Cruel Compendium #54 🌶️

Summer reading, being annoying, and Hot Girl Walks

Jun 6, 2023

Oi! June 1 marked my second anniversary in Austin! That feels about right.

I met up with the Hot Girl Walk group in Austin last week for the first time! About 40 girlies showed up, plus 10 sweet doggos. I met several other first-timers in the group and felt comforted that so many people are seeking fresh community, and are bold enough to go out there and find it.

I got into a conversation with my walking partner about how I’ve worked my ass off to find new friends for two years, and it can feel exhausting. Which is why meetups, where social interaction with strangers is built into whatever activity you’re doing, feel like such a relief from the constant pressure I put on myself to “be brave” and meet new people. (I usually set myself up for disappointment trying to reach an impossible bar of outgoing-ness.) There are Hot Girl Walk groups in lots of cities now! This is your sign to go check one out on a beautiful summer evening.

Last week, I wrote about Samuel T. Herring of Future Islands, one of my favorite Artist Daddies. An Artist Daddy is a nongendered term for people who live a creative life and inspire you to do so as well. Several of you had your own stories to share about being mesmerized by Herring’s dance moves and crushing vocals. His power is growing…

On to the links!

What I’m reading

I finished Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, which is such a zippy, comforting read packed with valuable advice for setting your soul free. I also blew through two of Andy Cohen’s diaries, including his newest, The Daddy Diaries. Highly recommend for a summer beach read, but beware it may make you miss the frenetic, fun life you once lived in New York City (or maybe that’s just me).

The annoying act of telling people what you do by Marlee Grace. Such a great read on making peace with the fact that you have to market yourself, and “not being annoying” is not your problem!

So if you feel like you are being annoying, try accepting this part of yourself rather than fighting to “not be annoying”. I have stopped fighting it and it rules! Instead of trying to fix or change the part of you that hates making a newsletter to tell us about your next online class (that is probably going to change people’s lives) why don’t you instead think - this might be annoying to some people and may those people find what is right for them or may they stay here with me and benefit from my work.

Defeating fear by Elise Loehnen

“…negative energy is intentionally not logical: Not only are you not supposed to understand it or figure it out, BUT YOU ACTUALLY CAN’T. It’s designed to be incomprehensible, yet almost decipherable. And it catches us in its maw because it is our nature to understand: What's wrong with this person? Why would they do this to me/us? What's their beef? We desperately want to understand because we’re convinced that if we figure it out, we can figure out the antidote and set ourselves free. If we sate its appetite, it will leave us in peace and move on.
Meanwhile, Jakki offers that the opposite is true: Trying to figure it out is what keeps us engaged. It’s how the negative energy feeds and keeps us attached. We become its power source. And the more logic and rationality fails us, the more distraught we become, digging our heels in deeper on our quest to make it make sense.

Summer reading assignment: Get a library card by Austin Kleon. My library card is a source of enormous joy in my life!

How to forget what you read from The Imperfectionist newsletter

“But consider also the possibility that spending half an hour reading something interesting or moving or awe-inspiring or just amusing might be worth doing, not only for some other, future reason, but for the sake of that very half hour of being alive.”

I’m listening to:

So fascinated by act two of this episode of “This American Life” in which a woman talks about how she has no sense of introspection. Her brain just doesn’t work that way!

Questionable self-care advice

Support system

Vision board

Obsessions

⌨️ 1000 Words of Summer starts June 17
🐶 Cone of shame photography by Winnie Au via Girls’ Night In
✍️ Kate Boogaard’s merch for freelancers (I love her newsletter!)
⛔ I loved the tips and resources in Ashley Broadwater’s newsletter on rejection as a freelancer
📅 4 stress-reducing Google Calendar settings — these are really useful!
📉 Rates of death by cancer declined in every congressional district
💸 Are you middle class? What your income says about you, your community, and the country—and why 87% of Americans identify as middle class.
🌻 My kind of catcalls
🧊 My friend saw this TikTok and said “I’ve never had ice tell me I’m poor before.”
🧊🧊🧊 Americans are obsessed with ice! (No one more so than my own mother.)
🥰 Succession but everyone succeeds and has a nice time

Cruel Summer Book Club

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