Miss Misery #6: The Returnening
in which I pretend I didn't forget about this newsletter
Hello and welcome, or welcome back! I’ve missed writing for y’all, so after a brief, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hiatus of… *checks notes* a year, I’m relaunching this newsletter.
Let me reintroduce myself: Hi, I’m Zoe. Here I am last weekend getting my hair bloodied dyed:
Self-care? Or head wound??
This weekly letter covers topics I love writing about, like mental health and knitting (which are often the same thing). I also share various projects I’m working on, especially my upcoming novel, Misery and Mystery. New editions go out to email subscribers on Mondays, but you can also find them on my blog, Miss Misery. Either way, it’s all totally free to read.
Thanks for joining me. I hope you like my thinky stuff.
Mental Health
I have a love-hate relationship with Tinder. Generally—and hypocritically—I don’t condone using it. It’s a grotesque and uncivilized place, teeming with lazy bios, bad hair, and catfish, as well as actual fish (usually held up for display by men in their 20s). When I’m single, as I was for a while this summer, I’m egregiously dependent on it to provide me with a sense of feeling wanted. As the people who like my profile pile up, so does my private sense of validation, as if one actually reflects the other.
The problem is that for the most part, they don’t. I overvalue the attention I receive on dating apps and allow it to inform my self-worth. This can be especially destructive for someone like me who has borderline personality disorder and struggles enormously to feel like I exist when others aren’t looking at me. Tinder band-aids this problem, but does nothing to heal it. It’s a vicious cycle: I’ll go on a date or two with a stranger, realize they aren’t the shining human specimen I’d secretly and unrealistically hoped for, and move on to the next one, ad nauseam.
I know I have this quasi-addiction, but that doesn’t do much to stem the pain of being alone. I’m still not sure what I expect to gain when I spend literal hours so much time scrolling through folks. Maybe I’m hooked on the slot-machine-esque high of thinking, but the next one could be my future husband, or maybe I selfishly enjoy swiping the door shut on people who don’t seem “worthy” of my time.
I was incredibly fortunate to meet my partner in the midst of all this doomswiping, and I was only too happy to delete my Tinder account a few weeks into our relationship. I think—and I really, really hope—I’ll never need it again.
Art
Before I dropped out of college (which is a story for another newsletter), I was part of a university writing club that hung out on Discord. We shared bits of original stories, wrote quietly in the voice channel, commiserated about the wonderful chore and horrible joy that is writing—and last Christmas, we organized a club-wide Secret Santa. The person whose name I drew asked for a piece of writing about “a sleepy immortal person”. Here’s what I delivered.
A Sleepy Immortal Person by Zoe Misery
The Devil went down to Georgia, they said.
He rocked a golden fiddle.
I would show him up, I bet–
But there’s more to this riddle.
—
What happens when the song is done?
Does the story really end?
I may have got the final strum,
But the Devil is not dead.
—
“I’ll take yer fancy fiddle, boy,”
I screamed above the cheers.
“I see your soul is not a toy,”
He proclaimed through crocodile tears.
—
He said, “I’ll do you better yet,”
An’ bent one knee into the dirt.
“I’ll further settle up my debt,
To ensure there are no feelings hurt–
—
“I’ve got a second gift, dear friend,
To elevate your victory.
I’m giving you more time to spend
And celebrate: you’ll live immortally.”
—
Well oh boy howdy, how I did
A hoot an’ holler in his face.
I was such a lucky kid
To be awake for eternal praise.
—
He stood an’ stomped into the ground.
He performed his magic art.
My God, he did wave his hands around
To give me what I got.
—
I didn’ feel one little thing
Before the deed was done.
But I didn’ know the suffering
That come with what I’d won.
—
The corner of his lip turned up,
Or so it seemed to me,
The split-second before a puff
Of smoke obscured his sudden leave.
—
I didn’ sleep at all that night.
We partied in the Devil’s wake.
It wasn’ til the second week
I realized my damned mistake.
—
‘Cause then I couldn’ sleep at all,
Even when I tried.
I stayed awake through spring an’ fall
As life did pass me by.
—
I melted the damned fiddle down
An’ threw it out just to be sure.
But the curse could not be broken
‘Cause the Godforsaken gold was pure.
—
Now I don’ close my eyes no more.
No, I can’ even blink.
I can’ pass through the bedroom door.
Into sweet death, I cannot sink.
—
The world still sings its songs of me,
But they don’ know my selfish sin.
I cannot lay me down to sleep,
‘Cause I’m the best there’s ever been.
Knitting
I have a terrible confession: lately, I haven’t been knitting much.
There are a few reasons for that. Many of my projects have gone stale as they’ve sat on the needles, their pleas to become finished receding ever more distantly into the din of daily life. Also, sales have been a little bit, eh, nonexistent over at my Etsy lately, which has put a dent in my motivation to churn out beanies like I used to. (Plus, I think I was making a hat a day last year as a coping and/or avoidance strategy for getting through my loveless ex-relationship, but more on that in a future issue.)
In an effort to get back into the hobby—and rekindle my non-capitalistic passion for it—I’m knitting all my holiday gifts this year. They say socks are a crummy Christmas present, but I mean, c’mon, check out these kick-ass slippers I’m knitting for my mom:
Trying to get my foot in the door with sock-knitting.
It’s also been a hot minute since I made anything just for myself, so when I stumbled across this gorgeous sweater-scarf pattern on Ravelry, I immediately knew I needed one, and proceeded to order five skeins of bright pink yarn for it, pictured below. (For those interested, it’s Malabrigo’s line of four-ply worsted-weight yarn, Rios, in the shade English Rose. The paler pink is the same yarn in Almond Blossom. I got it all from fabulousyarn.com, which lives up to its name.)
The typical view from my spot on the couch.
I’m still selling my current stock of beanies (of which there are more than 30 at this point), and as always, I’m more than happy to take commissions. As they used to say in Ye Olde Times, just drop me a line if you’re interested.
Shameless Self-Promotion
I’ve decreased all the pledge amounts on my Patreon! Now it’s only three bucks to preview the first chapter of my sci-fi/horror novel-in-progress.
If you want to contact me, I read every comment I get on Substack and my blog. I also have an email at littleknittingmachine@gmail.com.
Thanks for reading another edition of the Miss Misery Newsletter, y’all. Remember to show someone kindness today.