An Email From Isabel
Ultimately, a charity.
Hello and welcome to my email newsletter! This is actually a charity where every week I will be sending an email straight from the depths of my brain into yours, for the sheer purpose of making my own self feel better.
Yes, the only thing more humiliating than an email newsletter that no one asked for is going on Instagram live to perform comedy, which I have also done.
Moving forward! Every week, these emails will be filled with some thoughts, recommendations of what to watch/read/stare at, and perhaps some special segments that will ultimately earn me a Nobel Peace Prize.
First, Why Is Isabel Starting an Email Newsletter in the Ripe Year of Two-Thousand and Twenty?
Well, for one, Isabel is unemployed. (And no, not “unemployed” as in two weeks away from starting a new job in the private equity sphere after leaving a job at JP Morgan - a real series of words someone tried to speak at me. “Unemployed” as in, collecting weekly benefits from Daddy Cuomo.)
For two, (making up this phrase right now) I really miss hanging out in my email inbox. I know, embarrassing. I haven’t gotten an urgent work-related email in weeks, or even one that is passive-aggressive or misspells my (simple, all-American) name so heinously that it makes me believe my boss of multiple months actually never knew who I was. (I gladly went by “Barb” for a 3-week long temp assignment because a janitor brought me 3-hours-old-lunch-meeting tacos every Taco Tuesday)
For three, I …. don’t really know what I am doing or what I should be writing or saying. I always wrote and I definitely always have something to say (loudly; at the wrong time; somehow insulting even though it was supposed to be nice?), and now I’ve got nuthin’. And yeah, you’re probably thinking, relax – the poems you wrote in college were about being in an Ohio CVS looking for yeast infection cream. You’re not James Baldwin. And no, I’m not. However, simply: writing has always made everything bad feel funnier, more wistful.
Que quar: wherein I have become dull, dumb, and the only thing I can do is read the NY Post horoscopes and refresh my phone every four seconds, only to get notifications for new Hinge matches who actually end up living like 45 miles away on Long Island. Hopefully writing to you will help me say things! (Again, this free email newsletter is tax-deductible) And, thank you for allowing me to make a global pandemic about me.
I can’t stop thinking about how I helped my friend move out of her West Village apartment (a second-hand flex) and she was just able to, like, pick up the last box and walk down the stairs without having a dramatic moment alone in her empty apartment. She was like, “great, just one box of Costco almond milk left” and then walked out without, like, crawling into the corner under the window sill and etching her name in her blood and lighting a candle for the months of youth she is leaving in that room. It was amazing.
How can people just do things without forty things happening in their brain and then subsequently be in a “weird mood” for the rest of the night? I don’t think I can ever move into an apartment because of the mental schlep that would incur upon moving out.
Ultimately, here is the reason for this charity email: Freeing my brain of some of the mental schlep.
Please feel free to unsubscribe at any point. I also would love if you would like to send me your own thoughts to make yourself feel better. Email isabelklein89@gmail.com with the aforementioned thoughts!
Goodbye for now, and here is a never-published (thank god) poem from college as a treat:
I was thinking in the bathroom about
how I wanted to learn manners
and maybe Amazon an etiquette book
then I threw the paper towel I was drying my hands with
to the garbage
but it missed and fell on the floor
I left without picking it up.
Suddenly I noticed that
If you chew this particular gum
after you eat these particular sunflower seeds
it leaves a taste in your mouth
that resembles cake.
Watching someone text someone “thanks for being such a great friend”
then crossing out “great” and writing “good.”
Walking by a hotel room with discarded
Room service piled outside.
Having a desire to eat it.
It’s fun being in my brain.
I think things,
Sometimes I tweet them.
Much love, Isabel