Pour Me A Story, Vol. 36
feat. Ella Dawson, cardinals everywhere and more
greetings everyone! welcome back to Pour Me A Story, which The New York Times ranked in its 20 newsletters least likely to make it to 20 editions. we sure showed them!
it’s been quite an eventful week since we last hung out in your inbox or on your phone. the moving-in process continues unimpeded and, slowly but surely, we’re figuring out the flow of the house and finding some routines.
same goes for the neighborhood at large. if you’ve ever moved cities before, you’ll probably know how gratifying it is the first time you drive somewhere locally and figure out the directions and your bearings without using Google Maps or notes of some sort. I’ve managed it a couple times, heading to the gym and the mall, and it feels good as hell. it’s the little things, man.
oh! and I keep seeing cardinals everywhere. not the Catholic Church figures; that’d be weird. or the baseball players. or football players, I guess. Christ almighty. I mean the bright red birds. I was about to say “guess I’ve never lived somewhere where cardinals live,” but then I looked at Wikipedia and I was deeply, deeply wrong.
yep, they live in Maine and Florida, so they’re native to three out of the four states I’ve lived in. guess I never paid attention before. anyway, the bright-red males of the species are just stunning to behold. listen to me talking about birds. how old am I?
Good News Comes Full Circle
one morning earlier this week I got a message from an online friend of mine and former newsletter alumnus who shall remain anonymous. they were excited to share some good news with me.
I was obviously thrilled for them, knowing that said news was the culmination of a lot of hard work over the past few months (years?), and it was also very humbling to know that they wanted to share it with me too.
it made me think back to the earliest iterations of this newsletter, which were directly and unashamedly about “sharing good news.” that in itself felt like a million years ago, but there really are few things I enjoy more than being able to celebrate someone’s successes. and it feels as though there’s been a lot of that happening over the past few weeks, so I’m super glad everything’s coming up Milhouse for you all out there. you deserve it.
Anyway, We Have Company
continuing a several-weeks streak of guests whom I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting in person, we have longtime internet friend Ella Dawson. Ella was formerly in social media management and I believe we first crossed paths online around 2015 courtesy of a former coworker of mine, but I digress. she’s very smart and interesting so I’ll just let that speak for itself shall I? cool let’s go then.
AC: hey Ella! thanks for "joining" me. how's things?
ED: Hey Adrian! Life is a bit topsy turvy right now, but I'm drinking a Diet Coke out of a wine glass in my mom's kitchen and I'm ready to gab.
[unfortunate hour-long gap in the interview while I “did work” or something]
AC: okay well since I left you hanging for a whole hour, I have to assume you're caffeinated and just bursting to elaborate about the dreaded topsy-turvy! what's been going on?
ED: The last year has been all about making big life changes! As I'm sure it has for a lot of people, the pandemic made me challenge the assumptions I'd made about who I am and what I want. Do I want to live in New York City? Do I want to get married and have kids? Do I want to work in social media, or do I want to try to write professionally? They're big, scary questions and I feel both alive and petrified as I set about answering them.
AC: I feel that heavily. and I think if there was any time to reevaluate in a major way, this is certainly it. one of the few good things to come out of the past year anyway. have you come to any grand conclusions on any of the above questions? I know you've jumped into the writing game with both feet, which rules!
ED: I am definitely done with working in social media. Hopefully. As long as it's financially feasible not to! I quit my last job in an ugly fit of pique on the day after the election when it looked like Trump might actually win. It was not my finest moment, as much as I believe I made the right decision, and it made me realize I am not in a place mentally to be a good employee. I am a shit-stirrer and I need to honor that about myself! Ever since I've been writing full-time with the support of an amazing Patreon community, and I'm starting to take freelance assignments from publications. It's scary to lean into the financial instability of working for yourself, and boy do I miss having dental insurance. But my day to day happiness is worth it.
AC: I have nothing but admiration for folks who live the full-time freelancer life. I tried it once for a few months and it was constant anxiety for me. as much as I am absolutely a shit-stirrer and probably a huge pain in the ass to employ, I am only cut out to be an employee haha. tell me about the Patreon! I'm again in awe of the organization it must take to map out a content calendar when you're the only one executing.
ED: My first step was creating a content calendar and it was so much more fun to do it for myself than it ever has been to do it for an employer. I have all these columns and a color coding system and everything. It took me a while to figure out what kind of writing my readers would want to pay for, as well as how much to charge and what perks to offer. At this point I usually do one big personal essay a month about sexuality and intimacy, which is my main beat, and that's exclusive to patrons at the $7 tiers and up. Those essays are so much fun to work on: I know only readers who already opted in to support my voice will read it, and so I can take creative risks that I normally would be afraid of. Then I write smaller pieces that I share throughout the month with all patrons and the public, and I create quote cards that promote the podcast interviews I do. I try to create regular patron-only posts like a newsletter about pop culture and a monthly discussion thread about something specific, but people don't seem as into those, so I may retire them. It's fun being able to make strategy decisions on my own and try different styles. I'm having a blast.
AC: see, this gives me the smallest inkling of realization that, because I understand ALL of these concepts because I do a lot of it for work as well, I could probably survive as my own boss as you're doing, which is dangerous for me. do you think you're more highly motivated to create now that your output is basically wholly and solely responsible for paying the bills?
ED: Yes, I'm absolutely more motivated to write. I have days where I watch six episodes of Gossip Girl and clean out my dresser of old clothes instead of writing, and then I feel bad about not working and judge myself and worry about money. But then I have days where I follow a whim of a thought about that show I binged and then I write an essay in one setting inspired by Gossip Girl and I'm like, wait, this is my job!! Money is a motivator, finding new patrons is a motivator, keeping patrons satisfied with new work is a motivator, but so is the new freedom I have to follow those creative whims and impulses wherever they lead. It's so satisfying.
AC: that fuckin rules, and I’m really happy for you that it’s working out and being creatively satisfying as well. so now that you don’t need to be in social media or big brand world anymore, that kinda opens up the country (the world!) for possibilities of where you could base yourself?
ED: It does! I'm not tied to an office anymore, or even a timezone. I plan to rotate between Brooklyn, Connecticut and Long Island for now, and travel in COVID-safe ways to stay with friends around the US. My best buddy Gabe just moved to Kansas City and I'd like to write from his guest room for a while once he's settled in.
AC: speaking from very recent personal experience, the adjustment from major city to Midwest is incredibly pleasant, so I’m sure Kansas City would be a great change of pace. well we’ve crossed location and work off of the list of your self-questions — is it too delicate to ask what conclusions you’ve come to on the marriage front? I know a lot of your writing centers around intimacy and relationships, that’s gotta drive some interesting perspective on it all.
ED: Ah, marriage. I'm not sure if I ever want to get married and have kids. I just turned 29 in May, which is an age when women are supposed to start getting serious about building a family... at least according to social norms and pop culture and my Instagram feed full of engagement photos. While I think marriage is lovely for the folks who decide it is right for them—and who knows, maybe I will too, someday—I'm also surrounded by women and queer folks who have been harmed by the institution. I spent the pandemic reading about domestic violence and coercive control for a project I'm working on, and it's worth remembering how much marriage remains a financial and legal partnership built to protect the interests of cis white men. I'm quite emotional about this because my State Senator Alex Kasser here in Connecticut recently had to resign from her office because of her abusive husband's ongoing refusal to grant her a divorce. Alex was the first woman and queer person to hold that office, and the first Democrat in a century. Before she resigned, she passed Jennifer's Law, which redefines domestic violence in Connecticut to include coercive control and other forms of abuse beyond the physical.
AC: wow, that's an incredible accomplishment and you'd love to see more states take up a law like that. and I was right, you DO have a perspective on marriage that I hadn't fully considered before! so thank you. that's one of my favorite things about these little conversations honestly, learning something new. okay I will stop grilling you now and toss a couple softballs to finish up: firstly, the guest of the week gets to choose the song of the week. something you've been jamming to or is significant or motivating or...whatever you like!
ED: Right now I'm listening to a bunch of tracks that I loved in college as I work on my romance novel (which is about a bunch of millennials who go back for their 5 year college reunion and deal with a ton of deja vu and unresolved drama). I have Get Myself Together by Robyn playing on repeat today! It's also a total breakup/self-empowerment bop.
AC: hell yeah, that's perfectly fitting, and it has LAYERS. nice. okay last but not least: this is where you get to plug something. similar to song choice, it's entirely at your discretion. sky's the limit!
ED: If you're a fan of memoirs about sexuality and power, I wrote a short memoir, LIFE RUINER. It's about my experience falling in love with a charming, volatile jerk and getting diagnosed with herpes during our relationship. We don't talk much about the connection between STIs and abuse—we don't talk about those topics enough individually, either!—so it's a unique read that I'm immensely proud of. You can read it when you join my Patreon at the $7 tier, which will also give you access to an entire essay collection's worth of other work about casual sex, hookup culture, intimacy and love. Here's the link.
AC: hell yes! I love it. and I've been meaning to reevaluate all the newsletters and subscriptions I pay for so that I can squeeze yours in, but this seems like the perfect opportunity to do just that. thanks so much Ella, this has been great! I appreciate you sharing some of your time with me.
ED: omg it's my pleasure this was so easy and fun!!!
Worthy Consumables
one of the fun things about moving to a new city — hell, a new neighborhood, even — is replacing all your tried-and-true restaurant options with new ones, and comparing them to similar spots in the last place you lived.
we’ve been here in Cincinnati almost two weeks now, and while the first few nights we were here were filled with family dinners and quick-hit takeout stuff, we’ve been getting back into that groove of cooking that’s seemingly always lost for a couple weeks on either side of any move. you know that time period — you don’t wanna unpack the pots and pans, or find the plates and silverware, or it’s pre-departure and you just want “one last meal from XYZ that you’ll never get again.”
anyway today was a long, hot day and neither of us had the inclination to cook, so we decided to trawl Google Maps to find out what’s good around us. we settled on Indian, something we ordered with relative frequency back in Denver. it turns out Cincinnati has an Indian population of significant size, and Alex had assured me before we moved here that there was Indian food aplenty.
we found a place right down the street, Shaan Indian Cuisine on Paxton Ave., and it did not disappoint. it also came in noticeably more affordable than our regular order at Little India in Denver, which means I practically made money tonight? anyway if you somehow happen to find yourself in Hyde Park and are craving Indian take-out (since they’re not doing dine-in right now), I would highly recommend it.
oh and we watched A Quiet Place 2, starring Jim from The Office and his IRL wife (not Pam.) it was pretty good, although it may have lost some of its impact watching it from the living room floor rather than on the big screen in a movie theater with 35 other people holding their breath and not crunching their popcorn, it was still an edge-of-your-seat affair.
Parting Note
as requested above, here’s Robyn with Get Myself Together, an expression I could serve to tell myself now and again.
thanks as always for spending part of your day with me, pals. I had a good time and hope you did too. until next Friday!
— adrian ✌🏻