Got distracted by ~waves arms in all directions~
An explanation, a request, an introduction, a list.
Hi, hello, it's Logan, I've sent you this email because, many moons ago, you subscribed to either Got Distracted or The Content Audit. Those newsletters are now this newsletter, which I'm calling Logan Blog. xx
I had a newsletter for a while. Then I had a baby and no newsletter. Now the baby is a four-year-old child, and I think I might try having a newsletter again.
Actually, that's not an entirely true telling of events. A year ago, I briefly had a newsletter. It was a newsletter about blogs, an attempt at thought leadership, at getting work. I published two issues.1 But then life intervened, and my priorities shifted.2 That was that, for that blog.
My original newsletter, the one I think of when I say, "my newsletter," was a pretty good newsletter, I think. I last sent it in September 2020. I wrote about how Matt and I had recently moved a few blocks away ("Got distracted by a change in scenery").
The post is fine, nice even. But there's a big gaping hole in it: The inciting, exciting reason for the move was that we were expecting a little baby.
OUR STORY WILL CONTINUE IN JUST A MOMENT, AFTER THIS BRIEF MESSAGE
Are you hiring?
Could a writer, editor, and generally smart person who knows a lot about content on the internet, is good at interviewing people, and has many other skills we probably haven't even discovered yet, do the job you're hiring for?
If you answered yes and then yes again, or maybe, or even paused before saying no, then you should consider hiring me, Logan Sachon!
I'm especially interested in regular paychecks, subsidized healthcare, and flexible working hours, but all offers entertained!
Please get in touch by replying to this email or writing me directly at logan.sachon@gmail.com
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, AND NOW BACK TO THE BLOG
At that point, a few months in, writing about my pregnancy felt like tempting fate, so I didn't do it. But writing about my life without naming the biggest thing happening in it felt dishonest, a feeling I cannot abide.
So I decided to backburner the blog until I felt comfortable being totally open.3
Anyway, like I said, that was four years ago.
Every now and then, I'd start a new draft — Got distracted by a growing belly a baby a toddler overthinking this — but, no, I actually didn't feel ready to write about any of it. I had no distance, no insight. All I thought about was my baby, my baby, my baby. Anything I wrote that wasn't that, wasn't true.
So I kept kicking the can, until eventually I forgot what the point of writing online was, why I'd ever done it in the first place, why I kept having the impulse to do it again.
But now I remember. (Thanks, fascism!)
Putting writing out into the world is how I connect with people. It's how I met most of my friends (really). It's how I met Matt, essentially. (We met while both working for a weekly newspaper.) It's creation, community, connection, sharing, thinking through things. It's work, and it's fun. And it feels good — not the writing part, that part sucks, but to publish, to have published, to get replies — that's dopamine city.
I still don't really want to write about parenting, and like, that's fine. I guess I'll have to find a path forward that isn't being a mommy blogger (not derogatory). But also, Freddy's in school now. He's starting to have his own life. Time for me to do a bit of that, too.
Freddy! That's his name, our son. He's four, nearly, and he's so fun. Fun to watch, fun to listen to, fun to just be with. Matt and I both consider him an extremely good hang. Right now he's in the other room reading ("reading") a Pete the Cat book that he's memorized. At some point he'll tire of doing that and come get me — "Mummy, mummy, mummy" (he also says "hello" with a British accent). And then he'll pull me in to turn on the TV, or play trains, or help him find one of his two beloved (and also "borrowed" from a certain playgroup) little wooden alligators ...
Okay, that wasn't so hard. Kind of nice, actually.
Before I go, some more nice things:
1. Birds twittering away outside my window.
2. The first little yellow petals on the forsythia bushes.
3. Brave and angry people in the streets, at National Parks, outside Tesla dealerships, at town hall meetings, all over the country. God bless them.
4. When a burst of creative energy hits and Freddy just has to paint a painting. Also, watching him paint a painting. Also, Matt saving all of his paintings.
5. People walking around town on Wednesday with their ashes on their foreheads. Also, getting ashes on my forehead. (I maintain that the reason people love to get ashes is not because of the performative nature of it, but because it involves being touched, a rare and beautiful thing.)
6. Our friends and neighbors fasting for Ramadan. (My own appreciation of this was greatly enhanced by Aminatou Sow's blog post "Ramadan Kareem": "If you find yourself thinking that we live in hell and nobody is doing anything about it, please remember that two billion Muslims are fasting.")
7. My brilliant friend Edith's illustrated tale of the arrival of a new creature: "Cat Story."
8. The way Freddy's face lights up when he's handed a banana, when sees a banana in a book, when he finds his banana toy. Also, his enthusiasm and delight in proclaiming, "banana!"
9. Looking through the list of names in my email list, and being moved, both by names known and unknown to me. Thank you for giving me your email once upon a time.
10. A reminder that starting is always better than mulling. Matt, floored that so many people he talked to weren't aware of wtf is happening in Washington, started a new newsletter to help them out. This is his third newsletter — one for his business, one for a job, and now one for community. He's the most prolific person I know — his ability to get things done unparalleled, his willingness to try things out exhilarating. I don't have his energy, drive, or discipline, and after nearly nine years together, I don't suppose they are catching. But his enthusiasm and bravery is contagious, and when I allow myself to take that inspiration and go with it — to start, and not mull — good things happen (see above re: kid).
Thanks for reading,
Logan
Footnotes
1 Both issues of The Content Audit featured interviews with very smart people about their blogs (shoutout Jasper, shoutout Ernie. I interviewed a few more smart people about their blogs, too (shoutout Maria, shoutout Danny, shoutout Jo. I still haven't done anything with those interviews, but I will.
2 Life intervening, priorities shifting: Last year my mom got very sick, very quickly, and then she died. (Pancreatic cancer, a bad disease.) I miss her terribly and constantly, my beautiful mother. Her name was Patricia, but most people called her Pat. Freddy called her Gaga. I called her mom, mama, mommy when I forgot myself, a relic of being a tiny child, her tiny child. She was a really, really good mom.
3 Of course, I've never been fully open in anything that I wrote. Arguably no one is, though it's thrilling to read someone get close. It feels dangerous, that level of disclosure.
Emily Gould is a master of writing essays that feel like they are teetering on this edge. Of course, they aren't teetering at all, the perilous feeling conjured not from careless disclosure but her command of skill, pacing, magic. (See: This banger of an essay, or this one, or anything she's written, really.)