Welcome to lolsob
The first of what will hopefully not be a mistake for either of us. Keep scrolling for a super cute doggo pic.
Hello, and/or hello-o-o-o . . . [Ed. note: Spell as if to indicate echoing.] Welcome to lolsob, an internet word that means an emoji face and is now the title of this new newsletter. Who am I? A book-lover and book-writer. My book Low Country had some very nice things written about it (Oh, what’s that? You’d like to buy it?!), and I have a novel coming out from the same press, the wonderful, incredible Catapult Books. Sometimes, I write essays and articles.
Does the world, i.e., the internet, really need another newsletter? No . . . but as much as I can help it, there will be as little of anything new, especially the newwws, and as much of everything old as I can manage. The extremely youthful title? A Trojan Horse!
So what are you lolsobbing about, if not the news? Fine . . . there may be an occasional news, but emotions are energy and energy is timeless, ergo nothing is new, not even the news yada yada. Mostly, I am trying to give myself a reason to read and to write a little bit more, since most of my days are spent in front of Slack [insert reference to late-stage capitalism here], and every notification feels like a crushing reminder of all the time I spend not reading and writing. . . . [Hi, boss!] For a few years, I worked at a bookstore, and recommending books is still one of my favorite things.
Getting back to the news, which is as old as time: I encourage you to navigate away from this oldsletter this very second to donate to your local abortion fund, or to the Brigid Alliance, which helps people in need of abortion care cross state lines and travel great distances to access necessary medical care that is also as old as time, certainly older than quote-unquote “the Constitution,” in which those dudes did not “remember the ladies,” as they were *specifically told to do*, not to mention their other . . . choices.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if dudes experienced the daily small and large terrors that accompany being a woman (who is a woman if she says so). Like in those Instagram videos of men hooked up to machines that simulate period cramps or labor pains, but for the psyche. Wow, did empathy even exist before Instagram? Good thing the internet changed everything for the good, amirite? Maybe if tech bros spent as much time sitting with the state of the world for people who are not them, there would be more human rights and a lot fewer escape rooms. Little known fact: The Founding Fathers modeled the U.S. on a colonial escape room. lolsob. Did I use that correctly? As an old, I can barely use the internet (or as we wrote in my day: Internet) and am having my cat type this for me. Syke: I don’t have a cat. I have a dog, and she is a beaut:
I also might write about my dog. Come on, look at her. That is the face she made when I said I was thinking of starting a newsletter. Oh, yes, back to that: As I mentioned, I will probably write a few sentences about books. Occasionally, maybe I will write something about TV, or recipes, or who knows! Let’s find out together. But, in all seriousness, it will be mostly books, plus dog photos, once a week-ish.