I have not been writing that much but I have been reading a lot. I just finished book seventeen of the year. I’m taking a break from drinking. I cleaned out my closet. I am listening to Common and Marcus King and Mt. Joy.

There’s nothing better than trying on all the different versions of yourself like you’re getting ready for a party. Maybe a dinner party!

This is part II of the dinner party. You can read part I below.

No way! I remember you! We met that one time on the subway. She says this in earnest. Her teeth gleam. She does not appear visibly horrified by my appearance or by the fact that I am on my hands and knees in a public place where I don’t know many people. I force a stiff laugh and try to stand up, shimmying my leg, choosing my movements delicately as to not flash anyone in transit. I return to my feet and become the point in the new isosceles triangle formation of me, Best Friend and Hot Girl.

My head is spinning a bit. I might be hallucinating, the weed pen is burning a hole in my purse and it reminds me that I could in fact, be in a fugue state.

But I am not fugue, I’m here, I’m fine, I’m fine. I repeat my mantras over and over again until they become true and the blurry edges of my eyes subside. Breathing a bit too heavily, I start to study her up close. Perfect outfit. Kitten heels, again. A different pair this time, a sexier pair. A shiny ponytail pulled back with the right amount of loose pieces. Her purse is designer, her jewelry is minimal. I catch a glimpse of her ring finger. Bare.

Wait, sorry, I missed it. How do you guys know each other? Best Friend says with a tone that is so grating it’s obvious she thinks it’s downright impossible that I knew someone this cool and fun and beautiful before she did.

But it’s okay, I can handle this, because I’m fine. I smooth out my skirt for the billionth time, mostly so I can wipe my palms on it. Hot Girl places her manicured hand on my forearm as I do this and I feel a jolt go down my spine at the foreign touch. The voices must be as equally shocked as I am because they suddenly disappear, and all I can hear is the din of cool, sexy people meeting and chatting and laughing at this dinner party, where I also happen to be.

I stumble over my words trying to explain. We both start talking at the same time. Our hands gesture to one another, no you can go, or wait I’ll tell her. We’re laughing in sync, sharing a tandem bike, and I suddenly understand the appeal of tonight. I am bantering with an ethereal version of a girl I wish I could be like. Where else would this ever happen? My mouth is watering. It could be the wine. Or the weed. It probably is.

We have not explained ourselves yet. Best Friend is sitting there like an excluded toddler, waiting to be let in on the secret we’re sharing. Not now sweetheart, mommy’s talking to her friend! I’m exhilirated in these reversed roles. We’re both still laughing at the sheer mania of being reintroduced in this setting.

I’m fine. I’m totally fine. This is just another person. If I can make my tablemates laugh, if I can sleep with a guy that works in the same building as I do, I can talk to her. My mouth is making sounds before my brain catches up.

Okay, yes, a few weeks ago we were both on the train. I bought those everything english muffins on sale at Whole Foods, you know, the doughy ones with flecks of real sea salt? I ate one standing over the sink because I was late to work and -

And I just so happened to be on the same train and I saw something in her teeth! She was wearing such a fun outfit, I couldn’t let it be ruined by the sheer existence of a poppy seed! Hot Girl finishes.

She cuts me off in such a polite, cool fashion, I find no time to be offended. It’s as if we’ve been friends for years and have practiced telling this hundreds of times. My brain starts spinning again. Maybe this is a glimpse into my future and what my new life can be like. Maybe I can be in Hot Girl’s orbit. Maybe I am deserving of a friend this confident and rational. Someone different from the people I have surrounded myself with who are constantly critiquing me and making me feel like shit.

That’s so crazy! What a small world. Best Friend sips on her drink. Her resentment drips off her words. The seeds she has sown are growing roots tonight.

I’ve known her too long; she can’t hide from me. She’d never admit it, but she gets off on the fact that I need her help. My competence at the dinner party™️ is a threat to her. She’s so used to apologizing on my behalf, looking pitifully at me when others whisper-ask her in the corner if I’m doing well. She loves her role as chaperone almost as much as she loves telling me how much of a mess I am. She’ll be angry I’m doing fine, that I’m not causing a scene, that she won’t get her flowers tonight for doing the dutiful, tragic job of being friends with someone like me. And I’m the shit friend.™️

You should probably get back to your spot! I think they’re serving the next course. She doesn’t meet my eyes as she sips from her wine glass. As if on cue, our hostess comes rushing into the room with fervor. Seeing me out of my seat forces a look of panic and then a tight smile across her face. I nod at her, accepting I’m the one that’s at fault here, and I make moves to go.

I didn’t catch your name? Hot Girl looks deeply into my eyes as she asks. I pause on my heels. I swallow. My name. An important detail about my life. A basic question. The voices come screeching back. He told you he loved you and you believed him! You’re the idiot.

The panic encompasses me. I can’t help it.

We’re shoved into a back table at a bar I’ve never been to before. Best Friend is sitting a few seats between me and him, entertaining the ugly group of men he showed up with. This is a favor she’s doing me; after twenty plus years of friendship and the countless conversations I have had with sad, boring men on her behalf, she owes me this. She owes me the wing woman I was promised by generations of female friendships that came before us.

So, you. I didn’t catch your name? He asks.

My parents named me Genevieve, but no one calls me that. I say this honestly, because no one does. I’m too scared to correct people when they nickname me as if it’s their God-given right. So I’m G or Gen. Never Genevieve.

That’s what I’ll call you, then. He smiles and sips his beer. That’s a beautiful name.

Thank you. I say this in earnest because no one has ever bothered to tell me.

Genevieve. I swallow, hard, but I take back the power. Hot Girl would never relinquish something like that to a man. She would never make herself smaller, I can just tell. So to her credit, or maybe mine, out it comes, no caveats, no nicknames, no apologizing for having a name that’s too long for most people to bother with. As it comes out, it sounds foreign on my own tongue.

No one calls her that! Best Friend practically spits her wine out as she says it. I practice the gratitude I am so desperately seeking. I am not fighting her tonight. I am normal. I am kind. I am grateful for the invitation to the dinner party™️.

But of course, my face cannot hide how shitty I feel towards that response because she tries to save face. Even she knows that was rude. I just mean we all call you G or Gen. You have never been Genevieve to us -

Hot Girl cuts her off. I love that name. Genevieve. It was nice to officially meet you.

I manage a smile in their direction. I couldn’t muster up another word if I tried, so I go back to my seat.

The rest of the evening goes and goes. My tablemates follow me on Instagram, I slurp a pasta that’s tepid and slightly salty, I try to pretend I don’t like the dessert as much as I do, even though I go back for seconds. My eyes keep wandering back to where Hot Girl and Best Friend sit. I can’t help but notice a change in Hot Girl’s energy. She seems less engaged, almost distracted. Best Friend is talking in her direction but she is detached, looking at the fireplace.

I could be imagining it. Maybe I am. But the night is winding down and I feel less bad about looking at my phone, so I take it out of my purse.

When I see it in the influx of gmail and uber notifications, my eyes go white hot and my ears catch on fire.

I miss you. Please come over. We should talk.

I kind of hit it off with that guy I say to Best Friend as the conglomerate of men make their way back towards the bar to order more drinks.

You should let him take you out! He’s so cute! She encourages me. We have been drinking a lot and her support of this situation makes me feel invincible.

The rest of the night blurs; only one thing could stand out. He says goodbye to me before he goes off with his friends. Owen. He offers me his hand to shake. He offers me his number. It was nice meeting you, Genevieve.

I am out the door before I can really process what’s happening. I said a half-hearted goodbye slash lie to Best Friend and told her I was going to meet up with Office Man. This is not entirely false as I haven’t made up my mind as to where I am going. I thank our illustrious host whose first name has completely escaped my memory, I throw my hair behind my neck as I slam the apartment door and I climb down the three flights of stairs with such weight in my heels I’m almost definitely waking up the neighbors.

I’m fine. I’m okay. I’m sexy. I’m good. I have to repeat this over and over again until it becomes true. I heave the building door open and am confronted with the decision of where it is I actually am on my way to. And then I see her, smoking a cigarette.

Are you leaving? Hot Girl asks before I can tell her.

Um - yeah, I think so.

Well, I’m glad I caught you. What a small world that we ran into each other again.

I know right? I am not really cool enough to be hanging with that crowd, I laugh. My Best Friend is a friend of a friend so I was just her plus one.

I’m sexy. I’m fine. This conversation is easy. I’m normal, I’m kind, I’m grateful.

The girl I was next to? I nod when she poses this question. She says nothing to my affirmative response.

She’s been my friend for a long time I say again because even though Hot Girl is hot and cool, she is not allowed to talk shit about Best Friend. That’s something only I can do.

No, of course. I’d just think after being friends with someone for that long, you’d be nicer to each other. It’s not offensive when she says this because I know she’s right.

We’ve been kind of - I pause, looking for the right words - going through something. It’s my fault.

What are you going through? She asks and I can tell she’s genuinely curious.

She lights another cigarette. I follow her lead and take out my weed pen.

I lost myself for a while. A shitty guy kind of broke my heart. I took it out on her and she let me.

I don’t know why I say the next part, but I do. He actually just texted me asking to come over. I haven’t spoken to him in like over six months.

Her eyes widen at this news. Are you on your way out to go see him?

I tell her the truth. I don’t know. I am trying to get back out there, I went on a good date with a different guy who also wants to see me tonight, but this first guy, the ex I guess, he kind of ruined my life.

She waits for me to keep going, as if she knows I am nowhere near finished.

Part of me wants to go over there and scream at him and let him know how badly he hurt me. But he is an adult. He already knows and he does not even fucking care.

I can’t help but shake my head at my own revelation. I hit the pen again.

The other part of me wants to forget he ever existed. He was not a good guy and I know I deserve better. But really, I’m fine. I exhale, smoke filling the space between us.

It feels good to say this out loud to someone who doesn’t already know.

She laughs. Fuck men. And then, she’s serious. If he was shitty, block him. Don’t even give him the satisfaction. Just ignore it. And I know this is the only solution. This is what Hot Girls do. They do not let men control how their nights go.

We stand there for another couple minutes. The voices are gone, my heart rate has slowed, the text from him seems less scary and the realization that I can do this, I can get over him, I can be more like Hot Girl hits me.

I ask, bravely. Do you have a boyfriend?

She stubs out her cigarette and smiles. It took me a while, but yes. I finally got lucky. I found a really good one a few months ago.

Oh yeah? I ask. What’s his name?

Owen, she says and my vision goes blurry because I just know.

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Thank you for reading! If someone forwarded this to you, please like and subscribe! I am currently on a fiction writing kick and am enjoying it. If you liked this installment, please check out the first three chapters here!

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I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer. I’m eating ice cream, tomato toast and lots of seasonal produce. I’m in a wonderful mood. I celebrated my dear friend’s 30th birthday last night. I’m going to see my favorite band play next weekend. I swam in the ocean 4 days in a row over the 4th of July.

It’s pretty common for me to start randomly crying with gratitude, grief or a combo of both these days. I hope you all know how lucky I feel that you are reading this, whoever you are. Also, please read this via the Substack App or view it in your browser! It will most likely get cut off in the email version. 💘

Chapter 3: The Dinner Party

Choosing this skirt was a big mistake. The fabric inches up my thigh as I politely smile and offer the sweating bottle of wine to my hostess. This girl is a Hot Girl. She’s the type that hasn’t even broken a sweat while cooking a meal for ten people in a kitchen made for ants. She’s wearing boots with a heel. She gives me a kiss on the cheek which seems unnecessary for two people that have never met but, when in Rome! I oblige her, mostly because I’m a little high. That’s not something I’d normally do, get high for an event where I don’t know anyone, but I made a commitment. I had to self-medicate.

I start to back away from hostess and simultaneously try not to bump the pan handle on the stove. This forces the skirt to bunch up again and I try to tug it down when she turns towards the fridge. She doesn’t see me yank it, I don’t think, but then again, who is she to judge? Her micro skirt is shorter than mine by a mile. Hot Girls are Hot Girls because they understand these types of tribulations.

She leads me into the dining room, our playground for the evening. Place card placards are propped up, each of our names spelled out in swirly-girly handwriting. Candles are burning, perfectly spaced out on the set table. The lights are dim. Seeing the fray of guests milling about amongst this perfect aesthetic is proof that I am at another event where my outfit is wrong and my hair is flat. I don’t do pinterest. I can’t design a tablescape. I am not a Hot Girl. I want to turn around, sprint through the front door, run out of this building into the Manhattan night, call a mulligan!, go home and eat fried gyoza in my underwear.

But that is not an option. I’m here, I’m sexy, I’m fine. I’m fine. The voices aren’t coming tonight. I swear they aren’t. They can’t.

I have officially entered The Dinner Party,™️ every girl’s idea of the perfect night. If you are aged 26-32, you are either throwing dinner parties, being invited to dinner parties, or begging to be included at dinner parties. Nobody wants to rage or binge drink anymore; they want to show off how creative they are by blindly picking a recipe out of an Alison Roman cookbook and posting a picture of their spread on Instagram. The vibes are curated. The playlist is handpicked. I start to sweat behind my knees. I might throw up.

My Best Friend forced me out tonight. She’s beautiful, she’s confident, she never cries in the bathroom at work. It’s pretty unfair, actually, that God, or more likely, elementary school zoning laws, decided to put us in the same class in the first grade because now we must stay friends forever. She recently called me a pretty shit friend™️ so I am making up for it by being brave and coming to The Dinner Party™️. It’s her friend’s friend’s friend, so naturally, I plan to thrive in this environment where I know no one and must pretend to like orange wine and pick at three different courses, each of them labeled something stupid like garlicky, crumbly, buttery, et cetera. It’s fine. I had to come because I’m not a shit friend.

Best Friend sees me walk in and politely excuses herself from the gaggle of girls she’s chatting with.

I like that skirt, she says, giving me a side hug.

I’m pretty sure my thong is showing. Where’s the wine? She points and we shuffle through the people that are grouped off to make our way to the bar.

I’m so glad you came she says, and she means it because for some reason, she loves and cares about me. I don’t have the heart to tell her I’m stoned, so I just tell her me too and follow her lead.

The one good thing about The Dinner Party™️ is that I don’t have to pay for dinner. I swiped my gifted bottle of wine from the office, so attendance at this event costs exactly $0. See? I can see a bright side! I can be a positive person. The wine Best Friend is pouring for me is glugging into a glass at slo-motion. Can it go any faster? My phone vibrates in my too-small purse and I take it out in one fluid motion. Just an email. 20% off at Brooklinen.

For the love of God Best Friend hisses at me. This is a phone free event. Did you not read the partiful? She shoves the glass of wine into my sweaty palm and glares at me.

I want to scream at her. No I didn’t fucking read the partiful, I don’t care about partiful. But instead I just give her a ohshitthatsmybadididntreadthepartiful look and put my phone away. I cannot get on her bad side tonight. She is my ally. And tonight has to make up for how shit of a friend I have been.

We half-heartedly cheers. I am brave. I am confident. I am grateful for the life that I have.

It’s officially been six months, twenty-three days and eleven hours since we called things off. But who’s counting? I shove the thought of him down with a big gulp of wine. It’s disgusting, but I don’t care. It will do its job tonight just like I will do mine: Be normal. Be kind. Be grateful.

Best Friend did not like him. She was patient with me for being unable to see his fatal flaws which included, but were not limited to, hating me and hating himself. But her patience ran out when I showed up unannounced on her stoop, sobbing.

You weren’t even dating she yelled to me, as I was crying fat tears into her pillow. He wouldn’t call you his girlfriend! He ignored you every time we went out in a group. He venmo requested you for your beers! He’s not worth it!

You’re being a shitty friend, she told me when my sobs quieted enough for me to hear her. You missed my graduation. You won’t answer my texts or calls. This is the only thing you have talked about for months. It’s really unhealthy and I’m worried about you.

I CAN’T GET OVER IT. I screamed at her. I’M TRYING AND I CAN’T.

We sat quiet for a while, both in her bed, my anger pulsating in the air. She told me I should maybe get some professional help. I told her I was fine. That was about two months ago.

The seeds of resentment are there. I can feel them growing. Tonight has to go well.

Besides, I do my meditation podcasts. I breathe deeply and sweat through YouTube workouts and go out on dates. I started answering my phone again. I am fine.

We’re quiet again now, leaning up against the back of the bar. We look at each other, I can see she’s decided to let my faux pas go. All of a sudden, words are coming out of my mouth.

I didn’t think it was him, by the way I say. I was hoping it was the new guy from my office. The one who took me out last week. Why did I say any of that? I think it’s the weed.

Wait seriously? He’s texting you? What’s he saying? She seems thrilled. Her eyes light up.

Yeah, well I mean kind of. I’d show you the text thread but, no phones. I pretend to look upset we can’t analyze text banter between me and the guy I went out on one date with.

Why didn’t you tell me! This is so exciting! and she really means it, too. It will kill me to have to make up another lie about it in a few weeks when I inevitably fuck it up.

Because well, I slept with that guy. Like an idiot. I didn’t even really want to at first, it just sort of happened. When we moved tables, we ended up sitting next to each other. Our knees were touching. When we left, we lingered on the corner for a while. I had to go back to Brooklyn, he offered to call me an uber from his apartment because it “would be closer to my house.”

I knew then what was going to happen. In my defense, it was ninety degrees and my hair was curly; it’s usually safe to assume no human would want to touch me when I’m in that kind of condition. But I guess my charms were on fire because yes, he took me back to his cramped apartment in the East Village and made sweet, sweet love to me for about nine minutes before he offered me both a Zyn and a glass of water in the same breath. I declined the Zyn but gratefully accepted the drink.

I opted out of a sleepover and left about twenty minutes later. I told him I had to be at the office early. We texted a little, I saw him once in the elevator at work, he was totally normal and polite, asked me what my week looked like. I know he wants to get together again, I guess that part about my lie to Best Friend is true.

But dating another guy means getting over him. It means I must accept it’s over. I need to do it. I must. And this is a nice guy. A polite guy. Someone who listened to my drama and told me it was okay to feel how I was feeling. A guy who might actually like me and want to get to know me. There’s a lot to be said about that.

As I linger on this thought, my wine glass becomes empty. I turn around to pour myself another when our hostess approaches the room with the energy of a tradwife. Please be seated for appetizers! I hope everyone is enjoying the wine! She says this and looks directly at me. I’ve had one glass. What’s with the attitude?

I also want to point out that while I know some of you came with friends of yours, I have made a concerted effort to seat you all amongst people you might not know. I encourage you to make new friends with your tablemates. She smiles tightly

Is she fucking kidding! I say too loudly. Best Friend is a pace in front of me and I have to walk briskly to catch up to her. Not that I have a lot of time to do so, as her spot is right near where we were standing. I don’t want to talk to anyone else I plead to her.

This is good for you! Be nice and make a new friend! She’s hissing again. When did she start doing that hissing thing? Maybe around the time that she called me a shit friend. That would make sense. I wasn’t around that much.

Find your spot she mouths at me. I circle the table, looking for my name in that awful script, until suddenly, it appears lopsided and spelled incorrectly. This irritates me. People are always spelling my name wrong. It’s a choice when people do this, you know. They choose to not check. Because, I’m pretty sure, you can look up how my name is spelled, and then just copy it instead of guessing and hoping that you’re right right.

Whatever. I’m fine. I smooth out my skirt and sit down. I’m on the end between two people that are obviously hotter and cooler than I am. They are both polite and introduce themselves but I don’t really register their names because this makes the voices come. He never liked you. You were not smart enough for him. Fuck, they’re loud tonight. They are always louder when I’m in a room full of cool, interesting people. A therapist could probably tell me why, but I would most likely choose to ignore her.

I try to look up, this is what helps me when I’m overstimulated, but for some reason, my eye catches the far side of the room. Best Friend is chatting with the girl sitting at the head of the table. I recognize her. She’s gorgeous, her nails are painted a deep burgundy and her hair is smooth.

Why do I know who that is? I discreetly pull my phone out under the table and text Best Friend. Who is that girl? I write. I know she won’t text me back. She follows the rules. When I don’t see her make moves for her phone, I push my chair back to go over and talk to them. Just as I am doing this, the hostess comes through with big plates of god knows what. Looks like radicchio something. I don’t care. I have to go over there, I feel called to that part of the room.

If everyone could please sit, the hostess says. This obviously means me as I am the only one standing. Best Friend’s face doesn’t move but after knowing her for twenty plus years, I can see in her eyes how irritated she is that I’m upright. I put on my best fake smile, a mymistakeIdidntknow look and sit back down.

The first course is some sort of salad with breadcrumbs. What did I tell you? Garlicky, buttery, crumbly in every bite. I house a forkful and even I’m impressed. The vinaigrette is delicious, the leaves are perfectly crisp. The plate is empty in about thirty-four seconds. My tablemates, the people I’m supposed to be making friends with, smile at me and we share yummy noises and so goods!

The person to my left asks what I do for work. Lame. I regurgitate the sentence I repeat any time this comes up, how I want to be a writer but I have a 9-5 because I need health insurance and my parents don’t have enough money to pay my rent. They politely smile. This warrants no follow up questions. I get it. I’ve done this before.

The person to my right is a little kinder. What are you writing these days?

My joke about how I’m really just doing research right now which is code for drinking too much and staying up too late and being concerned about paying my rent makes them both start to smile and laugh.

The sounds of their laughter fill me with serotonin. I feel tears coming on, I blink them away. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve made people laugh?

As all good writers must do they say. Their smile lights me up

My phone buzzes. I surreptitiously take it out again once my tablemates return to their salads. It’s Office Man. What are you up to tonight?

And then, as if it’s that easy, I decide I’m going to see him again. Maybe that will be my reward for getting through tonight in one piece. A little action. Besides, he smells incredible. His body is chiseled exactly where you want it to be (arms, thighs) and a little softer right where I personally like it (pecs, stomach.) He is hot enough that I don’t feel bad about myself for sleeping with him, but not so hot that I feel insecure about my own body when it’s exposed. I can tolerate Office Man. Maybe I could even like Office Man.

These are good, healthy thoughts. I am okay. I am happy. I am grateful for the life I have. As if he is speaking the voices into the microphone, they return, almost with a vengeance. You are unlovable. You’re not funny. Your friends just tolerate you. You are a mess.

I need the next course, or a drink, or a distraction. The polite sips I planned to take of my lemon water turn into gulps. My tablemates are concerned with the ferocity of which I am drinking this water, one of them asks if I am okay and I just throw a thumbs up.

Maybe I should see a therapist.

My high is starting to wane, my skirt is up my ass. If I don’t stand up soon I might pass out. I look again, Best Friend is in deep convo with that Hot Girl. Her impressive jewelry stack glitters in the mood lighting.

And then, it comes back. How did I not see it immediately? She’s the girl who told me I had a seed in my teeth when I was on the subway. I start laughing to myself. There’s no way this girl and I am at the same dinner party. She is the epitome of beauty, she’s perfectly polished and I am fighting for my life on the regular wearing a stained shirt and a polyester blend skirt that’s, let’s face it, probably a little too small.

How have we stumbled into this circle at the same time? We should not be in the same galaxy, let alone at the same party.

I have to go over there, I have to introduce myself. Wait, should I do that? There’s no way she even remembers who I am. She saved me from a day of embarrassment, there’s no way I could forget it, but she probably does shit like that all the time. A dime a dozen. She’s the type to walk around New York, blessing people just by going by them. I’m one of the lucky few. Hot Girls. You either love them or are one.

I stand up, I make my way over, I’ll make it seem like I’m casually coming to see Best Friend. That will make sense. That won’t be weird. The walk is long, the carpet feels thick under my feet. I lose my balance a bit, but I catch myself. Phew! That would have been a disaster. A shitty friend falls at the dinner party, but not me.

I reach my destination, bending down to be at Best Friend’s level. I am about to whisper something about Office Man, tell her I’m going to see him later, how happy I am that I’m seeing this new guy and it’s going great when I hear Hot Girl speak.

No way! I remember you! We met that one time on the subway.

They both look at me. Now I really almost pass out.

The Dinner Party pt. 2 is coming soon! I had to split it into two parts because it was too long. If you enjoyed this installment of my fiction series, please leave me a heart or a comment! If you’d like to read the earlier installments of this series, you can find them here!

And yes, I did look up “dinner party aesthetic” on pinterest. I love a dinner party! Invite me to yours sometime 🍷

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I gained some new subscribers. While not the point of this post, I still like to include everyone. So I’m taking a few seconds to reintroduce myself for those of you who might not know me. My name is Victoria. I’m 27 years old. I live in Brooklyn. I am a Libra. I use this Substack mostly to journal and write personal essays, but sometimes I dabble in fiction and short stories. I perform sketch comedy and write a lot of that as well. My favorite band is Death Cab for Cutie and I’m constantly searching for oversized pants and tiny tops to wear. I thoroughly enjoy being myself and who I have grown up to be. Thanks for being here.

I moved over the weekend, leaving behind the apartment that I had lived in for almost three years.

All things considered, I lived like a queen. I had fabulous natural light throughout the entire place, even in the bathroom, which had in-unit laundry. This spot had a beautiful kitchen that had an island bigger than my mom’s kitchen in Westchester. I had access to McGolrick Park and Diamond Slices and Brooklyn Standard, the best deli on Nassau Avenue. I was within a twenty minute walk to Bedford Avenue and McCarren Park. It was an amazing apartment and I was lucky to have lived there.

It was a corner of eastern Greenpoint or East Williamsburg. The boundary was unclear. I took the subway from Graham Avenue but it had a Greenpoint zip code. I went to Anthony and Sons twice a month, but there were restaurants on Graham I had never heard of. For most of my food, coffee and walking therapy, I frequented Driggs Avenue and the park, so I usually told people that I lived in Greenpoint. There were other times I would say Williamsburg to avoid having to explain where it actually was. I went on a date with a man who picked me up from this apartment and never texted me again. Because the most beautiful apartment you ever saw, the place I lived for three full lease cycles was smack dab in the middle of an industrial park, sat on a superfund site and was an eleven minute walk from the closest subway.

It also happened to be the apartment that I lived in with my ex-boyfriend. He and I made an agreement that we wouldn’t write about each other on here and I will uphold my end of the bargain, but I don’t think it’s a violation of that agreement to share with you that I lived in that apartment for six months after we broke up. I slept in the same room we used to share. It seemed like a good idea at the time; adding a move on to the breakup and all the change I was experiencing felt delusional and I was relieved when my friend moved in to take his place. We hung up so many girly things in a vain attempt to erase the masculine energy that hung over the apartment like a mushroom cloud. Nothing we added could have subtracted his lingering presence. Every time I swept or cleaned out a closet, I found remnants of a man. Cigarette butts and old zyn containers. Matches from pool bars. A sock under the couch. Golf tees.

At the beginning of my tenure in this apartment, the perks seemed like a worthy trade off for how much walking I would have to do. I really didn’t mind it at first. And I never had to walk through the industrial park alone at night. Read: had a boyfriend. But once I was on my own, I realized I was being confronted with a much higher uber total at the end of the month. My office was thirty five minutes away, and twenty of that was walking. Which isn’t bad on paper; in fact, some might say it’s nice to get moving before you start your day. And I would agree with you until you have to lug your gym bag and your lunch tupperware and your coffee cup and your groceries home because you live so far away that you need to knock everything else out now while you’re on the main street.

Sometimes I write things from real life:

When they raised my rent, I knew I had to leave. I was getting priced out of East-Williamsburg-Greenpoint-whatever-you-want-to-call-it and I had come to the difficult decision that I wanted to live alone. The location and the memories and the familiar triggers were starting to get to me. I didn’t want to give up my laundry and dishwasher; I didn’t want to give up access to one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the city. But nothing is permanent and everything is an adjustment so I said fuck it and I moved to a whole new neighborhood and I signed a lease for a studio.

This was a daunting decision for me. The only time I have ever lived alone was in 2020. I graduated from Syracuse and moved back home to ride out Covid. In August of that year, my brother suffered a spinal cord injury. Both my parents moved to Florida to be with him.

It’s a strange thing, to live in a house by yourself. Especially the one you grew up in, where the walls are already starting to close in, during a global pandemic, when you are forced to grieve what could have been on FaceTime. I cooked meals in a kitchen where my mother should have been, stirring pasta. I ate solo at a dining room table big enough for six. I cried in the queen sized bed that my parents bought for me, truly convinced I would never be happy again.

Living alone got a bad rap. The person I was during this time was pretty unsexy. People pitied me. I would text my high school boyfriend in a vain attempt to feel something. I would go out to dinner with my grandparents and drink so much they had to drive me home. And home I would go, back to the empty house, alone, in grief.

It was not a fun year.

When I moved to the city, I lived in a three-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a six-floor walkup. It was here that I was reborn. Two of my friends from college lived with me and whether they know it or not, they woke me up from the coma I put myself in.

It was at the apartment on Delancey Street that I rediscovered who I was. I would take long walks to the west side or over the Williamsburg Bridge, and I would really think about what I wanted out of my life. I met so many people I never saw again. I ate at Dudley’s and Saigon Social and drank at Bar Beli and Mother’s Ruin and fainted once at 365 chicken and fries. We had pregames with so many guests that people would spill out into the bathroom and hallways. My two roommates and I would have nights where we’d watch TV and split cookies down the middle and talk about everything from new shoes to our deepest fears. I couldn’t ever imagine wanting to do anything else with my life than live with my girlfriends.

But all of a sudden, you think you’ve grown up and you feel like you are ready to take the next step with your partner. And you move in together.

I wanted to share that piece above because I wrote it when I was really happy. And I refuse to minimize an older version of myself who couldn’t see the things I can see now. I’m a woman who honors my commitments so all I will say is this: sometimes things don’t go the way you plan and that’s totally okay. The truth is, I knew I outgrew the apartment, the same way I knew I outgrew the relationship. Sometimes you tell yourself things to make it a little easier. And still, I have grace to show myself. We’re all living life for the first time; it’s okay if you don’t get right from the beginning.

And I didn’t! So to Crown Heights I went. My things are still in bags and I have no furniture. I’m sleeping on a mattress on the floor. I threw out what felt like hundreds of bags of trash and t-shirts and dustpans. I kissed my roommate on the cheek and left her all my silverware.

Therapy helped me realize that often, humans convince themselves they don’t want things because they feel they are out of reach. I fall victim to this trap. For months, I told myself I didn’t want to live alone and I should stay in East-Williamsburg-Greenpoint and pay a pretty reasonable rent to have a dishwasher and in-unit laundry and a five minute walk to McGolrick Park. I told myself to pick the safe option. And it was for a good reason; why try something and not be able to do it? Why risk it if it might not work out?

To this, I say fuck it. For the first time in a long time, I chose myself. I’ll spend more money on rent and throw out a bed frame that I always hated and play my own music on an expensive speaker at full volume and I’ll cook meals with no protein. If I want to, I will.

If you have recommendations for Crown Heights or Prospect Heights please send them my way!!!

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I wrote this because I worried. I feel like things are getting better and easier and harder and scarier at the same time. Why do I keep looking over my shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop? Why are we so inclined to think it will all fall apart?

The truth is, it could. It might. But overthinking is underfeeling and spending time worrying is such a waste of my imagination. I’ve decided for myself that I deserve better than that.

So I spent Memorial Day Weekend upstate, trying new things and spilling my guts and walking in and sitting at bars and channeling these feelings out from the ether of panic. They came and they went and they were transformed into something else. It felt good to sit down and write this, it felt like a release. I wrote most of this from my childhood bedroom and some of it from Metro North and the last little part from my office. I hope you enjoy.

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The lower part of my spine is throbbing in that dull way it tends to when you’re on a bar stool with no back. I should have made my wants and needs clear when we looked at each other with the casual “I don’t care, you pick!” politeness of a first date drink plan but I didn’t want to seem more difficult than I already feel. The hostess was waiting for us to move, to do anything other than stand there in an awkward, triangular configuration. I should have picked a regular table and a backed chair but Office Man, my date for the evening, made a beeline to the bar. So I obliged him.

An hour has passed since we walked out of the office on Broadway and made our way to our current seating arrangement. I have learned almost nothing new about him in the time we’ve been here, both of us pretending like going out on this date was a really great idea.

Unsettled, I shift my weight on the cracked leather. Office Man’s eyes are staring at my chin, lower than my nose and higher than my chest, but not high enough to convince me he’s not subtly trying to glimpse down there. The thought of him looking at me like that does not make me feel good or bad. Instead, I wonder if he’s also pretending he’s not uncomfortable on the barstool.

My brain is really trying to put me at ease. This is fun. This is good. Think about how long it’s been since you’ve been on a date. You’re moving on. This is what you need to be doing. He’s not coming back. You don’t even want him back. You’re so much happier now.

It occurs to me that I’m daydreaming and I need to focus. It’s painful to continue to sit here sweetly, batting my doe eyes like any other regular woman would. Behaving normally and regularly looks differently to me than it does to other women, this I know. My mind goes off again and suddenly I’m thinking about going to the gym. Maybe I could still go tonight, it’s not that late, I only had one drink. I consider this even though I know I won’t go and instead I will pretend to do a YouTube workout with my roommate that will end with me quitting halfway through to eat overpriced takeout and watch her lunge and squat and drip sweat onto the carpet.

My attentions span comes to and claws its way back to my date. Was he talking? The beer bottle he’s nursing sweats in his fat, meaty palm. His hands are hard to miss, they’re thick and calloused. His nail beds look intentionally trimmed. Suspicious. He fiddles with the label and it starts to peel off in the white, wormy way labels do. It’s just my luck that it’s ninety degrees and the back of my neck is radiating heat in a way that makes my blown out hair coil up.

A diamond stud glimmers in his ear. If it’s real or fake, I’ll never know. I’ll never ask.

Office Man’s company is housed in the same building as mine. I noticed him in the elevator a few times before he finally spoke to me. He has a tendency to stick his paw out to block the doors from closing on him in a really dramatic way. You can tell that God graced him with above average social skills. The first time we were ever in there alone together, he asked me where my coffee was from. What an opener.

“I made it at home” I obliged him, heat dotting my cheeks in the way only embarrassment can. Why this made me uncomfortable, I have no idea, it just did. Making coffee at home is admitting you don’t want to pay a premium for the sake of ease. It makes me feel poor; this city has a way of doing that even when you are doing normal things like making coffee at home and bringing it to work.

“But it’s in a takeaway cup!” he doubled down. He thought this was cute of him, teasing me in a way that’s flirty. I know this, I really did, I have been on this planet for nearly thirty years. What bothered me was I didn’t have the time to explain to him in one measly elevator ride that I have to make coffee at home because I have no money and I have to put it in a takeaway cup because it makes me feel less awkward and bulky than carrying a reusable cup because there’s already a lunch Tupperware in my bag and it won’t zip, it’s filled to the brim because I am constantly lugging shit all over the place and the sheer relief of having something I can discard instead of having to put another fucking thing in my bag is the only reason that I can get out of bed and go to work in the morning.

Instead, I said nothing. I forced an awkward shrug to convey to him he got me. “Well, wherever you got it or made it, it’s the perfect color.” Smooth. His floor arrived first and he told me to have a good day.

There was a very small part of me that was happy with this encounter because I had just spent the forty-five minute commute prior to this elevator ride hyper-fixating on an extremely Hot Girl that I saw on the train who told me I had a seed in my teeth. It was a relief to know that Office Man did not see me with said seed in teeth. I managed to not cry that day.

So after a few elevator encounters of performing the delicate dance of simply being similar ages and both of us being considerably somewhat attractive, he asked me if I would ever want to grab a drink after work. I said yes too quickly, so I didn’t answer his text until the next day and told him I was busy for two weeks straight out of fear. Yet now, we are here, in a dark, dank bar, perched on barstools, both of us uncomfortable and awkward.

“So, how’s life on the 11th floor?” he asks me, trying to fill the silence I’ve created.

He looks up from his gaze at my chest-not-chest into my eyes that have been lined with a pencil someone in my phone told me to buy. He licks his lips like some sort of predator getting ready to feast. My spine begs me to shift and I oblige it in a way that settles it for a second before the dull throb comes back and my brain receptors are firing off, begging me to remove myself from the situation that they put me in.

It’s occurred to me I haven’t yet answered his question. What I want to say is this: life on the eleventh floor fucking sucks. They very well could fire me if I cry in the bathroom one more time over a guy who hated my guts. I’m on thin ice with them as it is to begin with and here I go again, getting myself into situations where I go skating down the pond, towing the line between fucking around and finding out by going out for drinks with the medium-ugly guy that works on eight.

What I say instead is some gargled bullshit about how “my job gives me the opportunity to pursue my creative dreams and I have health insurance, so you know, that’s good!” which seems to satisfy him enough to take another swig of his beer which has probably risen to the same temperature as the air by now. I excuse myself to the restroom.

My feet hit the lopsided wood and my spine breathes a sigh of relief. I can feel my lumbar vertebrae thank me as I walk towards the bathroom, cracking and popping my joints. I lock myself in a stall and I start to do my deep breathing exercises. I instinctively press each finger to my thumb, trying to open my lungs and every other part of my body that is all of a sudden seizing with anxiety.

It was over six months ago. You are not going to hear from him. He did not like you. He did not like you. He did not like you. I repeat this over in hushed tones, my own private, fucked up séance. No one else is in here, you better believe I’ll use it to my advantage however I want. If I only I could stare at myself in the mirror when I say this and look into my own eyes to really drive the point home, but this bar is a dump and through the crack of the stall I can see there is an empty space over the sink where a mirror should be. This compels me to open up my phone camera and there I am, hovering over a lidless toilet telling myself I’m worthy and I’m happier now and it’s all good.

My reflection in my camera stares back at me. I’m surprised; I actually look quite nice, my makeup is done and my hair isn’t as wild as I thought it would be. I’m suddenly reminded of Hot Girl. She would tell this guy the truth and not feel one shred of anxiety about it.

I close my phone. One more breath for good measure. I take a brave step forward, unlock the stall, exit the bathroom, pass by the bar where Office Man miraculously still sits. I sit back down. Before my brain catches up to my mouth, I’m speaking.

“I’ll be real,” I say. The first thing I’ve said with conviction all night. He straightens up, expecting something good.

I exhale. “This guy fucked me over a few months ago and I’m not over it. I’m still sad, actually. I didn’t even like him that much. I felt responsible for his misery which sucked. And then he ended things with me without an explanation.

He says nothing. I have to assume he’s waiting for me to keep talking. Once again, I oblige.

You don’t have to care. I’m usually not this miserable, at least I don’t think I am. But I am having trouble sleeping and I’m broke and I hate my job and my career as an artist is not panning out right now so going into work all the time sucks and I have no idea why I thought it would make me feel remotely better to hang out with someone who works in my building. So, sorry for being a freak I guess.

Still, he says nothing. I offended him. I can feel my entire body heat up. I turn to look at the door as a sign I’m going to leave when he places his palm on my hand to stop me. It’s double the size of mine. Our fingers are touching. It’s not good or bad; it just feels how it feels.

“Something like that happened to me a while ago. But you’re gonna be okay. It doesn’t last forever.” This is somehow the nicest thing anyone has said to me in months. “I’m down to get another round if you are.” This time, he’s looking directly into my eyes.

I surprise even myself. “Sure. But can we move to a table? I don’t like sitting on the stools.”

This time, he obliges me.

Today is Alex’s 30th birthday. We’ve been celebrating all week, but today is the actual day. Everyone wish her a happy birthday or else!

Alex - our one brain is leveling up. 30! I can’t believe you’re 30! I’m so proud of you and everything you have accomplished in life. You inspire me to be the best version of myself every single day. Happy FREAKING birthday! Here’s to 30 and 60 and one million more years of you helping me figure it all out. I will find you in every single lifetime, I’m sure of it.

If you are somehow new here and have stumbled upon this Substack by chance, Alex is my older sister. We’re two years, six months and 25 days apart. She is a Taurus sun, Leo moon and Virgo rising. She can read 30 books in a year, sit on the beach uninterrupted for eight plus hours and cares about her friends and family a special amount. More importantly, in a few short weeks, she is going to be Alexandria Patti, M.D. (!!!!!!)

I knew I wanted to write something to memorialize this time in her life. Who gets to turn 30 and become a doctor within the same three week span? I was planning to sit down and draft this for a while, but every time I went to work, I struggled to articulate anything, really. I tossed around so many versions of how I should start, what things I had to include, what I should omit, etc. Should I go from childhood and work my way up to the present day? Should I just do a dump of happy memories and inside jokes? What do I most want to say?

After abandoning many drafts and closing out of tabs, irritated at myself for being unable to say anything of substance about the most important person in my life, I decided to write out a list of my favorite things about her.

My sister was born on April 25, 1996. I’m sure it was beautiful out.

Who else’s birthday is considered a “perfect date” in a Sandra Bullock movie?

While texting, she always adds a space in between the word and the exclamation point. She will not omit a single necessary detail in voice memos.

On holidays, the way she unwraps a present is commendable. Precise and focused. Never rushed, but not annoyingly prissy about it either. A masterclass in class.

She always pays for parking, even in our hometown of Larchmont where paid parking didn’t always exist. There are people like me who think that’s unfair and refuse to pay since we didn’t have to before. Not her. She whips out that parking app and spares the $1.25 every time.

There are a million things about her that I admire. Her dedication, her focus, her precision are just a few. Going on about it forever would be possible. But my most favorite thing about Alex is that she is my best friend.

She arrived earth-side first, but once I dropped down to meet her, it was always us. “The girls,” as our parents and family refer to us. Alex and Victoria. In my younger sister eyes, it was only right that we do most things together. Pictures prove I was by her side at every opportunity, mostly to her chagrin. When we were little, our shared room had bunk beds. She slept on the top, as older sisters get to do. When I’d wake in the middle of the night for whatever reason, I would try to talk to her to distract myself. She would whisper-yell back and tell me to be quiet, but knowing she was listening for me always lulled me back to sleep.

Eventually, we had to separate. She moved upstairs to the third floor, as older sisters also get to do. This was when our brief but biting hatred of each other came out. Pouring cups of water on each other (her) and dumping bottles of shampoo in beds (me) are hazy memories of our earliest disagreements. She had an attitude when it came to acknowledging my existence, regularly begging our parents to get me to leave her alone. If you know me at all, you know this never once deterred me. In fact, it probably made me latch on tighter.

As we grew, our age gap started to shrink. It felt benign. We were both in college at the same time. She was the only person whose advice I trusted in all scenarios from the academic to the social to the romantic. We were both trying to answer the same questions; where should we live, who should we date, what should we do with our lives? Sometimes I can’t help but think about how young we used to be, how overwhelmed with options and opportunity.

Any moments of disagreement feel so far away in the current era, when we’re in the kitchen aisle of Homegoods shopping for espresso mugs or going for frozen yogurt and telling the teens that join us in line that it’s totally worth the wait. Or when we’re on FaceTime for an hour and a half on a Friday afternoon saying the same three phrases over and over again. I’m obsessed. I love that for you. Slay!

Because when I think about it, we’re still the same high school girls driving in the suburban, going to swim practice. We’re on our way to the firehouse to drop off lasagnas and my water bottle falls off the middle console and hits her uncapped cup of smoothie. It erupts like a geyser and goes all over the dashboard and in the AC vents and I’m still cleaning dried up bits weeks later as punishment for leaving my things unattended.

We’re the same girls who got on a bus to Southhampton, ENGLAND, to go to Peppa Pig World simply because it seemed like fun. She can’t stop reading Gone with the Wind and I’m simultaneously fascinated and impressed by her ability to read in a moving vehicle. When we get there, she tells our cab driver we’re meeting our niece and nephew at the amusement park when he has a lukewarm response to our choice of destination. As far as I know, it’s one of the only times she’s ever lied. We’re the oldest people there without children but we still do some damage at the gift shop.

I’m older now than she was when she visited me on that trip to London. I think she was there right around the time of her 23rd birthday, an age that feels far away for both of us. Growing older with my sister has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. How lucky am I that I have had someone who has known me for every single day since birth? Who allows me to show up as my entire self without fear of judgment or anxiety?

I love to make people laugh. Of course, that sometimes comes with a price of steamrolling or taking over the conversation. There are many people who have come and gone from my orbit, typically citing that I am “too much.” I’m too loud, too dramatic, too this or that. The only person who has never made me feel like that is my sister. While she does choose to humble me in other ways, (I recently bought a pair of Salomons and she let me know she thought they were the ugliest pair of shoes she’s ever seen!) she is never unkind to me. Recently, I was going to see a new doctor and I was in a part of town I had never been to before. In a desperate attempt to be on time to the appointment, I frantically walked into someone’s apartment instead of the office and stood there for about 20 seconds before I realized my grave error. How I did this, I have no idea. But certain people might say things that make you feel bad or stupid for doing something like this. Not Alex. She laughed right alongside me.

Our collective sense of humor stems from our shared brain. The story of our “one brain” started on Christmas a few years back. We were doubled over, our laughter preventing us from listening to anything our dad was trying to say. Irritated, he told us we needed to get our heads examined. I could only respond, “well, they’ll only have to examine one since they’re the exact same brain.” This obviously bore our inside joke of “one brain.” When we send each other the same text at the same time or when our facial expressions match from across the room, we know our collective brain is thinking the exact same thing.

Of course, we’re different people. We do not have the same sense of style or music taste and there’s minimal overlap in our media consumption, but the love we have for each other supersedes the every day. Despite my insecurities (many) and flaws (more) and fears (countless?) she takes care of me in a way that makes it all seem much more manageable.

Alex is by far the smarter sister; I definitely benefit more from our shared knowledge than she does. But I wouldn’t want it any other way. To this day, I never learned how to properly do my own hair or my nails because I always had her to teach me. And she has helped me tremendously, usually for nothing in return. She moved me into my sixth floor walkup, even after I lied about how far up it was. She has willingly plucked ingrown hairs out of deep crevices of my body. Every time I’m convinced I’m dying of a rare disease, she explains why there’s almost no way that I could be. She has calmed me down from major panic attacks and minor inconveniences. She has taken thousands of photos of me on vacation, attended brutal improv shows, proofread emails and text messages, sat with me through breakups and crushes and dilemmas, and showed up to countless things with bells on when nobody else wanted to.

I always feel like I don’t do nearly half of what she does for me; there is little I know that she doesn’t already. Sometimes I think it’s just my cross to bear as the younger sister. I’d go to the end of the earth and back over again for her. A year or so ago, she did ask me for something. She needed to get a specific score on Step 2, one of the big med school exams. Her request was for me to manifest it for her. I knew she was going to get higher than the number she wanted because that’s just the type of person she is, but I still took my role as a manifester very seriously. I visualized 265 in every possible moment, I clocked it on every license plate, on every phone number. When she came back with an even higher score, I remember crying because I finally felt like I was able to help her do something in return for the million things she has done for me, even though she did all of the hard work. Typical. So now, it’s a message of good luck. Any time the other needed support, we’d send it on text. We still do.

My older sister, my mentor in almost everything that I do, my role model, turns 30 today. She has been by my side for my entire life. There has not been a day I woke up and didn’t talk to her, tell her what I was doing or ask her for something. And even though I was not physically here for the two and a half years she was alive before I was born, I’d like to think I was up there, watching her, studying her every move so I could adapt it for myself. So yes, my favorite thing about my sister is that she is my best friend. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to pay her back for helping me get to where I am.

Happy birthday Alex!!! I love you so fucking much.

My nose is running and I’m on the subway and I don’t have a tissue. It’s disgusting to use my shirtsleeve to wipe my left nostril but I don’t think I have a choice. Everyone has done it. I’m only a human. I slowly bend behind my elbow in hopes of hiding the worst of it, my anonymity on the L train protecting me only slightly. I try to sacrifice the tiniest square inch of fabric to catch the nasal drip. It’s delicate, it’s handled, I’m safe from a minor catastrophe. I exhale, politely lower my arm back into its rightful spot in our rush hour subway car conglomerate when I make eye contact with another girl around my age. Her hair is done, it’s pulled back neatly, her nails are long and shellacked with gel polish in a delicious burgundy color. Jewelry adorns her nimble wrist and fingers. This makes me realize I forgot my rings this morning.

She’s still looking in my direction. She might pity me, sure, but I have a feeling it’s even worse than that. She probably does not even notice me standing there, she is just looking through me, completely oblivious to how ridiculous I look with my arm outstretched like a circus performer, trying to grasp the pole with the smallest part of my palm to avoid germs. Not her. People made space for her, the crowd parted when she stepped on at Bedford Ave. There’s no game of twister for Hot Girl. No one would ever make her do that. That’s what I decided to call her, by the way. Hot Girl.

I wonder what Hot Girl is doing on this L train. I assume if she lives in Brooklyn, it’s because she chose to, not because she has to. Money isn’t an issue for Hot Girl. It never seems to be for girls like that.

My nose starts to drip again. This time, cognizant she might see me wipe it, I try to control it. I can’t sacrifice another shirtsleeve for the same exact purpose. It won’t do. I have to be in the office in twenty minutes for a job I don’t even like, I can’t have nasal drip on my both my sleeves. That’s disgusting. One sleeve, I can hide. Two is just awful. Two is proof I can’t handle myself. I can already hear the accounting staff whisper at each other as I walk in, forced to pass their desk clump.

“Looks like another rough morning.”

There’s four accountants, their names don’t matter. They know I’m going through it because they heard me crying in the bathroom last week. One of them knocked on the single stall, whispering something inaudible that I’m sure was meant to be words of comfort. I ignored it obviously and came out with red eyes, a bad attitude and two soiled shirtsleeves.

It’s not that I WANTED to cry at work. It’s just that I had to. When I emerged, they all watched me slink back to my desk. Someone had delicately placed a fresh box of tissues on it. It made me feel like a loser, someone who can’t control themselves at the office. I’m a sad person, I know. I’m really trying to reframe, but how else am I supposed to see myself?

Thinking about this makes me cringe. I try to shift my weight in response, which is nearly impossible as I’m wedged in between two Brooklyn Bros, one of whom refuses to take their backpack off. My airpods are playing the meditation podcast I’m supposed to be listening to but I can’t even hear it. My lunch container with last night’s leftovers is sloshing back and forth. I’m overstimulated so I try to look up. Brooklyn Bro #1, the one with the backpack is tall, which is nice, but he has a receding hairline and a seed in between his front teeth. I should tell him, that would be a nice thing to do, but then again, he’s a random guy, and there’s always a chance he could murder me. So I ignore it. I try to focus on the meditation podcast. Breathing, breathing. Nothing is bothering you. You’re fine. You’re okay.

I look back over. I can’t help it. Hot Girl is not wearing headphones, she’s simply just existing. It’s amazing, actually, how comfortable she seems standing with her own thoughts. Her bag is neat, delicately placed on her shoulder, the perfect work tote. It’s not overstuffed with shit, it looks like she zipped it up without a problem. I can tell there’s no Tupperware shoved in there. I just know. It bothers me that Hot Girl would never need to take leftovers for lunch. Even if her dinner was prepared by like a private chef or something and it’s guaranteed good™️, Hot Girls don’t carry Tupperware. She’ll definitely make a stop for matcha on her way in to her shiny Midtown office and she won’t spill any of it on her outfit. Her bag doesn’t weigh nine hundred pounds, she can handle a paper cup. It’s not fair that some of us have to carry bags full of shit and she can just waltz out the door, phone keys wallet, not a care in the world.

This is when I really start to double down on this narrative. I can’t help it. Someone will take her out for drinks tonight, if it’s not her boyfriend, it’s a guy that’s texting her back consistently and being upfront about how he feels. As I’m growing more bothered thinking about how nice Hot Girl’s dating life must be, the meditation podcast somehow gets louder in my ears. You’re not thinking about it, you’re not thinking about it. Breathing, breathing, breath. Nothing is bothering you. I’m fine. I’m fine.

This of course, makes me want to check my phone. I know I’m not hearing from him but part of me hopes to anyway. I have to give this up. I’m fully aware. I can’t be crying at work about something I can’t control. Obviously there’s nothing important on my stupid phone, the exception being a few group texts from my family group chat bragging about their Wordle scores. I don’t even play it anymore, so this means nothing to me. I turn my attention back to Hot Girl as a distraction.

Women who commute in kitten heels always amaze me. You have to be so aware of grates and shit and steps to commute in kitten heels. Of course, Hot Girl is wearing a suede kitten heel with a pointed toe. This makes me start to crack up. Brooklyn Bro #1 ignores me, but Brooklyn Bro #2 looks a little stressed out by my insane laughter. He’s shorter than the other guy with better hair, but still. He’d probably want to murder me too.

We’re at Union Square, I have to get off. Of course, I watch longingly as the crowd parts for Hot Girl’s exit onto the steamy platform. I step out off the train and I unintentionally follow her up the QNRW platform. She faces the local side, same train I have to take. Doesn’t even take her phone out. The R barrels into the station and it occurs to me we’re about to go the same way, yet again. This makes me want to throw up, to quit my job, to rip my clothes off and start screaming. The accountants will have a field day if me and Hot Girl have the same commute. If I start seeing her every day on this damn train, I’m going to lose my mind.

This time she sits. I follow her lead and I sit directly across from her. She has to notice me now, there’s no way she can’t. I’m under some sort of trance. She’s just sitting there, staring into the void. Is she looking at me? I quickly glance down and check my shirt for stains. There’s nothing. My sleeve has even dried from the earlier events. It can’t be that. I want to look at my phone but another part of me wants to be just like her, comfortable with just, being.

The podcast is still on. You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay.

I’m only going three stops. This will be over soon. I realize I’m probably staring too intensely, so now I allow myself to look at my phone one more time.

Still nothing. I told him not to call me, that’s probably why he hasn’t. That’s why. I said, “never talk to me again.” So that’s definitely why. I sit and think about what he’s doing right now, he’s probably on his way to the office as well. Nothing is special about him. We’re all just going to work.

The train lurches into 28th street. I have one more stop. To my shock, Hot Girl stands and goes to get off. I guess we’re not going to the same place. There’s fewer people on this train so no one needs to move for her. She’s right in my direct orbit, I could reach out and touch her if I wanted to. The train stops. The doors don’t open for a split second. She is about to leave. I might never see her again. I probably won’t ever see her again. This thought unsettles me. Should I tell her she’s a Hot Girl? But that’s insane, why would I EVER do that?

Before she steps off she whispers in my direction. “You have a seed in your front teeth - girl to girl, I just thought you should know. I love your outfit, by the way!”

And then, she steps off. The doors close. The podcast comes back.

“You’re fine. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.”

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Find your inner HOT GIRL and tell people if they have something in their teeth! Maybe they’re on their way to a big work meeting and they need to know! Love you and thanks for reading.

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The narrator refers to this as the story’s deus ex machina. Every Greek myth has one, he writes. Deus Ex Machina; its literal definition meaning God from the Machine. When the deus ex machina is invoked in a story, it’s usually labeled as a convenient way of resolving an unsolvable plot. Sometimes, it’s seen as lazy writing. Of course Milton gets reassigned and doesn’t die in war. Because if Milton dies, Calliope is never born, their condition is never uncovered, they never become Cal, and there is no book.

There’s still a story, though. It wouldn’t be Cal’s, of course, but the story exists. Desdemonda and Lefty escape their country and immigrate to Michigan, they marry and have children and their son dies, fighting in the war.

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The story I was writing for myself has changed, almost drastically. I have found myself on a different path than I thought I was going down. It’s hard to remember, that even as the writer of the story of my life, most things are out of my control. I cannot conveniently develop my own escape plan when things get tricky. I cannot invoke a plot device that cleans everything up and ties it into a nice little bow. I am at the will of the universe and its plans for me; I am simply along for the ride. None of us can determine where we are going.

I wish I could, though. How nice would that be?

So, when a couple weeks ago, I found myself in a situation that felt almost too good to be true, I started to think of this as my own deus ex machina. How convenient would it be if this thing worked out, how nice and full could my life be if this is the path I am supposed to walk on? I am having so much fun. What’s wrong with that?

Of course, my brain is hammering me with thousands of anxiety bugs. You’re not ready, it’s a coping mechanism, your rose colored glasses are on too tight! You’re supposed to be more rational, more morose. Be more miserable and sad and hesitant!

As you all know by now, I am always that person. I am constantly overthinking everything. Usually a group dinner tab, panicking because one person didn’t have anything to drink. It’s not fair to split the bill evenly if so-and-so didn’t have any wine! I take the backseat, I eat the leftovers and no one has to help me carry my bags, ever, because I don’t need them to. I’m good. I’ll handle it.

The past couple months have been pivotal to my growth into the person who I want to be and I have decided I am not sure if I want to be the person that settles anymore. I will obviously always care about my friends at dinner and try to equitably split the bill, but I think I have to allow myself to loosen up a little bit. I have to assume certain people would want me to sit up front and help me carry my bags. Maybe even make me dinner once or twice. I don’t always have to be the person who is inconvenienced. I don’t always have to slap the bandaid on. Let someone else do it every once in a while.

I have been journaling and reading All About Love and putting myself out there. I have smiled and politely declined encounters with people I don’t want to spend time with as opposed to clearing my schedule for them. I have tried my best to stay active and creative and engaged in my community and focused on becoming the person that I always dreamed of being. A different path, maybe, but still a story all the same. What was painful and sad and stressful and confusing has actually set the stage for the rest of my life. Who am I to refuse the opportunities that have been sent my way?

And sometimes, despite the pain and the stress and the confusion, good things can still just happen. Don’t we all tend to be a little suspicious of fun and exciting moments? The world is burning; it’s easy to forget that sometimes things can just be good. Isn’t that sad? I know I belong to that school of thought and I am trying to shake myself out of it. I am walking around the city, an air of peace surrounding me, trying to remember the only thing I can write are the details. I can go to the movies and have dinner and enjoy myself because that’s what life is supposed to be. What’s the point if we’re depriving ourselves of simple pleasures? Of getting to know people? Of trying our best and being honest and throwing martyrdom out the window?

There is no deus ex machina. It’s just what is happening. I am living in the moment, taking things one day at a time, and choosing to be happy. I am slowly chipping away at the part of my brain that prevents me from enjoying myself. I’m too young for that.

Also, if you made it this far: come see my show tonight! Manic! At the Disco running one last time tonight at Second City NYC! 9:30! I sing and I’m silly and I have a wonderful time. Get your TICKETS HERE:

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Disclaimer: I am not training to be a Broadway legend. And four years ago, this combination would have been my own personal hell. Singing AND running? At the same time? But life is funny that way, because a marathon and a few voice lessons later, I somehow have found myself busy on Monday nights, belting out a song, complete with choreography, in front of a crowd.

My relationship to singing is muddy; I don’t remember when it crossed over from fun to painful. My earliest recollection of being insecure about how I sounded was when I somehow ended up with a solo in the fifth grade choir concert and was tasked with belting out a verse from the famous ‘We Will Rock You’ by Queen. Before the big night, my mom gave me some great advice that I will never forget. ‘If you get nervous, just take a deep breath before you start to sing. It will help you relax.’ Me, being in fifth grade, thought this was incredibly wise and made it a point to take my mother’s words to heart. Before we started, I was handed a microphone to help with projection. As the first chorus faded and the words started to come to, I took my deep breath directly into the microphone, the exhalation reverberating throughout the Murray Avenue School auditorium. It was the loudest sound I had ever heard. When I asked my friends if they remember this, they of course did not. But it was a turning point for me as I realized I might not be so good at this singing thing.

I love music and sing often, but almost always in private or alongside friends in karaoke rooms where my voice can get drowned out. Growing up, I had friends who actually could sing, which I think made it worse, as it was definitely a spotlight on how off-key I was, comparatively.

I realized I might have a legitimate problem with my voice during my junior year of high school. Julius Caesar was in its final week of dress rehearsals and we were performing for the middle school students, a Mamaroneck tradition. I was in the middle of reciting Calpurnia’s most important (and only) monologue when my voice shrieked like a pre-pubescent boy’s. I struggled through the rest of the show, unable to project with my usual gusto. The pain blotted my throat, an internal throbbing that could not be soothed with mugs of tea or saltwater gargles.

The diagnosis was nodules, three of them, politely dotting my vocal cords. There’s no cure, only surgery, something that I probably won’t ever get. My throat was last scoped in 2017 so I don’t really know how much worse they’ve gotten, but after four years of partying in college, yapping with friends and screaming at concerts, it’s hard to believe they’ve healed at all. What a lot of people fail to understand is that with nodes, it’s actually harder to speak at a lower volume. It hurts! The ENT told me that whispering is worse for them and I should try to avoid it. Go figure. I try to tell people that speaking at a louder volume actually hurts me less, but I don’t think they buy it. See below for proof:

Yes, consistent or forced whispering is bad for your vocal cords. Contrary to popular belief, it does not rest the voice; instead, it forces the vocal cords to tighten and vibrate inefficiently, leading to strain, fatigue, and potential injury. It often causes muscle tension, dryness, and can worsen vocal damage, particularly if done while sick. (Pulled from ‘Singing Success’)

Throat pain aside, therapy has helped me realize that I have a tendency to yell because I feel like it’s the only way that people listen to me. It’s something I’m trying to work on for my own health and happiness, but it is a reflex and the first step to fixing it is acknowledging it can be a problem. Because of this, it’s common for people to write off my feelings as dramatics and it makes it a true challenge to want to tell people what’s really bothering me for fear of being ignored.

But this Substack was named for my tendency to speak too loudly and talk too much. There have been people in my life who have advised me against branding myself this way. ‘You’re too loud, you’re over the top, stop with the drama.’ And while yes, I understand that to a certain extend, I have to stand up for myself. This is who I am. I am loud, I am over the top, I love drama.

These tendencies have taken me exactly where I want to be.

On this journey of trying to get back up on stage and put my creative energy into something, I’ve rediscovered my love for performing. I’m in a sketch show, it’s called Manic! At the Disco. It’s an hour long revue containing sketches my group and I have written together and independently. This is the cumulation of a year’s worth of work, a dedication to something that is more than a hobby to me; it’s a passion. And YES, I will be singing an original song, that I wrote and perform. I’ve been working very hard, so if you would like to come see it, you have 5 more chances. Our last preview is this Monday and then we have a Mainstage (!) run every Monday in March at 9:30 PM. Don’t make excuses and tell me you have somewhere else to be because I know you do not. Go to bed late once in your life - if I can do it, so can you. Tickets for Monday’s show are HERE!

ALSO: IF YOU WANT TO COME TO THE SHOW IN MARCH THERE IS GOING TO BE A DIFFERENT TICKET LINK. PLEASE DO NOT THINK YOU CANNOT COME IN MARCH YOU CAN - WE ARE JUST WAITING FOR A DIFFERENT LINK. AS SOON AS I HAVE THAT I WILL CIRCULATE IT. DO NOT PANIC! IT’S COMING!

Good. What does good even mean? My hesitance to even call myself a writer makes me nauseated. The imposter syndrome boils up inside of me like a virus. Because I am a writer by every definition of the word; I write. But I haven’t written a book or a movie or a tv series. I have never been paid to write. Surely I’m not a writer. I use this platform as a journal for my comings and goings, my musings and hopes. My last writing assignment was in college. They don’t even let me write copy at work anymore.

Every time I come on here I think about current events and the cultural zeitgeist of modern times; how many things could I write about right now? What can I say about the political atmosphere? Or the ever-growing societal response to phones and how it’s becoming “cool” to not use them? Or movies and what I like about them, in general. Or restaurants, things to do and see in New York. I could write about all of those things. But I don’t. In the end, it’s me me me, personal stories and anecdotes that mean nothing to the hundred of you that could hear this for free, from my mouth, on a random Tuesday evening. But people still tell me,“that was good!” and I laugh it off and ignore it and make myself feel like they don’t really mean it.

But I keep writing. Because what other choice do I have? If the words don’t go here, well, they won’t go anywhere.

For a very long time, I would send out a pilot that I wrote called “The Butcher.” I’d send it to anyone who would ask and a ton of people who never asked. I sent it to agencies and friends, my parents and media professionals. One person called me about it, she was a customer at the coffee shop I was working at at the time. She worked for a producer who worked for someone who worked at Netflix. I did some coverage for her, so disgustingly hopeful it would turn into something, only to one day, never hear from her again as if I was a bad date she wanted to ghost. It meant nothing to me - my pilot was in her hands. She read it. I was twenty-one the summer this happened, right after I graduated college, a global pandemic and civil unrest bookending what seemed to be the most pivotal time in my life, at an age I can’t even seem to remember with an over-confidence I can’t quite get back.

I was just in Los Angeles, a city I frequent but can never relax in. My belief in myself is on fire here in New York, writing from the privacy of my apartment, surrounded by the ever-growing community I’ve built here. But the minute I land at LAX, I feel an overwhelming sense of non-belonging. Therapists would probably say it stems from my creative interests and passions and quite honestly, my dreams of being a performer and to make people laugh. When I get home, I’m confronted with the questions that burn bright in my eyes when I close them. Am I not trying hard enough? Should I be working harder? Taking more classes and paying more money for people to tell me what I need to do with this creative energy? Move across the country, even? Really try to make it as an actress or writer or whatever the fuck I’m trying to be? Do I want it that bad? Am I even really trying?

The truth is; I don’t really know. Maybe I don’t believe in myself enough. Maybe I don’t want to face the ever-present rejection of not being “it.” It’s painful to consider how afraid I am of rejection.

But big R rejection, not little r rejection. You can tell me you don’t like me back or that I’m not getting into this bar tonight. That means nothing to me. That’s your problem, not mine. But lately, in my fragile state as a twentysomething, the minute someone tells me my writing sucks or I’m not funny or I’m not getting the part is when I start to go, oh shit. I’m not who I thought I was. That’s the fear.

I miss the naiveté I had when I was younger. Not a single care of being made fun of or showing someone a piece of art I worked so incredibly hard on. Where did it go? The confidence, the passion? Is growing up really as bad as everyone says it is?

This is the Artist’s Way, correct me if I’m wrong. So stay with with me here as I continue to convince myself I am not a fool, nor am I making a major mistake by bearing my soul on the line and showing up here for myself and telling you all how I really feel. Who I am, who I’ve become rather, is pivotal to my writing, to my life, to my creativity. It’s the only way I’ve ever been able to put words on paper or relate to movies or hear song lyrics. How does this apply to me? It’s selfish, I’m sure it’s a sign of a greater narcissistic tendency I was born with, but it helps me better understand art. How something makes me feel is the only way I can interpret it and get it at its core.

Earlier today, I had to write a bio for my upcoming comedy show at The Second City. This assignment gave me pause; what do I do, really? What is my experience? I’ve been in a few shows and performed here and there a few times but I’m by no means a professional. I’m barely in the scene. I have a hundred new Instagram followers on an account that I don’t even use productively, I just post screencaps from this newsletter in the hopes that thousands of people missed it the first 50 times I put it up and are just now ready to subscribe. But what I’ve learned about myself in the past few months is being vulnerable is in. Rejection is hot. Bearing your soul and trying and failing is the bravest, most powerful thing you can do. What other choice do we have?

I wrote the bio. I’ll put on the show. And I’ll never stop hoping that my love for my work and my pride in myself shines through in everything I do.

Lots of you reached out to me about my last piece of writing, Chapter VI. Thank you for your kindness and your support. I decided to write in stream of consciousness again because it helps me feel alive and authentic. If one thing is true about me, I will never show up as someone that I’m not. And I guess, the whole point of this, is me, using my outside voice (haha!) and screaming to you all that I’m not going to allow the fear of anything - a new chapter, performing, rejection - to hold me back from being who I truly am. Sometimes I forget there are no rules. Life is just getting good.

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This is probably all I’ll write about the breakup. I know you all know by now, and to be quite honest, I don’t really know what to say about it. It didn’t work out. This piece is disjointed and messy and all over the place. I don’t want to stop myself from writing how I feel, and I think that I’m doing myself a disservice to try and gift wrap my feelings to people who probably only subscribe to this because they know me personally. I know I owe you nothing, but I weirdly want to give you something.

I am looking forward to a fresh start. In a few months, maybe I’ll be able to articulate better how I’m feeling but for now, this is all I got.

I haven’t written anything else with the exception of manic journal entries where my emotions switch every other line. My right hand is permanently crooked from trying to write on both sides of the paper, an effort to preserve everything I’m thinking and feeling at this point in time. Untangling years of togetherness only to separate; it’s a brave thing to do, to go out and go on your own way. You have to give us that.

There’s no way of knowing what the future holds. I hope it’s kind to us.

I ranked my 2025 4 out of 5 stars. One star deducted for obvious reasons, however I do not think it’s fair to let recent events influence my opinion on what was a pretty transformative year for me. I plan to look back on this year with a lot of respect for myself and my growth.

2025 highlights:

• Training for and running the New York City marathon

• Raising over $26,000 for the Christopher Reeve Foundation

  • Editor’s note: a huge thank you again to everyone who donated and came out to support me on marathon Sunday. November 2, 2025 was the best day of my life so far and I’m looking forward to doing it again in the future.

• Turning 27 and Saturn returning to where it was when I was born

• Getting to dine at Don Angie, The Four Horsemen and Rolo’s

• Starting the conservatory program at The Second City, which I will finish in the spring

• Performing again

• Journaling again

• Maxing out my Roth IRA

• Spending a ton of time with my friends and family

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2026 Ins + Outs

INS:

• Reading

• Calling people instead of texting them

• Drip coffee

• Solo dining

• Intentional movement, whatever that looks like on a given day

• Sweet potatoes

• Not being in the loop

• Complimenting people when you actually mean it

• Redecorating

• Partying

• Albums in full

• Robes

• The Pitt

• Weekend trips

• Dressing for the weather

OUTS:

• Being mean

• Doomscrolling

• Expensive skincare

• Talking in any sacred space

• Financial burdens

• Complimenting people when you don’t actually mean it

• Overwhelming group dinners

• Dehydration

• Streaming movies (go to the theater)

• Oversaturated and trendy restaurants (explore your neighborhood)

• Cluttered inboxes

• ChatGPT

• Celebrities and influencers

I don’t want to go into this new year with the “I’m gonna WORK ON MYSELF” mentality, but I do think it’s important to focus on what could bring me more peace in these coming months. I don’t tell people (mostly men) how I feel very often. I hide hurt and pain because I am so conflict averse and do not want to be responsible for starting a fight. So I’m going to challenge myself to be more forthright about my feelings, good and bad, and not worry so much about how other people feel about my feelings. That’s a mouthful, but I think other people can relate to this. Maybe? I have no idea.

Everyone keeps telling me “you’re gonna be fine.” I know this. My longest relationship has been with myself, I am the only person who truly, deeply knows me on a molecular level. I know the secrets I’m harboring and the things that keep me up at night. I know that I am going to be okay; how could I not trust the person I have become to get me through this challenge?

I didn’t travel a ton this year, but I explored New York, my favorite place in the world. I changed jobs for a higher salary and a better work life balance. I made new friends. I started a Letterboxd and went to the movies a lot more than usual. I swam in the ocean, kept up my Duolingo streak and romanticized drinking coffee at home. And I got out of a long relationship. No one really tells you how to start acting like an adult. Part of me wasn’t ready for this but another part of me feels like I should have been.

The back half of this year was challenging. But I did not fall apart. I do not intend to.

Things are going to be okay, but they’re going to be different. Whatever the fuck that means.

I don’t know where the next twenty-seven years of my life will take me. So until I figure it out, I will write, create, engage, perform. I’ll see people, really see them. I’ll get angry and then forgive, even if it’s hard.

Be kind. Give what you didn’t get. Ask for what you need, within reason.

A couple months ago, my sister discovered that she could unlock the student rate on a subscription to The Atlantic. I am a sucker for a thirty thousand word think piece, so I offered to split the cost with her. She even went as far to log my address as the destination for the monthly print edition, something I didn’t really care about at the time, but now am very grateful for and find myself anticipating in the mail. Who said print is dead?

I barely read this summer (a nod to my most recent “summer consumptions” piece) so when I found myself facing a plane ride a few weeks ago, I decided I’d skip the latest thriller from Libby and opt for the September edition of the magazine. To my delight, “The Invention of Judd Apatow” was one of the featured articles. I’m sure there’s a paywall on that so if you’re interested in reading it, please let me know and I’ll send you a PDF.

Mr. Apatow is a blueprint, especially for a lot of young white guys who are trying to hack it in the comedy space. I am a fan, mostly because Superbad and Freaks and Geeks and everything else he’s touched is pretty funny to me and defines a generation of actors I’ve grown up with: Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd. I assume I’m in good company in thinking this. He’s someone to admire and someone to pull inspiration from. A few years ago I tried watching his MasterClass while I was h*gh (sorry Mom) and I couldn’t really focus on the craft of it all because I was laughing so hard at him just sitting there, on the stool, being himself. He’s funny because he’s just authentically himself.

Apatow’s success really began in as a teenager when he started interviewing comedians by stretching the truth and claiming he was calling on behalf of a radio station - while not necessarily a lie, Jerry Seinfeld was incredibly confused when a seventeen-year-old showed up to his apartment. He’s been creating for the entirety of my life. I think I was in eleventh grade when I started watching Freaks and Geeks, an NBC series produced by him. Despite being cancelled after one season, it’s critically acclaimed, often on “the greatest shows of all time” lists and considered a cult classic. The actors were high school aged. They did not look like supermodels and they were mean to each other in the way that all insecure teenagers tend to be. It was funny and it was real.

Freaks and Geeks marks the beginning of my obsession with television. If binge watching has no fans, I’m dead. I love movies, they’re great and all, but there is nothing better than seven seasons of a prestige HBO drama or a Michael Schur sitcom. Netflix was acquiring streaming rights left and right in 2015, and it was here that I was exposed to countless series that helped me learn I wanted to be involved with television and media in some way.

I watched a lot of comedy during this period. But in my own creative endeavors, I tended to opt for drama. I performed Shakespeare; I was in the tragedy every year, the exception being my senior year when I played the dramatic, gender-swapped villain in Much Ado About Nothing. In my theater camp days, I performed depressing, raw monologues about lost loves and wrote a play about suicidal ideation. I convinced myself comedy was not the path for me. I hung out with the “funny” people at school, but I got roasted any time I tried to hit back. Maybe it was insecurity or self doubt that I wasn’t “funny” but when I started the television, radio and film major at Syracuse, I convinced myself I was destined for sad stuff.

In college, I did not do improv, I did not write sketch. My greatest regret is not getting more involved with those groups on campus, mostly because I am having so much fun doing it now. Instead, I wrote short films about anxiety and long winded dialogue about how the world is out to get us all. I sat in Watson hall and wrote sad poetry when crushes didn’t like me back. It was not until my senior year of college that I had to take comedy writing with Evan Smith, who would later be my thesis advisor and teach me that “being funny” is just being honest. It’s not easy to make people laugh. But trying too hard to do it is what makes it even harder, and honestly, pretty sucky.

I wish I knew earlier how unserious comedy can be. You can sit down and decide what you think is good instead of waiting for others to tell you that it is. I was listening to Amy Poehler’s podcast the other day. Kristen Wiig was the guest and she was saying that some of the best advice she ever got (from comedic legend Will Forte) was to write what SHE thought was funny.

I really think this is really a lesson in saying fuck it and putting yourself out there, no matter how ridiculous it might seem. While I definitely do not have the gall of Mr. Apatow in attempting to call up people like Gary Shandling, or the character talents of Wiig, I feel like I’ve taken some risks that are getting me closer to finding my voice . A lot of you are aware that I’ve been performing at The Second City (come see Brain Rot) and have sort of entered the comedy world. I am by no means in the NYC comedy scene, probably due to my own anxieties about truly diving in and not looking back, but I have tasted a little bit of what the life is like. I’m busy a lot more than I usually am, I’m up way later than normal and I’m going to see my friends in stuff because I want to support them. My notes app is a war zone of half baked thoughts that I had right before I fell asleep. My friends and I just wrote a song about a “menstruation crustacean” that teaches kids about puberty. I’m in pretty deep at this point and I’m pretty sure there’s no turning back.

So: with that. This quote was scribbled on a diary of Gary Shandling’s that Apatow was obsessed with.

“GIVE MORE, GIVE WHAT YOU DIDN’T GET, LOVE MORE.”

My mantras for 27: I’m giving as much as I can to myself and the people I love in my life. I’m giving others the encouragement and support in the creative world that I wish I had. I will love as much as physically possible. Let’s live in a more creative and accepting world. What other choice do we have? Misery?

I think this advice is paramount in what I’m trying to embody in my own comedic/writing/creative journey. This Substack does not have a theme or a direction, but I write about what I want to write about. I write for me. I’m just grateful that you all stuck around.

It’s been two years since I began this. Lucky is an understatement. Thank you ❤️

Here’s a collection of some happy/funny/enjoyable moments. I hope you’re having a great October. And in all seriousness, please come see my show!!! Two more opportunities - it’s very ENTERTAINING if I do say so myself!!! I am leaving you with a list of shows I think are perfect.

Shows I think are so funny and you should watch:

1. The Other Two, HBO

2. Party Down, Starz

3. Broad City, Comedy Central (Streaming on Hulu)

4. Hacks, HBO

5. Bad Sisters, Apple TV (Season 1)

my feet are shattered and my nose is running
monday again
wipers bleeding streaks on the windshield 

it was easier before

how do you know? 
I wonder, I think loudly
but also quite quietly
in the mornings 
tensions bound by unspoken truths 
screens aglow with muck 

my confusion counts by the calendar 
aching for an answer, longing for the rule, 
for something to change.  
debating, arguing 
only in my own head 
the conversations end as easily as they started
no direction, no sense

there is no answer just yet. 

how do you know?   
all you hear is inhumanity 
dripping off tongues.  
is there regret seeping inside their bodies
melting like butter? 

just like mine? 
are we the same? 

are you staring into the ocean, 
gurgling with despair? 
crying on the phone in the kitchen 
waiting for the water to boil? 
speeding down the parkway,
late again. to no avail. 

what happened? 
where did it go wrong? 

after we part and I go home again 
I wonder, in between debating what must be done, 
what can be done? 
what should be done? 

there is no answer 
there is no call 

but how do you know? 
where do you look? 
the bottom of a bottle passed to me 
bruised fingers, counting corners silently. 
a sense of comfort, a waiting pass. 

where do we go from here? 
how do you know? 

I only write poetry when I don’t know what to say.

Love is free, go spread it.

In happier news, the sketch show that I am in got extended. I do not know the exact dates but once I do, I plan to share them in case you would like to buy a ticket?!?!

I’m having trouble keeping up with the amount of apps I’m supposed to keep lists on. Goodreads. Beli. Letterboxd. I’m bad at all of them. The truth is, while I very much enjoy keeping track of everything I’ve been able to read, eat and watch, I am attempting to become less attached to my phone and this makes me very bad at remembering to input my rankings on the apps. Regardless, when I do enter a ranking, I usually beef it up. Praise on praise. I’m not that critical. Media and restaurants and stories generally make me happy. I’m also a major pushover which can skew things.

I am working on a lot lately: marathon training, a sketch show, my somewhat new job. I appreciate you all for waiting patiently for this next edition. To keep things light, I am going to do a fun list of things that I consumed and ENJOYED this summer. Movies, books, TV, live shows, music, a few restaurants. I will not commit to being better at my apps but I will share things that made me happy because sharing makes me happy!

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June

Brokeback Mountain: Ok we’re starting off strong here. I think - I think - this is in my top ten movies of all time now. I went to see this movie in the theatre for the special Pride Month Run by myself and breathing became difficult because of how hard I was crying. Everything re: Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal goes without saying. Amazing performances, gorgeous love story, the MOUNTAINS, the sheep!! The sheep. But what really got me was Michelle Williams as Alma. She knew her marriage was doomed and despite Ennis being so incredibly problematic and terrible to her, she still held compassion for him. Women really can do anything. UGH. Love makes us crazy. I freaking love this movie. Honest ranking: 20/10 no further questions.

The Esters: Bar pizza with Abby. Perfect portions. Better company. This is one of those places you’re dying to have in your neighborhood because it’s no frills, you can seat yourself, it’s crowded but not impossible and it’s right next to two of my favorite bars. I love my corner of eastern Greenpoint! If the plume has no fans, I’m dead! Honest Ranking: 9/10 because I can always eat more.

Someone Should Stop Her, Anna Shoemaker: Okay so I didn’t include the Anna Shoemaker concert because I went to this in May and it wasn’t technically summer yet but I was bumping the album the entirety of June. When I talk to people about my music taste I always say I love lyrics. Anna Shoemaker is a modern, feminist pop icon and her lyrics are like if she ripped the words from my journal and sang them. I’m obsessed with her for that. Fave tracks are: Fields, Game of Thrones, Not Your Baby - she literally calls out Jacob Elordi like girl I GET IT. Honest Ranking: 10/10

Big Swiss: Okay. Ellie generously lent me this book and it took me way too long to read. I don’t know what it is about 2025 but I’m getting strong upstate NY vibes, the Hudson Valley is trying to tell me something I guess. This shit is a little dark, a little freaky deaky, but it’s really important to me. I think that I am doing a lot of things lately for myself. I’m being a little selfish. This book kind of helped me accept the fact that I’m never going to be able to do everything all the time. I can’t make everybody else happy. And I guess that’s the price you pay for seeking a life that feels full. There’s also some voyeur vibes going on here which was the freaky part. Honest Ranking: 8/10 because main character is self sabotaging and I’m not having that in 2025.

Adults: Here’s the thing. I like Friends. Do I think it’s the most insanely accurate or representative telling of real life? Absolutely not. But I don’t care. It’s such a waste of time to overanalyze things. It’s okay to just have things be what they are. On that note: I enjoy writers trying to paint a more accurate representation of young adults living in Kew Gardens. I love a D’Arcy Caden guest spot. I actually laughed out loud at the gun buyback storyline with Samir and Paul Baker. It’s definitely a fun, easy watch. I am trying not to take myself that seriously these days. Things can just be easy and fun. Okay?! It’s not that deep. (Shoutout to the Not That Deep podcast, another form of media that I need to pay attention to but have not yet <3) Honest Ranking: 7/10 because I want more episodes and more things to have on comfort TV when I’m “working from home.”

July

Sorry, Baby: Okay. Heard about it. Knew very little about it. Will be avoiding spoilers here as best I can. I feel like I’ve written about this before. But it goes to show how food is healing. There’s something about the simple act of sharing a sandwich on the edge of a parking lot that allows Agnes to start to move forward in her difficult, traumatized life. Eva Victor’s directorial debut was a force. This is going to be a movie that young women and people watch for decades. Honest Ranking: 9/10 - minus one because Lucas Hedges kind of freaks me out.

Superman: I don’t watch superhero movies, like ever. Not on principle, I just don’t care. I didn’t see The Dark Knight until 2023 - that in fairness, was a mistake on my part. Regardless: I really got a kick out of this movie!! I enjoyed seeing it in the theater. It felt like a movie you have see in the theater. Diet coke and popcorn and an annoyingly invested stranger to my right in the AMC signature recliner. Dream blunt rotation. Honest Ranking: 7/10 for two reasons: Rachel Brosnahan is casted perfectly but Nathan Fillion was on the screen way too much for my liking.

Smartless: I used to be a podcast hater. I think because I’ve been so underused at work these days that I am dying for entertainment as I’m sitting in my office on 28th and Broadway. People who know me know I love Will Arnett. He’s kind of my dream man, I have felt this way since the Arrested Development days but also because he voices Bojack Horseman and when he speaks on this podcast in a weird, parasocial type way I feel like Bojack actually made it out of the trenches and is now rebranding as a podcast host in 2025. I’m a freak, it’s fine but it’s oddly comforting. Smartless is not like, the most sophisticated or professional podcast, all three of them just yell over each other and try to be funny but it’s good brain rot and entertaining enough to binge. Plus, they have good guests. Amy Poehler was great, as was Steve Buscemi. Honest Ranking: 6/10 it’s not bad but it’s not great.

The Fly: Took myself here on a Friday night. Sat alone outside on the street. Ordered way too much food for one person. Half a chicken, caesar salad, fries, a chilled red. Two glasses actually. Eavesdropped on the table next to me, it was two women dancing around a pretty major roommate conflict. Got an ice cream cone on my way home. Thought a lot about my life, where I’ve been, and where I’m going. Enjoyed leftovers for days afterward. No notes, zero notes. Honest Ranking: 10/10 and that’s final.

John Proctor is the Villain: So Hannah and I are doing this thing where we see a show once a quarter. We’ve only done it twice but thrice is a habit so this is also my reminder to her that we need to pick our Q3 show. I knew NOTHING about this show going into it except for the reference to The Crucible. We discussed our limited knowledge of the story over Ramen (yes, we ate soup in the heat) I try to not look things up before I see them anymore - I am a resident Wikipedia reader because of my anxiety and it’s ruining so many good things for me - so I went in with no expectations. Here’s the thing: this is an incredible play. The story is insane. The acting was so fucking raw. I know I definitely had a reputation for being a dramatic teenager, but I really believe young girls feel things more intensely than anyone else. It’s kind of hard not to at that age. I will say this: I think I had so much other trauma happen after high school that my high school trauma seems kind of laughable now, but I think if you have high school trauma this might hit really hard for you. On a side note: Imagine her and I getting caught in a flash flood on our way to the theater, hailing a cab and throwing the cab driver thirty dollars because he drove us a mere three blocks, dying laughing, soaking wet in our work clothes. I love being a girl and I love being in New York. Honest Ranking: 10/10 because I love Lorde and Victoria Vourkoutiotis - who was an UNDERSTUDY - blew me away.

The Sopranos: My old coworker was watching this so I started again from the beginning. Honestly, any excuse to do it. Spent a lot of time thinking about Edie Falco. Edie Falco is one of those actresses that I really try to take inspiration from. Her range is supersonic. I watch Carmella hold onto the pain and the trauma that comes from being a mob wife as she turns around to make Meadow a tuna san. Her anger is so deep in her bones. A woman must endure. I hope in another universe she moved to Italy to be with Furio. Honest Ranking: 100/10 I will not be elaborating further.

August

The Worst Person in the World: I decided to watch this when I was in the middle of a pretty difficult week. I don’t really want to talk about it but I’m forcing myself to. I think I really struggle with feeling like I’m not doing enough all the time. It’s this constant seesaw of, I could run more, I could write more, I could see my friends more. I could be BETTER. I can always do more. And I think Julie, the main character in this film, is constantly avoiding responsibility for fear that she’ll be exposed. She is afraid she’s “wasting” her time. She’s only 29, dating a much older guy, someone who wants kids and a marriage and a family. She feels crazy for not being ready for that. She’s a little manic and a little irresponsible. But honestly, so what? I play by the rules. I don’t like to misbehave and I guess all I want to say is there is no right way to do anything. There is no wasted time. It’s the every day that matters. How do you show up for yourself and others when there is no special occasion? Are you kind? Are you proud of the small stuff? There’s no point in putting all this pressure on ourselves. I wake up every day and I’m alive. I go out and I try my best to be nice. Honest Ranking: 7/10 for being too real and making me cry in the middle of my workday during a pretty tough week.

Robot Dreams: Phew! Palate cleanser! I love this movie so much. I watched it for the first time on a plane back from California and I fell in love with the story. I think I’ve watched it twice since then. This movie always makes me think of the same person and sitting in that makes me uncomfortable, but the work must be done. The Dog and the Robot - are they friends? Are they more than that? Regardless. When someone who is in your life who was everything to you, is no longer there, how can you possibly stand to be happy for them? But you have to try. You have to!!! This movie is so real and I think because it’s told through robots and dogs and a fictional NYC it feels even more palatable. Honest Ranking: 11/10 because the soundtrack and the vibes and the love. I love love.

Notes On Your Sudden Disappearance: Picked up this book on a whim, in a vain attempt to read another book this summer because I had been doing a really bad job of that. This book tells the story of the relationship between the younger sister and her older sister’s boyfriend in the period after the older sister disappears. I have been feeling incredibly close to my siblings lately, especially in the past few years, and I was really hit hard by the honesty of how the little sister acts. I think I would be a similar way if something happened to Alex. I think I would be even worse. Beautiful story of loss and recovery, Billy Barnes is a complex character. There is a bit of a lag in the beginning but overall, I thought this was a really good book. I enjoyed this as a beach read. Honest Ranking 9/10 because the ending was kind of predictable.

Rorschach Baby, Ryn Weaver: Ryn Weaver stans rise TF UP!!! Our girl is BACK!! This is also another nod to the Hudson Valley because I think she went up there to work on her music. She took like a ten year hiatus and now we are being FED. So, a Rorschach test, is basically a psychology test where you are shown ink blot images and you have to talk about what you see. It’s all about how lovers are not who they say they are and how we see different people in different ways. I love this EP I can’t wait for the full album. It’s feeding me in late August into September!!! Honest Ranking: 10/10 because Odin St is by far my most played song this month.

Not a restaurant but this tomato toast: Enough said. Jersey Tomatoes are my reason for living. If you don’t like tomatoes or mayo, for that matter, grow up. Honest Ranking: 20/10 and you know I’m right.

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He buttoned his tuxedo. He put on his watch. He signed the check.

‘To a lifetime of happiness’ he wrote in the card. ‘Love, Casey.’

On one hand, who was he to question it? They requested his presence at the wedding. His name was printed plain as day on the invitation.

He couldn’t hear the countless conversations Stevie and Diane had, standing in their kitchen, swirling glasses of booze to cope as they tried to make up their minds on Casey. Should we? Shouldn’t we? He didn’t read the pros and cons list that Stevie’s older brother and best man had helped him compile. Pros: he was, for a long time, one of their best friends. Cons: well, everything else of course.

All Casey got was a definitive. A square envelope with a wedding invitation, requesting his attendance at the matrimony of Stevie Flynn and Diane Dalloway.

At first, the decision seemed uncomplicated. Of course he would be there. It was Stevie and Diane. He wouldn’t even think about missing their wedding. Weeks passed and he was steadfast about this, never wavering when his mother called him, asking him yet again if he was still planning on traveling back.

‘Of course I’m coming,’ he huffed into the phone. His mother, in typical fashion, couldn’t have given less of a shit if he was going or not. She just didn’t want to have to tell people that Casey, the once-golden-now-disgraced-prodigal-son would be back in town.

But then, the date grew closer. The gap between Stevie, Diane and Casey felt larger than it ever had. His clear filled with murky doubt as he ruminated on what he really was deciding. It wasn’t just the wedding. It was confronting everything he left behind.

Fiona, his publicist, hit the floor when he told her was going home.

You could be doing so much press and gaining ground on your next move. That’s a bad weekend to travel!!!!! Plus, I thought you weren’t even allowed to go back there???? I’m confused??? she wrote from her company email.

Casey deleted it. Five minutes later, another one came through.

Please force them to hold off on taking photos of you. I know it will happen but please discourage posting and tagging if possible??? We don’t need an increase in negative traffic!!!!

Fiona was an idiot. As if ANYONE in Mudville would ever ‘hold off’ on taking pictures of him.

The AC in his hotel room couldn’t permeate his suit. He felt feverish. It was three o’clock and he had to get going. The pit in his stomach he was attempting to ignore was expanding to his solar plexus.

‘Deep breaths, deep breaths’ he whispered out loud.

He tried to steady himself as he splashed some water on his face. He was staring into the bathroom mirror, his daily affirmations on repeat. ‘I’m worthy. I attract positive energy. I’m a good person.’ The shame he was carrying for all these years was back-breaking. Therapy wasn’t doing nearly enough and the affirmations were sure as shit not helping.

He was supposed to be here to celebrate his friends, their love and their commitment to one another. Instead, he was staving off a nervous breakdown in the bathroom of a Holiday Inn Express.

‘No one cares anymore, it was SO long ago.’ He pointed at himself in the mirror. ‘I am a professional athlete now. I don’t need to care about one mistake from years ago.’

He said this out loud with such little conviction, he couldn’t even pretend he was telling the truth. All he’d ever be to the people of Mudville was a moron and a giant fuckup.

Current baseball fans might disagree with on this. As of two days ago, his batting average was the highest in the MLB. But none of that mattered to the five thousand Mudville Marauder fans that were in the crowd that fateful Saturday. He winced just thinking about it, cursing his selfish, younger self.

Summer baseball was supposed to be a blast, a skills showcase. Where did it all go wrong? Back in the mirror, now. ‘Why didn’t I swing? What was I trying to prove?’

Stevie’s face flashed in front of him. From home plate he could see him bouncing up and down on third like a goddamn pogo stick. He was salivating, waiting for him to send that sorry ball right over the fence. He should have swung. Stevie could have been a part of the story. Maybe he would have made it out, too.

But Stevie was still in Mudville. And Casey was not.

He gathered his things. Swallowed his medication. Pawed around for his room key and his sunglasses. Then, the hotel hallway, the ding of the elevator, the shuttle waiting outside. The guests in their formal wear, parading down out of the lobby. He attempted to sneak through. Moronic. He was seen instantly.

‘Boo!’ they all jeered at him. The children pointed and laughed. He tried to grin and bear it, throwing his hands up in defense as he chewed on his anti-nausea pill and waited to board the bus.

Their phones raised in the air. Flashes of light came towards him at all angles.

‘Please don’t take pictures of me,’ he begged the crowd. Pinching his temple, he thought of Fiona back in Denver, scrolling on Instagram, which only made him sweat more.

A woman he recognized spit at his foot. The driver greeted him with the middle finger. No one sat next to him.

The trip to the venue was short. They passed the ice cream shop, his high school, the office park. Then, that corner where he hit Diane’s car. Oh god, Diane. His biggest fan. His former somewhat girlfriend, if you could call it that? It was a decade ago. He stood on shaky ground with her when he left, at best. And now he was about to watch her get married. To his oldest friend and former teammate.

He closed his eyes, silently mouthing his affirmations as they pulled into the parking lot. Guests milled and mingled as they filed off the bus and headed towards the pergola, finally ignoring him. He followed slowly behind them, cowering behind his sunglasses.

Casey picked the last seat in the last row, thinking he’d stay out of everyone’s way. Once again, the guests took their seats methodically, avoiding him as if he was excreting a terrible smell.

Stevie was standing up at the front with his brother and Jimmy Blake. He immediately looked away, not ready to face his old buddies. He knew they could see him back in his hiding place. He thought he saw a whisper of smile on Stevie’s face, but he knew he probably imagined it.

Casey could now see Diane at the far end of the field, her father holding her arm. His throat was closing. The tears were coming. Why did he do this? Why did he come? Why did he sit in this seat? He was so far back that his face would be the first one Diane would have to pass as she walked down the aisle. ‘Oh god’ he thought to himself, fumbling around for another anti-nausea pill.

Diane was getting closer. She was a yard, then a foot, then an arm’s length away. Time was stopped. She was next to him now, wedding gown and veil on and bouquet in her delicate hand. She stepped in towards him and gave Casey a quick, one-sided hug.

‘We’re so glad you’re here,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘Ignore the rest of them.’ By the time he opened his eyes, she was already up at the alter with Stevie. His heart was beating in his ears so loudly he couldn’t hear the rest of the service. When it was over, he managed to clap and whoop with a genuine spirit he hadn’t felt in years. When they walked by, arm in arm, Casey reached out to pat Stevie on the shoulder.

Suddenly, he was nineteen. Stevie reached out and embraced him into a hug that closed the gap between their ten year estrangement.

‘Thank you,’ he mouthed to his friends. He was light on his feet as he paraded down the aisle with the rest of the guests.

‘Champagne?’ Asked a tray-holding waitress. No disdain, no gleam of hate in her eye.

‘You must not be from Mudville,’ Casey said bravely.

‘I’m from Lancelot’ she said as she smiled. ‘But I know who you are.’

Casey sighed and started to turn away.

‘Aren’t you like a famous baseball player or something?’

Casey stopped and shifted back. ‘Yes. Yes I am.’

The INSPIRATION for this story comes from the Ernest Thayer poem ‘Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888.’ You can read more about it HERE!!

Also, as my fellow death cab for cutie fans know, “We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes,” one of my favorite albums of all time, features a song titled, No Joy in Mudville.

I don’t think there’s any correlation but I love both these things and wanted to write a story! Send to a friend if you feel like it!

Summer is not October or March. Love Island is on. I eat ice cream and zucchini and tomato toast. There are no arbitrary rules one has to abide by. You can wear a bikini top and your hair the way God herself intended. Two desserts in one day? It’s summer. Why wouldn’t you?

I used to go to sleep away camp and spend the better part of a month swimming in a glorified pond and waking up to a trumpet. I didn’t look at a screen or talk to boys or think about anything other than having fun. That girl is still me. She definitely disappears in the dreary winter, but come summertime, she’s here to stay.

Today is the summer solstice. I am sitting with all the different versions of myself; reflecting on how far I’ve come, but looking at how much there is to still do. I hope you enjoy my manifestations and my projections for the road ahead.

I. Excitement

My life is full of things to be excited about. I am so fortunate I have things to look forward to.

• The Writing 6 showcase I got into at The Second City! Rehearsals start next week.

• Many beach days in Jersey, Long Island, the Rockaways

• The first yum yum of the season

• My summer restaurant bucket list!!!!! See a small excerpt!

• Brian and mine’s trip to Japan next year

• A much needed closet refresh that I have been saving up for a few months

• The energy that will be buzzing around McCarren park this weekend

• Going upstate in August and September

• Fourth of July in the city yet again ⬇️

II. Gratitude

In the past few years, I think I’ve gotten better at appreciating what I do have as opposed to what I don’t. My message is simple. Thank you universe. I appreciate you giving me so much more than I could have ever imagined.

• The big ones, that go without saying: my health, a roof over my head, a supportive family, access to clean water + nutritious food.

• Brian. No matter how fast I run a marathon, no matter what Fortune 500 company I work at, no matter how many chickpeas or salads I eat - I’ll still love you the most.

• Friends who make me laugh so hard, I end up crying.

• Friends who hold my hands when I cry.

• Friends who I haven’t seen in a while that still reach out to make time to see me, even when I’m not the best at it.

• The community I have found in my new neighborhood.

• Everyone at The Second City.

• Any working professional who ever took an informational interview with me and let me ask them questions about their job. I don’t think I would be in the position I am now without that, so thank you for that. I appreciate you responding to my cold emails.

• My first apartment and the girls who lived with me in it at 80 Delancey Street. I was reborn there. You don’t even know. I’m overflowing with gratitude for the things that home brought me.

• Felix. You saved us.

• Hacks, Broad City, Fleabag and The Other Two, for proving there is a need for female writers in a male dominated industry. Also for just being the most important shows for a woman my age.

III. Love

I have never really written that much about my relationship on here. Mostly because I don’t want to expose myself (or him!) to my subscribers. But on the summer solstice, on today of all days, I am immensely grateful to my boyfriend/partner/roommate/best friend Brian. If you’re the only constant in my life, I’ll have won the lottery. I love you! The universe nailed it.

Here are some things I absolutely love about Brian.

• He is incredible at all types of trivia.

• He is always down to go out for a coffee.

• He encourages me to go after things I want even if they seem incredibly out of reach.

• He has found a couple tracks on Death Cab For Cutie’s We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes that he can get behind (405 and Company Calls, specifically.)

• He helps me pick out my outfits; in fairness, I return the favor.

• Whenever I make something for us to eat, he always tells me how good it is.

• My friends love him and he loves my friends

• He is authentically himself, no matter what.

IV. Hope

The universe knows what I need and what is best for me. I want to feel clear minded and at ease. I am hopeful all those in my orbit will find peace, serenity and love. I am hopeful that all that is meant for me arrives when I’m ready.

• I hope both myself and my family stay healthy, happy and secure

• I hope I can find acceptance for the things I can’t control

• I hope my creativite energy stays strong

• I hope I continue to navigate hard changes with ease

• I hope everyone I love in my life can find happiness and peace

• I hope I continue to find joy in the small things

You can do hard things! Summer is here! Life is very long! Enjoy what is right in front of you. Get your hair wet, wear sunscreen and eat a sweet treat or two.

I use she/her pronouns to describe my body for the sake of this piece because it makes sense to me. Thank you for reading. If you hated it, tell me.

I spend enough time talking to myself that my body can sometimes seem separate from my mind. She is another person I talk to and talk about. Sometimes with care and grace, other times with disdain.

It took me a long time to fit into her. I never felt at home with her until recently. When I was a kid, I played soccer, but all the running made me anxious. I was constantly worried about not being as fast as the other girls. I opted to play goalie to avoid playing midfield. I voluntarily chose to throw my body in front of soccer balls, hoping that would be enough to distract the rest of my teammates from the fact that I couldn’t run very fast.

All I could see were the things I didn’t like about myself. I couldn’t run very far, or fast. I had eczema on the back of my knees. A mustache. Dry hands and jagged nails. I remember one day in the early summer, I wore shorts and uggs to school because I didn’t want anyone to see the dark hair on my calves.

I started to feel ugly. I wasn’t blonde or hairless. I had a belly and a cowlick. I did not have clear skin and straight hair.

But my body always helped me move, despite my animosity towards her apperance. I went to swim practice three times a week, participated in dance-a-thons and played boxball on the playground. I never broke a bone or got sick enough where it was debilitating. She was never unkind to me, even when I thought she was ugly and awful.

During the summer after elementary school, my grandma approached me and told me I needed to start lifting weights. She had me doing bicep curls with a five-pounder in her bedroom before my mom finally came upstairs to rescue me. The conversation between them was short lived, but I got the gist. It was there that I, at ten years old, learned that people will talk about what they think about your body. The good, the bad and the ugly. And it never fucking stops.

Everyone comments on appearances. Sure, sometimes it’s well-intentioned, you’re hyping the girlies up. But we all know sometimes it can be majorly vicious. No one is stopping you from talking shit about your own body. People kind of hope that you do. Because somewhere, somehow, it was deemed socially acceptable to talk shit about each others’ bodies and we will all weirdly feel better if we all know that no one likes themselves.

(editor’s note: this clip from mean girls sums it up!! If you don’t hate your body everyone is like omg you should though!! let’s change the narrative PLEASE)

There was a brief period when I started high school where I felt like my body and I were starting to get along, but the constant comparison, locker rooms and coming-of-age stuff was too much. Eventually, I was spending the better half of my time hating her. Obsessing over her. Talking shit about her. It was just what you did. You pitted your body against others in some kind of sick competition. I still was not blonde or hairless. I was not skinny. I was taller than most of the boys I interacted with and felt awkward in my clothes.

Eventually, everyone from my grade started going to the gym. I fucking hated it. This did not help my relationship with my body in any way, shape or form. Expected to join in on the fray of ninety pound high schoolers dancing on the elliptical made me feel like a joke. Just its presence alone made me feel even more awkward and uncoordinated than I already was. Despite being an athlete, despite knowing I was taking care of myself, despite truly believing that going to the gym would be good for me and would not only help my body, but my brain, I so often wanted to evaporate into thin air on the first floor of the Larchmont New York Sports Club that I just stopped going. It was better than the alternative.

I grew older, got acne and dealt with shin splints. I braced myself for impact, for my body to truly rebel against me. She never did. I was healthy by every stretch of the word. I ate steamed broccoli and chicken for dinner most nights. My parents did not keep “junk food” in the house. For ten years, I ate the same exact brown bag lunch every single day. Turkey sandwich on wheat bread, no condiments, a baggie of Snyder’s Pretzels and a fuji apple.

Everything shifted when I got my license. I finally had freedom - and privacy - to go out to lunch and eat a grilled cheese from East Ave or an entire tub of pesto pasta from Cherry Lawn. I’d go to Bradley’s in the morning before school and house an entire chocolate croissant before I even got to the parking lot. I’d eat these things in secret to avoid the commentary. I couldn’t help that I was hungry all the time. It was embarrassing how much I had to eat to feel full.

Everyone around me would skip lunch and barely snack. At seventeen, you notice these things. It was awful. I felt like a monster, always hungry, always scavenging for food. Why does no one else feel this way? Why am I the only one who is hungry? These were questions I never got answers to. It made me feel crazy.

But to my body, this was normal. We woke up at 5AM most days to exercise, went through a full day of school, sometimes had a play rehearsal. We were growing, hormones were shifting around like a storm inside. Obviously, we were going to be hungry. It was not even a question.

In college, she carried me through four years of binge drinking and shitty dining hall food with minimal incident. And no matter how much she did for me, I still resented her.

Whenever someone took a picture of me, my eyes darted to my stomach. Was it protruding? Did I look fat? Could you tell I had a layer of skin that, no matter how many times I pretended I wasn’t hungry, would just not go away? I tried to heal this insecurity with tequila and attention from men, to no avail. Trying on clothes for formals or parties was earth-shattering-ly dramatic. I was still not blonde or hairless. I was a size ten shoe. I did not feel comfortable in my own skin, even when I had my lip waxed or a good outfit on. It was only ever “what does my stomach look like?”

When covid hit, I was out of shape, exhausted, depressed and scared. Eventually, my brother wore me down and convinced me to go running with him. I barely made it to Murray Avenue School from my mom’s house on Ellsworth road before I had to quit. According to google maps, the distance between those places is point seven miles. I gave up and walked home, trying to give myself some grace. Running is hard and it was always hard for me. I can always try again.

I don’t remember if we ever went running again. Three months later, he was FaceTiming me from his ICU bed. Movement seemed impossible for both of us.

I was rotting - not in a hot, fun way. I did not like who I was becoming. My grief was overtaking me and it felt like I would never have the capacity to move forward.

In the aftermath, my body and I sat down with each other. I was living alone and sleeping in the childhood bedroom where I first decided I would hate her. Flashbacks to middle school would pop into my head where I would stare at her in the mirror, stomach puffing out over my American Eagle jeans in a vain attempt to look like everyone else. I hated her then, but in the light of adulthood and age twenty-two, she didn’t seem all that bad anymore. She was not the villain. I was.

It was there that I decided I would try my best to love her back. No matter what I looked like, she could dance around to Death Cab for Cutie in the living room. She could still get up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water. I had to stop picking her apart, trashing her behind her back, talking shit to her face. It was a waste of time, and I needed her support to climb out of the hole. It was a pretty daunting wall to scale all alone.

It was here that I took it almost too far in the opposite direction. I was gifted an Apple watch and immediately fell victim to the rings. I would stretch at 11:30 PM to try in a manic attempt to close my activity circle. I walked seven miles on the last day of June because I was desperate to earn a challenge badge. I would march around the first floor because I got a “reminder to move!” that made me feel like trash. Eventually, I parted ways with my watch - for the better - but I had to work extremely hard to find a healthy relationship with all of these things; food, exercise and mindset. I quit Banza pasta and returned to normal. The goal was just to find some sort of balance.

When I moved to New York, I started to grow with my body instead of against her. Getting out and walking was exciting again, there were things to do and places to go. My legs got me to my apartment on the sixth floor with bags of groceries on each arm. My body rallied for me, she got me back up when I was down, inside the gym, to yoga classes and pickleball courts. She never quit on me, even when I was convinced she would.

Things were improving. Focusing on a happy medium. I always eat real breakfast now, and french fries if they are available (usually at different times, but not always.)

In December of 2024, inspired by the folks who ran the marathon the month prior, I impulsively decided to sign up for the Brooklyn half. I won the lottery and was shocked that I would, in about five months, run further than I ever had. The first run I did of my training plan was 3 miles. I miraculously finished it, lightheaded and terrified for the road ahead.

All of it was hard. The training, the side stitches, the sacrificing of plans, the weather deciding to throw us the coldest spring in history, the bumping into people you do not want to see while you are exercising, the hunger, oh my god, the HUNGER. All of it sucked. But what I have gotten out of this experience is a kind of radical acceptance.

I am still not blonde and hairless. My legs and belly are still soft. My feet are still a size ten. But my body teamed up with me and she took me really fucking far, farther than I ever thought I could go. She never quit on me. And for that, I’m so lucky. This was partially me trying to officially heal my relationship with exercise, partially to prove to myself how capable I am of commitment and partially to remind myself that movement and exercise is a privilege. I will run the half because I live in my body, and I try to remember to be thankful for her every single day for that. Sure, I’m never going to loveeverysinglethingaboutmybody, because I am on the internet, but I am trying reallyfuckinghard to choose love and acceptance over hate and negativity.

I trained for this for eleven weeks and I am running it on Saturday, May 17. If you want to come cheer, hit my line and I’ll send you the info.

Our bodies can take us so far. Be kind to them.

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The difference between today and yesterday is pretty hilarious. Yesterday, I was given some disappointing news. Nothing earth shattering, but I did not get something I really wanted. I manifested; I believed. I tried to make it mine. I told people about it - a lot of people, actually. But I still didn’t get it. It was not the path for me. It was not my destiny. I was telling myself these things because it’s better than being sad about it.

Today, however, I received some pretty good news. Something else I really wanted, that I didn’t think was my destiny. Something that quite honestly, is probably the better of the two options. Something that is going to propel me to the creative future I have always wanted for myself.

This is somewhat of a journal entry I wrote between yesterday and today. I am sharing it with you because it’s a humbling reminder of the good and the bad, the yin and the yang, if you will. I don’t like to share my journal entries here very often, but I do think this is a relatable one.

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Yesterday, 2/18

Something I’ve noticed about being a woman is that when you’re in a bad mood, everyone’s like, “why are you in a bad mood?” But when men are in a bad mood, you need to leave them alone give them space. Women have to answer for their bad moods. They have to give a reason why they’re upset. Has anyone ever allowed a woman to simply just “be” in her bad mood?

I think I’m suffering from seasonal depression. This bad mood has lingered for weeks. I don’t really think there’s one solid reason why, I just think I’m in a bad mood. We’ve had like 10 arctic freezes in NYC, I live far away from some of my friends, my bank account just keeps dwindling no matter how good of a job I think I’m doing at saving money.

I am on day 5 of the flu. I feel better today than I have all week, but I still sound like shit. Receiving bad news during your flu incubation period fucking sucks. And I keep telling myself I should be grateful for universal things. But two things can be true: I can be grateful to have food in my fridge, heat in my apartment and a job that pays me. I can feel fortunate to have warm clothes, a safe place to sleep and a slew of people in my life who love me and still be in a bad mood.

I am beating myself up because I haven’t written in months. I am sick. I’m coughing all over my boyfriend and feel incredibly ugly and cold. Everything has felt hard; the words are sticky and my skin is dry and looking at a different screen after I spent the entire day staring at a separate one feels like a chore. I wish it didn’t. As a creative person, as someone who genuinely might genuinely try to write some sketches and dance on stage and play different characters this year, writing feels hard. Existing feels hard! That makes me nervous.

Here I go again, on my soapbox. How do you say you’re not using social media without ~announcing~ that you’ve been off social media? It’s such a loaded phenomenon - you try to better yourself by deleting the timesuck apps but then you have to tell people about it so they’re not like “where are you? why didn’t you answer me?”

I am now realizing that maybe I just feel so much pressure to be a good friend to everyone all the time and be engaged in their lives? So much so that it’s making me feel overwhelmed? Isn’t it stressful that you need to answer for most things in your life? Can’t I just not go on Instagram? This goes in tandem with why I deleted so many people off find my friends recently. (Please do not feel offended by this if you were affected) You don’t need to know where I am. Have you ever opened your phone and thought to yourself, “better check where Victoria Patti is right now!” NO! YOU HAVEN’T! And if you have, I’m truly begging. Just text me. Ask where I am. Stop being weird.

I wish I didn’t feel so much pressure. I wish I felt more relaxed. I wish I took bad news in stride. I don’t, though. I really don’t. I have never handled stress well and quite honestly, I am pretty beat down by everything going on in the world. That’s the perfect phrase. Today, I feel beat down. I feel like I’m losing.

I am disappointed. But I’m trying to move forward. Because what’s the alternative? Frustration? Anger? Rage? None of those emotions will serve me. So I am going to choose peace. I’m choosing to focus on the things that make me happy and one of those things is writing little musings on my work laptop and watching critically acclaimed tv shows.

Today, 2/19

I got into conservatory today. Nothing else matters. Today rocked. I am on a cloud. I got grocery store sushi for lunch and I listened to Homeward Bound by Simon & Garfunkel on repeat. I am finally feeling a little better from the flu. I think my bad mood is over. I am going to Disney World on Friday. I am running the half marathon. I got into conservatory today.

Everyone at work was really happy for me. I read the email in front of my coworkers and they all celebrated with me. People that I talk shit about on the regular were happy for me. It made me regret ever being frustrated with them. I promise I love you guys and I appreciate your sentiment (if anyone ever stumbles upon this.)

Ellie and Amelia also got in and we’re all in the Monday class together. Everyone got in together. We’re going to make sketches and film them and make people laugh. I’m going to walk around the space. I’m going to be grateful and I’m going to grow and I’m going to learn. And my bank account might be empty and my dinner might be unhealthy and I might not work out tonight but I am happy. My creative journey is starting. I am surrounded by people who believe in me. I feel so grateful. I am happy.

happy songs I’m listening to

The title of this playlist is a lyric from the Phoenix song “Telefono” off their 2017 album “Ti Amo.”

It loosely translates to mean pissed off, but in love. I mostly like how it sounds, but it felt appropriate as a playlist I was listening to with the dichotomy of these journal entries. Phoenix is one of those bands I keep coming back to. I love how they sing in multiple languages.

1. Innamorato agitato

   I’m back and better! I I promise I’ll be writing a lot more good content for your inbox 💌

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I. AFTER

The sky’s tint seeped through Paul’s teeny window. The space was the smallest room in his new apartment, but lounging in a confined space put him at ease. He raised a glass of iced tea to his mouth and exhaled as he flipped the page of the city’s latest art magazine.

It was quiet, the sun was setting. His record player hummed the tunes he remembered from his childhood, and his eyes fluttered shut, just for a minute. He had nowhere to be on that evening, no events. His lips were cooled by the tea, his stress melted down the small of his back. He was home.

II. BEFORE

The armrests of the assigned chair in cubicle #435 were peeling. Feeling the plastic raised his heart rate. He was sitting down, but it felt like he was running on a hamster wheel. The superstrength deodorant he bought was doing him no favors. He felt tacky, like every part of his body was glued together and his legs were one solid mass. Gravity was about to take him down. He could feel it.

From the ether outside the cube, he heard his name. Paul. PAUL. The third time, it sounded more like PAWWWWWWWL. He could feel the presence of his boss, a short man with horrible features, making his way towards the rows of cubes.

Paul gritted his teeth. He hated looking at his boss because he was ugly. He had layers of plaque on his teeth. He had hair sticking out of his nose. Paul swiveled around in the cheap chair, trying to avoid the gaze of the man who approved his timesheets. The enthusiastic grin on his face made Paul’s stomach gurgle. The boss always looked eager. Excited even. Like everything was so WONDERFUL ALL THE TIME. LIKE THERE WAS NOTHING THAT COULD COME CLOSE TO BEATING A DAY’S WORK AT LARGE CORPORATION #20394.

He was beginning to regret the cream cheese toast he ate earlier that morning. He took one look at the plaque and felt like he was going to vomit. God, Paul felt like it was on his own teeth at that point.

“Paul, are you ready for our staff meeting boy-o? Areya?!” His boss held the key to his life, unfortunately. The new regulations were here to stay, and as much as Paul really wanted to off himself, he had to comply.

I’m ready for the staff meeting, Paul tried to say. He parted his lips, he tried to speak. He really did. He couldn’t even lean on the armrests to steady himself because they were basically peeled off. He couldn’t confirm or deny that he was ready, all he could do was nod, stand up and follow his boss down the hall.

They trudged through the cube maze, making what felt like unnecessary turns to the boardroom. When they found their way and entered the conference space, he quietly retreated to the back corner where low level staff had to sit. Even though he was required to be there, it was the only place in the office he knew all eyes weren’t on him.

His Boss’s Boss was fiddling with a new computer from Mega Corporation 3, waiting for the serfs to pile in to the overstuffed room. “The goldfish are swimming,” he yelled out at Mary and Lynn-Ann, which was actually better than the “make room for the little piggies” comment that Diane and Rosemary received. The Boss’s Boss “loved” animals. His favorite movie was BABE and his favorite book was, ironically, Animal Farm.

Paul was pessimistic about this meeting. Things were bleak. For starters, the numbering of all the corporations and the revamped data jobs everyone seemed to automatically have were just “a streamlined way to improve profits.” No one did “marketing” anymore. They just typedtypedtypedclckclckclcked into datasheet after datasheet all day long. “Everything is going ACCORDING TO PLAN!” yelled Boss’s Boss. “Nothing can stop Large Corporation #20394 from being the best Large corporation in The World!”

This was the entire meeting. There was no plan, no questions. Just “we will win” a game that could only have losers. Besides Boss’s Boss, of course.

Boss’s Boss said a few more things about success and winning, swimming with the sharks, it’s a dog-eat-dog world. The usual hyperbole. Paul was daydreaming about his next break when they were dismissed and instructed to file out of the glass room.

His manager had approved his online request to take his meal break after the meeting. Earlier, when he saw the digital notification come through to his own computer, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He just had to make it to lunch.

Now, he was halfway through another day. Paul was relieved they still let people bring in their own lunches and didn’t force them to go next store to Medium Corporation #12404. He was absolutely devastated when they banned cold drinks from the office. Ice was a luxury now that water was in short supply. Sure, he missed throwing ice in a steel water bottle and it clinking around in there. But what Paul really craved was the hibiscus iced tea from TeaSpot. AHhhhhhh. The hibiscus iced tea. TeaSpot was now Small Corporation #401935 and they, by law, could only served hot drinks with milk.

He opened his lunchbox and managed a small smile. His pressed turkey sandwich on ciabatta with a side of cucumber salad was his reprieve.

He sat in the corner apart from the other workers. Paul preferred to read during his forty-five minutes of solidarity instead of staring at a another small screen. Everyone else scrolled on Apps #403, #231 and #572. There was no point in pretending to fit in at a job he knew he would lose soon. Everyone thought he was a freak. There was no way he was going to remain employed by Large Corporation #20394, he was not focused on profit margins or success or swimming with sharks. He much preferred art and culture, not that there was much of that in the city anymore. There were a couple things he could get his hands on during good months, months when the artists were outside in the streets peddling their wares before they were shooed away and sent back to wherever they all cohabitated.

He savored his sandwich and flipped through his magazine. He loved seeing people make beauty out of the whacked out world. Portraits in charcoal were his favorite. He dedicated time to each page, pouring energy into thinking about each piece and what is was saying. He was studying the most thrilling water color when the bell rang.

Back to his cube he trudged, his lunchbox sagging by his side.

Once in his cube, he went to return his magazine to the safety of his belongings. He beelined for his messenger bag under the desk, only to find the strap stuck under the wheel of his disintegrating chair. He huffed, trying to get it unstuck with his sneaker. He shuddered at the thought of touching the bottom of his chair, but he had to free his bag. After a strong yank, it unhooked itself, spewing folders and papers and printed datasets over the floor. Paul sighed. Something like this could cost him a demerit. He couldn’t be caught in his cube not working during work hours. He was shuffling papers as fast as he could when something caught his eye.

A faded index card was sticking out of the edge of a purple manilla folder he kept important documents in. He wondered where that possibly could have come from. Paul was meticulous; he didn’t miss things like that. He was a type-a observer. Surviving in the world depended on his impressive attention span.

He looked behind him, then to each side. He carefully grabbed it and held it furtively in his palm.

“FREE YOURSELF. COME TO THE BETTER PLACE. THE PURPLE LAND”

Paul flipped it over. 1155 Coleman Avenue was all it said.

His stomach lurched. Now he was regretting the cream cheese toast and the sandwich. He wasn’t sure what to do with this information. He didn’t even know where Coleman Avenue was.

He closed his eyes. He thought of peace, of hibiscus iced tea. There was only one thing left to do. He sat down in his chair, turned on his screens and started typing.

When he was dismissed from work at 6 PM sharp, he elected to take the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. “That’s my guy there, Paul!” yelled his boss from the crowd of released employees. “Get those steps in King!” There was that plaque again. It was visible from the other side of the room. Paul managed to throw up a hand and wave as he concentrated on not throwing up in his own mouth.

He reached the parking structure and climbed into his car. Shutting the door, clicking his seatbelt, he slowly drove out of the garage, drove one mile under the 25mph speed limit and idled a block away on the street.

It was here that he allowed himself ten seconds of a guttural scream, like usual.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHIFUCKINGHATETHISMYLIFEKISRUINEDAHHHHHHHHH”

Now, he could think clearly. He looked both ways to make sure he wasn’t being watched and took the card out of his back pocket. “1155 Coleman Avenue,” he read out loud. His heart was beating a mile a minute. It felt as intense as when he ran the marathon sixteen years ago, a day he swore he would never forget. Back when there were community events and structure outside of the workplace. This was the most exhilarating moment he had had in months.

Paul knew that there was risk to going to 1155 Coleman Avenue. There might be police there who would send him home. He wasn’t allotted any more social events outside of a corporation this month. He used one on his sister’s birthday party at her house (waste of time) and another going to his college roommate’s apartment to lament his divorce with him (waste of time.) He wouldn’t get another 2 in-home social event tickets until next month. He caught a glimpse of himself in his mirror. He was still young, even though he’d be 35 next week. He wasn’t throwing himself a party because he knew people wouldn’t want to waste their own tickets on him, and he sure as hell didn’t want to give any more money to Large Corporation #4023.

He creased the card in his palm. He knew he wanted to go. It was a question of would he.

Paul put the car in drive, and, driving 1 mile under the speed limit, set off to see what the fuss was all about.

When Paul turned onto Coleman Avenue, he felt his stomach do a flip. He knew he shouldn’t be there. It took every ounce of bravery in his body to drive down the block. The only buildings he saw were corporate offices. He was afraid this was all a big prank, a way to get him in trouble, fired for real.

1105, 1125, 1147, 1165. He made it to the end of the block and there was no 1155.

“What a waste of time,” he groaned, although he was mostly relieved nothing worse happened. There were still no laws that could get him in trouble for driving. He was frustrated with himself for allowing this type of risk to be taken. He put the car in reverse and backed up, preparing to turn around and head home. As soon as he switched gears to drive forward, he lost control of the car. The wheel began to turn itself. He was paralyzed with fear as the car began to drive him forward at an alarming rate. Suddenly, the street opened up and all he could see was a giant sinkhole in the road he had just driven over. He was nearly blinded by light as the car forced its way down the hole in the ground. Paul was falling and screaming and trying not to throw up when the car found the ground and slowed to a stop. It was over as soon as it happened.

He was still screaming when he nervously opened one eye. He saw the purple glow of sunset once again, even though it had been dark before he left work. It was here that he saw his car had ended up parked neatly between two others on what appeared to be a carbon copy of his city’s downtown, before the new regulations drove them out.

All his belongings were still with him, nothing about the car was different. It was then that he realized, people were walking around. Without purpose. Someone jogged by the car and he almost jumped. He hadn’t seen a jogger in years. Where could he be?

Paul’s hesitance to get out of the car was exacerbated by the fact that everything looked normal. What could have possibly happened? He rooted around in his bag until he found his detestable small screen. He powered it on and saw that the plain gray screen wallpaper had been replaced by a photo of him and his dog on a camping trip he took 10 years ago. That sent him into a spiral.

Without giving himself time to second guess his decisions, Paul bolted out of the car. He nervously paced down the street and as he made it to the sidewalk, he could see that every storefront had a name again. “Lucy’s Candies,” “Main Street Jewelers.” He couldn’t believe it, even as he saw it, but there it was. “TeaSpot.”

Paul could feel himself choking back tears. This had to be a dream. He was not living in reality. He panicked and swung open the door to TeaSpot. When he approached the counter, a young woman was behind it, wearing a t-shirt with a smiley face. He almost cried. She took one look at him and perked up.

“Sir, are-are you okay? What’s wrong? Can I help you?”

All he could muster was a weak, “where am I?”

She smiled. “You’re in Roku City. Welcome.”

I knew I’d cry at my best friend’s wedding. It wasn’t really a question of “will I,” it was more a debate of “how much is too much?”

This was Gracyn’s wedding, my first foray into being a bridesmaid, a wedding for the history books. Standing up there, I couldn’t help but think about how it feels like I’ve known Gracyn longer than I haven’t. We’re not quite at that point yet, but after surviving four years of college, three of those as roommates, fourteen plus weekend trips abroad and almost five years of post-grad friendship, I can’t remember my life before I knew her.

We met on the eighth floor of the Sadler Residence Hall at Syracuse University. I wrote her off as someone I’d never be friends with, she was very quiet and her room was incredibly well decorated, two things that were (are) not true about me. Obviously, I assumed this meant she would hate me, as nervous eighteen year olds do. So I resigned to trying to befriend her roommate. We did our own things for a while, but because it was meant to be, the two of us came to our senses and agreed we were the natural duo out of that trio.

College would not have been the same without Gracyn. I relied on her for a lot, she was my person - the girl literally rewatched ten seasons of Grey’s Anatomy with me because I’d never seen it and couldn’t bear to binge it by myself. Sophomore year, I had broken my phone and had made ridiculous plans to meet a guy that I had a crush on. She stayed up incredibly late to make sure I made it back to our dorm alive. Junior year, she drove with me to an urgent care miles away from campus on one particularly awful occasion and sat in the waiting room for about two hours while I was treated for a disease I did not even have.

Spring semester, we lived together in London. Every day, Gracyn would make me and our other roommate pose for her “one second” a day video that eventually was edited into a highlight reel of our time abroad. I initially hated this. “Put your phone away!! Let’s REMEMBER THESE MOMENTS WITHOUT SCREENS,” trying to preach the mantra of presence. But eventually, I embraced the one second moments when I realized how badly I DID want to have these memories on screens. She was right. We traveled and partied and just had the overall time of our lives together and I will never forget those 5 months as long as I live and I’m so lucky I have a visual aid to remember those moments. Thanks to Gracyn.

When we got back to campus, we were old enough to know we didn’t need to make any more friends. We’d skip the same frat parties we’d gone to 100 times over and just hang out all night. Sometimes we’d fall asleep on the matching magenta couches our apartment was randomly already furnished with when we moved in. When we did decide to go out and drink, we’d stand in the corner and only talk to each other.

When we pushed it too far, we’d hit the Movie Tavern and sit in silence when we were too hungover to speak. We listened to the same 20 songs over and over again in our two-bedroom apartment on S Crouse Avenue because neither of our type-a personalities could fathom living in an off-campus house with five other girls. One time, I forced her into throwing a Super Bowl viewing party and she made enough fried pickles for 20 people.

I knew Gracyn as just Gracyn before I knew her with her boyfriend. They met in high school, so I didn’t meet him till much later in that year when he came to visit. When we did finally hang out, I immediately knew they’d be together forever. It was not a question. They loved each other. You could just tell. Gracyn is so sure of herself. She knows what she wants for dinner at breakfast. She is so confident in her decisions, she never wavers. I am jealous of this ability she carries, so sure of what she likes and who she needs in her life and it’s because of this that I knew she’d marry Ryan. There were probably times she saw more of me and less of him than she would have liked, but in spite of the distance and the general complications college relationships can bring, they made it work.

Even after school, she was right there with me. Always on the same page, we’d lament the end of our senior year and like the duo we were, we’d cry on cue at the same time of the day. Usually at 5PM, right around happy hour. When I fell into a pretty deep depression, she came to see me in Larchmont. She sent me a Christmas gift full of pictures from better times. We went to California and she watched me from the beach when I finally jumped back in the ocean after months of agonizing over it. When Syracuse welcomed us back for our makeup graduation in 2021, we cried together in the hotel bed by the Destiny Mall over how shitty everything felt.

She’s probably one of the most loyal people I’ve ever known in my life, one of the few people I feel like I can be my true authentic self around. Zero edits. Do you know how rare that is? The friendship I formed with her was definitely not immediate, but it was necessary. At least for me.

So when she asked me to be in her wedding, it was a no brainer.

The best part about knowing Gracyn is getting to know the other people in her life. Ryan, her family, her friends from high school and the whole lot. When you meet people in college, you don’t know their origin story, you don’t find out everything right away. It’s kind of the best part of adult friendships. Everyone peels back their own layers on their own terms, when they feel like it. Sometimes you’ll hear some piece of gossip from high school that is so incredibly unlike the adult you’ve grown to know and love. It’s unreal. I’ve been friends with Gracyn since 2016 and I learned more and more about her on her bachelorette party, at the bridal shower, at the rehearsal dinner, in her dad’s speech at the wedding (all-time speech, btw.)

Watching your friend get married is insane. It’s beautiful, it’s emotional, it’s stressful! Sometimes I can’t believe we’re where we are, getting older and getting married, growing into real people. But watching the planning turn into the day of formed some of the most special moments I think I’ve ever spent with Gracyn. And we’ve been through a lot. I think we’re even closer now. But she has no idea I’m writing this so maybe she’ll read it and have her own thoughts. Gracyn, if you feel so inclined. ⬇️

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And yes, it goes without saying. Obviously I cried at my best friend’s wedding. I cried more than I wanted to, but what are you going to do? The entire cocktail hour, people kept coming up to me. “You really couldn’t keep it together up there!” Of course I couldn’t and I hadn’t expected to. But being vulnerable is in, and I’d do it all over again.

Female friendships are the best. Hug your people tight!

I usually sway toward even numbers, but I do not want to turn twenty-six. I’m ambivalent about a birthday for the first time ever. Ages one through twenty-five seem young. Twenty-six is closer to thirty. Closer to colonoscopies and childbearing and all the scary things you might have to consider. Taking spin classes. Cutting out sugar. Switching to organic milk. People over the age of twenty-five cannot be drinking oat milk. That’s for CHILDREN* (*twenty-five-year old gen-z babies!)

Getting older makes me think of my life coming to a close. Dramatic, I know. But I am afraid of death. Not so much that the fear consumes me so greatly and swallows me whole, but enough to avoid thinking about it. I am so happy being alive. I mean that. Life sucks and it’s hard and things are expensive, but I love being alive. It makes me sad to think that at a point, I didn’t think it was all that great.

So of course, the show must goes on. Twenty-six is part of being alive. And this goes without saying, twenty-six is still youthful. I’m in good health. I’ve never cherished that more. I run three miles multiple times a week. I go to yoga class. I eat salad and wash my face every night. I don’t really believe that twenty-six will be any different than twenty-five. It’s simply a blip, an insurance change, a different number I fill out on forms and maybe a different button to press on online surveys for $15 gift cards.

Something I’ve really noticed in this period of time in my life is how much I find myself gravitating towards my friends. I want to spend as much time as possible with my girlfriends. Mostly because I’m terrified of drifting away from them as we float gracefully towards REAL-ADULTHOOD and relationships with partners and pets and responsibilities. Everyone says it constantly, but female friendships were essential in this phase of my life. My early twenties were rough, as they are for most people, and I found myself holding a vice-grip on my best friends.

We need to talk to each other more. We shouldn’t go months without talking and spend $60 on a weeknight dinner just so we can say we are friends. In my twenty-sixth year, I’ll be reaching out to you. Send me a picture of the dinner you made. Tell me about the date you went on. Call me on the phone just to chat, even if it’s just about your day. Talk to me about your weekend plans, even if they’re not for me. I want to know. I care.

Boys do this all the time. They call each other and talk about sports. We need to be better about remembering how much we care about each other. We have to spread love and positivity. It’s the only way to build community and exercise support.

Let’s talk about restaurants or workout classes we like. Tell me about the trip you’re planning. Let’s talk about it during the day on Friday, maybe when work is quiet and you can take a tiny break. Or text me and we’ll find a time. Or we’ll go on a walk. I’ll go to any neighborhood. Send me an article you enjoyed reading. Or shoot me a note about something you find FASCINATING. Or a wikipedia rabbit hole you went down. Or a subreddit that I must catchup on. A recipe I have to make!

We’re losing intimacy with each other. We think we’re in touch with people because we follow them on Instagram. I need more than that. I’m sure most of us do. I’m freaking curious about the people I love in my life. I want to know about what you’re doing. The phone has exhausted us to the point where texting feels like a chore. I am no scientist, but I know that we’re averse to social contact because we’re so addicted to our phones. Let’s use the phones the way they were intended - to talk to our people!

A couple years ago, The New York Times wrote a piece about the beauty of an eight-minute phone call. We think we need to carve out entire afternoons to talk to people we love. It’s not true. We’re setting false pressures on our relationships, the media has us believe that they have to be so deep allthetime and full of therapyspeak, it’s just not true. It prevents us from wanting to spend time together because it has to be SO stimulating. We come back from plans so exhausted that we must stare at the glowing box to decompress. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Recently, I had a friend come over and sit on the bed while I cleaned out my closet. For the entire day she was here, I was nervous she was going to hate it. I asked her to come to my apartment so I could check something off on my to-do list. That was kind of selfish of me. But we picked up coffees, sat around for five hours, and it was truly the perfect way to spend a Sunday. We didn’t discuss current events, we didn’t complain about the nuances of the democratic and republican parties. We just hung out. It was the type of stuff you used to do after middle school. You’d eat some bogus microwaved snack and sit on the couch or in someone’s room and just exist. It was the best and I crave it and we need to be doing it more.

This past year has really given me a new perspective. I’m so fortunate to love so many people and I want to keep it that way. Let me love you all come on please!!!!!

But seriously, as I think about my one year anniversary of starting this Substack, I only feel good things. Twenty-five kicked me in the ass to start this, the same way it sent me to The Second City on a chilly afternoon in March. The same exact way it gave me this apartment with someone I love in Brooklyn. It only makes sense. I’m singing out loud and wearing low rise jeans, eating pasta over the sink, and I couldn’t be happier.

My favorite things of 25:

• I reread a Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and I’m officially declaring it my favorite book - ever

• Rediscovering Rainbow Kitten Surprise and going to the sold out show at Webster Hall

• Bone broth, Mezcla protein bars, cashews and cookie granola

• A holding hands ring and vintage bathing suit I bought at Cure Thrift

• Using Substack in general - I have read so many things and learned so much from creators on here. I highly recommend checking out notes and following inspiring people.

• AMC A-List

• Jellycats

• Visiting the desert for the first time and getting to celebrate one of my best friends getting married (😍)

• Six Feet Under - I started this two weeks ago but I’m already two seasons in. This is one of the best shows of all time, you heard it here first. It’s fab. Watch it!

There are probably more, but I’ll write them in the comments as I think of them

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