#127. The Pitt and You

14 April 2025 at 15:33

Hi everyone,

There’s very little routine weather I enjoy less than 40 degrees and rainy. Just snow, coward, I want to shout at the sky. On account of lousy weather and not much work on the calendar, I had an extremely cozy Maris-and-Maggie hanging out weekend, which was lovely when we did not have to subject ourselves to the elements. On Friday night, we watched Black Bag, the new Steven Soderbergh movie, which I loved and Maris liked a lot. It’s about love and mind games and espionage. And, it’s only 94 minutes long *guy on dating apps voice* because I guess that matters. (It does matter to me! I think movies should be short until proven to merit being long.)

We also plowed through the last few episodes of The Residence, the new Netflix series starring Uzo Aduba as an eccentric detective solving a murder in the White House. It might be my favorite of the recent batch of comedy/murder mystery shows. My all-time favorite is probably Search Party, but I don’t consider that part of this batch. The mystery of The Residence is very fun and mostly very tight! I laughed out loud a bunch of times! I don’t know many people who watched it (except for my friend Ashtyn who correctly guessed the ending!!!) so I have been mostly unable to vent about one little plot hole, but otherwise it was very enjoyable.

PEP TALK FOR EVERYONE ON THE PITT

Key art for The Pitt on Max featuring Noah Wyle as a doctor. — The tag line should be: “In this Pitt, they open up…YOU.”

Okay so I have not seen this tv show at all because I am humiliatingly squeamish, but my wife is watching it as I’m working on this newsletter, and everyone seems like they’re in a pretty bad way. The doctors seem stressed as hell. The patients are in agony. I’m hearing constant moaning and squishing sounds, and not in a sensual way.

Here’s what I have to offer these people: I imagine that the patients are in capable hands and the doctors are working alongside trusted and assiduous colleagues. I feel like they wouldn’t make a drama about a hospital full of dumbass doctors who are always leaving rubber gloves inside of pancreases and amputating the wrong feet. These nurses may be overworked and underfunded (again, unclear on the sitch here, just kind of overhearing bloops and squelches) but they’re doing their best, dammit.

There are so many times in life that things just go wrong. I bet it is hard to be the kind of medical professional where occasionally your patients die. (I mean, I guess all of every doctor’s patients die on a long enough timeline, but ideally not right in front of them.) And it is probably as emotionally difficult to die as it is physically easy to do so. It rules to not be dead (not to rub it in if anyone dead is reading this), and it’s kind of amazing if you stop and think about the unlikelihood of being alive.

So many tragedies happen all the time, and anytime there’s someone there to help out when one befalls you is a miracle. Again I’m feeling kind of emotionally open this week, which is not all that normal for me, and the idea of like, doctors, is really astonishing. Why aren’t we all doctors? Should I be a doctor? Could I even get into medical school???

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But! The season is over so any potential bad news is all on hold for now. Get well soon, or get some rest, or both!

PEP TALK FOR TWO READERS

I did a little capitalizing and comma-izing to this request but otherwise left it unchanged.

I’m writing a novel (just words no pictures!) and I’ve never done this before and I have to finish it before I try to sell it and it feels like a big bet on myself!
- Oh, Word!

[Newsletterer’s note: The pep talk requester is a very talented writer and visual artist who has published books before that include their artwork, hence the parenthetical.]

In my biased (or rather, let’s say informed) opinion: This rules. It’s great to try a new form of creative expression, even if you’re horrendous at it (which I’m sure you’re not). Seriously, even if you’re in the process of writing the worst novel since ink was first put to paper (which I would bet my life you are not) it would be a worthwhile undertaking to bite of a big hunk of the unknown and chew it until it’s small enough to swallow.

(Caveats here being: As long as you aren’t endangering your ability to pay your bills, which it doesn’t sound like you are, or imperiling anyone else with your new endeavor, which also sounds unlikely. Writing a novel rarely ruins someone else’s life, and you realllly have to try to make that happen.)

You’ll almost definitely fold a new crevasse or two in your brain from the sheer novelty (pun unintended, but not deleted, so you be the judge…) of novel writing. It will no doubt inform your future attempts at picture-free fiction, or a return to the kind of work at which you’re already an expert.

SIDE NOTE: I think sometimes, and I’m not saying you’re doing this here, but sometimes, people write off the value of things that they’re already good at because they don’t feel hard and therefore don’t seem as worth doing. But it’s not a cheat to allow a pre-existing talent or previously-cultivated skill to lead you. It’s giving yourself the gift of your own expertise. You can always try new stuff, but you deserve full credit for your current capacity as well! SIDE NOTE OVER.

Even if the novel was a pile of goat puke (which, as we’ve established, it’s not) and you didn’t learn a single thing from the process (which, as we’ve covered, you will) the whole thing would be valuable because you want to do it. It’s good (if and when you can) to allot time and energy and precious mental capacity to something that fascinates and engages you, something that makes you feel alive and full of possibility.

I know I write a lot to and about people in the midst creative pursuits, but this pep talk goes for any kind of thing. If you want to take a French lesson or buy a skateboard, do it. It doesn’t matter if you never know how to tell a native Parisian where the library is, or land a kickflip. There’s valor in trying something new because you’ve never done it before and are curious. It’s the opposite of making AI draw you as an embryo or whatever. You benefit just by doing it, even if it’s bad. How often do you get to benefit from something even if you’re history’s worst practitioner of that skill? Almost never. And of course, as mentioned above, you aren’t and won’t be.

A PEP TALK UPDATE (PEPDATE?)

I received this message on Bluesky from a recent pep talk recipient and wanted to pass it along!

Do you ever do a 'where are they now?' for past pep talks?? because the end of my story is that while I couldn't afford to buy my current apartment [which my landlord is selling], I found another, better apartment nearby that I CAN afford!

Oh heck yeah!!!!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Allo Darlin’ - “Tricky Questions”

The algorithm hit me right between the eyes on Friday night. Maris (and Maggie) and I were sitting on the couch, DJ-ing through our tv’s speakers via iTunes or Apple Music or whatever the app is called now. Maris spotted a new Allo Darlin’ song, the first in about a decade, on the New and Notable (or whatever that is called now) menu. Allo Darlin’, an Australian band, has apparently survived the rise and fall of the twee aughts and early 2010s and came out the other side…still twee. This song is so damn PLEASANT. It’s light and peppy and feels like spring. Hate to tip my cap to our robot overlords, but they really knew what I needed to hear.

BONUS SONG: Turnstile - “Never Enough”

We’ve also got this new Turnstile song, which I can’t get enough of, thanks to the human song selection machine . Turnstile has a loud/soft quality to their songs that is like if the Pixies sounded nothing like the Pixies. The soft parts are more delicate and the loud parts are more churning. Their album Glow On is widely beloved, but I had a little trouble finding a way in. My favorite previous Turnstile tune was the one featured in I Think You Should Leave which now makes me tear up in the wake of the death of Biff Wiff. Anyway, I get it now, and this song rules, and the video rules.