Hello Hopeful Idiots

Let's be clear on what this is, and what it isn't.

Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you that I have set my bar as low as possible when it comes to entertainment. I am not a discerning viewer. I am not a particularly discriminating reader. If you look at my Goodreads account, there is a truly shocking number of 5-star reviews. I don’t care if I’m being emotionally manipulated or if something is derivative of something else. Originality is a bonus but I’m fine with formulaic material, too.

I guess the key for me is emotion. If a story moves me in some way—makes me laugh, makes me cry, gives me ANY reason to be invested in the characters—I’m probably going to be satisfied enough to stick around. Boredom is the only unforgiveable sin.

Annnd that’s what I’m aiming for with this newsletter.

I do not promise you a life-changing experience! Some of these emails will be better than others! I will almost definitely tell dad jokes!

I just really like how free I feel writing in this space, and I want to share some of my thoughts with all of you without worrying about algorithms and hashtags and ads after every second post. At a time when everything feels very cynical and joyless and dark, I want to cultivate a little community of hopeful idiots like me who are still madly in love with this wide, wild world.

I want to talk about lots of things here. Life! Death! Beautiful tragedies! Sally Rooney! Why YOU should have killed Joe off and made the show about Love instead! Why I have rewatched The Office so many times that I can quote almost every episode! Why John Hughes movies from the 80s and 90s are still unapologetically my jam even though they’re what the kids might refer to as “problematic faves”! Being a former Evangelical and how that has informed my current spiritual outlook!

[but wait there’s more dot gif]

Marriage! Motherhood! Breaking up with ideology! Whatever the fuck is happening with fourth wave feminism! What “living offline” might look like! Ghosts! Reconnecting with my body! Perimenopause! Art! Poetry that makes me glad to be alive! My mildly gross obsession with that video of Tom Holland lip-syncing “Umbrella”! Love! Grief! Why changing your mind when you receive new information is not only okay but necessary!

Will I tackle all these topics? Probably not! But I might!

If this sounds like the sort of thing you might be into, I hope you’ll join me here.

In closing:

Life is not whatnot, and it's none of your business.