Before & After

For a clean up 🧽

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A before and after shot of the adult business ad vans. See more on my Instagram.

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A Trip Down Memory Lane

My latest newsletter is out. Subscribe here. In this week’s edition, I ponder my life choices, consider the dominatrix, and contemplate the role of the sex doll during a global pandemic.

An excerpt:

“ […] but that all sounded so boring, and then I thought it would be more interesting to write about a guy who makes sex dolls and says they’re ‘a perfect COVID-19 companion’ because they ‘can be enjoyed without another individual in the room — and yet it feels as if there is.’ […]”

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High Anxiety

😬 New #pandemicfiction in my Stories

I’m back to posting my #pandemicfiction on my Instagram feed. Check out the Pandemic Highlight folder for the archives and a complete version of this one.

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A Portrait of the Writer in Solitary Isolation

In April, The New York Times asked readers to submit short essays on what it was like to live alone during the coronavirus pandemic. I submitted my story, but it wasn’t chosen for publication. (You can see the stories that were chosen here.)

In any case, here’s my story:

After I got divorced in October 2017, I waited a few months, and then I started dating. Since, I've gone out on exactly 22 first dates. I know this because I kept a list. Or, more specifically, I maintained a list of what the men I went out on dates with did for a living.

Initially, my goal was to go on 21 first dates. I decided that was my magical number. I'm an introvert, so going out on first dates isn't the easiest thing for me. To get myself to go out on those dates, which I procured through the dating websites and apps to which I belonged, I made 21 first dates my goal. Surely, if I went out on that many first dates, I'd meet the love of my life. Wouldn't I?

Instead, I went out with six attorneys, three pilots, a political lobbyist, a creative director, the guy who was the prom king of the senior class at Berkeley High School when I was a sophomore, a doctor, a carpenter, an NBA recruiter, an executive at a faucet company, a guy in health marketing, an investment banker, a guy in music marketing, a racehorse trainer, a guy in the cannabis business, and a guy who creates augmented reality projects for art galleries and the entertainment business.

Ultimately, none of those first dates ever really went anywhere. I saw a few more than once, and I dated one of the pilots, who lived in Colorado but flew through Burbank, where I live, on a regular basis, but nothing had legs. I wondered if it was me, or if it was them, or if it was the fact that I was getting older. I thought maybe I was too much, or maybe I wasn't enough, or maybe it was that I'm 6'1" and that kind of narrows my options.

Then the pandemic arrived. I kept browsing the dating apps, but I let go of the fantasy that I might meet someone at such a great remove under such calamitous circumstances. Instead, I focused on other things. I started writing more. I vacuumed the floor. I created some art. I quit coloring my hair. I stopped waxing my brows. For four weeks, I shaved neither my legs nor my armpits. Left to my own devices, I was going feral.

In the bubble of my apartment, which is located in a complex that was built in the sixties and has a pale yellow stove and a baby pink tiled bathroom, I felt the way I'd wanted to feel on all those first dates with all those guys: like I was enough. When the dates stopped, the world disappeared. It was just me, alone, at last, in these rooms of my own, creating, recreating, and transforming into whoever I'll be when we reemerge.

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Things I Did While Self-Isolating

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1. Revised a podcast series proposal

2. Wrote a book proposal

3. Started a novel

4. Wrote a short story

5. Wrote a podcast episode pitch

6. Launched a newsletter: “The Valley”

7. Wrote a submission for a “Modern Love” New York Times series on self-isolating

8. Flaneured

9. Took a lot of photographs

10. Posed naked on the internet

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The Solodemic

Last week, I came across a “Modern Love” call on The New York Times website. They were looking for personal stories from people who are self-isolating solo. I wrote my version relatively quickly and submitted it online. I don’t know yet whether it will be published, but I’ll post an update here. If The New York Times doesn’t publish it, I’ll either submit it elsewhere or publish it on my blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

After I got divorced in October 2017, I waited a few months, and then I started dating. Since, I've gone out on exactly 22 first dates. I know this because I kept a list. Or, more specifically, I maintained a list of what the men I went out on dates with did for a living.

Want to hire me? Learn more here or email me here. Subscribe to my newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Read The Hustler Diaries here.

Week in Review

This week, I:

1. Had a Skype audition with a reality TV casting director

2. Posted more pandemic fictions

3. Updated this blog daily

4. Wrote a short story and submitted it to an online publication, which rejected it

5. Was approached by a producer to create a pitch for a podcast episode, which was rejected

6. Was rejected for a national fellowship I applied to months ago

7. Continued reading Jerry Saltz’s How to be an Artist

8. Started doing yoga again

9. Posted a series of freelance writing tips to LinkedIn

10. Worked on a book and a podcast that I can’t talk about yet

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The Umbrella

Recently, the Getty Museum put out a call for people to select their favorite artwork from the collection and recreate it with three items found around the house. I chose Robert Mapplethorpe’s 1980 portrait of Lisa Lyon.

Me, 2020, Susannah Breslin

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A Pandemic Love Story

From my Pandemic Fictions series with animated versions on Twitter / Instagram.

Want to support what I do? Buy a copy of my digital short story: THE TUMOR.

Sex Work Pandemic

If you’ve not seen it yet, check out my Pandemic Fictions series. You can also see animated versions of some of them on Twitter and Instagram.

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Today

Today I went outside for the first time since last Monday. The air appeared to be fresher, and the smell of blooming flowers in a neighboring house seemed more pungent. There were a few cars driving a few blocks away, and there were a few people walking around, but not many. As I was walking back, I saw a man walking towards me. He was about a half a block away. As soon as he saw me, he crossed to the other side of the street. I guess you could say he was a Pandemic Gentleman.

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