You’ll think to yourself, early on, that there should be a Company newsletter. Social media is the worst, and you especially hate it when businesses don’t have a website, or when they do but they don’t keep it current, and you have to use Instagram to know if they’re open, or whether there’s anything going on—and how, if you’ve deleted your account, or deleted the app and signed out, you can only scroll a few page lengths before Instagram forces you to sign in.

And, while you will later fold and set up an Instagram account, you will decide that there is no way in heck that Instagram will be the primary way you communicate. You will use it, but it will always be the worse experience. No one who is not on Instagram will ever miss anything important.

You and Norton will design and make a website—simple at first—just something quick, that you’ll later change, when you have more time. And you’ll set The Company up on Google Maps. And, every week, every Sunday, let’s say, you’ll send out a newsletter about what’s going on at The Company.

You’ll think of the name Paperwork, because the three of you are running a place called The Company, and, never truly having had to suffer the true drudgery of bloated administrative busywork, you’ve always been quite charmed with the idea of bureaucracy—especially with how the word bureaucracy is itself needlessly difficult to spell. And then there is the added meaning, for you, of how you’ve heard your mom complain about all the paperwork she has ever had to do, all those filings with the state, how the forms change every few months. You like littering your life with easter eggs for yourself, references and reminders of your loved ones. So, you’ll say to yourself, when you too are working on paperwork, week after week, you’ll think of her. You will picture her while you are playing pretend at rolling your own boulder up your own hill.

Yes, you’ll call it Paperwork.

You’ll release the first issue the Sunday after the opening party. You will consider, briefly, leaning into the analog. Perhaps Paperwork will be a physical, tactile zine, a weekly collection of all the hand- and Penelope-written sticky notes and signs that announced the week’s events. Maybe all the photos will be polaroids. Maybe, because photocopying and mailing all that would be terribly time-consuming, the newsletter will be an email, but just photos of all that ephemera.

Dan (O wise Dan) will quickly discourage you from this nonsense, and point out that you’ve already made up a lot of work for yourselves. You’ll concede, and will decide to do just a regular old email newsletter.

You will wish that TinyLetter was still a thing, that Mailchimp didn’t buy and kill it. You will consider Substack but feel qualms about it, and will eventually land on a service called Buttondown: free for the first hundred subscribers, small team, good reviews, personal customer support.

And, solely based on a bit of aspirational copy describing the newsletter as the official corporate communication channel for “happenings, nostalgia, and bureaucratic minutiae”, you will decide to go with that as the structure.

Maybe, maybe you will also have an intro. Something personal, probably short. And, oh yes, photos—maybe those are what go in the nostalgia section. But then you’ll remember that one particularly devastating issue of your friend Melodie’s newsletter, in which she talked about seeing the solar eclipse, and you’ll remember how much you sobbed at the way she wrote that one section, how she spoke of the day’s memories as if they had happened long ago, and you’ll think yes, that’s what we’ll do for nostalgia. It won‘t hit the same as hers—of course—but maybe far in the future that odd way of phrasing will feel like something half as rich.

The photos, they’ll have to just be their own section.

You will get started, and it will quickly get out of hand, a whole production. And it will become too insidery at times. But you will love the creative writing exercise that it is. You will wonder at some point if writing this much, and this often, in a thing that people sometimes read, will qualify you as a Writer, a thing you dreamt of becoming once. No, you don’t make money from it, but you are a documentarian, a community scribe, a journalist of sorts. You are, you will think, perhaps more than anything else at that time in your life, a Writer.

When people here and there suggest, upon hearing how long the newsletter takes you to write, that maybe you could use AI to help get it together, you will have them murdered.

You will worry, at times, that your lifelong penchant for using em-dashes—which you memorized the shortcut to back in design school (shift+option+hyphen)—will cause some to think that the newsletter is written using AI. You will despise those imaginary simpleminded people, who are so willing to thoughtlessly abandon good punctuation to the machines.

You will learn that most people skim. Once, upon writing one of many sentimental reflections on what it would be like to lose the building, you will hear, directly and indirectly, from over a dozen people who will think The Company is truly closing down, because they didn’t read carefully. Another time, a friend, when you ask if he read the latest issue—if he saw the bit about the quantity of his soup—will answer, “I subscribe!” and you will both laugh.

But you will also learn that some people read every word, that they catch the easter eggs you hide, that they notice the occasional changing of a name, appreciate the pun, see the rare change of the closing emoji. You will feel filled up whenever your writing is complimented, feel grateful that you and a few hundred others allow you this indulgence.

Most importantly, though, writing that newsletter—attempting to translate a week into a couple thousand words—will change your experience of the place, of the people, of the community. Like all media, this one will transform its content. This medium will reduce and elevate, flatten and expand, distill and bloom. It will mostly distort, but at times it will come close to capturing how beautiful this time was.

—Ivan

Happenings

This week:

Weekly Wednesday Worknight, Wednesday, December 10

The Company is about combining creative work with good friendships. Make an appointment with your side project this (or any) Wednesday at a Worknight, where we oscillate between enforced, focused, quiet time and optional chatty social time.

$5, free for Company and Moonlight members

Work together →

Salsa Social, Thursday, December 11

It’s been a year of learning salsa for many of us at The Company, and to celebrate, Mark is throwing a Salsa Social! For those who want it, Mark will be leading a review of the mild and medium salsa moves we’ve learned so far, and for those who don’t, you can just dance the time away.

Free

Put one foot in front of the other →

Canceled: Offsite: Orbis Holiday Discover Party, Saturday, December 13

Including this just to note that it’s no longer happening! If you bought a ticket, you should be getting a refund.

Future Weeks:

Glint: Frenzy, Tuesday, December 16

True, personal stories, told live, without notes. Pretty much exactly like The Moth, except without the competition, on Tuesdays instead of Fridays, and everyone knows each other (or is about to). Our next theme is “Frenzy“.

Do you have a story of being in a rush? Or out of control? Of a state of chaos or wildness? Did you ever get really worked up about something? Were you excited or enraged? Have you thrown a fit? Been delirious? Acted in a panic? Have you ever fed ducks? Have you tried to purchase concert tickets? Have you ever been at the Company when Christof has bought in a baked good? Whatever your interpretation, we want to hear it.

Hear from me, Anjali, Allyson, Lauren S., Lauren T., Jaime, Beth, Ryan, and Fer.

We’ve got a few teller slots left, so if you’re interested in telling a story, reply and let us know.

$10, or free for tellers and members.

Get your ticket as quickly as possible ahhhh! →

Ishmael Book Club: 10–13, Thursday, December 18

Mark once read a book that still means a lot to him, and he’s been hosting a book club about it. We’ll be having one last session to discuss the final section of the book, and after that we’ll be resuming Mary Ann’s Book Club.

Free

Think mythologically once more →

Offsite: The Denver-est Denver Award, Thursday, December 18

After receiving numerous nominations, Cuppa has become a finalist in City Cast Denver’s Denver-est Denver Awards for Best Bar/Restaurant of 2025! (Voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 15, and you can vote using this link. (For the Most Denver-est Denverite of 2025, we suggest Richard Maez, a friend of Mark’s!)). If Cuppa wins, Beth will get to go up on stage and accept an award, and if you attend, you’ll get to watch that happen!

$31.90

Celebrate the best of our city →

Offsite: Creative Mornings, Friday, December 19

Another Creative Mornings is nigh. This one conveniently located just one building over from where Management and a decent chunk of Membership reside.

Free

Be a morning person →

—

Also coming up: Old Year’s Resolution Party (December 31), PowerPoint Party No. 34 (January 3)

Nostalgia

Do you remember the Monday with just 2/3rds of Management most of the day? The rare day when it felt just like our life had before? How we had a visit from Adam, and learned about his own experiments in community?

Or the other quiet day, with just the two of you? That you walked to the poke place, and talked about music at lunch?

Or the first very snowy day? How we took off our shoes at the door? That we tried to figure out Ryan’s age? That Nick came by for a visit? How, because of the snow, we took an indoor recess? That we played Codenames? How that was also the day of the first Spanish lessons from the Kissing Room?

Do you remember Worknight? How it began with a sushi outing, with Case’s friend Kyle Drake? That we just barely completed enough stars?

The morning with a visit from Joel? With Christof’s delivery of gingerbread in the uncommon loaf form? Our quick walk around the block?

The controller-swapping of Gris? How we kept saying “it’s about grief!”, and pondered how? How, taking after the mayor, we all claimed to have led on different things?

The First Friday Feast-turned Ladies Lunch?

The first PowerPoint Party with the new checklists? All the presentations? How many included their presenters within them? How Simon said “beautiful color” about one of the birds? How the show ended with a presentation about the show?

How we talked, late into the night (but well within our operating hours)—and learned that among us was a scout for the big leagues of presentation parties?

The late night bartaco? How we learned about Trevr’s Australian accent? How we all said ryza blyde?

Bureaucratic Minutiae

• In case you missed it above: After receiving numerous nominations, Cuppa has become a finalist in City Cast’s Denver-est Denver Awards for Best Bar/Restaurant of 2025! Voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 15, and you can vote using this link. (For the Most Denver-est Denverite of 2025, we suggest Richard Maez, a friend of Mark’s!)

• All the damaged, wrinkled, folded, weathered, stained, crinkly, waterlogged, handwritten sticky notes and signs have been carefully laminated, preserving them in the precise state of degradation they were in in early December of 2025.

• To remind folks, we have a lease, and our lease has some agreements, and one of those pertains to our hours. To quote section 9:

  “Hours of Operation.

  Tenant's hours of Operation for Event Space or Gatherings shall be:
  Sun: 9a-10p
  Mon: 8а-10p
  Tue: 8a-10p
  Wed: 8a-10p
  Thu: 8a-10p
  Fri: 8а-11p
  Sat: 9a-11p

  Tenant's hour of Operation for General Studio, Artist or Work Space
  Daily: 6a-Midnight”

• We have been loaned a non-broken soccer ball by Nick, increasing our options for recess activities.

• At Worknight: Case took a call and worked on Japan paperwork; Ryan tried to book a flight; Michelle identified 5 sources; Ivan created layout assets for Livvy and worked on adding a typeface to his website; Livvy printed a pre-event checklist; Kyle Drake fixed the jerk detector and worked on a debug; and Dan set up yearly sections on a forthcoming portfolio.

• At PowerPoint Party: McKenna took us into a dark room, Ricky told us a story about economics, Micah gave us the necessary context for his following presentation, Lauren celebrated Rosalind Franklin, Christof introduced us to a pantheon of Christmas characters, Jim showed us film photos of Japan, Sam Ar. validated Lauren S.’s lip product choices, Simon taught and then quizzed us about local birds, Joe shared lessons he’s learned from business school, Elijah coaxed us to sleep, Gaby revealed what it’s like to be an art model, and Alex played a video of a renowned expert’s thoughts on PowerPoint parties.

• We have a time clock. Partially because, hey, we’re a Company! And mostly because we love having a physical record of (almost) everyone who’s been in the space. People punch in and out when they visit. At the end of each month, we stack up all the cards by visit count in the Fibonacci sequence. Here’s the data for November:

  1 visit: 64 people
  2 visits: 7 people
  3–4 visits: 11 people
  5–7 visits: 14 people
  8–12 visits: 3 people
  13–20 visits: 2 people
  21+ visits: 2 people

  Total people: 103
  People who came more than once: 39

  Other notes:

  • Due to a Management error, a restock of the standard punch cards did not arrive in time for the November PowerPoint Party and the start of the month. As you can see, we improvised.

  • This month had the highest number of visitors ever (14) in the 5+ column. The next highest was 11 in December 2024.

  • Norton’s in 5+ this month. We miss you. [Redacted] doesn’t have a card. We miss you too.

  • There’s a mysterious “Sam A” card which belongs to neither of the Sam A’s we know; there’s a card with an in-and-out punch but no name except a mysterious scribble; most of Joe and Lauren S.’s in-and-out punches are at exactly the same minutes as each other—it’s cute; and Greg, we can definitely read your name, thanks.

  • Note: We don’t generally record visitors to Cuppa if they are only stopping in for Cuppa. Many people came through the space that are not represented here!

  • Inevitably: incomplete and messy data.

• Finally, a reminder that The Company is a member-supported gathering place, and if you know any of us, you’re welcome to pop in any time for free (outside of events). If you know that one of us is here and you’d like to come by, reach out and we can let you in.

Photos

—

This issue of Paperwork was written by Ivan with additional reporting from Jessica S., and was shot by Ivan. Photo selection and editing by Ivan and Jessica S. Editorial support was provided by Livvy. This issue, and The Company itself, was made possible by the support of our members, Halie, Drew J., Justin, Mason, José, Mary Ann, Trevr, Allyson, Lizzie, Elijah, Michelle, Jim, Jaime, Jacob, Mark, Sabrina, Beth, Dani, Chris, Will, Marcia, Rebeca, Sarah, Alex, Jessica P., Jessica S., Mike, Ben, Sam, Liz, Christof, Ryan, Lauren, and Leah.

Do you know anyone in the Denver area who might be looking for creative community? Feel free to forward this email along to them. Everyone loves Paperwork.

😘