1. Good stickers go on my planner which means that they accompany me for a year and then I move on.
2. My farmers market habits have changed a lot! I love a market in the abstract, but despite valuing the community aspects, I deeply prefer the Lincoln Park Green City Market to the two in my neighborhood. I want to be able to buy all the things on my market list, not have to decide which long line I'm going to stand in to buy a couple of the things before getting in the next long line. I think I was spoiled by the DC area markets when I lived there 17 years ago.
3. I would really love an LJ type community that is inexpert people just talking about their gardens. This morning I noticed that my watermelon isn't growing! Why?!
When I lived in Chicago I adored the Green City Market! Great Lakes peaches and blueberries are the best, and I don’t think I’ll ever find anything comparable out here in D.C.
I think you are very responsible to be writing a newsletter. I never know where to put my good stickers, but thanks to you, I am thinking about creating and ordering a custom sticker sheet so that I can use stickers of my own design to cover an old laptop lid.
I have a whole newsletter series about where to put your good stickers! But in brief, I like to leave mine on the backing in a photo album. I also like to buy two - one to use, one to keep!
Please fire the acquaintance/friend that misguidedly told you that you should not be writing a newsletter/ sharing your life. Geez Louise! We would all be the poorer for it. ❤️
I put my good stickers on my roomba and my medium-good stickers on a black plastic plant pot I am growing bachelor buttons in, and my absolute cream-of-the-crop sticker on my and my son’s bicycles.
I put stickers on my water bottle, and then this organizer knocked my water bottle on the floor and the lid cracked, and I lost 3+ years of stickers. Also yes, I go to the farmers market every weekend that I’m around—and sometimes get a combined CSA from regional Black-owned farms delivered to my door!—and I always overpay. I paid $10 for a pound of asparagus last time. But it’s a trade off I can afford to support the local economy and soil and organic produce and pollinators…
It’s okay if a friend doesn’t like your writing right now. Your writing gives me great comfort, and has for a few years now. When I am having an awful day at work, your writing calms me and inspires hope. Thank you!
I am so happy you shared part of Dear Sophie, Love Sophie. This book is how I discovered you! I was on vacation in San Francisco and my husband and I visited City Light books. While browsing I found your book on the shelf and had to buy it. I started reading it on the plane ride home and felt I had made a new friend. Little did I know what riches awaited me in this community! Thank you for always being you and so full of love.
Hi Sophie, I just got Dear Sophie, Love Sophie from the library after discovering your work. It is a wonderful and lovely book! Ready for your garden round up any time. And yes, I always overspend at the farmers market and feel grateful that I can!
I read Many Love first and it’s the book that made you feel like a celebrity to me. Dear Sophie, Love Sophie makes you feel like a friend.
I AM your neighbor and I want your eggs! I gotta figure out how we can hang out now that school is out. Let me know next time you have to do a post office drop and you can come de-stress in my unweeded garden.
My heart just BREAKS for you about this acquaintance. I hate this so so much. They are so hard to find! Clearly she’s not THAT funny if she can think such terrible things about love.
My mom friend with benefits lives so close to you and she finally kicked out her terrible boyfriend. I sent her T’s drawing because she says she’s having a wicked themed breakup. Now she wants to be your friend too! So many neighborhood moms out there who love you and love like you. And I know no amount of people can take away the sting of that kind of rejection.
Re: the woman who put our beloved Sophie in the acquaintance zone by text: most likely she feels more threatened than anything. It's so human to say something unfamiliar to us is disgusting or otherwise unacceptable when it seems to live outside of the world we consider safe and proper--as if somehow if that thing is possible, then my life isn't what I think it is and could go up in smoke. Sadly, it is easier for her to deprive herself of Sophie's friendship than it is to consider that love can truly be a many-splendored thing (the monogamy we're raised to believe in as the gold standard being one of many splendors available). I'm sad for her that she couldn't say instead, "I don't think I'd choose that for me, but I'd still like to get to know you better, you're really fun!"
Oh! And one other thing about firing from the hip! Alfie whatshisname who wrote one of those parenting books (how’s that for citing sources?) had a few ideas I was like “eh THAT’S not for me” about, but one of my favorite ideas from him is “assume best possible intent.” I find this helpful parenting advice, sure, but it’s also way helpful for everybody in my life. Even for people like my ex who always actually has much crueler intent, things are better if I assume the best until I learn otherwise.
So in regards to your shooting from the hip friend: do you remember when I came over to pick up my holiday order and you said something about your housekeeping and I quoted you to you? I think I said something about a very appropriate Instagram account I follow-yours! And you told me that you write these things to remind yourself. They are aspirational. You don’t just think they will improve our lives but your own as well. I think this is the sort of thing this friend of yours was saying. She’s not saying you’re lying and have no business writing at all. She was saying you are using your words to write a better reality into being.
RE: forgetting you bought morels. I can so relate…i remember my husband looking at me with bewilderment at a dinner party we hosted when my response to a guest who complimented the lasagne, was “thank you! It was no trouble at all!” Full disclosure: i literally forgot that I didn’t make the lasagne. HE DID! (I guess that’s why it was so easy for me🤪) Maybe this will help you feel less alone 😉. I have a vivid imagination and the lines of reality and fantasy get blurry sometimes!
Ok, so first, you know what I love? LOVE - in all its beautiful forms and fashions. If someone else doesn’t well don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. Good riddance. Second, T has talent and I’m with her - Uranus can get the heck out of here with that attitude lol. The morel “incident” - clearly it’s a glitch in the matrix. In your original reality you didn’t buy but when you “glitched” you had bought them - no biggie. Keep glitching my friend. 😆😉✨ As to your friend and the “fire from the hip” comment - if I said that to someone it would be a huge compliment. Write something straight from the heart/hip that is going to hit hard and stay with me damn it! Your writing sticks with me Sophie. You don’t need to second guess anything. As to the updated newsletter format - love it! And last, the stickers. If they are really cool I’ll put them on my iPad cover. When they get beat up or if I feel inspired peel them off and replace with something else. Now if I simply adore one (I mean really adore it) I will display it in different spots in my home without removing the backing. I can’t stand the thought of making it a permanent fixture anywhere. 🥰
1. Good stickers go on my planner which means that they accompany me for a year and then I move on.
2. My farmers market habits have changed a lot! I love a market in the abstract, but despite valuing the community aspects, I deeply prefer the Lincoln Park Green City Market to the two in my neighborhood. I want to be able to buy all the things on my market list, not have to decide which long line I'm going to stand in to buy a couple of the things before getting in the next long line. I think I was spoiled by the DC area markets when I lived there 17 years ago.
3. I would really love an LJ type community that is inexpert people just talking about their gardens. This morning I noticed that my watermelon isn't growing! Why?!
When I lived in Chicago I adored the Green City Market! Great Lakes peaches and blueberries are the best, and I don’t think I’ll ever find anything comparable out here in D.C.
I loved the DC markets so much. I worked at GW and volunteered at the Foggy Bottom market but DuPont was obviously the best.
Oh yes, DuPont is definitely the best! But I live in Northeast, so I often go to Takoma Park’s, which is pretty great too.
I think you are very responsible to be writing a newsletter. I never know where to put my good stickers, but thanks to you, I am thinking about creating and ordering a custom sticker sheet so that I can use stickers of my own design to cover an old laptop lid.
Good stickers go on my water bottle or coffee thermos. The BEST stickers go on the endpapers inside my journal, where I know they'll never be lost.
I have a whole newsletter series about where to put your good stickers! But in brief, I like to leave mine on the backing in a photo album. I also like to buy two - one to use, one to keep!
💗”one to use, one to keep”
Please fire the acquaintance/friend that misguidedly told you that you should not be writing a newsletter/ sharing your life. Geez Louise! We would all be the poorer for it. ❤️
My good stickers go on my contrabass flute case, natch.
I put my good stickers on my roomba and my medium-good stickers on a black plastic plant pot I am growing bachelor buttons in, and my absolute cream-of-the-crop sticker on my and my son’s bicycles.
I put stickers on my water bottle, and then this organizer knocked my water bottle on the floor and the lid cracked, and I lost 3+ years of stickers. Also yes, I go to the farmers market every weekend that I’m around—and sometimes get a combined CSA from regional Black-owned farms delivered to my door!—and I always overpay. I paid $10 for a pound of asparagus last time. But it’s a trade off I can afford to support the local economy and soil and organic produce and pollinators…
It’s okay if a friend doesn’t like your writing right now. Your writing gives me great comfort, and has for a few years now. When I am having an awful day at work, your writing calms me and inspires hope. Thank you!
Also, I put my good stickers on my planner.
I am so happy you shared part of Dear Sophie, Love Sophie. This book is how I discovered you! I was on vacation in San Francisco and my husband and I visited City Light books. While browsing I found your book on the shelf and had to buy it. I started reading it on the plane ride home and felt I had made a new friend. Little did I know what riches awaited me in this community! Thank you for always being you and so full of love.
💗”so full of love”
Hi Sophie, I just got Dear Sophie, Love Sophie from the library after discovering your work. It is a wonderful and lovely book! Ready for your garden round up any time. And yes, I always overspend at the farmers market and feel grateful that I can!
I read Many Love first and it’s the book that made you feel like a celebrity to me. Dear Sophie, Love Sophie makes you feel like a friend.
I AM your neighbor and I want your eggs! I gotta figure out how we can hang out now that school is out. Let me know next time you have to do a post office drop and you can come de-stress in my unweeded garden.
My heart just BREAKS for you about this acquaintance. I hate this so so much. They are so hard to find! Clearly she’s not THAT funny if she can think such terrible things about love.
My mom friend with benefits lives so close to you and she finally kicked out her terrible boyfriend. I sent her T’s drawing because she says she’s having a wicked themed breakup. Now she wants to be your friend too! So many neighborhood moms out there who love you and love like you. And I know no amount of people can take away the sting of that kind of rejection.
Re: the woman who put our beloved Sophie in the acquaintance zone by text: most likely she feels more threatened than anything. It's so human to say something unfamiliar to us is disgusting or otherwise unacceptable when it seems to live outside of the world we consider safe and proper--as if somehow if that thing is possible, then my life isn't what I think it is and could go up in smoke. Sadly, it is easier for her to deprive herself of Sophie's friendship than it is to consider that love can truly be a many-splendored thing (the monogamy we're raised to believe in as the gold standard being one of many splendors available). I'm sad for her that she couldn't say instead, "I don't think I'd choose that for me, but I'd still like to get to know you better, you're really fun!"
Oh! And one other thing about firing from the hip! Alfie whatshisname who wrote one of those parenting books (how’s that for citing sources?) had a few ideas I was like “eh THAT’S not for me” about, but one of my favorite ideas from him is “assume best possible intent.” I find this helpful parenting advice, sure, but it’s also way helpful for everybody in my life. Even for people like my ex who always actually has much crueler intent, things are better if I assume the best until I learn otherwise.
So in regards to your shooting from the hip friend: do you remember when I came over to pick up my holiday order and you said something about your housekeeping and I quoted you to you? I think I said something about a very appropriate Instagram account I follow-yours! And you told me that you write these things to remind yourself. They are aspirational. You don’t just think they will improve our lives but your own as well. I think this is the sort of thing this friend of yours was saying. She’s not saying you’re lying and have no business writing at all. She was saying you are using your words to write a better reality into being.
💗”using your words to write a better reality into being” 💯
Good stickers (ones related to musical theatre) go on the inside of my musical theatre choir folder.
RE: forgetting you bought morels. I can so relate…i remember my husband looking at me with bewilderment at a dinner party we hosted when my response to a guest who complimented the lasagne, was “thank you! It was no trouble at all!” Full disclosure: i literally forgot that I didn’t make the lasagne. HE DID! (I guess that’s why it was so easy for me🤪) Maybe this will help you feel less alone 😉. I have a vivid imagination and the lines of reality and fantasy get blurry sometimes!
Ok, so first, you know what I love? LOVE - in all its beautiful forms and fashions. If someone else doesn’t well don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. Good riddance. Second, T has talent and I’m with her - Uranus can get the heck out of here with that attitude lol. The morel “incident” - clearly it’s a glitch in the matrix. In your original reality you didn’t buy but when you “glitched” you had bought them - no biggie. Keep glitching my friend. 😆😉✨ As to your friend and the “fire from the hip” comment - if I said that to someone it would be a huge compliment. Write something straight from the heart/hip that is going to hit hard and stay with me damn it! Your writing sticks with me Sophie. You don’t need to second guess anything. As to the updated newsletter format - love it! And last, the stickers. If they are really cool I’ll put them on my iPad cover. When they get beat up or if I feel inspired peel them off and replace with something else. Now if I simply adore one (I mean really adore it) I will display it in different spots in my home without removing the backing. I can’t stand the thought of making it a permanent fixture anywhere. 🥰