The Anniversary Spectacular

I read you this edition to celebrate. 👄🎙️🎈

This week’s episode is brought to you by all my friends who told me I should be recording these. It was annoying and took me forever, but I did it for you. ❤️

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Hi friends!

I can’t believe an entire year has passed since I first hunched over my demented, little laptop and started writing about how crazy everything is. Time warps and flies when you’re yearning for the return of fun.

Before we take a trot down memory lane and discuss how having my own deranged corner of the internet has healed me, I’d like to take a moment to commemorate the passing of a founding father of Unhingement, Orenthal James Simpson, who mainstreamed the art of lying flagrantly and ushered in a whole new era of pop culture being insane.

O. J.’s “trial of the century” made great content, which wasn’t what we called things back when we still changed channels and could physically touch most media, but it primed our appetites for the way we eat shit up today. He may have faced no real consequences for a double homicide, but we have been paying the price since — his courtroom soap opera birthed the haven for lunatics that is reality TV.

And though we didn’t yet have Cameo to help Kato Kaelin make rent, or the language to brand Marcia Clark a girlboss, we had the pre-internet meme of “if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit” and the episodes of Seinfeld it inspired. That content, unlike O. J. Simpson, lives on.

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If I had the budget for a designer this is where I would put a pic of O. J. Simpson, Donald Trump (painted a chalky orange), Mark Zuckerberg, and Kris Jenner photoshopped as the faces on Mount Rushmore. I’d caption it “the founding fathers of Unhingement.”

But you can just use your imagination — it’s free for me and good for you!

Also, if someone forwarded this to you, here’s a cutie button you can click to subscribe:

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Not gonna lie, I’m kind of obsessed that my newsletter operates on the same calendar as the IRS. I already addressed the mushrooming state of the Unhingement last month, so no need to rehash, but it’s dire. And I’m thinking about updating the madness pyramid. Just letting a few geopolitical plot lines unfold.

Yesterday, I revisited the very first email I sent, to see if my initial thoughts on the Age of Unhingement™ hold up, and while so much has flared (do these vibes have sciatica?), I had surprisingly few revisions:

• I had referred to the era as “this extremely slow and expensive apocalypse” — would now like the record to show that we’re at quickly accelerating and very expensive apocalypse.

• I wrote, “diabetes medicine that makes you skinny is the only thing trendier than fascism.” But, in horrifying news, and despite a certain talk show host I can’t name for legal reasons throwing all her weight (teehee) behind it, Ozempic now trails fascism in relevancy. Praying for us all.

• Then: I was fantasizing about moving to Bali, but too tired to do it. Now: I’m very well rested, alarmingly so. Let’s see what happens!

me after emailing my accountant.

Right after the eclipse last week — a fantastic spectacle from our original screen, the sky — a TikTok tarot reader told me my manifestations from 2016 were about to come true (Unhingement). Like any delusional internet princess would, I immediately excavated my old journal from a pink shoebox to see what I had been scribbling about that year. I found no manifestations, but I did find this journal entry that sent me:

I think fearlessness is a myth, unless you’re missing a brain lobe or two. Sometimes fear can mean you’re going in the right direction if you’re a certain kind of person. I am starting to view fear as a companion, a chatty, little gargoyle that sits on my shoulder, taunting me. And that’s whatever. But, I don’t have to listen to its hot takes on my hopes, dreams, and relationships.

Keeping a journal always pays dividends when you read it eight years later. Fear as a chatty gargoyle with hot takes? And that’s whatever? I was cackling out loud.

This is my 40th newsletter, a feat I only accomplished because 40 times I told that sassy gargoyle of mine to shut the fuck up and then hit send. The internet has broken our brains, yes, but it has also brought us all a platform if we want one. And what a gift from this crazy age — that to share our creativity with the world, our own permission is all we need.

I’m so happy I didn’t listen to the gargoyle when it told me to compare myself to 25 year olds with huge followings or when it said there’s too much content out there already and we literally don’t need one more take. What was I really afraid of, anyway? That I had nothing to say? Historically untrue. That you guys would think I’ve gone mad? Well, yeah, I have. So has the world. So have we all. And someone’s gotta say something about it before everyone just implodes. Like the submersible, RIP.

I told myself that this was an exercise in overcoming perfectionism. I gave myself permission to start where I was and had the curiosity to see where it would lead. My perfectionism just shape-shifted and may now be worse than ever, but I wrote these consistently and took myself pseudo-seriously (the best I can do, I have that clown in me) and it made me a better and more confident writer. The journey to get over your own bullshit is never linear and yet always worth the ride it seems.

The gargoyle is unwell, simply quaking in its little cowboy boots.

What will year two of this project bring? Well, expressing yourself is highly addictive and I’m now obsessed with writing, so I sat my ass down and wrote an entire manifesto Age of Unhingement™ book proposal at the Coffee Bean. Are any of my gorgeous readers who found me through the New Yorker … literary agents? My inbox is open. I’m ready to do my dog and pony show now.

I never could have imagined what a balm to my own unhinged soul writing these letters and connecting with you all would be. It was always when I felt the weirdest about writing something that one of you would reach out to say it made you feel seen.

So, thank you for your comments and your messages and for opening these emails week after week. Thank you for helping me incinerate my own worst inclinations. Because what I’ve really been burning down here, it turns out, were some old ways of being that needed to leave.

Less Lessons More Blessin’s™

Liz