I didn't realize that you all actually care about my well-being.

plus links for bookclub on Sunday and the essays (art) I'm working on

I owe you all an apology.

Listen to this newsletter here.

The folks that came to bookclub last week saw me scream and cry. I literally wept on the phone about how much grief I am carrying. I feel like I’ve really misrepresented myself as someone who is not… an absolute fucking mess. I am a fucking mess and I didn’t tell you— partly because I want to be pretty and put together, and partly because I…? Sincerely did not think that you all cared. I didn’t know you cared like that. I feel more like a content machine than a real person to the internet. So you mean that’s not true? Do you all care about me sincerely?

If you actually do sincerely care about me, and you care about me as a person like you care about my art, please comment and tell me so. I have been treating you all like you don’t give a fuck about me unless I’m writing essays. That’s how a lot of social media people have been treating me. But I was so taken care of by people in this space last week and I needed it so bad. I won’t say your names publicly but I know each one of your names. Two of you stayed with me until I literally had to get in the shower and go to bed. You all stayed with me until I got home safe and made myself tea. God bless you all who were there last week. I didn’t know how bad I needed internet friends.

If you love me, will you tell me how? How do you all love me?

I couldn’t post anything this week because I had a lot of family to grieve with. Huge, generational family problems that I cannot ever tell you all because that’s my family and I can’t just say our business on the internet. But I have taken this week to cry, scream, rant, fall, pray, fast, scream, cry, weep, and then recover. I literally lost my voice from all the screaming and yelling (I was not yelling at anyone, I was yelling and crying out of grief and anger). Thank you all for being patient with me while I took a break I didn’t know I would need.

LINKS

Bookclub

https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/93123534631?pwd=SEtMazhLVTRRMitxRHRhZlNxUzVWUT09

Meeting ID: 931 2353 4631

Passcode: 082399

What are we reading this week?

This article on Substack.

The coming culture peace

What are we reading NEXT week?

Chapter one of Belly of the Beast by Da’Shaun L. Harrison!

Chapter 1-3 of Beastly by Alex Flinn!

PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL IF YOU NEED THE TEXTS OR YOU WOULD LIKE TO SPONSOR THE TEXT FOR SOMEONE ELSE ($16). EMAIL ME IF YOU DON’T HAVE THE TEXTS AND WE WILL FIND A WAY TO GET IT TO YOU.

September! Remember when I thought we would do one book a month? HA. We’re just gonna call this fall semester. It was a semester’s worth of reading anyhow! Before this, we read an excerpt from Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom, Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings, and a chapter of Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South by Deborah Gray-White.

I love reading Black women and Black trans folks with you!!!

What essays am I writing?

I would rather dislike myself than lie about it: a podcast essay for the Garden Space podcast in which trained therapist Ismatu Gwendolyn hates on positive thinking.

The love of a perfect playlist: a podcast essay for the Garden Space. There will also be merch going out to the founding members about this essay (I’m not gonna tell you what it is but once I get the postage money i’ma send it).

Seven Days in June is making me miss drugs and men I had no business fucking: this is a spoilers free review! an essay about a man I was involved with that absolutely cannot be published for free. Because what if he sees it? At least then I can say “wow you paid me $5 because you wanted to read me write about you when you could just stop being a weirdo and respond to my fucking texts.”

Dead Don't Wait for No One: a short moderately sci-fi story by Ismatu Gwendolyn

Wet Ass Pussy's cultural moment lives on in policy formation: I wrote this essay on drugs in the middle of the night for a final (that I turned it in late because I was at the club) and I got an A!!!!!!!!! I got a muhfuckn A on this shitpost essay I wrote on policy formation and narrative creation and WAP. It’s such a good essay so I’m editing it and updating it and publishing it for y’all.

girl, fuck Danisha Carter and her weird ass contacts: I was gonna take the high road and not publish this essay but… then I called my Daddy* and I was like “should I write this essay” and he was like “you were debating not writing the essay? since when?”

And you know what ! he was damn right! because nah FUCK her and i’ma say it. what miss owl eyes gon’ do to me? because she can’t whoop my ass I can tell you that for FREE**.

thank you for reading!

ismatu g.

Songs of my week: Flea Market (Tierra Whack), Send Me Some Lovin’ (Otis Redding), Baptize (Spillage Village et. al). Tryna be less cagey about my music taste.

*my literal and biological father

**this is something my mom says and it is hilarious. she be ready to cuss someone out and instead of ending her rant with “you noodle goose bitch no lip trash ass motherfucker” like I would say she says “and EYE will tell you that FOR FREE!” As if one day she finna charge me for cussing me out. God, it’s so funny. I’m so happy she’s still alive.