HAGS

Three things

Hello, my loyal, honorable and insatiable Field Trippers!

Thank you for seeing my name in your inbox and not punting it immediately into your trash. While wallowing for a moment in The Pit this week (my sad place, not the hit TV show), brooding about the point of it all (all = this substack, and also life), I took a moment to scroll through the hundreds of you who are actually reading these newsletters. It made my heart sing! while also making me want to run into the hills and disappear.

It is interesting that I took up running again right when I started Substack. Anytime I feel embarrassed or cringey, I can always just pound myself into the ground until I have something more painful to think about.

Anyway. Thank you for being here and only judging me quietly, and from afar.

Three things this week:

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1.

This week, Europe is going through menopause, and it has been hotter than Hades here in Milan. This hot flash came as Ophelia and I were recovering from the plague, so I’ve had to balance the cool/dryness of the constant fans with the warm/wetness of sitting in our steamy bathroom so Ophelia will stop coughing. But we are feeling better and the worst is, knock on wood, behind us.

I hate the summer. My body was not made for the sun or the heat. Nothing turns me into a rabid, evil ape woman faster than the heat. At least in winter, you can bundle up and go outside without dying. In the summer, there’s only so little clothes one can wear, and even then, you run the risk of sauteing yourself. Thomas says I have to stop talking about it, that constantly complaining about the season won’t make it go faster. But here I am.

The locals have justified my complaints. Our beautiful 80-year-old downstairs neighbor, Rita, is always put together. Her outfits are chic; her snow-white hair is always blown out; she is kind and gracious and I love her.

Two days ago, I was leaving the building as Rita and her granddaughter, Mathilde, were coming home. Looking down from the stairs, I could see Rita’s thin white linen shirt was wrinkled and off-center. Her usually perfect hair was sweaty. She was unusually flustered. Only a natural disaster could make Rita disheveled. Looking up at me, she whispered, exasperated, “This is TOO. HOT.”

So anyway, my brain is hot and mushy in a bad way, and I can’t research or finish anything. So we get a stream-of-consciousness, life-update-type Field Trip today. Is it too much that I get to be the topic of the influential women’s newsletter every once in a while? (Dear Diary, today I found out Corinne is delusional, and also a narcissist…)

come on in, mosquitoes, the waters fine

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2.

Exactly ten years ago this week, I graduated from high school. I do not know what to do with this information.

my peak

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3.

Google Ads found me at a weak moment this week, and I bought a long-desired MasterClass subscription. So far, I have inhaled Michael Lewis and David Sedaris’s courses, and I am momentarily motivated and inspired to “get my @ss in the chair”¹ and write. And get better at it! If anyone wants to pirate anything from my membership, I will happily give you my login info. It’s my email and the same password I use for everything, which is also my social security number, so have at it. If you find any money in my accounts, let me know.

I started this newsletter to document our lives and connect with loved ones back home. It has hydroplaned into something much different, something that has become meaningful to me and, hopefully, interesting to you. Moving forward, I’m going to try to blend these two topics (documenting life and researching women’s stories) into something I’ll actually want to sit down and write, and that you’ll want to read.

I have also used this Substack to practice writing, which, unlike my ability to play the viola, is something I am interested in improving. I’m excited to experiment with different topics and formats, which I am sure will evolve as life goes on.

THAT BEING SAID, I think the next step to get better is actually having a human edit my writing. If anyone out there fancies themselves a writer, knows someone who is or simply loves to criticize their fellow man, I’d love to exchange work, give feedback or pay for it. And for the lady, an editor?? Let me know.

Next week, I am also announcing some changes to the newsletter, so I will see you next Friday!

Thanks again for being here. Stay cool. HAGS.

We did have an evening thunderstorm yesterday, which is my most favorite thing, so my hatred of the weather was momentarily counterbalanced and neutral

1. Michael Lewis, MasterClass