Newsletter Therapy
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Now for something completely different...
Hey Reader! I’m taking a break from newsletter advice this week to get all bossy about something new. Shopping. If you know me well, you might be wondering why I’m giving advice about something I dislike so much. I’ll tell you: I spent years helping people declutter their homes and offices and calendars and lives. And the number one way to battle clutter? Avoid bringing stuff into your home to begin with. The holidays are upon us, and gift-giving is the celebratory activity we seem to be...
Coincidence? I think not.
Hey Reader! Ok, so I subscribe to a LOT of newsletters. Tips on living with ADHD (I’m not diagnosed, but suspicious). An overview of recently published novels (TBR list is longer than my commute). A link roundup from an ultramarathoner (don’t have to do it if I read about it). So, yeah, I hear from a lot of experts on the regular. Recently I realized that the newsletters I’ve stuck with over the years have this in common: they look the same every week. Not to say I don’t hear from their...
We all turn into our parents
Hey Reader! Talking about the weather is a trope, right? Like, the most boring conversation of all time? In college my friend Valerie and I used to make fun of our parents for bringing the weather into every conversation. 🙄 I mean, for real. Didn’t they have anything interesting to say? My family was stuck in gray, blustery New Hampshire while we lived and learned in gorgeously sunny Colorado. They were likely angling for a chance to remind me that their weather was pretty much always worse...
I love an It Girl
Hey Reader! When I was 15 one of the cool girls in my high school called me by name. Meaning that she KNEW MY NAME. 🙀 Which felt kind of miraculous, if I’m being honest. Because while I wasn't an outcast or anything, I was hardly in the upper social echelons. In retrospect it doesn’t seem quite so momentous that she was aware of my existence; we went to school together, after all. But at the time I was thrilled beyond measure. Then it happened again at my current job. The very coolest girl,...
Eras tour, Julia’s version
Hey Reader! I fell into a wormhole of the time-warp variety over the weekend. The setting was Eugene, Oregon, where I misspent a chunk of my youth with a cast of characters who all deserve their own reality shows. It was a reunion of sorts, though that term is generally used by an organization of some kind (family, high school, summer camp) and this was more a collection of people who used to hang out together. The surreality of spending time in a place I no longer inhabit with people I no...
I also love leftovers
Hey Reader! I posted a thing. It was designed, of course, to be attention-grabbing. But then I ran headlong into the whole concept of following through on saying something out loud. And then came the regret. Here’s what happened: I posted yet another picture of myself wearing a white shirt. At the time I thought, damn, I should wear something else one of these days or every picture will look exactly the same. But the thing is, I wear white shirts almost every day. I have a big collection of...
Never have I ever
Hey Reader! You know how sometimes you’re low-key stressed 😣 about a thing and then you finally decide to face that thing head-on 💪🏻 only to realize it’s not only NOT a mountain 🚫, but the molehill it may have been has been abandoned by its rodent residents, rejected even by the ants 🐜, and is now merely a pile of dirt? 🏔️→ 🧹 Yeah, that just happened to me. I was in a membership. A super fantastic, really helpful, totally-worth-the-money membership. ✨ I attended weekly for years. But then...
I'm a dork 🙄
Hey Reader! I may have been hit on a couple of weeks ago. Weird turn of phrase, right? It invokes unwelcome attention, and this wasn’t that. The thing is, I’m pretty sure this good-looking, normal-seeming guy asked me for my phone number. But at the time? I totally missed it. I was at work, helping him design closets for a condo he’s… building? Renovating? I’m a little hazy on the details. Maybe it’s more of an ADU situation. But he needed closet space and wasn’t totally clear on what the...
Yoda was wrong?
Hey Reader! It's the end of the year and the garden needs all kinds of cleaning up. 🍂 And as usual I'm wondering how I've spent years working at it only to have it look the way it does. Which is to say, terrific - if you're not looking at it through my specific set of eyeballs. 👀 Because while I've been working on my yards (or gardens, or plots of land, or whatever) for 20 years now they don't look, I guess, the way I think 20 years of concerted effort should look. But the thing is, I'm not A...
Weird trait for a rebel
Hey Reader! I carry a heavy load of youngest-child don’t-tell-me-what-to-do. That, plus maybe a hint of ADHD, keep me on the rebel’s edge. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. When I heard that phrase it was like someone gave me a personal catchphrase. I’ll do it my way, thanks. Which is maybe why my colleagues at various jobs are surprised when I volunteer to write SOPs for every conceivable task. Last week at my thank-you-for-the-health-insurance job I suggested writing out processes for...
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