The Friday Dispatch: May 10, 2024

If you live in/around NYC I am inviting you to a thing

Happy Friday! I am impatiently waiting for my Meat Scentsy (slow cooker) to be done slow cooking. There are yams in there! And a pork tenderloin!!! And CIDER!

Mark Your Calendars!!!!!!!!!!!! Please

Hey…Here’s a question……am I the person at Playbill in charge of compiling information on the Sully Sullenburger musical?¹ Because oh boy, have I been working on a PILOT PROGRAM!

-cricket noises intensify-

Okay okay okay, that was a really good bit of wordplay with near-perfect opacity. Funny, but didn’t make any damn sense. Sorry ‘bout that. So, let me translate!

For the past two months, I’ve been making a select blob of friends test-run an in-person creativity event, and now that we’ve sorted out some of the kinks, I’m opening the invite to any/all of y’all who are in the NYC metro and may be interested.

I call it Good Work. It’s like study hall, but instead of goofing off with your friends, you do homework instead, and enjoy it. So…reverse study hall? Or, study hall being used as it was designed!

Late last year, as a salve to my ever-waning attention span, I began thinking about what circumstances helped me focus on creative projects – not busywork and “admin,” not day job and freelance, but the creative work I love doing for me. Writing novels! Writing poems! Writing songs! Reading! Etc.

Reflecting on this, I noted that I do my best thinking/creating…

• In a group, where chatter and socializing are present, but limited

• When my phone is locked away somewhere and can’t tempt me

• When all notifications on any other devices are turned off

• When I am outside of my house (that’s where the chores live)

• In spurts of 30-45 minutes, with breaks in between (those breaks must be short enough that I can’t get distracted by a whole new task)

If one or all of these characteristics sound like you, then you may be a candidate for Good Work! Here is the EventBrite. It’s free! Please RSVP so I know how many people to expect. And we’ll be at a cafe so bring money if you want food/beverages.

What is Good Work?

Good Work is designated time and space to focus on the creative endeavors you have trouble making time for.

It is not a “productivity” session. It is a creativity session.

Bring what you need for: writing, reading, collage, journaling, drawing, brainstorming, knitting, daydreaming.

Do not use this time for: emails, marketing, social media, algorithms, taxes, or any administrative chores.

Here’s what we do:

Step one: You arrive

Step two: I put your phone in my large bucket

Step three: We set a timer

Expect to be off your phone and committed to your creativity for 2.5 hours.

• 40 minutes of work time + 5 minute break

• 40 minutes of work time + 5 minute break

• 30 minutes of work time to wrap up!

• 30 minutes of “debrief”/“process” time (discuss what you worked on!)

Good Work is structured to facilitate focus and enjoyment of your creative project. We'll have three sessions in which to do our Good Work, and a period at the end to discuss what we consumed or created. This is not an accountability effort – it just lets us process what we've been engaging with before we return to the demands of the world.

Please come prepared with something to write/work/research on that is not your phone. Your phone is a distraction factory; it is not disallowed but it is not going to be conducive to doing Good Work! On that note, I'm not going to lock your phones in a box, but I AM going to bring a bucket/basket you are encouraged to put your phone in during the session. You will not get the most out of this time if you have your phone on you. If you are willing to relinquish your phone for the "work time," you will have more fun. In fact, I think you won't even miss your phone! Embrace the Bucket.

I encourage everyone to arrive feeling mentally prepared for "landline mode" during the whole session. If you want to listen to music, bring an MP3 player. If you're worried about keeping track of time, wear a watch. I will bring a timer (so we know when to start/stop work), pens and post-it notes (so you can keep track of anything unrelated to your work that may pop into your head while we're working together!).

When is Good Work? The next Good Work is on Tuesday, May 21, at 6pm. I’ll get there around 530 to set up.

Where is Good Work? The next May Good Work will be held at Bread and Butter in Manhattan, the one on 31st St and 5th Avenue. Its address is: 305 5th avenue. We will be in the back at a big table.

I hope you can come! Seriously, these have been SO MUCH FUN and going forward, I’m going to try to host two sessions/month. We’ve had three sessions of Good Work so far, and at each of them, I’ve gotten through my entire creative “wish list.” Not a to-do list – these aren’t productivity sessions!!! – but I’ve devoted real time to the creative endeavors that I find myself “wishing” I had time for. I DO have time for them! But it’s just easier to find that time when other people are looking for it with me. Again, here is the EventBrite!

Creative Things…Like Such As…

I finally finished Breakfast of Champions, which I’ve been “wishing” I had a chance to read (ha) for the better part of 10 years. It’s a book that fulfills all its promises, leaving me with a sort of sharp, sparkly wound in my guts that I don’t want closed.

And it has drawings. Not illustrations…drawings. More books should have drawings in them!

A good anecdote about reading this book in public: I was sitting alone at a bar, booking bookily, drinking a glass of wine while I waited for my boyfriend to finish up his meeting nearby. Just as I received the “Done! Meet me outside!” text, the bartender, who was playing this weird-looking 2014 Jason Bateman movie on the TV ² behind him, leaned on the bar like Sam Malone, cocked an eyebrow, and asked, “Isn’t that the Vonnegut book with the famous drawing of the butthole in it?” I slammed my remaining mouthful of wine, stood up, looked him in the eye, said “Hell yeah it is,” and walked out of his life forever.³

Okay, speaking of existing as a woman who can read, I’m back on the David Foster Wallace. We all thought I was safe since the world’s only DFW-themed sketch team went defunct, but here I am again! As it stands, I am reading a DFW collection I haven’t read before (Both Flesh and Not), though I have read nearly all⁴ of the essays contained therein. An interesting thing about Wallace is that he often referenced a self-made document on his computer, a “list of words that he wanted to learn, culling from numerous sources and writing brief definitions and usage notes,” per publisher’s note. Throughout Both Flesh and Not, those words and his definitions of them preface each chapter, giving the book a uniquely systemic quality.

In a stroke of happy luck, I am also currently reading Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries. That book is a selection of entries from 10 years’ worth of her journals, alphabetized. Alternating between these two books has made for an intensely pleasant reading experience. It’s sparked me to think a lot about organizational systems; “data” beyond quantification, rankings, volume and numbers; trends and seasons and patterns; habits we can/should/don’t break. And it’s fun, too, to think about how I may reorder and recontexualize my own history, the sentences I’ve started and abandoned in notebooks over many years.

At one point, re-reading David Foster Wallace’s renowned essay on Roger Federer, the essay which gives this 2012 anthology its title, I came across a word that I had recognized in Wallace’s private glossary.⁵ It made me teary. I don’t really know why. Maybe just to see a grown man (a very celebrated writer who I admired, also a very flawed and confused and confusing person) wanting to learn, and learning, and applying the knowledge. Then the doctor came into the exam room where I was sitting/reading, and I had to get real cool, real fast, to talk about my weird cysts.

I’m just a girl…sitting in front of a gynecologist…trying to act like she wasn’t crying about her love for David Foster Wallace.

I Am So Back!!!!

Well. It finally happened: my roller rink reopened. THANK GOD. I went skating on Wednesday night and it was the BEST! feeling. I missed my weekly injection of thigh soreness and endorphins. By the way, I am FURIOUS to announce that I “get” endorphins now. Prior to skate season, I started walking more often, in a gym, on a treadmill, because I didn’t want my utterly pathetic stamina to impede me from doing the one exercise I actually LIKE.

Every time I came home, Myles would ask me, “How was your workout?” Every time, I would say, “Bad! I hated it!”

Until one day I came home and said “It was FINE. I even SMILED at one point. I smiled at NOTHING.” And I was so mad.

As much as I dislike enjoying exercise, I do love what skating does to my brain. Wednesday night I skated, Thursday night I had Good Work, and that 24-hour period might’ve been the most creatively fruitful day of my life since September. I even made progress on a Cool Creative Project That Has Yet to Be Announced. That’s right! I am once again HINTING at an ANNOUNCEMENT! TO keep you coming BACK for MORE!

On the subject of exercise: Tonight I will go downtown in a camo tank top from Hooters⁶, and tights and rainbow ombre shorts, because I am taking a Chappell Roan dance class. I’ve written about Angela Trimbur’s dance classes in this space before, and I’ve also written about Chappell Roan. This week, I was lucky enough to snag a ticket to tonight’s “Thirteen” class, where Angela Trimbur will (presumably) teach me the parts of the HOTTOGO! choreography that are not outlined in the music itself.

I’ve participated in a virtual Angela Trimbur “balletcore” class before, but this will be my first in-person. I’m excited to go, even if I have a bit of trepidation; admission for this class was close to the cost of a single Chappell Roan concert ticket, which feels…off? Do I need to pay $30 to learn to exist in my body?⁷⁸ No. But who knows! Maybe it’ll change my life! It’s the only dance class I know that was on the Drew Barrymore show, so, there is that.

WIDNBTW

Friday. I gotta go put on my dancin’ shoes. And also, my knee pads. And also deodorant. But hey, we did it, gang! And oh…also…while you’re here…let’s explore What I Did Not Buy This Week:

• A room at the “Lucky Cuss Motel” in Vegas, advertised on Expedia dot com in lowercase letters

• $30 “cat water.” Am I a bad cat mom if I don’t get this?

• I went into Barnes & Noble to buy All Things Are Too Small, but chickened out at the hardcover price tag. Somehow walked out with Marilynne Robinson’s essay collection, What Are We Doing Here? because I’ve had un petit soupçon of the existential grief⁹ lately.

• A lavender “Balm dot com” from Glossier, which was eight bucks at the TJ Maxx on Columbus and 98th street – go forth, girlies, they had every flavor!

• A cool teen was wearing this hoodie on the train yesterday, and I looked it up to see if I could copy her style, and no I can’t because this thing is $89? For LOUNGEWEAR???

• The blood orange cruller at Daily Provisions, either time I went this week (how can I resist maple! HOW!)

• Any of these “princess rings” specifically modeled after the beloved board game Pretty Pretty Princess but costing $3,500. I HAVE Pretty Pretty Princess! I can just wear that jewelry!

• Yet another monoi perfume in a pretty bottle

Okay! With that. Please come to Good Work! I want to see you in real life, so just RSVP on EventBrite. And if you can’t come to this upcoming May session, well, keep your eyes/ears open for June dates. Okay! Faretheewell. Godspeed. Etc.

1. This is unfortunately not real

2. What is this? Was Jason Bateman trying to make a Wes Anderson??? Did he…do it? I’d like to watch the whole thing. And I’m also surprised that Olivia Wilde hasn’t been in a name-brand Wes Anderson production.

3. I had already paid!

4. I downloaded this book specifically for DFW’s writing on the prose poem…which I haven’t read. Go figure!

5. Annealed. Per Wallace: Anneal – to strengthen or toughen via heat… via process for tempering glass

6. It says “WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION” on it. Sorry

7. This is, admittedly, an ungenerous description, not directly from any reviews of Angela Trimbur’s classes, but evoked by the NY Mag writeup I quickly scrolled past, because I just reset my “months since hate-reading NY Mag” counter.

8. Relevant DFW quote on “kinetic beauty,” from Federer essay: “It has nothing to do with sex or cultural norms. What it seems to have to do with, really, is human beings’ reconciliation with the fact of having a body.” Wallace then goes on to say, in the footnote attached to this sentence, “…What great athletes can do with their bodies are things that the rest of us can only dream of. But these dreams are important—they make up for a lot.”

9. le chagrin existentiel, if you will