the weekly check-in (a poetry workshop staple)
it's nine-eleven pm, do you know where your brain cells are?
in lieu of hosting the “what the fuck is poetry?” poetry workshop this week, since i went on a summer sabbatical and i’ve begun to very dearly miss it (and pay the price of not teaching with my mental health and general sanity), i’ve decided to publish here what would normally constitute my weekly check-in. you don’t have to read it or anything (that’s generally how free will works), but who knows? maybe it will inspire you to ask yourself the same questions i annoy my students with every tuesday nine months out of the year.
in love, and in ever poetic what-the-fuck-ness,
joelle
the check in
name, pronouns, and who you are: my name is joelle; my pronouns are they/them, unless i’m scared or it’s funnier to misgender myself; and i am a great many things, human being first and foremost. this week i decided i’m a musician, like in my soul of souls; and i’m also a mimic, and a chameleon, and eternal diva. also the kind of person who will probably die still relatively unknown and undiscovered and will then be labeled an outsider artist and posthumously diagnosed with some type of schizotypal disorder because of the boxes and boxes of journals and sketchpads i will leave behind in my house along with my eaten-by-cats dead body.
how ya feelin? i’m feeling okay. i had a series of disappointing meals today (two, to be exact); one of which i made and the other of which i didn’t, which isn’t the end of the world but also i’m a cancer and i’m always only about as happy as my most primal physical needs are met. i think i’m getting ghosted by someone i went on a date with on saturday which was maybe the best first date of my entire life, so that’s certainly something to feel. [update — i reached out to the person in question (did you know you’re allowed to just say what you’re feeling?) and i am not in fact getting ghosted. all is well.] i feel like i need to stop doing so much ketamine, but also if you bring that up to me in person i never said that. (this newsletter is my private thoughts, shared with several hundred other people, and therefore it would be extremely rude to bring it up to me in person. unless, of course, you’re reaching out to tell me how much you loved it and how effortlessly funny i am, and to announce that you’ll be subscribing to my inner thoughts and fears for the effortlessly funny amount of $6.66 a month). i feel like i have a lot of hope for the future of my art and i also have a lot of fear that i will never ever ever ever ever become the artist that i want to be, which is why i refuse to quit waitressing or stop doing drugs or fully commit to anything ever because i am afraid that if i actually try to be a full-time artist, no ifs ands or buts, i will discover that what i am is a lot of posturing and posing without any of the actual core grit or genius that it takes to be an artist. (i don’t even believe in the myth of the individual genius to begin with, and i would certainly never let any of my workshop students express this thought without trying to gently challenge that deep-seated belief. but still it exists.) i am afraid that if i try to live up to my potential i will discover i do not actually have much potential. i am, in short, terrified to discover that thing which has been echoing across my subconscious all dry hot summer long — that i am all aesthetic, and no substance. but we’ll see!
projects worked on and things made: long term projects — not killing myself. keeping myself alive. keeping myself fed. making enough money to survive through and past the end of the month, with some of it tucked away for my next ten month trip across the world. fake horoscopes. procreate madness. redecorating in perpetuity my home.
things made — a dazzling new innovation in the field of fake horoscopology, to be debuted tomorrow night at 11:11pm. many different drawings in my sketchbook, most of which seem on track to prove that posthumous schizophrenia diagnosis i have coming up. one really bad meal that i can genuinely say is the only gross thing i’ve made in the last two or so years of cooking. a hole in my brain, probably. wise financial investments (a reframing of the original quip i was to going, which was “poor financial choices.”) some really good food, that one outlier meal be damned. my tables uncomfortable. my friends laugh. the earth a better place to live (or at least i hope).
other uses of my creativity, aside from capital-A art making: the most succinct and brilliant titling of a playlist this world has ever seen. (you can view the genius for yourself here.) a playful but also sincere text to the aforementioned first date from saturday night. scanning old poetry fragments and journal entries for upcoming writing projects and newsletter postings. developing a new personal style i’m calling “punk yacht club” or more concisely, punk-prep. (i know they’re antithetical to each other. just let me have this one lapse in etymological high ground.) keeping my tables entertained by my whimsy and endless bounty of charm and goodwill. keeping my managers entertained by never letting them know if i’ll be fifteen minutes early or nine minutes late to my shift that day (although in service of not leaving too much guesswork to their imaginations, i am never, ever, ever on exactly time). an astounding level of commitment to the bit. moments of genuine joy and tenderness between myself and another person (gross!). full understanding and digestion of man-made horrors that are probably beyond most people’s comprehension. and a carefully curated internet persona designed to prop up the parts of myself my aquarius moon has deemed the most interesting and carefully eradicate all else which might suggest that i am actually a regular normal everyday human.
did i meet my intention: my intention this week has been to clear out my living room and reorganize it into an artist’s loft. i have a big ass double living room separated by an archway in my apartment and basically i want there to be one work station for analog (all my pens, papers, canvas, textiles, paints, pigments, thread, fragments, collagies, you get the deal) and another for everything else (controller, turntable, microphone, computer, synth, scanner, what have you). so i’ve been selling furniture, organizing stuff into bins that doesn’t belong up here anymore, and generally running around like a chicken with their head cut off. so yes? but i’m not finished yet.
any other relevant information or events: it feels relevant that i’m a human being experiencing happy emotions. maybe the world is glowing a little bit. other than that, free palestine.
and what do you what or need from workshop this week?
i’m just happy to be here, man. thanks for coming in.
the manic pixie dream girl’s guide to existential angst is a sometimes free newsletter (and the occasional poem) from joelle schumacher, as well as their weekly fake horoscope forecast. if you enjoy their work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, and/or subscribe to or write in to their advice column (but preferably and, instead of or).