(01) first draft emotions
American socialite photography from the 50's, emotional support calculations, unhinged Hinge behavior, and poems from the archives
🧠 first draft emotions + other therapies:
There’s hardly been a time in my life where I need things to look forward to as much as I do now. I’m thrilled to have future plans and desperate to finalize them. The onset of [a hint of] fall weather and the looming holidays have kickstarted this desire in a big way for me this year.
I’m painfully aware this week that I don’t have enough avenues for emotional support. As it stands, I’ve calculated that I experience an average of 3.75 hours of emotional support per week, with zero of it in-person. Considering I’m an emotional human who is awake for about 115 hours a week… this seems hardly survivable at a 3% ratio (or 0%, if you weigh in-person as clutch). But how much is enough for the average person? If you’re partnered / cohabitating, does this exponentially increase? Perhaps you get 1-2 hours more per day/evening – resulting in something more like 15%? Is this enough?
I’m down 49 pounds over the last 2 years and at this milestone of getting to that 50 pound plus land, I find myself self-sabotaging the journey to get over that hump. It’s strange and psychologically jarring, and largely due to not really celebrating any progress before this. What is another major milestone if none have been celebrated before this? Our brains have no reason to jump over the hurdle. It becomes like a milestone of a car odometer – just data, nothing important. But celebrating requires practice, discipline. It’s come up for me this week that celebration is painful and forced. I’m hardly proud of anything – and even when forced to think about it, celebrations wane in favor of the next goal I haven’t yet accomplished.
I bought a faux leather skirt with black tights for the first time in my life. This alone is a breakthrough of sorts. Perhaps a subtle nod towards celebration…? I’ve not actually worn it yet. Baby steps.
This week also harbored a substantially greater amount of alone time – normally I plan my Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights to be quite packed with other humans or plans. Zizi is not with me from Wednesdays through Saturday afternoons, and this I have come to learn of myself: prolonged connection begets more connection. By Wednesday morning, if I do not have a busy day or evening planned, I crave the connection I’ve built over the last 3.5 days with her – just to have it on pause again. This setup is not without its many benefits – it allows me a lot of flexibilities and freedoms that most parents of toddlers do not have – but it comes with its drawbacks, especially once my routine changes. I’m more comfortable being alone without feeling lonely than ever before, but I am beginning to believe in the loneliness epidemic, and the need for community greater than ever.
✨ learnings + unlearnings
Eroticized enmeshment // Dr. Alexandra Solomon explains:
“Our love songs and rom coms are chock full of eroticized enmeshment… the problematic and false belief that it is only true love if you experience no upper limit on your desire for togetherness.
Through this faulty lens, the need for space is viewed as a warning sign, an omen, a harbinger of horrible things to come. But rather, the need for space is healthy and adaptive. And the ability to tolerate space from each other reflects the existence of safety and trust.
In an intimate relationship, two people become interdependent. When you and your partner are together, you are coordinating and aligning your moods, your desires, your plans, your timing, & your energy levels in a thousand small interactional dances. Your nervous systems are playing off each other… cuz really that’s all we are… fleshy & fuzzy nervous systems.
It’s so lovely that your partner’s presence has the power to settle your janky nerves & bring a smile to your face. It’s also tiring to expend energy tending & coordinating and vibing.
Alone time is a reset. Alone time allows you to feel spacious and embodied and nimble. Alone time grants you the space to miss your partner and appreciate the reunion.Those huge wiggly blow-up things (called Tube Man per Wikipedia, and apparently originally called Tall Man) were invented in the 90’s. Zizi saw one of these at a local fair and while she was confused, thought it needed an ice cream cone and she offered hers. 3 year olds can be so sweet.
In terms of management, I don’t tend to “pour downwards” with teaching, mentoring, leading. I much prefer to “pour upwards” – to support, collaborate, learn. Great to support a boss – not so great when it’s time to be the boss.
✨ flash obsession
~ A paralyzing dive I went on this week where nothing else mattered except for this person or topic for a very brief moment in time ~
Slim Aarons was a World War II combat photographer who famously said that
combat had taught him the only beach worth landing on was "decorated with beautiful, seminude girls tanning in a tranquil sun.”
After the Army, he made a career out of "photographing attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places”, thereby never necessitating glamour budgets with hair + makeup + wardrobe… he was invited to swanky events and within his shutter lied the art to be captured, as is.
He was a bit of a liar too… he claimed he was raised in New Hampshire but after he died in 2006, his widow and daughter learned that he’d grown up in a poor immigrant Yiddish-speaking family on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His mom was sent to a “sanitarium”, and he had no relation with his father and brother Harry, who would later die by suicide. The truth of his beginnings would have [unfairly] been a killer to his social street cred, so I understand why he lied, but imagine finding out about your dad or deceased husband’s background was all a farce.
⭐️ the delight of anticipation
~ what is life without things to look forward to? ~
I’m embarking on an engagement with Tiana, a curiously cool human who shared an algae inspired presentation at the Naive Yearly event in Copenhagen this summer. We’re going to work on personal videos + revamping my website soon here, and I am excited about that!
My sweet 80 year old neighbor decorated her front door for Halloween, and thoughtfully asked if Zizi would be afraid of the scary clown decorations. We’re going to decorate this weekend with friends, and it’ll be the first time decorating for me! Shoutout to Zizi for inspiring movement here.
Yearly in October, I usually host a Pumpkerluck: a pumpkin themed potluck where friends and family get creative with sweet and savory recipes. I love annually recurring events, truly – and the practice of cultivating the right atmosphere for the right crowd. I don’t invite everyone I know, but instead – utilize years of data to curate a specific bunch based on my own understanding [and predictions] of how interactions will go. One formula (of many that go into the selection process) is that each person ought to already know 3+ people there. My own form of social anxiety, gamified for social comfort. As an extrovert, I tend to hyper-extend into “is everyone having fun?!” if I’m not too careful. In essence, I’m placing bets on my invitees to also do well on their own.
📵 un-Hinged
This week’s weird adventures on Hinge (the dating app):
💌 sad poems from the archives
~ that i’ve never really shared before ~ ⤵️
I’m so comfortable in diners
Are the people working here happy?
I normally pay over $5 per fancy coffee but diner coffee is pure comfort
The shitty creamer
The constant refills
I think it’s the soft attention I like
“You ok honey?” Eyes with deep bags ask
The soft rumble of 10 different conversations
I’m an executive but no one knows that here
I have the same eye bags and unglamorous presence
Zizi points to a clock and gleefully says tick tock, while guiding a chunk of scrambled egg to her mouth in her sweet pudgy hands.
Grandma’s handiwork, I eye-roll, I don’t like when she doesn’t teach real words. Without hesitation: “it’s a clock baby. Clock.” Over-pronouncing it. She happily parrots a garbled, inappropriate version of the word.
Maybe that’s why Grandma said “tick-tock”, I realize.
36 years ago Zizi’s egg was inside my mom, via the lifetime supply of eggs created in me when I was being created.
Grandma’s impact is more than just a lazy baby word. I soften.
Pancakes with an ungodly amount of butter
“Thursday Special served everyday”. It’s true, it’s Saturday
The waitress telling her colleague “I don’t want to get my girls vaccinated”
This woman must serve at least 100 people per day
No wonder we can’t control anything
I had a dream last night that I got attention from someone I wanted
But it was at the cost of a jealous onlooker, discomfort heightened
“I don’t want you to want me”
Still in my head
I’ll keep rolling that around my nauseated belly
Until it’s laughable
* * *
10/10, can’t wait for your next one!