Sketchbook Dump #31

Spooky Brat Season, Charles L and loud noises

Spooky Brat season is nearly coming to an end. What is Spooky Brat you wonder? Spooky Brat is Sandra Bullock sweaters, it’s girls who literally think they’re in a coven and not just a group chat, it’s a dirty tote bag filled with receipts, it’s eating a Reese’s from your pocket, it’s reading your own diary in public. And there’s only one more week left of it! How will you celebrate?

Women love to love October. You see it everywhere. Girls being witchy and shit. But you can’t get mad at us for trying to grab our one piece of historical culture that signifies some semblance of power. This morning I got out of therapy and immediately put on Hocus Pocus (she told me to recenter myself!). I’m on a dance team who cannot stop talking about how we are all witches and listen, I’M OK WITH IT. I EMBRACE IT WHILE I’M STILL ALLOWED. Because come November 1st no one is going to let me wear striped tights or let me talk about the spells I want to cast.

My dance team The TailShakers is in the NYC Halloween Parade and it’s my first time ever even attending the parade despite the fact that I’ve been here nearly 10 years. I think I was always a little afraid of the parade and the horror stories of not being able to pass 3rd avenue for two hours, or is it just that I love to be indoors on Halloween?? I’ve been told my parade debut will require just as much waiting around but way more fishnet stockings than I’m used to! Joining a dance team this year has been honestly magical. My boyfriend keeps making Bring It On references and he’s not wrong. I have found a feral youth in myself that is hyper concerned with 1/2 counts and hitting her mark and it’s a great place to be in life. When I was in 3rd grade I wanted to be a veterinarian, a cartoonist, and a rockette, and I’m telling myself that all those dreams have come true…What are your Halloween plans?

Everyone is making jokes about the world ending next month after the election. It feels like the U.S. is about to have a pop quiz they didn’t study for and definitely won’t have an opportunity to make up for it after school. I still have hope but it’s waning. People in my life who I never thought would go to the dark side, have, and it’s left me completely lost. Is there a book on how to handle this type of grief? I remember right after the 2016 election I was at a film festival that I had made some animations for, when a female filmmaker there confronted many of us during happy hour, declaring that we had to completely denounce any family members who voted for Trump. She told me I shouldn’t go home for Thanksgiving, because that would demonstrate the pain they’ve caused me. I felt so confused. Yes, their decisions caused me pain, but why should I inflict further emotional harm on myself by not seeing my family when all I want to do is see my family? I can hear some newscaster responding with “That’s the kind of thinking that got American people into this mess!” Which is partly true, but it’s also so many other things. Anyway, this is supposed to be a humor newsletter…so…here…

With the weather (barely) changing I’ve returned to my rats nest self. I left my hairbrush at my boyfriend’s place and currently my hair is in so many knots that it actually looks like I have a hair tie holding it back, but I don’t. It’s just my hair… tied… to itself. I swear it’s like I brush my hair, walk out the door and BAM. Hairs fucked. How do people cope with this? Is there some secret? And DO NOT tell me to chop it off. I feel like I’m in my Cher era and I say that NOT to suggest I am as beautiful as Cher (insane), just that I have really long hair right now and that I’ve been very into a deep v neck and it’s fun.

In other important news, who is watching The Golden Bachelorette? I knew it would be coming soon but I was so devastated when Charles L. didn’t get a rose last week. I am not a Bachelor Franchise person so I don’t know what it’s like to get so attached to these people, but Charles L. was one of the kindest people I’d ever seen on television. I could have watched him hang out with the guys in the mansion for hours. I hope he is able to find love again!

While I am not deeply familiar with Bachelor-core, I am aware that the fun of the show is watching everyone bond in the mansion and never, ever, about the person everyone is vying for and this seems to be truer than ever with the Golden spin-off. The women of The Golden Bachelor were so deeply funny, and honest and completely enriching in a way no 22 year old could ever be. A few of my friends who had watched The Golden Bachelor were hesitant to starting The Golden Bachelorette explained that they didn’t think a house full of older men was going to be very interesting. I stopped them right there. I was like think about it, when do a bunch of dads get to have a sleepover and cry about how much they love their daughters? It’s honestly incredible. And those friends started watching immediately, and agreed with me. Because it’s not about Joan. I wish her the best and hope she finds a partner but Joan is deeply boring. All she talks about is missing her husband and the somehow radical idea of “putting family first.” You know who is not boring? CHARLES L. MY GOD CAN WE SEE MORE OF HIM???

Next week (or maybe the week after I don’t know??) the season will come to an end and we can all find out who Joan picks and blah blah blah there will be another marriage and another divorce because no one with that many grandchildren is moving out of the state, etc etc, but I’m just so happy to have witnessed dads in their “golden” era bonding in a mansion. I hope it happens to me one day!!!

My apartment is decked to the nines for my annual pumpkin carving party this weekend. I get crazy over these things. Cookies, party favors, contests, movie playlists that go with song playlists. Part of me thinks I really should have been a kindergarten teacher but we all know I swear too much for that to have ever been a possibility. I’ll just have to settle with pretending I’m 5 for the rest of my life!

Do you have a favorite part of this month? I think mine is watching pumpkins slowly rot and all the phases of their faces. It’s like watching a play in slow motion. That and of course all of the unreal decor on people’s buildings. One day I’ll have a stoop to decorate and I’ll go wild!!

I have been really sensitive to sound lately. I thought being in New York this long would mean I would become impervious to the riotous symphony that is our city but instead I’m crumbling more than ever over the trucks, the construction and the general screaming. They are still working on the building behind my apartment (basically 2 years at this point) and it continues to be life ruining. I came downstairs the other morning and caught my landlord as she was on her way to work. She’s a lovely Polish woman with a thick accent. I said, “Isn’t this driving you insane?” She responded, “Yes Hilary. This is driving me insane.”

I’ll leave you with a cartoon I didn’t even both submitting to The New Yorker because tampons.

Thank you for reading! New posts every Friday!

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• ICYMI: Fort Green Dog Parade is tomorrow and I’m doing portraits!

• Snacking on: mini Reese’s Fast Breaks!

• On repeat: Sleep with Me podcast

• In love with: my new lifted lumbar support, yeah you heard me

• Call for submissions: I’m producing a Holiday Market at Paloma Coffee Shop in Greenpoint in December, if you want to be considered as a vendor, please fill out this survey!

• My cousin Matthew Sweet suffered from a horrible stroke last week while on tour and needs your help, there’s a GoFundMe to assist in his care

• Most of the cartoons in this newsletter are available on Etsy!