The Moon Belongs to Everyone

How it (re)started.

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii

It’s been a really long time, hasn’t it? Like, so so long. And for some of you it’s the first time in quite literally forever because (surprise!) I manually added you to my subscriber list without asking. Sorry for ambushing you with ✨content✨. If you find this boring or irritating or in any way undesirable, you are welcome to unsubscribe or just delete everything I send without opening it. I will, in fact, be insulted, but really it’s fine.

But yes, it has been long! Like so, so long, because the last time I sent one of these Small Frank was still alive and she died a while ago now.

RIP Franks, you were a wonderful Small Friend and I miss you a lot.

But speaking of previous editions of this “publication,” if you navigate to my home page you will notice that I deleted them all! Clean slate! Light the past on fire! Prior to this moment I have never had a single recordable thought or feeling!

Anyway.

It’s Friday night and I am on my couch, because I have been benched by the universe. I am not quite over my third (3rd!!) head cold in less-than-as-many months and a couple of days ago I got hit by the kind of menstrual onset that will make you believe in the Old Testament god. Somehow between the sick and the cramps, I managed to cough so hard that I spasmed one of my QL muscles and spent Wednesday basically immobilized. I wish I were joking. But I’m not joking! I desperately need somebody to come lie on my couch and hug me but I also kind of don’t want to be touched, ever again? Things are fine.

Anyway, Pt. 2.

I have been meaning to restart this here internet publication for a while now but it kept not happening. For a lot of reasons, but partly because I felt like I needed to have a plan - like it needed to be a Real Project with a specific theme and some sort of goal that would “grow my audience” because No Non-Monetizable Thoughts Under Capitalism or some bullshit.

But now I feel like this was dumb and all wrong! Because the actual purpose, the only purpose that matters right now, is forcing myself to write something - like quite literally anything - for an audience on a routine basis. Even when I don’t feel like I have anything to say.

Ideally this will happen every two weeks. Maybe more if y’all get lucky and I’m feeling fertile-brained. Just absolutely pregnant with non-monetizable thoughts. Maybe you will get flash fiction! Maybe you will get classic film reviews! Maybe you will be be forced to listen to me complain about my period! I really don’t know!

So who even needs a proper title or competent site design when all of that shit can be figured out at some nebulous later time?

The core issue is that I really just need practice right now, because that thing where I just had language, where my brain would kind of think things and then language would happen, has become very unreliable and it often feels like I’m making these vague piles of words instead.

I also know that it’s not quite enough for me to toil away in private on things that no one will read for months or years or ever (though I do intend to start doing that part again too). I need attention and praise to stay motivated, because I am thirsty as shit.

I used to think that was a very gauche thing to admit, but fuck it, because who aspires to do literally anything for public consumption without being fundamentally ego-driven? Joan Didion knew.

But despite my ego, which is both fragile and quite large, it still always stuns me that people actually enjoy reading the things I write. Even two decades into this shit I’m not entirely sure why other people find my brain interesting, but I guess I should believe it because y’all do keep telling me. And by y’all I do not just mean my mom.

And I really do appreciate when you guys respond to the things I write with nice little notes and emails. So please keep doing it because again, I am thirsty as shit.

So welcome, you are all my guinea pigs in an experiment called “Tania attempts to cultivate the effective use of language for creative self-expression, and also some fucking discipline.”

Here is 90 seconds of joy for you. May you tap dance through your Tuesday.

Goodnight. I’m going to go find something British to watch.