Long Distance Love Bombs

My friend is still missing in the floods in Nepal, and it’s messed me up.

I feel sad and tender and confused and distant and distracted, but nobody can see that happening in me. It’s not like I’m wearing a cast or a sling on my arm.

The cashier at the supermarket asks me how I am.

What do you say to a stranger who asks that?

“I’m tormented and scared and questioning everything about my life.”

“I’m grieving something I hope they find soon.”

Sprinkling cinnamon on oatmeal, I think of my friend, and I wish for something miraculous to happen. I feel infested with helplessness.

I listen to the leaves in the evening. I sit and stare, remembering a conversation I had last month with Stephen Jenkinson, who spent much of his life around death.

“You don’t know how to know that you’re going to die,” he told me.

This week, I feel like I’m getting closer.

A reminder from my first book of year and share inspirational poems, It’ll Be Okay, And You Will Be Too. My new book is a memoir called A Giraffe Named Feelings 🦒🤘🏼

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Until you stop dating, hiring, befriending, and tolerating as****es, they won’t face sufficient consequences to stop being an as***le.

Your self-respect, higher standards, and fiercer boundaries will make the world a better place.

Stop defending as****es.

Stop making excuses for as****es.

Start holding people accountable for their words and actions.

Bad behavior that is ignored gets repeated, but behavior that stops working stops happening.

(Trust me, I have a toddler.)

Art credit: 🤷🏼‍♂️

Imagine taking someone from 100 years ago and dropping them into a Costco.

Want half a gallon of mayonnaise? We got you!

Oh, your ge****ls are itching? Ma’am, please make your way over to this area - there’s a pill for that!

Need some fresh cut flowers, a fake mummy for Halloween decorations, and a couch? No worries!

Can’t see well with your existing glasses and need a flat tire repaired? You won’t believe it, but we can do all that, too!

Dropping a dude from 100 years ago into this place would have them absolutely fu***ng gobsmacked. The sheer abundance and cleanliness of the place would astonish them.

And rightly so!

It’s a wonderland of sheer capitalistic ease and delight.

We overlook how miraculous this place is. We don’t see it. We’re too used to it.

We notice the long lines and the idiots absent-mindedly steering their carts into us, or the cost of eggs.

Squish isn’t used to it.

She wanders around entirely mesmerized by the circus it is.

She sees astonishing things everywhere, and when I see her, I see it too.

Two huge emails in one day!

One from cover expert designer Yoori basically saying, “Yo, man. Yours is done, and it looks banging.”

And another from Zoe, genius interior layout designer, saying, “Broski, the inside is locked and loaded. It’s fire.”

At long last, the inside and outside are both complete. Holy fu***ng moly.

Sitting in an inbox with 4,763 unread emails, stuck between Costco receipts, Substack newsletters I’ll never read, and a few spam bots trying to steal my identity, there were these two joyful messages inviting a full body “Let’s gooooo!”

The next steps are to order a proof and get the actual physical book in my actual physical hands so I can make sure it looks amazing before I send 100+ copies out. After nearly drowning so many times during the creative process, I’m beyond excited to sniff the paper, flip through it, and see how it all came together.

Then the print run happens. I order 100 books, sit in the kitchen, sign them, number them, and write little inspiring notes in them. And maybe I’ll draw something inappropriate for my friends who ordered. Who knows what you’ll get. Time will tell.

Oh, and the special gifts for everyone who wanted a signed copy! Those will happen, too.

Also, I know I said August, but it’s looking like longer might be more realistic. Shipping a ton of books to a small town in Canada, signing them, and then shipping them around the world, well, it’s a big job, and one that’s likely slower than I’d hoped. I’ll keep you posted and will email everyone who ordered with a real plan as it develops.

It blew my mind watching all the orders roll in.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And to Yoori Kim and the badass book queen, I Got You Covered 📚 - huge grateful high fives for all you’ve done to help me get this over the line.

There are only six left.

The pre-sale closes tonight, and after that the signed and numbered copies are done.

This is honesty, not marketing.

If you’ve been dilly dallying on the fence, this is your coin flip moment.

Thank you for watching me write and talk non-stop about this thing.

It’s been a long swim.

Link in bio.

🦒