What I’ve learned in the two years since: shooting a roll on a half-frame camera takes TIME. Working with a range of 48-72 photos, depending on the kind of 35mm film you’re using and how many exposures it allows, is not the easiest feat. I like to think of myself as someone who shoots with intention but with so many images available, it’s tempting to go quick. However, with this camera especially, if you hit the shutter too haphazardly, a blurry image is all but guaranteed.

TL;DR: shooting a half-frame is a balancing game. On one hand, you want to be thoughtful about what you’re capturing, such as thinking about the composition and how two things will look side-by-side, but on the other, it’s just as tempting to shoot as spontaneously as possible and see where you land. Most of the time, because it takes so long to finish a roll, I completely have forgotten what I’ve taken pictures of, which is absolutely also part of the fun.

Anyway, general musings aside, here are five (aka ten) of my favorite shots from the roll I just got back from ye ole scanner.

And there you have it! I’ve started shooting my next role, so see you in 2-3 months when I get through it.

There will never be another Pee-wee Herman. For the technical thinker, this is a given. For the nostalgia junky, myself included, we’d be hard-pressed to believe that if the strange, subversive and whimsical world of Pee-wee first emerged today, it’d be warmly welcomed by studio execs. And that’s not for a lack of people trying to create their own beloved, iconoclastic characters or working tirelessly to push eccentrically brilliant storylines forward.

This is because, today, creative choices are conservative choices. A time in culture where doing anything other than safely fulfilling a ubiquitous market need is actively discouraged by corporate infrastructure – until proven to be popular, profitable or patent-able. While the entertainment industry has always operated in this vein to a degree, the streaming and social media era has opened the floodgates of mainstream mediocrity even wider, making it that much more difficult for off-the-beaten-path ideas to flourish. We’re navigating a time where even entire feature films can be haphazardly scrapped after post-production is complete for tax write-off purposes (Warner Bros.’ $90 million dollar “Batgirl”) and streamers aren’t even making their own original content available on their platforms indefinitely (HBO’s “Westworld” or “Raised by Wolves”). How does one rise above that kind of ruthless C-suite decision-making in hopes of creating something meaningful?

These were among my first thoughts upon hearing the gut-wrenching news that the award-winning actor and comedian Paul Reubens died after privately fighting cancer the last six years. In a statement written before his passing at the age of 70, Reubens shared, “I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.” This simple expression of gratitude reflects how, in the end, it was about the experience of creating authentically that stuck by him, not commercial success. That’s a beautiful legacy, and one that feels increasingly rare to achieve these days.

First debuting in 1977, the Pee-wee Herman character was born out of improvisational sketches cultivated as part of Reubens’ experience at the Groundlings in Los Angeles, where he met longtime collaborators Phil Hartman and John Paragon. Over time, the character was further refined and developed, strengthened by sold-out stage shows, an HBO special and impactful guest appearances on “Late Night with David Letterman.” This all led to the now-classic 1985 feature film, “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” the Emmy Award-winning children’s series that ran from 1986 to 1991 on CBS.

While Reubens’ highly publicized indecent exposure arrest in 1991 would, as the Associated Press put it, “send the character into entertainment exile for years,” the cultural influence of Pee-wee remains both undeniable across generations and unfeasible to summarize in a few short paragraphs. You didn’t have to grow up in the 80s or 90s to see how Pee-wee — and the man beneath the bow tie — was special; a true one of one. He not only was given creative control by television executives at CBS but he ran with it completely and fearlessly, embodying how artistic value and cultural impact stretches beyond what any kind of numbers on a spreadsheet may (or may not) reflect.

Pee-wee Herman serves as a reminder that behind every creative pioneer is someone who took a chance or believed in a vision, and provided resources to help that exploration and execution beyond an initial “proof of concept” stage. Today, the odds are increasingly stacked against those trying to do something different, in favor of tried and tested intellectual property that is easier to justify in the boardroom. Currently, we are robbing ourselves of potentially iconic, groundbreaking work because studios would rather expand the Marvel universe than spend time and money and creative energy taking a chance on new ones.

Recently, potential layoffs and financial cuts at Turner Classic Movies riled up renowned directors Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson to the point of them personally getting involved. They called an emergency meeting with Warner Bros. head David Zaslav to protect the channel from a short-sighted restructuring that would have accelerated a regrettable demise of the heralded film network. But what happens when even those with influence of such magnitude can’t successfully convince an unwavering stalwart of protecting a company’s bottom line that art (regardless of medium) is worth preserving or worth investing in despite the possibility of not raking in massive profits?

We’re seeing this question remain unanswered with every passing day of the still-ongoing Writers Guild of America strike. Currently, the major studios that make up the majority of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers aren’t willing to budge an inch during negotiations, even when it could be just as simple as giving up less than 1% of their annual profits. Hollywood has already (reportedly) said the quiet part out loud, with a studio executive anonymously telling Deadline, “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.”

Now, with the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) joining the strike — facing similar battles for residuals and AI protections — existential threats holding the very real potential to eliminate entire career paths hang tangibly in the balance. With so much at stake in today’s competitive attention economy, it’s easy to understand how things like reboots, revivals and new franchise installments are safe bets. However, at what point does injecting the next semi-forgettable TV series or a subpar film with familiar IP take it from passable programming to mere background noise for those thumbing through TikTok?

From tasking writers with creating jokes that will “land” on social media (a phenomenon that has already backfired) to adding more pressure to already-shrinking writer’s rooms as a way to cut costs to attempting to turn to generative AI for answers (shortcuts), studios and streamers seem to be doubling down on the now-blatant expectation that on-screen stories must become massive commercial successes or spawn sequels to warrant being made in the first place, all while doing the opposite to support the creative minds they rely on.

In decades prior, VHS and DVD sales helped give showrunners and networks more opportunities to make mistakes and learn from them, because if something didn’t do well in theaters, there was a secondary market that benefited creators and investors financially, while also entertaining smaller, niche audiences. There was also more forgiveness in things like changing schedules on linear TV or giving characters time to marinate or grow even if initial ratings didn’t yield much promise. Reubens’ Pee-wee was given the grace of being able to experiment in real time, delighting audiences with quirks that most likely wouldn’t have been given the chance to fly today. In today’s streaming age, such freedom is seemingly kept on luxury reserve.

Crushingly common fates include shows being canceled, despite cultivating a fandom, before there’s a proper conclusion (i.e. Netflix’s “The OA” or NBC’s “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist”) or audiences worrying that a show’s record-breaking success may result in executives being tempted to run it into the ground (i.e. the will-they-won’t-they season 4 of “Ted Lasso” or the prospect of infinite seasons of HBO’s “White Lotus”). With these odds increasingly stacking up against genuine exploration of talent and potential, how is someone supposed to be creative at all? Alternatively, when will playing it this safe simply get old?

Testing the limits of such luck, Mattel is now working against its reputed 78-year history as a toy manufacturer to instead become primarily known as an “IP company” to the point that someone suggested in earnest they create a movie based on the card game Uno or the Magic 8 Ball and someone else said, ‘Yes, of course’ — to both. Reading their forthcoming plans to continue on the path that the tremendously successful and wildly brilliant “Barbie” movie forged reads like parody, with the company currently developing projects inspired by “Barney,” “Polly Pocket,” “Thomas and Friends,” “American Girl,” “Masters of the Universe,” “Wishbone,” “Matchbox,” and “Hot Wheels.” Plus, there’s also a “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots” movie starring Vin Diesel in the works. Because why wouldn’t there be? With massive talent already attached to some of these freshly announced projects, it’s clear Mattel is embodying a ‘go big or go home’ mantra. None of this is all that surprising, but similar to those saying reality TV will “get us through” any lulls in content caused by the dual strikes, it is bittersweet to think ‘this is it, this is the entertainment we deserve.’

Even as it feels like the walls of wonder are closing in, the best way to honor the legacy of characters like Pee-wee Herman is to take rebellious risks, invest in those looking to inspire through their own distinctive voices and continue fighting against a far too normalized system that prioritizes profits over creative pursuit. Otherwise, we deserve what the algorithm dictates and that will be a travesty of incomprehensible consequence.

Thank you to Kim Bucci and Colleen Coburn for the tactful edits and kind feedback, and to Matt Mauldin, for having hours-long conversations with me while I was putting all of these rambling thoughts and ideas into words.

I have been ~planning to plan~ to return to myself — my writer self — for what feels like ages now. I can joke this is just my Virgo moon talking or whatever excuse sounds either convincing or convenient, but I have felt like the human embodiment of ‘all talk, no walk’ for far too long when it comes to my own creative practice.

Every time I find myself magnetically drawn to the book aisle at Target (sorry, it’s my closest grocery store, shit happens) or my travels have brought me to an actual bookstore, I think about the sheer volume of it all. There are so many books out there, and so many more being written, signed, published, printed, marketed, distributed and devoured on a routine basis. So many books and things, happening all the time. I think about what I personally could add to the conversation, about what feels deserving to be on a shelf or bound by the page or adapted for a screen of any size or published in or for any medium really. And then admittedly I come up short.

It’s frustrating to think how the machine that doesn’t slow or stop is simply working exactly as it was designed to. I think of those churning out #content on the regular. I think of those who have to feed an algorithm to pay their bills and those who are working insane (unpaid) hours to attempt to get to that level, as well as those who just want to try to stand out amongst the collective noise and maybe get some sort of satisfaction or recognition back in return. In that environment and in these times, how do you determine what is of value or what belongs or what creative idea is worthy of pursuing?

I can’t pinpoint exactly when or why it happened to me, but somewhere throughout the past few years, throughout all of the mass death, sickness, poverty, racism, conspiracy, inflation, layoffs, literal war and whatever late, late stage of the capitalistic drain we’re circling, I’ve felt bad or guilty or undeserving of taking up a little space. On the internet, in the industry and sometimes even in my own home. It’s like this idea that whatever I have to say isn’t as compelling or as important or worthy as the next person’s experience has consumed my entire being. It’s felt as though whatever it is rattling around in my head has already been said, already been experienced and already been forgotten about.

It almost feels like the excuse to not sit down and write or create has become a real, tangible creature; one that has grown furry little legs and glaring eyes and sits in the corner and watches me, no matter what room I am in. It’s a darkness that is all-consuming and convinces you to wade deeper into it, but also becomes so comical once you address it and call it out by name. Once you recognize it as imposter syndrome or depression or laziness, its power weakens.

Ultimately, it’s been so much easier to give a corporate job all of my creative energy than to preserve some of that for myself. While I am proud of the work I’ve done in the professional realm in recent years, none of that work belongs to me or is a perfectly authentic representation of my identity or self-expression. I think that lowkey sucks, honestly. Is my legacy going to be that I always showed up, met deadlines, worked well with others and got it done? Is that enough?

After two decades of actively being a writer (both personally and professionally), I don’t want to feel like this is it. That I’ve done the thing. I want to trust that there is more and there is always going to be more. Infinite possibilities, infinite timelines.

If we’ve spoken on a Real Talk Level™ in recent months, it’s likely we’ve talked about how I finally feel that much closer to being on the other side of my existential crisis. But, I’m still not sure I know exactly what that means or where it will lead. We’re getting there, I want to believe; word to Fox Mulder. So here we are. Once again, I am reintroducing myself. Emerging from the cocoon. Ready to allow myself to be imperfect, to allow myself time to practice. To work through whatever it is I need to, or better yet, want to. I know I have so much left inside me that I want to discover, document and dare to let be.

As I’ve learned and am learning, all we (I) need to do is truly surrender to the reality that creative expression is never going to be perfect, because perfect is an empty page. And that’s a boring tragedy right there.

There's somewhat of a blog resurgence happening and I'm here for it.

The past couple weeks, I've particularly enjoyed seeing emails come through notifying me that someone in my sweeping—and increasingly random—digital network has returned to (or started) using newsletter platforms. Such a trend may be due to the potentially universal nod social media is in its flop era. Twitter has gone to shit, the Instagram algorithm hasn't favored me since 2019 AT LEAST, I feel too old for TikTok and Facebook is only good for lol-cringing at what you posted on there some 14, 15 years ago. I don't think any of us have the answers or the willpower to stop using every social media platform entirely. Logging off forever sure is tempting but we're all in so deep, we seem to have begrudgingly accepted we're not going to collectively do that anytime soon.

So when I got an email on NYE celebrating my 18 year anniversary of being a LiveJournal user, even though I haven't logged in once the past decade, it felt like a push to reconnect with that part of what was once a very routine—yet not overwhelming or strict—part of my day. Also, isn't time weird?! Like, my online writer persona can now officially register to vote. Wild. I'll admit I have been toying with the idea of dusting off this lil internet corner of mine for maybe the past six months or so, and really thinking about what that could look like. Those who know me best know I love a good fresh start to something (anything) at the beginning of a new year. I can't help it. I'm certainly not above making fun of myself for my "new year, new me" tendencies, either. ANYWAYS. We're here. 2023. I've logged into my Substack for the first time since March 9, 2021! Let's do this! Whatever that means!

Now allow me to wax poetic for a minute.

There are years that feel foundational and years that feel like you're on the brink of something, finally, maybe. There are years that blur; years that sharpen. These yearfeelings intersect and contradict and hold new-yet-familiar meanings depending on the circumstances surrounding such a romanticized reflection. This time around, as I sit on the edge of the slide and begin to glance ahead, it feels like I'm ready. For what, however, I have absolutely no idea. Not in the slightest. Just know I'm ready to go through the motions of warming up my voice and practicing what it means to sit with a blank page again. It feels nice. It took a lot of inner work, the kind you can't always see for yourself, for me to get back to this place. That much I know is true. I've spent an incredible amount of time trying to figure out how to write again and what to say and how to explain or rationalize how I simply haven't done it in what feels like ages. (Reader, she had a branded article published a couple weeks ago but thinks it doesn't count). But guess what, none of that matters. The answer is just to sit down and do it. When you want to and also when you don't. Michael Ventura's astute observation is evergreen: Writing is something you do alone in a room.

Yep, you guessed it. I'm alone. I'm my room. And we're already 550+ words in. So far so good. Feel free to hit me back and let me know what you've been up to in these strange times, or share what your basic "new year, new me" signature move is. Strong chance I’ll support it. You're also free to unsubscribe or stick around to see what I end up doing with this here Substack. Make the internet your own this year… I guess?

In 2005, all it took to elevate your LiveJournal aesthetic from Average Teen Diary to Certifiably Deep was sharing any number of quotes from author Chuck Palahniuk on your profile page. At least in my book, that was very much the case.

While such a beloved self-publishing hub as LiveJournal deserves its own newsletter entry wherein I candidly express my gratitude for it being the first to provide me with genuine internet community and wholesome support, for now, I'll just say my obsession with digital identity (and regular identity) began right around there.

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Chuck Palahniuk added fuel to that charmingly adolescent fire, signaling a shift in my character from someone who saw the world in rose-colored glasses to someone who started leaving their pair at home before stepping out into the cold. His jarring way with words first fucked me all the way up when I read his book Invisible Monsters, and shortly thereafter, Diary. I was 14 or 15 at the time, and he quickly became one of my favorite authors. I'm sure I took advantage of every opportunity to be like, "Yeah that's cool but have you read his other work besides Fight Club?" Narrator: She did.

At this moment in time, I'm sure there could be some part of the internet that has canceled Mr. Palahniuk for one reason or another, as it admittedly has been a solid decade since I've last read his work or kept tabs on his career. But I will say, people don't always necessarily like the people who can figure out a way to really get into their heads. Chuck Palahniuk, as I recall fondly, has/had a real strength for doing exactly that.

For example, this quote from his 2003 novel Diary still lives under my skin and exerts a timeless quality to me:

"Your handwriting. The way you walk. Which china pattern you choose. It's all giving you away. Everything you do shows your hand. Everything is a self-portrait. Everything is a diary."

When I was a teenager spilling my thoughts and writing my fragmented poems and talking to strangers on LiveJournal about my day so freely and without hesitation, this statement friggen SPOKE to me. It changed the way I approached my work. More specifically, it changed how I approached using LiveJournal, which at the time was my work. I didn't want my LiveJournal to be a diary; I wanted it to be something more important than that. If my LiveJournal was really a self-portrait, as Palahniuk’s work suggested it to be, I wanted it to be something deeper.

As such, the corner of the platform I had nestled into and made my own became split into the two categories: the Average Teen Diary users and the Certifiably Deep thinkers. I was eager to make sure I fit into the latter, even if that meant abandoning the part of myself that loved nothing more than being basic and taking things at face value like I had grown accustomed to. Being a Chuck Palahniuk fan meant entertaining chaos and asking questions without answers. His books stood out on my shelfs with a sharp rebellious contrast compared to the others. They were dark and messed up and tragic and nothing at all like my real life experiences. My parents would not have approved.

The Chuck Palahniuk enthusiasts I found online ranked high on my list. They, like Palahniuk himself, challenged my thinking and inspired me to broaden what was informing my perspective. Again, I was 15 years old with an internet connection, and all of this felt urgent, important and new. It felt like I was starting to find my people; a community I could confide in. LiveJournal served as a reminder that the world was much larger than my high school, and more complicated too.

In the real world at this time, I was also a new kid, having freshly moved from New York to Pennsylvania. Getting lost in Palahniuk's work for hours on end gave me both an outlet for my angst and an intellectual escape of sorts. I remember going back and forth in the comments with people I would never actually know. I corresponded daily with usernames I've since long forgotten. We'd trade our takes on Palahniuk's work and share our favorite lines. More importantly, we'd even take it a step further, becoming emboldened to write and share our own work. While it was mostly short stories, poetry and confessional blog posts, the feedback I'd get and the trust we all built had meant something. To this day, it still does. Naturally, I romanticize all of it.

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Back then, that line in particular about "everything being a diary" got me thinking about my digital footprint for the first time. The inside of my brain was filled to the brim with the following: what am I contributing to the overall discourse of My Generation™, am I selecting the right fonts, does my customized layout reflect my personality accurately, what will someone who only knows me from this online space think of me if we met me in real life, isn’t it wild that none of this matters if the internet stopped being a thing. Real millennial hot girl shit, you know.

Unfortunately, as social media continues to wrap its greedy little claws around every facet of contemporary culture online—giving us STORIES on every single platform for crying out loud—it feels as though absolutely nothing has changed. It seems glaringly impossible to separate digital identity from regular identity, except these days we don't even get to customize our layouts. The sentiment remains. Everything is a self-portrait. Everything is a diary.

All of this is a weird continuation of exactly where I was at 15 years ago, except I haven't broken the internet or beaten the algorithm despite spending all this time online, so what gives? Now, everything is curated. Everything is content. The timeline is unforgiving and ever-critical sans nuance and never forgets. Your mistakes, your messiness, your figuring-it-out-in-real-time could cost you. Or no one could care and just keep scrolling. Everything is a trap.

In the spirit of Palahniuk, one could argue personality is and has always been a digital currency of sorts. Something to master, something to control, something to use to your advantage. Even though it felt like I was figuring out who I was and "being myself" online, my personality quirks served me back then during my LiveJournal days, feeding my ego ever so nicely as I bared my soul with naïveté. Except today, this era of personality-as-content yields actual dollars and launches tangible careers and fuels imposter syndrome and makes the collective screentime skyrocket.

Social media is working exactly as it was designed to, and because of this, digital identity and personality has become a game, a skill, a formula, a test of its own strange making. These digital spaces feel less and less like the diary or self-portrait I originally assigned their meaning to, a la Palahniuk. And, with every update, it sinks us all deeper into contrived content oblivion because authenticity just doesn't sell the same. Because of this, that connection I had to LiveJournal as a platform simply can't be duplicated today. In those days, it was exactly like being a contestant on The Great British Bake Off - the experience alone was enough. And that's what I miss the most.

In every home I've called my own, I've absolutely delighted in making my space tailored to encourage my own version of creative thinking. From the carefully curated magazine clippings on my walls to the books that live on my shelves, I want you to be able to walk into my home and accurately guess my profession, or at least land within the right ballpark. Actually, I mostly just want you to be like "yes, KC totally 100% lives here" and totally make my day. That’d be great.

With all that comes a bunch of personal isms that I believe are automatically part of my being a writer. Honestly, I'm equally fascinated and annoyed by all of them. For example, I can't really ever write write if my bed is unmade, if too many dirty dishes are in my sink, if there is no seltzer/coffee/water/nearby bathroom, if there's nothing visually stimulating nearby or if there isn’t a lit candle in sight. Also, this is absolutely not a conditional truth, because sometimes (and by sometimes I mean basically always), you just have to sit down and do the work. But, when I'm in my space and working on my own time, I like to have things ~just right.~ That can mean doing absolutely nothing productive for hours until "inspiration strikes." It could simply mean doing emails first and then rewarding myself with a walk around the block or something dumb but nice. Or it could mean too much time has already passed and I have to take a hot shower to "reset" my day before I want to give up too badly and then just stress myself out even more. All of this admittedly wastes a lot of time, and it certainly doesn’t help that lately my ability to focus has been hot garbage.

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It has taken me a long time (i.e. one calendar year) to get my current apartment set up in a way I'm really happy with, and now that I have an actual desk and a real computer chair, and my books off the floor finally, and my kitchen table no longer in the middle of my living room area (studio apt life holla), it's time to focus.

But with the covid and the election and the social media and the doomscrolling and the news and the orange chaos agent of a president that won't go away and the quarantine blues and the being three thousand miles away from my family and just everything, I'd say my focus game is looking like a solid three out of ten these days. On a good day, it's like a generous seven. My latest deadline took me ten hours yesterday even though my quoted rate suggested it'd take closer to four. Whooooops.

Recently, I started really thinking about how my attention span no longer exists (yikes!) and I let that thought consume my brain for an entire seven day period, if not longer because what is time. It got to the point where I knew I wanted to write about it. But first I had to clean my entire apartment! If you know, you know. And then a week went by. And then I lost three more quality focus days because of the presidential election. But then Biden won! And then I realized I'd have to focus on finding my focus again. And now here we are.

So, yeah. I'd like to find the everlasting fountain of focus, please. Even if just to dip my toes in for a second or two. It’d really help me out, I think. Anyways, while I continue on with my quest—and open up 17 more tabs on my computer and grab a fresh seltzer and crack my back and make sure I don't have any important unread texts—I'd like to leave you with an insightful quote by James Clear that's been living rent-free in my head all week: "In a world where information is abundant and easy to access, the real advantage is knowing where to focus."

Look! Since I’m a visual person and all, I even put it on my bulletin board so it could stare me in the face all day:

So, did that help at all? Do you feel it in your bones you're ready to do some focus? No? Ah well, there's always next week, right? Let's take the weekend off, we deserve it.

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Power dynamics can be a real bitch sometimes. There's this one pesky concept in sociology I'm sure you've been reminded of on more than one occasion: the person who cares less has more power.

This idea, first coined by American sociologist Willard Waller in 1937, has come to be known as the principle of least interest. It explores how differences in commitment to a relationship can impact the dynamic of that relationship in and of itself, namely speaking to how the person who has the least emotional or personal investment to continuing a relationship ultimately has the upper hand over it. The idea is that those who care the least also have the least amount to lose, and therefore, have the potential to exploit the more invested partner and/or dictate the direction such a relationship is headed.

Such an ideology can be found in basically every shade and flavor of relationship: in romance, in friendship, in business, in politics. Most of the time, this idea lives rent-free in the back of my head and I absolutely hate it. It also probably doesn't come as a surprise that I'm a Person Who Cares. And that, much like everything else in 2020, can be a ridiculously heavy weight to carry at times.

A hundred years ago, in 2018, Melania—my fourth least-favorite member of the Trump crime family after Donald, Ivanka and Trump-by-proxy Jared Kushner—made headlines for an infuriating fashion statement while making a visit to a shelter housing children who had been separated from their parents due to the Trump administration's inhumane immigration policies.

With this context adding fuel to the fire, she had the intentionally evil audacity to wear a green army jacket embossed with the words, "I Really Don't Care, Do U?" Naturally, this quickly led to outrage. As the trending topic grew significantly on that one now-distant day on Twitter, Melania's spokesperson (she has one of those?!) insisted the jacket had "no hidden message" while the president himself gloated it was a "message to the fake news media." Later, Melania said she wore the jacket "for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me. And I want to show them that I don't care.” Ugh, I hate these people!!!!

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While I already want to scream as I recall yet another instance of how the Trump administration is a hellish chapter of our history that can't end soon enough, it is still wild to me how, in that moment and to this day, Melania has had no hesitation in putting it out there in all capital letters that she didn't—and doesn't—care. So does that mean her not giving a shit makes her more powerful? Is the capability to not care the only successful business lesson the Trump regime knows how to apply? Or will the way they choose not to hide their inability to care be to their fated detriment?

Although I think that last question is the easiest one to answer, I think the real power lies in how and where and why you channel Your Care™. Caring enough about your relationships and your communities to take action in order to protect them is powerful. Trump, on the other hand, cares about none of those things, and only about himself. That may be part of how he was able to get this far in the first place, but that's also why I believe, in a week from today, enough people will show up at the polls and he'll be voted out of office. That's why I believe Melania's stupid fucking jacket is speaking to an audience that's now shrinking, albeit slowly and not necessarily silently.

This year has shown us a lot about how powerful caring about something, or someone, truly can be. We've seen care show up in a lot of ways, taking on various forms like wearing a mask, attending a protest, signing a petition, checking in on a friend you haven't talked to in a while and by simply showing up. In many ways, it's been heartening to see so much care happening, just as it's been equally distressing seeing instances of carelessness.

Watching people pandemic partying on my timeline, and seeing that being juxtaposed with people attending Zoom funerals, took my care to an unhealthy place this past summer. This is part of the reason why I chose to take a bit of a step back from social media in recent months. My time off-screen has helped remind me how caring too much can become unproductive pretty quickly. For example, does my spending 10+ hours on Twitter because "I care about what's going on" actually help anyone? Does finding out about a current event hours after it happens instead of in real time mean I care less than I say I do?

While some of my digital habits are deep-rooted in my news journalism background and others fall under other fun categories like straight-up addiction, fear of missing out, procrastination, identity, etc., there is a massive need for unlearning here, especially when it comes to figuring out how to care productively. Again, the power lies in how you channel your care.

For as long as I can remember, I've cared. I care about being on time. I care about my work. I care about my friends. I care about making my bed every morning. I care about whether or not I blew my candle out before I left my house. I care about Megan Thee Stallion. I care about recycling. I care about what people think of me, ugh. I care about correcting typos. I care about... a lot. The little things and the big things and the things I could 100% stand to work on caring less about.

Essentially what I’m saying is I've definitely cared too much more than I've cared too little. It feels like I'll also never stop asking myself if that's always such a bad thing. Even though I may never be able to effectively silence the voice in my head that keeps the reminder of the principle of least interest looming, especially whenever my intrinsic nature of caring too much comes at my own expense, I'm learning how to be okay with that. Among other things.

This week, caring means casting your ballot and encouraging others to do the same. I won't shut up about it, either. I really do care, don't you?

Maybe this is a long time coming or maybe it's just an increasingly rare burst of inspiration to piece together my thoughts and actually share them for once. Roughly three years ago, a similar sensation struck. Once seeing it was available, I swiftly registered the domain "getinyourfeelings.com" and carved out a content plan with the genuine intention of creating playlists and crafting poetry written specifically to complement each curation.

I made a website and used a nondescript app on my phone to design a "coming soon" header. I ran it by my friends who do nothing but support me (#blessed). But even with the ego-driven green light to be creative, I didn't follow through. Not even a little bit, nope. Maybe it was a bad idea or maybe I got lazy or maybe living in New York City demanded too much of me at the time or maybe all of the above. Needless to say, the deadline I set for myself of April 2017 came and went.

In the years that have followed, I am now okay with admitting I have written approximately one poem. While I'm here, I’ll add I have potentially shared on more than one occasion that I studied poetry in college because sometimes you just can’t help it, lol. On top of all that, I’ve only haphazardly updated the lone playlist I curate for personal use, most recently in July 2020.

Normally, I’d let an idea like this one just collect dust and join its friends in the graveyard section of my stressed-out brain. But I'm still paying for the domain, and honestly, what good is that if I don't ever use it. The idea, however, of sharing poetry and playlists now feels like a polite smile from a past version of myself, the kind that awkward white people like myself make in passing on the sidewalk. That's just my stupid face, dammit.

Anyways, it's been three long ass years since my #BuyAWebsiteAsCommitment challenge failed and I am still out here feeling my feelings. This year, there's been a lot of them, include the self-loathing I feel for typing out this sentence. So, what's a freelance writer to do?! *Takes a deep breath and finally clicks on substack dot com.*

Thank you for subscribing and letting me briefly exist in your email inbox, where I hope my occasional musings on moods and emotions and stuff and things are fractionally more interesting than the daily emails you get from places like Kohl's despite never actually signing up to willingly receive them.

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The following closing statement feels like a substack rite of passage, but this is a free newsletter. If you want to keep in touch outside of here, you can do so by following me on Twitter + Instagram, or if you feel so inclined to support a step further, you can bless my Venmo at @kassondra-orcutt.