Okay, it’s day four of the Chit Chat Challenge with Rob Walker of The Art of Noticing and here’s what I’ve learned so far: I like talking to strangers. The positive interactions give me a happy hit that I carry with me. I feel closer to all of the citizens of planet earth when I connect with a stranger, not just that person.

Yes, awkward happens. Whatever. I’ve started to treat these experiences like a cartoon, so when I replay the situation in my head, we’re not human beings, but cartoon character versions of ourselves. I make sure to elongate uncomfortable pauses and zoom in on our mouths when things start to go wobbly. This takes the sting away while adding a little humor to the memory.

This is where I share some of my interactions and then some of yours.

It’s strawberry season where I live, so friends and I took a field trip to Dave’s Blueberry Patch in Clyo, Georgia to pick our own strawberries. (I’d forgotten what real strawberries taste like. My palate had apparently grown used to the crunchy light pink blobs grocery stores pass off as strawberries.) We chit-chatted with Dave about his business and property. The house was recently rebuilt because the existing farmhouse had been a termite habitat. The new house was designed and built around the original double sided fireplace. The front steps are made of bricks that formed the original house’s foundation. Did you know a business needs an agritourism license and designation in order to let you pick your own produce?

The woman ringing me up at TJ Maxx complimented my colorful purchases. I spied the bright pink braid crowning her head and repeated a phrase I’d seen on instagram the night before, “After age 45, you either go beige or go bold.” She nodded and I carried on, “I just can’t stomach beige when there is so much beautiful color in the world.” We laughed, she waved her hand around her colorful outfit and said “I’m a bold girl.” We laughed and chatted a bit more. (I love positive commentary from shop clerks, especially women volunteering at thrift shops.)

I was wearing one of the TJ Maxx purchases on a walk today. Among several compliments it fielded was from a woman in the restroom at the Desoto Hotel in Savannah. Fun fact: I have a tiny bladder and have no hesitation about going into fancy hotels and using their lobby restrooms. Also, I love experiencing fancy hotel lobbies. Washing her hands, my restroom companion complimented my shirt. I explained that it was the shirt’s first day out and wasn’t as comfortable as I wanted it to be on account of the sparkly metal thread. My companion eyed the shirt, and suggested I find a nice camisole to wear underneath. We talked about underthings, comfortable vs pretty, then she went back to work in the lobby coffeeshop and I carried on with my walk.

None of those conversations are going to put me in the running for a peace prize. They do, however, put me in a relationship with the people around me, giving me a sense of grounding and community.

Ok, are you ready for the awkward?

I aim to make a connection with the humans I encounter transactionally (see Dave of the berries and cashier of the TJ Maxx). I’ve formed some lasting friendships that sprouted from them serving my pizza or running a shop I supported. At the very least I can elicit a smile, although my goal is a laugh, however tiny it may be. A determined curmudgeoness works at my local post office, and I haven’t been able to crack her for years. I try every single time with no response. It’s always as if I hadn’t even spoken. On my walk to the post office one day last year, I found an abandoned flower bouquet, fresh and wrapped in paper,(not a first for me). I scooped it up, cradling it the entire time Madam Curmudgeoness assisted me with my shipment. As I walked away, I laid the flowers on her counter and said “These are for you, thank you.”

Nothing. She just waved the next person in line over.

So I was not at all surprised when on Day 1 of this challenge I found myself with a package at the post office trying to coax any chit chat or smile from her and again got nothing in return. I will never give up.

And now, some tidbits from the internets to assist you along in your own Chit Chat challenge.

Edge-dwelling, earth-loving, mischief maker Ruby May launched her own personal talk-to-a-stranger-a-day challenge earlier this month with beautiful results:

Jessica Leigh Lebos of Savannah Sideways in her Ted talk about the power of a simple “Hey, how are you doing” to instill a sense of belonging and humanity.

Camilla Byk’s Ted talk on how and why to chit chat with strangers

Dr Marisa D Franco in conversation with Dr Gillian Sandstrom about Sandstrom’s book Once Upon A Stranger and sharing some tips from the book.

Some of my favorite responses from the Chit Chat Chat

Rosina:

Day 3 report! I approached a woman older than me (and pretty serious looking) at the botanical gardens. My initial compliment on her delightful polka dot sweater turned into a conversation about what makes people happy, the four seasons and how much she misses her home country of Armenia. I watched her serious expression almost immediately turn into animated cheerful smiles and huge happy arm gestures. I left smiling too, while she said, “Thank you for making me happier.” 💜💜💜

Jewelia

This is awesome! My boyfriend and I found our way to the Tacoma flee market today and had a lovely conversation with a young women doing portraits. Of course we got a little doodle and learned so much about her traveling art studio. We currently are driving our school bus from Texas to Alaska so we got the opportunity to share of our story and learned shes currently committed to van life! We got her Instagram and I think we are going to get coffee with her next week to chat some more about her van build :)

Jori:

These are my people! I often say that “talking to strangers” is my favorite hobby! Once, while commuting, I offered a piece of gum to the stranger next to me on the train. He was so grateful, you’d have thought I offered him a big bag of money! That hit me hard. And what a lovely premise this might be for a chewing gum campaign! “Bridge the Divide with a Piece of Wrigley’s!”

Suzanne:

Stopped for coffee today in a small local diner in a highly rural isolated town. The older woman running it asked where I was from and that started a 10 minute conversation about her town slowly dying and all the seniors still working so shops can stay open. Later I saw a young man with red hair working at the restaurant where we had dinner and I shared that mine used to be his color and I miss it. We chatted for 15? seconds about red hair and dying it (mine’s gray) or not. I think I would have done this anyway but I loved staying in those chit chats more deliberately today due to the challenge 😊.

Kayelbee:

Today I had a lovely chat with a woman on my walk, with topics ranging from dogs to menopause. And I guerilla hyped a woman with beautiful pink hair, who seemed pretty chuffed about it. When I asked the guy behind the counter in Gregg’s (bakery) for his favourite thing to eat from there another customer joined in the discussion. It made me realise that people are much more willing to connect than I’d thought. Overall, it’s much easier than I thought it would be! Mostly shortish chats but for an Autistic ADHD’er with social anxiety it has been a BIG deal! I’m loving it.

That’s all for today, keep on chit chatting with strangers and telling us all about it.

If you’re just joining us, here’s how to take part in the Chit Chat Challenge.

1. Find a stranger.

2. Connect.

3. Have a conversation.

4. Share your story in the chat and in Substack notes. Show off the chit chat badge.

5. Repeat daily for ten days (or beyond).

6. Subscribe and keep popping back here for tips, ideas, advice from really smart people, and stories about chit chat.

It’s that easy!

Join the CHIT CHAT chat

Subscribe now

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 3/4 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2026

Welcome to the first day of the Chit Chat Challenge, a collab with me, Rob Walker of The Art of Noticing, and all y’all.

Ten days of engaging with strangers. No more time to psych yourself out. Let’s connect with your fellow earth crew. There’s billions of people on this planet and you know roughly 611 of them. Read more about our why here and here.

In our post-COVID world we can go about our life and business with virtually no interaction with other humans. That’s not a good thing. We’re forgetting how, and the generations coming up have little experience with actual interpersonal interactions.

How to take part in the Chit Chat Challenge.

1. Find a stranger.

2. Connect.

3. Have a conversation.

4. Share your story in the chat and in Substack notes. Show off the chit chat badge.

5. Repeat daily for ten days (or beyond).

6. Subscribe and keep popping back here for tips, ideas, advice from really smart people, and stories about chit chat.

It’s that easy!

Join the CHIT CHAT chat

Here are some things to consider.

Put yourself in the path of people.

I know you might feel more comfortable ensconced in the safety of the emotional support playlist crooning through your noise cancelling headphones or on your couch tucked under the beginnings of a blanket you’re currently crocheting while watching Our Oceans, but trust me when I tell you that people are ok, for the most part.

Be aware of chitchat possibilities as you go about your day. Just being out in the world is a way to connect with other humans: walking, dog walking, exercising, shopping, public transportation. Perhaps consider going back into the store and shopping yourself instead of ordering your nourishment through an app.

Some places are simply more conducive to chit chatting with strangers, like anyplace where people gather for similar experiences: sports thingies, concerts, museums, galleries, lectures. Weddings, parties and other social functions are perfect and come with the built in question “How do you know Sue & Chrissy?”

Do shit that you really dig with other people who dig it as well. Birding group, book club, moped rally, or comic expo. We all share the same earth, it shouldn’t be hard to find common ground.

To all of the men: I’m so sorry you will never experience the instant bestie breeding ground that is women’s restrooms in clubs, bars, or other venues. We will bare our souls to complete strangers while making eye contact through mirrors. We will hype each other up, dry tears, fix makeup, repair outfits, plot world domination, and bestow hugs and valuable life advice. We almost never exchange names, but we have each others’ backs for life.

Find your person and make contact. Be present.

Throw a little eye contact and a smile their way, a nod if that feels right. This part really operates on feels and instincts. Read the room. Start with a “Hi.” Perhaps ask a question, toss out a compliment, or make an observation.

Listen.

No, like really listen. Not that thing where you pretend to listen but really you’re trying to figure out what to say next. This isn’t a competition, but a connection.

Be Curious. Ask questions, but not, like, an inquisition.

You have a chance to connect with another human being. There is so much to know, don’t be shy; be amazed and grateful that you get to share this world with them.

I approached Janet, a woman previously unknown to me, in the park working on her stitch journal. As she embroidered a small image onto a circular cloth, I asked about what it meant. She explained she stitched one little drawing everyday and that day was her husband’s birthday. He had died a few months earlier so she made an angel for him. Her willingness to be vulnerable touched me. We sat and talked for a few minutes.

Be sure to ask follow up questions.

Conversation researcher Mike Yeomans suggests practicing this skill by coming up with follow up questions whenever you watch a video on social media or listen to a podcast: How many cats do you have? Do you learn how to hula hoop while wearing high heels? Do you think you would have eventually seen the data that way if you weren’t in a coffee shop? Do you ever dream that you’re a pirate?

Allow yourself to be open and vulnerable.

Don’t give out your passwords or anything. Invest yourself in the conversation and your chit chat partner.

Let it flow then let it go.

Let the conversation flow naturally, you’ll get a feel for when the conversation wants to come to an end. The end goal isn’t a BFF, but a new connection.

One of my favorite stranger connections happened over a strawberry display at Publix. While I deliberated if the berries would taste as good as they looked, a woman came over and stood next to me. She reached out for a container. “Do you think they’ll be good?” she asked. “I’ve been burned too many times before,” I answered, “but they’re so red and so shiny.” She nodded, “They smell good, too.” We discussed a bit more and decided we’d go for it. I thought about her that evening, and wondered how she felt about the fruit. I still think about her when I eat strawberries and hope she’s been able to taste some perfect specimens.

What to talk about?

• Rob Walker has 56 pages of juicy icebreakers in a google doc. Find a few that resonate with you and keep them in your dress pocket to help a conversation go smoothly along.

• The Weather. This is one of the easiest and most obvious topics. Don’t feel bad about starting a conversation with an observation, especially if it is remarkable as in “I heard this was a category 4 hurricane, but it really only feels like a 2, max 3.” For real one time someone randomly said to me “This is such a beautiful day. If I was still selling drugs I would’ve made bank today.”

• Dropping a compliment is a no brainer. About a dog, shoes, earrings, their vehicle.

• I like to demand a woman brag about herself because females are raised/trained to downplay their accomplishments and achievements. There is alwmost always a pause before their face lights up and they get to big up themselves.

• If you see a fellow Wordle junkie, what’s their favorite starting word? Do they deviate? What is their longest streak? Insert your nerd indulgence of choice here.

• Ask for help. “I’ve never been to this bakery before, what do you suggest?” or “Where’s the best place around here to go rollerskating?” People love to feel useful and helpful.

• Offer help. “Do you need directions?” “Definitely order the jalapeño popper kolache. It’s not always available, so it’s kind of a treat.” “Roller Magic plays better music, but Skate Odyssey is really cool on the inside.”

• Cole slaw. Cole slaw is absofuckinglutely delicious and doesn’t get the love that it deserves. People have feelings about it.

• At dressier functions, I love to engage women about their outfits, not in a “who are you wearing” way meant to downplay their accomplishments, but many beloved outfits have a storied history (perhaps components are from different countries, handmade, from a family member, thrift store, etc). Don’t be surprised to recieve something along the lines of “I got it in sale for $20.”

• At weddings or birthday celebrations you can ask how they know the main character(s). Maybe they have a funny story to share.

• In her book Once Upon A Stranger, Dr Gillian Sandstrom suggests coming up with something quick. QUICK.

  • QUestion: ask a question. What are you doing? What are you making?

  • In Common: find something in common. This is why we talk about the weather. Look for quick clues like a band t-shirt or a book they’re reading.

  • Kindness. Compliments, asking someone how their day is, holding a door open.

Like almost any endeavor you undertake, the more you chit chat with strangers, the more you will improve. Keep in mind a conversation is a collaborative effort, not a soap box or a sounding board.

Share

F.A.Q.

How long does the conversation need to be?

It can be as short as “Wow, I love your dress!” “Thank you, it has pockets!”

All it takes is two people seeing and feeling seen. The complimenter acknowledges the wearer of the dress as someone with exceptional style and skill (either shopping or crafting). The complimentee recognizes a soul with similar tastes and knows they need to understand something very important about the garment, that it contains spaces to hold cookies or cheese cubes (or tools for dismantling patriarchy).

There is no set length of time for chit-chat to achieve connection. It can be short, as above, or as long as 40 minutes. Both parties are likely to feel in sync about when to end the conversation.

Can you talk to someone you kind-of-know, like the guy who takes Amazon returns at the UPS counter or the woman next to me at yoga?

Yes! Especially if this opens up future lines of communication. These are the people in your life, create a connection with them. This is how I’ve come to know all of my mail carriers. Unfortunately for their knees, ours is a walking route in a neighborhood in which every house has a set of at least twelve stairs leading to the mail slots in the front door. They tend to not stay assigned to our route for very long.

What if I get rejected?

Despite what your stress hormones might lead you to believe, rejection is not fatal. You will survive, in fact, you will most likely forget the incident within a few days. No need to get your paperwork in order to move to another country.

What do I do if things get awkward?

Awkwardness, like rejection, is not fatal. You have two options: work through it, or work your way out. I found myself in a very awkward conversation recently. Luckily, it was mutual. We both knew we were bombing and let it go. At any point you can carefully extricate yourself with a pleasant “Thank you for the chat,” or “It was nice chatting with you.” Again, carry on, no need to look for foreign real estate.

Is group chit-chat a thing? Couples?

OMG, yes! In a cosy corner of a restaurant, over one thousand miles from where we live, my husband and I found ourselves in a conversation with another couple. The woman was from a small village near Norwich, England, a place my hubby’s brother is considering moving to. We ended up in a delightful conversation, which ended naturally (and I also got to tell her how beautiful her hair looked).

Keep in mind:

Please don’t be creepy. I can’t be any more specific. Read the room, don’t be a creep.

Location, location, location: some geographical areas and places aren’t as open to stranger talk as others. The east coast of the US is stranger friendly, west coast: not so much. The British like to think they don’t talk to strangers, but I think they’re wrong. Despite public transportation being an ideal place for a chit chat, you might find a general unwillingness to engage. Read the room.

All of us on some level or another want to live on a planet that is softer and friendlier, not so full of strife and bad vibes. It’s up to us to take the first steps. As Dr. Gillian Sandstrom offers:

Don’t forget to share your experiences on the chat. Over the next ten days, I’ll be sharing more juicy bits about chatting with strangers, subscribe to be sure you don’t miss any.

Subscribe now

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 3/4 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2026

“That comes to £19.39,” the bookshop clerk announced. I looked up at him, barely pausing before I said, “Well that was an awkward year,” because I have little-to-no filter, and a thing about wanting to interact with the people who sell me things. Because I have a thing about maybe I can make them laugh, or at the very least have a non-capitalist-transactional moment in their work day, even if work is in an indie occult bookstore. I didn’t think much before the observation slipped my lips, one that makes more sense in London, a city shaped by the events of 1939. He stared back at me, his eyes widening. Before I could start to social-anxiety spiral for saying stupid things he sighed out. “Whoah, that’s so crazy. I was just about to say the same thing. Like my mouth was shaping those exact same words!”

I cannot remember what I bought that day. I remember that man, that conversation, and how buzzy I felt afterwards.

Lately it seems like almost all of the internet wants to tell you about the value of everyone you don’t know. They want you to understand that connecting with other members of your Earth Crew will ease loneliness and bring joy and meaning to your life. Writers and editors in internetland are spewing forth about let’s connect! and small talk versus big talk. Even the talkers at TED have a lot to say about chatting with strangers.

So far, I’m not seeing anybody put their money where their mouth is (teehee) to throw down a challenge. So here goes: the Great Spring 2026 Chit Chat Challenge. Rob Walker of The Art of Noticing and I triple-dog-dare you talk to a stranger every day for ten days. Easy peasy. Bonus points for sharing your stories.

Starting Thursday April 23 for ten days, you will initiate a conversation with a person unknown to you. About anything. Or nothing. The particulars are totally up to you: fellow dog walkers, plane seatmate, the mail lady; the weather, the footie, the meaning of life.

The other 8,288,501,893 people that you share this planet with aren’t non-player characters serving to populate cafes and grocery stores or walk four-wide across the sidewalk. Their lives are as rich and storied as yours. They, too, occasionally awaken at 3am drenched in the cold sweat of existential angst, have never read the terms and conditions before clicking accept, and think farts are funny.

Our language fails us in differentiating relationships with people other than those very close to us. Partner can refer to the soul you’ve invited into your heart, with whom you choose to share your life, breath, and bed; or is someone you associate with in a business venture or other goal-oriented endeavor. Partner might be the ultimate intimate relationship or one that is perfunctory and temporary. Amazing that this lack of distinction has never proven problematic.

Words like spouse, sibling, parent are relational, telling us not necessarily about feeling and intimacy, but our technical ties to one another. In my world, “sister” can refer to one of three remarkably different humans. It tells you that we share genetic material from the same man and woman, but in no way indicates which one I may have multiple conversations with on three different social media platforms, four text message threads, and daily facetime/phone calls; and yet I know someone who hasn’t communicated with their sister in over two decades.

As far as the terms for our chosen people, those nestled closest to us are our besties, the core of who we call our friends. We have so very many levels of closeness and friendship but very few words to differentiate them, until the bonds loosen and friend blends into that nebulous term acquaintance. These are either people we kinda-sorta know or maybe have seen once or twice walking their dog. There is no slow fade, the next category of relationship to other humans is strangers.

To recap: there’s you, your ride-or-die peeps, your close peeps, some other peeps, and the rest of the 8,288,502,015 human residents of planet earth fall into the lump category of strangers.

The word stranger means someone you do not know, someone who does not belong. It comes from the Latin extraneus “foreign, external, from without,” someone out of place. It refers to the woman ahead of you in the bubble tea line at an art fair, the man walking towards you in an unlit parking lot at night, and a family you’ve never heard of tending a subsistence farm in a small village near Vladivostok. Again, not problematic semantics at all.

We can invite neighbor into the conversation, but that can also be confusing. That’s not always a feel-good vibe. I have a neighbor I’ve planted a flower garden with and another one we call “The Lady who Listens to Loud Cheesy Jazz and Doesn’t Pick Up Her Dog’s Poop.” No offense to cheesy jazz.

Big Stranger Danger will have you believe that everyone outside the ring of “acquaintance” is to be avoided at all costs. Our earbuds * headphones * audiobooks * podcasts * carefully-curated-playlists keep us burrowed safely inside of our own little bubble. Who needs actual human interaction when you have your true crime podcast besties?

My friends, we are all fellow crew here on planet earth. We’re all trying to get by. We’re all trying to find meaning. Let’s say you’re perfectly average in that you know 611 people, or roughly 0.00001% of the population. No disrespect to your 611 peeps, but are you really willing to say that one one-hundred-thousandth of a percent of humanity is sufficient to your needs? That none of the rest of the 99.99999% are worth connecting with?

Human connection is a free drug, a wellness miracle-cure safe from gifting in Coachella swag bags. Its value belongs to the participants (although the world may benefit from any cool collateral that comes from conversations).

If you’re not a regular stranger chit-chatter, this may feel funky at first. Fine. Feel it. But don’t let that stop you. You most likely won’t be rejected. You’re more likely to like your chosen stranger who will find you interesting and vice versa. Chances are greater that you’ll have a genuine moment of connection with another person, that you will both walk away feeling seen and keenly connected.

The aim of Chit Chat Challenge is to get us connecting. It’s not enough to read some stats and anecdotes about the power of talking to strangers. You actually have to do it. We’ve created this handy-dandy container to get you started.

Nothing is being asked of you today but to consider. I would never abuse your tender heart in such a way as to propose the idea of starting up a conversation with someone unknown to you, then declare you immediately set forth and chat. As you go through your day, think about the opportunities to connect, how your routines could set you interacting with others. Who will you choose? What might you say? How do you hope to feel?

Look to your inbox on Thursday, April 23 for more about how to get started, what to do, some tips, and inspiration.

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 3/4 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2026

In an inspired moonjoy burst of wisdom, slathered with extra-terrestrial sagacity, astronaut Christina Koch shared these words with the world after her safe return from the Artemis II moon mission.

[Trigger alert: I cannot read this quote without tearing up. Similarly, every time I think about a bright spot on the moon named Carroll my heart gets so big it leaks out my eyes.]

So, hey-o, fellow crewmates, we need to connect—not necessarily you and me—we need to connect with one another. This isn’t me spouting some inspired thoughts that came to me in the shower after my moonjoy hangover cleared. So very much research has been done on the subject of humans and how we relate to one another. New information comes out all the time, but it all points to the same thing: we need each other. Studies have determined that we are most likely to thrive if we feel like we have some control over our environment, we feel connected to other people, and we feel capable.

In this case, the environment is more than wherever you’re reading this, but the world in which we exist. Sure my kitchen’s tidy and it’s almost clean-sheet day, but outside of my tiny corner of the world, shit’s pretty out of control. And does anyone feel capable to handle any three random situations from current events? Our connections with one another are our best and easiest hope for getting us through.

Having spent decades of my life working on yachts, I was always inextricably linked with my coworkers (aka crewmates). Not only did we toil 18-hour days together, but we all lived at our job, crammed into tiny cabins, below decks, surrounded by hundreds of miles of sea. Sometimes weeks from land. We had to be a cohesive unit. Despite what the reality show might have you believe, we were a microcosm requiring cohesion to function smoothly. We were inescapably and dutifully linked. We were a crew.

Pit crew. Film crew. Flight crew. Construction crew. Fire crew. Set-up crew. Not a random collection of people, but human beings united for a common purpose.

Earth crew.

At the heart of any crew is communication and connection.

So what do we need to do to feel like part of this Earth crew?

Raised on Stranger Danger, touched up with global lockdowns, and the insulation of smartphones and headphones, many of us earthlings are more connected to the internet than the human net.

Connection grounds us, it creates meaning. When we connect with another human, truly connect, it imprints upon us.

I’m asking you to consider your connections to other members of earth crew. Please don’t conflate coexistence with connection. Connection is the little spark in your soul meeting that same spark in another. It can be as fleeting as half a breath, or as long as a lifetime. When you connect with someone, you both feel seen for who you are. Among eight billion beings on this planet, another being looked you in the eye and conveyed “I see you. I know you.” However fleeting, that experience creates meaning.

Hold up…

Saturday afternoon in April, sultry blue sky day with a light breeze. I’m sitting on my front stoop writing the preceding words, the sidewalk below a lazy parade of families with children, neighbors walking their dogs, and tourists who stop to greet the giggle of flowers as they pass. Woohoos and cheers from April and Nikki’s wedding in the square half a block away are tickling my ears. The air is drunk with the heady blooms of jasmine.

“I think we should go for a walk and then stop at the Legion1 for fries and a drink,” Husband announces.

But I’m writing, I think. I need this to be ready for tomorrow morning.

What kind of idiot asshole would I be to not put myself in the path of such a lovely evening? I’m writing about finding and creating joy. Of course I say yes.

We walk and play the game where we go back and forth asking what the other wants to talk about. I ask what book he would live in as a non-playing character. Before he answers (I’m guessing either Dune or something by Dickens), we round the south end of the park,to see a conflagration of vintage-looking Mopeds. Husband starts drooling. We alter course for a closer look. My knowledge of these bikes is somewhere between fuck all and clueless, but Hubby has a hobby hard-on. I try to decide which one he’s most interested in. As I’m pointing out my choice for him, a Puch Magnum, one of the many riders in conversational clumps dotted around the bikes asks in our direction “Did you used to ride one?”

I think he’s expecting a sanguine response followed by some brief reminiscing. He has no idea that semi-retired husband is a lifelong gear head who has spent all day and the last two months tinkering with two different WWII era British Velocette motorbikes.

What follows is 15 minutes of bikespeak between hubby and three dudes, most of which I do not understand. Instead I watch the woman shouting “Does anyone want crab legs?” to the group. No one seems as excited about it as she is. In pink neon shorts and a neon floral top, I am the only representation of the color spectrum, aside from some primary colored bike frames. The participants proudly sport their black “Mopeds In the Garden of Good and Evil” t-shirts, or other black, grey, or faded camouflage clothes. Riders sprawl on the grass chatting, a forest of beards and tangles of body ink.

I snap back into Hubby’s conversation when I hear smallest-beard-biggest-belly say, “I suppose we could just buy new scooters, but we do this for the love of the labor. We love working on these bikes. We love talking about them. We love riding in rallies. Some of us have been getting together and doing this for years.”

Now I’m the one with the hobby hard-on. This. This is what I mean. This is connection. This is what feeds us.

Husband shines from his holy insides as we walk off. I try to ask him how he feels (like I’m being all researchy and sciencey about it) but the sidewalk is blocked by a gaggle of people in front of the Legion ballroom2. I ask a young woman what’s happening, “It’s an indie comic book expo,” she smiles back at me.

Again: this.

Not 100 yards from the moped rally, the Savannah Pooler Indie Comics Expo (SPICE) is buzzing with a completely different collection of humans, this one an explosion of color and costumes. But both groups are the same in that every person involved, from the organizers and volunteers to the attendees are doing something they love with people who also love it. They do it because it feeds their soul.

They have found their crew. They have found meaning and connection.

Please consider the connections in your life, we’re going to talk more about this.

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 .5 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2026

There are two things that have repeatedly shown up in scientific studies as surefire ways to bring pops of joy into your life:

1. ice cream1

2. a feeling of connection

Today, April 14, and today alone, you have the chance to have both of these joys together! For Free!

Part 1: The Ice Cream

Today is FREE CONE DAY at your local Ben & Jerry’s. It’s easy to find your closest shop, the website even tells you if they participate or not.

Yup, that’s right, a free cone, no strings attached. Just show up and collect your scoop.

Part 2: The Connection

You think you’re going to walk into Ben & Jerry’s on free cone day and rock straight up to the counter? That’s cute, but no. Everyone wants free ice cream, so expect a queue. But here’s the thing, the folks at B&J’s have worked out all of the kinks. They are staffed and ready to go, offering a limited menu of options (yes, there will be dairy free alternatives). There is a line, but it moves with alacrity.

All those folks waiting for their free cone, it’s like a party. Everyone is there for the fun of the ice cream. Please don’t spend the time scrolling on your phone. Find a way to connect with your fellow free coners. Strike up a conversation with your queue mates. This is a pretty safe space and people will be chatty. Don’t be afraid to be curious and ask questions:

• What’s your favorite flavor?

• Share a memorable ice cream experience (I have at least four that come to mind in less than 2 seconds).

• What’s the next grossest flavor after rum raisin?

We’re going to talk more about the joy of chatting with strangers, but I wanted to get you started today with your free cone.

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025

The dictionaries of the internet will have you believing that dillydallying is a bad thing.

Funny that that very same internet is one of the biggest and baddest dillydalliences known to humankind.

Dillydally definitions read like a fingerwag: to waste time, especially by being slow, or by not being able to make a decision; to waste time, especially by indecision; vacillate; trifle; loiter; to waste time by loitering or delaying.

Wasting time?

I’m sorry what?

What in the Protestant work ethic is wrong with a little faffing about?

Must we always be doing something? The concept of wasted time is based on a model of productivity. The act of staring into space or admiring that the coloring of a leaf looks like a painting doesn’t satisfy capitalism because it can’t be commodified. There is no economic exchange, nothing is produced, purchased, or sold. Here’s the bottom line: a billionaire will never get more billionairy through your dillydalliances.

Jenny Odell shines a light on our concept of time in Saving Time, Discovering A Life Beyond Productivity Culture:

Productivity is not the ultimate measure of the meaning or value of time. To imagine a different “point” means also imagining a life, identity, and source of meaning outside the world of work and profit.

If dillydallying and your to-do list were a venn diagram, the circles would never touch. Dillydallying exists outside the realm of getting shit done. It is both a right and a privilege to piddle about with no end goal beyond the vague discovery of the little things around you.

Children and dogs really have the dillydally figured out, without an iota of guilt. Stop and sniff around a bit here, poke around to see what’s happening over there, check out this other little attraction. Oh sure, it can be annoying as fuck when you need something done on your timeline. What’s caught their attention on the way from where they are to where you want them to be? A stick, a bug, a crayon stuck inside of a lego.

Our brains deserve little breaks. It’s not ok to wake into a miracle morning routine, feed the family, commute, work, work out, do dinner, catch up on humaning, then anxiety-spiral-about-the-state-of-the-world your way to sleep so you can begin again. Un-cease the grind.

At its heart, dillydallying is a journey of noticing. Engage your curiosity muscles, shift your attention to the world directly in front of you, and flit like a hummingbird tasting nectar from all of the flowers. The inverse of focus, an act of dillydally sets the brain free to pay attention to whatever the hell it wants to: the particular weave of a basket that holds pens, a moment to consider the best meal slurped from your great-grans soup spoons, or the way falling pollen looks like snow in a shaft of sunlight.

Dillydallying is an act of presence; a meditation on your surroundings. There’s neither an agenda nor a goal. It’s noticing details and objects about wherever you currently are, even if that space is as familiar as your home. Pick things up, look at them from all angles, peek under or behind them.

The opposite of boredom, dillydallying invites us to be nosey. Snoop around to see what you can see. Consider it a recess for your brain whose focus is almost always working towards a thing: cleaning the counter, responding to emails, spreadsheet shenanigans. Big nope. You get a break to explore the world for a few minutes, hours, or however the hell long you feel like lollygagging. Much dillydallying takes place in the space between work and other work. Think of these breaks as mind-wandering mortar that hold the bricks of important shit in place.

I’m proposing an eleven minute dillydally. I’m not calling it a challenge, because —ick—that gives work and productivity. Set a timer, then piddle, piddle, piddle. Look around. Notice stuff: sunlight refracting through a bottle of dishsoap, two lines of ants marching around each other, how the piece of broken acoustic tile in the ceiling looks like Gondwanaland. Sit down and read an old greeting card. Stand up and open the front door to see the world outside, and find yourself captivated by a ladybug toiling along.

Close your work mind. Don’t secretly start making lists reminding yourself to dust or change the HVAC filters. You are an explorer in your world, damnit; you can go 11 minutes without do-ing.

This could be contentious, but dillydallying is an earbud/headphone free activity. You’re not just looking and touching, but also hearing and listening, sniffing candles and lemons. Tasting is encouraged if your adventure takes you in the path of M&Ms or a nice aged Gouda.

Locations for dillydallying are purely up to you. Domestic settings are good, yours or someone who loves and/or trusts you. Gardens or almost any outside space is great. Airports are primo territory. Third spaces offer many enlightening dillydally opportunities. Open up a junk drawer, walk outside, walk around your building. Thrift stores and yard sales are ripe for strolling about and finger-fucking all the cast-offs of other people’s lives. I like to play a game I call “How many people were involved in the design, construction, and production of this weird object, yet no one thought it was a bad idea?” Yeah, you could dillydally in shops (Homegoods, I’m looking at you), but I’m trying to untether the dillydally from capitalism. Dillydallying in familiar spaces is a great way to notice the things you stopped paying attention to.

When you’ve finished your experiment how did you feel? Did you truly give yourself permission to aimlessly fart around? Did you want more time? Less? Did you learn anything about the world around you? Did you find something that had previously escaped your notice?

Can you imagine a whole dillydally day where you can just float along, guided by the merest zephyr of whim? Can you imagine going to bed that night feeling like you had fully embraced the day?

It’s time to reframe how we perceive our dillydallying. What if we stopped feeling bad about these anti-capitalist moments? What if we stopped viewing them in a binary of productivity vs. waste? What if we embraced the dillydally for what it offers: unstructured opportunities to wander about and indulge our curiosity?

Please share you dillydally thoughts and ideas.

Also, dillydally designs available on shirts and other stuff. If you’d like to see it in different colors, message me and I’ll make it happen.

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17.5 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025

There should be a word for the silky feeling of belonging and homecoming on that first spring morning you walk outside with naked arms, no sweater or puffy coat running interference between your body and the world. Your cheeks don’t sting from the icy slap of frigid air. No, this air smells like possibility and the sweet morning breath of vegetation waking herself after a sleepy winter.

This feeling is uniquely alive and possible, ubiquitously human — and yet it remains unnamed.

Everything that comes after is a slow progression which mostly goes unnoticed: the steady shifting away from gray and brown towards yellow and green; branches silently dotting themselves with buds who unfurl into leaves, grass losing the crunch of cold death as it nurses on its own chlorophyll. And oh, the blossoms. This quiet transformation meanders through the weeks until one day you behold that winter is truly in the past and remark that the world has come soft and alive again and how had you not noticed?

But the first day without a coat, oh how delicious to just walk outside and be, without the need for additional layers of protection. It’s tingling, but not in a cold way. It’s better than freshly shaved legs on clean sheet day.

These first days of spring are a joyful memento mori that shit dies and shit comes back to life, a seasonal reminder that nothing stays the same and nothing stays forever.

These first days of spring mark three months from the onset of winter, which ushered in the holiday frenzies of buying and gifting. And hopefully making and sharing? All of the lovelies and yummies that made their way into your home: what is their status?

Have you busted them out of their cellophane wrapping? Have you tasted of their pleasures? Have you slathered your skin with the silky lavender lotion or sipped the smoky wisps of whisky?

If not, why?

Do they sit, waiting for….?

Are you eating your Samoas, and Thin Mints or tucking them in the back of a cabinet so future you can nibble sad, stale cookies?

This is your semi-annual reminder to use your good shit. The fancy glasses. Your gran’s China. The good olive oil. A lovely purse. Those sparkly shoes. That cool notebook. The special jam.

Use. It. The. Fuck. Up.

If you’re saving these things for a special occasion, ask yourself: isn’t being alive (on this rock hurtling through space) and in possession of a three-pound lump of brain-meat charged with electrical impulses allowing you to perceive beauty and preciousness, isn’t that a special enough occasion?

What else is there?

see you in a few days

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025

Happy Spring! Here’s your microjoy bingo card in the color of the season: pollen green!

I’ve had so many conversations this week about what the fuck do we do about what’s going on and where is that invisible sweet spot between being informed and being overwhelmed. Also we talk about pollen alot. Also, seriously, what the fuck do we do?

We’ve also talked about how earlier this week where I live in Savannah, GA we were under a freeze warning and two days later it was in the 80s. We’ve talked about an Asian grocer in my neighborhood that closed recently, and how if you didn’t know about the two magic portals inside, you’d think it was a really fucked up bodega. We talked about a local Middle Eastern grocer and how they expanded, but now the aisles are tighter together. We talked about a woman who 50 years ago lost her virginity in a graveyard.

This week we talked about flowers. We talked about Shriners. We talked about Iris by the GooGoo dolls. We talked a lot of shit.

Who is this we, you ask?

It’s the people, my people, our people, your people. Community.

So far, that’s the only answer I have for what-the-fuck-do-we-do. Find community however you can. Be with people. Be with good people. Be with good people and do good things. Be with good people and do good things and talk about important things. Be with good people and do good things and talk about important things but also talk about silly things. Be with good people and do good things and talk about important things but also talk about silly things and have fun. Also snacks.

My community adventures this past week:

• Saturday: The Savannah Firefighter’s Ball (Great band, diabolical mashed potatoes)

• Sunday: Hunch party (AKA: Glowy People Party, more about that soon)

• Tuesday: Savannah’s 4 hour St. Patrick’s Day parade, followed by middle-aged-people dance party in the street

• Thursday: Dungeons and Dragons with Savannah LGBTQ Alliance

• Saturday: Tree dedication ceremony for outgoing neighborhood association

• Sunday: Magical Fruit Bean Party

see you in a few days

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025

I asked handsome husband if he is familiar with lisztomania.

“Is that when you write ‘make poops’ as the first thing on your to-do list so you’ll have something to cross off?”

Good guess, but no.

The term Lisztomania was coined in 1844 by Heinrich Heine to describe the absolute madcap frenzy the ladies whipped themselves into when composer Franz Liszt performed on the piano. A real girls gone wild, 1800’s edition. He had some bangers, Mr. Liszt did.

I do not know if Liszt was a lister. I am not a Liszt, I am a lister (not an A-lister). Not just shopping or to-do (TaDa) lists, but my favorite bread/cheese combinations, careers I have in parallel lives, objects I have lost, objects I have found, words I hate, possible nightmare wordles, things that move me to tears, non-existant band names, alternate love languages…

Lists are a simple way to disseminate information quickly. No big blocks of text to bog you down, just the important shit. Bam, bam, bam: get the ideas out. Expand on it later, or don’t. It’s like our notes app was made for lists.

Welcome to this list of things that are bringing me joy right now. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

• More gamenights = less fascism.

• Not a rainbow bridge, but a rainbow parking garage.

• Working from my couch on a rainy day with a candle burning in front of me.

• Dendrochronologists studied the wood grain of Stradivarius violins and have determined the forest that grew the wood.

• Jordan Boltan’s hand-drawn letter to a substitute art teacher

• Big Rhonda, a split leaf philodendron in front of my house, pushed out 3 new shoots. We had a hard freeze here which killed all of her leaves. She will be shady and lusty soon enough. (Also, my newly adopted fig, named Femmie Flemmie, aka Figgy, is pushing leaves out like crazy, too).

• New artist obsession: Rupy C. Tut

• If you’re a person inclined to send fan mail, Tom Brown, retired engineer turned apple hunter deserves some snail mail love. To date, he has collected over 1200 different varieties of apples, tending to 700 of them in his orchard. Modern day Johnny Appleseed is keeping historic food ways alive! Check out his list of what he’s found and where. Send him a postcard with some love, mailing address here.

  

• I’m playing Dungeons and Dragons for the first time ever this week. Any tips or hints are welcome.

• OMG, I just spent some time wandering through my notes app. 10/10 would recommend going back in time through your own notes.

see you in a few days

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2026

(We use em dashes, but never AI)

Dear Favorite Nephew (age 9 years and 6.5 months),

Little Dude, let me tell you how you’re breaking my heart.

Your dad sent me a snap of you two at a baseball game last week, middle of the eighth inning, the whole crowd singing “Sweet Caroline.” Except you.

Your parents let you play hookey from school for a few days. You and your dad flew to Fort Meyers, Florida to watch spring training games. Do you know how amazing and rare this is? You stayed in a hotel with a pool and went night swimming for the first time. Do you even understand the magic of that— alone in the pool, your dad dangling his feet in the water, sharing videos of your splashing around under the night sky?

(This would be a good time to introduce REM into your music library, they’ll fit nicely along Queen and Eminem, your current faves.)

You were raised on impromptu dance parties. Your mom bought a tiny disco light, keeping it close to hand, so when the spirit hit, she could dim the house lights and transform your suburban kitchen into an intimate club with strobes flashing to whatever music was your favorite at the time.

This became such a natural part of your life, like homemade pasta and scratch cookies. It will still be years before you’ll come to know that this is foreign to other kids. Do you remember your mom’s birthday dinner during pandemic? There were six of us: me, you, your parents, and the neighbor couple we all love. After cake, we threw the dishes in the sink, moved the couches, turned down the lights, and pumped up the music. You were having so much fun you jumped to get closer to your mom, knocking her wineglass, sending both her and the glass flying. Once we ascertained no one was hurt, we laughed so hard about how her boob popped out when she fell.

Then there was your “Broken Wings” phase, when you sang that song endlessly as you drew pictures or danced around the house.

Do you remember dance parties on my back deck when you all came to visit after your baby sister got sprung from NICU? She was so tiny. You danced circles around your mom as she swayed holding the wee bundle.

When you last came to visit three months ago we had a New Year’s Eve dance party in the street next to my house. Earlier that afternoon while we were rolling out cavatelli for dinner, we created our own playlist. We invited friends and neighbors. We moved the trash bins and set up our own disco lights. Your mom, your sister, my friends, and I were all bopping around to “Let It Go,” (my knee still reminds me of one specific move I made that didn’t land quite how I expected) when you came out and just stared at us like we were an incomprehensible writhing blob of toxic goo. I deejayed to play your favorites so you’d find your groove. You stood in the garage, watching us with horror and revulsion. We tried to pull you into our dancing frenzy.

Fun fact: a bunch of girlies twirling around to “Shake It Off” and “Pink Pony Club” don’t want to kill their dance vibe with “Real Slim Shady,” but we joy-baited you with it. You stood smirking with your hands in your pockets. Queen didn’t get you grooving. Even “I Love Rock and Roll,” only moved you to sway your hips a bit.

I chalked it up to your having just woken up from a nap.

But this latest Snap of you eye-rolling while a stadium of people sang “Sweet Caroline?”

My sweet summer child, that song is in your DNA. Have you never seen your mom and her three sisters dancing and laughing themselves silly when that song comes on? It is a compulsory bop. It is a song made for belting out at top volume.

If you don’t believe me, how about looking to the thousands of people who sing their souls out at the bottom of the eighth inning at every Boston Red Sox home game.

You’re still a few years off from tween/teen-dom, where your psyche will awaken to the fact that you are far too cool to participate in this thing un-cool humans refer to as fun. All humans who are not you or your friends will qualify as The Un-cool. And yet, here you are, already yukking the yum.

Unsubscribe to that shit, my little dude.

One time I navigated a mile-long route from Broughton Street, Savannah, to my house in which you never went more than half a block without splashing through a puddle. You didn’t notice how far you’d walked because you were chasing fun.

This is not a chat about puddle jumping, although it is quite fun.

I’ll let your parents sort out some of your more pedagogical life education, like the value of compounding interest on IRAs and how to build an enormous bonfire. I want to school you on the absolute most important life lesson. Not the best way to sneak snacks into a movie theatre. Or even how to make fart noises with your armpit.

Since you’re a competitive little guy, who plays basketball, baseball, and football, and wants to get in on every bingo or uno game when you visit your grandma at her assisted living home, I’ll couch this in terms you’ll understand. You clearly like playing, and you clearly like feeling victorious.

If life is a game, the best way to win is by having the most fun possible.

I repeat: she who has the most fun, wins.

To be clear: fun doesn’t mean partying. Fun never means being cruel. Fun means doing the things that make your heart sing, that leave you breathless with joy. Fun can be as simple as turning up the music, dancing, and singing like a little weirdo.

I heartily apologize on behalf of all adults for this fucked up world we have thrust upon you. God, kid, like, we fucked up hard. Y’all have some heavy burdens to shoulder. I don’t want to bum you out for the future, but life is tough. You’re going to need tools. Important tools like goofing off to your favorite songs.

I know you’re about to have all these weird-ass hormones flooding into your body, fucking with your moods and shit. I know you’re already a little weird on account of liking oatmeal raisin cookies. Among the messy hormone shit awaiting you will be crippling self-consciousness. I see you’ve already been pre-dosed.

Here’s a secret about feeling self-conscious: you can trick your brain into pretending you’re not. It’s called fake-it-’til-you-make-it. Instead of crumpling yourself into a ball, or sneering at the world, when you feel oogey or unsure, what if you asked yourself: can I just have fun instead?

Fun is free. Fun is contagious. Fun is, well, fun.

What I really want drive home (baseball metaphor) is this:

• Please never be cool.

• Please have as much fun as you can.

• Please don’t stop being goofy.

And above all, stay weird, little dude. It’s the most fun you’ll ever have.

Sincerely ,Your Favorite and Least Crazy Aunt,

Rubi

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025

Once upon a time lived a young servant woman who worked very hard.

Do not feel bad for her, she was neither poor nor misused, but she was very lonely. She didn’t work in a mansion or a palace, or even a house, like other young servant women, but on a boat.

Many years before, there was a man who used to fly mechanical birds through the sky. He flew over snow-blanketed tundras and sleepy bays. He delivered mail and plucked people and bodies from wild seas. One day, the man’s bosses noticed silver hairs poking out from beneath his flight cap. “Congratulations,” they said to him, “you have flown so many mechanical birds and you know so much about mechanical birds that now you shall drive a desk.” They threw the man a party with a cake that said “Good Luck.” The man didn’t want to leave the sky.

When they said “drive a desk,” they meant that the man had to sit in a chair and move pieces of paper from one side of the desk to another. Sometimes he would put paper on someone else’s desk. Sometimes someone else would add paper to his piles.

His desk was grey. The walls around him were grey. His clothes were grey. As the fluorescent lights buzzed above his head, he thought that he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the sun. He missed flying birds.

“If I can’t be in the sky,” he decided, “I will go to the sea.” The man quit his job and sold all of his belongings to buy a sail boat. This time when he left, they didn’t throw him a party. There was no cake.

The man sailed his boat down to islands in the sun. He heard real birds (not mechanical) and water slapping against the hull of his small sailboat, but never the buzz of lights. He sailed from island to island and loved his life.

“I’m running out of money,” realized the man. “This is such a lovely life, people will pay me to come along on my adventures for a week or so.”

So he made space in his sailboat for strangers. The strangers came, they escaped from their gray worlds and desks and piles of paper and buzzing lights, to sail on his boat and splash in the sea. After a few days, each group of strangers became almost like friends.

“We love this life,” they said, “but we are hungry. You are a very bad cook.”

The man had to agree, the only sustenance he knew how to provide was to open a can of Pepsi or order a chicken-fried steak.

I will hire someone to cook for us.

“This will be good,” thought the man, “she can also clean, and help me look after the boat.”

The man searched for a helper. “Will you cook for me,” he asked a woman. “Yes,” she said. And so she went to his boat. She was not a very good cook. She left. The man searched again. “Will you cook for me,” he asked a woman. “Yes,” she said. Then she met another man she loved and went to that man. The man searched again. “Will you cook for me,” he asked a woman. “Yes,” she said. That woman hated the man as much as the man hated the woman. As she ran off, he kicked her out. The man searched again.

The young woman lived very far away in a land of ice and snow. She went to school. Sometimes she studied, sometimes she partied. Always she worked. She served hamburgers and french fries, or tacos, or delivered pizza. Sometimes she cleaned hotel rooms or inventoried and invoiced screw machine parts. But always, she worked. She knew her destiny was not one of buzzing fluorescent lights, but didn’t know what else the world had to offer, she was a young woman, after all.

One day at her job where she cooked for women who were her peers, but who secretly felt that they were above her, she stirred pasta into a pot of boiling water. It was big thick pasta that needed a very long time to cook so she went outside to smoke a cigarette. She closed her eyes on her first inhale. She exhaled and opened her eyes to see an ugly little fairy sitting on the fence. He pushed his small, nubbly face towards hers.

“You shall go to the islands in the sun,” he declared, “You shall find a sailboat. You shall cook for the people.”

“Will I live happily ever after?” she asked.

“You will cook, and you will clean. You will work. You will have adventures.” Then the fairy jumped back over the fence and ran into the woods.

“But will I live happily ever after?” she yelled.

The fairy was gone.

The young woman went to the islands in the sun. She walked along the docks, looking at boats. She saw a man scrubbing down the deck. “Do you need someone to cook and to clean?” “HA HA NO,” he said, and she walked on. She saw a man untangling knots on his deck. “Do you need someone to cook and to clean?” “Not you,” he said, and she walked on. And so her days carried on like this, her voice hoarse from asking so many people if they needed a cook.

She was hot and thirsty. She was running out of money. She sat upon a bench, hot water flooding to her eyes as her nose tingled with heat. “I was silly to listen to that fairy who convinced me to leave my family and friends, and to go alone to the islands in the sun where I know no one. Woe is me. What was I thinking?”

At the same time the man was walking down the same dock. He was sad because he felt unsuccessful in his mission to find a new cook. He spied the young woman and thought, “Well, at least I am not so sad as to be crying upon a bench under the blue sky in the islands in the sun”

Like many men, he was very afraid of crying women. He walked past her, looking away towards the sea to give her privacy.

“Woe is me,” she sighed, so lost in her sorrow she was unaware of the man.

“Young women,” he said, “why are you crying?”

She sighed again and told him her story.

That is how the young woman came to cook for the man on his small boat. She was a mostly good cook, and he was mostly a nice man. They became friends. She saved her money, so she was not poor anymore. They had many adventures in the islands in the sun.

But she was lonely. She only had the man for a friend. He was very much older than her and they only had their work in common. Some of the people who came to the boat became friendly, but not like friend-friends. More like people she was friendly with when they were around each other. In time, she would forget their names and faces.

She missed having friends, so she talked to the sea. She ate her lunch and dinner on the boat’s deck, with her feet dangling close to the water. As fish came to the surface she dropped little bites of pasta or cake to share with them.

Even though the fish and the young woman couldn’t communicate, they soon became friends. She would lean over, sprinkling nibbles of grilled cheese or mashed potatoes and talking about her day while they popped their heads up, opening and closing their fishy mouths to catch her snacks.

Sometimes at night, their fishy bellies full of honey-glazed, roasted carrots or mustard-marmalade chicken, they could hear her weep. She slept outside, you see. Not because there was not room for her inside the boat. There was, just not very much. Her bed was a settee in the small salon of the boat. The man slept on another settee. No, they did not sleep together.

She liked sleeping outside, caressed by tropical breezes under a canopy of stars. But some nights, the sky felt so large and she felt so alone and tiny, which is why she wept. Not loud sobs, mind you, but soft little whines that translated to something like “Am I wasting my twenties at sea cooking for an old man while my friends are having fun dancing in clubs and french kissing?”

The fish heard her, but could find no way to console her immediately with a hug or a comforting stroke of her hair. But they were not without ideas or outlets. They were kind of bored and very eager to come up with a plan. It came to pass one magical night that they could get a message to the crabs, for they, too, had tasted her loving morsels that sunk down through the water. The crabs passed their message along to the sand, who passed it along to the shore, who passed it along to waves who passed it along to the breeze who floated over the water to where she slept and whispered into the young woman’s ear. “Look at the moon,” it breathed into her. “Open your eyes and look at the moon.”

The soft susurrus of syllables slipped into her psyche. She felt safe and secure. She immediately opened her eyes to see the shadow of the earth passing over a heavy full moon hanging low in the sky.

She hadn’t known of the eclipse slowly sliding into place above her as she slept. She didn’t really have access to any news. But her friends the fish knew.

The young woman lay facing the sky, watching the celestial display as the fish, too, splashed about the surface, also watching the show on the moon.

She came to fully understand then, that she was part of the world that was bigger than dance clubs and fluorescent lights and french kissing. She never wept herself to sleep anymore and she never stopped feeding the fish.

use code CHEESEISJOY for 15% off of arty shit and art

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2026

Can we have more of this please:

A little backstory:

Alysa Liu was a world champion figure skater. After the Beijing Olympics in 2022, at 16, she said “fuck this soul-destroying shit.” The mental stress and toxic training had worn her down. She hung up her skates, publicly announcing her retirement. Lui allowed herself to be a teenager, ffs. She filled herself up with everything she couldn’t do when her existence was 100% training and competing: she had a life, spent time with family and friends, attended UCLA, hiked to Everest base camp. She ate whatever she wanted. She. Ate. Whatever. She. Wanted. Two years later, her first ever skiing experience left her with an adrenaline buzz. She compared it to the high she used to feel on the ice, back when she loved skating. Was it still there? What would happen if she went back on the ice?

She laced up her skates then stepped into the rink. She didn’t immediately fall. In fact, when she tried the complicated jumps that won her championships years earlier, her body was like, we got you, remember how much you love this. At the ripe old age of 18, she came out of retirement. But on her own terms. She chose her coach, her team, her music. She decided on her outfits, her diet, and her training schedule. Her aim was to have as much fun as possible. Skip to recipe: she won an Olympic gold medal.

Ice skating doesn’t have a reputation for being a touchey-feely, lovey-dovey, nurturing environment. (I’m looking at you Tonya and Nancy). Cutthroat seems an apt word for this sport balanced on blades sharp enough to cut through ice. This is a group of people who have been calorie-restricted their entire lives, skaters are hungry and severely cake deficient. The difference between a W and an L can be a tight 1/1000th of a point.

And yet, there’s room for these competitors to cheer one another on, like Lui and her competitor Ami Naiki. Lui competing for the US won gold, Naiki bronze, for Japan.

Yes, it’s easy to be happy for someone when you beat them, but…Ugh, please, stop making me use words. Just go watch this video of different angles. On repeat. (Copyrights restrict me from embedding it here.)

@nbcsportsThe sport is in great hands. 👏 #WinterOlympics

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This isn’t fake. This is genuine joy for a friend, who is also a competitor.

Samesies for contestants on the Great British Bake Off. They’re…nice to each other?

In the reality TV hellscape where people are manipulated and edited to evoke drama, to tease out the worst, most melodramatic versions of humans for ratings, Bake Off contestants just want to bake their hearts out.

Our unhinged appetite for temper-tantrum TV provided the rancid filling currently smeared into the democracy shit sandwich we’re being forced to swallow.1

Bake Off gives us cozy TV where we can all just get along, watch some cake porn, and feel energized by a dash of competitive action. Not the “I didn’t come here to make friends” flavor of competition, but the “I’m here to do my best and have a blast” kind.

Bake Off doesn’t offer its champions Olympic stakes and gold, but rather a humble cake plate and the possibility of a publishing contract. But the two events share a common principle: elite aspirants working to the very best of their ability. Their biggest roadblocks aren’t other competitors so much as themselves. It makes no difference how awesome they were in practice if they can’t pull out a show stopper in the tent (or the rink).

That doesn’t mean they have to hate their competition. In fact, it’s possible to respect them, even -gasp- become friends?

As each season progresses, one baker being eliminated each episode, it’s evident the remaining bakers form tight bonds of friendship. You can clearly see them rooting for one another, even assisting on occasion with a steadying hand, words of encouragement, or a reminder to check their about-to-burn caramel. Hugs of congratulations and condolences are shared liberally like sprinkles on a cupcake.

I can only imagine how much it would suck to propel yourself to the very top levels of competition only to lose; to enter hopeful and leave empty-handed. I understand winning in these situations is life changing: offering unfathomable earnings and opportunities.

But also: fun.

Notice how much Lui genuinely smiles while she skates.

Full disclosure: I have a long history of being a loser. From my early days of Little League where my team never won (I sucked horribly) to last month when I lost ten consecutive games of Uno to Handsome Hubbo, I haven’t racked up a lot of Ws. There was a brief stint in the 1980s where I was a regional spelling bee champ.

I am that weirdo who plays games, not to win, but because they’re fun. Except Monopoly. Every single thing about Monopoly sucks. Renunciation, a game of capitalism and karma by Kim Krans is way more my speed. Connect Four? Scrabble? Barbie Queen of the Prom? Taboo? Catchphrase? Pictionary? Telestrations? Apples to apples? Yes, please. Sure, winning is great, but have you ever tried to be on the team that has the most fun, the one that laughs the most?

Note: if you’re in the Savannah area, I’m available for game nights and will bring homemade baked goods.

use code CHEESEISJOY for 15% off of arty shit and art

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025

KINDS OF LOVE THAT AREN’T ROMANTIC

(add your entry in the comments)

• Love for an elderly couple holding hands

• Love for a golden retriever who plunks himself on the sidewalk

• Love for that golden retriever’s human trying to coerce him to continue walking

• Love for kids with lemonade stands

• Love for a barista who makes you smile on a shitty day

• Love for little girls with wild hair doing cartwheels in any open space they can find

• Love for the memories of a friendship that no longer exists

• Love for the people of Minnesota

• Love for the justice chasers

• Love for the kid and his dad racing to get a kite up in the air

• Love for the sample person who doesn’t comment that it’s your second sample

• Love for the neighbor who works hard to grow beautiful flowers for everyone to enjoy

• Love for the neighbor who puts out artificial flowers because that is how they can offer beauty

• Love for anyone with a porch goose

• Love for the grocery cashier who is kind

• Love for anyone who is kind

• Love for the kid in the park learning to ride their bike

• Love for the kid with their face buried in a book

• Love for toast, the best food on the planet

• Love for a group of old friends getting together for coffee

• Love for that friend who always tells you enthusiastically how amazing you look, even when you know she’s full of shit

• Love for the friend you says “Hello, beautiful,” whenever they talk to you

• Love for the woman in the bar bathroom who fixes your hair

• Love for the friend who always has snacks

• Love for anywho who laughs at your jokes

• Love for the co-worker who knows your coffee order

• Love for everyone at a wedding

• Love for everyone at a funeral

• Love for the check-out person who knows a discount code for you

• Love for anyone sitting on a bench reading

• Love for a group of characters in a book that feel like your friend group that you miss when you finish the book

• Love for people who spend their lives studying something obscure and arcane

• Love for people who spend their lives making the world better for other people

• Love for people who speak out against bullshit

• Love for people in the grass costumes

• Love for the shark on the left

• Love for the meme creators

• Love for a particular spoon which is far superior to the others

• Love for the slant of sunlight through your window

• Love for two dancing tendrils of steam from fresh cups of tea

• Love for that feeling of hot water on your body

• Love for the feeling of cool water on a hot day

• Love for the person who brings you water when you are thirsty

• Love for the person struggling thousands of miles away

• love for the person who just celebrated a milestone

• Love for the strangers on the subway wearing matching shoes

• Love for women who choose to age visibly

• Love for women growing out their gray

• Love for women growing out that pixie cut that seemed like a good idea

• Love for women who can pull off a pixie cut

• Love for the vulnerable person who asks for help

• Love for the helpers

What did I miss? Add it in the comments.

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2026

“In life there is nothing better than laughing, especially a laugh when you most need it.” Catherine O’Hara

Trying to process what’s happening in the US right now while outside the country is weird. I feel so far away, separate, and helpless. Instead of doing things I normally do when travelling, like making lots of drawings of my adventures, I’ve been trying to feel useful and connected with my peeps back home in the worst possible way: brainrot doomscrolling.

It shames me to admit that I’ve spent hours every day consuming news and getting myself drunk on ragebait and instagram snark.

I cannot stop.

I’ve also spent hours spewing out thousands of words for this space—including hundreds about my inner battle with the value of finding and creating joy in our current dumpster fire timeline. Which is stupid. We’re fighting to preserve a life that includes joy. When we begin to believe that joy isn’t important or valuable in the face of pain and injustice is when we give in to the chaotic anger, fear, and frustration that’s part of a carefully calculated plan. Dark forces want to trick us into thinking cruelty is the norm, that we’re not worthy of joy. Fuck those bitches. Why are we here if not to exult our existence with joy?

Our jobs as tender beings on this planet is to find, create, and spread as much joy as possible. And why shouldn’t we when it’s so easy— we just have to be open to however it might present itself.

Creating a symphony masterpiece or winning your own, actual Nobel Peace prize isn’t necessary, think lowercase “j” joy: teeny tiny things. Things that are easy to overlook or maybe not even classified as joy nuggets until we declare them to be so.

What I’m about to tell you is not toxic positivity, it’s more along the line of turd polishing. Trust me when I tell you that I am as astounded as you will be that I’m about to call a pile of dogshit joy.

Our apartment in Seville, Spain is on a tiny lane not wide enough for a car. Our taxi could only make it three quarters of the way down the street, forcing us to steer our herd of luggage over the last 100 yards of cobbled lane.

After we got settled in what we shall call The Sewer Smelling Palace of One Dull Knife and Three Small Towels (aka our apartment), we headed out in search of tapas. Not twenty steps outside a pristine pile of dog turd greeted us.

Let me clarify that Seville is not a dirty city. I’ve seen street cleaners in small vehicles, collecting trash and sweeping up, all over the place, at all times of day. There’s not really any litter on the streets except for oranges (more on that later) but plenty of smears of puppy poop. (I say puppy so that makes it sound cute. It’s not cute, not when you walk in it or cycle through it and it gets all up in your bike tires.) Our lane, snuggled behind an old church, mid-renovation and surrounded by scaffolding, was maybe forgotten by the street cleaning team. But not by the dog walker.

Henceforth, we shall refer to the pile of poo as “D,” or “the Big D,” short for Dukey, Dump, Doodoo, Deuce, or any other D words you might call a fetid pile of shit.

Our merry band of pranksters consisted of me, Hubby, and our friends Guy and Gal Querido. Guy and Gal’s dog, Cashew (who stayed home in Savannah), is practically part of our family. She has her own toys and bowls at our house. We have never shied away from talking about Cashew poops when necessary. It’s not like our conversations center around them, but from time to time, it comes up. IYKYK.

Big D (he/him/it) was tucked up against the side of the church, thankfully not in the middle of the walkway. That doesn’t mean we were immune from planting a foot in it, especially with four of us chatting and laughing and trying to figure out where the hell we were going. One of us had to be on guard at all times.

Seville is a city of twisty turny pedestrian lanes that meander about and defy cardinal directions, so navigation is important business. It’s hard to keep yourself out of shit if your face is buried in your phone, even if you are doing the valuable work of wayfinding.

When we initially left the apartment, we clocked Big D and warned ourselves to be wary, scolded the bad dog parents, then promptly forgot about him. After walking around for a few hours, sampling some of the finest Manchego, jamon, and vino tinto Spain had to offer, we made our way back to our VRBO. We shouldn’t have been surprised to see D still lurking against the wall. Every dog owner knows that poop doesn’t go away on its own. But we found it remarkable enough to all remark that not only was he still there, but also completely undisturbed.

Maybe I should point out that both the wall of the building and the bricks in the street are very pale ochre. D is your standard issue dogshit brown. You honestly can’t not see him.

The next morning, heading out, Gal and I were deep in conversation, oblivious to how perilously close we were to the side of the lane in order to allow a cyclist to pass. “POOP!” shouted Hubby as a warning.

And thus a protocol was born.

Without discussing or assigning the task, every time we walked past, which was between four and six times a day, one of us would yell “POOP.” This, of course, would prompt us to get a visual on said kaka, to ensure that we did not unintentionally molest D with our favorite mauve boots or fuschia sneakers.

Then the rains came. Hard. Gusting during a loud and stormy night. We had to use one of our three sacred towels to mop up the water that came in through the open door. We kept the door open in an attempt to lure the sewer smell out of the apartment.

Imagine our surprise in the morning, walking into a soggy, washed-out world, to see Big D, proudly perched in his usual place, not one bit bothered by the biblical deluge from the night before.

We gave the side eye to every dog we passed on Calle Imperial. Really, it’s not the pooch, but their person. Who doesn’t clean up after their dog when they walk by it every day? How do they not see it (and the string of similar pearls deposited along the street) when they pass, presumably, multiple times daily? Or do they see it and not care?

But also, along the street are suspiciously similar piles of doodoo, same make and model, so to speak.

After a few days of fun and frolic, the Queridos hugged us goodbye, waved adios to Big D, then made their way, albeit slowly (thanks to Spanish rail disruptions and the snow storm of a century), back to the US. Hubby and I stayed behind with the shitty bread knife that had less, but wonkier teeth, than a 7-year-old. On our own, we got in the habit of taking a right upon leaving our pad, while D, off to the left, was forgotten. There were churches to peek into and street labyrinths to get lost in.

Three days of 35 mph winds blasted the area with more bucketing rain. The city closed parks to clean up fallen limbs and downed trees. Thousands of oranges fell off of trees, rolling rampant around the city, pristine at first, but within hours squashed under feet, cars, scooters, and bikes.

Five whole days after the Queridos left us, we finally turned left when we left our building. And who was there to greet us?

Big D, still miraculously untouched, now dressed in a festive fuzzy blanket of mold.

OF COURSE I had to share the big news with our friends. OF COURSE they were excited.

OF COURSE it’s absolutely ridiculous to get excited about dog poop. It’s not the poopiness of D as much as his there-ness. In a city thousands of years old, where 2nd century Roman columns pop out of gardens and every 250 yards or so sits a large, old church full of gold and silver statuary, a turd persists.

Anyways, I’m not scatologically obsessed1, I take my mission of finding joy in the ordinary very seriously. As Catherine O’Hara said “Life is full of the dark and the light. You gotta look for the light.” Sometimes that light is a concerto or a cold glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and other times it’s a tenacious poop.

(Eew, no, I did not take any pictures, but he does live in my memory as though I put googly eyes on him. Yes, I thought about dressing him in googly eyes from my travel kit.)

Trauma therapist Kathleen Hoagland schooled hard in her instagram post reminding us why brainrot doomscrolling is a terrible idea.

She quotes Trussie MacMillan Cottom speaking on PBS newshour

We are getting so much passive information and we have so few opportunities to act. We are tired then not from doing too much, but from doing too little.

And adds:

Scrolling, consuming and staying silent is exhausting your nervous system. And it’s not neutral.

From a trauma lens one of the most harmful positions we can take individually and collectively is to witness harm and do nothing at all.

Passive consumption creates helplessness. Action, even small action, restores agency.

Let us go forth and do joyful shit.

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025

Chapter 1: Light is both wave and particle

Husband and I woke up to our 8am alarm in a hotel in Madrid. The only light in the room came from my phone, otherwise our world was black. “These black-out curtains are really top notch,” I declared. Husband replied from the bathroom “Are you sure your phone clock is right? It’s still dark outside.”

Phone time was absolutely correct: in a land without daylight savings time, the sunrise in January happens around 8:30 am.

Chapter 2: We could leave the Christmas lights up ‘til January.

As if January isn’t awkward enough, all of the beautiful sparkly lights decorating our post-sundown world for the past 6-8 weeks have gone black because “the holidays are over.” Uh, yeah, the holidays are over, but it’s still dark a lot and we need that twinkly light until more sun comes into our world. We don’t necessarily need the 12 foot skeleton dressed as Santa, but can we still have the pretty light show?

The residents of my city liked the vibe of the holiday lights downtown so much, now the lights on Broughton Street stay up all year.

Downside: electricity consumption. For my own personal use, I solar powers lights for my year-round garden fairy twinkle decorations. Powering many personal and municipal lights uses less energy than all of the unwanted AI intrusions that pop up in our internet world.

Chapter 3: Light as a metaphor

Not just because it’s January, but shit seems real dark right now. Staying knowledgable about current events is like juggling peeled boiled eggs of rage, stress, and despair while riding a unicycle of hope over a patch of black ice.

A lot of people with darkness inside them wield power in this timeline. Being a being with a heart and soul hurts. There is so much light that needs shining into the world.

Love will not overcome all, we need pragmatic things like legislation, congress, and for people to wake the fuck up.

Making any sort of change or impact feels overwhelming. Where to start? What can one person do to make a difference? How can we shine our light into this vast darkness?

Chapter 4: I’m not a physicist

I’ve been studying light’s effect on darkness. I don’t have a fancy lab or anything like that. My observations have been in various hotel and vacation rentals, all equipped with blackout shades and shutters. I can’t carry out this work in my house, there is no absolutely dark place, streetlights outside my bedroom and front room window ensure that.

In a room completely closed off with shutters, tucked in the back of an apartment similarly blacked out with shutters, it is very dark. Yet, it takes only the smallest pin prick of light to banish the darkness: the glowing face of a watch or LED dot indicating something is charging. Boom. It’s not midday sun, but the darkness is gone.

Chapter 5: Incomplete darkness?

There is only complete darkness. Light is energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation that can be seen by the human eye. Darkness is the condition that results from the absence of light. As soon as light is introduced, there can be no darkness.

Despite how it may feel, light is the stronger force, displacing darkness instantly.

Chapter 6: Let it Shine

If we want to shine light into some of the darkness being perpetuated in the world, maybe we can take a hint from the watch face or the charging indicator light. Sure, a metaphorical 150 watt bulb would be great, but what about that multi-USB hub that insists on sending out a beacon to let you know it’s ready to charge your phone?

My bright idea involves reminding ourselves that we can be furious, outraged, heartbroken, and angry at the world, but we can also find ways to shine our little lights. We can also be mirrors, and reflect the illumination of the other little lights piercing the darkness.

(If you’re reading this far into my post and understand the subtitle of this piece —without googling it—reply to this email or dm me the proper response and I’ll send you a treat via US mail)

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2026

If New Year’s resolutions work for you: yay.

I don’t subscribe to that channel.

I like to see opportunities for new beginnings available to us throughout the year: Sundays, Mondays, solstices, equinoxes, birthdays, the start of spring training, to name a few.

While there is nothing wrong with espousing a hard line of rigorous change, say after a few weeks of celebrating, eating heavy food, and a handful of liminal days you’re going to be a draconian self-disciplinarian and go to the gym five times a week or completely cut sugar and caffeine out of your diet; there’s a good chance you’re setting yourself up for failure. Too much, too fast, with no infrastructure.

Cut yourself some slack.

I like to think of the new year as a fresh notebook.

New notebooks are something I have a lot of experience with. My massive collection includes a little bit of everything: ruled, dotted, blank, spiral bound, saddle stitched, hand-stitched, hard bound, composition style with white pages, composition style with rainbow pages, sketch paper, watercolor paper, square, landscape, pocket sized, leather covers.

Each one represents so much potential, so many thoughts to be rambled, so many ideas to escape onto the pages.

Wait, okay, I just came up with a goal for 2026: to get to the last page of at least three notebooks. And I don’t mean the pocket-sized cuties of crappy drawings. Watch this space for updates. And help me be accountable.

So, a new year as a fresh notebook or container, a new space to fill and personal frontier to explore. Sure, I could implement this anytime, but I like the discrete nature of 12 months, 365 days to learn about and embody an idea or concept. Hence, the word of the year.

Some words I’ve heard people committing to for 2026: SPACIOUSNESS, SOFT RESONANCE, ENOUGH, NOURISHMENT, GENTLE, VILLIAN, COYOTE, SILLY GOOSE, SWAGGER, and UTILIZE. Your word might pop out at you, as mine did. Or you might overthink it, as I am wont to. Morgan Harper Nichols has put together an exhaustive list of ideas. If you can’t decide on one, choose eight that resonate with you. Write each one a separate piece of paper, fold them up and place them in a vessel. Every morning, or evening, for seven days, set aside a moment to pull one out. Don’t open it. Simply pluck the folded paper from the bowl or jar and discard it (trash, burn, flush). On the seventh day, after choosing and discarding your paper, there will be one left. Open it. This is your word. (This is a shorter version of a practice done around winter solstice.)

My 2026 word chased me down and tackled me: RITUAL.

John Scott, in the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, defines ritual as

“…an often-repeated pattern of behaviour which is performed at appropriate times, and which may involve the use of symbols.” (2014)

According to braintrust at Wikipedia,

a ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning.

Very big and loose definitions.

I didn’t wake up on January first and ritualize the shit out of my day. In fact, I didn’tt consciously perform any rituals. Instead, I’m starting with an awareness of where in my life they may occur. I don’t want to say performing a ritual, because that gives me the ick.

There is much reading and learning to be done. That Wikipedia entry is hella juicy with almost 100 footnotes and a significant reading list. I’ll let the concept guide my non-fiction reading this year. Ritual is the filter through which I will explore the world in 2026.

I am not religious, but grew up going to Roman-catholic church and school. While I’m familiar with many of the rituals, they seemed more to me like rote than ritual.

I’m curious to explore what ritual looks like outside the context of worship. How can I use rituals in my life to bring more little joys?

I’m so excited to dig into what rituals mean to me, and in my world. So excited, in fact, I started a new notebook just for this.

I’d love to hear your words for the year and/or anything you want to offer about your little rituals.

Also, I really hate that so many projects/challenges begin on or about January 1. It’s too overwhelming. We have a lot going on with taking down holiday decorations, putting our lives together after we’ve turned into piles of post-holiday sludge. Can we get some read-along-with-me programs or drawing-a-day challenge that starts on July 17 or April 23? Any random day not overwhelming and already loaded with expectation. <end rant>

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025

Welcome to our annual solstice-ish ADVENTure calendar of daily joys and treats.

OMG hey, hi, happy solstice.

Today is the shortest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere. Every day hence brings more light. Yay us.

Daily for the past three weeks, I’ve talked about something small-ish and free-ish in our lives worth celebrating. We started this solstice advent calendar with the marvel of being able to see the Earth from space. We’re going to wrap it up by the gobsmacking views of space from our blue terrestrial earth.

For millenia our ancestors stared up into the skies wondering what was out there. We made up stories, we guessed. Slowly, we’ve gathered truths to create a bigger picture, so to speak. In 1990, NASA sent the Hubble space telescope out to get some closer pics. In 2021 the Webb space telescope followed. The two beam down images that we could never have dreamt of.

I’m not a rocket surgeon, so will not insult physicists by claiming that I can explain how these mighty tools work. I won’t do a disservice to the brilliant minds behind these massive efforts by joking about some kind of sorcery. The precision work that goes into the creation and maintenance of these space telescopes is staggering.

But so are the images.

These are actual photographs of the universe. And they’re available to you any time you wish. While waiting for your gordita in the drive through lane or when you can’t sleep at 2:47 am you can peer into the formation of galaxies. NBD.

What we perceive as a field of black with some twinkling stars is nothing of the sort. It’s incomprehensibly vast, ancient, and constantly changing.

We are merely atoms in a molecule on the tip of a giant’s finger. And we are made of stardust.

use code CHEESEISJOY for 15% off of arty shit and art

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025

Welcome to our annual solstice-ish ADVENTure calendar of daily joys and treats.

I grew up in an Italian-American Christmas cookie family. Every year, we’d help my mom make dozens of different batches of cookies. As the big day approached, the varying cookies would be collated onto paper plates, wrapped in plastic wrap and topped with a bow to be distributed to everyone. The paper boy, nuns at church, neighbors, teachers: everyone got a cookie tray.

Mom never wavered from her roster, although after a few years she realized the rum balls weren’t so popular and replaced those with peanut butter blossoms (buckeyes). We rolled butterballs (Mexican wedding cookies) and the chocolate version. Butterhorns, a rugelach-adjacent cookie, had a tricky dough, but she remained faithful. Trays of fudge, with nuts and without, and 7-layer squares (heaven bars) were easier than a double-dough pinwheel cookie that required precision rolling and cutting. We made two, possibly three different spritz cookies. Chow mein noodle cookies—essentially crunchy salty snacks enrobed in sweet dark chocolate with some peanuts. And then, of course, the time consuming sugar cookies and ginger bread people. Mom would roll and cut the dough while my sisters and I painstakingly decorated each one, not with a random dusting of sugar, but individual sprinkles carefully laid out to create perfect little designs.

The cookies lived in metal tins, like from the danish butter cookies, in the cold New England garage to keep them fresh.

My grandmother and aunts made their own cookie batches, with only a small flavor overlap. Two of my favorites came from my Aunt Lou. A biscotti-like treat we call Mondo bars are actually Mandelbrot, of Jewish heritage. Lemony almond knots with colored frosting, called anginettes, are time consuming, but she still makes them and I still eat them.

Last weekend I visited my family in Connecticut. My mom, aunt, sister, and I, along with girl 4, and boy 9, spent an entire day making cookies. Sister was wise enough to have made the doughs in advance. We parked Mom and Aunt at the corner of the kitchen island and set them to rolling balls: thumprints, peanut-butter kisses, oreo truffles, and butter balls. Meanwhile boy and girl unwrapped kisses. Fun fact: things move quickly when you challenge kids with time trials. Two minutes into rolling balls, it was clear that no two cookies would be the same size. We didn’t fucking care. We chatted and cookied and had a fun day and finished everything on my sister’s list.

The next day at a different sister’s house: more cookies. Pecan bars, thumbprints, and shortbread. Except the shortbread wasn’t shortbreading. I changed one of her recipes, which she’ll never know because she doesn’t eat her cookies. Not a single nibble. One of us must be adopted.

Anyways, I’ve eaten two cookies while writing this.

Everybody loves cookies (except, apparently my oldest sister). Cookies can go places gifts and money cannot.You absolutely cannot buy a gift for everyone in your circle, nor should you. It would be weird to hand an acquaintance an envelope of money or a wrapped gift. But a plate of two-bite treats? It shows someone that they are treasured and they’ve been thought of.

This applies all year, by the way. Nothing is stopping any of us from making cookies and sharing them amongst friends in March or August.

But December is mad cookie month, and I’m here for it.

see you tomorrow

use code CHEESEISJOY for 15% off of arty shit and art

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025

Welcome to our annual solstice-ish ADVENTure calendar of daily joys and treats.

Remember free doubles? Remember how it felt like you were getting a great deal with one hour printing? Remember trying to figure out what to do with all of those doubles—images of foreheads and blurry group shots? Remember feeling weird about tossing out photographs because they sucked but you spent money on the film and the processing? And all of those fucking doubles! And if you lost your camera in 1996? Too bad so sad. What’s a cloud?

Today is a wee love letter to my phone’s photo app.

I’m sure I’m not even using or aware of all of the features. This isn’t a phone hack substack, this is me loving that I have access to 63,323 of my images and videos everywhere I go. I’m sure heaps of those could probably go in the trash, doubles in their own way: two or three or ten shots of the same dog’s tail in motion, sunset through a glass of prosecco, or concert from very far away.

My phone app is a searchable visual record of my life. Not sure when I went to Santa Fe? Simply search my library and all of the shots geotagged there come up. I can type in eggplant and 54 pictures show up (I really like eggplant). The word “party” brings up 446 results, many of which are not a party, but a very colorful sunset, two ice cream cones, a plate of fries, and some enviable wallpaper, among other shenanigans.

Ok, yeah, there is something a bit big brother about my phone knowing what Libby, Julie, or Holly looks like and can dish up hundreds of pictures of us together. I am on the internet, I have google addresses, and social media— Big Brother has heard of me.

In the meantime, I can take a picture of the very tiny directions on a cold medicine box to enlarge it so it’s legible. Thanks, photo app. I can, at any point, access the pic of hubby with an enormous catch to humble brag/ put an end to any fish story. Thanks, photo app. I can store hundreds of screen shots that seemed important at the time. Thanks, photo app. I can instantly pull up a visual story of what went down in a hotel room bathroom in Barcelona at 6:15 am on February 15, 2019. Thanks, photo app.

My entire photo library is all right there, in my pocket, not a stack of shoeboxes or albums taking up space, gathering dust, and needing to be rifled through. NGL photo app makes it really easy for me to find images to use in this here newsletter.

Every once in a while I do that thing where I search the current date. Photo app dishes up any pictures taken on that date in previous years for me to admire, edit, and cull. It’s fun for a bit, then overwhelming. I usually abandon the mission after three days.

My new favorite thing to do is to search for specific friends among the pictures and share them in an album with them. It’s actually amazing the pictures I have that they don’t and vice versa. Little snippets we forgot about coming back to life. Thanks, photo app.

Also fun, type random words into the search bar to see what comes up.

Also fun, get those pictures out of the phone and in frames or on your wall, at the very least a screen saver or wall paper. Don’t keep them prisoner inside your phone.

I know film photography is kind of coming back, but for right now, no thanks. You can keep your doubles and I’ll keep my gazillion sunsets.

see you tomorrow

use code CHEESEISJOY for 15% off of arty shit and art

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025

Welcome to our annual solstice-ish ADVENTure calendar of daily joys and treats.

OK, yes,we have to live through all of the different flavors of bullshit is going down in the world right now, and there are so many. I hate that for us. But…on the flip side, it means we also get to live on the same timeline as Gary Larson and his Far Side antics.

The Far Side made its way onto the comic section of the newspaper in 1980, the time of Peanuts, Garfield, Nancy, and Family Circus. *yawn* The wackiest adventures were Billy bopping around the neighborhood, Lucy pulling the football away again, and Garfield complaining about Monday. They weren’t funny. But it was all we had.

Until Larson and his ensemble of beehived women, bespectacled boys, ogling cows, scheming dogs, and confident cave men opened the portal of surrealism in the funny pages. Things got weird and it was great. Lots of people didn’t get it. “Getting” the Far Side was a badge of honor for nerds and weirdos. It paved the way for the Simpsons, South Park, and essentially everything on Adult Swim.

It’s been over 30 years since Larson retired his single panel strip, but his observations about life on this planet have aged like a nice cheese: they get sharper and nuttier. The Far Side was syndicated around the world for 15 years, with a total of 4,337 comics. He’s sold over 41 million books, 22 out of 23 books made the NYT bestseller list. Larson quit because he feared membership in the “Graveyard of Mediocre Cartoons” and to be a jazz drummer, but for real: 4,337 cartoons. That’s a lot. Give the guy a break. He kinda came back for a bit in 2020, but publishes new work very rarely. His most recent cartoon is a tribute to Jane Goodall.

OK, so, if you aren’t familiar with the Far Side, please don’t let me explain it to death. Go to the website, see its weirdness for yourself. Every day for almost 15 years, Larson showed us a quirky side of the world we’ve never considered. Cultural historian Kerry Soper, PhD, says of Larson’s hapless characters in his book Gary Larson and the Far Side, “we’re all just fools, flailing against the universe. And if you try to make sense of it, it’s going to bite back.”

So, here’s the deal: Larson is pretty serious about his cartoons not appearing on the internet— except his official site— without his consent. Yeah, I know, horses, barn door, all that. Even the reddit.com/r/TheFarSide/ has a disclaimer against posting images. Out of respect, and because it would be really douchey to talk about how great this guy is and then absolutely disregard his wishes, I’m not posting any here. But you know what? I don’t have to. The cartoons live on in our electric spongy meat lump. You know them by their punch lines:

• Cat fud

• Blah blah blah Ginger blah blah1

• Bummer of a birthmark, Hal.

• Hey! Look at me, everybody. I’m a cowboy. Howdy, howdy, howdy.2

• Boneless chicken ranch

• Beware of Doug

• You know, I think I really like vanilla. (Same planet, different worlds).

• How the dinosaurs went extinct.

• Midvale school for the Gifted

Two notable ones:

• “You’ve been hanging out with that Jane Goodall tramp,” says a primate to her mate as she grooms him. In the field during its publication, Goodall was oblivious to it. The head of her foundation, however, was incensed, considering it a huge insult to Goodall. The woman demanded an apology and a cease and desist. When Goodall returned, she was delighted to “have made it” as a celebrity. She went on to write the forward to Larson’s next book.

• A caveman standing in front of a board with a drawing of a stegosaurus addresses a group of fellow cavemen. He points to some spiky bits on the end, “Now this end is called the Thagomizer after the late Thag Simmons.3” The paleontology world didn’t actually have a term for that, so immediately took it as their own. It is now the scientifically accepted name of the spikes at the end of the dinosaurs’ tail.

So, yeah, for all the bad weird going down, I’m so happy to live in a world the Far Side’s good weird. Even though it’s out of syndication, you can still get a daily fix.

If you’re headed to some holiday parties and looking for an ice breaker, ask people about their favorite Far Sides. Everybody has at least five.

see you tomorrow

use code CHEESEISJOY for 15% off of arty shit and art

I’m always open to ideas, suggestions, shenanigans, tomfoolery, collaborations, cheese, snacks, and field trips.

You can find my art here and here. I offer custom workshops and design. I am the proud guardian/custodian of a 17 year old cheeseburger named Patty.

If you are a free subscriber, please consider supporting my efforts to make the world a less shitty place. Pick an annual price that feels comfortable for you and allows me to get paid for my work.

Cheeseburger & sweet potato fries $21

Movie Ticket, no popcorn $15

I heart art $30

All photographs and art are by me, Rubi McGrory, unless otherwise noted.

I occassionally use affiliate links. Support the arts however you can.

words and images © Rubi McGrory 2021-2025