For my birthday, a shameless plug

Half off paid subscriptions!

Hello friends!

I woke up today feeling a bit contemplative as one does on one’s 51st birthday during an impending authoritarian dictatorship.

Never thought I’d be writing those words.

But seriously, when I was younger, I thought 51 was ancient— I couldn’t even contemplate it except that I would feel old. And while I’m certainly feeling older (ohai menopause and chronic stomach acid) I don’t one little bit feel like the best of my life is behind me. Oh contraire, I think the best is yet to come, and I’m not going to let the likes of Donald Fucking Trump ruin the start of my finest century.

This is where you come in.

Remember the global pandemic? The one that started about five years ago this coming March? You remember.

I kind of feel now like I felt then. And I think you kind of do, too.

I can tell because I’m craving pot roast and Chuckwagon Sandwiches from the gas station (a childhood favorite). I can tell because I want to make vast quantities of soup and give it to you. I can tell because I want to create a larger community— a real one. Not the performative one on Instagram, or the argumentative one on Facebook, but something that can make our hearts and minds feel truly connected, even if we are far apart physically (or even figuratively).

I plan to spend more time on this site— some people have already noticed that I have. And if you write on here, I want to read you! I’ll pay what I can to read you.

And, in turn, I hope you will pay what you can to read me too. Writing has always been a labor of love. Cumulatively, I’ve made very little $$$ on this craft, which isn’t really the point, anyway.

But what is the point: writing is first and foremost a connection. The best writing, like the best cooking, creates a sort of hospitality. And hospitality, in it’s truest form, is a caregiving— that’s why hospital takes its namesake from its root. Hospitality is like, “Oh, my god, I can relax here. I am understood here. I feel cared for here.”

That’s what I hope my writing will evoke in the coming days and months, here.

The more people like you who support me here, the more I can engage, and the more we can stay connected in care, which is what I truly seek. To those of you who have sent me little notes in the last few days with kind words about my words here— THANK YOU. Each and every one of you has stoked the fire of my writing muscles and I want to keep those bitches pumped up.

So, for my birthday, I have discounted what it takes to support me here financially. Monthly subscriptions are now $5, and annual subscriptions are $30— half of what it costs for a monthly subscription, and half of what an annual subscription used to be. I know that $60 is a lot of money, and I’ve always dreamed of giving away gifts for my birthday, so think of this as a wee version of that.

I hope you’ll take me up on it!

Signing off from my office (my bed).

HBD 2 Me.

XO

51 and feeling fun. I woke up like dis.