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A list of things for July 2024

By Jen Myers —
Wide lake horizon with clear pale blue sky above and below blue-green waves breaking onto a sandy beach
A view of Lake Michigan from the far north side of Chicago on the 26th of July in 2024

Last week I turned forty-three years old. It seemed like a momentous occasion until the day of, and then it seemed rather normal. Getting older seems to be a lot of that. In any case, I haven't felt as much impulse to reflection as I usually do around my birthday. I'd rather just sit on the beach and listen to the lake. I'm working on presence.

I'm still finding equilibrium in my new home and some other new things that have cycled in. July went quickly and quietly. I have only a couple of items of note for the month, but here they are.

  1. I posted one roundup of links, books, movies and music of note: Recently: 30 July 2024.
  2. My little horror film podcast Quiet Little Horrors released two episodes on faux documentary and demonic possession: Late Night with the Devil and Ghostwatch.
  3. I didn't note this last month, but June marked a full year I've been sending newsletters on via this platform. I also realized that it's a full ten years since I first began sending newsletters in general. If any old timers are still around, they might remember I started my previous newsletter Modern Adventuress over on TinyLetter in April of 2014. I later moved to Substack and then to a self-hosted Ghost instance which melted down early last year. And so I restarted here in June of 2023. It's been pretty comfortable. No matter how long you've been around, thanks for receiving these digital messages in so many bottles. I hope that they've made some openings somewhere.
  4. "I don’t believe in signs — I don’t believe that this immense impartial universe concerns itself with the fate of any one of us motes of stardust, that it is giving us personalized clues as to how to live our tiny transient lives. But I do believe in omens. Omens are the conversation between consciousness and reality, between the self and the unconscious. We make our own omens by the meaning we confer upon chance events, and it is the making of meaning that makes us human, that makes us capable of holding something as austere and total as the universe, as time, as love without breaking." Maria Popova.

I'm finding myself spending less and less time on social media these days, but when I am, I'm over at Bluesky. If you enjoy the newsletter, please feel free to spread the word in whichever places you tend to frequent. As always, you can reach me by email, should you wish to do such a thing, at [email protected].

Thank you for reading! I'm grateful for you. 🖤