This is my last week of book tour for How To Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay and I have conflicting emotions because touring can be hard with anxiety and chronic illness, but it’s also so uplifting to see people in real life and remind myself that the work I do does make a difference even when my mind says otherwise. It can be so easy to listen to the lies that depression tells, and it helps me refill my cup in a way that I can’t explain.
I suspect that you also probably have no idea how much the work you do in your own life (including the work of just being human, kind, and yourself) makes ripples in fantastic ways you’ll never see, but never doubt that it does.
I drew a lot last week because I was in a depression and it helped, but my brain wouldn’t work enough to put together the words I wanted on the drawings so instead of showing you the three unfinished sketches that I’m still working on, here’s a drawing from the book that I’ve been reminding myself of during this depression:
“Don’t begrudge yourself happiness.”
Because there isn’t enough joy in life to just let it pass you by. When it arrives, celebrate it…enjoy it…don’t let guilt or the drudgery of life get in the way of grabbing joy and whimsy and relief whenever it comes and however it shows up. Because you deserve it.
And I do too.
And when this depression passes completely I want to be ready for it.
Do you remember last month when everyone was so excited about Moon Joy as we watched Artemis II? I have a confession to make.
I did not watch it.
Perhaps a combination of my anxiety plus a little leftover trauma of watching in Challenger live in Elementary school? Regardless, I couldn’t enjoy it until I knew that they were safely back home, but then I did a deep dive and that is why I am forever experiencing pop-culture moments behind the rest of the world. It’s also why this week I decided to draw something that might have been more timely before, but I suspect you will forgive me.
It reminded me of how amazing space is…of exploration and joy…and of the idea that we are each an actual part of the magic of that universe, even when we feel that we are so tiny and unremarkable.
So this is just a reminder to you that you are truly made of stardust. Nearly all of the elements in your body where made in a star, and many have come through several supernovas. The actual iron in your body is from a star going supernova. So if today you are feeling small, remember that you are magic in astounding ways.
PS. I know I normally just talk art here but I thought maybe you’d want to see this. Yesterday I started fostering a feral rescue kitten to try to fill the kitty-sized hole in my heart right now and I’m pretty sure this tiny, nameless orange gentleman will not be leaving us because omg, y’all.
I am two days late on sending this because I was stuck in a depression and it ate all of my extra energy. I started and stopped several drawings because I’m not sure if I didn’t like them or if I just didn’t like me very much. My dr recommended sun and exercise and other things that sound very easy when you are not depressed and it reminded me of a poem my mom read to me so often I’d almost memorized it. (All of A.A. Milne’s poems are the songs of my childhood.) If you hate poetry, skip this part.
The poem always made me feel both cozy and sad at the same time, which was a confusing thing for a small child but also a combination that my brain would grow to specialize in.
It reminded me that recently I’d read that tiny harvest mice have been found asleep in flower beds and so I decided to draw that:
“Sometimes harvest mice will crawl into flowers to feast on the pollen and stamens and will fall asleep inside.”
The drawing is simple and plain and fairly unimpressive, but it made me feel warm inside my heart and that is a very special sort of magic.
This is all a very long way of saying that whimsy and comfort and coziness and nostalgia and joy are all worth more than we give them credit for…whether in drawing mice or reading poems from childhood or eating nectar and drunkenly falling asleep inside flowers.
I am leaving for the second part of my book tour in 10 hours and I have not done laundry, packed, or (if I’m being honest) unpacked from the first leg of book tour. In spite of the fact that the first stops were so lovely and fun and filled with fellow weirdos who completely understood my anxiety, I am once again convinced that everyone will hate me and no one will show up and probably I will be eaten by sea lions. So right now I am writing this to you and reminding myself that everything will be okay.
I did lots of little drawings this week but Hunter S. Thomcat is laying on my sketch pad and I don’t want to move him so instead I’m sharing a drawing from the book because I drew it when I was having a high anxiety week and it feels fitting to come back to it now. Just a reminder that even when things feels scary, you can always make a little oasis in your mind. My spell check tried to change that to “you can always make a little oatmeal in your mind” and I’m feeling very relieved that I caught that because that’s even weirder than my normal letters to you.
This week I’ve been struggling a little with the fact that I can’t do all of the things that I want to. My book comes out next week (you’re in it!) and I feel so excited and lucky but also terrified and filled with dread. I worry people won’t like it…that no one will show up to the book tour…that I’m failing my publisher because I can’t do some of the things that most authors would jump at because I just don’t have the energy or mental strength to say yes to everything without making myself sick. I even felt a little bad about drawing this week when I probably should be doing author stuff.
But then I reminded myself that I need this quiet drawing time (is it considered “quiet” when I’m doing it while binging Dexter? I say yes.) to keep myself sane and to replenish my energy and to remind myself that I am more than just my work, and that it’s okay to not work yourself to exhaustion even if it’s for something you love.
I suspect we all struggle with this. Perhaps as parents or partners or in our career…the urge to try to be more than our bodies and minds allow, but not being able to because you are…human. It’s so easy to put ourselves last when it’s for something else that you care about.
“There is a fine line between beautiful and suffocating. Don’t forget to leave room for yourself.”
So this is a reminder from me to you to make time for yourself if you can. To rest. To create. To refill your cup. There is so much beauty in what we do for others, for our work and for our passions…but there is also a necessary beauty in what we do for ourselves…a beauty we often forget.
Sending love (and quiet moments of calm repose even when watching serial killer shows)
This morning I was in New York filming the Today Show where I managed to talk about explosive diarrhea, fears of my foot falling off, apologized for using my hands too much, sat on them, promptly pulled my hands back out bc I can’t talk without them and then made all the anchors put pencils in their mouths…all within about 4 minutes. By this afternoon I was in Amish country in Pennsylvania where I met some very nice “fancy Amish” people (this is a real thing) and did not pet a horse even though I really wanted to. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be in Lancaster for my first tour stop and signing even though technically my book doesn’t officially come out until Tuesday. Then it’s back to NYC, and then a stop in New Hampshire for another reading and signing and then I get to go home for a week to rest for the next round. I’m feeling tired, happy, lucky, scared, excited, embarrassed…all of the things. Oh, and did I mention my first book got banned from a Texas high school after a senate bill deemed it obscene and profane? It’s been a busy week. I would link to everything but I can’t figure out how to do this with my phone
I should have written all this before I left but i was overwhelmed with packing all the wrong things and so instead I’m writing this tonight, on the eve of my first new book event in over half a decade, to distract myself from the fear and from the incredibly loud but very happy drunken wedding taking place two rooms down from mine. It feels like you’re here, in a weird way. I know that’s strange, but it’s comforting.
I’ve drawn in planes and cars and green rooms to keep my hands and mind busy but it’s a jerky mess so instead I’m sharing a drawing from my new book, because it seems fitting while I’m traveling so much in spite of the fact that I never know where I am. It’s an adventure, after all, if I look at it with the right kind of eyes.
It’s a blog entry by Jenny Lawson, about one of her books. I haven’t been able to open her WP blog for a few weeks, now; I get the page that says it’s an unsafe connection. I either don’t know how, or can’t get a whole post in the WP Reader, but I did get this whole post in email, so I’ll copy & paste it here. Jenny is funny, but this is not good news about Texas and literacy.
This is not what I wanted to write. I wanted to write about how I’m about to go on book tour for my new book in a few days. Instead I am writing about the fact that I was just informed that my first book Let’s Pretend This Never Happened was banned from the high school library of a nearby town I love and visit often.
Honestly, I’m not that upset about my book being banned. I’ve had so many letters from young people who felt they’d been helped by my books but it does have some profanity and so I can understand the reasoning even if I disagree with it. What I am upset about is the stories about how New Braunfels ISD has pulled more that 1,500 books from their school library shelves after the Texas’ Republican-backed book banning law (senate bill 13) passed. The bill ordered all public school libraries to review books for “profane” and “indecent” content and I guess Let’s Pretend This Never Happened was deemed too dangerous for high schoolers.
Weirdly, my book was not on the original list of the 1,500 books triggered for review on March 13 but a week ago it was added to the New Braunfels ISD website as being removed for being “non-compliant”. (I’ve been called worse.) I guess 1,500 books weren’t enough. But then, it’s never enough for book banners.This is going to happen more and more. It used to be a rarer thing…almost a badge of courage to have a book banned. Now? It’s everywhere…this war against books and ideas and people. Reading is how you fall in love with people different from you, and how you develop compassion for them…because if you love them, you want to protect them. But there are some people who don’t want you to love others. They need you to fear them.
Books save lives. They have saved mine. Books are safety nets for so many of us, and right now those nets are being cut.The list of banned books is incredible in length and includes so many that I adore. Equally upsetting is the fact that so many classics that shaped me have been pulled from the shelves and placed into restricted sections where they can only be accessed by students enrolled in Advanced Placement Literature, because God forbid a normal high school student would want to read the works of dangerous writers like *checks the list* Jane Austen and Emily Brontë (whose name they misspelled).
Sometimes it feels like we’re living in A Brave New World (restricted) and that the book burning of Fahrenheit 451 (restricted) is closer than ever, with no Sense and Sensibility (restricted) about what this will cost. It feels like we’re going through The Crucible (restricted) and are caught in a Catch-22 (restricted) where we can’t convince people how terrible it is to ban books because they either don’t know the power of books or they absolutely know it and fear it. It’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (banned) how book banners go out on some kind of A Discovery of Witches (banned) and fight against Acceptance (banned) and of diversity, while we are losing All The Beauty in the World (banned). America is a Beautiful Country (banned) in so many ways, but we will lose so much of that beauty if we don’t make Changes (banned) to cherish and embrace and grow what makes us Educated (banned) and compassionate. The diversity of voices is necessary…it is a reflection of who we are and who we want to be. A plethora of ideas and voices and experiences…This Is What America Looks Like (banned). We can’t just pretend that Everything’s Fine (banned) and that this is just an overreaction of Anxious People (banned). Do you think this is what the founding fathers like Alexander Hamilton (banned) envisioned? I’m going to stop here because I’m sure you can see that this dumb paragraph is WAY TOO EASY TO WRITE because there are so many books they have issues with and you probably get the picture already but y’all….Jane Eyre? The Color Purple? The Odyssey? Crime and Punishment?? THIS IS WHAT WE’RE SAVING TEENAGERS FROM?
So what can you do? You can buy books that are being targeted, especially those written by the LGBTQ+ authors or authors of color because they are being targeted the most. Supporting those authors tells publishing to keep producing those books because they are needed. Publishers will lose money if libraries become afraid to purchase books and so we need to make sure that they know the audience is there and greedy for diverse voices. Get a library card and start checking out those books and more, to prove to the government that libraries need funding and that people care about reading. Read to your children. Read in front of your children. Talk online about the books that you love so that your passion ignites others. If you’re a parent you can get involved with your school to make sure this doesn’t happen in your school and you can protest it if it happens. You can vote out the people who seem to be obsessed with freedom, but mainly when it’s their freedom to take away yours and your children’s. You can run against school board members who are book banners and show up at the meetings. You can keep updated by following organizations like PEN AMERICA, or the Texas Freedom to Read Project or Authors Against Book Bans.
*deep breath*
This is probably filled with typos and is not really the sort of thing that I should be writing the day before I leave to start my book tour but it’s important. When books and thoughts and people are suppressed, we all lose. Keep fighting the good fight, friends. It’s worth it.
I’m a little late on this because yesterday I opened up the James Garfield Miracle and so I’ve been giving out free stuffed animals to people who need them. It’s a weird, long story but basically an ancient taxidermied boar inspired a holiday giveaway for kids by strangers to strangers 16 years ago and we just kept doing it each year. It’s on the blog right now if you need help or want to help. Over 275 kids have been sent new plushies in the last 18 hours.
I’m giving out 150 myself and that’s funded by in part by you here in my substack and by the 2026 calendar I made with this years drawings so if you are reading here then you have already helped with this years James Garfield Miracle and I love you. I may not ever get to hug you all in person but I hope you can feel this:
I still have more stuffed animals to give out because people keep beating me to filling the wishlists and HOW AMAZING IS THAT?
There was even a person who once was a recipient as a child years ago and is now filling wishlists for others.
(Below was supposed to be another happy, sniffly image but my computer was apparently uncomfortable with my emotions and offered me this instead and it made me laugh so now you have to see it.)
Aaaanyway, I have to get back to it, but first, the drawing for this week is one I started long ago and just finished because somehow it feels really fitting.
“Together we rise, we soar, we touch the stars. We cannot quit. Together.”
Last week when I was flying home I was scanning the ocean because I’m always certain that I’ll see Godzilla or a sea serpent if I look hard enough, but instead I saw a rainbow from the plane window and it was a perfect circle over the ocean. I was so excited I hit my head on the window and scared the person behind me. I didn’t have time to capture it on my phone but I shook Victor awake and was like, “YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW OUTSIDE THE WINDOW” and he said, “Was it a colonial woman churning butter on the wing?” and I was like, “…yep…that’s exactly what it was” because a circular rainbow feels anticlimactic after that guess.
Aaanyway, that leads to this week’s drawing, which I’m fairly certain counts as a scientific illustration:
By thebloggess on March 25, 2026
Scottie's Playtime 