Wowowow I haven’t written a Daily Drip since September! I’m sorry. Or am I? I announced some months ago that you’d be receiving less of these so I could prioritize more focused pieces, so I guess I’ve just stuck to my word. But then my girlfriend texted me yesterday, “Daily Drips are my favorite!” and now I have to re-evaluate my entire life. Us people pleasers… pathetic sacks of superfluous devotion.
For those of you who’ve subscribed during this hiatus, Daily Drips are my way of documenting what I’m up to and into on any given day. You can read an example here. They’re sometimes brief and shallow but more often scrape *at least* the stratum corneum of my soul.
I have a love-hate relationship with these things. I love their ability to keep the wheels greased. Like, I’d recommend habitually recording your thoughts and interests *specifically in list form* to anyone, writer or not, because it makes journaling less intimidating, IMO. It helps build intimacy with yourself and that seems theoretically worthwhile. (I’ll report back in a few years.) Bonus points if you go Sylvia Plath and record your meals.
But I hate the way Daily Drips make me feel pressured to consume. Many weeks I don’t have some thought-provoking article to share, or a polarizing fashion trend to dissect. I’m just existing as an offline normie with my corporate job and my Poodle and my running schedule and my next Amazon Prime delivery. I often don’t even have a lingering thought worth sharing. That’s the thing about being a Publicly Online Person, though. You tend to think you need to lead this interesting life that’s free from icky things, like fast fashion and fast food. That each passing thought should be so soft, so pliable with wisdom that you can roll it between your hands, shape it into something memorable. But you are just another person trying to get by. You just happen to be making art of it.
Blogging, particularly in the newsletter space, has forced me to make peace with my moments of smooth-brainedness. Until my dreams of being a professional over-thinker are actualized, I will be under-thinking as means of surviving the matrix.
Now, I think I owe you a Daily Drip.
Quote of the Week: I’m going to share with you this insane passage from Anaïs Nin’s Henry & June because it’s been sitting on my chest for a while…
A hotel room, for me, has an implication of voluptuousness, furtive, short lived. Perhaps my not seeing Henry has heightened my hunger. I masturbate often, luxuriously, without remorse or after distaste. For the first time I know what it is to eat. I have gained four pounds. I get frantically hungry, and the food I eat gives me a lingering pleasure. I never ate before in this deep carnal way. I have only three desires now, to eat, to sleep, and to fuck. The cabarets excite me. I want to hear raucous music, to see faces, to brush against bodies, to drink fiery Benedictine. Beautiful women and handsome men arouse fierce desires in me. I want to dance. I want drugs. I want to know perverse people, to be intimate with them. I never look at naive faces. I want to bite into life, and to be torn by it. Henry does not give me all this. I have aroused his love. Curse his love. He can fuck me as no one else can, but I want more than that. I’m going to hell, hell, hell. Wild, wild, wild.
Eating: Trader Joe’s makes these mini ice cream cones that I am addicted to. The chocolate ones are especially divine. It’s weird. I’m a huge chocolate lover, but I would normally always choose vanilla ice cream without hesitation. This chocolate ice cream is different, though. I won’t go on but just know that I could.
Drinking: A decaf iced americano with cream. Ever the dairy apologist. Pair this with the aforementioned cone and the obscure hour of 9:53 PM and it feels like a weekend in Rome. I mean fucking duh I’m still mourning my return to America.
Feeling: More anxious than maybe… ever??? This Sunday is the Philadelphia Marathon. My first full marathon. What I’ve spent the past four months training for. And to make matters scarier, over the last two weeks, I have nursed both a quad strain and plantar fasciitis, rendering me couch-bound and without a proper taper. Today was actually the first day I felt near total relief in my foot, which feels like a good sign, but I’m also convinced a piano will fall from the sky and crush me as I’m walking to the starting line Sunday morning, so…
People ask me every day if I feel ready to run the marathon. All my life, even the rare test I studied hours for, I’d go into it assuming the worst. So likewise, I assume I will not be able to complete 26.2 miles, despite preparation. But I am clinging to the presence and joy I found in training. I’ve had this gut feeling for years that if I could suck it up, the marathon would be my race. That cracking open that door of slowwww endurance would be more spiritually rewarding than anything I’ve ever experienced. I can already vouch for it. Even if Sunday goes to shit, sixteen weeks of LSD (long slow distance!) has reaffirmed my existence. So I guess, yeah, I’m ready.
I’m less ready to get bangs this week, which I scheduled, too. Since chopping my hair to my chin in 2020 and seeing how fast it grew back, part of me feels this smug, impish “hehehe I can do whatever I want and I’ll look the same again in a month.” Am I risking an identity crisis just before seasonal depression really sets in? Yes. Do I expect all of you, who are mostly strangers, to support me through this? Also yes. People associate getting bangs with some state of iPhone-shaped paranoia. But tbh I just saw some old red carpet pics of Penelope Cruz and thought, “ok yeah.”
Weekend Recap: We had some of Andrew’s friends over for dinner and drinks. Boys’ night plus me is always fun. Girls make everything better so obviously I provide a healthy amount of color. Not to mention, now that I’m not totally floundering financially, I can be a good host like I’d always dreamt of. This is to say it is not enough for me to just provide pizza and wings (though both were certainly provided). No, I made mac & cheese with aged gouda and farfalle… lightly dressed some organic romaine in lemon, good Sicilian olive oil, and Maldon. Guac and chips with the chips in a nice, glass bowl instead of the bag because that is what a good host does: shifts things from the perfectly fine container they come in to another completely unnecessary container for optics. I’m dramatizing that to make it sound absurd. It’s really not. Presentation makes a huge difference in the experience. It’s like how I feel infinitely more luxurious when I use someone’s bathroom and they have cotton swabs and floss picks in little glass jars on the sink.
Anyway… I love these guys because it’s never the basic “put a game on and banter” situation. We sit in a TV-less room and talk about religion and the universe all night. I know that sounds corny and contrived, but it’s an underrated experience to have natural, free-flowing conversation around life beyond whatever “this” is. One of them had actually spent the year transcribing a 1,000 page spiritual text and had all of this intense energy to share (in a somehow inspiring, non-culty way). I’m still dragging my feet on forming some semblance of spiritual discipline, so it was a good kick in the butt, too.
Then Saturday, we spent the day at Andrew’s parents’ celebrating his mom’s birthday. I’ll never miss an opportunity to brag about the wonders of being welcomed into a big, New Jersey Italian family. The spread—everything from fresh focaccia and mortadella to meatballs to eggplant parm to chocolate cake—plus all the laughter and homemade wine, it’s like a fucking Olive Garden commercial but with good food (no shade to endless soup, salad, and breadsticks, though). It’s crazy that in a year and a half, I will be a “daughter-in-law.” A “sister-in-law.” These titles get lost in the sweet delirium of being “wife,” but they’re honestly just as special to me. The bonus of finding your soulmate is falling in love with their family, too.
Thinking: About Burning Man. I don’t know what switch flipped in my brain, but over the weekend, Burning Man went from a distant curiosity to a full-blown research project. I’m still undecided if it’s something I should experience. But I am at least mentally locked in. Burning Man drives a ton of reasonable discourse each year. Some popular topics include:
Its evolution from what it once was to what it is today
How an institution predicated on decommodification can be so expensive and inaccessible, even elitist
Speaking of elitism, how it’s become a playground for tech bros, celebrities, and influencers (one could argue that’s part of the “what it once was vs what it is today” conversation, but it’s been cited that wealthy, powerful folks have attended for decades; social media just lets the world see it now)
The environmental impact
A lot of people look at Burning Man as, essentially, naked Coachella. A spectacle where out-of-touch elites indulge their most hedonistic desires under the guise of spiritual transformation, art, etc., leaving a trail of toxic sludge in their wake. But it isn’t a festival, for one; it is people returning to the apocalyptic conditions of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert each year to build a temporary city, grounded in radical inclusion, self-expression, and respect for the land. Some of this is laid out in the 10 principles of the event. How those principles actually hold up, I cannot say. Burning Man doesn’t accurately align with any one political ideology, but I think anything that claims certain socialist values, yet proves itself vastly libertarian, is bound to be contentious.
Alex Olshonsky offers fantastic insight and rounds up some of the spicier Burning Man literature from this year in his recent piece on “postmodern malaise.” This 2019 piece from NPR was helpful in examining the reality of their “leave no trace” philosophy. Still, upon parsing through it all, I only found myself shrugging at the familiarity. The paradox of nearly any source of purchased pleasure under advanced capitalism. How trite and flimsy the criticism feels without the context of other large-scale events. I think some of the social ills of the last three years will only be mended by the Burning Mans of the world. I think this because festivals and festival-like things are my only barometer for witnessing mass dissolution of ego. Nonetheless, I have a lot more research to do before I form a legitimate opinion, much less find myself trekking solo to the playa.
Working on: The next edition of Bootleg Therapy. You’ll hear from a dude who struggles with meeting girls who are obsessed with having children, as well as a guy who feels ashamed of the money he spends on sites like OnlyFans. This time, I made a call for requests from cis hetero men. Oh no, she gave *them* the mic!? I know, baby, I know. But I think we shape a better culture of testosterone the more we invite them to open up emotionally. You know this. Fellas, we’re crying into each other’s shoulders all 2023. And remember, you can submit a request for advice anonymously on brokebutmoisturized.com.
The holidays are sneaking up! Give the gift of this newsletter *or* purchase your very own BBM dad cap here. And as always, if you appreciate the time and effort that goes into Broke But Moisturized, upgrading from free to paid is a kind bit of encouragement. Thanks for reading! <3