Well, well, well, look who it is.

And we all have Samantha Irby to thank.

Hello mixers,

I am back! With a new last name and Prozac subscription, I have returned to resurrect Just a Mix of Things.

This humble blog began a few years and one lifetime ago, in the early pandemic and work-from-home days. It was a way for me to write through what I was seeing in the world and how I felt about those things. I had a lot of thoughts and even more feelings back then, which was fine until all those feelings piled on and on and on and reached a fever pitch in my head that I couldn’t stand any longer (hence the new Prozac prescription).

I prioritized myself and my sanity, which meant not only pausing all thoughts and therefore also this blog, but also quitting my toxic corporate job (yay!). I took a break from working and then moved into freelance contract writing which I am very much enjoying. But sometime last year, I began to miss the outlet this blog provided for my thoughts and my writing - a crucial part of being a writer.

However, there were a few reasons I didn’t bring the blog back over the past year or so:

• Laziness. My husband, Derek, and my therapist will both tell you that this is incorrect and that I am not lazy for choosing to prioritize other things (like my sanity, comfort, and growing TBR pile). But I maintain that at least some of the delay was due to laziness, lethargy, the preference to lay on the couch and play video games rather than get on my computer and write something.

• Nothing to say. Often when I thought about my essay writing career, I ended up wallowing, thinking that I had nothing of note to say. Nothing I had to say hadn’t been said already. I hadn’t lived or done anything exciting enough. I didn’t have any good ideas - another crucial part of being a writer. Without any of that, I wasn’t fit to be a writer even though I knew that when I put pen to paper, fingers to keys, what I wrote could be pretty good.

• Overachieving got in the way. When I decided I was going to get back into essay writing and for real this time, I immediately jumped to “I’m going to pitch The Cut and Catapult and The Rumpus and that will launch my name and career.” That might have worked, but with the aforementioned dearth of ideas, laziness, and a lack of clips, I barely pitched stories and immediately labeled myself as a failure.

Naturally you might ask, what happened since then that allowed me to overcome those doubts? The partial answer there, I think, is time. My therapist can attest that I spent many hours beating myself up for not doing more and not doing more, faster. She, in turn, spent many minutes assuring me that I could do things at my own pace, that there was no set standard that I needed to follow and by which I was “succeeding” or “failing.” Perhaps I needed that time to amass a list of story ideas and for that to prove that I am actually able of thinking of things. Perhaps I simply needed time to get used to my new normal, and now just happens to be the time at which I am used to it enough to hop back on. Perhaps it’s a little bit of both.

I also owe my return in part to Rax King, who led an amazing six-week writing workship, and Amy Shearn, who held a “writing online” class, both of which I attended this year. I was able to get back in the saddle of writing and thinking of ideas, and I learned new ins and outs of the industry I hadn’t known before. Plus, my writing had such a positive response from Rax and my fellow workshop-goers, that I felt encouraged and reinvigorated. It all pushed me back towards Just a Mix of Things.

But the final piece that clinched the deal? Samantha Irby. A week ago, Derek and I went to her Books Are Magic event to celebrate her newly published book of essays, quietly hostile, and we got to chat with her as she signed my copy of wow, no thank you (my pre-ordered copy of quietly hostile is still being mailed!). I told her how I, too, write essays but am not on her level yet obviously, etc. And amid her great advice was this gem: “Write whatever the fuck you want! Otherwise there’s no point. The New York Times asked me to write an op-ed about something that I didn’t really care about so I was like, ehhhhh nah.”

Obviously, she’s right! It’s so obvious I was like “wow, duh.” I don’t need to have the amazingly unique experiences of Alexander Chee to sell essays and books. Samantha Irby proudly writes about diarrhea and bad sex, and she just published her fourth book and sold out two separate NYC events full of adoring fans! If she can write about the things she wants to write about and sell books and find other freaks like myself to buy those books and tell everyone else about them, then so can I.

So here we are again, dear readers. My new goal as we start back up here is to grace your inbox once a month towards the end of the month. I have a whole issue with self-accountability (oh hey, there’s an essay idea), so while it’s totally not your job, I definitely encourage you to message me if you catch me slacking by the end of a month.

I also have this issue of being a freelance writer, so another new thing here that you may have noticed is the introduction of ~pricing.~ The blog will remain free, but if you feel so moved, there is now also the option of throwing some monthly/yearly change into my online tip jar via Substack if I can set that up correctly. I’ll let Derek figure out how that affects our taxes.

I’m so excited to be back into the writing habit, and so grateful to have those who believe in me and my writing. I hope that one day, we can look back on this blog as we celebrate the publication of my own book of essays, which Samantha Irby did say she would blurb for me.

See y’all in June!