SHORT:
Should I start carrying my retainer case on the train and giving people proud looks, like musicians do with their instrument cases?
MEDIUM:
Well, this week was uneventful.
I missed a writing deadline (no problem), and instead spent 2-4 hours scrolling my friend’s deep sea photography Instagram and wondering why I didn’t choose to study coral formations and move to Guam to be a ranger at a national park by the sea1.
I’m scared of sharks but think I could get over it. Honestly— what’s worse: sharks? Or the social politics of the New York comedy community, theater community, and online world? Kidding of course.
According to my research and experience, Sharks kill you way faster which is nice.
LONG:
Jess has been sending me videos of bears in Alaska sitting in water and saying “me in hot tub”. If that does anything for anyone.
We’ve gotten to the point in brain decay land where “me in hot tub” is all we can kinda do or say. I don’t think it’s our fault I think it’s capitalism and universe et al.
It also probably doesn’t help that we’ve been filling our metaphorical crack-pipes with HBO’s brain goo-ing program: LGBTQIAnd Just Like That.
No spoilers, but Miranda’s new girlfriend doesn’t like kids until she meets Miranda’s grown son, played by an actor named Niall who once read an old Jewish professor role in my living room during a draft of my Holocaust play, and then Miranda’s GF is like, “Wait, now that I met him, your kid’s actually okay, mostly because he seems to like my two freaky dogs.”
There’s a lot of “editor representation” this season on LGBTQIAnd Just Like That, which is thrilling Jess, who, in real life, is an editor. In this week’s episode, the actor playing a director turned to the actor playing an editor and shouted, “Yes! That’s the exact cut I want!” which Jess says has never happened in the history of editing. But to be fair, the show exists outside of history, time, space, and narrative physics (complimentary).
Tonight, I whipped up a HelloFresh burrito mid-work meeting, wolfed it down as the Zoom ended, and immediately hopped on three trains to try on a suit for my sister’s wedding. That burrito is Snack Of The Week because I cannot remember what else I ate over the course of the last 7 days.
On the three trains to try on a suit for my sister’s wedding I decided, that instead of spending all my energy on being a person other people want to be around, I probably need to focus it on being someone that I want to be around instead since I am around me the most.
Do we think that is good/helpful?
I used to listen to podcasts where people were like “the minute I let go and or gave up, shit happened for me”, so now I walk around town all the time declaring I’ve given up.
Do we think that is good/helpful?
There needs to be a way for me to stop knowing about what everyone is doing while also knowing about what everyone is doing. There also needs to be a way for me to get coffee with everyone who wants to get coffee with me without getting coffee with everyone who wants to get coffee with me.
If someone could figure that out, that would be very good/helpful!
Alright…
Well…
You can’t say I don’t put one of these out every week!
C U Next Tuesday
Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not [like when people slip on ice].
If this is your first time reading, pls check out the archives.
Sincerely,
Reid Pope
Bonus Zone:
I think the sea is actually part of the national park but it was too hard to make that sentence flow right with that info in it… and you know I’m all about flow… if there’s one thing this newsletter does… it’s flow…
Not a problem at all
probably one of the best things ever written to be read.