Is This Year New?
Because it feels a lot like last year, to be honest, given that I rang in the New Year via zoom.
I hope you all had a relatively restful holiday. In my opinion, the second COVID Christmas was a bit easier than the first - practice makes perfect! Or, at least, less terrible. Or maybe it’s that I wasn’t eating sugar at this time last year - huge mistake. I did actually get COVID and had to cancel my trip to see my parents in London, but the silver lining is I didn’t have to go see my parents. Plus, when I was out of quarantine, I got to see my baby nieces. Look how much fun we’re having! She loves to eat wrapping paper. Yum. They’ve also started barking like literal seals.
I can’t really say I’ve been up to too much, on account of the lockdown. I did write a few things that came out this month. My pal Alex Connolly and I are in the New Yorker discussing the “baby bust” and climate change, and I made a case for hiking dates in Bustle. Probably my favorite thing I wrote this month was about manifesting a text back via my the sex magick of my orgasm. Those words don’t sound like they’re in the right order, but they are. Check out my Cosmo essay on it here. I’m also really proud that Yes We Mustard was featured on Audible’s Best of 2021 list! You can listen here.
I’m gearing up for PR mode for my upcoming humor book. That’s a funny thing to say, considering I live my life in PR mode. It’s a silly little book of satire pieces and essays about dating. A fun fact about this book is that I wrote about my boyfriend in the final essay, and then we broke up after the final manuscript was due, and then the editor sussed out from my Instagram that we’d broken up and asked if I wanted to change it. Very grateful to her, although, to be fair, I did write something like “we probably won’t be together when this comes out.” Am I a genius, or are publishing windows just long? Pre-order it now and I’ll stop asking (just kidding, I’ll keep asking).
For stand up fans, I’m tentatively headlining West Side Comedy Club on January 22nd, although to be honest, I’m not that optimistic, given, like, the virus. If you like taking chances, you can buy tickets here.
I do have pretty big career news that I can’t share yet. Isn’t that so annoying of me? I feel that it’s my newsletter, hence, I can be as annoying as I want. I really hope you’re all staying healthy and safe. It’s bonkers how long this pandemic has gone on. In terms of book recs, I got so obsessed with one author that I have to recommend all of his. His name is Fredrik Backman, and he very kindly interacted with me on Twitter. My favorite of his (so far - I’ve requested them all from lib) is A Man Called Ove. It honestly made me cry so much I thought I was PMS-ing, but I wasn’t. I did start PMS-ing the next day, so I had a prolonged crying spell, and for that, I’ll never forgive Fredrik. Also loved Anxious People and Beartown. I spent my isolation period devouring his stuff, so if you get COVID, you know what to order on Kindle! Or you could be like everyone else and read that super dense book on the history of everything, whatever.
That’s all for now. Happy New Year. I want to say something like “next year will be better, it can’t get worse!” but we said that each of the last two years, and…you know. Stay safe out there.
Love you guys xoxo Ginny