Would you like to buy this print? Every week, there will be ten prints (and that’s it, forever) available for $8 each (including shipping). Each 5x5” print is numbered and signed. Be sure to choose “WEEKLY PRINTS ONLY” for your shipping option at checkout. These tend to sell out — jump on while you can! Here’s that link again.
First time here? Here’s what this newsletter is.
A note for you, if you’re having a bad day.
Dear Friend,
Mid-October is the time of year when, inevitably, a few of my students (college and high school age alike) start to waiver. At the beginning of every class I teach, I have everyone check in with how they’re feeing on a scale from one to ten (or, alternatively, you can just say if you’re mostly feeling comfortable or uncomfortable today), so the class community can treat you accordingly inside your emotional context. (Someone who is feeling “three” today yields the following general statement: “We will be gentle with you today.”) In August and September, students are usually somewhere between six and nine when they check in at the beginning of class. On the first gray day of October, however, there are quite a lot of threes.
And that makes a lot of sense inside an academic calendar. Two things are happening at once: (1) As mid-term approaches, work piles upon work and everything you said you’d do later starts to demand your attention (alongside all the new stuff that was already demanding your attention); and (2) There is exponentially less sunlight every day. Other mammals, who’ve been chunking up and gathering rations for the winter, begin winding down. We are the only species that doesn’t sleep more when there’s less sun. In fact, we often sleep less as the demands of the Chocolate Holidays (beginning with Halloween) compound the demands of our regular jobs. It’s incredibly difficult not to be affected by this kind of seasonal incongruity.
I’ll probably write a lot more about winter in the coming months. I have strong feelings about human animals and the importance of a sort of emotional hibernation. For now, I would like to write about “wasting time” and “doing nothing.” That’s because on cold, cloudy days where your next deadline is looming but it is NOT tomorrow, it’s surprisingly typical for people to “take the day off” without meaning to.
I’m talking about days where you meant to clean the whole downstairs but instead got sucked in to twelve episodes of a TV show you’ve already seen; or you slept in way later than you meant to; or you ended up ordering in instead of using the kale that’s slowly going bad in your fridge. And then it gets dark early, and you look at the day and think, “What did I even do with this day? I did nothing.” And you sulk and feel bad because you have that looming deadline, and there are things you need to do, but you Just. Didn’t. Do them.
In the context of both capitalism and fall-becoming-winter, I would like to suggest that accidental days off are actually really important, and can (and should) be reframed as essential. If you accept this reframe, you’re more likely to feel satisfied with the day you spent not doing what you meant to do, which will help you get back to it (feeling refreshed) tomorrow. Here are a few other ways of describing a “do-nothing” day:
Today I took care of my essential needs for rest and relaxation.
I spent several hours building up my emotional reserve so that I can be more present with others when the time comes.
Like a true naturalistic icon, I tapped into what the season and the weather were asking of me, and listened to signals from the earth.
I did a lot today. I was quiet. I was gentle with myself. I let my legs rest. I did things that brought me bodily pleasure.
I made time in my busy schedule to give my animal body the things it happened to ask me for.
So if you’re feeling like a three out of ten and you don’t even really know why, let me reiterate: it makes sense for you to feel that way right now. Please, please be gentle with yourself. (“We will be gentle with you today.”) A day where you do nothing is a day where you have done a lot.
Love Always,
Sophie
Add this to your to-do list.
Isn’t it great to live in a time where you can listen to basically any song you want at any moment, as long as you have access to cell phone service or the internet? Think of a song you loved 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. (Or, if you are only 20 years old, as I know some of you are, adjust to 3, 5, and 10 years.) Make a three-song playlist that takes you back in time.
A drawing.
Here’s a cartoon I made last year that feels like it is related to this newsletter. (I do sell this one as a print, btw.)
What’s on my mind this week.
One of my most interesting pregnancy symptoms is that I blush a lot. I am mostly incredibly curious about this and wish I had a little more time to psychologically explore what it means. The physiological reason for all this blushing is that I have way too much blood in body. (Maybe “too much” is not how I should describe the amount of blood in my body, since every pregnant woman also has an enormous surplus of blood — but it’s 40 percent more blood than I normally have, and to me that really seems like it is TOO MUCH BLOOD.) What’s interesting is how this particular symptom manifests. It’s not like I’m blushing all the time for no reason at all; the blushing is always an emotional response to something or other, as blushing in normal life usually is, but it happens constantly. I blush when: I am watching a TV show and someone else is telling a lie; when I myself am considering telling a lie; when I am talking about something and the person I am talking to is looking at their phone; when I am all alone in my car trying to parallel park and it’s taken me more than three pivots already; when I’m thinking about blushing (like, right now, as I write this, I am blushing about blushing); when my cat wants to lie on my belly but can’t get comfortable because my belly is gigantic and in constant alien motion; when I have trouble solving a math problem; when I wanted to use some lotion and I’ve run out of lotion; and so on and so forth. None of these events would have made me blush pre-pregnancy, but it makes me feel like the blushing is trying to tell me something about shame or embarrassment or self-awareness or SOMETHING. If I had more time or energy, I’d do some serious investigation into this phenomenon. For now, I have only the energy to find it interesting enough to take note.
(As an aside, I am now 38 weeks and five days pregnant, which officially puts me at full-term. Biologically speaking, it would not be totally unheard of for my body to go into labor right now, as I write this newsletter. However, I expect to be late. Most first-time birthing people are late; my mom was late; my sister was late. I assume I have at least two more newsletters in me before I get a new, very demanding roommate. But I have no control over any of this, which drives me crazy, and is also very, very interesting.)
My essay about our rooster Foot won a small prize! It was a top-ten semi-finalist in the Medium Writer’s Challenge. That means that Eve Ewing and Susan Orlean read it, which is the biggest news about this. I feel proud.
I liked the new-ish square-shaped Jamila Woods music video.
This article about vulture capitalism as it relates to the dying of local newspapers is devastating, but incredibly interesting. It spotlights The Chicago Tribune.
This epic article that details a dozen or so books about mushrooms from The New York Review of Books is exhaustive and has some ideas and details that I really loved. I especially was interested in the idea that mushrooms are queer. (It is locked behind a paywall; I listened to it on Audm, which is the subscription service I pay for that I use the most. Or, you could just give the NYRB $1 so you can read Zoe’s article. Up to you.)
I’ve gotten really into confetti. I look at confetti and want to order it all the time. I don’t do it, because I am about to have a baby and can’t afford the $750 worth of whimsical biodegradable confetti I want to have, but anyway. I like the idea of throwing something in the air when you’re happy.
I have been buying sticker books, though, and this one is the best.
This is probably my favorite all-time Instagram account (except for maybe Ben Savage’s). The photographer takes beautiful “Humans-of”-style photographs, but then asks them what they had for breakfast. It’s addicting to read the responses; and it is also beautiful.