Hello it’s me. I’ve got one month until the manuscript of my book is due to my editor. It’s all happening and it’s all very exciting!! I’ve been totally mute on here since February, and it’s been great. For the last few months, not only have i not been on Substack or social, but i haven’t been ingesting the news. one could say i’m purposefully depriving myself of media while writing this book. you gotta do what you gotta do.
I want to share a few ideas, thoughts, and conversations i’ve had over the last few months with people in the real world while taking a break from online media like substack and news.
If you’re having sex with someone, you should be able to openly and honestly discuss sex with them. Why are we so afraid of talking about sex (especially in non-intimate settings!) with the person we are having sex with? Like, I’ve seen your penis. We are grown-ups. We can talk about sex. Also, the best way to talk about sex is when you are fully clothed and eating a meal across the table from them. Try it. Hot, hot hot!
When you’re being faced with an algorithm, day in, day out, can you truly say your opinions, thoughts, style, likes, dislikes, and spending habits, are 100 and truly percent, your own? Sure, we’re all influenced by each other and our environments. But the algorithm makes it so that you believe all people want and like the same thing—and they really don’t!!!! When I got off social (and even the last few months off Substack) I was just reminded how big and vast the world is, and how my opinion is not the end all be all, thank god!!!!! Variety is the spice of life.
I have this vision that world travel, as we know it, will change drastically in the next fifteen years. No longer will we be taking these long inter-continental vacations and trips. Going to Italy for a week in the summer will be a thing of the past!! I think when our kids grow up they’ll be like ‘wow my mom traveled so much’ and they won’t be traveling the way we do. This globalization will come to an end…just a vision.
We are, in our own ways, little worlds, walking around with our own realities, beliefs, rules, and laws. And when we start a relationship with someone else, our worlds collide and it’s a lot of work to communicate and understand that person’s world/sphere. We are like little spheres, and it’s a really cool thing to share your sphere with someone!!!
I re-read a few passages of The Four Agreements the other night, a book I heavily relied on during my self-help era of 2018 and i almost barfed at some of the language. It feels… aged. Anyone else? “Gossip is black magic” it’s giving misogyny and a lack of reality. It uses such harsh perfectionist language. IDK MAN….NOT FOR ME RIGHT NOW.
Is Jay Shetty good (bringing mindfulness to the masses) or a walking advertisement for commercialized, late-stage capitalistic therapy for bros?
A very notable social justice warrior who rose to prominence in 2020 shared her 25-step skincare routine on social media last year, revealing a full makeup rack full of serums, retinols, blushes and brushes for different facial contouring This further proves a belief I have that once we get a taste of fame, we lose so many of our values, we become lost. And no, I don’t think “you can have your cake and eat it too” in this situation- or that criticizing a woman for falling for the industrialized beauty complex is wrong. I just hope she wakes up!
Samson loves crawfish
Sometimes love is detachment
Why aren’t there more perimeters, laws, and user restrictions around digital stalking, i.e. someone continuously following you from platform to platform? So many women I know in my life have exes who stalk them. GMAIL, i’m looking at you!!!
ALSO I’m turning back the paid option on here. I’d love it if you continued to support my work while I finish my book. I’ll pop on here when I can. Your membership (even $5/month) helps greatly!
FALL RETREAT THIS FALL
Tickets for my fall retreat upstate are on sale now. it’s not a digital detox, it’s more of a social media support group. Come one, come allllll!!!!!!!! Tickets start at $360 for 3 days of programming!
In the meantime, while I finish my book, here is an essay I published two years ago that you may have missed. Read it and weep. I can’t really weep, because I’m on Lexapro. But my therapist told me I should devote a few hours this week to trying to weep. I’ll let you know if I do that!
Trying a New Career and Changing Your Mind
In the fall of 2020, I decided to embark on a whole new career trajectory and become an interior designer. I went back to school and attended UCLA’s Interior Design Extension Program. I spent weeks and months thinking about this decision, talking to my close circle, meditating and journaling about it. The idea came to me after doing the Artist’s Way with friends, and it felt like a clear message from the universe. I bought all the supplies. I found an interior design internship. I told my friends, family and Instagram community. I was so ready for this new chapter.
School began in September. Six months later, I quit.
In a perfect world, I would have made the decision to become a designer, loved every moment, and never looked back. In a perfect world, right now, I would be a recent graduate and working at an interior design firm on Park Avenue. As an East Coast child of girl boss culture and hustle mentality, that was what was supposed to happen.
But this is not how the story goes.
I really enjoyed school. I loved it. I had incredible teachers, including Gray Adams, who passed this year. He changed me, as good teachers most often do. He loved art history, and so do I. We shared a mutual love for architecture and storytelling and had some really insightful discussions about the wonders of NYC’s architecture and our favorite historical pieces inside the Met Museum.
Not liking school was not the problem, no no. I loved learning something new. I loved the idea of this career being so different from that of an online blogger. But the problem is, I didn’t enjoy the process of being an interior designer. I am NOT, by design, good with specifications, which is the very foundation of interior design. I am a draw outside the lines kinda girl.
You’ve probably heard the term, “measure twice, cut once”. I am not that. I am more, “don’t measure at all, and return it later!”
Once I figured this out, I spent a few weeks toiling it over in my head. I weighed the sacrifices I’d have to make for myself, with school, work and living independently that I was just not willing to make. My heart, simply put, was not in that career. I very much enjoyed (and still do!) interior design, in fact it is one of my big interests.
I don’t need to turn all of my hobbies or interests into careers.
Wow. A revolutionary thought for me.
I can have things in my life that I just like to do, read about, or spend money on, that bring me joy, but don’t necessarily become my life’s work. In fact, some may say that it is imperative for us to have things outside of work that we do solely for fun. There was a time in my life where I did not have that, and it was very sad.
As I was coming to these realizations, I said to a friend in my interior design program, “I’m considering dropping this class but quitting something goes against all my morals and values,” Her response sprung me into action. “If this isn’t right for you, why waste time and energy on it simply out of principle?”
I realized I was all caught up in a perfect end result. I wanted perfectionism. I cared more about what it would look like from an outsider’s perspective rather than my own. Not dissimilar to when I was 12 years old and was obsessed with viewing myself through the lens of others. Shaping my own identity via how others perceived me.
I have no regrets about trying interior design. It was such a great experience. I made new friends and learned a lot along the way, with the most important lesson being that it is something I did not want to do. And that, my friend, is priceless.
wow, how much i love to readh all of this !! thank u
This letter mail was so raw... Loved every words of it, Lee :)