Vol. 106: The Malentine's Day Edition

Sort of.

I’m sitting in bed, where I’ve been most of the day.

I was crocheting a gift commissioned by a friend for another friend (and that’s all the information I can reveal!)

I did some work.

I watched some TV.

I was up half the night with a stomach ache from eating too much at a restaurant in downtown Powell or the anxiety of being alive or probably both.

I had all day to write this¹ and now it’s 9:34 pm and my alarm is set for 5:30 am and I would prefer to not be looking at a screen and instead be drifting off while reading a historical fiction book that my sister lent me.

But I am called to write and I am holding myself accountable to write and I know I will feel better after I write.

So here I am.

Before we get into this edition, please check out Nantia’s thoughtful and wonderful #PalCrushMonday from last week. She’s extremely cool, and I’m excited for her to go to business school.

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The format:

• What I’m crushing (accomplishing, achieving, attaining, fulfilling, something that I am being successful at.)

• What is crushing me (see definition 3b, something that is bringing me down.)

• What I’m crushing on (admiring, adoring, appreciating, cherishing, favoriting, etc.)

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What I’m crushing

I got an apartment :)

It will be the first place that’s all mine. And while I didn’t expect it to be in Columbus, that’s where I am for the moment. And I’m excited to have my own space.

My manager was asking what I wanted as a housewarming gift.

“Maybe an espresso machine? Just kidding, you really don’t need to get me anything.”

She said that she wanted to get me something. That she wanted to help me celebrate this occasion. That not everyone gets married or has kids, so it’s important to acknowledge the exciting moments, even if they’re not always considered the biggest milestones.

I appreciated that perspective because a lot of times I do feel behind. Like I’m not hitting the benchmarks of adulthood.

So I’m glad to be celebrating and to be celebrated.

Plus, I’m moving into a 2 bedroom, so you’ll have to come visit soon.

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What’s crushing me

A teacher of mine passed away recently, and I went to his celebration of life over the weekend.²

It was sad in a lot of ways, and I still feel like I’m processing it.

Mr. Hanks was my middle school theater teacher, a formative time and a formative subject.

He painted one pinky nail to match his tie every day.

I thought he was one of the funniest people in the world.

When I was young, I was a tiny sociologist, observing the cool girls’ handwriting and watching how they talked to each other, trying to figure out what made me different from them.

But when it came to humor, I had my sociological magnifying glass on Mr. Hanks. What was he doing that was making him so funny?

I honed in on one specific thing that made everyone laugh every time.

If he said something previously that got a laugh, when he brought it up a second time, it got an even bigger laugh. Sometimes he could even bring it up a third time.

That’s how I learned what a callback was. Just by watching Mr. Hanks.

I once told him that I wanted to be an actor when I grew up. He said to me, “If you can do anything else, do that. But if you must act, if that’s the only thing in the world you can do, then act.”

I don’t know how I feel about that advice, because I believe I can do a lot of things. But would I enjoy doing a lot of things? Probably not. It’s advice I’ve thought about a lot, and I can’t tell if it’s been helpful or harmful.

I remember going to visit him in his little office backstage. It was always lit with a warm, orange light.

I felt like I could be myself around him. With other teachers, I had to wear the hard, shiny armor of a lifelong private school girl. But in theater and with Mr. Hanks, I could be silly and weird and goofy and myself.

I hadn’t talked to Mr. Hanks in years but knew he was in Columbus. He’s someone who I thought I might run into or reach out to one day, and it’s sad to think that I won’t.

There’s a joy in seeing teachers that you liked in adulthood. Just to show them that you made it to adulthood, even if you’re not always proud of where you are. I wish I could have seen Mr. Hanks again to show him that I made it to 30 and I’m about to move into my first apartment by myself, because that’s something I’m celebrating.

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What I’m crushing on

I watched all of the show Laid on Peacock over the past couple of weeks, and I loved it.

It’s so weird and dark and funny and absurd. Stephanie Hsu is a treasure, and Zosia Mamet has played one role for her entire career. It felt like it was written by someone my exact age with my exact life experience. That’s to say, it was very funny and relatable.³

Would highly recommend.

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It’s 10:01 pm now. I’ll read through this edition to make sure it makes sense, and then I’ll put my computer down and try to read that historical fiction book that my sister lent me.

I am so anxious about going to work. About driving to an office. About the state of the world. About potentially feeling stuck and unhappy and dissatisfied in every choice that I make. About being alone.

But I will fall asleep eventually and get up and eat breakfast and make my lunch and go to work and sit in my cubicle and try not to have an anxiety attack. I’ll try to take deep breaths even though I couldn’t last week as hard as I tried. I kept trying to breathe deeply and fill my whole belly with air, the way that they tell you to in yoga class. I tried to breath from my stomach and not with my shoulders, the way that Mr. Hanks taught us to when we were doing warm-ups in drama class in middle school. I couldn’t breathe deep enough. I couldn’t get enough air in. My body was constricting the airflow. I felt like the inside of my body was too small for my breath but the outside of my body was too big and too expansive to be confined to a gray, stuffy office with low ceilings and hideous carpet.

So.

Yeah.

I wasn’t really planning on…….saying all that. I don’t know if you can tell, but big paragraphs aren’t really my style.

Anyway, that’s that and this is this and I need to stop writing now because if I don’t then I will never get to sleep. I don’t necessarily want to go to sleep because it will lead to that big paragraph above, but the time will pass anyway and I should get some rest in the meantime.

Oh, and I just realized that this was meant to be the Malentine’s Day edition. Oops, I forgot about that. If you’d like, you can read the 2023 Malentine’s Day edition or the 2024 edition.⁴

Your devoted Malentine,

Mal

1. Honestly, I had 2 weeks to write this.

2. That’s what I was doing in Powell, Ohio, a place I would probably never choose to go unless I was going to the zoo.

3. Except for the ways in which it was absolutely and shockingly not relatable at all.

4. There’s some fun stuff in this one.