Do You Have a Sidepiece Project?

I'm obsessed with mine.

Hi friends.

I want to be able to tell you that waiting for those very first notes on a new book from your agent or editor somehow gets easier over the years, but I am ten books in now and it is still crazy-making, no matter what. Not anyone’s fault, it’s just the way things work. Everything takes time.

I have tried to stay busy, on this week of waiting.

I did all the loads of laundry, even the single socks at the bottom of the basket. I listened to every single podcast in my download history except for some of those Marc Maron ones. I ate copious stupid snacks.

I read and enjoyed Scaffolding, a smart (be prepared for lots of Lacan conversation) and also extremely horny book. I watched Josh’s wonderful new comedy special and read some favorite substacks, like Mary’s and Deesha’s and Hamilton’s. I also started to read Angela Flournoy’s new book but was so struck by its humanity within its first few pages that I decided to save it for August, when I will probably be losing my mind in the heat and will need a hand up.

I have taken naps, I have weed-whacked. I have shaved my legs. Clipped my toenails. I made dinner reservations for meals that will be happening a month from now. I saw “The Phoenician Scheme” primarily because Michael Cera was in it and I am a middle-aged white woman. I drove across the longest bridge in the world over water, the elegant Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, and went thrift shopping on the North Shore.

I went to Galatoire’s for lunch with Anne and had a three dollar martini and steak frites, and then after we meandered a little tipsy through the French Quarter, ending with a daiquiri at Manolito. I went to dinner at Bar Brine with Ladee and we walked to the end of a children’s parade where the Preservation Hall Band played on a street corner.

None of this makes the notes come faster. But it does pass the time.

But what’s really floated my boat this week is this secret little side project of mine. One that’s just for me and no one else. One that doesn’t ever have to be shown to the world. Maybe you have one, too? So then you might know the pleasure of it all.