignore the stickiness of my skin against my cozy pajamas I packed specifically for this moment. I spend the next hour in a serene state of bliss, shouting encouragement to other runners from the window and sipping away on electrolytes happily, my legs cramped and brittle.

We cross the finish line as a team, most of us stiffly limping along instead of a true run but nonetheless, it’s over. We’re done. We tear off our socks and trudge out onto the clear, warm expanse of beach waiting for us. There are food carts and beer tents and plastic picnic tables lined up, all full to the brim with people in their various states of sleep deprived sanity levels. I walk by a woman holding a half eaten soft pretzel, staring into space. Her can of some CBD infused soda is tilting preciously in her left hand and her braid is mostly a knot of tangled hair. Same, I think. You and me both, sister.

I don’t think my hair has ever looked worse. My skin feels like a salt lick and I know I smell dreadful, but still I flop onto the sand next to my team and watch as half of them run into the ocean. I couldn’t get up if I tried. I stretch an arm over my eyes and drift off into a delirious half sleep. “Wake me up when we’re ready to get saltwater taffy,” I mutter to Chase.

Some hours later my mom’s team finishes in their Where’s Waldo costumes— a Hood To Coast tradition is to pick a theme for your van, dress up, make stickers to give to people— which elicits excited responses from passerbys as usual.

“I found you!”

“You guys are my favorite team every year!”

My mom eats it up.

After 40 hours, I get in the van one last time for the drive back to Portland. The rest of my team piles in behind me and I start us off down the windy, tree lined highways toward home. No one brings it up but I know that I’m going to get a text from Sam in a few weeks that says we’re doing it again next year, you in?

We all know what my response will be.

Hey, stranger.

If you need a runner for any upcoming races… I volunteer as tribute. If any of you also ran in Hood To Coast, I want to see pictures!!!!

I hope September is treating you well, wherever you are. In my opinion we are in the best stretch of the year. Oktoberfest, changing leaves, Halloween, a potential for snow, a promise of rain, chili nights at mine, Christmas… how lucky are we?

xoxo,

Evie

As someone who grew up swimming competitively, of course I considered myself someone who knows her way around a wave. There are two types of people in this world: those who can swim and those who cannot. I’ve been scoffing at the latter group my entire life. It seemed unthinkable, unimaginable, that I would ever find myself out of my depth while swimming.

But a few weeks ago, on a particularly humid weekend, I took the train an hour east. The closer we got, the train slowly became filled with people in flip flops, beach bags, smelling faintly of sunscreen. I myself had a cloud of coconut fumes emanating from my skin, my back sore from trying not to rub it all off on the seat. I entertained myself by stereotyping people into who’s going to the beach to swim and who won’t even touch the water. It’s my professional opinion that one should always get in the water.

Stepping onto the platform was like being transported back, briefly, to the Oregon coast of my childhood. Seagulls, salt air, the slight mildew smell of rotting seaweed. Perfect.

When we finally made our way across a few dunes, feet burning and exfoliated down to smooth nubs from the sand, I flopped onto the towel I’d stolen from my gym the day before. The threadbare scraps hardly providing any protection from the beach detritus, but at least they were free. Sadie and Erin sat next to me, the former asleep in a matter of moments, her hat thrown over her face.

I surveyed the snack options donated by and for the group of people laid out next to me. We were a sizeable group and I was pleased to see a tray of baked goods and enough fruit to feed an army.

“We’re going swimming. You coming?”

I squinted at the figure standing above me, the sun blocking most of his features. A cousin of a sister of a friend. The way I know most people I hang out with these days. I sighed and took my eyes off the snacks, nodding hesitantly. Up I went. My hesitation was due to the lack of structural integrity of my bikini and the size of the waves I had been eyeing since I arrived. Big, loud, cold looking. This is the Atlantic, not Pacific I reminded myself. Maybe it’ll be warm.

It wasn’t.

The cousin of a sister of a friend beckoned us further and further into the water. “Here, give me your sunglasses so you don’t drop them.”

Slightly affronted that he thought I was incapable of holding onto them, I handed them over, “Careful, those cost me 5 dollars.”

A gasp. “5! I promise I’ll return them unharmed.”

I was still nursing my bruised ego at not being trusted to keep my belongings when a far bigger wave than the ones I had been wading through hit me directly in the face. Nose: blasted with saltwater. Forehead: into knee. Hair: pulled back aggressively and then thrown over my face. Ass: over teakettle.

Jesus Ch— I’m going to die. And I didn’t even get to try the brownies Kalei brought.

When I finally was placed right side up by a very benevolent ocean, I sputtered and coughed seawater from my lungs. I couldn’t see from the hair plastered down my forehead but could feel my swimsuit, or lack thereof, hanging off me like tattered sails. In a flash, I reassembled the limp fabric, pushed my hair from my face, looked for my friends. There they were, 20 feet away, bent over laughing.

“Did you see that?” It came out as a half laugh but my voice was shaking. A wave crashed into my back and I stumbled. “My swimsuit came off!”

“Evie, watch out!” Another wave, 2 seconds from my face. Again I get slammed into the sand and stand back up on legs that feel like jelly.

I watch for the next wave to approach and sink to my knees, recalling a line from a biography I just read by a lifelong surfer. He said waves were violent, dangerous things but when you swam underneath them, you could escape the brutality unscathed. He evidently was right because when I stand up this time, I’m grinning. My swimsuit is on, my hair caressed lovingly by the current, faith in my abilities restored.

I resolve to gracefully duck under each wave, maybe even body surf a few. After a particularly nimble dive into an approaching wave, I start envisioning my future as a surf pro. I can get a pink board, maybe a matching wetsuit.

I’m mid fantasy when out of nowhere a wall of white foam rams into me yet again. Sputtering and coughing, I get up only to go flying once again from a wave hiding behind the first, slamming into the sand and banging my knee directly into my forehead.

“You have to swim underneath them unless you want to body surf.” Came a voice from my right. 5 dollar sunglasses cousin. “Otherwise you’ll get your shit rocked. Don’t fight it.”

“Okay, okay.” I respond, biting back the instinct to say I know, mom.

The next hour was spent in the same pattern. Ass handed to me, pride bruising more and more each time I stood up and flashed a group of kids next to me. At one point I caught them snickering behind their hands to each other. I quickly learned to grab my swimsuit so it stayed in place. Every so often I’d glide under and out of a wave with what I can only imagine looked like incredibly grace but then was reacquainted with the sand once again. Each time I emerged slightly shakier, seaweed plastered in my hair, my thighs, across my stomach. I’d look to Erin and Sadie, who were staying much further back, the cowards, and grimace.

“Don’t fight them!”

“Yes, thank you, Einstein! I’m trying!”

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I did not learn how to stop fighting it. I stumbled back to my friends and we limped towards our warm towels and cold fruit and salty pretzels. I slumped onto my borrowed towel, feeling like I had just been out through a washing machine. My throat was raw, hair a nightmare, seaweed sticking out of places it should never be in. “Good riddance to the ocean.” Sadie said, already placing her hat over her face for yet another nap.

“You didn’t even go in…” I grumbled under my breath, pulling the tray of chocolate towards me.

On the train ride home, Sadie once again asleep next to me, I consider the implications of being inept in the ocean. I am not the type of person to shy away from being bad at something. These days, I regularly attend boxing classes where I punch my own face more often than my sparring partner’s. I can handle embarrassing myself. What I can’t handle is a shifted perspective on a core tenant of my being. Who am I without my bragging rights of being able to out-swim my friends? How can I possibly irritate people with my outrageous claims to survive any stranded-in-the-ocean scenario anymore?

I spend the next hour trying in vain to separate the people around me into Can Swim and Losers categories. I nearly faint from shock when someone I placed in Couldn’t Tread Water If His Life Depends On It gets up from his seat only to reveal a collegiate swim team emblem across his backpack. What is happening to me? I open my calendar, searching for the next open weekend to make the trek back to the Atlantic, resolute to train myself into the type of girl who can body surf her way around any beach.

Hey, stranger.

If you see a wanted poster with my face on it for public indecency at Rockaway Beach… no you didn’t.

Happy it’s-still-summer-until-september-22nd to all who celebrate. I hope you’re soaking in the last bit of sun and eating lots of stone fruit.

For those of you in New York, I’m doing a reading later this month, details to come. I’m excited but also want to pee my pants from nerves so don’t you dare take videos. See you soon.

xoxo,

Evie