Is there anything better than seeing your name in lights? Or better yet, buried in a byline beneath an article about Prince Harry’s frostbitten penis?
This is the high I’m always chasing. The moment an editor responds to something my brain has been conceptualizing and analyzing and obsessing over for months or weeks or at least the last 18 hours and says: “I love this.” Generic, half-meant words that I would tattoo on my body if I could. A tramp stamp of approval. The editor could be saying “I love pickles” or “I love when it doesn’t rain on my commute,” but no, she’s saying she loves this. This bit of self I’ve left dangling in the digital abyss, wrapped in a listicle about books that made me horny in 2013.
There is nothing quite like this feeling. Some days I’ll be sitting in my office watching my creative spirit wither away to nothing while I do things like approve payroll or grade papers from students who learned grammar from TikTok—and then an email! A sign from above! Someone will pay me to write an article analyzing the psyche of a mediocre white guy looking for love. Suddenly it all makes sense again! I feel the air return to my lungs. My face might be smiling. My creative spirit, which was moments before rocking in the fetal position mumbling a diamond’s gotta shiiiine is now suddenly clear-eyed, focused, standing up right and walking around like she owns a suit from Good American’s Boss collection.
This just got very “it’s your turn to share” at an MFA workshop. I’m sorry about that. My version of hell is that scene from Girls where Hannah Horvath is booed out of her Iowa creative writing program for writing a short story about being ghosted.* I promise not all the subjects of my newsletters will be this existential but it’s important to understand the state of mind that got me here. I’m not some girl in my 30s peddling CBD products on Instagram. Who has the confidence for that?
This newsletter goes against the very core of my being. My sun and Saturn are in Aquarius which means that I’m creative but aloof. I’m brimming with ideas and a need for those ideas to be heard and acknowledged but—and this is a direct quote from Co-Star**, the app the now runs my life—I struggle with “being overly detached” and private. Have you ever heard of such a thing?? “Overly detached” and “private” are things elementary school teachers say in a documentary about the kid from their class who grew up to store human heads in his fridge. Those are not things that bode well for a budding creative! Share my feelings? Self-promote my hard-earned work? On the internet?? I think it would be easier to cut my own bangs.
But things change. At the beginning of this year my Bachelor column was cut and I found myself without a regular outlet to write. Suddenly I’m just a girl who journals. What’s next? I start listening to podcasts about my attachment style? *shudders*
This is where Co-Star comes in again. Co-Star told me that my Uranus was in Capricorn, which apparently means I need to let go of the past and seek new challenges. I have never once let go of anything and Co-Star knows this. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still seek new challenges. What are your 30s if not a constant state of challenge? If I can learn what a CC cream is then I can learn how to express a millimeter of vulnerability.
And thus, a newsletter was born! What can you expect from my newsletter? If you’re thinking “dear god, anything but this” well, I promise it won’t always be this. Sometimes it will be life updates, sometimes it will be shameless self-promotion of my articles, sometimes it will be pop culture commentary or hot takes on my favorite TV binges.
For my Bachelor recap girlies: I’m still figuring out how to incorporate recaps into the newsletter, but for now we’re just experimenting. All I can say is that if you stick around for the ride, you won’t regret it! Or at least you will have something to show your own therapist to demonstrate how well-adjusted you are by comparison. 😊
xoxo,
Ry
*Footnotes & Afterthoughts*
*I did actually get my BFA in creative writing and spent many a workshop defending “fictional” short stories about a girl named “Charlie” who was always in a state of crisis because she was a size 8 in high school. That and her boyfriend wouldn’t stop cheating on her with unnamed girls at frat parties. Very different from my real experience in which he did it at a bar directly in front of my face. The art speaks for itself I think!!
**No, I’m not being paid to promote Co-Star. I’m just an avid cult member looking to spread the gospel. In fact, please download the app at your own peril. You might find that, like me, you can no longer express an emotion without checking the app first to make sure the ChatGTP that wrote your horoscope says it aligns with the stars that month.
Images: @khloekardashian /Instagram (1)
Humble Brags & Things I Wrote:
She got published in Cosmo, y’all! Or, as my father wrote on his Facebook beneath a meme about zoom meetings being modern seances: “she’s a Cosmo girl now!”
The fruit of my labor:
I Don’t Have It in Me to Root for Another Mediocre White Guy on ‘The Bachelor’