everyone wants to hear advice from a 26 year old

what I'm trying to learn right now, or, it's my party and I'll be cringe if I want to

Nov 07, 2023

Happy November. I wanted to come back to this newsletter with something big and brainy, but that hasn’t materialized. I’ve been working on a piece that keeps doubling back on itself. Its argumentative edges keep spreading outward until it seems to be saying nothing at all, and after wrangling with it night after night, I’m starting to suspect it’s one of those things that’s more fun to talk about than write about. The voices of my college composition teachers are ringing in my ears: “this is a topic, not a thesis.” I never understood what they meant. With 15 pages of half-paragraphs, 90 minutes of rambling voice messages, and 20 unread research tabs staring back at me, I’m starting to get a sense.

The balance between writing for exploration and writing for publication continues to elude me, especially when I’m slipping it into the margins around a 9-5 job and trying to keep my eyes and heart open to the horrors happening around the world. I don’t say this to apologize, just to acknowledge: it’s hard! It’s all hard. I know that writing things out makes me feel better, even — especially — when it’s scattered and messy. I hope that you’ve been able to do some things that make you feel better this month, too.

Anyway, this is something silly and short. It’s my birthday. I’m 26 today, which feels wild to write. If my twenties were a 1600 meter race — four laps around the track — this would be the point when I stop and wheeze, a little more than two laps in. I’ve still got all that to get through? It’s exhilarating in some ways and mortifying in others.

I know that birthdays don’t really mean anything (classic Scorpio), but I do like to see them as a checkpoint, so this past weekend I thumbed through my journals and voice memos and iPhone notes and tried to pull out some of the major realizations, lessons, and/or cautionary tales I’ve come across this year. My major keys, if you will.

Some come from friends, some from books and articles, almost all of them from some form of mistake. I’m not claiming that any of this counts as wisdom, or even advice. According to pop psychology, my brain only finished developing 365 days ago, which explains (a) a lot of the dumb shit I did between the ages of 19 and 24 and (b) why one of those pop-up turkey timers was sitting on my pillow when I woke up on the 25^th birthday. I’ve only been rocking a fully-developed frontal cortex for a year, so I don’t claim any authority.

With any luck, I’ll hate 12 of these and think 5 of them are flat-out wrong by this time next year. But they helped me in the moment, and maybe can help you, and…let’s just get to the list.

26 LESSONS I’VE LEARNED (or am trying to learn) ON MY 26^TH BIRTHDAY

in no particular order:

1. The bad news: you’re always going to be “failing” or “falling behind” in one or two areas of your life (maybe more!). You can either accept this and choose where you’re willing to drop the ball, or get frustrated and burned out in trying to keep up on everything. Switch out your failures seasonally and you’ll probably be fine.

2. Pickled red onions have an insanely high ratio of effort (low) to satisfaction (high). Making them might be the quickest route to self-esteem known to man.

3. You’re allowed to be fascinated by your own life.

4. Stanning is therapeutic and the related expenses should be covered by insurance.

5. Cockroaches can live in coffee machines. I repeat, COCKROACHES CAN LIVE IN COFFEE MACHINES.

6. When you’re going through a rough time, pick something common — a leaf, a word, a Dunkin Donuts cup — and designate it as your sign from the universe/your higher power/whatever. Every time you see it, that’s a little yes in your direction. It doesn’t matter that it’s all over the place. The act of noticing makes the difference. Note: this is definitely not a good one if you tend toward obsessive-compulsive thought patterns. Or if you think it’s dumb.

7. Waterproof mascara technology has come a long way, and you can get away with crying in more public places than you think. Wield this power wisely.

8. If you think a layoff is coming at work, you’re probably right.

9. Just say hello. Hiding always feels worse.

10. Expecting effortlessness in friendship just sets you up for failure.

11. When in doubt, make the expansive choice, rather than the contractive one. (I could swear I got this concept from an issue of Maybe Baby that came out sometime in the spring, but now I can’t find it!)

12. It pains me to say it, but Andrew Huberman kind of snapped with the “wait 90 minutes after waking up to drink your coffee” thing.

13. Be bold, start cold! This is technically hiking advice — a reminder that you don’t need to put on all your layers at the trailhead because your body will warm up quickly. I’ve taken it as an all-purpose reminder to show up when conditions don’t feel ideal, especially in social situations.

14. Switch out your go-to music and smells (candles, perfumes, etc.) every month or two, even if you don’t feel like it. The friction of unfamiliarity makes time feel like it’s actually moving forward.

15. You gain very little by pretending to know things, and you can gain a lot by asking a question. Just be honest, dummy!!

16. The balance between creative input and creative output is kind of like the one between food and movement. In order to be healthy, you need to incorporate both. Just like food tastes better when you’re hungry, art feels better when you’re creating something of your own.

17. Anxiety is defined by its immediacy. If the fear you thought was irrational is still present 6 months later, it might be intuition. Sorry!!!

18. The Party Rock method works.

19. Jealousy can be a great clue about what you really want — when you catch yourself in it, try your best to transmute the feeling into action around your own goals.

20. When you’re stuck in a rut of depression, pay close attention to the things that make your heart lift, even the tiniest bit, and even if they’re the stupidest things in the world. Allow yourself to be swept away. Louise Glück said this much more elegantly.

21. Every single workday, you are going to have a single 30-minute period that feels like you’re being roasted alive in the fifth circle of hell. This will happen no matter what job you’re in, usually around 2 pm. It will pass. A Diet Coke sometimes helps.

22. If you’ve gotten less than 7 hours of sleep, you have no business going to the gym.

23. Almost everything worth doing has some level of action to it. You can’t really learn something or get to know someone passively. Even rest requires a certain amount of effort and intention. It sucks, I know!

24. Optimism is a form of bravery, especially when it relates to the world at large. Back it up with action as much as you can.

25. Love is never wasted, and neither is heartbreak.

26. Being nicer to yourself actually doesn’t hurt anyone.

And that’s it! I learned absolutely nothing else :)

At the risk of sounding like an influencer, let me know if any of these resonate or spur thought in you, or if you’re coming to understand the complete opposite under your own circumstances.

I’m scheduling this post to go out in the morning. I’m hoping to find a nice spot to watch the sunrise before work because I am, admittedly, a corny motherfucker, but I’m also finishing this post at 12:30 am, so that might not happen. Then I’ll hyperventilate in front of a laptop for 8 1/2 hours, as usual. The highlight of my day is going to be dinner. I got a table for one Musso and Frank’s Grill, an unbearably old-school Hollywood establishment that features Jell-O on the dessert menu and still considers creamed spinach an essential side dish.

This is literally what I’m going to look like

The 104-year-old restaurant is a consistent presence in LA’s ever-important self-mythology, and I’ve always been curious. One of the unexpected joys of my old job (see major key #8) was that it gave me an excuse to dig into the history of LA (a city consistently defined by its murder stories) and the writers who shaped it. McWilliams, Chandler, West and Babitz are my favorites, though I know they’re only scratching the surface. All of them hung out at Musso’s, and it’s scattered across their work, as consistent and warm as an old friend. Philip Marlowe eats there in The Big Sleep, Day of the Locust features a pretty horrifying moment in one of the booths, and Eve’s go-to order was the aforementioned spinach and something called “sand dabs,” which sound illegal.

All that to say, it’s existed as an archetypal location in my imagination for a long time — a wood-paneled symbol of glamor (glamour? neither looks right), history, and sleaze. To be honest, I’m nervous about bringing this constellation of ideas down to earth by actually setting foot inside. It’s hard to maintain a sense of wide-eyed potential when the material realities of a place and time are right in front of you, or when the spinach actually has a chance of getting caught in your teeth.

But that’s what birthdays are about, right — the forcible transition from a vague idea of the future to the lived reality of it, and the attempt to make that shift just fun enough to sidestep the terror. Idk, I’ll do my best!

I’ll spend too much on an entree, I’ll try one of their famous martinis — my first! — and with any luck, I’ll mess up something badly enough to get a head start on the 27^th-birthday version of this list. Honestly, it’ll probably be the martini order.

Acme Thought Corp.

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