dream a little dream

I was thinking the other day about digital detritus I’ve left all over the internet. I had a communal blogger blog with other songwriters where we posted our lyrics. I had a more personal one that was my early days of living in Chicago diary. Livejournal. Myspace. Friendster! At least one blog from library school.

My librarian blog, himissjulie.com, has become my librarian/library work landing page, and I have been trying to write there more. I miss long form writing, and blog comments, and blogrolls, and the rich discussions that would come out of library blogs.

Much like there is no purely ethical consumption under capitalism (there are certainly choices that are more or less ethical, but anyway), it seems like there is no longer any ethical way to exist on an internet that has become siloed by social media. I’m no longer an active presence on Instagram, although I do have a little used account that I will login to occasionally to lurk, and I was kicked off of Facebook after getting hacked and deciding I didn’t care enough to try and get my account back. Also, meta can suck shit. Zuckerberg and his cottage cheese face created a place where he could harshly judge women’s looks, and now he’s one of the oligarchs running the country essentially. Thanks, I hate it here.

Truth time: this post is pretty much copy pasted from a substack post I wrote. substack has some ick on it, but I’ll never monetize that newsletter, so I’m comfortable existing in this ethical gray area. After all, it is only one of the places I exist online. This newsletter is the one I’ll write on more often (often meaning….who knows). If you think people would like to subscribe, you can send them to my website. 

I miss websites. Especially for restaurants. Please tell me when you’re open and what food you have. That’s all I want. Please.

And if I call you to confirm your hours, maybe answer your phone by saying the name of your business? Instead of “HUH WHAT?” making me think I dialed some random person on accident? But when I say anyway, “I’m calling to see when you’re open today—” and you reply with “HDEGHDFGRE!!!!” and I hang up and then you call me back and leave a message saying I called YOU and you were something something…anyway, I will never patronize your business again.

I miss a lot of things, both things I remember and things I currently avoid. I’m still extremely covid cautious. I mask in most situations and avoid going most places. I like being home so it’s mostly ok, but I am also an emotionally needy performer who thrives on attention and gets annoyed that I am wasting so much good material on just my partner. (Not that he’s not a worthy audience, you see, but I need more attention than one man can give, you know?)

Like all creative people, I also think, “How can I worry about my art when the world is on fire, including quite often literally?” But then I see another piece of AI generated slop and some tech bro futurist asshole saying “AI is the future and it’s going to solve all our problems!” and it can’t solve shit except answer the question “What would the world look like through the eyes of a brain rotted boomer whose idea of humor is a ripped Trump surrounded by minions in a mind fuck version of the last supper” which, as far as I know, is not one of life’s great existential questions that philosophers have been pondering for centuries. (Existential is a hard word to spell from memory.) Like, Carrie Bradshaw never wrote, “I couldn’t help but wonder what the world would look like through the eyes of someone so full of lead paint and hatred for anyone not white who had access to a horror-generating machine that destroys the very earth itself every time it generates an image of Jesus with lambs growing out of his fingers.” NEVER.

What is the point of any of this, as the world grows colder and crueler by the minute? Why write? Why sing? Why color your hair in several neon colors when gross men have said over and over again how colored hair on a woman kills their boners?

Goodbye, boners.

I hate where America is right now. I hate capitalism. I hate the white supremacy of it all. I die a little more every day thinking about how much this country—the world—hates women. Instead of a world where everyone has just enough and have the time to make art, just for art’s sake, we’re in this hellscape of grift and competition and cruelty that seems inescapable. Not to mention the genocide(s), the willful ignorance, the laser focus of hatred on trans people, who are less than one percent of the overall population, it’s just all so exhausting and enraging. What can we do?

There’s a lot to be done, actually. Protest, if you can. Call or message your reps. Tell your local library and/or school board that you appreciate what they’re doing, if they’re in fact doing what is best for kids and freedom of information. Get to know your neighbors. Stop buying from [insert your retailer of choice here, I made the decision to cancel my Target red card and stop shopping there, my back is open for pats]. Start buying from smaller, more local, more sustainable businesses. BUY LESS. (I have a lot of trouble with this. I get my dopamine from shopping a lot of times, so I’m tapering off by buying more from thredup or poshmark or the thrift store. Or food for my cats. All shopping counts. But buying less overall is a good goal to aim for.)

And make art. I’ve been slowing rearranging my life to give myself more time and space for art, and 2025 has kind of told me that’s the right decision, considering that in February I was awarded a pretty sizable grant to do just that. So now I have time, space, and some money to pay collaborators, rent theater space, and, honestly, probably pay a few bills since I’m working fewer hours.

You should make art, too. Whatever makes you happy. Like those latch hook rugs they had in the 80s? Make those! ART! Cross stitch, bedazzle, perler beads, shrinky dinks, composing operas, making dioramas out of peeps, dream big, dream small, just be creative! Imagine! Have fun. Make a mess (unless that stresses you out—then don’t, or get a friend to cleanup). Life is too short, especially now, to not do things that bring joy. Play that ukulele poorly. Get a slide whistle! Suck and blow a harmonica! A KAZOO. Hit a cowbell. DO SOMETHING. Shit, color your hair! It’s like having a living, fragile canvas that you wear on your head!

Then, if you’re like me, scatter the evidence of your work all over the internet. Forget the logins for the sites. Forget the sites themselves! (ADHD means out of sight, out of mind, for the most part.) Leave bits of your heart all over the world wide web. A little treasure hunt for whoever finds one bit and wants to find more. (I guess this part is optional, but what I’m trying to do is connect what feels like the end of this essay back to where it started. It seems like the thing to do, you know?)

Go ahead and dream a little dream, as a treat. Draw a little picture. Write a little tune. Share it with a friend. Share it with the world. Be a light in the darkness.

As our good pal Tennessee Williams wrote in his play Camino Real, “Make voyages! Attempt them! There's nothing else.”

Just remember to send a few postcards as you voyage, let us know how you’re doing.

Thanks for being here,

Julie