Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1.5 - #377
"Let Me Into Your Life" by Bill Withers - 04/05/22
Firstly, our most recent guest poster, Rebecca Davey, of the Substack, Observables, has had her Substack nominated for a Webby Award, Congrats!!!
Observables is one of five publications up for the category: Websites and Mobile Sites - Email Newsletters - Independent Publishers.
Let’s everyone vote for it!
"Let Me Into Your Life" by Bill Withers
Sweet little synchronicity today.
I was debating whether to send a reminder email to the max bcc people I invited to come to Ecstatic Dance LA this weekend on Sunday, April 10th.
So far it seems only 2-5 people have confirmed :)
I realized that might be because people didn’t realize they could just hang at the beach without dancing…or I have just continued to become more unpopular LOL.
I was feeling like, hmm, maybe I should just not send this email to remind people, or do anything else, and just let it be.
But, I shuffled, and got, “Let Me In Your Life” by Bill Withers, which feels quite apropos with its chorus of:
I only want to love you
Please don't push me away
Let me in your life
This applies to all relationships, right?!
So, yeah, any and all are still welcome this Sunday…
Link here!
In not completely related ‘me’ news, my Curb Your Haggadah has gotten some Jewish Press.
No, not The New York Times this time, LOL.
The actual Jewish Press like The Jewish Telegraphic Agency and The Jewish Weekly.
And today from former guest poster Jay Michaelson in The Forward.
It takes about two days for the books to deliver from Amazon so there’s plenty of time left before the April 15th holiday.
I really do think this is perhaps the best of ‘my’ four Haggadahs, because as Jay mentions it combines comedy with ‘actual spiritual sustenance’.
So, yeah, grab a copy or 10 for $2.99 Kindle or $7.99 Paperback at this link.
Lastly, to mention a third guest poster, I’m pleased to announce that I recently set up a guest post with Jesse Meadows of the Substack, Sluggish, and the digital art/meme account @QueerVengeance.
It almost can’t be overstated how HUGE a fan I am of what Jesse is doing.
They describe their work as “special interests in mental health politics…I’ve collected many diagnoses — ADHD, Bipolar, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, PTSD, Unspecified Personality Disorder (whatever that means?) — and I tried to take the meds and do the CBT worksheets, but it sorta…made things worse. In my desperation, I discovered the neurodiversity paradigm, and started writing critically about disorder (and making memes about it).”
Here’s an example from their post today “Needing Each Other is Human” about interdependence, codependence, and self-care:
All capitalism offers us here is self-care, something many of us find impossible. Often I care for myself through caring for my partner — when they’re not here, I stop cooking meals, I let the dishes pile up, I ignore the trash. It just seems kind of pointless when I don’t have anyone to do it for but myself.
The fact that it’s easier to do tasks for others than it is for ourselves is a very common refrain in neurodivergent spaces, and I wonder if, rather than being some odd truth of neurodivergence, it is instead an expression of how odd the capitalist notion of self-care really is.
It’s an “industry which relegates care to something we are supposed to buy for ourselves on a personal basis,” as the Care Collective writes, one that arose from an economy built on individualism and alienation.
Maybe it’s not weird at all that we care for ourselves through caring for each other, maybe it’s just human. We are needy, we are vulnerable, we are interdependent. Without care, we wither.
As followers of this Substack know, critiques of mental ‘disorders’ + memes are big themes, so I’m very excited to see what comes of our collaboration.
So look out for that post very soon!
And don’t forget to come dance or just hang at the beach if you are in LA on Sunday 4/10!
Okay, that’s the three hundred and seventy-seventh Shuffle Synchronicities!