*checks notes*
What did you do during summer break?
Me, I did a lot of quitting. These past couple of months, many a newsletter idea withered on the vine, scorched by the hot sun of doubt or slow-baked in the dry heat of detachment. Some strange but not necessarily bad or wrong things took root, too, in regards to my feelings about this platform.
Skeleton of a dead saguaro cactus, taken by yours truly in 2023, overlaid with the message I got in a fortune cookie on Sunday, August 2nd, 2026. At first, I didn’t think the photo was particularly relevant, because this mature saguaro wasn’t blighted by heat or sun. In fact, drought and extreme heat are likelier to affect the growth of new cacti, because they can’t store enough water to properly root—but maybe that is relevant, after all?
One of my big turnoffs these days is Substack Notes, particularly the version of the feed that isn’t limited to merely the people you follow, casting the net wide on the random and sometimes repetitive thoughts of strangers. Although I continue to spend a chunk of my time scrolling the Notes posted by only my follows, I’ve quit browsing that broader version, at least for now. For one thing, it’s such a time suck. But on top of that, it also doesn’t feel very good after a while, kind of like that gut dissatisfaction when you’re eating out at restaurants too often and your body desperately just wants to have a simple, home-cooked meal. Just as my palate wants a damn vegetable, so too does my brain, craving something whole and not overladen with butter and salt. And so I continue the Sisyphean task of clearing out my saved newsletters, consuming the long-form content I once made the conscious choice to bookmark for later, and wasting even just a little less time twiddling through a bunch of pithy little nothings on the off chance of getting one or two meaty or meaningful morsels.1
On top of that, the peak social media aspect of constant and continuous content impressed upon me how very fleeting and, dare I say, disposable all of this is. Ephemeral, and not in the fun Sheila (of Ephemera) way. That feeling, bolstered by the reflections inspired by Mel Mitchell-Jackson’s newsletter about implementing an integrative creative cycle focused on thoughtful work unbeholden to the speed and urgency of an algorithm,2 has led me to slow down and question whether I’m writing because I have something to say or simply because I feel prodded to say something—to “maintain relevance” in the churn of social media, to refresh the surges of dopamine that come from notifications of “engagement.” Fuck, I hate it here sometimes lololol.
In addition to suppressing my output for the social media pimp named Substack, all this thinking is gradually bringing me closer to allowing things—can I call it art?—to take the time they take. Some days it comes, and I’m happily clickety-clacking away. And some days the well is dry, and some days it flows but the water tastes stupid and I delete it all. And all of that is good. It’s all good. Because I’m doing this for fun, for my own enjoyment or relief, to make myself laugh or to air out the rooms in my mind palace. There’s no deadline to that.
So after all of that, in a goofy and possibly hypocritical turn of events, I want to leave off by saying that I may be posting Notes or threads in my own chat more regularly than newsletters for the next foreseeable future. Oh, Angela, you mercurial bitch! Thing is, I do enjoy using Notes. (But don’t you ever let me get away with proliferating someone else’s work without credit, despite the fact that doing so is so often rewarded with virality.) I like to see them as expressions of genuine excitement and appreciation, for the work of other people—shared appropriately, of course, via Restack—as well as the occasional peek at my own moments of wardrobe creativity. Sometimes that turns out to manifest in the cheap thrill of making a Canva collage with my recent outfits, but what can I say? I like it.3
But now I need to clear all of these semi-started and half-finished newsletters off the decks. So I present to you the humble brain dump.
Even more quitting…
I was inspired by Jessie Couberly’s brave act to quit Poshmark to rid myself of my own albatross-in-app-form, ThredUp. And boy, has it worked a treat. Turns out that the thrill of the hunt, when I’m assailed by a sudden “gotta have it” hyperfixation, just doesn’t hit the same when I’m doing it on a larger screen, particularly one that has lousier image quality than my iPhone. So this month, I followed in Jessie’s footsteps more literally and deleted the Poshmark app as well, and it’s got me feeling like:
At this point, it seems inevitable that I’ll end up doing the same for eBay and The RealReal, but I’m willing to let nature take its course. All this divestiture has also made me immune—and even irritated by—all the ads for Depop, Vinted, and Mercari I’ve been getting served on YouTube recently.
Here’s Jessie’s newsletter if you, too, are ready to break free:
I’m not quitting secondhand shopping…
Definitely not. But this year, it’s mostly been happening in person, to the tune of fourteen out of my twenty-four total wardrobe additions up to now. This is a positive development, and a goal I had set for myself in 2025 but couldn’t hold myself to.
I thought I was past the intro, but it turns out there was another reason why my production’s run a bit dry lately: it seems that if I really want to shop less, I kind of have to think about shopping less. That sounds incredibly obvious written out, and maybe it’s a conclusion I’ve come to before, but clearly it’s a lesson I haven’t fully absorbed. Plus, it makes it a little trickier when dissecting my wardrobe-related decision-making is a common writing topic of mine.
I think I have this fantasy of unbroken contentment, of long stretches of wanting nothing at all, totally comfortable without a shopping side quest. It seems that I hold the idea of wanting nothing so close to ideal that I inadvertently devalue anything that falls short of that. Perhaps it would do me well to start looking on the bright side and acknowledge the positive changes I have seen lately. Although the desire hasn’t been fully extinguished (and probably never will be), the acquisition is happening at much slower pace, markedly less frenzied than last year. I’ve also had distinct instances when I’ve held fast against my former weaknesses, namely the siren song of a sale or lowball offers on those damned secondhand peer-to-peer marketplaces. I have a much better track record recently of not letting someone else decide when I buy something I wasn’t already planning to buy, be it a piece of jewelry or journaling supplies or a new lippie—pretty much everything but sewing patterns, but I’ll come back to that.
It does sometimes make me feel guilty when a seller sends me an offer that clearly communicates they just want to sell the piece, but I’ve gotten pretty good at double-checking with myself if that thing is actually the one that I want, not a backup option or something too similar to an item I already own. It may help, too, that for ten sellers who are lovely and professional, there always seems to be one butt-munch in the bunch who sours my goodwill. Why they gotta be like that? Guess we’re all human, after all.
Other things that give me the ick…
Lately, the only things I really want for my closet are certain colors, and mostly in the form of handbags or shoes. This year, though, I’m happy to report that I’ve been much better at holding firm to my standards. I’ve been able to bypass the bags that aren’t the pale, creamy shade of yellow I envision as addressing a lack in my wardrobe, as well as purses that are the right color but the wrong shape. I’ve also recognized my aversion to black edge coating on purses: to me, it usually looks so stark that it cheapens the overall appearance of the bag. Straps, too: I need those things to be serious, not the part of the bag where it looks like the brand cheaped out. It always reads to me like a tell of too-thin straps on too big a bag, when they’re all warped and wobbly.
I don’t often get rid of bags, and so I am running out of room to reasonably store them, which makes it even more important for me to wait for Mr. Right instead of settling for Mr. On Sale Right Now.
A new season is no reason to reinvent the wheel…
The solution for what to wear this summer is just a variation of what you liked wearing last summer.4 In the spirit of that, I’ve gone back to look at my outfits in Julys and Augusts past, and what I saw were garments that may have been newer to me and therefore more exciting back then than they are now. There are a couple of pairs of linen pants I bought secondhand in 2024, for instance, that I haven’t been reaching for recently. It’s possible my body has changed some in the past year and a half, but I noticed that 1) I do dig the classic straight-leg look, despite my commitment to the sparkle motion of extremely wide leg pants, and 2) I’m not a fan of the pull I feel around my haunches when I sit down in them.
I know I’ve opined about pants before, but I guess there’s more material here for me. Or rather, less material, because the difference I’m noticing in the very wide leg pairs I’ve made for myself out of modern patterns is that they have way, WAY more positive ease around the hips. You probably already know this, but I suspect one reason why barrel legs have been so widely adopted is that they’ve got the space in rear for the ladies who want to build their glutes (or, you know, the ones naturally blessed with a maximus like their name was Gladiator). Keep reading, I’ll show you what I mean.
Credit where credit’s due…
So I mentioned sewing patterns earlier, and at the beginning of the year, when I said I wasn’t going on a No Buy, I stipulated that I wouldn’t impose a quota on sewing supplies, so as not to stifle my nascent hobby.
Well, I think I’m at the point now where I do actually need to chill the fuck out. It’s all still manageable in terms of physical space: I haven’t gone off the deep end building up a fabric stash or acquiring multiple machines or anything. I did recently do something I’ve rarely done, which is buy actual fabric from a supplier instead of thrifting textiles like sheets and curtains. I heard about a business called Fluid + Drape, and when I got an email about a deadstock fabric sale, I picked up a medium-weight denim in a small gingham pattern and a classic green camo print. The upside is, I already know how I want to use those fabrics, so I’m not just holding them in inventory for an undetermined purpose.
Where I really think I need to cool it is with the downloading of patterns. I’ve amassed a handful of free ones from various sources—in fact, many of these businesses offer a pattern for free for signing up for their newsletters—and Mood Fabrics in particular sends out free patterns pretty regularly. However, I’ve found myself much less enthusiastic about making a pattern when it’s one I didn’t pay for—interesting, right? Maybe I feel like I have more skin in the game when it’s a pattern I chose and chose to pay good money to download.
Anyways, I’ll wrap this up by stating my intention to do better at shouting out the patterns I use when I share pictures of my makes. If you caught my recent Note about my harlequin pants, please know that you, too, can patchwork your own pair using Thread + Sprout’s Dance Pants pattern.
More notes about this pattern, in case you decide to try it:
» It suggests sizing down, and I do too!
» The pattern does not involve any patchwork, but I thrifted a set of blue cotton table napkins knowing I wanted to try a harlequin pattern on something. I cut two napkins into four squares and used six on the front leg panels and the remaining two as back patch pockets, mostly to cover my ass because the striped linen is pretty thin. As for the contrasting stripes on the back, the fabric I used was actually from a wrap skirt languishing in my closet, and even though it was maxi length, it wasn’t quite long enough for the leg panels, so I pieced together a workaround.
You know, for someone who didn’t have a lot to say, that was kinda long, right? Anyway, I’ll shut up now and let you talk.
Been a minute since I’ve dropped an alliteration like that one! Actually, I’m on an alliteration roll here. Also, quick rant: for some stupid reason, I swear that the “Following” feed for Notes sometimes doesn’t show me all the notes posted by the people I follow and subscribe to. I think that’s part of the reason why I go to the “For You” feed in the first place, because I will inevitably see a note from someone I know that failed to show up on “Following.” Is this just a me problem? Anyways.
Mel’s AI policy has also been helping me work out my own feelings about these tools. Something I’ve learned as an adult is to give myself the time to be thoughtful around… well, I guess the clearest way to put it is my values, not rushing to definitive conclusions when I don’t have enough information to reach one rooted in the conviction of some research and a lot of sincere consideration. Personally, I think the situation is too far progressed to attempt to be hardline against AI entirely, but here’s where I don’t see myself changing my mind: AI won’t touch my writing (or the images included therein)—it just seems to defeat the purpose to do so. So believe me when I say that all this shit comes straight from the source: my imperfect, crass, overthinking, and undeniably millennial noggin. But, remembering now recent instances where I failed to strike the right note of balance I seek, I have to say that I don’t have it all worked out yet, to be honest with you. I’m working on it.
Also, quit talking about autumn! You might enjoy summer more if you anticipated autumn less, or at least not so far in advance, eh?
Ephemera that's not about me? Outrageous!
I completely get this urge to rein oneself in...and as you saw, I've been practicing "catch and release" when I go shopping. More pictures, fewer purchases! I love the visceral in-person experience of shopping, which is far more about seeking the treasures, looking at cool things, than it is about Buying All The Things.
Whenever I get deep into a new hobby (and make no mistake, I am a dabbler!), I also tend to go overboard and stock up on supplies...like what I have isn't going to last! What if I run out? It's hard not to give in and buy more!
I hear ya on Notes - I only view "For you" or whatever the fuck they call it, and I Mute anyone who doesn't appeal to me. I try to post there a couple of times a week, just to fish around for potential readers or folks who only Follow me (vs. Subscribe), but my main goal is always to get through my longform reads in my Subscriptions tab. Sort of a "no dessert till you've had your dinner" method. No random Notes scrolling until I've read all my essays. It kinda works.
I'm of two minds about notes. Sometimes I wish they didn't exist so this platform could solely focus on long form content because there are already so many other versions of notes already, but other times I see a note I like and I think they're not so bad.
It is hard to completely eradicate the desire for newness, especially if you live in an urban area filled with shops and people who love flaunting their new purchases, but at least we can change our relationships with consumption. Sounds like you're on the right track :)
Also, fully agree with your last bottom note! August has only just begun and September still isn't too cold in most places. Summer is still very much here!