Welcome to whatever this is
An intro to this newsletter
Dear reader,
I am writing this on Monday, November 18, 2024 from the relative comfort of my home office in the beautiful and fraught East San Francisco Bay Area, listening to the Bill Evans Trio’s 1961 masterpiece “Explorations”1 and drinking a gin old-fashioned made with both gin and bitters made by my friend Brian at Corpen Gin2 in Barcelona. I say “relative” comfort because I have just sat down and realized that I’ve had my space heater cranked a little too high, but there are far worse problems in the world. I say “fraught” because where in the world is not fraught at this moment in time?
I thought I’d begin with a bit of an introduction to myself, why I started this newsletter, and what to expect. It’s as much for myself as it is for you.
About me
I’m a 43-year-old cis white man who has grown up in and spent most of his life in said SF Bay Area. I am married to a wonderful woman who I love dearly, have three rad kids with said woman, and we have a dog who gets up on the couch even though she’s not supposed to, but we let her anyway.
I’ve been working as a content designer (or content strategist, or UX writer) and/or managing content design teams for the last 11 years. Before that I did various things in tech. Before that I was a journalist. Before that I was a kid.
I play guitar and bass and listen to a lot of music.
Why I started this newsletter
I used to blog back in the early 2000s, when it was new and exciting, and the internet felt smaller. I wasn’t particularly good at it at the time, but I’ve missed having an outlet for writing since I dropped off.
Over the last 20+ years, I’ve dabbled in various forms of social media expression: Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, etc. I’d gotten off of Twitter and Tumblr a few years ago, and had a latent desire to reduce my overall time on social media.
For some reason, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, after it was very clear that the US presidential election had not gone the way I’d hoped, my impulse was to stop ingesting as much information as I had been, and spend more time creating. I could spend many paragraphs analyzing why this is, but I’ll offer one brief observation and one external source of wisdom.
One: I realized that the next four years will be rough and horrible in many ways, and that was accompanied by a feeling of helplessness. But I quickly had a near-subconscious urge to focus on the things and people over which I do have influence: my family, my friends, my community. Social media doesn’t help me help them much. Writing and talking and laughing and writing songs and taking care of people could.
Two: I’m on the mailing list of author and human person Chris Guillebeau, and he recently shared an email titled “When You Aren’t Sure What to Do, Try This.”3 It’s a great piece that you should read, but the important part is:
During the times I’ve been most sad, depressed, or anxious (often a combination), I frequently wonder what should I do. Not just “What should I do to solve the problem?” but also “What should I do to occupy myself?”
…
The two-part solution is: when you’re not sure what to do, make something and help someone.
I can certainly do both of those things.
What to expect
I’ve got a handful of drafts for this mailing list. They’re not about any one thing, nor do I know if they offer any particular instruction or insight. But I know this: I wrote them. And you signed up to read things I wrote. So I’ll at least be delivering on that promise.
I want to establish a relationship with you, dear reader, and I don’t know exactly what that looks like. I have not invested enough time to figure out how to make it super easy for you to give me feedback, and maybe it shouldn’t be super easy, because we’ve all got things to do. But always feel free to reach out and tell me what you thought, or write your own piece and quote me.
I’d prefer you not reply to tell me what a piece of shit I am—that’s what the unsubscribe button is for. But if you have constructive feedback about how I could do better, especially if I’ve gotten something really wrong in your view, I’d very much appreciate a thoughtful, respectful note about it.
In summary
Thanks for subscribing.
XO,
Grant
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P.S. About the letterhead: the “logo” at the top of this email is not a “logo” per se, but a tattoo design that currently graces my left forearm. My friend Josh Ellingson4, a gifted artist currently making amazing art with TVs and synthesizers and glass bowls and stuff, designed it for me a few years back, based on my prompt telling him I wanted a bird of paradise tattoo in maybe an Art Deco style. He nailed the design, which features two crossing birds of paradise against a vertically elongated hexagon, without knowing that my main inspiration for the design was to commemorate my maternal grandparents who had one of the plants in front of their Oakland home.
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Links:
1 Bill Evans Trio — “Explorations”
2 Corpen Gin
3 “When You Aren’t Sure What to Do, Try This” by Chris Guillebeau
4 Josh Ellingson
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Visit grantshellen.com for more from and/or about me.