i still want to be cool

and ok fine, also beautiful

I follow a writer on a non-substack platform who posts online diary entries about her work and personal life. It’s similar to what I do here, the main difference being that she’s cool. She styles herself a little coquettish, very alt. She has some of those thin little tattoos and she makes aesthetic choices that involve upkeep. It’s possible that her eyebrows are entirely drawn on. I received her diary entry in my inbox and read about her 2025 writing goals along with tidbits about her romantic life (doesn’t seem to be going well) and allusions to the pains of being deified (apparently it sucks).

Of course I compared her diary entry to the ones I publish here. I thought something like, “this girl’s cool,” and then, “people subscribe to her because she is cool,” and then, “dear diary is so deeply uncool,” and then, “maybe I should try to be cooler.”

Being “cooler” on dear diary would probably look like writing entries that are less anxious, less self-conscious, less prude, more confident. The phrase “more badass” comes to mind, which is, you know, humiliating. I felt drained just imagining the sort of lifestyle change and cognitive overhaul it would take to start writing cooler entries. This Christmas, my sister caught me huffing my Thai Herbal Inhaler and asked if I was using poppers. I’d have to become the kind of person that was like, yes, I am. Or I’d have to move back to LA and enter a polycule. I’d at least finally have to start listening to MJ Lenderman!!!

Obviously I’ve made self-deprecating jokes about this before, this idea that I am just sooo not cool, but I’ve always made them with a little twinkle in my eye, a little wink, like, “Yeah, but we both know I actually am kind of cool.” But something about mentally holding up this woman’s diary entries against my own, or maybe reflecting on my life as I’m getting older, it really sort of hit me for the first time that like, I am actually not cool. I’m not saying I’m not likable or fun, but I mean like. Cool. Like chill, like easy-breezy, like effortless, like unbothered, like never trying too hard, like upholding a casual and recognizable personal style that someone, somewhere, may describe as alt and coquettish.

So as I was reckoning with the idea that coolness is not in the stars for me, I opened up Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo, which I’m finally reading. I’m like a hundred pages in so bear with me. But the character of Peter, who I’m currently understanding to be a thirty-something lawyer who sort of wants to die, describes the twenty-something gal he’s hooking up with like so: “Naomi on the countertop in a leather miniskirt, laddered tights, legs swinging. Her supreme desirability. Every man she passes on the street, he thinks. Helpless fantasies of doing what she lets him do to her.” Earlier in the novel his brother Ivan, a twenty-two year old hooking up with a thirty-six year old woman, says to his love interest: “You’re really beautiful…I mean, obviously. I presume people tell you that all the time.”

And I was reading this like, wait, sorry. Am I…jealous of these fictional women? The answer, of course, being: yeah. I mean, their supreme desirability! This thirty-six year old woman is so beautiful to this twenty-two year old man that he felt embarrassed to bring it up, like he was declaring the sky blue!

Then that sinking feeling came up again, but this time about something else. I want not only to be cool but also to be beautiful in that head-turning way, with undeniable certainty, the kind of beauty that doesn’t rely on good angles or lighting but instead might be earnestly described as “haunting” or “arresting,” the kind of beauty that stops you in your tracks. And I think, this too, may not necessarily be, like, my destiny.

Coolness and beauty are subjective blah blah i get it. But you know what I’m talking about. I have been thinking about wanting to be what I’m not, and wondering where that gets me. In another life, maybe I could have been the cool girl (i’m actually not legally obligated to quote the Gone Girl monologue so i’m not doing it!!). But I think if I tried to make myself a cool girl, I’d be some weird, ersatz LPB, and that would make me completely not special. Like, I could be cooler, but then I’d just be one of many. My anxiety and self-consciousness and my willingness to express it in a way that is so very uncool is the thing that makes me unique.

My best writing comes from the place of me: not who I want to be, but who I am. When we write from a place of who we want to be, all authenticity is lost. We’re in the headspace of ego, distracted by the thought of audience perception. It prevents us from writing from a place of truth. Sometimes our place of truth is embarrassing or vulnerable or scary, but it’s real, and that’s what makes it interesting.

This is why I think exploration of the Self—knowing who we are in this world, what’s most important to us, what we’re most afraid of, what we need, what we’re projecting, what we’re faking, where we’re blocked—is such crucial work for the writer, to be done in tandem with our creative work. Without that Self-knowing, our writing suffers.

On social media or in movies or maybe even real life, I’ve heard people say that your thirties are great bc you stop caring about what others think of you. I definitely still care lmao. My subscriber count is going up and I still feel anxious about how this post will be received. But I am stepping into myself with a little more love. I am resisting myself a little less. It’s nice, to be honest. Maybe even nicer than being cool.

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+ Reading: I closed out 2024 with a few shorties! After finishing Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz, I read the others from her “involuntary trilogy”: Feebleminded and Tender. These novels are unhinged in the best way, a true fever dream of fucked up family dynamics. Die, My Love remains my favorite (and apparently has a film adaptation, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Rob Pattinson, coming out this year!).

I also read a book of short stories by Emily Costa called Girl On Girl, which I adored. A few readers have messaged me asking for advice on getting into the lit mag game; if you’re curious about this, I’d recommend you read this collection, which is chock-full of excellent examples of short stories that contain lots of heart, the exact kind of thing that’s getting published online rn.

After that, I read A Woman’s Story by Annie Ernaux, which was, as always, shocking in its simple effectiveness. I don’t read much memoir but I am obsessed with this woman and how she writes.

And as mentioned, I’m currently reading Intermezzo. It’s so funny to notice how differently I’m reading now that I’m revising rather than drafting. Everything, including this Substack, has to get through me mentally commentating, “Cut…cut…shoulda been cut..” lol. All that to say, I really do think Sally is so good. I found myself annotating a surprisingly erotic sex scene, absorbing what made it so effective, in the hopes that I could apply some of those lessons to my own work.

+ Writing: My manuscript is printed and I’m about 60 pages into my first read-through. I am using pencil to mark up the draft itself while taking notes, brainstorming, and asking myself questions in an open Moleskine cashier journal at my side. Revision is bringing up a lot of feelings lol. I see that I have a lot of work to do, but now I also know that I can do it.