Hoo Boy... Livin' The Big Lebowski! 😂

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Hello, lovelies. How the hell are you? Still terrified of lettuce?

I’ve just come in from the garden.

After failing at yet another Instagram Live with Molly tonight—the custom streaming software refused to recognize my fingerprint (it’s my curse)—I went outside to plant a rosebush. Disappointment is fabulous for botany.

Anyway, I was midway through planting a second perennial called Meant to Bee when my neighbor Róisín popped round to warn me about Jacinta! Who is Jacinta, you ask?

Doña Jacinta Urraca, aka “the Garden Witch,” is a character in our neighborhood who never technically steals anything because the earth has already told her it belongs to her. And apparently, she is up to her old tricks, again. Plants, tools, outdoor lighting, decorative gnomes, little ceramic mushrooms—Jacinta is spiriting them all away from the other houses on our street. In broad daylight, right in front of the gnome-owners. Because, again, they’re hers.

Róisín showed me a photograph. Jacinta’s regal, raven-black hair was piled high, with loose, wispy ends framing her face, her eyes fierce like a crow’s. “My God, you’re right. She looks completely paranormal,” I said, handing back the phone. “She reads a bit like the Hamburglar but you know… for bird baths and perennials.”

The photograph, Róisín explained, was taken when she confronted Jacinta about allegedly stealing another neighbor’s potted herbs and wind chimes. Jacinta responded by coming after her with a two-by-four studded with nails. 😱

Fortunately, it was trash day, and the garbage guys intervened. Give those guys a sticker. Yeesh. I’d heard whispers about Jacinta, but hadn’t taken them seriously. Róisín says there are warning fliers up everywhere and a facebook community page. I’m not a gnome girl and this seems like very weird witch hunt. Still, what kind of world is is it that we now have to lock up our delphiniums? I guess if she comes after the roses, they’re prickly and I can defend them with my garden trowel? That little baby is deadly.

So, I meant to post this Friday night, but, of course, I fell asleep. I blame my eyelids. Unless there’s something super exciting about to go down, come 9:30 pm? Forget it.

Then, yesterday, I felt an inescapable urge to rush to Home Depot.

I know. I hate the place too… The layout is beyond nonsensical. You practically need a Sherpa to guide you to the shovels. Why are they always nine miles from the nursery? I mean, what are people digging up besides plants? Wrong answers only, please.

I had such a deep yearning for dirt dopamine.

I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s because I am currently trapped in a Coen Brothers movie, and somehow flowers seem the best defense?

Apart from English Lavender, HD had none of the blooms I wanted. I adore Peonies, Foxgloves, and Delphiniums. There was one perennial called “Meant to Bee,” which seemed oddly perfect. Everything else this week has felt strangely destined.

Guten Morgen!

First though, some good news! Without being an incessant Pollyanna, I’m freakin’ thrilled to share that Thursday, a bunch of our books were selected for the 78th annual Frankfurter Buchmesse. Don’t you love how the Germans call it a “Book Mess”?

It’s the world’s largest book fair, trading in foreign and film rights. It takes so much time and planning, but this fall Unfixed by Kimberly Warner, Who by Fire by <Mary L. Tabor>, The Cabernet Club by Margie Zable Fisher, Come to Dinner by Sara Davidson with the most gorgeous foreword by Elissa Altman, The Department of Dark Errands by Imogen Vane, and Are You There God? It’s Me, Menopause by Heather J Robertson will all have a shiny booth there!

You have to love Frankfurt because it’s a chance for midlife women authors to finally have real global visibility and make bank!

So, I did a thing… More Witch-coded Fun

I had this wonderful conversation with for her podcast AGECRAFT After Dark about five weeks ago. I was so nervous because I was still in the thick of re-orging Empress, I’d just moved, which is peak trauma for a girl like me. And I was spending my days in the Harvard Law Library because our investors had engaged in a bunch of nasty business, and so I needed to understand what recourse we had. (It turns out, a fair bit.) Meanwhile, I was putting out fires daily with all of our vendors, partners, and authors. Every day felt like a waking up to a car accident. So many forms!

Anxious and as low as I was, this conversation with Julia gave me a moment of breath to stop and remember my why. Why I am still in the fight, along with , , and all our amazing partners. “We have to hire each other,” was still our mantra and “the mean-girl pile-ons needed to stop forever.” As women, we live ten to fifteen years longer than our partners. If anything, midlife women need to take better care of each other—both on a singular and societal level.

And like so many other authors, I’m the worst when it comes to self-promotion. I want to hide and let the book stand for itself. I get the full ick at the very sound my voice on a podcast, and then the uncanny valley representations—ghaaaagh! 😂 I’ve finally figured out why I dont like glammed up AI versions of me and it’s so dumb. I always look like my crazy Aunt Linda. And, what’s worse, is my crazy Aunt Linda always looks like my fierce, patriarchal grandfather, George, except in DRAG. Which is fine if that’s your jam. But to my mind, George would have made a ghastly woman.

So, there I am, feeling like my grandpa in drag, completely worried about the future of our business, and there is Julia asking me these incredibly incisive, thoughtful, slightly witchy questions—and the experience is one that is so wildly grounding—especially her book tarot reading because I was ready to read the negative-scaries into it and she totally lifted me out of that mode—right when I needed it. Every Empress author should listen to and do her podcast. It will change you and the ghost story bit is waaaaaay fun. So much gratitude to you, Julia. 🩷

Living The Big Lebowski

The first thing I notice about the house is the garden. It does not resemble the photo from the listing. The garden is from Sanford and Son meets Shirley Jackson.

It is mountainous with weeds. Many of the flowers have been left to die. The Mock Orange looks like it has a nasty parasite. There’s one terrifying plant that resembles an Amorphophallus—a corpse flower, which boasts a foul smell like a dead body about every seven years. Fun. And people from either the house or the hood have clearly been using this little patch of green chaos as a dumping ground for a good while. There are Mountain Dew bottles, cigarettes, cans of tuna, broken glass, razor blades, and a small broken table that looks as though someone pitched it out the third-floor window. The whole front yard feels like the scene of a crime. Am I going to need on of those puffy white suits?

Continuing up the walk, I clock an old analog telephone pole alongside the house. New England Bell. I haven’t seen one of these in decades. I wonder if anyone in the house still has an active line? Later that night, I will find out that they do! And that if I listen carefully, with the fan off, I can hear the faint squawk of conversations carrying across the wires. It is beyond creepy! As I lie in my bed listening to the garble in the dark, my mind whirs with Sorry Wrong Number + paranormal thriller plotlines.

The hood is filled with wonderfully witchy houses so all of it tracks.

Mounting the steps, I’m struck next by the most pristine shade of porch roof blue. Someone, a pro, has been here recently and would seem to have plans for this joint.

And I wonder, if the folks who live here might prefer the garbage garden. We’ll have to see. Often, it is that way. You only need re-watch Widow’s Bay for that lesson.

After signing the lease, mostly because I am too tired and consumptive to keep looking, the first person I meet is Jesus. He is the responsible one. He gives me my keys. When he opens his door to me, I’m immediately stopped by his eyes. Against, his almost indigo complexion, they’re so white, open and alert—like a supremely hypervigilant bunny—except his voice is deep. Think: Lou Rawls deep. He works in a grocery store and has the air of someone who has spent far too much time in the frozen foods section.

I can tell he works crazy hard, as there’s both an exhaustion and perseveration behind the whites of his eyes. It is bone deep. And his hands. Knotted and calloused. When not working, all he wants is sleep and a sammy. He hands me the keys and shuts the door. No hello. No, nice to meet you. He is completely baked out of his mind. But in that flash of interaction, I peek inside his room and see he is an ardent video gamer with a massive TV and gaming chair. Later, we will have many discussions about laundry and the wonder of sandwiches.

Next, there’s Hank. Here is where my Coen metaphor breaks down.

Hank is a guy with definite Scooby-Doo “Mr. Jenkins,” house caretaker vibes, but he’s also a dead ringer for that rapper, Ice Cube.

At first suspicious of me, he softens at my Mary Tyler Moore demeanor. And realize I am so fish-out-of-water here, people. This comedy writes itself. When I tell him I like to bake, he tells me, randomly, if I ever need a ride anywhere, ask. He’s a very good driver. I tell him, “Thanks?” It’s like comedians in cars with Ice Cube?

Then, I get in trouble with him two days later when he informs me I have done the recycling all wrong and now the trash guys have refused to pick up for the entire house this week. “We recycle here,” he growls.

I immediately bake Hank a pie. Coconut cream.

I swear to him (and myself) that I’ll get it right from now on. I’m just used to NYC and MIT—one chute, one bin, but then I also mark later that the trash guys took everything, so? WTAF? (commence eyeroll)

Next, there’s Pedro. I call him this because he is the ABSOLUTE SPIT of Pedro Pascal. Truly. But he also has the air of Sam Eliot, THE STRANGER. He is pleasant, with an all-knowing quality that’s also low-key, and unlike many of Pedro Pascal’s characters, he doesn’t have a care in the world—unless someone messes with the mail—then he gets hella peeved.

Then, there’s Donny. It’s several weeks before I actually meet Donny, as he barely leaves his room. He is soft-spoken and more portly than Buscemi, and I automatically worry about his allergies. Does he need a Claritin? His post-nasal drip seems to be totally plaguing him. I can also tell from our brief conversations that, like a stress sponge, he feels everything the world is enduring right now, all at once, all the time, while also navigating his own depression, anxiety, and agorophobia. I have never seen him go outside—not once. He is an inside cat, but one who wants to belong.

Walter. It’s been two months, and I still haven’t formally met or spoken with Walter. He was yelling at the bottom of the stairs only a few minutes ago. My briefest of interactions with him have been scary and angst-filled. If I come into a room, he immediately leaves, slamming the door behind him. Two weeks in, I passed by his room on my way to the kitchen and heard him shouting expletives at something or someone, and it finally clicked for me. Good God, he’s Walter! Angry, loud, and rageful, with rigid aggression, militaristic order, and obsessive dogmatism. His emails to the housemates all read that way. The last one said we are not allowed to use the bathrooom or the kitchen on Mondays at 5:30 AM. I wrote back to our gangster landlady: “Does he know that now we’re all going to have to pee at 5:30 AM on Mondays?” and she laughed. Despite all the rage and rules, I’m told that Walter is an arborist. That’s right—a tree guy! My brain cannot do the calculus: a volatile arborist with a chainsaw? Good grief. Let’s hope he’s med compliant?

Lastly, there is The Dude. I do not meet him for at least a week. It turns out, he’s a THERAPIST. Could it be anymore perfect? So Walter doesn’t disturb his go-with-the flow outlook on life. When we pass each other in the kitchen, The Dude seems relentlessly chill, or maybe he’s just crazy high. Our conversations about books are jolly. He used to be a LARPer and it turns out he is writing a fantasy novel and it’s hilarious. It involves leagues of monsters and Hollywood agents. The Dude only learns my name this past week when he delivers my HRT, while I am on an editorial call. “Oh, you’re Alisa?” he inquires in his bathrobe, squinting at my estrogen Yep, I say. It’s been two months. And I realize, right then, I’m pretty much invisible to these chaps, which leaves a lot of room for comedic play—and directing my way out of this movie.

The Comedic Lesson Here: Character

So, character is the one weird, peculiar thing a person will insist on doing while everything around him or her is on fire.

In TBL, The Dude wants his rug back. Walter wants everyone to respect the rules of league bowling and, yes, the Geneva Conventions. Donny always wants to participate in a conversation that no one believes he is qualified to join. The Stranger wants to narrate the whole thing from beneath a mustache so large it has its own zip code.

That’s the lesson: don’t explain a character—as I have just done above. Ha. Instead give him or her an obsession, a contradiction, a distinctive rhythm of speech, and one preposterous principle she or he will defend long after a reasonable person would have gone home.

Show us her contradiction—Example: My water had broken and I was in active labor. But what do I have to do before we can leave for the hospital? Order my husband to do the dishes. We cannot bring this baby home to a house with dirty dishes, I tell him in between contractions. What will she think of our parenting skills? In that moment of chaos while I am moaning on the sofa—he is scrubbing pots as if all three of our live depond on it.

My new house works much the same way.

Jesus worships sleep, sandwiches, and uninterrupted gaming. Hank worships order, particularly the municipal commandments governing cardboard. Pedro worships serenity until someone touches the mail. Donny worships connection and belonging, but preferably from inside his room. Walter worships rage and arboriculture. The Dude worships nonintervention and may still be unclear about who I am. And me? I worship my children, narrative, and Mary Tyler Moore.

This is not a housing crisis. It’s an ensemble comedy.

In any case, put six people with incompatible worldviews under one roof and give them one kitchen, one washing machine, and a single recycling bin and the comedy will write itself.

I think this calls for a merry, escapist song.

Ok, that’s what I’ve got this week. Hope you have a wonderful Monday. I sill have so many things to fix.

xoxo - Gotham Girl 🖤

PS - I am a human typo. Amnesty appreciated.