Week Fifty-Two
happy one year baby <3
IN:
doing your own manicure at home
box breathing
restless leg syndrome
Roland-Garros refusing to publicly call themselves “The French Open”
a crisp white t-shirt
celebration cookies!!
OUT:
extremely cold offices (I can’t feel the tips of my fingers)
spam calls to your office line
being inconsistent or flakey, when you say you’re going to do something — DO IT
having to wash your favorite crisp white t-shirt and dyeing it blue by accident
unsolicited opinions
Amanda and West’s entire vibes during the entire first episode of the Summer House reunion — talk about out of touch!
BFFR:
OUT: being inconsistent or flakey, when you say you’re going to do something — DO IT
Wow. A full year of The B List.
Who would have thought that a silly side project idea that I decided to pursue on a whim during dinner with a friend (shout out George who helped me make my Substack profile at Leo) would become something that I would consistently turn to each week for levity, creativity, and a sense of grounding. No matter what I had going on, I was going to post a goddamn B List on Friday and a B-Side on Monday!!!
And boy, was there a lot going on this year, but especially at the beginning of this journey.
Honestly, even though it’s been a year, I’m still not far enough removed from it (or “healed” as the girlies would say) to get into it all too deep on the capital ‘I’ Internet, but I am sure that day will come, slowly, slowly. It may seem like The B List has been a place for me to dump all of my oversharing, but you have to know (as savvy internet/social media users) that there are always layers to authenticity.
Now, if my actual handwritten journals got out, I’d be fucked.*
*(If you’ve seen my handwriting, you know that’s actually not the case, because none of you would be able to decipher that mess of a half-script nonsense).
But enough about that, let’s go back to a year ago: Substack had come into the office for a meeting, and I knew absolutely zero about this platform — but everyone else seemingly did! I felt so out of touch, and I HATE feeling out of the loop! There I was nodding along as if I was Emily Sundberg’s biggest fan (when truly you could’ve said “Feed Me” to me and I’d stare at you blankly), realizing that I had to figure this out before I was found out. (Kind of like how people dramatically talk about AI, get a grip, it’s just like a fancy version of Google, you’ll be fine).
I started looking into the webpage and realized the site felt a whole lot like if Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr decided to join forces. How hard could it be to do something fun on there? Get in on the ground level? Sound really knowledgeable about this new platform if colleagues/clients start asking about it? I also have always loved posting on IG as if I’m a faux-influencer — how fun could it be to take that to a whole new level? Turn into a blogger circa 2012.
I explained a bit of this in my first post, “The B List: The Origin Story,” but my in-office IN/OUT list had to be the basis of my page. It was not only the easiest thing, but also (as you can see), as a girl with so many opinions on things that most people don’t take a second to think about, it felt really right for me. And if I was going to be consistent, then this had to be something I wanted to do. All of my colleagues also made it clear — consistency on these platforms is key, and I was not about to embarrass myself in front of a bunch of literary agents who would then think I can’t stay true to my word!! That would kill me (read: I care too much about what people think, and would say, about me)!!
I spent an afternoon/evening using Canva to create the header and page logo (I guess I should’ve used AI, but whatever). I made a cute little flier that I was going to post on IG announcing the page, and on my Substack landing page. I made little business cards and stickers on Canva as well, which I still have and will randomly try to post wherever I go. I made decisions and stuck with them without second-guessing (something that is an insane feat for me). But there was truly no pressure! Ish!! No pressure-ish!
The first day I was schedule-send, ready to post The B List’s first post on Friday at 8am I went with Kate and Cappie to 12 Matcha, to be first in that crazy line when they opened (but mostly to be in a space where I wasn’t pacing in my apartment, refreshing to make sure all published ok). Of course, it didn’t really publish ok and half of my friends and family were messaging me that they didn’t get the email or that it wasn’t showing up on the app correctly. And naturally, being with two Google software engineers at the time, I found a way to yell at them over my frustrations with Substack’s software engineers’ lack of skill (misdirected anger, very good quality of mine). But it was fine!
It published!
So off to the races I went, writing Week One, Week Two, Week Three — it felt easy! It was fun! I wanted to pivot to video so fast, but also knew I had (have) a full-time job and video takes way more editing than just writing (still not giving up on the video dream, I swear more people would find this a fascinating anthropological mess if they could hear me talk about it). So instead of video (sad), I started adding more photos to my posts with “witty” (subjective) captions instead, and then I read Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley and realized I needed to share my absurd love for music and lyrics with everyone, too! Ohhhh she’s a millennial who loooooves taking photos of everything and looooves finding the meaning in songs — how rare!! How special!!
So was born The B-Side, both the Deep Cuts section and the B-Roll section, which I eventually split into a whole new publication day (Mondays) at the advisement of one of those very invested literary agent colleagues I told you about.
With my activity-forward friend group and my natural love and instinct to post about the things I’m doing, writing The B List and The B-Side all summer long was a great way to keep track of and document the fun things I was doing. (I will say my IG stories and post-game have fallen off, but I will work on that.) But as the summer turned into fall and the fall turned into winter (the coldest winter I’ve ever experienced), I’d be lying if I didn’t say there were weeks where I was tired, or “nothing exciting” happened in my life that week, or I truly just forgot that “holy fuck I have a B List I have to write tomorrow.” Happened more often than I’d like to admit…
But this is where this week’s OUT comes into play: consistency isn’t about being perfect! Every day, week, or month won’t be your best, but continuing to show up for yourself is all that matters. Like Pilates and me — when I had done egg freezing back in November and then traveled a bunch right after and had to pause my steady weekly Pilates routine for 2 months, I was miserable. And then it felt impossible to get back into it (and I felt overall bleh and ugly. Sorry, but I still haven’t really recovered from that, we’re working on it…pretty sure I just need a tan). And now, a few months later, I am regaining my consistency (and if anyone or anything tries to throw it off, I am throwing a toddler-level hissy fit, I swear to god) and remembering how good it feels to show up for myself.
I would say that’s the overarching lesson I’ve learned from this past year: consistently showing up is the ultimate form of self-love and self-care. I have an amazing support system in my life, lots of people who really, truly care about me in so many different beautiful ways, but all of that really means nothing if I don’t care for and show up for myself. The B List has been that creative, consistent outlet for me. The place that I show up each week, clock in, trauma dump, or brain dump, or word vomit all over this blank page, and then share with whoever cares to join me on the journey! I often struggle with decision-making, or questioning whether I’ve made the right choice or if I am about to make the right choice, decision fatigue, or “issues with executive functioning” (the Internet’s new favorite thing to call it), all of the above — but grounding myself through consistent (non-harmful or obsessive) tasks has helped me tremendously. Ok, so maybe I thought The B List was kind of mid this week, or I forgot to write it until 10pm the night before, so it ends up being about something other than what I wish I could’ve written about because I just don’t have the time to do that other topic justice — well, there’s always next week! We just have to keep moving.
I do think we’re unfortunately (myself included) growing far too accustomed to avoiding situations or tasks that ask a lot of us, or seem inconvenient, or not exactly perfectly what we want, because we’re all in our selfish silos. But if you make a promise to yourself (or to someone else) that you’re going to put in the work and stick it out, then you owe that self-love and self-care to yourself (and to your community) to see it through.
I thought if I could at least make it through one year of The B List, I could then call it a wrap and put a nice bow on this year-long experiment. But now I’ve grown attached!! I don’t want to let go just yet, I’d be too sad!! So maybe I’ll try to think of new fun ways to switch it up, and keep everyone on their toes (still really holding out for video), but for now we are keeping things consistent!!
Thank you, Listers, for continuing to join me on this journey — I would be screaming into the void if not for all of you. And feel free to keep sharing The B List with whoever you’d like — it’s not that deep!! Low barrier to entry!!
Here’s to 52 more weeks!!
Xx,
B
P.S. I know that my first B List post was actually June 6th — which then naturally got me in my head thinking I had skipped a week or missed a week but I double checked 50 thousand times (again, hint, this entire Substack was created as a way for me to escape my severe anxiety, but jokes on me, constantly double checking the week number every week and now again to make sure I didn’t misnumber — anxiety cured for sure!). And I’m not good at math, or calendars, or abstract thinking in ways that deal with numbers (I am a lawyer, sue me), but I promise you this is Week Fifty-Two and there are 52 weeks in a year!!!
The aura I’ve always tried to exude each week <3
My Canva creations from a year ago <3
And more cookie photos <3
Let’s go back to 12 matcha 💚