Hello, and welcome back! The month? June. The year? 2024. Recently, I stayed at a hotel in Adelaide that insisted upon substituting the letter i for y, and it made me feel like I was stuck inside an ad campaign for almond mylk.
Three months have passed since my last email, and I’m really glad I had the foresight to update the description to ‘monthly-ish’. Despite this, I did have intentions of adhering to a monthly schedule, but life got busy in April and my workload went from not much to everything, everywhere, all at once. If I’m honest, writing also hasn’t felt very fun and/or sexy of late but we’ll get to that shortly.
I thought I’d do a run-down of where I’ve been since March, because in the time since then I’ve done at least two interesting things. To begin, I started a new gig with Shameless Media. I’m working as a researcher for their podcast SCANDAL! which essentially means I go into the office every Wednesday and google things like ‘craig ferguson sex pest?’ and ‘martha stewart number of restraining orders’. My dear friend Eilish Gilligan and I compile research notes and turn them into scripts, and the pace at which we work could be likened to that of a nutri-bullet.
Something I’ve really enjoyed about this job is the surprise reveal of which celebrities will make us say, ‘Oh, actually I love them!’ For example: Judge Judy, Katy Perry, and my personal favourite, Martha Stewart. I loved researching Martha Stewart because for her entire life she has said, ‘I’m demanding, I have impossibly high standards, and I did not come here to make friends, Lorraine.’ The only place Martha Stewart arrived at with the express goal of making friends was jail. I am certain she would make me cry if we ever met in person.
The second interesting thing I did between March and June was deliver a new draft of my novel, rytual. I will not lie to you, fronds, it was hard. Really hard! I don’t know how interesting this is to those who are not writers, so I’ll keep it brief. It was the third time I pulled the spine out of the story in the hope that I could reassemble it (harder) better (faster, stronger). I’m told it’s normal to start to hate the thing you’ve worked on for a number of years, but I didn’t start to hate the book so much as I started to wonder if my own grip on the English language was tenuous at best. I spent a lot of time begging my partner to read passages in order to reassure me that I had written them in English. When I told my friend Eilish this, she said, ‘It’s giving anxiety,’ which in turn is giving astute and correct. It was the first time I’d been through the re-drafting process since coming off my antidepressants, and their absence was…. felt. It was also the first time I created a new file in Scrivener with the understanding that it would become a real book, and that is very scary to me. But also, exciting. Like a first date or your own birthday party. I got digital eye strain but I definitely made the story better. Faster and stronger still up for debate.
I also read Miranda July’s new book All Fours, and it was a balm, a tonic, a kiss on the forehead. Do you like books that ask you to consider perhaps that, despite it all, your life is precious and full of magic? Do you enjoy jokes? This book will grab you by the heart but also tickle you very respectfully. Miranda July is just so funny, but she’s also deliciously weird and curious and she has amazing hair. I’m bad at reviews (which I think is fine and maybe good—this culture we have of artists moonlighting as reviewers in their same medium and genre isn’t good for anyone), but I know what I like. Here are three quotes I highlighted on evil Jeff’s little reading machine:
She was asking me to describe myself as if I was a horse I owned when actually I was more like a radio program, an on-going narration that I could barely recall.
I touched myself against my will, sickened. It was like having just one drink and ending up pantsless under a bridge.
‘Can I print out pictures of role models for my room?’
Printing out pictures was one of their favourite things to do, but it was very boring and endless and maybe a waste of paper.
‘Three.’
‘Okay.’
They found three pictures on the internet and printed them out. Charlie Chaplin, RuPaul, and, somewhat disturbingly, the Apple logo.
Reading this book reminded me of something very important: it is in your best interests not to become the person at the dinner party who hates everything. Of course we will all become this person temporarily, from time to time, but visiting temporarily and living there are two very different things. Do not move to this postcode! Even if the rent is cheap and the public transport convenient!! If you meet a troll under a bridge they will always lie to you, so don’t think that by taking their advice you will render yourself critically untouchable. Everyone feels small and scared. I’m talking to myself here, in case that wasn’t clear.
I’m in South Australia with my friends now, staying in a converted train station that Virginia found on Airbnb. We’re calling it Saltburn, but no one has used the bath yet. Also, no one is dead and I really hope it stays that way. Michelle has a middle-ear infection and hers and Tim’s car needs a new gearbox which is a real bad luck double bill. Despite this, Michelle and Tim are both in fine spirits which is something I really admire about them. They both deserve two million dollars and eternal good health. Along that line of thought, I just opened my ‘hidden requests’ folder on Instagram and found this auspicious unsolicited message from an account called @spiritual__hilda:
You are standing in your power at this time! There is a lot of Growth headed towards you! The Spirit is removing blockages from your path so your Abundance can come in. I see the energy around you gaining momentum to lead you to many, I see financial blockages being removed and money coming towards you. I see you going through a major Glow-up and many eyes being on you. Spirit wants you to enjoy this energy, it’s your time to shine. Spirit is also highlighting the need for you to trust your own intuition, and no one else’s at this time. I see unwarranted advice from someone around you. You are the Emperor or Empress! You know what is best for you above all. Stand your ground and Protect your energy.
Praise Be to Hilda, who is very real and not AI! You really can just decide to capitalise any word, and most of the time it will be received as a wise and intentional choice. Often, I start sentences with And or But just to rebel against the constraints of the 2010 Victorian Certificate of Education English Syllabus. Most things are made up, remember that.
That’s all for this month. In the meantime, I do refer me to the oracle (Jemima Kirke): I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much.
❤️
stories of note
hold onto your hats, here comes a brag…….. I had an Andy Sachs moment recently when I received the unpublished manuscript for one Diana Reid’s new book Signs of Damage. It really slaps. I would describe it as The White Lotus meets The Body Keeps The Score meets Big Little Lies. Make of that what you will. It’s out next year and mark my words!!!!!! You’ll all be talking about it.
Slip - I stumbled upon the trailer for this series last week and was shocked to discover I hadn’t heart about it until now. Written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones, who also stars as Mae, the show is a time loop comedy drama about a woman who discovers that she can transport through the multi-verse via orgasm. It’s also a beautiful dissection of monogamy and regret, and the Sylvia Plath fig tree of it all. It came out last year with Roku but if you’re in Aus you can watch on Binge.
The Metal Bowl - I already recommended All Fours by Miranda July, but The Metal Bowl is a short story she wrote in 2017, which has similar DNA to the novel. At the heart of the story is the idea of being alone in a partnership, despite desperately wanting to connect. Of course it is also very funny, and I really like this line about spotting a famous person in the wild: Electricity revved through my veins for no particular reason, just as a courtesy to his stature.