february 11 abv
After attending tonight's dreadful Raptors game my son friend and I ended up at a bar. We had been to this bar together a few times and as such we recognized the bartenders, and one of them recognized us, and so we ended up in a few concurrent conversations (me/him, us/one of them, us/both of them) over the course of like, 90 minutes. One of the conversations included that Larry Nassar should get stabbed all the way through his head in prison. Another was about how our culture used to be more literate. The subtext of that second one is that a decline in literacy often coincides with the presence of autocracy, but we were also discussing it within the context of our culture's obsession with productivity and concomitant commitment to joylessness.
Like, I was born to be a satyr misbehaving in the moonlight in the meadow. Instead, I spend my days getting hatefucked by Microsoft Teams.
Anyway, eventually of the bartenders mentioned that she was interested in becoming a copywriter, and because I am a copywriter and also pathologically addicted to mentoring (and also two edibles deep), I gave her some advice on how to build a portfolio, explained how spec work works within that context, and then dropped two names that she (and you!) may want to deep dive:
My bff Helen Androlia, who is an advertising strategist without peer with track record of excellence, a beloved college prof, and an actual, literal character in the Marvel Universe (Earth-616).
Aisha Hakim, whom I don't know IRL but with whom I chat from time to time (people used to make friends and acquaintances on Twitter) and who created The Art of Deckmaking.
Even if you are not in advertising, you should click around in there because you will almost certainly learn something.
Hard conversational shift in
3...
2...
1...
Over the past few days I have been in the middle of some challenging stuff, and that stuff made me return to "why am I the way I am?" type questioning. This gave way to "is it okay that I am the way I am?" The answer to that question, today, is yes. The answer to that question from 1989–2020 was not.
I have always known who I was, but for most of my life I didn't accept who I was, When I started to accept myself, the pain stopped.
If you don't know who you are, someone else will tell you, and the thing they will tell you that you are is almost always a person other people can use and exploit and drain until there is nothing left but a fingerprint that can unlock a phone with no photos in the camera roll because all the apps that spy and report on you are clogging up all the memory like Zach Edey in the paint.
Remember kids, the panopticon will not be televised.
Advice: don't bend, ascend.
🌲 gonna
🌼 go
🌱 touch to
🌳 grass sleep
🌷 now
Be good to yourself.
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