032: Some Things I Should Have Sent
Hi friends!
It’s going to be a short letter from me this week folks. Life took an unexpected turn about 10 days ago and suddenly I’m back working at the museum I was laid off from in April of last year. While I’m delighted to be back it has meant that this week I’ve been much busier than normal juggling two part-time jobs and my freelance work, and couldn’t spend as much time on this as I would like. Hopefully in the coming weeks everything will settle down and I can spend more time here!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the new features I introduced last month for paying subscribers—new articles from other writers and the Dear Dorothy advice column. If you’re getting this in your inbox, hit reply and let me know what you think.
Some text messages I wanted to send this week but didn’t:
What I wanted to send: Could you please just be honest with me for once in your life, instead of jerking me around to the tune of a drum line only you hear?
What I actually sent: That sounds true, lol.
What I wanted to send: Dude, you’re being creepy AF and I hate it! Why are you doing this? What gave you the idea that I would like this?
What I actually sent: Cool. I’m too busy this week.
What I wanted to send: I’d love to, but I’m afraid I’m probably not very good company right now. You see, I’ve been spiraling around a pit of depression for a couple of weeks now and while ultimately I know I’ll be fine and probably I just need to get some sleep and to rest for a day, right this second I’m panicking about being a bad friend. And so while I’d love to catch up (yay!) my fear that my depression makes me less fun will cause me to spiral about being too miserable for my friends. And while you might walk away from dinner thinking, “That was nice!” I will walk away from dinner being like, “Omg my friend hates me, I’ve ruined our friendship with my being terrible and sucking at life,” and I really don’t want to do that. And of course I’m telling you all this because I don’t want you to think I’m avoiding you and destroy our friendship that way, not for pity or sympathy or anything, I’m just really afraid that people won’t understand and and and…
What I actually sent: I’d love to catch up! I’m really busy this week, but how about late next week?
What I wanted to send: Hey! I know we haven’t spoken in ten months, but I’m back at the museum and it made me think of you. I hope you’re well. Would love to catch up some time, if you’re up for it.
What I actually sent:
What I wanted to send: I wish we were still friends. Our friendship was such a toxic nightmare by the end of it, but I wish you had wanted to fix that instead of just bailing. I’ve heard through the grapevine that your marriage is struggling and stuff is bad with your family and I wish I could be there for you, but that’s what our friendship always was, wasn’t it? Me being there for you, and you taking advantage of me.
What I actually sent: [Accidental SOS Emergency Alert Notification]
Currently Reading:
I started reading Ninth House this week after putting it off for a while. Something about a character named Galaxy was really off-putting to me back when this book won the Goodreads Reader’s Choice Award in 2019. But several people whose opinions I really respect recommended it and so I finally gave it a chance. I’m so glad that I did.
Unlike Bacchanal, which didn’t hold up to how it had been marketed, this book is somehow even more than I was expecting. The prologue stunned me in a way that I haven’t been impressed in a long time. Bardugo paints a picture of a universe just adjacent to our own in a way that makes me feel like I could reach out and touch it. Not that I would want to. There is some content warnings that need to be made for it—sexual assault being a big one, but also drug abuse, self-harm, suicide, and torture—but I knew that in advance and prepped myself for it before diving in. It’s certainly not young adult fantasy because it doesn’t seem optimistic about…anything, really.
Galaxy, who goes by Alex (thank god), is a freshman at Yale, but just about the most unlikely one ever. She is there not due to academic success, but because she can see Grays, a sort of ghost-like existence some people take up post-death. At Yale, the eight “club” houses do all kinds of ritualized magic and they need someone from a very secret ninth house to watch over their rituals, someone who can spot danger coming from ‘the other side,’ someone like Alex to protect them. But is she able to put her own trauma—drug abuse, and an unsolved brutal homicide—aside to protect the other students?
As always, thank you for reading. If you want to respond just hit reply. Feel free to tell me what text message you wish you had sent this week. Your message will get to me (and only me). If you liked this and think your friends might too:
Have you read this month’s article from Dr. Anna Maria Barry? It’s a fascinating look at how tea was used in Victorian Gothic fiction.
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All the best, friends!
Valorie