💫 Embracing the cringe + recent reads
Happy January!
Hello from the first newsletter of 2024! Buckle up for some real earnest rambling:
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve discovered that I really like this time of year: The quiet, self-reflective lull that surrounds January as everyone hunkers down and turns toward the year ahead, planning how they want it to look or how they want to evolve. I like that there’s something a little witchy about it—all this manifestation—and that it’s a time we’ve all kind of collectively decided we’re going to hunker down and not leave the house (my preferred state, as I am part hermit crab).
The past few years I’ve been really extra about the whole thing and created a bullet pointed list of goals I’d like to accomplish (ugh, I know), and I was looking back at 2023’s and realized I’d actually crossed off a few, one of which included starting this Substack. I’d wanted to do it for so long, but I’d dragged my feet because doing this kind of thing is, at its very core, well, pretty cringe. Call it a vulnerability hangover or what have you, but I find it a little painfully embarrassing to ask for other people’s attention, which is essentially what something like this does—you’re shooting it out into the internet, to everyone you know on social media (your relatives, your friends, all those dudes you dated who now seem to be really into having beards as a means working through some shit) and saying “Hey, I think I have something you might want to read if you have time? Maybe?? I dunno??? Could be cool????” (At least, that’s how it goes if you’re me. It’s so fun!!!!!) As someone who writes things for a living, I’ve already had to grapple with this on some level, but writing this newsletter feels different—I’m not standing behind the logo of an outlet. It’s just me.
The turning point for me was realizing that allowing the cringe to control you means you stay stagnant: You don’t put out anything into the world, because the possibility of people not liking it, of you “failing”—whatever that means—is more powerful than the possibility that they could. So you make yourself smaller than what you’re capable of being and just cruise along, never knowing what could have been. And, honestly, I’ve realized that the thought of staying exactly the same my entire life is scarier to me than some people online rolling their eyes at what I’m doing.
This is all starting to sound very Oprah, I know, and you’re probably like, wow, I didn’t think such a thing was possible but maybe this chick has been through TOO much therapy, to which I’ll say—you might be right! But what I’m trying to get at is that one of my goals for this year is to embrace the cringe. Lean into it. Become BFFLs with it. Little kids are spectacularly great at this: They still play and create freely, because they haven’t yet realized the world makes you feel like you should be embarrassed of doing this, of being a little weird or loud or claiming space in the name of imagination.
And, of course, leaning into the cringe doesn’t have to apply to just creative stuff—it could be advocating for yourself at work, or having a really uncomfortable yet necessary conversation with your partner, or finally getting up the courage to take rock-climbing lessons even though, yes, that little harness thing will probably give you a weird-looking wedgie and the guy holding the ropes below you will have a full-on view of it as you flop around on the wall like an airborne carp. All cringe! But all necessary steps in becoming a more evolved, more expansive you.
Really, what I’m trying to say is: I hope this year you can be a little more cringe, and thanks for witnessing my cringe. I promise you—there is much, much more cringe to come.
Okay! I will now leap down off my self-help pulpit and get to the point: Books. I had big plans of doing an end of year round-up in December, but I was hitting the holiday sugar pretty hard back then and just couldn’t get my shit together. Expect a post soon on the books I’m most excited to read in 2024, but in the meantime—here are some things I’ve read recently and enjoyed:
📚You, Again by Kate Goldbeck
Think: A modern-day retelling of When Harry Met Sally. Great Dialogue. Excellent LOLs.
📚The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue
Think: A Sally Rooney-esque story about two young friends navigating love and their early 20s in Ireland. Funnier than Rooney, in a quiet/sneaky way, yet also really poignant and extremely well-written.
📚Milk Fed by Melissa Broder
Think: A kinda trippy story with Big Swiss/Nightbitch vibes about a woman struggling with an eating disorder who becomes infatuated with another woman. Weird, very well-written, darkly funny.
📚Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen
Think: A satirical story concerning a Trump-esque president and one of his ardent, far-right followers who is swallowed alive by a huge python in Palm Beach and thus kicks off a wild, delightful romp of a murder mystery. My first Hiaasen ever, and now I am absolutely obsessed with everything this dude writes.
📚I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai
Think: A fictional take on true crime with a literary twist, following a woman who goes back to teach at her boarding school and begins to poke around in a murder that occurred when she was a student there. If you love this, I’d recommend another of her books, The Great Believers —it was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer!
📚Everything’s Fine by Cecilia Rabess
Think: A love story-meets-meditation on identity and race about a young Black woman navigating a job at Goldman Sachs and then beginning a relationship with a conservative white man leading up to the election of Trump. I absolutely loved this book—the writing is great and very funny, in a kind of subtle way—but it’s also smart, topical, and extremely thought-provoking.