hold on to nothing, as fast as you can

Hi friends,

I’ve been in a weird place with this newsletter, as I usually use it to share new columns—something I’ve failed horribly at, given that I published a new one all the way back in May. (I was really happy with it too! It’s about advocating for yourself at work when your boss is being shitty/shady: https://www.thestopgap.net/dear-businesslady-3/.)

As the summer unfurled lazily around me I was doing my usual pre-writing thing of ruminating on stuff I could talk about. Then at the start of August—right at the moment when I was ready to take the bold step of begining to think about actually writing—I got the devastating news that a friend had died, and a breezy missive about my warm-weather frolics became unthinkable. But writing about my friend also felt unthinkable. Even though I need, and want, to honor his memory through my favorite form of self-expression, this venue didn’t feel like the right place to process it.

So here I’ve remained, in limbo, for months—as seasons and holidays and political shifts and untold atrocities far more serious than my personal grief have washed over me—until now, when I realized that maybe I don’t have to write a 2,000+-word essay every time, and that maybe I can just share a link to a column and let everything else remain a big “TK” (or let’s say “TBD” for non-editors).

The next newsletter you get will have a link to a new piece at The Stopgap in which I attempt to grapple with this devastating loss. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it here too, but I have to organize my thoughts first. At least I finally feel ready to try.

There’s no way to end this that doesn’t feel trite—especially given, you know, everything. Call your reps, and your loved ones (or text them, or like their tumblr posts, or whatever keeps you connected), and uh, happy Valentine’s Day I guess? In the meantime you can find me on BlueSky, where I’ve been mocking the ineptitude of AI and creating new emoji to reflect my baseline mental state these days, in addition to a steady stream of retweeted news and lolz.

~court

PHOTO TIME

Hard to find an image that fits the tossed-off, bummery vibe of this dispatch, but this composition from a random hotel room in Allentown, PA, feels like a decent choice. (My kid looks so contemplative here, but in fact he is watching a children’s program that’s playing invisibly on the TV.)