"I love sentences. I love sentences so much." - Ross Gay

the end-of-the-month post

Hi m’dears,

It started out as one of those whirlwind months.

I took Amtrak down the coast to Ventura (a beach town midway between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles) for a conference. In traveling by train rather than plane I made the travel day into a little mini writing-retreat to get some work done on a personal writing project I’ve been trying, and failing, to find time for over the past several months. Faithful readers may recall that one of the main reasons I went freelance was to make more time for my own visual art and writing practices. And, personally, I find that somehow the art-making is much easier to tuck in here and there than the writing. Writing, for me (and I think for many people) requires a kind of dedicated, head-down focus time that can be hard to come by. A long train trip is perfect.

The conference I went to was Craftcation — which combines hands-on art, craft, and making workshops with creative business talks and classes. I was there to give three talks: a panel on networking, a class on publishing, and a talk on project management. One of the best things about Craftcation is the people who attend it — it’s a wildly creative, colorful, and friendly bunch of folks — which lends itself to all sorts of fun and enlightening antics and conversations. One highlight was the evening when a selected group of attendees turn their hotel rooms into art installations for everyone else to tour (my favorite by far was the potato-themed room, complete with potato décor and catered mashed potatoes to snack on). Then there was walking on the beach path to see the wild bunnies (!), going into town to visit the delightful Smitten bookstore, and meeting up with friends new and old.

I also partook of a little business consultation of my own with another wise attendee who offered me her insights on my website. This gave me the inspiration and kick in the pants I’ve been needing to do a project I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time, about which more below.

On the way home I broke my trip in half and stopped for a restorative mini-break at the legendary Madonna Inn (if you do not know this place, words can hardly do it justice — it is the most over-the-top campy hotel, where every room is different, and the aesthetic is dominated by vintage, kitsch, and bright pink). No matter how great a conference is, it is also exhausting. So reviving oneself with alone time, pink champagne cake, and a sunrise swim, seemed like a very good idea.

And all of that, delightful though it was, was just the beginning of the month. Then there were: a protest to attend; seeing one of my favorite writers Ross Gay at City Arts and Lectures (that’s a podcast link, you can listen to it!); my 20th wedding anniversary (!!) with a weekend away; the kiddo getting her braces off; a whole big stressful kerfuffle involving our summer plans; a springtime cold; and jury duty. And this was all by only like the third week of May. Now, don’t get me wrong— a lot of this stuff was good (not the jury duty, not the cold, not the kerfuffle, but most of the rest of it). I’m not really complaining. But it was a lot. I kept trying to build in breaks and ways to slow down, but the momentum just kept cranking up.

Until suddenly, it didn’t. All at once, the tempo changed. In a single day we solved three major problems and thus untangled the summer’s kerfuffle. I was excused from jury duty (and what would potentially have been a six-week long trail). Work slowed way down (but not so far down as to be scary or worrisome). I took a breath, and another breath, and realized multiple weights had been lifted from my shoulders.

There are still protests to attend and, of course, many many reasons to protest. There are still, of course, plenty of sources of stress. But as spring tips over into summer I find myself with room to breath and room to think creatively. And I find that what I want to do, as is nearly always the case these days, are two things: 1) make stuff and 2) connect with people. And this continues to be so odd to me. Not the making things part. No surprise there. I will write stuff and draw pictures and make things with my hands until the cows come home — always have and always will. But the desire, as soon as there is time, to, as they say, “forge community” is new to my freelance era and knocks me for a loop every time.

The panel I led at Craftcation was called “Networking for Misanthropes.” I put it together for this very reason. For those of us who find ourselves connecting almost in spite of ourselves. I may never stop being surprised that I now genuinely love random coffee dates and “reaching out to” folks in my industry. People for whom this sort of thing has always come naturally may have no idea what I’m talking about. But those deeply in touch with their own inner surly teenager (Gen X teens particularly but not exclusively) will, I think, get it.

Creating community on our own terms, maybe especially when it comes to work or work-adjacent communities, is perhaps a bit like the concept of found-family. We get to redefine something which has the potential to be oppressive or othering for some of us, and instead turn it into a source of support and even joy.

All of which is to say, May, for me, came in like a lion and is going out like a lamb. I am back to talking to people and writing sentences and making these new things that I’m not sure what to call yet (shadow boxes? curiosity cabinets?) but whatever they are I really love them. In a house with a teacher and a high school student we are dominated by the rhythms of the school year, so it’s no surprise, I suppose, that with just a few school days left in the year, the collective exhale is upon us. I’m going to sit like a stone and breath for a minute. Maybe you’ll consider joining me?

Webshop

Yes! I now have my very own webshop! My handmade zines, books¹, and a bunch of original artwork are now all for sale on this super cute page on my own site. This is something I’ve wanted for ages. Etsy was never a great fit for what I do. But I was simply never sure I could pull this off.

Enter the delightful Marlo Miyashiro who I met with at Craftcation and helped me strategize a plan, not only for the webshop, but for a whole little refresh of my entire site. In addition to the shop I now also have a landing page (something, perhaps oddly, I never had before); separate editorial pages for publishers and individuals; a newly consolidated page about all my speaking, press, and art doings; and an updated bio page with a new headshot that I also had taken at the conference by photographer Kathryn Colby. It’s keen.

Tomato on Board

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that when I saw Ross Gay speak he read his essay Tomato on Board and that for my mid-month essay this month I sent you The Tomato Plant. Gay’s essay is about beauty and love. Mine is about beauty and sadness. (Several of you have since sent me messages of encouragement and consolation — but don’t worry about me, I’m fine! Both the tomato plant and the sadness in that essay are from a very very long time ago). Gay’s sentences are so good you could almost make a meal of them. Here, for your enjoyment, is the opening of “Tomato on Board.” You can read the rest of it here.

What you don’t know until you carry a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane is that carrying a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane will make people smile at you almost like you’re carrying a baby. A quiet baby. I did not know this until today, carrying my little tomato, about three or four inches high in its four-inch plastic starter pot, which my friend Michael gave to me, smirking about how I was going to get it home. Something about this, at first, felt naughty—not comparing a tomato to a baby, but carrying the tomato onto the plane—and so I slid the thing into my bag while going through security, which made them pull the bag for inspection. When the security guy saw it was a tomato he smiled and said, “I don’t know how to check that. Have a good day.” But I quickly realized that one of its stems (which I almost wrote as “arms”) was broken from the jostling, and it only had four of them, so I decided I better just carry it out in the open. And the shower of love began.

Mix Tape

Making things is a pleasure in and of itself. I get such joy from making these monthly mix tapes. I also enjoy listening to them — I mean, they started out as the playlists I made for my own listening enjoyment, and they still are that. I also share them with my husband and I know he listens to them a lot. But beyond that, I don’t really know what happens to them. I like to imagine you out there listening — but which you, and how many, who knows? A great deal of the delight comes simply from the act of creating something I find pleasing and beautiful in the first place. If perhaps I then succeed in pressing that thing into someone’s hands, all the better.

xo

b

1. The books of which I am the author — including the really old out-of-print books New York Jackie and This is Happening, which was the first ever book of Instagram photography and which for a while looked really dated but now is retro-cool.