The Bloggess

I’m writing this now bc I don’t ever want to go a week without blogging even if -like now- I’m fighting off a depression that makes me feel more than slightly worthless. You can usually tell when I’m in a depression because I disappear…from the internet…from friends and family…from myself. I kept waiting this week for this malaise to fall away so that my brain fog could dissipate and I could write about all the things I want and need to but it hasn’t happened yet. Instead, I work so very slowly on things that don’t take as much brain power.

I opened a moving box to unpack on the couch (yes, I moved over a year ago and am still unpacking) and inside I found a kaleidoscope a friend made me decades ago out of wild flowers and stained glass. Somehow it had gotten crushed, one of the spinning glass lenses shattered into pieces.

I threw away the loose shards and considered tossing the whole thing but then I looked through it and found that I could still move the broken glass disc a little. Not as smoothly, certainly, but still it worked. And the shattered spiderwebbed glass around the dried wildflowers gave it an even more complex kaleidoscope. It wasn’t what it was made for, it didn’t work like it should, and from the outside it looked irrevocably shattered, but somehow -looking through the light- the brokenness gave it a perspective I’d never have seen before.

So I’m keeping it on a high shelf. Broken, fragile, perhaps a little bit dangerous…but still beautiful and unique with the right kind of eyes that are willing to look.

If I didn’t have this brain fog this post would be better. Or at least different. But perhaps you have the same curious eyes or foggy mind and can read what my broken head is trying and failing to say eloquently. And if so, I hope it reminds you that you will get through this, that your struggle makes you unique, and that even when you are struggling you are still beautiful.

My brain has stopped working this week so please enjoy this assortment of things that brought me joy and laughter:

1. I drove past this and had to stop to take a picture because “GET IN THE BITCH DUMPSTER” is now my new favorite insult.

2. I am a prolific reader and a bookstore owner and I just found out I have been mispronouncing Jodi Picoult’s name my whole life. I texted Vicki from Nowhere and turns out we’re all just learning constantly:

3. I got this cool ring knife because Victor was always yelling at me for using the scissors “wrong” because he always insists I’m going to stab myself even though I never do…

And it is amazing for opening packages and I feel like a miniature Freddy Kruger, but I was so excited that when I went to put the lid back on it I missed and fucking stabbed the shit out of my hand.

Unrelated…that little die-cut thing in the picture above is a magnet that we are sending out when you buy a copy of HOW TO BE OKAY WHEN NOTHING IS OKAY from Nowhere and we accidentally ordered way too many so I stuck a bunch all over my tailgate and now it’s much easier to find my car in the parking lot. So if you happen to see a subaru in San Antonio with exploding headed bears all over it that is me and feel free to pull one off for yourself.

4. We got two weird reviews for Nowhere Bookshop from a couple who opined that “the book selection appeared to be purposeful” (it is!) and our far too LGBTQ-friendliness was too “in your face” (too friendly! Cut it out, y’all!) and that it was more of a safe space for “a particular crowd” than bookshop, and I guess that’s probably accurate if the particular crowd they’re talking about is readers who love love? It’s just sort of nice that even when we get one-star reviews they usually end up being ones we’re most proud of. 🙂

5. Purrsy Bysshe Shelley is growing like a fucking weed. HE IS LANKY AS HELL. Victor asked me what I was feeding him and I was like, “Kitten food and human hair.” Only the first part is intentional, but every night he cuddles up on my pillow and twice I have woken up to hear a weird noise and turned on the light to find that Purrsy was EATING MY HAIR.

It’s like he’s building a fucking nest.

Luckily for him, he is adorable. He can have all of my hair. I love him.

6. I forgot what number 6 was.

7. Wait, I remember! I wrote about my brain not working anymore on my art substack if you want to read it. (You can have it delivered each week in your email if you like. The majority of the posts are free for everyone but you can sign up for extras if you want to keep me in art supplies.)

8. There is no number 8. Thanks for reading, friend.

Argh. There are a ton of scams going around in the literary world right now (and I know because I get at least 10 a week myself) but one of the latest scams is coming from someone pretending to be me. INFURIATING.

Basically, fellow writers are getting an email from me saying that I want to partner with them on marketing their book or picking it for my book club. This is a scammer who is going to ask you for money or for your passwords. I will never ask you for money for anything. In fact, if you get an email that seems even vaguely professional and well-written I promise you it’s someone pretending to be me because I am full of rambling nonsequiters, profanity, typos, and I am afraid of email and of contacting people in general.

The scam is usually someone sending a very long email saying how much they love your work and then after you respond they will ask for money for refreshments for the book club or for “basic administrative stuff” or other things. And if you say yes they will ask for more. Or they will say they want to partner with you to collaborate with you and they’ll use that to get ahold of your socials and then blackmail you for them back or sell them to places that promote p0rn. Or they’ll say they want to do a paid podcast with you on facebook live but first they need to meet with you online to make sure your computer will work and then they will take it over and change your passwords. It sucks and it happens constantly and it gets more sophisticated every day.

These are often made by generative AI (THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE) so millions of these scams are sent out with a touch of a button. That’s why you’re seeing them more and more. One of the easiest ways to see if you’re being scammed is to look carefully at the email the offer is coming from. The one pretending to be me is thebloggesss (with three s’s) @gmail.com. Most professional offers will come from a recognizable domain, so if someone emails you and it doesn’t come from the domain of the person contacting you (like mine should end with @thebloggess.com) then that’s something I’d personally delete immediately.

Other AI things to be aware of? The incredibly prolific pity-advertising video showing an artist (often a marginalized person) crying while another AI person throws their “hand-crafted” product on the ground and laughs at them. The infuriating or inspiring stories on facebook and threads that are really just aggregators made up by AI for engagement and if you look at their profile you see it’s not a real person and says something like, “COLLECTING THE BEST STORIES” or some other bullshit. Entire accounts that are just bots made to attack or to say terrible things intended to affect your political thoughts or exhaust you by fighting with them. I’m sure I’m missing some (and feel free to leave them in the comments) but this is just a little post to tell you that you are not alone if you’ve been scammed and to be careful out there because there are suspicious robots everywhere. Avoid the robots and fuck generative AI, my friend.

First off all, apologies if you are signed up for my art substack where I send you a letter each week, because once again I sent off a letter that I thought started with “Hello, friend” but instead wrote, “HELL, FRIEND.”

In my defense I have been very sick with a summer cold and also I’m dumb. And technically, “HELL, FRIEND” works too at this point.

Luckily, I have a small warm chest compress getting me through the worst of this cold:

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The well-intentioned suffocation, however, is a sweet change from Purrsy’s normal nighttime routine of snuggling quietly next to my face until I close my eyes and then suddenly opening his mouth like a cobra and attempting to slam his tiny mouth around my head while purring as loudly as possible. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that these are mouth hugs and not his daily attempt to see if he is finally large enough to eat me yet.

Unrelated but too awesome not to share…my friend Jenny Shaw has been doing bookish nail art forever. She did nail art for Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, and for Furiously Happy but she has truly outdone herself this time with HOW TO BE OKAY WHEN NOTHING IS OKAY:

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More later when this cold has stopped trying to destroy me. Wash your hands, friends.

I fell asleep reading a book and woke up to the sound of orange chaos:

In Purrsy Bysshe Shelley’s defense, I think we’ve all wanted to crawl into a book after devouring it.

And speaking of books, if you’re a member of the Fantastic Strangelings Book Club you’ll be getting The Children by Melissa Albert and if you’re a part of Nightmares From Nowhere you’ll be getting Muñeca by Cynthia Gómez. They are both deliciously good as evidenced by Purrcy who seems to have developed a taste for books and smiled so wide before literally biting directly into this one while making full eye contact with me like a tiny psychopath:

Need more than one book to get through the month? Me too. Here are some of my favorite new books:

Muñeca by Cynchia Gómez–  A surreal, gothic about a queer, Latine, working-class with who sets out to rescue a cursed heiress to Spanish colonial wealth.  

The Children by Melissa Albert– In which the estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mother’s beloved fantasy series contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory and magic.

The Reimagining of Thornwood House by Jaleigh Johnson– If you are looking for pure cozy, feel-good, escapism magic, this is it.  Like a Hallmark movie melded with witches and houses on legs.

Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky – Crime noir but with talking animals and cybernetics.  Inventive sci-fi sends a raccoon detective out to search for a missing mouse and goes deeper than expected.

The Sane One by Anna Konkle – An emotional and authentic coming of age memoir by the co-creator of Pen15.

Lore Olympus: Volume Ten by Rachel Smythe – I adore this graphic novel about Hades and Persephone and I haven’t read this volume yet but I’m so ready for it.

Headlights by CJ Leede – Seemingly innocent people are waking up on the side of the highway, with no memory of how they got there, wearing the skin of victims they’ve allegedly never met. And they each share one haunting detail: a strand of a stranger’s hair is tied around their tongue.  Creepy as hell.

Don’t Call It Art by Austin Kleon – 10 ways to create like a kid again. Excellent for restarting your art habit.

So! Lots to share because I am forever behind but first, tonight I’m doing a free zoom book tour stop through Nowhere where I’ll be reading HOW TO BE OKAY WHEN NOTHING IS OKAY and we ran out spots a few days ago but we’ve expanded that now so if you couldn’t rsvp before just click here for one and we’ll send you a link to join tonight at 6pm (central). And if you order a copy from Nowhere I’ll sign it and draw cats or chickens on it before we ship it off to you. (And we still have HOW TO BE OKAY bookmarks and magnets that we’re tucking into the books too, while supplies last!)

Secondly, a few months ago Texas Monthly did a piece on me and the photographer was Andrea Mendoza, who I adore. We shot a billion pictures and they only used two so Andrea sent me this unused one and it is my favorite thing ever. It is the perfect representation of me five minutes after agreeing with my husband when he said, “We can stop in the bookstore for a coffee, but stay away from the books because you already have a giant stack of unread books at home.”

(Also, all of the books on the floor and in my arms are advance copies that we booksellers read to help us decide what to stock in the bookstore, so please to worry that I was crushing books from the shelves.)

Third, this weekend my parents came to visit and we went to a German restaurant where my dad insisted he tasted anchovies in the onion soup and we were like, “You are insane” but he insisted that it’s why it tasted so good and the waiter was like, “We don’t put anchovies in anything, weirdo” (the “weirdo” was gently implied) but he was like, “Can you ask what exactly is in the soup?” and turns out it was flavored with a Worcestershire sauce which has dissolved sardines in it and I apologize to everyone in the restaurant who heard me yell, “WHAT THE FUCK….HOW DID YOU TASTE THAT?”

Fourth, I DID NOT ACCIDENTALLY SHARE A PICTURE OF A PENIS FROM MY CAMERA ROLL. This was not originally the fourth thing I was going to share but I just checked threads and earlier someone had said they only had 19 photos on their camera roll and I was like, “I have 19 from just this morning” and so I replied with this:

And then I started getting messages asking if I meant to share “that picture” and I was thinking they were talking about the picture I’d posted of Hagrid and Kenny Loggins-Jesus with the invisible man but then I looked at my replies, and…

So then I considered just deleting it entirely but I thought that would look even more suspicious so instead I posted what I hope is the only combination of words that have ever been typed in this order:

And this is why I shouldn’t be allowed on social media.

And now I can’t remember what my real fourth thing was. Fuck. Thanks a lot, pretzel bread.

OH WAIT. I REMEMBER. Fourth thing is that Purrsy Bysshe Shelley is doing amazing.

10 days ago when he would only sleep in my shower and would hiss lightly when anyone got near:

A few days later when I woke up at 3am feeling something on my back and surprised him with the camera flash as he was clearly plotting my death:

And 4am this morning, when he assumed his now regular position of sleeping directly on my face and purring so loudly he keeps me awake for hours. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So here’s to healing and to the small creatures who do it so magically.

See you tonight!