What’s this? What’s this? Nitwit is back? Yes. This is true. But it’s been so long! Yes, it has. What the hell happened? I know, right? No, really, what happened? Haha yeah, tooootally. So weird, right? You’re not answering the question? Crazy. Wow.
Happy new year from all of us (me) here at nitwit. It’s been a wild four months in a lot of beautiful and awful ways, but I’m still trying to be hopeful for 2024.
Stephen Jay Gould said, “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot. There are so many aspects of success that we cannot control – race, class, ability, gender, etc. – and I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about them. How much of our inherent potential is determined by our circumstances? I used to think that anyone who was talented at and persistent with something would become successful, but lately I’ve been wondering if there are circumstances where you simply cannot outrun the confines of your given circumstances. I’ve been wondering if the system we’ve built actually credits one’s merit in the way I used to believe it did.
I don’t know how the system works, but I try to believe that luck favors the prepared and fortune favors the bold. I’ve been spending too much time thinking about if it’s possible for me to get what I want and not enough time actually working toward it. So my goal for this April has been to stop feeling sorry for myself. I’m no longer allowing myself to dwell on the possibility that I am destined for failure by my own standards. I am instead pushing myself to acknowledge that possibility and continue onward.
Much of the past year has been veiled in the question of what do I want in the grand scheme of things and will I ever get it? I’ve decided this April that I don’t know and I am trying not to care. I don’t know what I will want in a year. I don’t know what I will want for dinner tonight. I don’t know why I thought finding my purpose in life post-school would take eighteen months tops, but it feels a lot like when I put “figure out this whole gender thing” on my winter break to do list junior year. Some answers just have to be lived out.
So nitwit is returning as another reason for me to create! I’m still not sure what it will look like, but I think it will probably end up being a monthly thing instead of weekly. It might be less “here’s my specific take on this thing” and more “here are things I’ve been thinking about and trying.” If you HATE that idea, feel free to send me an incredibly hurtful email about it. I always welcome negative feedback!
My other goals for 2024, which are numerous and split into ten separate categories, include “trying, making, and learning new things and keeping track of aforementioned new things.” Last year was just “trying new things”, which I know I did a good job at but have no record of (but I know at the very minimum I tried Thai food for the first time). To no one’s surprise, I created a system to accomplish this goal. I made a Google form for myself where I track the new things that I try or learn and it compiles all of the data in a spreadsheet that I go through sometimes and will probably make a funny little end of year list with at some point.
Since I’ve not written since September, I thought it might be nice to do a quick little progress post of some of the things I’ve made and tried and learned so far this year.
MADE: A crocheted beach bag.
I’ve been calling this the bell pepper bag, because I made it with the aim of having a little bag that I could take to the farmer’s market and fill with bell peppers and other produce and everyone else at the farmer’s market would be like wow look at that gay with the crocheted bag and the bell peppers, she’s so cool and effortlessly so, and she also seems like she has a great personality and sense of humor and vibe. Hey, wait a second! I, a rich widower who comes to the farmer’s market for my artisanal breads, should give that lesbian a bunch of money! So far, no rich people have stopped me to give me money, but I have gotten a lot of compliments on the bag and have made a couple others in different colors.
WATCHED: Merrily We Roll Along
My lovely girlfriend’s aunt and uncle came to town for her birthday and took us to see two Broadway shows, both of which were excellent. I’m highlighting Merrily only because I have more cohesive thoughts on it, but the other show (Stereophonic) was also fantastic and you should see both if you are lucky enough to have the chance.
The musical is told in reverse about a friend group’s falling out, each scene going back a couple years from the previous one. Because you know the ending, the growing hope in the characters as the show goes on gets gradually more tragic. It ends with the three friends meeting for the first time – kids with big dreams and a wide open world to explore. This is undoubtedly sad, but as my friend Ezra said, “You find out how things happened, but at no point do you get the sense that this was the only way it could have happened.” Each character had lots of options with lots of different outcomes, and they just happened to pick the ones where the outcomes sorta end up sucking shit. If any number of things were different, it could’ve just as easily been a happy story. It was a strange and riveting combination of tragic, hopeful, and cautionary.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. I went in knowing very little apart from the high praise it receives from friends. I sort of went in thinking, “let’s see what all the fuss is about,” and I left thinking, “Ohhhhh, that’s what all the fuss is about.” It was a fantastic production. Lindsay Mendez was out, but her understudy, Sherz Aletaha, performed the role like she’s done it eight times a week for years. Daniel Radcliffe was phenomenal. Jonathan Groff was amazing and spits a lot more than I expected even knowing the rumors (it was very visible). I am so glad I got to see it and grateful to have been able to experience it as a very generous gift to my girlfriend from her incredibly kind aunt and uncle.
TRIED: Foie gras.
Did not like. Can’t believe they force fed a goose so I could spit its liver out into a napkin.
PERFORMED: An open mic at the Tiny Cupboard.
I went with my friend Ihea, who is also working with me on our web series. I wrote a bit about Harriet Tubman, but ended up starting my set by riffing on some things previous comics had said. It felt much more natural to just stand and say shit I was thinking about than it did to read the jokes I had written before. I’m sure some of this is because it was my second time doing stand up, but I took from this set that I’m much better when I’m in the moment and thinking on my feet. I think as a comic I feel self conscious about a lot of things, specifically my lack of improv training, but standing up there riffing felt not much different from talking to a friend or telling a story on FaceTime. I left feeling more confident and also sure that I need more practice. My goal is three times a week for this summer.
EXPERIENCED: Loving an animal.
Unfortunately, over the past few months, I have accidentally become a caricature of myself – working at Home Depot, making a form and color coded spreadsheet to keep track of my new years goals, answering questions in the New Girl subreddit, having “home pants”, and now, loving a cat.
His name is Reiley and I would walk into military gunfire for him. If you know my mom, you know we absolutely did not grow up with animals in our home. This fall, when I was commuting between two friends’ places in order to work in NYC, I stayed in the incredibly gracious home of my aforementioned lovely girlfriend, her roommate Ezra, and Reiley.
I’ll be so honest – I didn’t get it before. Many of my friends have pets they love. Sometimes they’d make me talk to their pets on FaceTime. I knew objectively that they loved and cared for their pets, but didn’t have any idea the scope of it. I still don’t really get making me talk to a pet I don’t know on FaceTime (that dog has no idea who the fuck I am. He has no concept of there being a person inside that fucked up rectangle. I do not know him and he does not know me. Turn the camera back around please), but I have a lot more insight on loving a pet. I’ve never spent as much time with an animal as I’ve spent with Reiley, so there’s never really been a time where I’ve felt like I’ve gotten to know and understand an animal before.
Not that I have a ton of insight into his inner world, but I do feel like I know Reiley now. He likes to have his cheeks brushed and to look out the window. He will run into the room if you shake the plastic bottle with his fish shaped treats in them, and you have to break them into pieces before you give them to him or he will swallow them whole in excitement. He’s always trying to eat string and rubber bands. When he flops on his side, it looks like an invitation to pet, but he really just wants you to reach for his tummy so he can bite your hand and play. We’ve given him two different voices – a high one in English and a deep, over enunciated one for what we call his Spanish dub. I fucking love that cat. I get why people want to show off their pets. I show off Reiley to everyone and he’s only my godson.
MADE: Saundra (The Doorstop)
Reiley likes to rub his head on stuff, which means when he comes into the room at night, he walks into the door, flinging it wide open. Naomi’s door faces the kitchen, so this means you might wake up in full view of whoever is frying eggs. I made this chicken doorstop, Saundra, as a birthday present for Naomi. I crocheted basically a little basket and then filled it with Polyfill and a five-pound dumbbell I got from Five Below. I closed it and sewed eyes, a beak, and whatever the head ruffles are called when I was done. I also added feet to the bottom as a cute little detail. Reiley still rubs his head on the door, but it stays mostly closed now. Ezra, Nao and I are still collaborating on Saundra’s lore, but so far she’s a butch lesbian who is a bouncer. We’re still finding her voice.
Those are some excerpts! It’s possible this newsletter simply becomes a review of some new things I’ve tried in a given month, and I think that’s okay with me. I’m sure I’ll have other non-new thing things to share, but in the meantime, I’m happy just writing more. Here’s to many, many more new things, and to the now-monthly nitwit’s reincarnation. I’ll see you in May!