Dear Internet Friend Person Dude,
I TRIED, OKAY?! I did my utmost to decline a new friend’s relentless but cheerful (and, amazingly, pressure-free) invitation/begging to help her make food for a small film crew this week.
I wanted to say no for all the right reasons: there’s no money in it goddammit I can’t afford to do stuff I’m not getting paid for!!!211
And I did! And we sat and talked and laughed about how fucked up these situations tend to be and how disgustingly undervalued creative work is — especially, often, paradoxically, amongst creative people.2
Then she cautiously explained that this situation feels different to her. They’re serious about this, they want it to be the last time they’re working for free.
I was like, well, sure, we all want this to be the last time we’re doing something for free. We all want the next big thing to be around the corner. We all want this here to be our breakthrough, no?
Acknowledging this, she called her son over to explain, who proceeded to pitch me a world-domination scheme. When my pessimism wasn’t chuckling under its breath at his team’s antics, I found myself begrudgingly giving them the benefit of the doubt that their project does amount to 60-803 people’s life’s work. I found myself caring — not about the project, but… the people involved?! (yes this letter is pretty much just questions) (because most of this week felt like wtf?)
I feel outrageously tribal every time the 28/27 polarity comes around. Nourishment hooks up my Values while Risk completes my Fighter. I’m not splenic, so this is, in general, dangerous territory for me. While the sudden tribal stickiness irks me — I often feel like I need to shake off a swarm of insects that have somehow made their way into my underwear even through my skinny jeans after several days in any transitory tribal neighborhood — I so dig that air of recklessly and cheerfully standing on a ledge waiting to jump into unknown depths... just… because? For the people? It’s a nice place for my cold unsupportive ass to lay my head and rest and rejoice in no-strings giving because it’s so damn fun when people are truly grateful for it and man, who doesn’t love being an actual hero every once in a while?
Ya. Dangerous. My mind is paranoid as fuck when it comes to using my skills for other people’s benefit, and rightly so. On Sunday, I told my friend nieeehhhhhh several more times before finally giving up and sitting down to organize the fully-formed menu in my head. God. Like… are these people now, suddenly — part of my tiny tribe? Did this week show me what lines I will and won’t cross to secure resources for people close to me? Is this why I’m still sitting in the kitchen after almost 12 hours of baking to ensure they will not be short on pumpkin bread and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies tomorrow? Maybe? So… it’s happening? Well, fuck?
Ok. You will probably find out how it went in the next letter. For now, lemme get back to obsessing over the texture of my oatmeal cookies and ruining everything because everything is taking too long and I’m too tired.4
🎭 there are many morals to the story 🎈
is this polarity the reason autumn/halloween feels cozy maybe?
splenic safety for all the un-splenic hypochondriacs!!
WIN FOR THE TRIBE
RAID THE PUMPKIN PATCH
DISTRIBUTE THE PUMPKINS
EVERYONE GETS A PUMPKIN
does Oprah have a 27.5?
28/27 the next-to-last tribal/splenic polarity (44/24 currently is also tribal but is a lot less cozy no?) of the season before 26/45 will force us to be jolly and completely overestimate the number of chocolate santas and glitzy christmas decorations and amazing innovative *products* our loved ones need
BLAZES because of course my saying yes to playing the game to care for the tribe and my subsequent organizing of theoretical foods lit a damn (mutative?) fire under the entire operation instantly oops?5
NOT GLAZES because I’m making an assortment of autumn-ly baked goods and I will not glaze or do anything else to any of them so the cast and crew won’t need to cope with sticky fingers.
I wanted to add UNFAZED to the title but it sounded weird so I didn’t. but now I’m realizing I am… amazed? how unfazed I am at the blaze that happened around the scene of… the… not-glaze?!
mind not trying to figure everything out as it is happening is such a pleasant way to exist in the world ugh
That is all for now! Well, sort of. If you’re a paid subscriber, a bunch of bonus shit is waiting for you after the jump. I won’t go into what exactly because that would feel like I’m selling you my bonus shit and nah.
If you enjoyed reading this letter as much as I had fun writing it — could you please let me know by tapping the heart button below!! Okay. Thank you for being here.
🥩 devouring 🥩
angus beef burger patties ALL DAY
an admittedly weird concoction of well-browned ground beef cooked in water and butter, eaten at room temp
liver pancakes + melted butter
wiener sausages 🤷♀️
succession (finally?)
adventure time (seasons 1-4 are now on netflix in europe yay)
🐳 throwback!! 🐳
The hermaphrodite sea creature Old Gregg’s funky ballad is now my ringtone once more, as it was during my formative years yay
🍰 misc! 🍤
very fun short dive into the everlasting question of how to universalize language itself!
I attended a workshop last week with the dude whose website I found this 🔼 on; it was superb — wonderfully generator-friendly with lots of simple y/n questions. I especially love the schematic “what is obvious about…?” he employed several times. “What is obvious about the question your thoughts are exploring these days?” yielded so much damn insight
this morning my kid said to me in response to my telling him for the umpteenth time that no, he couldn’t just randomly stay home today: but mommy, your work doesn’t even make any money. can’t you do something that makes money???
um, fuck almighty. yeah kid, I do tend to wish I would do that too.
funnily enough I had just come across this video the day before. wept a little. then I remembered people asking seven-year-old me if I wanted to become an artist when I grew up?! and that — how the hell I thought to parrot this back then is beyond me but — I’d say to them, “nah, because I think I’d actually wanna make a living you know?” OH NO ESTHER YOU DID EVERYTHING WRONG like a good lil third line yesyes
… it’s a fine line to toe between acting out a limiting belief and allowing oneself the time — through struggle — necessary to let one’s creativity breathe and grow roots before putting pressure on it to make money in a way that doesn’t smother the playfulness that’s necessary for the creativity that makes money 😐
a stretch, I know, but 30-50 feral hogs present themselves to my mind’s eye wherever there is a range between two 2-digit numbers
I don’t control my thoughts, sorry
but am very looking forward to using these tomorrow, they feel 100% appropriate for an occasion around which a Boomer threw a day-long fit over sandwiches good lord (see next footnote)
Such a fun story and the reason I am so late today!!
Once Le Plan was all set and I had talked my cooking compadres down from idealizing my working with them into oblivion and back, I informed the short film’s producer about it. He wrote back informing me THERE SHALL BE NO MEAT WHATSOEVER ON SET [editor’s note: not my caps]
At first, I reflexively replied alright, fine. A couple of minutes later I registered how much it bothered me. Respectfully, I said, we’re offering one vegetarian option for everyone as the main meal and there will be more than enough vegetarian sandwiches. I see your worries that the omnivores often go for vegetarian options and calculating a 50/50 cheese/meat ratio would be a mistake. But this should not disallow us from offering non-cheese cold cuts altogether. You’re not paying me, I’m doing this for the fun of it. Offering cheese and nothing else is silly and I don’t like it. For all that is holy, let me include at least one type of sandwich meat.
Dude [who is NOT younger than me as I thought at first, but much older] didn’t reply to me at all from then on but went forth and picked a fight with both my friend (the director’s mother, who, without me, would’ve been doing this by herself) and her son (the director) that hasn’t abated since the Blaze started (pretty much exactly after the sun moved into 28.6 yesterday)
Over fucking sandwiches. I was wondering how the mutation would present itself this time. I’m getting better at anticipating it arriving one way or another pretty much every time I do anything that requires movement. So this time some people need to confront how shitty this person is to work with?! Idk, we’ll see how it plays out.
Today my friend was ready to bow to the considerable pressure and give in to the horseshit. I still can’t (yet?) back down or out so we bought illicit packets of sandwich meat to give out to those who ask for it and dude is just gonna have to deal. I think it’ll be a blast?!
Haha so I’m on the cross of the unexpected and my personality sun / earth is 28(.4) / 27(.4), and my only channel is 28-38. So it’s a curious mix where I only have individual circuitry, and yet I’ve had a single channel 59-6 say I seem so tribal to her! And yea, I think that 27 hits hard bc it’s in defense circuit (most tribal of tribal), it really does ground the individuality of the 28’s search for purpose .... plus I also have 59 on the other side, another defense gate (and just think how commonly people will have either 50 or 6, and suddenly we create a defense channel together.) AND I have gate 40 like 4 or 5 times. Ok there you go a long explanation you didn’t ask for but your post prompted about why I often seem tribal yay 👍