🎈 Tomorrow is my birthday 🎈so here's my yearly birthday request:
Listen, I'm going to be really honest with you. I absolutely love the work I do, I love getting to educate and advocate on my own terms, I love being able to talk about tough, awkward subjects in a way that is accessible and educational, and I love the community that I have built around the need for this work.
Tomorrow is my birthday, and it'd be a really lovely gift if you considered supporting me this year.
If you like spice: Mostlypans is still, by a long shot, how I am able to continue the work I do and bring you quality content across all of my other platforms for free. Over there you'll find photos, videos, body-doubling sessions, education, encouragement, livestreams, the opportunity to request custom content, how-to vids and a guaranteed response if you DM me.
If you're looking for a non-spicy way to support:
I have a patreon. Full disclosure, I don't use it for much (although I'm trying to get back into it), and the folks over there simply consider it a monthly donation for the content I put out every day for free.
If you are not in a place to support financially: I get it. Trust me. In that case, the best thing you can do is to help me spread the word. Share my videos, let people know about my book and my tour, tag folks in the comments of my stuff who you think might enjoy it.
Catieosaurus continues to be community-built and community funded, and going into the tour and the book and everything, I could really use your support.
Even $5 a month is incredibly helpful to keeping my mission of education and advocacy free for everyone. I'd love it if you considered supporting me.
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Anyway back to our regularly scheduled programming:
I'd say Happy Newsletter this week, but it feels disingenuous given the news.
I’m writing this sick. Like actually sick. I spent all last week sick, and then today, I got violently ill, again (fun story it was in the MIDDLE of a meeting about my show how embarassing for me).
My body aches, my brain is foggy, my executive function is fully in the toilet. I don't know about you, but being sick absolutely destroys my ability to do basically anything that requires sequencing, prioritizing, or momentum. I'm exhausted. Everything feels harder than it should. Simple tasks feel like unsurmountable mountain climbs, and that's even if I can figure out a task to DO- my brain keeps doing that thing where it just kind of loading screens while I stare into the middle distance trying to figure out WHAT I should be doing.
On its own, that’s annoying but survivable.
What makes it worse is feeling like this while everything else is also loud and on fire and demanding a response.
The last couple days/weeks/months/election cycle depending on how you're counting have been a lot. And now, Renee Good in Minnesota. The violence. The fear. The grief of it all. The rage. The sense of injustice. The sense of horror. And then immediately, the arguing. The fighting. The politicizing. The constant chorus of why weren’t you mad about THIS thing, what about THIS other thing, why didn’t you say it THIS way, why didn’t you say it fast enough, why didn’t you say it RIGHT, why didn't you say anything at all? People are angry, people are hurting, but over and over and over I see people sowing division and purity testing and criticizing and judging. And I just get so frustrated.
Trying to hold all of that, all the time, is exhausting. i try my best to be vocal about justice, about the slow creep of facism, about my beliefs in good and hope and change, but I'll be honest- the constant scrutiny creates burnout. It creates compassion fatigue. It creates this impossible standard where caring means you must always be available, always articulate, always correct, and always emotionally regulated in public. Forever.
And layered on top of that, I am also supposed to be selling tickets to my show.
A show that was meant to be an escape from all of this, a night of chaos and magic and joy and surprise. A show that, if I’m being honest, is starting to feel like it’s driftingREAL hard from whackity schmackity into “what if I ranted about fascism for an hour?" but then I have to literally worry about censorship, about contracts being cancelled.
I dunno. I feel like I can't win.
There’s a real tension right now between what’s in my heart, what I feel like I have to say, and what I actually have the capacity to hold for me, personally, and for you, my community. I don’t want to pretend everything is fine. I also don’t want every room I walk into to feel like a non-top onslaught of fuckin' bummers. I want my show to bring joy and meaning and honesty. I have to believe there is a balance, that there is a way to do both.
And hey guess what! Tickets got sold, and knowing that there were some of y'all waiting at 10:01AM to get a Good Seat means the world to me. Genuinely. I did watch the Eras Tour documentary right before tickets went on sale so I might have set myself up for disappointment slightly when we didn't break the internet, but tickets are officially on sale, and that means that this is real, it's actually happening, and I can't wait to see you all there.
I feel disingenuous not acknowledging where I'm at, but I also feel disingenuous not ending on hope, because that's still something I deeply believe in, even if my attempts may be slightly scrappy and imperfect.
It's weird selling a show and promoting a book while the world is on fire. But I still believe in making things. I still believe that there is power when we gather in rooms together. I still believe that joy, absurdity, art, and community are not frivolous, especially right now. I believe caring deeply does not mean carrying everything all the time, and that sometimes, joy, art, community- doing something in a way that makes sense to you, even if it doesn't make sense to anyone else- that can be a revolutionary act. (Also mostly what my show is about which is *convenient*.
If you’re tired, you’re not broken. If you’re overwhelmed, it's not because you're failing. If you’re oscillating between trapped in doom scroll mode wanting to scream and wanting to throw your phone out the window and go live in a witch cottage in the woods, you’re not alone.
I’m going to keep making the show. I’m going to keep telling the truth as best I can. I’m going to keep choosing moments of lightness alongside the heavy stuff, even when that feels vulnerable or risky, because I think like...I just have to, you know? I don't have another option. I can't not speak up. I can't pretend like everything is fine.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring, thank you for supporting, thank you for buying tickets, thanks for pre-ordering the book, it means the world to me.
“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.”
― Erma Bombeck
Wildly Unprepared: Tickets on sale now
(please buy them so they know people are coming)
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Digestible, clear, and compassionate. Whether you've knowingly struggled with ADHD since childhood, realized you have it as an adult, or you know someone who's been diagnosed and you want to better support them—Osborn and Gude have created a much-needed, modern guide for navigating ADHD in today's world. From practical tips to existential questions, they break down ADHD in an accessible way, and it feels like a loving, no-bullshit best friend is holding your hand on every page. I learned a ton and had a blast doing it.”
Meg Josephson, LCSW
New York Times bestselling author of ARE YOU MAD AT ME?
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