Lately, I find myself wandering the streets of Greenpoint, simply wondering…
In this post-yet-not-at-all-post-pandemic, every day feels further away from the life I used to have. No longer do I dance until 3 A.M. and maybe, just maybe, flash someone! (old habits die hard!). No longer do I literally run from dinner to a show! No longer do I carelessly spend money I don’t have! (JK, of course I do that).
Am I just, *older*? Do people, even myself, just not wanna hang out all the god damn time anymore? (See last week’s Hungover Newsletter, answer is of course, yes).
In a strange way, New York seems like a bit of a ghost town for me these days. Quite frankly, it feels like the band broke up. Sometimes I see people walking down the street with their friends, and I just get sad. I remember when that was me! A regular Sex & The City gal! Oh how it hurts! But am I just being dramatic? Yes! No shit! That’s my whole thing!
Things have changed a lot though. I’ve thought so much about how the pandy has affected friendships. In good ways and bad. Some ties grew stronger, some withered away, for reasons I’ll never truly understand.
I sketched that in my notebook a few months ago and never felt like doing a finish on it. The names are all made up and to be honest, the only anti-vaxers I know are men. Not that there aren’t women out there against it, lord knows there are. My sister is a nurse in Idaho and she has to face the pain of these people’s choices every day and it’s infuriating that she has to take care of them (lol can you feel my anger). I keep hearing story after story, of families and friendships getting so divided on this and I find it so heartbreaking. I’m not trying to make this newsletter about getting vaccinated, but to me, it’s like, don’t these people wanna see their friends and family, and get their fuckin’ groove on? It’s LITERALLY all I want to do! Which brings me to the actual point of this newsletter:
I miss dancing. I miss dancing with my friends. I miss dancing with strangers.
I miss dancing so much, that all I do is draw people dancing.
It’s like I look down at the page and whoops, there I did it again! Another girl having the time of her life on the dance floor!
I don’t think there’s anything in this life that makes me feel as good as dancing does. It’s one of the few things that doesn’t make me feel anxious. I don’t have to think about a god damn thing, other than what song I wanna hear next (I’m very controlling on this :) ).
When I was a kid, I used to pray for a dance party every time our family got together. It wasn’t as if it wasn’t going to happen (in our family it’s basically a guarantee anytime there’s a dinner party), but when I was young I would get so worried, like, what if for some reason, tonight, it doesn’t happen?! How could I ever possibly handle the disappointment?! I would basically plot out the evening, to ensure that we would all be sing-screaming “Round, round, get around, I get around!” before the night was over, so that I could sleep peacefully at night, a happy camper… Hilarious that I’m talking in past tense right now because I very much still do this. I just found this little comic in my March 2018 sketchbook and it is very accurate.
All of this is reminding me of the essay I wrote about Snoopy and dancing in The Peanuts Papers, which you can check out on Long Reads if you don’t have the book. Luckily, my dog Margie is almost as good a dancer as Snoopy, though she’s still working on getting her ears fully up in the air.
I complain about this lack of dancing a lot these days, and I everyone loves to tell me “Dance at home!” and I’m like, “Girl I know!” You think I’m not dancing at home? You’re out of your mind. Of course I am. It’s how I procrastinate.
I like to think I’m the one who invented the 3 PM dance break, though surely women before me have known about it’s benefits!
But dancing at home is simply not the same! I’m thankful that there have been a handful of times that I got to go dancing this summer, but has it been enough? No! Not nearly enough! I need to SWEAT baby! And there’s nothing like the sweat of a crowded dance floor. The energy is unmatchable. Last weekend I was desperately trying to find a place to go dancing when I discovered an all day Madonna dance party in Bushwick at 3 Dollar Bill club. I thought, my god, here it is! My savior! I even got some friends on board to go! Until I realized they were charging a cover and this wasn’t just any cover. It was going to cost THIRTY DOLLARS. A PERSON. TO LISTEN TO A DJ. PLAY MADONNA. Not to see Madonna herself. Just to hear some songs and bounce my butt around. Never has a Karen come out in me so quickly! I immediately thought, who can I complain to about this? Whose door could I bang on and go on a rant, explaining how they could get more customers if they just had reasonable prices! And don’t they realize the unemployment rate? And the rent is too damn high? What has Brooklyn become when a girl can’t go dance to Material Girl for the cost of two gin & tonics and a late night quesadilla?!
Sigh. We did not go. We all made dinner together and gossiped about John Mulaney. (I don’t think people should be so mad at him, but hey that’s just me). It was a very nice evening together, but it was no Madonna dance party.
Please, pray for me.
I’ll leave you, not with a cartoon, but a glorious photo my cousin Jacs took of my mom and I dancing together this summer. I’m very proud of our shoulders being this in sync. Like mother like daughter!
Thank you for reading! New posts every Friday!
Song on repeat: Abba’s new song “Don’t Shut Me Down”
A TV show I am dying to see: Abby Jame’s new show Teenage Euthanasia!!!
Obsessed with: This accidental ASMR
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