updates from my brand new desk :)
Hi my beach babies,
Summer has become beautiful again now that I can venture outside without dissolving into a puddle of my own sweat on the subway! And I have now remembered after a surprisingly cool day yesterday that once again fall will return, and what a wonderful thought that is.
I had an absolute blast playing The Local NY last weekend :) Thank you to all who came, I will definitely be back later in the year! But first....
Virgo's Groove
Baby come ooovvvvverrrr... cause I'm returning to play Rockwood Music Hall Stage 1 on the FIRST DAY OF VIRGO SEASON!! If you couldn't snag Harry Styles tickets for August 22nd this show is the next best thing happening in NYC that day and you only need to purchase one drink for entry! Come see lil Virgo me sing my lil yearning tunes! Rockwood is one of the few venues where I get to play both piano and guitar and I'm so excited about this set list I have planned. You don't wanna miss it!!!
SHOW DETAILS:
August 22nd, 9pm-10pm
Rockwood Music Hall, Stage 1
No cover charge, no reservation
One drink minimum
Work work work work work work
As the title of my newsletter says, I've got a new desk now, and I love it very much! It feels a bit like a marker of adulthood that I am obsessed with a piece of furniture, but here I am! It has really transformed my room, which is revitalizing since it's been mostly the same for the past two years, and it's also transformed my routine and my productivity! Turns out that working from your bed for almost a year is not very good for your brain or your body, so! I am very happy to be Boss Baby sitting at my very lucky Facebook marketplace find :)
The answer to "what do you do for work?" is still a bit clunky in my mouth. I hadn't realized how few people I'd played the getting-to-know-you game with until I was at two separate birthday parties on the same beautiful summer Sunday, both filled with mostly people I hadn't met before.
"I'm a freelance musician," I said a few times that day, around big mouthfuls of gratitude and disbelief, stumbling over myself to then explain how that works and what that means and that by some wild twist of events it's actually true.
At the same time, it can be difficult to ground myself in the fact that I'm still growing. It's easy to fall down a comparison rabbit hole with my peers and forget that I just started building this freelance career fulltime in February, when I was only buying the bare minimum necessities and couldn't afford anything else. I am excited to (fingers crossed) be reaching the level of Top Seller on Fiverr this month (I've met all the requirements, they just need to manually approve me!), which feels like a good time to be raising my prices and expanding my reach. It's all equally scary and very very cool, but ultimately the freedom that comes from doing what I love full time is unparalleled, and me at any point in the past would think I was so cool for doing it.
I am cool for doing it!
Art I've Been Enjoying Lately:
I cannot stress enough that if you have even a tiny bit of interest in Dungeons and Dragons, the Dimension 20 anthology series is one of the best series out there right now (and a Dropout subscription to stream it is only $5 a month!!). Right now they are releasing their newest campaign, A Court of Fey and Flowers, weekly and it is the perfect regency era Faewilds romp I never even knew that I needed til now. They start each sessions with a letter writing phase!! There are rumors and secrets and romances!! I am on the edge of my seat both because of intrigue and also from almost falling out of it with laughter!! I love it!!
I'm reading Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty currently, which is excellent in it's slow reveal storytelling. I've been very into ~scandals revealed~ books lately (Bad Blood was another great one). I feel like I am always trying to chase that the Netflix Fire Festival documentary gave me (so if you have any recommendations let me know!)
I'm not sure if I've talked about this album previously here, but Tell Me That It's Over by Wallows is truly so so good and one of my favorite releases this year. That coming of age indie shoegaze rock hits harder at this point in the summer too in the perfect soaring heartachy way.
I've also been enjoying my own demos lately but you can't listen to those yet hehehehehe......... soon **eyes emoji**
I'm glad that you're here.
For the hope of it all,
Em