August is dinners with your girl friend where you,
beat a dead horse and dance through heartbreak and hilarities all the same
When golden hour stretches all 10 fingers out and hugs you with the promise of a summer night ahead,
music in a square somewhere,
looks from passing patrons on the same pointless quest as you.

August is the end, the last night
Your last chance to suck the fried bits off a calamari and,
ask your waiter what his favorite bar is

July is lavender and August is rosemary
A ripe plum
The carcass of a bar of soap that washed you all summer-long in an outdoor shower

August is making peace with goodbyes—a summer crush, a beach town, a flip flop that snapped during your pilgrimage to a UNESCO site you only saw to say you did

I always feel sad in August
Like I oughta get on board with fall now
Like when I was 29 and I told everyone I was 30 so that it would sting less later

August is daft punk, pearl jam, slow drake
Manic melancholia
A text unanswered but this time you see it coming
The wisdom of summer oozing out your sunscreen bottle,
dripping what you already know onto your toes
It’s also hungover sex.

August is one pancake left at the continental breakfast
The sticky scraps of eggs and burnt coffee and,
a German father up before his family can see the despondency in his eyes
He has to go back to work Monday

August doesn’t cower under the comfort of the beginning or the middle
August is a peninsula, hanging onto July’s edges and being guided by September’s lighthouse with the scorching dread of a heat wave

August asks you you sit in it. Wallow. Rest.
I am in my latency period, luteal and languished
I write from a surf town in the south of Portugal where nothing seems to be going on and no one wants it to

I am bored
My heart is broken
I am unsure and uneasy and as I drag my olive body through the tar of August’s final days,
I am more and more sure that I will be ok

At karaoke I confide in a stranger as
a Thai man sings Iris by the Goo Doo Dolls
Unfamiliar faces undermining my unraveling
Wanna do drugs about it? he asks
I shake my ass to norman fucking rockwell and remember I am not Original

A boy I know floats listlessly around nyc
Getting head and waking up in nicer apartments than his own,
I ask why he chases what makes him feel empty and he says that I
obviously don’t understand male sadness
He misses his ex in LA but doesn’t want to get back together

In the back of a car I watch a new couple kiss over the center console
They call me their daughter and I think
You’re nothing like my parents
They’re attractive and young and I wonder what will be the thing they fight about over and over again when they’re drunk and it’s late and they’re bored
Every couple I thought would get married broke up

I’m gonna have a kid I think..that way I’ll clean up my act
I get that text from a vagabond man who has no business being a father
He flies girls from faraway places to his hotel rooms to mind the silence with him
I don’t even want to have sex, he tells me
Then how are you gonna have a kid?

S has a boyfriend though they’ve been long distance for 6 years
Every summer she yearns for the impermanence of insignificant intimacy,
catching glimpses of her youth flying by in the bathroom mirrors of European beach clubs
She watches me disappear behind the bar with a body i’ll never know again and
back at the airbnb I watch her giggle over facetime with a man who loves her

At a downtown club though really a lounge I’m intoxicated with Newness
An Attractive Man tells me he’s 5 days out of a breakup then puts his arm around me
Offended, he asks why I’m laughing
I say that I finally understand male sadness
I walk home and listen to drake and cry and laugh and cry and laugh and decide I’ll be ok

I get home from a long trip where my heart broke in a hotel room with pin striped curtains and
Notice all my plants died
I sit on my orange couch and remember a fight I had here once where I
swallowed another’s smoking lie
Through hiccups I water the leaves and take out my pen and in my journal I write,
What did you neglect while you were being neglected?

to always begin again

In a dimly lit bar upstate a girl tells me her boyfriend cheated on her
She has a shaved head and thigh high boots and
when she talks I take account of her small features
I didn’t know girls with boney shoulders got cheated on
We eat Dominos in my car and laugh about our eating disorders

On a soccer field in chinatown I see my long lost friends (it’s been 2 months)
I run into G’s arms and he spins me like I’m weightless
We have walked through fire together and come out boasting burns with an irreverence reserved only for children of the worst divorce variety
He’s falling in love with an Estonian model, he says
Idk what it is about her—I cut him off—her face and body

Passing barns and diners we take pictures of barns and diners
My mood is soured by dehydration and mixed signals
I beg for an explanation to one of the great wonders of this world, The Male Mind
How could I possibly give you any less? he really says
I write that down to remember I didn’t dream it

I text my dad who is a stranger and he responds with a 7 second video of his new apartment
It makes me cry but I am not alone so I run to the bathroom and scream into toilet paper
I never saw his last apartment and now he has a new one
Which I probably won’t see either
He’s never seen me do stand up

S got ghosted by a guy she was excited about
He was on a tv show
On TikTok I listen to a woman say that inconsistency from men doesn’t come from confusion, but from capacity
If the dynamic is confusing then the bar drops, and he doesn’t feel the pressure to step up to your level of maturity,
or whatever
I send this to her

@iamnancycooper @iamnancycooper ♬ original sound - ✨ Nancy Cooper ✨

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At a diner in Bushwick I declare today the last day on earth
Because it really felt like it
Have you ever thought back to your last meal with someone and wondered what you would have ordered if you knew that would be the last meal you shared
maybe a milkshake, definitely fries
I ask for another cup of coffee to stretch infinity into beyond

On the Upper East Side a surgeon tells me that I have harsh features and a Cameron Diaz smile
But that’s your look!
He uses Photoshop to show me how I would look if I was mathematically beautiful
I steal a handful of Lifesavers from his office and
on the subway ride home picture myself bleeding out under hospital lighting
Like Icarus but a girl, and also the sun is Instagram face in this metaphor

A friend leaves nyc today
His phone is still connected to my bluetooth speakers as the door slams shut behind him
Lyrics gripping onto evaporating airwaves, crackling and gasping like a head bobbing in faraway waters
Slowly and then all at once…silence
he was gone

On Monday night I lay in bed for too long and send 6 voice notes to a Male Friend because I Need Help!
He says that I am broken and I cry to Paul Simon which is a problem because
I just got a lash lift
Tomorrow I am leaving the country but right now, under my duvet,
I wonder if I am sad

\

These are just some things i’ve felt lately

By 5pm we’ve made up our minds to venture west just as everyone is heading back east. We’re off-time, poor planners, lazy. I suggest that maybe today we make the conscious decision to make no decisions. Let the decisions make us. I didn’t know what I meant by that but thought it sounded good. We grab our jackets for the unavoidable evening temperature—we’re leaving now but dressed for later. Bipolar microclimates that make living in the present near impossible.

LA is future-oriented.

A Quixote-esque journey on the LA metro brings us from point a to point beach. We’re dropped off at the Santa Monica pier like teenagers left to fend for their freedom on the front steps of the mall. where do we go from here?

We walk like zombies towards the horizon and my companion sees someone he knows which prompts us to turn left. We pass a motel and I fantasize about getting fucked in one of its rooms. I think about the time when, not yet 18, I stayed at a beachside motel in Seaside, New Jersey, and drunk-called my brother from a toilet. Two older girls helped me throw up and then we all kept drinking. I look up and see a faded sign for “The Hotel California” and think, that can’t be the one.

He walks to the right of me—gentlemanly—because that’s the side the road is on, and convenient, because that’s my good side. On the back patio of The Galley I order a rum & coke which is not at all what I want, but a story I just told about how dark rum turns me violent prompts me to blurt it out when the waitress comes by. I turn my chair towards the sun. It’s always summer on the west side and I’m always 25. I want to make love in an outdoor shower, sandy bottoms tossed lazily across the porch. I want to be thrown by my hip bones and tan lines across fresh white sheets. I want to fall asleep before dinner and wake to the smell of fish. I think all this as I sit there on the back patio of the Galley but say none of it out loud. I just stare and nod and laugh the hysteric giggles of a girl tipsy in the daytime.

Two girls in slicked back buns sit next to me drinking rosé and sharing calamari and I think that nothing could be better than that. We order the same. The fried rings are chewy and soft and I eat them only as a vehicle to douse my mouth in tartar sauce…the magic of this place is dying…i want something to happen but I’m not sure what... I’m drunk.

I look over at my companion (sitting on my bad side now) and notice he is sullen—his eyes wander towards the eternity inside himself. You’ve hardly touched your tentacles. I try to pry it out of him like a dentist yanking at a dead tooth but he is a boy and I am a girl and we will never understand each other. Not really, at least. We pay and continue onward, which is southward, towards Venice.

On Lifeguard Stand 28, I listen to the sound of waves and far off voices, indiscernible OM. The ocean reminds me that I am insignificant, that I think of myself too much. This is not an original thought and I am not an original girl. I write GIRLFRIEND across the light blue wood and Blue Light plays through my phone. I lay back and dissolve.

i am here i am hereiamhereeeeee. i think he’s less worried now.

I remember that I have cookies in my bag and split one in half. The song ends and a new one begins and I peel myself away from this moment, blind trust that whatever comes next will be just as good. Through the dunes and feet drowning in sand, we quickly realize my prophecy as we stumble into a SCENE—strangers chanting and dancing around a fire. An improvised drum circle. I’m not on mushrooms but I’m positive there are spores in the air.

What ensues is a cacophony of chaos. Each participant nurses his own instrument and through sheer lack of effort they synchronize into some kind of orgiastic orchestra. A man across from me chants THANK YOU over and over again as he lights sage and contorts his torso over the flames. A fairy in a maxiskirt twirls between us on her tiptoes. A tweaker’s gibberish transcends to lyricism. My friend wants weed and a man selling weed appears. I can’t stop laughing—it’s all so strange—he smirks at me and I wonder if he thinks I’m being a pick-me.

I rip a piece of paper from my journal (this very one) and make us both write down something we wish to release and something we hope to invite in. I peak: Love / Fear. I waft the folded pieces through the smoke and bury our thoughts in the sand. I’m aware of how bad this all looks—a white girl casting a spell at a Venice Beach drum circle. Maybe I am pick-me. A disagreement erupts around the fire which I don’t notice but which makes my now-high friend anxious, so we leave.

The Venice boardwalk at 10pm is an underworld. The flashing lights of a firetruck illuminate a woman’s wails on the ground. A man stands hunched over, frozen in time, while yet another shifts behind me. I consider that at one point these people were all 7. We saunter through this dark underpass and emerge onto main street—a live band plays outside a bar, hoards of people scantily clad in beach attire dance around them—a reggae renegade. They have no idea people nearby are dying

We watch from a distance. I am here, but don’t feel a part of it. I wait for the drugs to kick in though I am sober and haven’t taken any. I ask him what he’s afraid of and he spits up behind a garbage can. I say wasted potential to answer my own question. I fall in love with a tall girl who is smiling and dancing with no makeup on. She’s so beautiful, I say, because I can tell he doesn’t think so. He looks at me with glassy eyes and I wonder what he’s thinking about. Probably something unrelated. Probably that he’s nauseous. He’s standing on my bad side now but it doesn’t occur to me—he’s not looking. I’m too busy poetisizing the poverty to notice.

LAAAA!!!! I love it here. No I don’t. I hate it here. FUCK. I left my JBL headphones at the Bungalow.

I uber from Echo Park to Hollywood and then back to Los Feliz. Two hours of my day sacrificed to playing passenger in someone else’s ride. People in LA wait for something to happen and people in NYC make things happen. That is the only difference worth noting and covers all bases of intrigue between the two.

LA is a portal though I’m not sure what’s on the other side. The air reeks of dwindling dreams and bygone bypassers. Eve Babitz rolling in her grave to get a good look at the weeds sprouting out of her legacy. Promises passed through lip filler and boys on the east side who dap you up after sex. I know there are surfers here but I don’t know where to find them. Every time I come to LA a new neighborhood pops up that everyone swears is cool, “like brooklyn.” Silverlake, Highland Park, Elysian Heights…how far east do I have to go to make it feel like I’m somewhere else?

It’s all right here and yet when you go to touch it, it all falls away like sand off the Santa Monica pier. Clear skies and golden hour—it’s actually impressive to be so mentally ill when all the elements are conspiring in your favor. Coddling and cradling you, worshipping your tanned skin. I take one hit of the sun and feel inspired to fix my relationship with my dad—no, but write a screenplay about it. I sit at the pool instead.

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I’m here for a good time and a short while. Everyone says they hate LA but I know they’ll never leave. “The best part is how easily you can get to the mountains, the snow, the ocean, and the forest.” Yeah well, in Bushwick I can get a bacon egg and cheese within 6 feet of my doorstep which a homeless guy just shit on. Standing on Sunset watching the sunset, my mouth opens to scream into the vapor, the void…I vomit bodega grease onto the front steps of Cafe Prado.

I don’t know what to do with myself in calllifooorrniaaaaa so I text a guy and order a ginger lemon tonic. I roll over in my hotel bed and see that the maid has placed my purple vibrator underneath the duvet, which was kind. I’ll tip her for that. I had a low grade fever last night on account of all the orange wine I’ve been drinking (3 glasses in 3 days which for me is a bender). I put on a political podcast and quickly realize there’s no place for politics in this environment. Should I order weed? He texts back. Uneventful.

Rolling over and over and oveerrrrrrrr. LA is a wave. I don’t trust anyone here but I want to know their secrets!!!! A guy at the pool offers to cover my tab and I tell him “only if it means you’ll leave me alone.” That makes him like me more. They see through the facade because LA is a facade. Am I repeating myself? Or rather, repeating an idea that’s been said and said and said. I have nothing original to say about LA which is the most LA thing I could say. I contribute nothing to the lore except more slop with which fill the underground tunnels, which speaking of—siri, set a reminder to go down a rabbit hole on LA tunnels tonight when I’m supposed to be meditating.

I sit on a lifeguard stand in Venice which has been destroyed by graffiti and inhale the fumes of a joint I don’t want. On my way to a dive bar, I watch a woman do tai chi. I feel myself getting sick, or maybe I just haven’t eaten all day—the air is cold and I’m in a black miniskirt and ballet flats and I feel like doing something craaazyyy. I drink half my beer and start laughing because it’s 5pm on a Tuesday and my cheeks are red with sun and weed and drunkenness and joy. Nothing matters and yet it’s all so meaningful.

Anyways (can I even say anyways if I never made a point?)...the sun is starting to set and the dancing vines on my balcony beckon me to the window. I inhale the pollution which smells like rose (though perfume, not the real thing) and wonder how many people have killed themselves here. Romantic. And sad. Sooooooo LA.

Time is cascading and yet it is always 3pm. Someone asks me to “get dinner” but I don’t want to eat. Also I don’t like him. Like, liiiike like him. I’m dying for someone to send me a bouquet.

“MAKE ME FEEL LIKE A GIRL!!!!” I scream this later in the evening.

I open the room service menu which is leather-bound, and hope this hotel offers lobotomies. Maybe that’s the secret to LA—strip yourself of all thoughts and hopes and memories and woes and crushes and exes and dreams and thirst and ego and suspicion and greed and personality and self-respect and self-loathing and fat anddddd aaaannd anddddd…..is LA fucking boring? I extend my stay one more night.

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The cockroach took no heed.

My next tactic was to bring in a contracted killer. At the top of my lungs I screamed for any man I’ve ever met or made eye contact with to appear and save me.

NOTE: There are several types of experiences that make the feminism leave my body, like a phantom evaporating into the ether at the moment of passing. I would gladly give up my rights for any ex to kill a spider under my bed. I would take 80 cents to the dollar to never again, have to carry luggage up cobblestone streets. If it came between voting and having to decide where to eat, let’s just say I’d skip the ballot and let my partner pick bolognese.

Unfortunately, the Nearest Man was no use at all (a total pussy), and I was left to survive the night, just me and the roach—in the master bathroom of the master bedroom of my Mexican villa.

To give some context, I’m in Puerto Escondido, Mexico—a small beach town I was told would heal me after three months of perpetual respiratory ailments and a year of depression. I’m also a standup comedian (a common side effect of mental illness). This is how I make my money. What makes standup a unique art form is that your capabilities on stage are contingent on your consistency—a few days off can really throw you. It’s like riding a bike in that it never really goes away, but getting back into it can be rough and bumpy. In that way, it’s also like herpes.

Due to said illnesses, my periods of performing have been reduced to inconsistent weekends on the road. Canceled gigs have resulted in minimum stage time and a real lack of inspiration—bringing pen to page feels tenuous, impossible, painful, even (I talk about the difficulties of my job in such a way that you might think I save orphans with cancer from burning buildings, when in fact, I just make abortion jokes).

In the Mexican villa, I began to contract yet another virus, though one much more pervasive than the strep I’d been battling—imposter syndrome. I’m a hack. I should quit now, or get a degree in marketing then kill myself anyway. Maybe I could become a life coach and convince other women that they too, are bad at their jobs. They could then also become life coaches, and together, we could coach each other into a human centipede of coaching. I’ve seen it happen before…

The cockroach was cold water on my nightmarish ruminations. I was in survival mode now—any sense of identity or career, my former hopes and dreams, were squashed by the creeping parasite. I had a stalker, and it was only a matter of time before he pounced. For hours, I laid with one eye open. I held in my pee because I knew the second I sat down on the toilet, he’d crawl into my ass, the little pervert. I had a long night ahead, and to pass the time, I opened Instagram.

Online, I sought community (pity). I posted a photo of the cockroach, and got some responses, though never enough to fill the existential void. One response in particular stood out as somewhat odd—it was from an older, well-established comedian who’d been following me for some time but who I’d never interacted with. I rolled my eyes. Not a 3 AM message request from an Older Male Comedian.

Surprisingly, he was invested in Roach Gate. I responded back thoughtlessly. He wrote back again, this time mentioning my standup. He said he liked it. That’s nice, I thought. I didn’t care.

I then remembered a point of connection between us, which is that some months earlier, I had opened for a very successful comedian on his theatre tour. It was a career highlight. This comedian was the reason I started standup, and getting his validation reinvigorated my belief in myself (yeah I have daddy issues, shut up). Meeting him serendipitously was the ultimate sign that I was on the right path.

The comedian in my DMs was going on tour with him later this year. I brought this up to him.

I know. He mentioned you. Said he really respects you as a comedian.
Really????
Yes. He thinks you’re very funny. Talks highly of you. Said you have great jokes.

I heard a noise and suspected it was the roach, but this time, I relaxed. I closed my phone, then my eyes. I tried to remember what that time in my life felt like. I regarded myself as a real standup comedian then, which felt so dissonant from my current condition of crippling self-doubt. I remember coming on stage with an electricity that was unaffected by the ebbs and flows of the process. One tepid response from the audience didn’t shatter my self image. How far I’d strayed from my God Complex…

There was a moment when I was on tour with said comedian, when we were driving through the Great American plains, listening to folk music. We were going over jokes, the history of comedy, and even a punchline from my set. I remember thinking to myself that 10 years ago, I’d never believe this was possible. I closed my eyes to savor it. I had earned my flowers and was throwing them all across the Idaho skyline…I’d arrived in my dream.

…and now here I was, 8 months later, eyes still closed, but this time, capitulating to my fears, plotting my psychic suicide. I was less sure of myself now than when I started 10 years ago, my God Complex reduced to a vermin mentality.

—

Upon first laying eyes on the beast, the cockroach did not feel like a metaphor. He felt literal. Visceral. Like I needed him gone. But then again, the comedian in my DMs would not have messaged me had it not been for the roach. I wouldn’t even be thinking about this memory had he not been compelled to weigh in on the drama.

And that’s the thing about symbols. They don’t announce themselves. They show up as nuisances, as obstacles to be removed so you can continue on, unexamined. If you move too fast — if you kill too quickly — you might just miss the message.

—

Cockroaches are nocturnal creatures—they scurry into the dark when the lights flicker on. This is often when we catch them—escaping the in-between—running towards the familiarity of obscurity. I thought about how long I’d been letting myself do the same. How tantalizing darkness can be when you’re tired. How easy it is to confuse hiding with healing, and how much I genuinely missed basking in the limelight.

I went to sleep knowing the roach was still there, behind a pipe or under the cabinet—he managed to escape defeat tonight. I, too, was not going to banish my self-doubt this evening. Perhaps I could sleep next to it instead.

I left the lights on.

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black crop top found (and lost again)

the year i turned 30 and felt more unsure  

than i did at 25

2025 struck me with its backhand then,

cupped my bruised chin and whispered

this won’t last

and i cried because it was over too soon

and i cried because i wanted it over now

in 2025 i went to greece and danced on a table

it was the first time i ever wore heels on vacation

i walked home barefoot and blistered and ate ketchup flavored lays in bed and 

on the back of a moped in italy I gripped the belly fat of a lover and let go of our future

i stayed up for 3 days once, in 2025

stimulated by my own ennui

i wondered if This Might Really Be It, and

What Else Was There?, and also

I should call mom more

i didnt. i will.

this year i took a red pill and vomited blood

then slid ass first into the puddle

when everyone else was asleep I became an expert in the middle east

i don’t want to know anything anymore

in March of 2025 I went to barcelona and had a one night stand

in the prayer section of Sagrada Família, I wept—

a security guard placed his hand on my shoulder and with blurry eyes I looked up at his,

like the saint I saw in that painting

i could have died

i was holy

i was hungover

in december i sat on a bus in california and drank a black cherry white claw

all the way from santa monica to downtown la

eeeevrythingggggisnewwwwww, i thought

i don’t know the difference between endings and beginnings anymore

i think that’s a good thing

Last December, I went on a month-long investigation uncovering the dark underbelly of the holiday season. The end result was a 30 min documentary, which acts as episode 1 of my new show: To Be Determined with Stef Dag. This is for fans of shows like How to With John Wilson, Nathan For You, and The Daily Show. It will also, guaranteed, get you in the holiday spirit :)

Some things you can expect: man-on-the-street interviews with New Yorkers at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree (who apparently have no idea why they’re even there), my drunken foray into Santacon, several flirtatious encounters, and my attempts to scam a rich guy in a penthouse in the name of Christmas Tree Capitalism. None of the people in this show are actors. This is the real shit.

I don’t want to give too much away, but I prooomiiiise it’ll make you laugh x

Watch now on YouTube:

Enjoy & remember to drunk text everyone who’s ever made eye contact with you on Christmas eve :)

-Stef

I’m back on tour this week in Las Vegas & San Diego, and then again in Alpharetta & Nashville (2 shows). Come, & send to everyone you know in those places :)

see me on tour<3

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is the question how much can I take? I was talking to a friend recently about general life, as well as past relationship, experiences—some more extreme than others—and as a way to explain why I’ve endured these situations, I stated, “well…I can handle it.”

Very gently, she replied, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to.” Though simple, and probably intuitively known by many (at least those with good dads), it’s stuck with me.

I’m someone who’s drawn to extremes—life or death, black and white, high fat vs low carb…these are the swings that define my existence. They feel honest, or at least like exposure therapy to the most frightening truths of humanity. What, after all, is the human experience if not grappling with things not being fair—bad things happen to good people, the grass is always greener, and fruit sugar really *is* still sugar. Shouldn’t the choices in my personal life follow this trend of severity?

I suspect that when life gets too quiet, too steady or slow, it leaves space for the mouths through which existential whispers arise, to sink their teeth into me. If the problems in my life feel lofty, if they crush me to the point of near suffocation, I have hardly any breath left to ask the unanswerable, Sisyphean questions that drive Great Men mad. In survival mode, the brain zeros in on what’s in front of us, what resources we have and can use to put one foot in front of the other. Rarely do we have the privilege of lifting our heads, taking a look around us, and noticing that we’re on the edge of a cliff (that cliff being the mattress pad your toxic 26 year old boyfriend who probably hates you makes you sleep on).

I think that’s part of the reason I gravitated towards standup comedy—in a way, it’s an extreme sport. Standing on stage, spiritually naked, I have no choice but to face the unknown, the void of strange faces looking up at me, waiting to hear what I have to say about 9/11. Performing is my antidote to avoidance. On stage, I’m fully enveloped in the present moment. If I let myself scurry towards the future or backslide into the past, I will, guaranteed, bomb. The punishment of losing my presence is immediate and visceral—it would be like if every time you let a thought enter your mind during meditation, someone waterboarded you.

My personal life then, too, has become a race towards dopamine-inducing experiences. High highs and low lows, relationships that push my limits and move the goal posts of what I can handle. I go back and forth on whether or not this is the right way to live, while also knowing that this inquiry is a dead end—what feels right or good to me may be unfathomable by another. Buddhist teachings tell me that all this yearning is cancer to the human spirit, but the artist in me craves something to fucking write about. If we are spiritual, star-dusted beings having a human experience, then shouldn’t we actually have it, maxed out on all fronts? And if all that is true…since when is stardust so prone to chronic UTIs???

I could sit here and tell you that my extreme sports days are behind me. That now, entering the first year of my 30s, my limits have been set, sealed, and sanctified…but I know myself too well to speak in such valiant terms. What is starting to sink in, however, is that I have nothing to prove. There is no Great Reward for suffering, for sacrificially throwing yourself into the fire. Sprinting through a marathon with extra weight on your ankles, a blindfold around your eyes, and mouth tape, only gets you shin splints, missed photo opps, and a sinus infection (jawline snatched tho!). There’s nowhere to run but the finish line, so take your time, enjoy the company, and stop every few miles to stretch & pee (seriously is this a UTI or is this normal I can’t tell). Life is allowed to be easy, light, absurd, and even boring. “The heaviness will inevitably come,” my friend said to me, criss cross on my couch, “might as well choose the path of least resistance.”

“True,” I replied, taking a sip of cheap wine, which you and me both know will give me a week long hangover.

A lot of people would call that “home” but my mom moved here long after I was young enough to call anywhere home besides a place that I pay for. One where all my adult-purchase skincare jars lay half closed along my unkempt medicine cabinet. Topless freedom, you’re not the boss of me, $40 bottles of snail cum some 16 year old on TikTok convinced me was the secret to never getting old, while here in this house, my mom’s house, I insist I’m not a child.

I enter this house and step inside the door to my doldrums. I’m greeted by endless accommodation and unconditional love, but my unreasonable, seething teenage-poisoned brain suspects coercion. A slight of hand meant to rebind me to my mother, to trick me into abandoning all sense of separateness and reenter her womb. Soft, warm womb with all my favorite snacks. Perfectly balanced AC, Firestick TV, on-demand service in this fully furnished ureteral haven.

see me on tour<3

I’m in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a place that meant nothing to me until I was 24 years old, besides the time I came here for a cheer competition when I was 16 and we won but only because there was no other team in our division. My mom’s house has an elevator that takes you from the ground floor straight into her apartment which is funny because we are poor. The finances of this house are shrouded in mystery, the mystery being my mom’s long term boyfriend who doesn’t live here and who I’ve only met a few times but who bought this condo and also my winter coats when we had no money (we still don’t).

Myrtle Beach is a contradiction. Dewey warm southern heat and residents on the brink of dying. My mom lives on a golf course composed of mostly retirees and mainly MAGA enthusiasts. This is funny because my mom is an immigrant and also a democrat. Everything is still here, but not still like on a forest walk when you remember that you are small and the trees will grow with or without you—not still like that. The stillness here is stuffy, oppressive, there is nowhere to go except the golf course, a mini golf course, or Zumba at the YMCA. There is also a “boardwalk” though it is off a highway and nowhere near the beach. There you can stop in a fudge shop or a Señor Frog on your way to one of the 15 stores that sell beach tanks that remind you where you are—MYRTLE BEACH, SC—I suppose this is for the old people with dementia.

I am the black sheep of this family though you knew that based on the fact that I’m writing about it at all. My brother and my mom, the mother of my brother, do not feel the weight of the air in Myrtle Beach. They breathe in the sea breeze and enjoy the mild climate and even occasionally go to said fudge shops as their evening treat.

I am the odd one out, the Difficult Child, sensitive. This is my terminal condition. Do not disturb the delicate genius, she is making memes and writing prose about us. I rarely consider what it’s like to be Related to Me. A friend of mine. My boyfriend. Do they fear my hand, the one that pens their caricatures colored with biases and one-sidedness? Do they cringe at my nakedness, of which they never asked to be a part of, but by association, have no control to cover up? Do they wish I was a lawyer?

Here in my mother’s house I demand my freedom. I cut the cord and swim away to my nooks and corners where I can be undisturbed to check my phone. In the other room, nearby because this apartment is quite small, I hear my family finishing a puzzle. They are laughing. They are light. They float together in nothing-speak. The weather, work, TV shows. I scowl. They are bobbing and bobbing above water as I hardly make out the gurglings from below. I’m at the bottom of the ocean where it is black, which I’ve deemed as Right. True. My whole life I’ve been alone in these depths while they reap the benefits of sunshine and dry hair.

They’ve finished the puzzle which was quite hard and which I’ve contributed nothing to. I come up for air because I’m not a deep-sea creature but rather a woman, a girl. They say nothing of my soaking body, my wet hair, and make space for me on the couch. I drip, drip, drip, drying off in the overhead lighting, kicking my feet below to avoid sinking. Once I am settled and we pick a TV show I stop kicking and notice it takes very little to float. I lay there, sprawled out, bobbing on the pleather, next to my brother and my mother, who gave birth to us both, and the coldness of Below feels like a distant memory now. I could die happy here though I’ll never tell them that.

If you like my writing, consider coming to my standup tour—Las Vegas, San Diego, Alpharetta & Nashville next. Tickets here<3

Sorry I haven’t written in awhile, I’ve been in ~transit.~

Not between physical locations, but between emotional states of wellbeing—places I’ve come to know well and some which remain totally unfamiliar. I’m of course talking about that timeless space that comes after heartache. It’s the emotional equivalent of the 6 days between Christmas and New Years—where you never know what time it is and you too often find yourself standing over your sink eating *[redacted].

*I will never publicly share what my depression snack is.

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Something I’ve been thinking about lately is at what point does your healing era become an attachment to incubation? If you’re constantly healing, you never have to return to normal life. You can wake up late, bail on plans, and procrastinate all your projects til tomorrow. Sure I haven’t cooked a meal in 3 weeks, but I have 4 new books on crystals and an appointment with a psychic at noon. When does being easy on yourself hijack your ability to get up and try again? Am I addicted to the lulls because they make those inevitable highs that much more intense?? Is my impulse to crash actually a hidden agenda—one that gives future me a heroic, cinematic, redemption arc???? Am I trying to main character myself, and becoming the anti-hero in the process???????!!!! Was he onto something when He called me a generational narcissist……? Or am I just one unspecial link in a centuries long chain of the brokenhearted?

Well, I asked my psychoanalyst (those exact words, actually) and she of course, asked me what I thought. THAT’S WHAT I’M PAYING YOU FOR, I screamed. But what I really said was, well if I asked, that probably means I think so, right? She smiled, then charged me $600. I’ll never be able to buy a home.

For the last few months I’ve made some ritualistic adjustments to my everyday life—I started doing morning pages, breath work, and yoga a few times a week. I also got into light witchcraft. In other words, I’m getting my financial advice from a 12 year old on TikTok who does tarot cards, and don’t worry, she’s blind, so you know it’s legit.

The impetus for my mental shake up was a summer in which my actions felt alien to my own body. I handled personal challenges in ways I wouldn’t normally be proud of, and started to feel like a passive passenger in my own life. I spent my 30th birthday watching the sunset in Greece surrounded by all my friends, and while they stood 10 feet away from me, smiling & wrapped in each others arms, I stood 10 feet back, crying in a beach chair. I don’t know if you’ve ever gutturally sobbed as All I Need is Your Loooooove Tonight blares through the speakers of a beach club, but I imagine it’s what they make you do in the waiting room for Hell. I sat in my wet bikini with the ghost of my UTI yet to come, and I begged the universe for a sign. A few minutes later, I saw a dolphin. The next day, my boyfriend broke up with me.

my beautiful friend Sofia consoling me

There’s been some real progress since then, if such a thing can ever exist. Isn’t it funny how we (girls) constantly tell our friends that people never change (in regards to their boyfriends), but are convinced we can reinvent ourselves every new moon cycle? During the last full moon, I put on a white and pale blue nightgown and danced around my building’s courtyard, only to realize that the first floor patrons had front row seats to my Unbecoming. I waved at one to come join me, and he shut his blinds in defiance. In his defense, this is Bushwick. You can’t give your attention to every newly practicing witch dancing around your courtyard. You’d never get anything done!

The most helpful thing I’ve learned on my ~journey~ (don’t worry I hate this too), is to treat every fork in the road as an invitation, not a bomb that needs to be diffused in 5…..4…3….2…..When you think about it, life doesn’t demand you make decisions, it often, and very ungraciously, makes them for you—serendipitously, circumstantially, or even through your own actions which reveal subconscious desires your waking mind has yet to realize.

Also that [redacted] tastes really good dipped in [super redacted].

Life doesn’t ask that you know, and suffering only happens when think you should. If you spend too much time trying to figure it out, you might miss the sunset in front of you, or the signs that you seeeerioussssly are about to get a UTI.

So here I am, not quite a phoenix rising from the ashes, but more like a NYC pigeon taking a long smoke break. I feel just about ready to put this one out and get back to the dumpster fire that is this sacred town.

I’ll see you out there x

There’s only 5 cities left to see me on tour in 2025—Chicago, Las Vegas, San Diego, Alpharetta and Nashville! This tour has been electric (cut to me in a Marriott Bonvoy eating a Poke Bowl at 4am), and its been so fucking cool to meet people who fuck with me online, IRL. So far fans have gifted me a self portrait, a necklace off their neck (it looked better on her), a 3D print-out of my initials (literally what is a 3D printer…actually don’t tell me), a polaroid, and a poem. I’ve yet to find a tiny blade, or drugs (bummer), in any of these items, contrary to what my elementary school Halloween safety video would have me believe.

Something I’d like to start encouraging fans to do is to bring their favorite books and exchange them with other people in the audience. Make new friends!! Kiss!!! Split an uber home (recession indicator)!!!!

I’m excited to start cooking up 2026—tell me where you want to see me, what kinds of material you’re excited to hear, and any other advice you may need (yes get back together with him, why not).

Love you!

BYEEEEE x

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My global tour (is canada another country..?) starts TOMORROW!!!

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Kicking things off in Ottawa (9/4), and Montreal (9/5), then heading to the west coast. I’m excited to share my new material which is mostly about my Bosnian mom and my currently sober, previously alcoholic father. Also abortion, Epstein Island, the rise in military grade vibrators, and what it’s like to be in, and exit from, an open, long-distance relationship. Pretty dark stuff. See you there<3

P.S isn’t it funny how I put together an entire elaborate photoshoot as if I’m Dua Lipa, and then you come to a show and it’s just like me in a sweatshirt asking a random guy in the front row how much money he makes….? Anyyyywayyyysssssss promote for the job you want etc etc etc….

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I’m more asleep when I’m awake, and when I’m sleeping I’m not at rest. Remnants of blue light paint an overlay onto my dreams, an A24 glow rewrites the memory of my childhood home. WHAT DID I COME IN HERE FOR AGAIN?

I’m going through a breakup. A tarot card reader on TikTok has a message for me and 6,000 others. The ace of cups, the king of swords…HE’S COMING BACK! I claim this, then keep scrolling to pass the time. The quicker it gets behind me the less water I have to tread to get ashore. If I can just get to the end….of this video…of this hour…of this feeling…

In the shower I’m aware of a sudden Presence, trembling the cold ceramic supporting my feet. My phone is right outside the curtain—I remind myself of its proximity. A podcast cuts through the noise, or maybe it’s the silence. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

Information fills the tunnels of absences, drowning out the memories. I can feel my heart breaking as my hand reaches for my rectangle of heroin. I can’t remember if it makes me feel better, or worse. HE HASN’T CALLED. I can’t remember if that’s good, or bad.

The podcast ends, the shower runs dry, I listen to my throat swallow saliva for the first time. My toes tap the bathmat. I reach for my towel and for a second I swear I can hear the sound of my arm moving through air. When there’s no noise left how does life become so loud? I surrender to a text unanswered. His silence speaks in volumes only the deaf can discern.

My heart beats to the BPM of a house tune. I sit naked on the edge of my shower, the edge of the world. THERE’S NOWHERE TO RUN so I stay there for hours. What waits for us on the other side? My eyes can’t see through the water but the future hums melodies in my ears. Each droplet contains the DNA of who I was yesterday, meeting me right now. I ask, and she responds with more questions. I engage in the Endless Conversation—constantly flowing, ever evolving, and never stopping to let me know. Quiet, like the loud rush of a river.

I refresh the moment and what comes next begins to load. I make friends with the buffer.

A boy dances next to me. He’s 22! he shouts.
When I tell him my age his eyes fall clean out of his skull
His brain bends and folds, still mushy and flexible,
Not built for this kind of news
His bleary eyes hit the ground just as he gathers the strength to lift his soft hands and twist his dull knife right into my rotting uterus
“YOU LOOK GOOD FOR YOUR AGE!”

thanks.

And what did he expect?
Grey pubes poking out of my yellow short shorts?
A child his age, waiting by the door for me to come home?
I dance away to a neon montage of the last decade
Dancefloor makeouts and regrets and nights when my youth hung off me like the straps of a silk dress molesting my shoulders as i twirl and twirl and twirl and twirl—
Is it just me or does Aperol Spritz taste bad?

Sweetness and sweat dizzy my head
I anticipate tomorrow—
Standing trial & litigating my hangover with myself
“But your honor!” I cry, “it’s summer!!!”
“And what did the defendant drink?”
“A spritz…”
The judge scrunches her eyes.
“So sugar and bubbles?”
I stare at my feet. Cut up from platform sandals.
“Sugar and bubbles.”

The courtroom erupts in damnation
I hang my head in shame
Condemned to a 3 day headache,
and a week’s worth of low grade depression.
BUT WHAT WERE YOU WEARING!!!??!?
They hiss and shout as i’m cuffed and dragged to the guillotine…

(one way to get rid of a headache…)

And like I said, short shorts!
A pair I got from a vintage shop that specializes in Y2K clothing
Vintage.
Like a 1920s nightgown, but a 2008 abercrombie top
Clothes I would have deemed ugly and child-like when I was 15,
15 years ago.

But what am I to do?
Put on a blazer??
Resign myself to a blouse???
Put together a rack at banana republic????

I look around and through the smoke and the rubble I wonder how everyone knows this song
And when’s the last time I had a feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night?
And am I still on the pursuit of happiness…?
The clock tick tocks, but I kinda want the party to stop…
I get on a table anyway

I inhale the body odor of this place—
A giant transformer of limbs and boat shoes and exposed torsos
Gyrating and breaking bottles on the wall
The 22 year old points his fingers at me, and from across the room he smiles a beautiful smile and wags his hips like a golden retriever with a full day ahead of him
Nothing but sun and treats and piss and sleep…
I raise the roof back
Something like happiness or maybe a third drink pulses through me

when I was 22 I was afraid that some day I’d get old,
but tonight I know I’m the youngest i’ll ever be.

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I’m in England, United Kingdom, which is different than Ireland but also somehow the same—all of which are in the European continent but you wouldn’t know that based on how pale everyone is.

You see, England does not resemble the Europe I was promised as a kid, one where men named Giancarlo take your virginity on a Vespa as you toss pennies into fountains around town, probably Venice or Napoli (don’t think too hard about that visual). I’ve only been here one week but I can say with the utmost confidence that there is not a single Gian—Carlo or otherwise—in this entire country, and if you toss a pence into any city fountain, the splash back might give you scabies. Needless to say, I don’t know what anyone’s saying but I am covered in spit, which I guess is a deflowering of its own.

Being on tour as a standup comedian gives me lots of opportunities to see the insides of hotel rooms, train terminals, and the back of uber drivers’ heads. I’ve been in 6 cities in the last 5 days and I couldn’t tell you a single landmark in any of them—not that the UK has particularly interesting things to look at besides Stone Hedge, which, let’s be honest, I could have done.

One of my favorite things to do while traveling is wake up before my travel companion (in this case my best friend and fellow comedian, Gabby Bryan, who wakes up at 1pm by the way), and find a local coffee shop. There’s something about that first sip of coffee in an unknown place that grounds me in space and time and lets me WhatsApp from my desktop. Here, I often let myself fall into a dreamlike state - fantasizing about who I’d be if if I lived next door, if I was hungover from a night out at the local pub, if i had mediocre sex with a local boy currently ghosting me on WhatsApp desktop version.

That’s the magic of traveling, innit? Dropping in and out of a city gives you a glimpse—or rather, quick flashes into your alternative, parallel lives. This fantasy gives you the opportunity to pretend that your life isn’t one giant cylinder by which you filter out all possible outcomes until you’re left with the pulpless circumstances of your current every day. What would I be like? I wonder, if i spent all my mornings slurping cortados in this cafe? Would my shoe closet look different if I knew my selection had to take on the cobblestone streets of an ancient city? Would I have bangs???

Throughout the day, these musings pass through my mind to the tune of the click clack of my sneakers on the foreign pavement before me. Who is she?—I demand to know—that me of another place, another time…would she too find herself in some coffee shop, tapping her fingers to this same melody—one of desperate yearning for the other, of a quiet dissatisfaction of the now? Of the dull pain of a text message yet unanswered?

I pack up my laptop and pay 6 GDP, a currency I refuse to understand but have decided is 1:1 to the dollar. I walk back to my hotel with halls indistinguishable from the ones I’ve seen before and those yet to come. I wake my best friend who I’ve known for the better part of my adult life. We pack our same bags with our same clothes and make similar comments to yesterday about the burden of overpacking, how we’ll be better next time (we won’t be). Our bodies shake on the rickety cab ride behind our faceless driver to our next destination, the next terminal. Silent to one another but privately—desperately hoping that we might stumble into something—anything, different than today.

I’m performing in Charlotte & Atlanta this month! Tickets/Info here!!!

See you there luvs (british for loves),

Stef xx (british for xo)

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I’ve been getting really into hydration packets lately. As a touring comedian I’m always on planes, which somehow have dryer air than land air, I think. It always confuses me how something can offer more or less hydration than water, especially when that something is powder I got on Amazon. I think electrolytes are a scam unlike bay leaves and bitcoin, both of which I am investing in anyway.

I can’t decide where I stand on wellness trends. I’ll obviously spend as much money as possible for the off chance that one bottle of snail cum will make me look 15 forever. I’m cautiously optimistic. Or hopefully skeptical. I guess in a way it’s like being Catholic: I’ll only do anal until marriage just in case God’s real. I want to go to heaven! Or at least have dewey skin when I plead my case to Satan at Hell’s gates.

All this to say, if you know of any products, goops, diets or surgeries I should be getting into, send them directly to me. I’m lonely on the road, and dry, and my hydration packets are only promising to solve one of those ailments.

Anyways…I’m in DETROIT, MICHIGAN this weekend at The Comedy Bar @ Norwood. Send to Eminem as well as everyone you know in Detroit, which I just found out is a city and not a state :)

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See you therrreeeee!!!!

When you tell people you’re “touring” it sounds like you’re a popstar and have a bunch of blue collar men working around the clock for you, wheeling in those giant boxes full of gear into the venue each night. The reality is I have no men. I have no gear. I’m in a Westin Marriot Bonvoy sharing a bed with my friend and opener, Stewart. We’ve spent the last few hours lamenting about boys as I blow the skin off my nose.

To be clear, I’m not complaining. I love this life. There’s just something funny about the discrepancy between what people perceive is happening when your career is going well, and how the actual minutes in your life go by. 2 hours ago I got a DM from a stranger saying they’ve loved watching the rise of my career, that they’re proud of me, that I’m “killing it.” Conversly, I just spent the last 45 minutes perusing through the selection at a local CVS on Uber Eats, picking my OTC cold medications a la carte and throwing in, and then removing, various protein bars because I can’t decide if they’re bad for me or not (they are).

Right now I’m feeling particular grateful for adrenaline. Last night I left my hotel room unsure how I was going to deliver my very important spoken word performance to a room of midwesterners without giving every single person my disease. A huge part of my act is spitting into each audience member’s mouth. Important for context. But nevertheless my body, used to surviving in truly horrific conditions (for 1 week in high school I only ate tic tacs and four loko), persisted.

This is probably also because I discovered that putting Sudafed into diet coke is the white girl lean, and seconds before I got called on stage I started robotripping and saw God in the form of several pretty girls in the audience who had better hair than me. I knew I had to do good by their money pieces and for 58 minutes, my sinuses cleared up. In the end, I barely got through my material because I was having so much fun calling everyone in the audience gay (I do intellectual comedy).

performing with a tissue box last night:

speaking of…if you’re reading this and live in indianapolis and want to see me cough my way through my hour tonight or tomorrow:

indianapolis tix

Tonight we have another show, another audience, another chance to prove that the common cold is no match for true desperation (no one would pursue this if they weren’t, on a molecular level, desperate for validation). Performing for an audience is not unlike a one night stand. We grip onto the laughter of strangers like it’s the only thing that can make us feel whole, even if for just one hour. Knowing that the second the show ends we’ll be back in the Westin Marriot Bonvoy. Sick, alone, and waiting for someone on the internet to report back that from the outside, everything is going well.

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i instinctively started writing, like grasping for water after you eat something spicy, even though water makes it worse, and writing makes you face the feelings you’re running away from.

Love & Pain, Edvard Munch (1895)

i don’t have much to say, because writing about love and heartbreak cheapens it. one of my favorite books is “a new earth” by eckhart tolle. in it, he cautions against jumping to name or describe something for that limits it to the constraints of language, which for centuries have failed to articulate god.

“So when you are alert and contemplate a flower, crystal, or bird without naming it mentally, it becomes a window for you into the formless. There is an inner opening, however slight, into the realm of spirit”

-Eckhart Tolle

in other words (the irony), sometimes you have to let feelings wash over you, get baptized in your own discomfort. even describing them as “feelings” feels incorrect. feelings are personal, selfish. love is, in its truest form (in my opinion), almost communal. like you’re a part of something other people have written and sang about and died over for centuries. like jumping in a river full of villagers bathing in the afternoon sun.

the last scene in the movie (spoiler) showcases two ill-fated soulmates going their separate ways. one back inside to her husband, the other in the backseat of an Uber driving across Brooklyn bridge. their last exchange offers a fleeting promise of a future life together. saying nothing of it, she weeps in the arms of her husband. of regret? of exhalation? of impatience for the next life to come? either way, he doesn’t ask. and either way, the lovers take inaction in their joint fate.

maybe the point i’m making (maybe, i really don’t know) is that we live in a culture that values and encourages “processing.” you can’t heal unless you process. write it down. talk about it. get to the bottom of the feeling by describing it and analyzing it and doing something about it.

i think for a lot of us, in the midst of our hardest moments, where love feels lost and we suspect we’re not above being human after all, it’s ok to just let it all wash over you. to not engage with the pressure of putting one foot in front of the other. to let an uber driver decide which turns to make while we sit motionless and take in the view, unsure of our destination but enraptured by the bridges we find ourselves on.

if you’re reading this, i’ll meet you on that bridge.

(not in a jumpy way oh god).

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(this wasn’t a funny post. i hope that’s ok x)

I’m headlining Helium Comedy Club in Indianapolis, IN on Jan 17-19th. I have a lot of new material that I’m excited about, and I can’t wait to try it out in what critics are calling the “Amalfi Coast of America.”

TICKETS

AND NOW…

Hello future potential investors,

Is it tax season? I genuinely feel like it’s always tax season or fashion week. Also Holocaust Remembrance Day. Either way, I reported fraud on my credit card last night, then woke up and realized those were charges I made during a manic episode (I will use that $800 water filter, and that $99 serum, respectively).

It’s that time of year where I look at all my assets (Abercrombie gift cards, unreturned Amazon packages, and money I invested in crypto when I was dating a guy who told me to) and try to make a financial plan for myself .

In an attempt to find out how much money I made last year, I googled my own net worth. Even worse than finding out it was lower than I thought, I learned I wasn’t important enough for anyone to guess. I did find this information about me though:

There’s nothing worse than a hate comment that’s so out of left field, and so specific, that you know it must be absolutely true. Fat, ugly, and stupid are easy write-ins for this fucked up game of mad-libs men on the internet like to play with me. Calling me the V for Vendetta mask, however, involved the kind of specificity and gumption only seen in the most complex cases of the scientific method. Observation, research, and a peer review/cosign by reddit user aidanbagel? These guys know what the fuck they’re talking about.

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Anyways, I’ve never been good with money. I credit that to having parents who were bad with money, as well as moving through a school system that thought the Pythagorean Theorem would be more useful to learn than explaining how credit works.

My family lost all their money in the financial crash of ‘08. A big part of my high school experience involved me trying to hide my growing poverty from my upper middle class friends. Having a friend come out to dinner with my family caused me, on many occasions, to have a full blown panic attack. How would we pay for their $12 You-Pick-Two from Panera? How would we pay for ours? I’d text my mom under the table and tell her I’d give her cash once my friend left, cash I only had because my best friend’s mom would slip me $20s for jobs she’d make up for me.

One time my dad showed me how to steal produce from an uppidity grocery store. Another time, my mom sold all my jam band posters in a garage sale. I came home to an empty room, the ghosts of Phish and Jerry Garcia haunting my pink pre-teen walls. My dad drove me to a local guitar store and played me Scarlet Begonias on a display guitar until I calmed down.

The point is, money has always been a point of contention in my life, usually from not having enough of it. Now, I’m finally in a place where I make enough to not only survive, but also to spend frivolously. But something about my childhood, and the constant anxiety surrounding cash, has caused me to become deeply financially irresponsible. I don’t want anyone to perceive me as poor, so I spend like I’m the richest person alive.

It’s just hard being the CEO of your own life, given that I’m also the CMO, the CFO, and have a UTI. I run my business like I’m Bernie Madoff but spend money on my friends like I’m Bernie Sanders. I have at least 12 people who each owe me $20-$40, which if you add up, equals 1 oat latte ($7.99) + tip ($30,000) in Brooklyn. If you have it, spend it, is kinda my motto. And even though that’s a chaotic way to live according to every man I’ve cornered in a bar and explained this to, it feels authentic to me.

That all being said, my new years resolution is to become a bitch who budgets. And to figure out my 401K login. And to really—and I mean REALLY—digest that “writing something off” does not mean you get it for free. Oops to laser facials I’ve been charging to my “company card” because I’m “on camera a lot.” (PS what is a company card?)

Oh also, world peace.

Oh! Also my merch is for sale. Buy it :)

BUY MY MERCH!!!

Happy New Year. Spend responsibly. Or don’t. They can always print more money anyway.

Stef xo