Lean In
Let the darkness take hold this year!
Well, we did it, we made it to a new year. I hope everyone is cool with the fact that I just fully took two weeks off of this newsletter for the holidays. Aside from bouncing around doing all the fun shows that the holiday season brings (with their drunk and wonderful audiences riding the high of not having to care much about work for a week or two), I didn’t do any work or writing over the holiday break. It’s really hard to have boundaries when your job is kind of a 24/7 thing and you could technically always be doing some kind of work. So I decided to give myself time off. But now I’m back and I have thoughts!!!
Because it’s still the beginning of the year and there’s lots of talk about resolutions and self-improvement and “new year new me,” my main thought is: lean into the darkness and insanity and fuck trying to be better.
Hopefully that just sounds like a more unhinged take than it actually is, but I do believe it. I think that all of the forced “fixing” your problems and trying to be an entirely different and better person just because the calendar date changed isn’t just stupid, but it actually stops you from actually making any real changes. Ignoring or pushing down feelings or impulses for the seemingly arbitrary reason of time and after the heightened time that is December/the holidays feels counterproductive to real progress. So I’m here to tell you, fuck it.
I can’t scroll past a Tiktok video or flip through a magazine without tips, tricks, and secrets to changing my life for the better. Everything is about optimization and -maxing and leaving the bad parts of you in last year and entering 2026 a completely different and thus better person. Don’t dwell on the things that upset you! Channel that into building success!
There’s an obsession in our culture right now with optimization. The bro podcast version of it is consuming 600 grams of protein every day, getting in 3 lifting sessions before the sun goes down, surgically enhancing your jaw to look like a REAL MAN, and investing all of your money in crypto to quadruple your earnings every week. The online women’s version of this is softer, but I think sneakier. The message to men is to get bigger, take up more space, own more. Women are optimized by shrinking down. By limiting what you eat. By making your body smaller. By getting rid of everything you own. By staying in and not doing anything that might jeopardize having perfect skin. By writing in journals and channeling feelings into consumerism. Both versions have a real, “Never do anything that is bad for you and never let yourself feel any bad things, and if you do, turn around and work harder.”
But I don’t want to do that. I want to feel bad! Because I think feeling bad is the only way to ever feel better about anything. When I wrote a few months ago about the ending of Oh God, A Show About Abortion and my disappointment, part of what made it so hard was I just wouldn’t let myself feel bad. I knew I DID feel bad, but I kept trying to push it down and ignore it so I could move on and do things. What I should have done was just lean the fuck in and feel like shit sooner.
A few weeks back, I had a super emotional day. It was the day my book was announced, which sounds like it should be a good day. It’s excitement! It’s attention! It’s people from every corner of my life reaching out and re-posting and pre-ordering the thing I spent two years writing. But it was also kind of heavy in a way. Now the thing I wrote is done and it will be out in the world for people to read and evaluate not just me as a writer and artist, but me as a person who decided to spend 200+ pages outlining all of her own flaws. It was heavy because this is the first big thing I’ve done since Oh God and I’m afraid it’ll have the same outcome for me, emotionally, if it isn’t a “success” in certain ways.
I was sitting at home feeling really overwhelmed, not even all bad, just like, a build up of every emotion you could have. I felt both buzzing and completely drained. I kept trying to like, ignore the feelings and be “productive” and try and like, answer emails or make food despite being DEEPLY not hungry. And then I was like, I have to get out of here. So I put on a coat and headphones and cued up my saddest playlist and went for a crying rage walk. I power walked the streets of Gowanus blasting R.E.M. and Kasey Musgraves (excellent rage walk choices) with sunglasses on even though it was 4pm and the sun was already setting. Then I got in like 9K steps, came home, took a shower, poured a glass of wine and it was time to force a real cry. I needed a release. So I went with the most tried and true cry porn of all time: the final montage from the finale of Six Feet Under. Nate was barely in Claire’s rearview mirror before I was a heaving sobbing disaster.
And then I felt so much better! I could breathe. I had another glass of wine and slept hard that night having let myself just...feel the feelings. Just go rage and cry and THEN you can like, do whatever you need to do to regroup and move on. And I get that this swirl of emotions wasn’t some devastation I was dealing with, more just like, “aaaaahhhhhhh I have FEELINGS about SOMETHING!” but still, I think it works.
January is rife with asceticism and people promoting it. Dry January! Deprive yourself of things! Cut out alcohol and drugs and sugar and fat and dairy and enjoyment! Eat your protein pellets and commit to pilates! Write in a gratitude journal about how every day is good because you have nothing to enjoy as you slowly march toward death!!!!!
Okay, you can tell I’ve never done dry January. I think it’s dumb. If it works for you, great, but it’s just not how I run my life. In the words of my friend Maris, I prefer Wet January. It already sucks. It’s dark and cold and long, lean in and have a drink. I understand the impulse to try and erase a month of rich living with big meals and party food and open bars by just going to zero, but I don’t find that works because eating and drinking don’t exist in a vacuum from the rest of our lives. January still sucks. Processing a new year starting and an old one ending is not actually that easy.
The end of the holidays are tough. I had a lot of big fun nights out that resulted in lazy, unproductive days in. It was cold as hell, I was tired but continuing to force hangs and drinks and big dinners but starting to run on fumes from a busy month with a lot of shows and even more parties. The change in the calendar had the back of my mind spinning about my career and what fresh hell was lying ahead for me and the rest of the entertainment industry. I had a roller coaster of a month in my personal life at the end of the year and needed to process and get over that. So in the days after New Years I was trying to right the ship of my life by laying low, cooking a healthy meal, staying in and trying to be productive again.
But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just force myself to act like anything wrong can be erased by a healthy one pot recipe and a sheet mask. I had a weird fuzzy pit in my stomach that made me think I was spiraling out about some very stupid shit. I felt, for lack of a better word, insane. There was no way to like, power through and force all of my feelings into a disciplined little box. A salad and marathoning the gay hockey show were not going to save me. I had already gone on my daily rage walk and blasted Rosalia’s Lux into my ears for an hour and I still didn’t feel any better.
And then my friend Audrey texted me to come have a drink with her and our friend Zach at his place. I was like, “Just want to flag that I haven’t eaten and I feel insane!!!” and she was basically like, “good!” A few gin martinis, a hit of a weed pen, and a bowl of Zach’s leftover pasta later, we had kvetched and complained and vented and I felt SO much better when I woke up, even if I felt a little foggy. I felt like I had had fun, said things I was feeling, and wasn’t forcing myself into a prison of abstinence for no reason other than the date on the calendar.
I think a lot about my habits and grooves. It’s hard to just decide to change things. I struggle with it with everything in my life. When I fall out of the groove with swimming, it’s hard to just wake up and be like “today is the day I go back” if it isn’t really naturally happening with my body and brain. But eventually I always do go back. I find that pattern again and it’s good. And then I peel off again and that’s okay, too. It’s the same with writing. Sure I can schedule time every day and be like “write your little jokes from 1pm to 4pm” but that’s just not how my brain works. It’s a lot easier for me to busy myself with other work and whenever writing strikes, to just lean in whenever that is. Sometimes it’s the work day and I hit that groove. Sometimes it’s ten o’clock at night and I suddenly know exactly how a bit needs to end.
Who knows what I’m even trying to say here. Maybe it’s just that I’ve spent a lot of time on my phone the last week and being entirely too online means I’ve seen entirely too many people preaching that you can just force a change because it’s a new year. I’ve seen a lot less of the bubbly “new year new me!” vibes, but I’m still seeing people talking about how to improve your life, how to fix your problems, how to get rid of everything that isn’t the pinnacle of health, success, and perfection.
And I think that’s all bullshit and am here in this newsletter to give you permission to fuck up more. If you’re trying to take a drinking break and have a rough day at work, I dunno, maybe just go have a glass of wine. If waking up at 5am to try and go to the gym, a thing you’ve never done before, isn’t coming super easily...maybe just don’t do it?
I’m not trying to sit here in your inbox being like, “GO GOBLIN MODE!” and forcing anyone to ruin their life because it’s winter. I’ve just been thinking a lot about how we think about ourselves and our lives, especially this time of year (I guess because it is this time of year). Capitalism, optimization culture, the tech world are all kind of pushing people toward being less in touch with what they actually need and more in touch with an out of reach concept of success and perfection. I think what I’m saying is less “drink in January!” but more “do what you need to do to be a real human, because being a real human is getting harder and harder.” If it makes you feel better to abstain from alcohol and sugar and everything, great! But if that isn’t quite making you feel better…don’t!
One part of my life I feel like I can see the best representation of this, is stand-up. I’m not a “write on stage” comic, I like going up with jokes written and polishing them over time to be super tight. Most nights I get on stage, I do that. But every once in a while when I’m feeling particularly unhinged or something in my life is bothering me, I go rage mode and will spend minutes of a set just kind of screaming and talking about whatever is currently ruining my life (at the right show, of course). Sure, sometimes there isn’t a single sentence in that tirade I can ever actually use, but it feels good to just let loose and know that maybe this isn’t helping me professionally but at least it’s helping me emotionally. That’s how I approach January—and all year, really—give yourself whatever the release is. Even if it’s “not good.”
I am in a weird position as I look out at 2026, it’s already full of ups and downs and we’re a week in. I have big things happening this year. My book comes out! But not for seven months! There’s a lot of time before that big fun thing and a lot of work to be done in the meantime. I also still need a...job. I lost my union health insurance for the first time in a decade! But also, my podcast is getting more and more sponsors and we’re getting more money every month! I don’t plan to like, put my head down and focus to get ready for my book launch. I know between now and July (and the rest of my life) I’ll have a million emotions and sometimes I can kind of move past them and “be better” but sometimes I’ll need to lean in and feel them, and cope with them however feels right in the moment, not whatever a clean girl on Tiktok with glass skin who has never had fun in her life thinks is the right way to cope with things.
Also, maybe things just don’t have to get better right now. The world is shit. We’re in the darkest, coldest part of the year that seems to drag on for much longer than it actually is. Most industries are in shambles. Dating is a disaster. Everyone is losing their minds. I think it’s okay if you don’t try to improve yourself right now, if instead you just try and keep existing and coping however you can. Go for the rage walk. Have a martini. Fuck it!
MORE STUFF! MORE STUFF!
I am SO excited that The Pitt is back and that we have many weeks of good television to watch because it’s not just like a 6 episode mini series that comes out every 4 years, it’s, like, an actual television show.
This month on Ruined it’s “New Year, New Me” transformation movies, and we’re kicking off with Shivers.
Tonight I’m on Gorge Night at Club Cumming with Jake Cornell at 7pm! Saturday I’ll be reading a little something at P&T Knitwear at 6:30. And Tuesday I’m at the Red Room at KGB Bar.
San Francisco! I’m coming for Sketchfest again! I’ll be doing the Sketchfest Dozen with Brendan Scanell on Friday and then Saturday Josh and I are hosting Sup Bro?!
And every week until July 7, a reminder to pre-order my debut book of essays, I’m A Lot wherever you get your books!
I felt this really really deeply.