Hi Stacey

Hey, Stacey–

I’ll be honest, I don’t feel like writing. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I’m not sure what the angle on this project is right now.

But! I heard our song Friday. On the street corner, when Dern and I were en route to the taco shop. And then my horoscope yesterday said: “write 95 theses about how you want to be treated and nail it to their door.” Also, the “do” list was “watching,” “writing,” and “doing nothing.” Could it be that was enough to sort of upend my day? I was planning to get to the cafe early and attack the last episode of a series I’m writing for a toy conglomerate. But I woke up very sad and “pushing through” felt cruel somehow. So I decided to just…take a day off. A “rot” day.

Bounced on my mini trampoline on the balcony, pretty aggressively. Listened to a YouTube video about one’s purpose in the world. Long hot shower. When I was a teenager I used to take long hot showers. When I went to college I stopped because I didn’t want to hog a stall. Same for working at summer camps. Then I was just used to showering economically. But sometime around the new year I reintroduced the LHS to my system. I’ve become either more intentional or decadent.

Anyway, Dern brought me an iced coffee from the cafe since I wasn’t going to make it. I sipped some while curled in bed, getting up the nerve to do a thing, anything. I decided on gym shorts and my white tank and a navy hoodie. I love walking through my neighborhood on the weekends. All the little bakeries and businesses popping OFF. Lines on every block. People trotting around, taking photos with their green smoothies, about to brunch on THE famous sweet potatoes, etc.

I got two donuts at the cheap shop then tucked into the far back booth, partially behind a large fan. I wanted to be out of the way because as soon as I decided to sit down I knew I’d be there a long while.

See, Stacey, I’ve come to realize that part of my “process” as a writer is relying on my impulses. Strangely enough, I don’t mean during the actual writing. I rely on my impulses to “feel” what I should be putting my focus on at any given time. I have a notebook where I log my projects and priorities and deadlines, sure. But there’s also a kind of sparkling swirl that pulls me away sometimes. I felt it yesterday, for example. I pulled out the strawberry raised and sugar twist from the greasy white bag, set them daintily on a napkin, and knew I’d be there outlining my new story “Peekaboo” for as long as it took. (Final count: four hours and a second iced coffee.)

At home I snacked and went to the pool for the last bit of sun and watched the pilot of Pop Star Academy and listened to a Jungian lecture about shame. When the sun went down we went to the movies, the new Conjuring. It was a good time, a few excellent haunting scares. Then I came home and tried to write to you.

Most of these are unimportant details, unless they have some significance to you, Stacey. Mainly, getting back to the horoscope of it all–is it time for me to “95 theses” it again? I think you know I feel odd “asking” for anything from you. But what if it’s no sweat? Then I better ask, just in case.

So what I’d love for this world: an end to the genocide in Palestine–quickly, the implosion of Big Oil (plus a rapid justice-being-served plot in which all the billionaires have to fork over all their cash to replant the Amazon), good education for every child on Earth, accessible healthcare for every person on Earth, true democracy for all, no kings but Mother Nature.

And what I’d love for me? Besides all that? I guess I’d take the ability to create meaningful art with loving, genius collaborators for The People. And all of that done in a sustainable fun way!

I guess sometimes I do get signs from you, but I don’t always know what to do with them. Let me know if there’s something I should be doing differently? I’m sure there are things you can see that I can’t. …And vice versa.

xoxo

Alice

PS For no reason I’d like to share with you: yesterday I consumed two donuts, two iced coffees, 24 crackers and burrata cheese, 12 strawberries, 34 mini sour straws, a Diet Coke, a bowl of pretzels, four Milano cookies, a bag of vegan pizza puffs.