I see delivery men outfitted in head-to-toe gear, and consider the injustice of having slop delivered in extreme weather, the warfare of transporting a miserable bed of lettuce today seems just as oppressive as delivering limp pasta through a blizzard. I see a passerby help an older woman into a taxi, and am both comforted and disturbed by the idea of my mobility hinging on a stranger one day. What if I’m the woman. What if the stranger is me.

I try to distract myself from the Marketplace of Unpleasant Thoughts in my brain. Maybe it’s the heatwave, maybe it’s the professional carrots that keep getting dangled in my face - the pendulum of freelance work, but I feel melancholic. The last time the temperature peaked this high was 2012, and before that 1966. By the end of the weekend, 3 people will have died inside their unventilated homes.

On my walk I: put my phone on airplane mode and listen to Courtney Love, contemplate all the water signs in my life, consider smoking the joint in my bag but worry I’ll get Scared, stop at the Starbucks Reserve, Sevilla, and Balthazar to drink water & pee, decide feeling sorry for myself is boring, think of turning back, run into 2 acquaintances, write in my notes app, text my sister, remind myself to breathe deeply, summon abundance, cry at a handicapped dog, google image search tick bites, and vow to be in bed early. I’ve been fighting insomnia since May. My mind and body stay active until 2 or 3 or 4 am. Not in a cage of anxiety, more like in a prolonged spell of Newton’s cradle, a linear collision that tap tap taps at each temple until sleep catches me.

At 8 pm I can still see perspiration on everyone’s skin. Like a windchill, there are alternative estimates for how hot it is, aka the Heat Index, aka The Assessment of Sultriness. The bridge between technical assessment and one’s physical perception. Complex calculations that reveal How It Really Feels. It Feels like I’ve crossed the threshold from Sultry to soiled as I look down at my underboob sweat. Perhaps How I Really Feel could be broken into variables and placed on a numeric scale in the same way. Perhaps one number or symbol could communicate everything necessary for the experience of Me. I suppose publishing my diary will do it in the meantime.

Walking up through Washington Square Park, I stare a few seconds too long at a pair of men huddled by the northeast corner. One of them calls out C’mere little lady you’re gonna love this. They don’t look like tweakers, but they are indeed holding a crack pipe. Many such cases. I visualize myself inhaling the crystal vapor and wonder if the offer was genuine, or rather how the offer would change if I accepted it as genuine. I was planning on watching the Courtney Love E True Hollywood Story when I got home, I wonder if it would be better on crack.

Everyone out right now seems divided into People Who Care About Soccer and people who don’t. I walk into Swift Hibernian Lounge, grateful there’s no TV in sight. It’s so packed I barely see the murals and can barely parse the vibe. I find a seat between a trio of butch lesbians and a pair of men in business casual. The bartender makes my order in under 30 seconds - gin soda with olive juice and lemon. The biz casuals are yelling about ai, and when a girl no older than 22 orders a High noon over my shoulder, I decide I hate it here, down my drink, and leave.

I traverse the park again to catch the train at W 4th Street, and on my way see a couple locked in such a ferociously proper makeout that it puts a smile on my face. I wait until I’m 30 ft past them and look back, happy to see their bodies are still plastered together. There is something so pure about the way they’re holding each other, about the way the street and the world is basically empty, except for them.

I suppose I could talk about the delirium in Barcelona, heading straight from our red-eye to the recently renovated Casa Batlló. I floated around Gaudi’s domestic dreamscape - curved doorways, sexy sculpted oak staircases, theatrical stained glass - in silent agreement with the lack of rigidity that permeates his work. Very much in contrast to our strict travel schedule for the month. The interiors were sublime, but I was underwhelmed by the courtyard and roof. The dragon chimney made it all a bit too Fern Gully, and everyone waiting for a photo under the multicolour pergola felt like a brand activation for a life-size Faberge egg. Gaudi going gaudy.

The reason for being in Spain was C’s wedding in the Catalan countryside, an iconic three day affair at Castell d’Empordà, a beautifully restored 14th century castle. Sitting atop a hill, every vantage point had panoramic views of olive groves and agricultural flatlands for miles. Very dramatic. (Speaking of, it’s a fun exercise asking fellow wedding guests how they’d react to finding out their fiancé was once on the brink of planning a school shooting. This will make sense to you if you’ve been to the movies recently, or if you enjoy taunting strangers with hypotheticals.)

We were amused to learn the lore behind the wonky Salvador Dalí portraits hung up in our room and across the grounds: back in the 70s, Dali was castle-shopping, as one does, and offered up two of his paintings as payment for the property. The owner declined, preferring cash (a sum estimated in the realm of $10MM), and in doing so may have left a lot of it on the table.

My favourite part was seeing the bride finally relieved of wedding day duties, belting Pink Pony Club on the cavernous dance floor, wedding dress train in one hand, cig in the other. I don’t know how the cigarette tray trend is this late to catch on (I guess all the Olsen devotees/Tumblr girls who would’ve reblogged those images are only getting married now?), but I’m not mad about it.

Half the attendees were from the UK, and the lads really lived up to their reputation. After a drunken 4AM rendition of The Fields of Athenry (an Irish folk anthem commonly chanted at rugby matches - i suppose 16 hrs of wedding deserves a battle hymn), we were led to the unofficial afterparty in a room across the castle wing, where six men and one woman (all topless) passed around various bottles of liquor, until a fight broke out, barely comprehensible to the Canadians between the accents and slurring. Jenn and I left, mesmerized by the massive nest hanging from the corridor ceiling, birds fluttering and chirping in quartets as the sun crept up. During a poolside recap the next afternoon, one of the guys involved in the tussle chimed “i dunt givafuck, me dad's a millionaire!” which made P and I giggle in delight - the best kind of wedding guest.

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After Spain it was sleep deprivation and crying in England because I typically reach peak emotional distress at the midpoint of a trip, and like an infant, need my hand held through the grey tediousness of London. We booked a flat via Kindred, which in theory is an ideal option for expensive cities like LA/Paris/NYC, but we underestimated the inhospitable dampness of London in a stranger’s space. You need to be a little more resilient, DK says to me. The thing is, I can’t be because he is the resilient one in this situation. Resilience, much like patience or optimism, gets passed back and forth like a baton. One person’s deficit allows the other to hold a container for it, a prickly symbiosis I’ve started noticing in all my relationships.

On one turbo insomniac night, I read over 200 pages of Lena Dunham’s Famesick (I’ve started buying all my books used on thriftbooks.com btw) and make a mental note to rewatch Tiny Furniture, wondering if it’d hold up since last seeing it the summer before university. Lena is a really compelling writer - she admits to acting ugly, insufferable, selfish, in a way that contrasts the manufactured vulnerability of her celebrity peers. With every chapter I kept thinking, wow you have a lot of problems. (Two weeks later, after filling out an intake form, I had to laugh when I heard that exact phrase repeated back to me at my new acupuncturist’s office.)

It was an especially cold week in London, and in my sleep-deprived haze I impulsively ordered 3 mini space heaters for same-day delivery on Amazon, despite only really needing one. Brits apparently don’t believe in temperature regulation, a fitting mirror to my own dysregulation. Once the hailstorm (!) that blessed our first morning dissipated, I visited the Museum of the Home, walking through iterations of interiors from the 1600s to the depressingly mocked up year of 2049. I liked the parlours of the 1700s: crimson cushioned Queen Anne chairs, pastel wallpaper with intricate floral patterns, and gilded mirrors above mantles - a style implemented to reflect the glow of candlelight into the room as evenings grew darker.

The sun came out and I strolled through the museum garden, contemplating how apt seeing an exhibit on homes was when I was itching to get back to my own. I left to make our reservation at Brat, the only restaurant I felt inclined to book in advance, and indulged in a glass of wine upon arrival. The food was creative but unpretentious, and over Welsh scallops with roe & caviar, monkfish crudo, and Basque cheesecake, I made a pact with myself to try and fall in love with London.

Romance on the screen

I love movies. One of my favourite exchanges is sharing a movie with someone and seeing them enjoy it in real time. That said, I try my best to watch a lot of things but I’m no cinephile. I haven’t seen all the classics and I don’t aspire to. It’s impossible, and an unwise use of my time, quite frankly. Instead, I lean into my natural interests and proclivities. The themes I gravitate to: psychosexual, desire, hedonism, romantic treason, wayward women, and epic love. With this past Saturday being Valentine’s Day, and winter still lingering, I hoped to share some favourites that run the spectrum of romance and relationships.

My original idea here was movies to get one in the mood. Sexiness onscreen that bleeds offscreen. I want you to get LAID. When I rewatched the movies I thought embodied sexiness, I quickly realized I missed a key problem in my pursuit: it’s really fucking difficult to have eroticism without transgression and annihilation. All the movies I see as having enticing depictions of sex, are also heartbreaking. I couldn’t come up with a single movie that exuded erotic desire alongside uplifting emotional resolution. I was vexed, but also, Duh. This is a famous paradox. The pain of desire is covered by scholars and artists alike - Georges Bataille to Freud to Lana Del Rey. I’m cryin’ while I’m cummin’ reverberates in my head for a reason.

Consider the hype machine around Wuthering Heights. The film’s marketing depicts a Victorian hurricane of seduction and yearning between Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff and Margot Robbie’s Cathy. The central theme of destructive love isn’t so much hidden as it is glamourized. Enough so that I know several couples and groups of girls who went to see it on opening night, a pre-Valentine’s celebration of sorts, which is exactly how it was positioned. I’m not an Emerald Fennell fan, and I’d forgotten a lot of my mediocre high school analysis of the text, but I was curious. I toyed with an invite from Suze to go with a group of girls, but ultimately bailed in service of Being More Intentional with My Time. I woke up on Valentine’s Day to the below voice note:

So stressful. Like a Safdie movie but sexual. Glad I saw it but we needed to walk it off and breathe after... Wuthering Heights is for the smooth brain though. And my honest take is I kinda hated the soundtrack. It was giving electropop Hannah Montana

So, where does that leave us with movie recommendations? I can’t give you sexy without storm, unfortunately. Desire is rendered flat, boring even, without stakes or tension. Performed vulnerability is much more common than the real thing, resulting in counterfeit intimacy, which then collapses and gets rebuilt via conflict. I think the below movies do a good job of exploring these axes.

For a look at naked feelings consider Closer (2004), a beautiful and brutal relationship drama that intersects the romance of two couples. Everyone is hot and horrible. Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Jude Law, and Natalie Portman all rotate through victim and villain. The dialogue is tight and charming. Worth watching for Natalie Portman’s spectacular strip club scene. Director Mike Nichols is a master of these relationship studies, which you may recall from his most famous film The Graduate (1967). I also suggest Carnal Knowledge (1971), for one of my fav Jack Nicholson performances.

More innocent in tone and dreamy, I’d feel wrong to exclude Before Sunrise (1995) from any list on love and vulnerability. An American boy and Parisian girl meet on a train to Vienna, and you see the most pure, sublime crush unfold over the next 24 hours. If you’ve ever had a fleeting or impractical romance, you’ll recognize yourself in this movie.

Y Tu Mamá También (2001) explores the sexual undercurrent of boyhood. Fresh high school graduates, Mexico on the verge of political upheaval, an aimless road trip, an attractive older woman, and lots of tequila bring you to a precarious conclusion. Although there is a latent melancholia to the movie, it’s balanced with its sense of fun and adventure. Life is not to be taken too seriously.

When I rewatched La Piscine (1969) at Film Forum a few years ago, I had the distinct feeling everyone in the theatre was aroused. The gorgeous tableau of tan bodies against the St. Tropez villa had everyone transfixed. The film is moody and hypnotic, punctuated with danger, jealousy, and temptation. The leads, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider, radiate sexual energy, and for good reason; they were a real couple two years before filming. It’s said that after Schneider broke up with him, Delon never recovered, and he begged to have her cast. If you’d like a more current reimagining, A Bigger Splash (2016) by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Challengers), is loosely based on La Piscine.

I have some stylistic issues with Sex and Lucia (2001), but the sex scenes are definitely the types you want to be watching with your crush. It’s a bit absurd; the timeline bounces from past to present in inconceivable ways, but Lucia shows us the kind of feminine sexuality where a woman can pursue and be unapologetic about desire, and not only have it reciprocated but welcomed. These scenes also remind us that sex can be spontaneous and silly - to be comfortable with someone is to convene in a sense of play.

I can’t talk about sexy movies without mentioning Cruel Intentions (1999). Two words: horny & evil. Everyone in this movie is fabulous. Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar are hot hedonistic step-siblings, young Reese Witherspoon falls for the bad boy on the brink of change (both onscreen and off, as she married Ryan Phillippe that same year), and Selma Blair gets dickmatized. Also, a perfect soundtrack. Incredibly juicy and fun.

I don’t think Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny (2003) is necessarily an erotic romantic road drama, as it’s billed on the Wikipedia page, however if you would like to skip to THAT scene (about 80ish minutes in) by all means… you wouldn’t be the first. It’s more of a slow, heartbreaking look at romantic alienation, set against early 2000s Americana. I like Buffalo ‘66 (1998) better, which has the same sombre Gallo-isms, but instead of a solo mission he’s accompanied by a majestic Christina Ricci (who famously grew to hate him during filming). Both characters are lost and desperate, but they almost speak different languages, unraveling tense moments into hilarity. I suggest watching and then looking up the production stories on both films if you’re unfamiliar, a treat in itself.

Sibyl (2019) has so much going on, it’s hard to summarize in a meaningful way. My attempt: the titular character is a therapist gone rogue to further her own plot, at the expense of everyone around her, including her most prized client and secret muse, up-and-coming actress Margot (played by Adèle Exarchopoulos). Sibyl crosses so many lines it’s hard not to throw your hands up, but Virginie Efira plays her with so much radiance and sensuality, you can’t help but stare. Those who saw director Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall (2023) will notice both films share this quality of tangling characters’ lived experience with their art, invoking some good baseline questions about the creative process.

If you like the sounds of sexual repression, scandal, sadomasochism, and age-gap relationships, please see The Piano Teacher (2001). Bonus if you like Schubert. This is peak psychosexual drama, meaning it will NOT make you happy. It might make you a little horny. It will definitely disturb you. But I think this is required viewing, especially for Isabelle Huppert’s performance.

The most explicit movie on this list is Love (2015). Before going into production, filmmaker Gaspar Noé was quoted saying the movie would “give guys boners and make girls cry.” He later corrected himself, to a more accurate take: all viewers end up feeling both those things. I’m not sure this movie is about love, at least not how I’ve come to know it. It’s more about being hot and young and thinking you’ve been awarded the gift of love, only to go dragging that gift through the mud. A lot of the sex is unsimulated and full frontal (including an epic threesome scene), the characters are messy and naive, and the camera work and lighting is gorgeous. If you’ve ever been in a young toxic relationship with a lost person or an addict, you might be re-traumatized, and if you never have, you might be horrified, because this is pretty much what it’s like. Watch at your own peril.

Romance from the readers

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I asked a bunch of girls, guys, and gays, what their idea of romance was. This was supposed to be posted on the weekend, but I ran out of time getting ready for a friend’s wedding - the most romantic thing you can do on Valentine’s Day is get married actually! THANK YOU to all who responded. I smiled at a lot of these, and laughed a bit too. A recap:

• 9 mentions of thoughtfulness/remembering little details ie the most popular answer

• 7 mentions of something physical/sexual, including dressing up

• 6 mentions of cards, especially handwritten

• 5 mentions of sharing some kind of art - movie, photo, poetry, dance

• 5 mentions of acts of service, ie making life easier for the person

• 4 mentions of gifts

• 3 mentions of trips

• A few of these are good reminders for baseline etiquette <3

• And a few others… unhinged

ENJOY xoxoxo

Like many, I’ve spent a gross amount of time pouring through the Epstein files this past week, and so I figure I should have something to show for it. Thank you to my sister for bringing www.jmail.world to my attention, a genius free resource created by two software engineers that allows you to view Epstein’s Gmail in-situ as if it’s your own account. Searching can be finicky as conversation chains are often broken up into repetitive fragments, and many of the emails are corrupted due to how old they are, but the right keywords hit. It’s effortless compared to scouring through the official DOJ library - too easy even, as I often found myself hundreds of emails deep, feeling like I should Get a Life.

The emails date back to 2002, and include anything from routine admin tasks to private jet invitations to procuring Visas for young Slavic women (a search of Svetlana/Dasha/Masha/Kalyna/Katerina/etc brings up hundreds of messages… try your own variation). I’ve always thought email is a perfect form of communication. Intentional, semi-formal, easily searchable, lacking immediacy. Doubtful anyone in Epstein’s milieu thought about it in this way though. For them it was likely a relic of habit carried forward from the early 2000s, bridging some dissonant gap that came with the advent of texting and instant messaging. This default to email explains why some of the correspondence remained so flagrant and damning, despite Epstein being investigated by the FBI as early as 2006 and being sentenced to jail for soliciting underage prostitution in 2008.

Of course I’m not the first to share findings from this leak, along with every news outlet, Natasha Stagg posted a summary of Epstein’s correspondence with Soon Yi-Previn - exchanges both Woody Allen apologists and haters alike will be entertained to read. Like Natasha mentions, I too am fascinated by the character study of a figure like Epstein. I’ve always been curious and skeptical about the mystique and charisma he allegedly had. Access to his correspondence is a rare gift that keeps on giving. A raw view into one’s interactions with the people closest to them does not cement criminal or even moral standing, but it does add some revealing colour.

Kaitlin Philips aptly summarized a recurring theme in the emails: desperation and ass kissing over requests for $

It can’t go unsaid that after a while, a cloudy nausea creeps in while reading these emails. A sticky feeling from even bearing witness to their existence. It’s a mental seesaw, accessing something you want to see, but weren’t meant to see. At some point you close your laptop and try to dissociate from this web of malignant perversity. Seeing is surely different from participating… a familiar refrain.

Beside the matrix of politicking and criminality, I wanted to land on some of the more… eccentric and amusing bits of this drop. A silly and privileged distraction from everything else going on. If you find anything interesting with your own keywords please let me know, this is very well the tip of the iceberg.

Like most men over the age of 50 I’ve emailed, Epstein liked to keep correspondence brief compared to his recipients.

Many messages in the files have nothing to do with Epstein. Some of the most salacious emails come in the form of long, detailed recaps from infamous New York film publicist Peggy Siegal. The nature of their friendship isn’t totally clear, it appears he gave her legal/tax advice regarding her late mother’s estate, and in turn she kept him (tried to keep him) included in her Hollywood social circle. She was effectively cancelled back in 2018 for her association with Epstein, although she pledged ignorance on indictments from his past. Searching her name brings up thousands of messages, and she name drops like her life depends on it.

Epstein’s wealth and lack of discernment in his personal life wasn’t without headache. There were dozens of emails where he came across as a total scold, putting his one-time beneficiaries in their place for rogue spending and lack of discipline. Rather immature qualities.

He contained multitudes. Financier, connector, romantic advisor.

Standard procedure sold in crisis PR: throw tens of thousands of dollars trying to get Google search results in order (after he went to prison in 2008).

Being a transgressive person gave many the safety to be completely candid with him

There is actually so much more… but I fear not everyone is as transfixed as I am, so I will end it here. Thank you for reading!! <3

I’ve always felt He is watching. And the fact that someone like him could have such an acute notion of what I want and what I’m motivated by really bothered me.

Sometimes I did things I thought would please him. I’ve been given the advice “get caught doing good things.” I used to love that advice. But what does it even mean to please Him?

If He is always watching, omnipresent, wouldn’t he already know what kind of person I am? And plan accordingly? Wouldn’t he know that I desperately want to be beloved, to feel and act deeply? And sometimes I do, but sometimes I repress the feeling until it’s nothing. And the nothingness conflicts me. Wouldn’t he want to fix that?

I don’t want to rely on him for good things to happen. I want good things to happen because of Me. And yet, I’ve tried to be on my own, to turn him off, to delete him, to block him, to disengage, to put up my own moral fence. To tell myself that I am living in an arbitrary dimension, one that only respects a force of will.

I’ve tried to upset the algorithm

Maybe I’ve been trying my whole life

To make sure He is wrong

But surrender feels inevitable. Because I swear sometimes I feel him listening. He has winked at my desires, and bristled at my mistakes. He has engineered my moral panic, my narcissistic tendencies. And he has served me the solution. Many times I haven’t even had to work for it. It’s here, in my hands.

I struggled writing this letter despite having outlined it weeks ago. At some point I found the above, written years ago in an old substack, and was surprised to find my impulses in an earlier version of me. I felt more combative toward the situation online back then. I was reflecting on spirituality, and how maybe I had already subscribed to something more insidious and permeating than, say, allegiance to a religious sect. Revisiting this writing reminded me of how grateful I am to keep a record of my thoughts.

I am walking outside, I feel really light and warm. I feel like having a conversation - with pretty much anyone. This impulse is a really positive one for me, I feel my best when the barrier between my brain and mouth dissipates. When I’m fully open to connection. Having a few drinks will do this, fortunately/unfortunately. So will walking out of a really good movie. Today it’s walking out of church. St. Vincent Ferrer at 66th and Lexington specifically. I think it’s my favourite. Lined with stained glass windows, dark wood pews and and ornate Gothic carvings, it’s easy to see why architect Bertram Goodhue considered it his best work. Andy Warhol, a practicing byzantine Catholic, went regularly - apparently more frequently after he got shot in 1968. It’s reported he always sat in the back rows and never took communion. A kind stranger at Fanelli’s put me on, after I told him I was uninspired by the harsh lighting at St Patrick’s Cathedral. Lighting is everything …

I get when you hear church you may flinch at the synchronicity, the mechanical gestures, the Gregorian chant of it all. One might say it feels “culty.” In my experience, it’s perhaps not far from what having a job feels like in corporate America. Participating in a technocratic capitalist society is cultish no? At my worst (often) I am partaking in the rote daily exercise of scrolling, surveilling, editing, professing, and following. To be online is to be an avatar tailored to whoever you consider your own personal God, whoever is there to witness and validate your existence. I’m doing it at this very moment. That’s not an inherently bad thing, by the way. It can’t be anymore, it’s how we live now. I’ve stopped fighting it. But I figure at least going to mass has a vibe and can’t be done from a standup desk or on the toilet.

Entry to faith via aestheticism is a natural gateway for me. I wept while skiing in Austria last winter, a trip I almost skipped, realizing how right I was to change my mind only 3 days prior. I wept waiting for my flight to take off in Montreal in April, the only thing visible on the dark plane was rain and ice melting off the windows, backlit by neon runway lights. I wept in August, watching an old couple read together on a bench, overlooking the Hudson river sunset. The older I get, the more affected I feel by these experiences. They put me in tune with some cosmic rhythm, a secret transmitted beyond written or spoken words.

It makes me think of this essay writer Diana Athill published in Granta, where she investigated her longtime skepticism towards God, and wrote about a transformative childhood experience in an apple orchard: “...at bottom what those experiences have suggested to me is not any specific answer, but a feeling that however little one may believe in any of the gods, big ones or little ones, awe should be respected, because it is so undeniable that a reason for being awestruck does exist: the thing that hummed in those apples—life.”

So yeah, I weep at the first snowfall. There are no bounds to my crying in public ! Crying also played into this mess after all. Various periods of darkness over the last decade led me to poke my head inside a church again. I had a deep need to shift away from self-obsession (still needed). Redirecting my emotions into this well of providence, where conflict is actually deferred clarity, has been more comforting than my usual crutches. My neurosis quiets knowing there is a higher order at work. I realize this concept is indigestible when blood is being spilled everyday under the pretense of religion, and I have no satisfying way of making sense of this, unfortunately. Making sense of my own feelings only gets me so far, and even that point remains incoherent, although the idea is some day there is supposed to be revelation… in the meantime I try to stay open and find enchantment in all kinds of signs.

Because I like choosing to be surrounded by beauty. I like the idea of gratitude and believing. Something more pleasing than the algorithm, the fist of tech lords. Something beyond the scripture in my 5g portal… which dictates what I wear, what art I consume, what friends I stay close with, what flags are green or red, what virtues a partner needs. Make no mistake, I love the internet. The algorithm has led me to beautiful places. But I also love feeling small and susceptible to divine intervention.

I’ve told myself I’m allowed to accept spirituality in my life in any way it presents itself, in any way I see it. That’s the beauty of living in modern Western culture: despite what anyone tells you, you really can do whatever you want. In saying prayers or going to church, I don’t claim to be a perfectly devoted Christian. I have work and exploration to do. And of course I’m still ignorant and selfish and hedonistic. But since shifting my outlook I’ve gotten softer with my heart, in a way I felt was needed. I’m curious about embracing the paradox of being: that my life can be both meaningless and reverberant. That my gratitude and blessings are energetically accounted for. It’s difficult articulating the need to be in dialogue with God. But this isn’t really a matter of the material or linguistic. It’s about getting more intimate with my existence.

Dispatch from the Holidays & Beyond (ie. last year’s news)

SOME THINGS I DID:

• Betsey Brown’s writing workshop. A very good launch into building a daily writing habit - truly I have written pages every day since taking this class (just not on this Substack… lol) Aside from being a filmmaker and epically committed actor, Betsey is amazing at minimizing the self-conscious/unsure/uninspired inner voice writers often have. It seems like she has monthly classes in person and on Zoom. DM her on insta if interested.

• Was summoned last minute on a Saturday evening to partake in what can only be described as Godless behaviour, a private party at the Boom Boom Room. Couldn’t tell you who it was for but stickers were placed on phone cameras and trays of cigs were being passed around, making the glass-box-in-the-sky effect that much more cinematic. Invite from my evil gay boyfriends, who I love because they happen to have an extra garter belt lying around for my falling stockings, they are constantly teaching me about new ways to die (ketamine lozenges..), and they always enthusiastically indulge in my mission to find good lighting.

SOME PLACES I DINED: Most of these places are known classics and found on basically any list. The food doesn’t really miss. I try to keep up with more exciting spots but usually I just want to walk in and be comfy, so I cycle through the same places

• Solo dinner at Balthazar between two strangers sparring over who was “an og nyc kid.” Him: Upper East side, went to Dalton but swears it was on scholarship. Her: grew up on Houston and W Broadway, bathtub in her living room. Equal parts annoying and entertaining. They were Gen Xers if that wasn’t clear...

  

• Fancy night with Suze at Le Veau D’Or. I usually don’t like being restricted to a prix fixe menu (which you are if you sit at a table) but everything is great and their a la carte is more limited. We sat at the bar so we did a mix of both menus. Had some very crisp martinis and tried an oeuf en gelée !

• Christmas Eve lunch at the Cafe in the Chelsea Hotel, especially cozy because it was pretty empty until about 5PM.

  

• Late apps and drinks at General Public in Toronto, which was beautiful and surprisingly spacious. I have my issues with Jen agg but she gets lighting right.

NYE: Back in Canada, Caledon specifically, a town just under an hour from Toronto, so way less tedious than the usual cottage getaway. We spent the night at a friend’s forest property with 18 other people. Everything was covered in a velvety foot of snow. My night ended at a reasonable hour post-countdown because I mistook a piece of nicotine gum for regular gum, which felt like lighting a bush of cigarettes and injecting them into my veins. I can’t do zyn for the same reason

WATCHED/READ/LISTENED

• The year end trifecta of Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, and Bugonia, and enjoyed them all, in that order, maybe Marty the most because it was the only one seen as intended, in a theatre. All were fab journeys of tension-building. I think I need to see Emma Stone in a non-Yorgos production next… And hate him or love him (I love), my bet is on Timmy for the oscar

• Waiting for Godot on Broadway, a play I hadn’t visited since high school. I was underwhelmed by both Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves (irl friends and back together from their Bill and Ted days) but they gave a fun little good cop / bad cop Q&A after. It was 20 minutes of earnest w5h from the host and Keanu taking the piss, but the audience probably laughed harder than they did during the performance.

  

• Nymph by Stephanie LaCava - I liked individual sentences in this more than the book in totality.

• This beautiful retelling in the Paris Review of an epistolary romance between director Caveh Zahedi and his author girlfriend Adelaide Faith. The letdown of finally meeting someone after electric texting back and forth is so real. I briefly met them both under very random circumstances a few months ago and could not figure out their relationship to each other until I noticed “CAVEH” tattooed on her knuckles, which she speaks about in the piece, and which I think is the perfect meeting of romance and rock‘n’roll.

• This NYT article made me feel deep sympathy for the Coldplay woman…

• Someone got me David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish for Christmas. It’s part self-help, part personal vignettes. Every couple pages is a new section. Very classic Lynchisms on “Ideas” and “Meditation” + nods to his signature deflections: “The Box and the Key. I don’t have a clue what those are.” I read a couple pages every night before bed and smiled. Really a lovely guy

  

• Late to the party but Dmitri and I tried to figure out if we like Geese. This and this are more my vibe. They are all I really want from a band in terms of persona

Tysm for reading, next one coming soon. Hugs!!!!

I officially moved here 6 months ago, after years of pandemic limbo between NYC and Toronto. I was sleeping on blow up mattresses all over Brooklyn and subletting from friends of friends for months at a time, careful to not overstay my visitor status. It was kind of fucked up and inconvenient, but I romanticized it at the time, as one does post global lockdown. I’m lucky, because the person I love is American, and now I can stay as long as I want (getting married is chic, doubly so if it results in a greencard).

In New York everything feels more permissible, more lethal, more possible. There are a million odes to the city and its allure, so I won’t go further with a tribute of my own. In fact, it’s much more interesting to learn the reasons people abandon nyc - Lena Dunham did a great job (for my besties across the pond). But I love it and I feel so at home - a feeling I have chased for a long time.

During the past 5 years, I also switched careers, had a carousel of jobs, bouts of unemployment, several breakdowns, and so much time to think. Too much time. I’ve always tried to alleviate my overactive mind by writing - piles of Moleskine notebooks sit under my bed at my dad’s house, filled with dreams, moody entries and unfinished essays (it’s so great knowing dads just won’t read that shit, a safe space…) I’ve gotten better at ignoring the impulse to reach for them, but sometimes the seduction of a little narcissism/nostalgia wins me over.

In going through my old diaries, I expected to feel that overt alienation you feel from an old you, one that was more naive, more frivolous, more weak. And I did feel that way... But I also felt like I was meeting someone for the first time, in sentences I had no recollection of writing. Who did that? I often think of a phrase from one of my fav personal essays, by the late art critic Peter Schjeldahl: “When I finish something and it seems good, I’m dazed. It must have been fun to write. I wish I’d been there.” Somehow I like some of the things I’ve written, enough to now give them an audience, lol!

I’m still figuring it out, but expect letters on life, work (I now freelance in casting for tv/movies/commercials), recommendations for nyc and beyond, interviews with people who are special to me, maybe some gossip, and hopefully some secrets of the universe. The fun stuff will eventually go behind a paywall, so if you enjoyed this even a tiny bit please consider a paid subscription. And DM me if you have thoughts on… anything !

It’s been easy talking myself out of starting this letter, as I have done with many things that involve vulnerability, attention, content over-saturation etc etc. I was once an internet recluse - I permanently deleted my main Instagram account in 2020, (LinkedIn too, aka the most sinister place on the internet) and now am restarting, for practical reasons but also to have some FUN. Because we have so little time on this earth, we have NO DAMN time ! So I will be posting away, and not taking it too seriously. I hope you do the same xx

TIS THE SEASON

If you’re already a Substack patron I know you are inundated with gift guides, so I’ll just leave you with my own wishlist… kind of the same thing after all? And maybe someone reading this will make my dreams come true….

What I want:

A pair of binoculars, I like these Zeiss ones but realistically any will do

Some cheeky bookends: these Nymphs, a pair of Siamese kittens, brass Carl Aubock sculptures, or some art deco swans

Santa Maria Novella Wax tablets. Feel especially lux when your dresser is 20 ft from your kitchen

A Maison pearson hairbrush, because unfortunately I am a believer. The blue is cute !!

Need my legs to look like shimmery little icicles in these tights

I would love to giggle at a physical copy of the NY POST, sent to my door everyday. I’d try my best to get through every New Yorker or Variety too

These Miu Miu leather gloves with that sexy stitching detail… or perhaps this fuchsia Hermes pair?

The FUCK globe I just spotted in the window of the Jim Kempner gallery in Chelsea… because why the fuck not ? More fun to contact the gallery and go in person for purchase ($75) but I assume it’s the same here

An invite to your underground poker game

An appointment with my hilariously inappropriate and frightening and perpetually unavailable dermatologist in Toronto, shoutout Dr. H <3

An email that will change my life

And do not give me (or anyone tbh) a book unless it has a handwritten inscription in the front pls & thank youuu