Keep Calm and Try Not to Have an Existential Crisis
How are we all doing? Are we drinking enough water? Are we getting enough sleep? Are we taking deep breaths when we feel ourselves start to spiral into confusion and self-doubt? Are we getting enough fiber in our diet?
I just thought I’d ask because, last night, during a Zoom call with my writing group, I was updating the group on what I described as my writing crisis, and my friend was like, “Um. It sounds like you’re having an identity crisis.”
I mean, sure. When your writing is your identity and you write about social justice for a living but then you stop because it feels like you’re screaming into a deep and endless void… I suppose it could count as an identity crisis.
I can’t be the only person who feels this way right now. I mean… ::gestures at everything::
Those of you who have been with Thunder Thighs for a while know me as a journalist and a sex ed advocate. I’ve been doing this work for over 20 years.
Except that lately, I haven’t been doing that work. Instead, I’ve been nerding out about books on Book Riot and Feminist Book Club and copywriting for a rad, queer-owned sex toy company and writing essays about aging and autonomy and caregiving that may never see the light of day and, just for funsies, dabbling in fiction.
Just the other week, I wrote a short story about a person who gets trapped in a time bubble while listening to famed radio DJ Delilah.
Is that not the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard?
This morning, I told another writer friend of mine that I felt lost because it seemed I wasn’t doing meaningful work anymore.
We ended up discussing how perhaps our old ways of doing meaningful work were no longer viable. Maybe we couldn’t accomplish what we wanted to accomplish via the underpaid, short-form, quick-turnaround articles we’d been doing before. Not in this era of ever-dwindling publications that barely limped along with their completely gutted editorial teams.
And because she is wise, she said that maybe everything we were doing now counted as investment in real deep work… longer-term work that needed space to breathe.
I don’t know about my Delilah story, but… maybe she’s right?
Curious to see what comes next… 😘
On the Internets
I’ve been writing lately about who is expected to give up more of their autonomy within the context of marriage, so I was seriously side-eyeing this article on how conservative U.S. lawmakers are pushing to nix no-fault divorce.
Ooh! I feel like this is sort of relevant to my identity crisis. I recently subscribed to the Ethical Fat Fashion newsletter, and a recent issue explored why we force ourselves to do things we hate (and included tips on how to make healthy decisions about how you spend your time).
This piece goes deep on the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), and why it would actually be bad for LGBTQ+ youth because of the ways in which it would cut them off from resources, information, and communities that could save their lives.
And finally, you may have been hearing a lot lately about Project 2025. Still unsure what it is? The 19th has a great explainer on Project 2025, and Impact has a great tl;dr in their Instagram feed.
Everything I Accomplished Despite Life
Because I will never not be nerding out about books, I wrote a list for Book Riot with nine great novels set in bookstores.
And because I love to interrogate the more complicated aspects of parenthood, I interviewed Heidi Reimer, author of The Mother Act, about expectations around motherhood, the parts of ourselves we lose when we become parents, what we owe to others versus what we owe to ourselves, and more.
In lieu of their in-person conference, Hippocampus Magazine is hosting a virtual HippoCamp Weekend, which should be pretty darn cool. Info on all the events can be found here. But if you’re just interested in seeing me bumble about in a tiny Zoom square, I’ll be on a panel of lit mag and small press editors and you should for sure register if you’d like to learn more about pubbing with those sorts of places.
And this isn’t until September 8, but I’ll also be facilitating a discussion with Paul Rousseau, author of Friendly Fire.
Necessary for My Sanity This Past Month
This past July was all about those books. On the sex ed front, I finally read Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan’s Let’s Talk About It: The Teen's Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human, which is a fantastic resource for teens that’s based on the couple’s popular webcomic.
And speaking of informational-type reads, I also enjoyed Mónica Guzmán's I Never Thought of It That Way and Danny Caine's How to Resist Amazon and Why.
And I finished out the month with Miranda July’s All Fours, which I feel came into my life at the exact right time. At first, I was all “this is weird” (which is par for the course with July), but then I was IN IT. I was so there for the perimenopause and for the questions around marriage and autonomy and female desire and for the urge to blow up one’s life and I feel like I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.
Hot Take
My Mood at This Very Moment
I loved "How to Resist Amazon and Why"! I am always dumbfounded when I still find people who do not know why Amazon should be avoided if at all possible. Yes I still do buy the occasional item there, but only if I truly cannot find it anywhere else. This book explained so much to me about their horrible business practices and just Ugh.
And I am intrigued by All Fours. I think I might have heard a rec from someone else about it as well.