Hi again

It's been a while, but here we (I) are (am).

Dear Reader,

The Christian YouTubers I love to hate, and hate to love, like to talk about life as a series of seasons. A relationship is a season; joy is a season; affair allegations with the babysitter are a season, and so on. The season shall pass, but don't wish the season over. Worship the season. Love the season. Don't let it drown you. There are season rushers and season graspers. Seasons are imperfect.

I'm in a season of friendship, and it started when, in March of 2022, I met the musicians and the music they make, who have since become much of my life. And I'm giddy about it—still. All I want to do is hang out with my friends and nurse an $8 glass of warm-verging-on-hot house wine until the patio closes when we then go inside or go home. It's been one of my longest seasons yet, and it's the framework of the nostalgia we're all steadily edging towards.

The season of friendship also contains the rush of Montclair High School alumni who have turned up and turned out for a reprise of what is still one of my favorite periods of life—the summer before freshman year of college. I feel so at peace sharing their world.

I'm also in a season of work. Honest, work-from-home, computer-work, where I write for Allure about hair and makeup and vibrators and other stuff you may have in your house. There was a time there when I was so scantily employed that when people asked what I “did,” I would say, "musician." In a sense, it was dishonest because while that is what I do (and did and always will do), it suggested that music was my source of income, which it never has been and probably will never be, something that, believe it or not, does not make me sad. Now, when people ask me what I do (and boy, do they!) I say I'm a beauty writer. 

And I am so grateful for my job, but I stumbled into it, bare-faced and brushless. Now, I write about shopping every day, and, hell, I like doing it! But what if the friend of a friend of a friend doesn't know I write songs? Doesn't know I like to stand on stage? What then? Am I less of an artist? What is the answer to what anyone does, anyway?

I'm working on my next EP, which I've recorded and am now shaping, stuffing and sprucing up. I'm performing, singing, and writing, but there's more to be done. Music as a whole, at one point, felt less out of reach than it does now, but that's the ebb, baby.

I turned 26 at the beginning of the month and, in the five days leading up to my birthday, I went to every single doctor on my roster, gearing up to lose my family’s health insurance coverage. My GP, reviewing my chart, asked, "So, are you still taking long walks daily as your form of exercise?" For a moment, I said nothing, and looked at her, confused, before remembering that lie I'd told at my last check-up. "What? Oh, yeah. Those long walks. Those long walks are so crucial." Meanwhile, I complain to everyone every day that my walk to the subway is 9 minutes rather than 2 minutes, as it was at my last apartment.

Sometimes, on my way to a date, I write up a cheat sheet about/for myself. Favorite musicians, favorite movies, the month I was vegan in a bad way. Questions like: "Do you remember 9/11?" or "Are your parents married still?" Remember to talk about the importance of community, my epilepsy, and the time I punched my brother in the face and made his nose bleed.

Save for losing my healthcare, I'm largely happy in a real, serious way, and I'm dropping by to say it. And I'm choosing to believe that putting it in writing isn't jinxing anything. People are allowed to say they're happy without it being bad luck.

If you've made it this far, thank you for enabling my narcissism. Please know that between appearing on the Allure Magazine Instagram Account (which has ceased to feel like a bit and, instead, is exciting), I am writing and recording music that I'm eager to share with all of you when the time comes. 

I hope the summer heat makes you feel as in touch with your satisfyingly innate survival instincts as it does me. 

Love,

Annie