65. The Week in Me
I’m leaving my job. Yes, the job I didn’t want to take, the job where my boss touched my sweet little hairds. Today is my last day.
I will be doing something very scary, and challenging my already tenuous self-worth by severing it from my pawnship in corporate capitalism. Or at least trying to, leaving my decade of experience in deskworld and transitioning to events, production, more writing, creative things that might make sue of my hands and legs and heart. I used to take pride in being a denizen of deskworld, the six-figure salary, the global brands valanced across my LinkedIn profile, being “granularly involved” as I told every future interviewer in helping one former employer go public on the stock exchange before leaving them for Daddy WarBezos at an Amazon subsidiary. No more.1 Without my Senior title, without my name listed under the CEO’s in the org chart I have one fewer way to define myself.
Luckily, this means everything I would unfurl after moves up the list by one.
Here’s the new top title: writer. This week, I embarked on my first (last? who knows?) small writing tour, two dates in Philly and one coming up this Sunday (come say hi!) at Honey’s, 6:30 in Brooklyn.
You can watch the first part of my reading at Tattooed Mom’s in Philly:
I have been struggling. I do not want to pretend to you, friends and strangers who have paid and pledged subscribership and sent supportive messages, that I looked at my boss and said “You know what I wanna do? Strut.” or like Peggy Olson, cigarette between parted red lips, future’s so bright that she’s gotta wear shades.2
I spent yesterday morning unstringing about my future, if I was ever good at my corporate life at all, sobbing into
’s sixteen-year-old cat Jovie, the world’s loudest woman:I had a breakdown, a jagged, unwell, scary sobbing. Matt thought he was going to have to drive down to Philly and load me up in the car to get me home to our chickens and maybe off to a Xanax farm. It was, to use our second Mad Men GIF of the day, Not Great, Bob.3 I broke down over and over again until it was punctuated by my boss asking me to book three hotel rooms, look up flight options from EWR to FLL, and modify an existing reservation (thank you Patty at the Boca Raton Waterstone). The work interrupted my ideation, my corporeal defenestration. Which was embarrassing! I’ve wanted to leave this world, and here it was serving a blissful tether. But what this tells me is that I need to keep busy. Use this gigging time to develop a routine, to get some movement in each day, to read, to keep at this little blog, to unbomb this apartment with my many many shoes taking up too much space (I’m not getting rid of the shoes, be for real right now, I am going to simply store them more efficiently). I have spent six years as an executive assistant, organizing the lives of others, and I feel my own life is its most unorganized, ever. Time to be my own assistant. Given how I fucking crushed yesterday, I’m a pretty damn good assistant. The pay will suck, but (pray for me) I’m going to love the boss.
If it’s the last thing I do.
To read:
Oh, how I loved my friend Alina Pleskova’s poetry collection, Toska. I’m Russian, but know almost nothing of that ancestry of mine outside of what I’ve read in Dostoyevsky. This, too, felt a sacred cultural text. Alina looms the communism of plural dating with Russian romantic stoicism, astrology, and road tripping.
And the Russians? Sexy. Here’s an excerpt I had no option but to screenshot:
You can buy Toska here.
All I care about at the Oscars this year is that Lily Gladstone is given her earned award for Killers of the Flower Moon. Her interview for Backstage discusses what I am ever eager to learn from an actor: the footpath to their performance. The techniques they have studied, the animal study they’ve done to align with their characters, the improvisational choices they make (Lily’s scream on the steps was not in the script). Great profile.
I am beaming with pride to announce that FX has greenlit the new Sterlin Harjo pilot, The Sensitive Kind, starring Ethan Hawke. Ever so proud of my very favorite producer, who will be working his sweet little tail off to bring this story to life.
Please just laugh at this (and consider donating): “CongRATs! Your Rat Has Been Fed To An Owl!” The Northern Spotted Owl Breeding Program allows you to donate just five dollars to name a rat after your ex and have it fed to an owl. When you donate, you receive a photo of your ex-rat and the owl who will be eating him (come on, it’s going to be a him).
My friend
is a marvel of emotional logic. Her missives continuously challenge my desensitization, apathy, and political center. I suggest reading her potent leftist voice with an open mind and heart, whether you support Palestinians or not (as an antizionist Jew, I implore you to find that empathy, empathy at all).
My wonderful friend Mike Duquette who shows up in this blog once a month at least, it seems, wrote something very sweet about my newsletter and recommend some worthy other reads. Thank you Mike. Love you to (Reese’s) pieces.
More painful truth from
:“There are so many noble and awe-inspiring qualities on display in Gaza currently, things like resilience, grace, dignity, honor, and kindness. I no longer find it beautiful to see my people’s magnanimity in spite of such cruelty. There is nothing beautiful about this moment because there is nothing beautiful about genocide.”
“The American Museum of Natural History will close two major halls exhibiting Native American objects, its leaders said on Friday, in a dramatic response to new federal regulations that require museums to obtain consent from tribes before displaying or performing research on cultural items.” Glad to share the news. Shameful it took this long.
Édouard Louis’s “Young, Slender, Blond, Blue-Eyed” on The Paris Review.
To watch:
Dylan produced a Superbowl ad starring
! 988 is the suicide hotline, enabling you to text or call if you need help or a listening ear. 988’s Oklahoma division received and deployed the funding to broadcast their resource to football fans and their bored boyfriends alike4 with humor and a June Diane Raphael cameo:I am so proud that someone I care about worked on this lifesaving initiative, one painfully close to my soul.
The A*TEENS look fantastic. Especially the one who is in, what, her third trimester and is still shaking her ass off on that stage?
This was joyous. I wore their ABBA CD out in my Walkman.
To listen:
This is literally just Simone:
This is literally just Lugosi but when he was small before I was his mommy:
Actually my babies, from the archives!:
(This one was for Aunt
).Various and sundry:
I went to my friend Claudia’s birthday, which boasted three themes: yeehaw-adjacent, Zenon-core, and Margaritaville Glam. I feel more of an affinity towards the other two themes, so I went out of my comfort zone (I’ve never been to Margaritaville! I’ve only been to Cheeseburger in Paradise! Am I an impostor?) and assembled a Miss Margaritaville costume with a sash I designed myself and a parrot that very quickly fell off of my shoulder:
Me and who:
This is the hope I want each of you to feel. And me:
Love you bitches,
TG
Unless my mom really doesn’t relent in sending me executive assistant roles on LinkedIn every day I just relent to get her to STOP TEXTING ME THE SAME ROLES I GET EMAILED TOO.
Girls love football, too!
I love your story and I am completely about to take the plunge too, I think!! 💕
Mad respect for making the job change! I was an executive assistant for a year and it's a really challenging job. Best of luck reorganizing the shoes (and writing and doing anything else you want!)