In my experience thus far, I think there’s potential for a “forever Davey”, for me at least. It’s been 25 years since I met mine and the poetry of the whole thing has yet to wane. I think I cling to it for that reason alone sometimes.
Personally, I love that I don’t know where you’ll go with each letter/post. That’s what keeps me opening them up with curiosity. Can you imagine if each time you get time to talk with your close friend it takes a predictable format?! As one who makes things I have no desire to make things the same way twice.
Please keep feeling free, meandering and feeling your way through and sharing that.
Also, there’s a product called Serene Sleep (melatonin, 5HTP and some other ingredient I can’t ever remember because it sounds made up). It has really helped me. Along with other smart choices about caffeine etc.
The dread each night that I may miss sleep and need to talk to students for 4 straight hours in morning classes is real. This helps, usually. Nothing I’ve found is sure fire.
I agree with this. I like SS when it’s unscripted, and it’s fun getting inside people’s minds. I’m new here… hi! I came late to your book Miranda but absolutely loved it.
Saddens me to hear that subscribers actually leave if they don't 'feel' they're getting consistent content. Call me old-fashioned; I subscribe because I want to support the artist, and we all know inspiration comes in fits and starts. I give no fucks on how much content I get; it's not about what I'm getting...
Are you really asking how people budget? I will tell you how I do it. I do it at the beginning of the year, and then once a month at the beginning of each month.
Beginning of year: I estimate my income for the year. Mine does not vary very much. Then I make a list of all the big yearly expenses: property taxes, income taxes, an estimate of how much house repairs may cost that year, and an estimate of out-of-pocket medical expenses, travel expenses, plus a few other things. I add that up. This is the "overhead." I deduct it from my income for the year. Then I divide what is left by twelve to get my approximate income per month.
Beginning of the month: I estimate my income for that month. Again, it doesn't vary very much. I add up all the regular monthly expenses for that month: car payment, utilities, subscriptions (all of which are deducted automatically from checking). I sometimes cancel a subscription or two if I am not using it much. It's good to review this every month. Then I add an estimate for gas and an estimate for groceries. The total of all that is what it costs every month just to run my household.
Then I deduct that amount from my income for that month. The remainder is the Walking Around Money. The Walking Around Money is the amount I have to spend on things I don't really need. I divide this amount by the number of days in the month. That's the amount of WAM I can spend per day. I keep track of this in a notebook.
Using Quicken really helps to keep track of all this and to estimate what groceries and gas cost per month. You can see a report about how much you spent on groceries the past few months. You can download transactions directly from your bank into Quicken, and Quicken tries to categorize them for you, but really you have to do that part manually. It is somewhat time consuming but very interesting.
Also I have found it useful when I am sharing expenses with other people for some project. I can show them exactly what I've spent so far, and we can compare so that nobody ends up paying more than their share.
that is EXACTLY how I did it and it worked. I was the person who had all the monthly household finances in hand, until my somewhat autistic male cohabitant and main bread winner decided to subscribe and use an app. now nothing is in my hands anymore and I spend money with unease and no control or sense of it. The app stresses me out and squeezes all creativity and joy out of handling money and expenses. I'd rather do everything in my head again. but it's another form of control over me and less independence, I have lost another battle. All in the name of the "prosperity", of this family that, surely, I must see too.
Why not just have your own account and split the joint expenses? You could go to the bank and set up an account and put your money in it and say, "Ok, we're going to split everything 50-50."
Double Down! More spelling mistakes! More Disordered Posting! Go crazy. Have that banana before bed that one reader recommended. Okay, that banana has some heavy lifting to do but if you do sleep those dreams could be sweeeet.
let’s talk finances more. refinery 29 money diaries are deeply interesting but anyone with money on there seems to have inherited it in some way. i find myself aligning with a terrible conservative christian personal finance guru called dave ramsey (this is a safe space, right?) that the american dream sells you on debt, which keeps most americans poor. money is 80% behavioral and 20% knowledge, and most of us act impulsively and feel guilty later. but keeping a budget, knowing where your money is going, paying off that credit card every month, saving, investing… it’s a different kind of peace to not owe anyone anything. madeline pendleton has an awesome book about how they changed their relationship with money and built a sustainable life through budgeting, and they also have great nuanced takes about how fucked american society is. (unlike dave ramsey. probably should have recommended madeline first.)
Your flow or lack of it is perfect. Any way you want to do it, I’m here for it. It’s inspiring.
Miranda, I used gabapentin for 4-5 months. At first it was amazing and incredible. I was finally sleeping. Maybe I wouldn’t abandon my family? Then I went in to a deep haze, check out, mind numbing portal. I keep chalking it up to peri and finally somewhere at month 4 or 5 realized it was the drug. The brain fog was incredibly intense. So much more than regular peri, pregnancy or nursing. I was scared to quit & stop sleeping. It took weeks to muster up the courage. I weaned myself off it eventually and landed right back in not sleeping hell, but exited that particular portal of darkness. I don’t recommend what I did. It was an awful 1/2 of a year.
Also, there are Lot of ways to find sleep and they or may not work for whoever. Here’s another one. I rely nightly on a banana. If after a wake up you can get yourself to fall back to sleep - I go through every room of my childhood home and try to remember every detail or I get as far as I can adding 1+2+3+4 etc - the banana can put you into a deep yummy sleepy. Side note I’m on a .1 estrodial patch and 200 mg progesterone.
I think you’re not eating bananas, but worth reconsidering.
Here for ALL of the content. However and whenever. Love the idea of talking about money as another binary. How it keeps us together and separate in partnerships, friendships and in all areas of life. How it is tied up in the worst kinds of greed and evil - but can also be utilized for altruism and care. How people are shamed for not having any and shunned for having too much.
You might like this bit of trivia: the numbers on the tariffs baffled economists. This could be that they were made up by Peter Navarro, art thief of items from the White House, jailbird and all around idiot, in consultation with Ron Vara. Ron Vara was later revealed to be an anagram of Navaro’s own name with no real academic or professional existence. That would explain the penguins and their 21% tariff. Peter said Ron Vara was a “whimsical device and pen name …purely for entertainment value, not as a source for fact”
I like your rambles they’re 100000x smarter than regular people rambles. It makes me think my monkey mind is maybe a little artier than I’ve always thought. Thanks so much. I am glad you got sleep. My partner calls me blessed because I sleep so well. I agree. Menopause had made me wake up at 4 am and I try to sleep but if by 445 I’m not asleep, I get up and do quiet, nurturing things: journal, read Ruiz, write bad spiritual poems. Like REALLY bad ones. It has become a gift instead of a curse. Then I have to go to bed at 9 that night but oh well.
Thanks for bringing up money and how it’s the hardest thing to talk about, which keeps us all ashamed and alone—and how this not sharing of information specifically affects women. I’m thinking of ways to write about it honestly in my own ss and I’d welcome more from you on the subject! It really does feel like the final taboo.
I wake up a lot and swear by listening to an audiobook, usually Ulysses. It might take a bit but I almost always fall back asleep. Never doubt Joyce to make you tired.
I would be thrilled to write a guest post about money or sex or lingerie and naughty costumes. The only thing I know nothing about is cooking, that was my husband's department. He LOVED to cook and bake and I loved to eat. Anyway, he died three and a half years ago after living three years with incurable cancer. I don't think I've gotten a good night's sleep in 7 years, but that could also be menopause (I'm 57) or that my son just turned 13, he's autistic and gifted.
One of my artistic heroes (Alec Soth) posted on IG yesterday this documentary film he watched and highly recommended. ‘Flipside’ which is apparently for creatives balancing art and income. It came to mind reading your post. Art and money have always been complicated for me, I haven’t watched it yet but I know I’ll get around to it soon.
I hope I didn’t contribute to your stress over ss. I did cancel my subscription - in fact I cancelled it about a minute after I bought it - but I only did that because I had a sudden, ill-timed freakout over money. I never see such freakouts coming. They don’t always happen right after I spend. Sometimes they descend on a perfectly innocent, unsuspecting me, like a bacterial infection, or finger wart. Canceling my subscription seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but I love this ss and it would be my wish for you to do whatever you want here. I’ll renew my subscription. I’ll buy a lifetime supply. Whatever. Just do your thing.
Did anyone else perk up when they read this line?
'Ha, that really makes it sound like I haven’t moved on from Davey....'
As if any of us could move on from (a real or imagined) Davey.
As if our last words on our deathbed won't be for Davey.
There’s something so painfully romantic about this. “Davey” saw us when we needed to be seen, and there’s nothing more intoxicating in the world.
Well said.
Also makes me think about how we experience Davey differently at different times in our lives.
Are there some people who are 'forever Daveys' and always able to move us deeply?
Guess we will find out at the end of our lives.
In the meantime, I'm headed to Sacramento.
In my experience thus far, I think there’s potential for a “forever Davey”, for me at least. It’s been 25 years since I met mine and the poetry of the whole thing has yet to wane. I think I cling to it for that reason alone sometimes.
Are we all getting "Davey" tattoos now?
Bold idea. It'd be my first.
If we got a black belt tattoo, it could symbolize Davey, Audra, and/or the narrator.
Yes to all of this! Sometimes just the imagination of Davey is enough too
Personally, I love that I don’t know where you’ll go with each letter/post. That’s what keeps me opening them up with curiosity. Can you imagine if each time you get time to talk with your close friend it takes a predictable format?! As one who makes things I have no desire to make things the same way twice.
Please keep feeling free, meandering and feeling your way through and sharing that.
Also, there’s a product called Serene Sleep (melatonin, 5HTP and some other ingredient I can’t ever remember because it sounds made up). It has really helped me. Along with other smart choices about caffeine etc.
The dread each night that I may miss sleep and need to talk to students for 4 straight hours in morning classes is real. This helps, usually. Nothing I’ve found is sure fire.
All of the above!! Xx
I agree with this. I like SS when it’s unscripted, and it’s fun getting inside people’s minds. I’m new here… hi! I came late to your book Miranda but absolutely loved it.
Saddens me to hear that subscribers actually leave if they don't 'feel' they're getting consistent content. Call me old-fashioned; I subscribe because I want to support the artist, and we all know inspiration comes in fits and starts. I give no fucks on how much content I get; it's not about what I'm getting...
Are you really asking how people budget? I will tell you how I do it. I do it at the beginning of the year, and then once a month at the beginning of each month.
Beginning of year: I estimate my income for the year. Mine does not vary very much. Then I make a list of all the big yearly expenses: property taxes, income taxes, an estimate of how much house repairs may cost that year, and an estimate of out-of-pocket medical expenses, travel expenses, plus a few other things. I add that up. This is the "overhead." I deduct it from my income for the year. Then I divide what is left by twelve to get my approximate income per month.
Beginning of the month: I estimate my income for that month. Again, it doesn't vary very much. I add up all the regular monthly expenses for that month: car payment, utilities, subscriptions (all of which are deducted automatically from checking). I sometimes cancel a subscription or two if I am not using it much. It's good to review this every month. Then I add an estimate for gas and an estimate for groceries. The total of all that is what it costs every month just to run my household.
Then I deduct that amount from my income for that month. The remainder is the Walking Around Money. The Walking Around Money is the amount I have to spend on things I don't really need. I divide this amount by the number of days in the month. That's the amount of WAM I can spend per day. I keep track of this in a notebook.
Using Quicken really helps to keep track of all this and to estimate what groceries and gas cost per month. You can see a report about how much you spent on groceries the past few months. You can download transactions directly from your bank into Quicken, and Quicken tries to categorize them for you, but really you have to do that part manually. It is somewhat time consuming but very interesting.
Also I have found it useful when I am sharing expenses with other people for some project. I can show them exactly what I've spent so far, and we can compare so that nobody ends up paying more than their share.
that is EXACTLY how I did it and it worked. I was the person who had all the monthly household finances in hand, until my somewhat autistic male cohabitant and main bread winner decided to subscribe and use an app. now nothing is in my hands anymore and I spend money with unease and no control or sense of it. The app stresses me out and squeezes all creativity and joy out of handling money and expenses. I'd rather do everything in my head again. but it's another form of control over me and less independence, I have lost another battle. All in the name of the "prosperity", of this family that, surely, I must see too.
Why not just have your own account and split the joint expenses? You could go to the bank and set up an account and put your money in it and say, "Ok, we're going to split everything 50-50."
because this is a coercive controling relationship. i can’t do anything about it.
Double Down! More spelling mistakes! More Disordered Posting! Go crazy. Have that banana before bed that one reader recommended. Okay, that banana has some heavy lifting to do but if you do sleep those dreams could be sweeeet.
let’s talk finances more. refinery 29 money diaries are deeply interesting but anyone with money on there seems to have inherited it in some way. i find myself aligning with a terrible conservative christian personal finance guru called dave ramsey (this is a safe space, right?) that the american dream sells you on debt, which keeps most americans poor. money is 80% behavioral and 20% knowledge, and most of us act impulsively and feel guilty later. but keeping a budget, knowing where your money is going, paying off that credit card every month, saving, investing… it’s a different kind of peace to not owe anyone anything. madeline pendleton has an awesome book about how they changed their relationship with money and built a sustainable life through budgeting, and they also have great nuanced takes about how fucked american society is. (unlike dave ramsey. probably should have recommended madeline first.)
I've heard of this Dave Ramsey guy. Some of my friends are really into it and they are not conservative christians either.
Your flow or lack of it is perfect. Any way you want to do it, I’m here for it. It’s inspiring.
Miranda, I used gabapentin for 4-5 months. At first it was amazing and incredible. I was finally sleeping. Maybe I wouldn’t abandon my family? Then I went in to a deep haze, check out, mind numbing portal. I keep chalking it up to peri and finally somewhere at month 4 or 5 realized it was the drug. The brain fog was incredibly intense. So much more than regular peri, pregnancy or nursing. I was scared to quit & stop sleeping. It took weeks to muster up the courage. I weaned myself off it eventually and landed right back in not sleeping hell, but exited that particular portal of darkness. I don’t recommend what I did. It was an awful 1/2 of a year.
Also, there are Lot of ways to find sleep and they or may not work for whoever. Here’s another one. I rely nightly on a banana. If after a wake up you can get yourself to fall back to sleep - I go through every room of my childhood home and try to remember every detail or I get as far as I can adding 1+2+3+4 etc - the banana can put you into a deep yummy sleepy. Side note I’m on a .1 estrodial patch and 200 mg progesterone.
I think you’re not eating bananas, but worth reconsidering.
Here for ALL of the content. However and whenever. Love the idea of talking about money as another binary. How it keeps us together and separate in partnerships, friendships and in all areas of life. How it is tied up in the worst kinds of greed and evil - but can also be utilized for altruism and care. How people are shamed for not having any and shunned for having too much.
You might like this bit of trivia: the numbers on the tariffs baffled economists. This could be that they were made up by Peter Navarro, art thief of items from the White House, jailbird and all around idiot, in consultation with Ron Vara. Ron Vara was later revealed to be an anagram of Navaro’s own name with no real academic or professional existence. That would explain the penguins and their 21% tariff. Peter said Ron Vara was a “whimsical device and pen name …purely for entertainment value, not as a source for fact”
I like your rambles they’re 100000x smarter than regular people rambles. It makes me think my monkey mind is maybe a little artier than I’ve always thought. Thanks so much. I am glad you got sleep. My partner calls me blessed because I sleep so well. I agree. Menopause had made me wake up at 4 am and I try to sleep but if by 445 I’m not asleep, I get up and do quiet, nurturing things: journal, read Ruiz, write bad spiritual poems. Like REALLY bad ones. It has become a gift instead of a curse. Then I have to go to bed at 9 that night but oh well.
Thanks for bringing up money and how it’s the hardest thing to talk about, which keeps us all ashamed and alone—and how this not sharing of information specifically affects women. I’m thinking of ways to write about it honestly in my own ss and I’d welcome more from you on the subject! It really does feel like the final taboo.
I wake up a lot and swear by listening to an audiobook, usually Ulysses. It might take a bit but I almost always fall back asleep. Never doubt Joyce to make you tired.
“Basically just do anything I want for ss.” 👏👏👏👏👏
I would be thrilled to write a guest post about money or sex or lingerie and naughty costumes. The only thing I know nothing about is cooking, that was my husband's department. He LOVED to cook and bake and I loved to eat. Anyway, he died three and a half years ago after living three years with incurable cancer. I don't think I've gotten a good night's sleep in 7 years, but that could also be menopause (I'm 57) or that my son just turned 13, he's autistic and gifted.
One of my artistic heroes (Alec Soth) posted on IG yesterday this documentary film he watched and highly recommended. ‘Flipside’ which is apparently for creatives balancing art and income. It came to mind reading your post. Art and money have always been complicated for me, I haven’t watched it yet but I know I’ll get around to it soon.
I hope I didn’t contribute to your stress over ss. I did cancel my subscription - in fact I cancelled it about a minute after I bought it - but I only did that because I had a sudden, ill-timed freakout over money. I never see such freakouts coming. They don’t always happen right after I spend. Sometimes they descend on a perfectly innocent, unsuspecting me, like a bacterial infection, or finger wart. Canceling my subscription seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but I love this ss and it would be my wish for you to do whatever you want here. I’ll renew my subscription. I’ll buy a lifetime supply. Whatever. Just do your thing.