No. 1 - Family News

Welcome to the first edition of L’After Party. This week, we're getting caught up.

A friend-turned-boss once came to me before the holidays and said, “Now that we work together, you won’t be getting my annual family newsletter. I’m sorry.”

“What?!” I gasped, pretending to be shattered. “No!” Then, with a smirk,¹ I joked that I could still get my hands on a copy. I’d borrow one from Nathalie or Vanessa, maybe.

“Absolutely not,” she replied.

This was a firm boundary. Friends and family got the newsletter, employees did not. In the past month we had transitioned from the former to the latter, and I knew by her tone, I was being asked to respect this rule. Such secrecy!

Her newsletters never struck me as particularly personal. In the years I’d known her, they consisted of photos from family ski trips, updates on her children’s internships in Europe, congratulatory messages to her husband for running a half-marathon, and — my favourite — the occasional snapshot of her daughter adorned in medals, posed beside a handsome-ass horse. Classic!

If anything, it would serve my ego to avoid her newsletters. I wouldn’t be thinking about whether or not I could afford riding lessons for my future child, or all the ways I’d let my own parents down by starting my career at a Dairy Queen, instead of an international embassy. Still, I was surprised she wanted to make this rule clear.

Despite being steeped in awkward charm, these newsletters showcased the family in their least offensive form. Yet, this boundary was telling. It showed tact, regard for privacy — grace, almost.

Grace this newsletter will not share.

Boundaries have never been a strong suit of mine. I’ve dated a handful of coworkers (two handfuls, if you have very small hands), I’ve tried to befriend my therapist (befriend, and also date), and given the opportunity… like, say it’s just lying out (or even just tucked in an unlocked drawer)… I will probably read your diary.

This is something I need to change. Something I want to change. But I’m not about to do that here or now, just yet. I need to lure you in, dear reader. You need to know the juice will be worth the read! Hit like, hit subscribe, forward to a friend. 💁🏼‍♀️

———

Breaking news! With the advent of social media, family newsletters died off pretty quick. Why thoughtfully curate a bi-annual update and print it out on fake treasure-map paper, when you can post daily on instagram? LOOK AT MY RICHES! LOOK AT MY LUCK! Look at the thin layer of swimsuit fabric between my bum cheeks! Look!

It is not lost on me that this is exactly what I’m doing now. But isn’t it more elegant on the page?

My argument: Instagram doesn’t have the same charm as an Official Family Newsletter™. Instagram is whiplash. Jarring transitions from the tits-out-thirst-traps of my gen-z coworkers (shoutout coworkers!), to the heartfelt posts of millennial dads (shoutout Tyler B., Tyler C., and Tyler M.)² Throw in some graphic footage from Gaza, and my nervous system shuts down. I’m not sure I was built to go from horny, to heart-warmed, to complete grief, seventy times a day. From “damn!” to “awww” to “oh, god” and back. This is an unoriginal thought. It’s been said many times. Yet, it continues. On loop for us all. “Damn!” to “awww” to “Gap is having a sale!” And I always need new cable-knit! Always!

I’m not being pious here.³ I delete the app, then redownload it. I post kooky-shit, pseudo-intellectual shit, pseudo-artistic shit, comedy shows, inspirational quotes, videos where my nipples are clearly visible through my shirt and my nose has been mysteriously powdered despite the candid nature of the moment.

I remember when I was 24, I took a photo of myself lying in bed with my eyes closed and captioned it “let yourself dream.” An older friend wrote “WHO TOOK THIS?” underneath and I realized, in that moment, it was very clear I was a sad and self-obsessed person. Everyone knew.

I mean, I also posted clips of myself singing Matchbox Twenty songs, while holding a guitar. I did not know how to play said guitar, so I just kind of tapped my fingers rhythmically on the wood. So everyone already knew.

I digress! What I’m trying to say is I miss the long-form! When it took more effort to be a braggart. I loved family newsletters of the early aughts; all papyrus and CorelDRAW. I got a thrill from seeing the way my friend’s moms would twist the characters I knew them to be — clumsy, sweaty girls, laden with acne and ADD, fiending for sour-patch kids — and through careful word choice, turn them into suave dilettantes busy with swim-meets and volunteer gigs and dance recitals. There was never any mention of Robin crashing the car at Driver’s Ed. Or of Kristy’s dad’s coke problem. Or the time Austin peed in a substitute teacher’s water bottle.

Back then, I imagined my own family news. I thought of revolutionizing the form. I wasn’t all that smart, so I didn’t predict the impacts of the internet or social media. I just imagined a newsletter that detailed some failings, as well as successes. Of sharing a more well rounded picture of the people my children would grow up to be. Because that reality was so distant (and still remains to be), I channeled my journalistic aptitude into an extended-family newsletter, typed on my Mamere’s old electric typewriter. Looking back, it was less journalism, and more speculative roasting. Headline: Cousin Sean Has Yet Another Girlfriend?! Headline: Jurassic Park Made Ben Cry! Headline: Maggie Enjoys Afternoons at Kumon Learning. (Burn)

So, let’s do that… this first newsletter will be MY family newsletter. I’ll catch you up quick, and then next week, we can dive into the fun stuff.

1. This is currently a family newsletter of one. Well, two, if you count my fish. Hiya! I have feelings about that. Often it’s acceptance. Sometimes it’s a massive wave of shame. Why haven’t I had a kid? Why didn’t I fight harder for certain relationships? Why am I here, alone, in an attic in The Glebe? These moments hit, but then subside with calm reasoning; because I wasn’t ready, because it wasn’t within my control… because he changed all the women’s names in his phone to mens! When I remember the gnarly specifics, sometimes the feeling is unbridled joy; the unbearable lightness of being⁴. Sometimes it’s bliss. Sometimes it’s lonely.

2. My job is fine. I write and design things, produce videos and take photographs. I “strategize”. But it’s bureaucratic and slow moving, the way 9-to-5s are. It took me years to be at peace with this, to accept incremental wins. Eventually, I’ll move on. If you ask, I’ll say, work is great! I like my coworkers. I’m valued for what I do. I enjoy simple tasks. But the truth is, I get more satisfaction from coaching my younger coworkers through their bad haircuts, than the, like, the working part. I try not to talk about my work.
   
   I won’t be writing about it often.

3. Two years ago I started doing stand-up comedy. It’s the most fulfilling hobby I’ve ever had. I get to spend large chunks of my time on the verge of laughter, solidifying crows-feet I can’t afford to botox right now. From the outside, I assume stand-up looks fun to others, and it is, but not always. It’s very hard. Getting better at stand-up is distinct from how stand-up has made me better. It has caused me to examine my relationships with external validation, ego, creativity, men, alcohol, and anxiety, and cringe.
   
   I will be writing about that quite often.
   

4. I’ve had a rough summer. Car breakdowns. Family visits. Bed bug bites. Financial shifts. Rejection. Health issues. Terrible bowling scores. I’m still processing a relationship that sits heavy in my gut. I fear my brain has been rewired by stress. I tell my friends “I’m healing” and they say, “don’t make healing your personality,” or “come out, this IS healing.” I’m through the worst of it, I think. But I’m acutely aware of my vulnerability. I cry easily and it scares people. Me most of all! But also Uber drivers and the Medicentre doctor I saw last week.

   
   Someone asked me how I’m handling this, the culmination of misfortune. If maybe I feel like the universe is conspiring against me? I don’t. I see it as cause and effect. I’ve been a dumbass for a while. It makes sense that would catch up to me.

   

   (An excellent reminder, after I texted my friend “:( I’m so alone.”)
   

5. James is thriving in his old age. James is my beta fish. I think of him as an alpha though. He’s assertive! He’s got personality! I read that these little fish only live around two years, and he’s been in my life for a year and a half now. He swims slowly and has a hard time seeing the food floating on the surface of the water. When my parents came to visit, we went to Ottawa’s greatest tourism destination, Big Al’s aquarium store, to get him some new plants. They made him very happy.

…. Okay, I’m realizing family newsletters were mostly fun because they were about multiple people, and not just one, weirdo woman and her geriatric fish. They also didn’t include self-indulgent screen shots. But at least you’re mostly up to speed. Next week will be better, I promise!

Yours in wild contradiction and joy,

Danika

P.s.

L’After Party is a newsletter about comedy and creative process. What happens before and after the wins and losses. After 30, or 40 of 65. After your 9-to-5. After it seems all your pals have settled down; they’ll get restless again, just wait! After the party, when the wicks are short and the candles are flickering, casting the softest, most beautiful light. When you’re sitting on the floor eating cold pizza talking to your friend on the phone and they keep going “jesus christ” and exhaling loudly and you’re like “is that unhinged?” and they’re like “yes” and you’re like “but in a bad way?” and they’re like “depends,” and then you really get into it.

In the coming months we will get into my philosophies on ethical hedonism, surviving a flop era, baiting and switching and yes-anding and other comedic devices that can be applied to life. I’ll have audio-episodes and guest-interviews; mainly asking people about their most embarrassing google searches. I promise I’ll be curious and self-critical and honest. And there might be some boundaries, we’ll see.

L’After Party will be available every Sunday morning going forward. There will be typos. If you find them, you don’t have to tell me, just enjoy the feeling of smug superiority for as long as it lasts! Muah! <3

1. Always with a smirk!

2. I do know a lot of millennial dads named Tyler, but they are all more dignified on social media than this implies. I’m sorry. Tyler C. especially. He isn’t even on instagram. I’m just borrowing his name because it’s so millennial. All other names have been changed.

3. Well, I’m trying not to be.

4. It reminds me of this quote. Not that I stand behind it entirely — “The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?” - Milan Kundera.

Choosing lightness has been alright.