This is Friday Feels from Feeling Phine. The last post in this series was poetic, and can be found here. x
Hi there,
It’s the END OF THE YEAR, can you believe it? (Actually, as I’m publishing this around 6:30 PST, it’s already 2022 for my friends in Asia and Europe. If this is applicable to you, HELLO FROM LAST YEAR! I hope you’re not too hungover.) As we near the finish line of these wacky 365 days, I’m doing what I always do towards the end of an experience: looking back and being overly sentimental! While driving to work yesterday, I found myself thinking about the newsletter and how happy I am to have started it up.
I’ve always loved writing. When I was a young warthog of six or seven years old, I kept a journal documenting my likes and dislikes, my friends, and my hobbies. I picked up journaling again in my early twenties when I started documenting my post-grad travels. Once life got spicy, the travel entries quickly morphed into love life entries; as a result, writing has always been an intensely personal activity for me.
The urge to write beyond my journals has always been there though. Throughout the years, whenever presented with the opportunity to write for ~an audience~, I’d do so with gusto.
First, there were the comedy sketches I’d write for our mandatory high school assemblies. (I wasn’t a regular nerdy virgin, I was a cool nerdy virgin.) While my Twilight spoof was great, I think the real pièce de résistance was the one which culminated in Harry, Ron, and Hermione humping the ground at Hogwarts to the melodic lyrics of The Bad Touch. Did I get in trouble? Yes. Was it worth it? 100%.
Eventually I matured and moved on to writing essays for my degree at UCSB. There I was blessed with a wonderful audience in the form of T.A.s and professors. My desire for feedback was quenched by their comments on my papers, always in bright red, which I’d gobble up in varying states of delight or defeat. (If you are assuming that I was still a nerdy virgin at the time… then you are absolutely correct.)
Once I graduated and got my first big girl job at a travel agency, my proclivity towards writing manifested itself in the form of long-winded, descriptive work emails; wonderful for travel itineraries! Vastly under appreciated, when attached to an expense report!
Outside the structures of academia and work, I’ve repeatedly channeled my ~cReAtiVe~ expression into Instagram captions, as the cheugy1 millennial woman is wont to do. My captions range from average punny remarks to full soul-baring paragraphs, depending on the volume of sentimentality evoked by the photo at hand.
All of the aforementioned outlets were suitable at the time, but upon reflection, none of them allowed me full self expression. Which is why I find myself so grateful for my little substack! It’s been live for almost four months now, but I still get giddy whenever I sit down to write these silly newsletters. Even more incredible is the part where I get to publish and send them out to the world.
If not already clear, I’m going full-on ooey gooey and sentimental here. THANK YOU, my readers, for subscribing (or allowing me to coerce you into subscription). Thank you for letting me take up space in your inbox every (or every other) week. Thank you for reading my smorgasbord of ideas, and telling me what’s good, what’s just alright, what you like, and even don’t like!
There’s the age-old question of whether one should write for oneself, or write for one’s audience; for me it’s a bit of both. This might be corny as hell, but I hope that at some point while you’ve been reading these past months, I’ve managed to make you smile or laugh.
Finally, a special thank you to my incredible Editor, Kelly. This whole thing wouldn’t be a thing without you. You’re the best. I love you!
Cheers to more inbox riffraff in 2022.
OKAY that was nice, now onto more serious matters. Who should I smooch at midnight tonight? Feel free to vote in the comments.
Tonight at midnight, Joséphine should kiss:
A) A hot rando she met at the dinner party, where she is a plus-one
B) Her gay boyfriend, who invited her to said dinner party
C) Her own reflection in a mirror - an act of vanity masquerading as “self-love”
D) Oh shit, her gay boyfriend is kissing the rando… that eliminates options A & B
E) Her iPhone camera, while drunkenly FaceTiming someone with whom she’s been on approximately one date
F) Her cat, when she gets home blacked out at 2 AM
G) None of the above
H) WRITE-IN CANDIDATE: __________________________
Happy New Year everyone!!! Wishing you health and inner peace as we turn the page.
x Joséphine
Definition, courtesy of Wikipedia: Cheugy (/ˈtʃuːɡi/ CHOOG-ee) is an American internet neologism. The term is commonly claimed to have been popularized by Generation Z, as a pejorative to describe lifestyle trends associated with the early 2010s and millennials.