surprise puppy

apologies + updates

okay so last month i released a book—my book, the book—and the book’s existence is in large part because of this newsletter, and i love the book and i love my readers and i think you would love each other…but i didn’t send anything out about the release until now?

i had this whole ambitious rollout plan—a deep-dive into the cover art, a tie-in video for each essay, an eternal ouroboros of content that creates as it consumes, etc—and then life happened or kept happening, and it all started to feel very overwhelming and a little gauche, and the only thing worse than selling yourself is selling yourself behind schedule, and then… it’s almost september. acorns have started to drop on the sidewalk, even though it’s 90 degrees. this morning i saw a squirrel with a perfect pointy acorn in its mouth like i was in woodland creature central casting. i’m sorry i didn’t write sooner.

in exchange, though, here is something secret, something i have not put anywhere else on the internet. i got a puppy.

it brings me great joy to introduce you and only you to (shrimp) scampi <3

scampina bambina, hyena, appropriately afraid of the cats, perfection.

i’ve been sending matthias lightly traumatic animal rescue instagram posts for years; we take turns being the voice of reason in our relationship, but he’s really held things down in pet corner. and then the other night some friends and i saw freakier friday,* and before that we went to the americana-at-brand cheesecake factory, and outside the cheesecake factory some teenagers were selling doodle puppies out of a wagon. one cheesecake factory martini deep, i sent matthias some very desperate videos. later that night he affirmed that buying a puppy from a wagon outside the cheesecake factory is “sus” and “unethical” (🙄) but he called my bluff, finally, and the next day we went to the humane society. that’s the art of negotiation, baby!

scampi is about two years old, a stray with a mysterious past and an equally mysterious amount of energy for an “adult” dog. we took her home on a foster-to-adopt basis in case she tried to kill the cats; luckily so far it seems like she wants to play with them, but respects their boundaries. (mush impresses me every day with his insistence on jumping over the baby gates to hiss at scampi and assert dominance; puff, like an agèd diva, has taken to the bedroom. also he attacked me in my eyes while i was sleeping the other night, and shit on my little bedside rug. but i believe in growth!)

it’s hard to show in pictures that scampi is kind of tiny; she’s 34 pounds, like a chihuahua-shepherd mix? a miniature horse-pug? more pics:

you’re the first to know: that’s my dog! welcome, shrimp scampi! :,)

oh and book stuff: i’m really, really happy. it’s a USA today bestseller?? what the fuck how 😭 i feel really, really grateful and a little bewildered, and also a little relieved to have release month over because i have a complicated relationship with attention—like i crave it, but sometimes also feel like i’m being hunted. here are some of my fav articles/interviews:

• the washintgon post

• the new york times

• interview mag

• the creative independent

• lullaby machine

you have a new memory literally wouldn’t exist without you. books are different from other media because they require so much imaginative lift from the reader; rather than a passive creative-consumer relationship, it’s like entering a spell, or a collaboration, together. thank you for showing up. if you’ve read the book or plan to read it, i truly hope you love it.

x aiden

*which was exactly what it needed to be, and a delight tbh?? i laughed and i absolutely cried