148. The Week in My Novel
Someone told me I wasn’t vulnerable enough in this newsletter so: why this shit has taken so long to write.
(CW: discussion of the impact of sexual assault - no details/depictions, but skip to the next sections if this is a topic you’d like to avoid. I send my love and my knowing.)
Did you read the first chapter of my novel in development? Sharing this is one of the scariest things I have ever, ever done on God’s green internet.
I have been writing this novel, which means knocking out 60 pages at a clip and then leaving it to acquire digitized pixelated spiderwebs for 18 months, since 2018. This is not because I don’t have the time, or the desire, or the prolific ability to run my fucking mouth.
It is because this novel, not this first chapter, but this novel recalls my rape…rapes. My two rapes.
There is no way to write the novel I want to write, about the insidiousness and high camouflage of emotional abuse, without breaking apart the myth of what is and isn’t rape. And there is no way to write these silent but deadly (had to make a fart joke; it was getting too dark) eviscerations of consent without centering myself in the memory of the times where my innocence around intimacy was dehymenated so abruptly.
I have never publicly disclosed that I have experienced rape.1 Much of this is because I refused to believe that what happened was rape. No whistle. No alleyway. No Rohypnol, and no screaming. Well, the second time there was. The first I was deadly silent everywhere except my own head, where I tapped out a Morse-code mantra into my homunculi: “It’s okay. It’s okay. He loves you. It’s okay. It’s okay. He wants you. It’s fine. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
I was raped eight years ago, and it was not until just a few months ago that I finally spoke these stories to my wonderful therapist. I described it as “bad sex.” Surprise sex. And she said that no, she would say to any friend or any one telling her this story that what happened to me was rape. Maybe not the kind that catches someone a case, but…that’s what happened to you. To me. Me being me I debated her for three sessions, ran through all of the ways I could have stopped it, ran through the horror stories my friends have endured, and she held firm. Now that I have accepted it, queasily - an impostor in my own violation - the phrase as it applies to my life and my body is sour on my tongue, the way saying a slur might, the way an accidental “I’d die to-” at a wake might taste. The bitter carbonation of it may settle in time. It may not.
But it did allow me to hit publish and share the first pages of this story and mine with you. If you enjoyed reading those and would like to read more, please tell me. That encouragement would mean everything. It would be lent bravery I don’t have, but I promise to pay you back.
I’ve described this novel as a #MeToo romcom from hell. Its inspirations are Carrie Fisher, Melissa Broder, Fleabag, Sally Rooney, and every “young woman sleeps with a married older man” novel from 2021-2025, except that it’s not the wife who has to be lied to, it’s the whole damn company. The home the protagonist never had: that is the love story. I’ve written the first 160 pages to sound like me, a reference a minute, a Mae Westian verve singing out over clear abandonment wounds, and mess. I want you to want this couple, and I want you to hate yourself for it. I want to pull the tablecloth off your dining table, a terrible magician, and lead you into a long, reflective scrub of red wine off the carpet. That is Pleasure to Assist.
Please tell me if you’d like to read more. And thank you.
There will be no Week in Me next week, as I have two BIG fun surprise posts for you on Monday and Friday!
To act:
If you’re in New York on Monday, come hang out with me! Tickets here.
Support the family of Mahmoud Khalil, unlawfully detained by Trump’s anti-protest authoritarianism, here.
To read:
Now that this season of Love is Blind has been defeated ended, read on to see how very right or wrong
140. Which One Is Ben Again?
Nhari Djan of Should've Stayed in the Notes App and I connected through the great Hunter Harris’s Hung Up chatroom, and decided to write a collaborative post on last season’s impending Love is Blind reunion:
Also, if I had to see this Nhari does too:
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This Wikipedia entry of the inventor of the saxophone shared by my friend Matt Hoban, himself an incredibly talented musician:
To listen:
My wonderful friend and former voice teacher Chelsea Friedlander performs in the United States Army Band: Pershing’s Own. She and her unit were recently in the news after singing a spirited rendition of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from Les Miserables at the 2025 White House Governors Ball right in Donald Trump’s face. I do not think this was the middle-finger to the President everyone thought (wished) it was: the Army Band does a LOT of Les Mis. Here’s Chelsea singing Eponine in “One Day More,” for example, and beautifully.
Chelsea appeared on the “There Are No Jobs In Music” podcast where she shared her journey from opera student and professional soprano to Army recruit and professional soprano in a whole new way. Beyond the pleasure of hearing my friend’s voice, this was a really fascinating conversation - yes, musicians and vocalists have to run the same bootcamp as any solider - where I got to learn about a job that most people probably do not think exists, new avenues for working artists, and a culture so wildly different from my own.
To watch:
is bravely standing up to Andrew Cuomo’s abuse of women and his efforts to run for mayor of New York City. If you’re a NYC voter, please watch:
One more of Chelsea because it’s a sweet memory: here she is singing “Glitter and Be Gay” from Candide - something I years prior watched her do online before deciding to work with her as my voice teacher. If you look in the front row, on the very left you can see my mom and myself, and in between us my tiny, tiny grandmother, who was already deep in her dementia but smiled the whole performance.
I like Pedro’s little hair.
Sam and I just beating the shit out of each other by sending each other painful dating videos:
I have watched this 9 times already. Her consideration of phrasing and placement demonstrated here is…why I retired from singing lmao I can’t compete or compare!!
And thank all things holy that Real Housewives of Atlanta is BACK!
This is literally just Simone:
This is literally just Lugosi:
Gilbert.
Actually my babies:
I also commissioned one of Taylor Copeland’s chicken portraits. Look!!
It was really meaningful to have a new one of these done after my divorce, as the last one I purchased was of the four of us. This felt like a big step forward in moving on.
Various and sundry:
FREE MY BROTHER.
I could watch these all day. Sound up.
This is my beefy boyfriend TUCKER,
’s son:
Thank you forever to
for showing me this goat she met:
I hope you get to enjoy the singular taste of a Cheez-It soon:
Love you cheese byproduct bitches,
TG
Until now.
I can't wait to read more. You write what others who may have experienced the same thing can't and will be able to relate. Also, I don't know what draft stage you are in, but in the first one or two, you write it for you uninhibited. It doesn't matter what we think at this stage. I also tend to write about not-so-pleasant things with a dark sense of humor; I picked that up from the Irish. In the memoir that I'm writing, I finally included an r#pe scene. Then, I wondered if it was necessary for the story I was telling. Whether I will keep the scene or not, it felt freeing to write out what happened and not continue to keep it stored in my head for over 40 years. After my third draft of my memoir, I put it down for five years and picked it back up 3 years ago. It takes a long time to write and rewrite. Keep going.
“I want to pull the tablecloth off your dining table, a terrible magician, and lead you into a long, reflective scrub of red wine off the carpet.” If anyone can pull that off, you can. Take control of that fucking narrative! Tucker and I (and Mush, one day) will be there to support.