NEW THING #1: so long OBSESSED. hello, something new.
i'm pregnant!!! (with an idea)
That, on June 26, 2025, the most recent post on a pop culture Substack features a photo illustration of Tim Walz surrounded by rainbows, puppies and a silhouette of Santa Claus is a real sort of poetic hell, and encapsulates precisely the thing that’s kept me from sharing more writing on here since then. Hi! It’s been ten months, and there’s lots to catch up on, but I want to get this out of the way so we can get onto the good stuff.
OK. I started this Substack to make something that looked and felt like the cultural outlets I wanted to write for — and a personal and professional ambition that, at this moment, is fairly dormant. Between that last post and this one, I’ve been laid off from two different journalism jobs — one of them being a true dream job, and something that still really bites — and at this point, the industry seems to offer more mental, emotional and financial stress than creative and altruistic fulfillment. And as somebody who got into journalism because of the social, engaging nature of the job — something that’s changed a hell of a lot post-COVID, if you’re not a beat reporter — I’m lately feeling like it’s not the best use of my particular brain and spirit to be clickin’ and clackin’ behind a keyboard all day. I wanna find something that lets me be out in the muck, sniffing around, talking to people, no triple-decker deadlines looming over each week, and then I can click and clack away and write all about that stuff I just sniffed. (I am especially interested in working in potpourri sales.)
Ipso facto, I don’t want to think of this place as some sort of static professional portfolio anymore. Because that’s what I was doing, in part, in the way I approached the website’s theme and voice. But over time, the very specific identity this place has become a gatekeeper to my own writing, and left me without a place to share writing that falls outside of that framework.
So!! I’m creating something … new. A little themeless, save for the common connection of all this writing coming from one perspective. A lot of the writing might therefore look like something on OBSESSED, since I only ever wrote about stuff I was interested in, or despised. But I’m craving space for short missives; the stuff I write in my Notes app; obsessions both daily and global. Smaller stuff, little realizations, ideas. Longer stuff, too, though! Don’t get it twisted! Whatever! It’s all gonna be gravy, baby. I just want a place disconnected from any sort of professional expectation or presentation. Because, at least for me, that will quickly induce a sort of paralysis that snuffs out the good, fun, joyful parts of writing, impossible to coexist while the writer’s also thinking about what some authority figure would critique about their work. (And they’d be wrong, dammit! But *sigh* their opinion would be valid.)
Anways. Back to bye-bye OBSESSED. I’m going to rename the joint, and spend the next few weeks updating the rest of the site’s various knobs and signposts. (And yes, I have working name. But I’m not going to say it here, because, nice try, and I will not threaten to sue any leakers!!) I’ll also be thinking about things like a paywall, and subscribers, and community, and other related but conflicting ideas. Be patient, friends; those cookies will come just as soon as they’re finished baking in my brain oven.
So. The final and fourth paragraph. (Fitting, because 4 is my lucky number, ever since I made the fourth-tier on the cross country squad in seventh grade and, after being bummed I wasn’t in the top 3, decided to make 4 a sort of confidence totem — a reminder to be proud of any result, which can only come if you’re putting yourself out there.) OBSESSED, I thank you for the time and sanctuary. You are and will always be my precious baby angel. I love you, I respect you, and I’m glad I put you out there. Now close your eyes, sweetie!