Talking About Myself

A personal essay about personal essays.

This is a picture of me. I understand that I might want to include it as a header, but I don’t understand why.

I want to use this newsletter as a place to post things because I am an author. Apparently, writers need to use social media to talk about the fact that they are writers. I could never write a personal essay. I’ve always found it hard to talk about myself. Yesterday, I introduced myself to an important person as, “uhh I wrote a novel called Kill The Rich, I mean don’t worry, it’s fiction, political science fiction, and the villain is Elon Musk, haha, everyone hates him, right, and I write, you know, poetry about the Bible, and fiction about families who hate each other. I’m from Texas. I have a cat and a dog. I live in Florida, sorry!!!!”

I used to love talking about myself. I wanted to share anything and everything. I wanted to hear how the words sounded on my lips as I described my little, important dramas. Now, I feel anxious to reveal anything about myself. I have this somewhat ridiculous notion that it will take something vital away from me.

It’s weird to be 35, I’m definitely no longer a kid who can go out and get lit and have crazy, little adventures. Most of my friends either have careers, kids, or sobriety, and treat all of those with the same obsessive mothering. Conversations that used to be exciting, and fascinating are long gone. These days, a normal conversation is about mortgage rates, renovation projects, gym routines, kid report cards, or diets. Sometimes I am included in the conversation, but I don’t really have to participate, just nod and gasp.

At the risk of sounding like a total bitch, it’s all mind-numbingly dull and self-centered. Religion was killed and replaced by the church of the self. The body is a temple and we will inject steroids and lip filler into it until it’s the most banging temple ever made. I am so tired of thinking about my body, comparing it to other bodies. I don’t want to worry about if I am a good person compared to someone who wakes up early and regularly goes to the gym. It’s so easy to get bogged down in this competitive mania. Americans are always so focused on conquering the next era of their lives and then documenting it, without even thinking of the actual present. I wonder if they think that they will die.

Any time I do open up about what’s going on with me, I hear a lot of the same TikTok therapy speak from people. Have I thought about establishing clear boundaries? That person needs to take accountability! You need to take accountability! Are you autistic? Is that person autistic? I know because I took a quiz online that says I am autistic. Can you tell me exactly what you need while you are in the fetal position screaming, perhaps in a bulleted list, so that I know how to support you while you are in need? Are you, maybe, too upset right now? Should you see a specialist?

It all sounds like a script people memorized so they don’t actually have to deal with your shit, engage, listen, or ask any questions. They can just give advice gleaned from a 9 second social media post. Which, like, when I’m sad I want to rant, to verbalize it, and let the telling of it wash it away. However, roughly 99% of humans my age, who are not mental health professionals, are out here diagnosing people with narcissism or bipolar disorder, and then treating those people like they’re infected. So, the only goal of talking about your feelings with friends is getting diagnosed with a serious mental disorder. The downside is if you write a personal essay complaining about this, then someone reads it, assumes it’s an insult towards them, and gets mad at you. Life is a real labyrinth these days.

Perhaps, I should just let them diagnose me? The Let Them Theory is one of the most popular books right now. If someone is mad at you, let them be! Let those people talk shit about you! Let them harm you! Surrender to the nasty impulses of your friends and family. Instead, focus on what you can control, which is totally killing it and making a lot of money. The author doesn’t say the last part, but it’s implied, because happiness is derived from money. Personally, I would much rather tell people to fuck off and letting that feeling float away, rather than spending years resenting them while my self esteem erodes to nothing.

In grad school, I was too open, made too many jokes, and generally treated serious shit with no reverence and a lot of dark humor. After 2016, this kind of attitude was seen as evil. Here are a few of the stories beyond the general ignoring and shit talking. Most of my classmates hated me to the point where someone much older than me, who I barely knew, didn’t invite me to parties that literally everybody else in our class was invited to, because I was “bad news.” A rumor went around that I was a drug addict who wandered the Strip aimlessly which somehow made its way back to old classmates in Dallas. Once someone vomited at my house three times at parties hosted by my roommates—once in my bathroom (next to the toilet!) where it congealed overnight on the floor and hardened into a thick paste I had to pry off with a knife, then once on a piece of furniture, and the last time clear soggy noodles on our rug. They never said sorry. Perhaps, this person thought my home should be vomited on. I was bad, after all. I likely conjured the vomiting with evil spells.

Anytime I saw some of these classmates at school, it was clear they wanted to bring someone down. They had that hungry Donald Trump look in their eye. They were little detectives, scrutinizing everyone in poetry class, goading them, and if, God forbid, someone said something slightly offensive they would post it on social media or tattle to an administrator. It’s really so special that tattling has become a form of virtue signaling.

I can perhaps chalk some of this behavior up to the fact that most of my classmates had never met a Jewish person before. Once, a person asked me where Jews hid their horns, so these people might have just (just?) been anti-semitic. I want to say it didn’t hurt because they were idiots but it did. It took years to rebuild my self esteem to get their stupid voices out of my head about me, my work, and my religion. This was over five years ago, and it’s still hard for me to make friends and nearly impossible with other writers.

The bright side: at least I have two book deals, so I can gloat and feel superior, which is an important goal in America. I let them be mean and anti-semitic so that I could later make money. Genius.

That’s enough about me, though I will try to share more, because people with writing careers need to be able to talk about themselves, or at least sell themselves. Here’s my pitch: Look at the girl, Kate, she is very smart, her writing will challenge your notions and break down your very idea of the world and its power structures. It’s so powerful that you spin out and begin to question everything. You look to God. Why do bad things happen to good people, you ask. He isn’t listening. You start to watch a lot of YouTube videos from talking heads who have simple answers for questions that have no answers. Still, Kate Shapiro’s words are echoing in your head: a billionaire is plotting against you, but you don’t know who it is, so watch out.

I will obviously need help selling myself.

And then…

What now? I don’t know what else I will use this newsletter for. I was going to plagiarize my friend

Rob Schulte

’s Substack and write about what I read and watch, but I am always reading or watching something embarrassing. I’m working on a big, sprawling project about a contemporary television show right now and it has driven me to read only about princesses and knights.

I’ve read countless books about Eleanor of Aquitaine, because I love a good legendary beauty serving total cunt. People think Helen of Troy was a bitch, and maybe she was, but a hot bitch who starts a war by fucking another hot person is commendable. Nowadays, wars are started because of a vague existential fear that a military alliance will theoretically attack at a future, undetermined time, and maybe something about trade, oil, whatever, AI, who knows, rockets to Mars. I think the hot guy reasoning makes a lot more sense then NATO.

I also want to post a serialized horror novella about a *****FICTIONAL PARODY***** Taylor Swift on a murder spree through the Era’s Tour. It’s ready to go but maybe I should wait until Miss Americana Psycho releases her new album for maximum clicks, because of how much I live for clicks. Please click. Click and click and click.

I will use an annoying influencer format now on:

Let me know what you want from this newsletter! 🙌

I work for you, because you are my people 🧑‍🤝‍🧑, and I live for fans.

Please leave a comment and maybe get into a fight 🔥 there, which will create engagement, and Substack will think I am popular 🥵. I will grow my follower base, and then something very wonderful, yet nebulous, will happen 🌈.

Let me know what you want from me. I live to serve.