Amy Writes Words - Issue #2: Tiny Habit
Amy Isikoff Newell
It’s sooooo easy to start a newsletter. But then, what?! I’m supposed to send it on a regular basis? People expect newsletters to recur? Like the seasons? Like open enrollment? Like the twice-yearly ritual apologizing to the dental hygienist for the fact that you look like a vampire when they’re cleaning your teeth because you absolutely positively cannot make yourself floss? Even brushing is a challenge, let’s face it. Some of us habitually go to bed with our glitter makeup smeared all over our faces and then attend our first meeting of the morning with blue and silver lips. Some of us have a hard time with routines.
Here, read my blog post on routines on my not-actually-active blog, thesaddestwomanintheworld.com.
Yes, I will be writing a memoir in which every chapter title is a domain name I own but have done little to nothing with.
The part about Fashion
Post-pandemic hot girl summer:
I’m team multiway tops, lingerie as outerwear, sequins during the day, 80s throwback sports clothes, polewear as outerwear, short-shorts, boots and brazilian bikinis, and patent platform anything.
Conversely, fuck espadrilles, any accessories with rope detailing, all varieties of denim except skinny jeans, and those heels with long ties that are always shown tied all the way up the leg even though in practice the second you do that and start walking they slip down and you end up just wrapping the ties a million times around your ankle and wondering why you bought those shoes in the first place.
Also, bras are now totally, totally optional, now, and forever, in every situation. Fuck the bras, the bras are over. (Obviously we get to wear them if we want to).
Also post-pandemic hot girl summer applies to all genders. Long live the degendering fashion movement.
“[email protected] It’s weird that I’m so efficient at shopping that you think I might be a bot, but you might want to tune your bot detection. I am actually a human with money to burn, but I am not so eager to burn it at FP that I’ll keep IDing traffic lights to do so.”
just a woman with a shopping addiction
“Hello all consumer brands: your online shopping experience is terrible. Please fix. I am wasting my life scrolling thru your slow-to-load product images that are somehow not clickable while also verifying too often that I am not a robot, just a woman with a shopping addiction.”
The part about politics
A quote from What Is Found There:
“Reading the poet Adrienne Rich today. “politics is the effort to find ways of humanely dealing with each other- as groups or as individuals- politics being simply process, the breaking down of barriers of oppression, tradition, culture, ignorance, fear, self-protectiveness.””
Book suggestion:
I recently read Thick, by Tressie McMillan Cottom, and you should too, especially the chapter called Girl 6. Also follow her on twitter.
The part about Mental Illness
Here’s a poem I wrote about my bipolar disorder. Yes, it’s a bitter response to Lady Gaga’s anthem “Born This Way”.
The Part About Tech
Binders full of female engineers is the name of my Ani Difranco cover band
“can everybody just stop saying “female” immediately when referring to women? subtweeting every recruiter trying to either recruit me or get me to hire folks: your pitch that you’re looking for or have the very best female engineers is not the pitch you think it is. Really.”
Tech boosterism is so annoying. This guy never answered me.
“@SHIFTPOINTS @dharmesh @HubSpot @bhalligan Every morning when I make it out of bed I’m exhibiting irrational perseverance. I genuinely don’t understand why that’s considered to be a defining trait of entrepreneurs. Like the rest of us are not persevering through hard shit? Actually a serious question.”
“Interview idea: instead of whiteboarding an algorithm, whiteboard all the ways an algorithm (or any software feature) might cause harm. If you don’t care or can’t think of any ways or can only think of ways it might harm someone just like you, no.”
The part about my thirst trap IG @amywearsboots
I am winning the follower game recently. I acquired a German magazine called Heyday that celebrates exactly my demographic, once described by a fan of mine as “Mature Woman With Fashion”. And, and, a poet who was the Poet-in-Residence at something called The Dracula Society. Feel free to follow me at https://www.instagram.com/amywearsboots/
here's some life Wizdom for you
I recently decided I really wanted to get better at flossing but I persist in hating flossing. So I got a waterpik. It’s pretty great. I just bought the one Wirecutter told me to get. The physical experience is far more pleasant than flossing, it’s a couple of minutes, and the waterpik is more gentle and makes me bleed less than flossing. I’m really hoping my hygienist is proud when I see her next month for the first time in a year and a half.
Life lesson: if you can’t get yourself to do one thing you really wish you could, look around for alternatives that might accomplish the same goal or a related goal, and try those instead.
wrap up
I predict I will be publishing this newsletter with the following cadence: 7 times a day, or weekly, or every 2 months. Probably rotating amongst them. No really, I will be trying to build the tiny habit of sending the newsletter weekly.
Please suggest to your friends that they also sign up for this newsletter.