39 Comments
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Henning Fog's avatar

"If you cut me open, you’d find the ocean." If you cut me open, you'd find Jack in the Box loaded tiny tacos but I like the poetry of your surgery way better

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J Wortham's avatar

it takes what it takes!

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Leonor's avatar

🍒 seasonnnn. thanks for the reminder.

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Mercedes Kraus's avatar

Really great reminders on all fronts. 🍒 I’m grateful to read this today

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J Wortham's avatar

just trying to be in service !

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Bougie Hippie's avatar

black cherries are good. i also like green seedless grapes

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Alison Lancaster Beckner's avatar

I looooove psychic alternate nostril breathing / Prana Dharas. It quickly becomes really easy to do on your own. Tracee Stanley teaches a gorgeous version, too.

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J Wortham's avatar

Oh wow, I have to check that out 🥰

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Alison Lancaster Beckner's avatar

Auto-correct misspelled Prana Dharana - oops. Here is a link to a few free resources that I have created: https://www.redthread.love/resources and here is Tracee: https://www.traceestanley.com/

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Francesca Krihely-Price's avatar

I’m so glad I read this today. Cherries and CHANI are exactly what I needed and you helped redirect me 🙏🏼bless

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Alexander Guerrero's avatar

I so appreciate seeing your newsletters in my inbox, your words always feel like a gift. Here’s a cherry recipe : https://www.davidlebovitz.com/cherry-clafoutis-recipe/

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J Wortham's avatar

Oh my gosh this looks PERFECT thank you

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Francesca Krihely-Price's avatar

This recipe is SO good.

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Jobu's avatar

1. thanks for the tiktok on Queer Ultimatum S2. I found myself really struggling to make my way through it. i really wanted to like it, but it was a bit boring. that condo complex felt like hell. and yes re: Brittany (she deserved to get more love). Let's have a Queer Survivor plz!

2. the pics from the dyke march looked cute. it's delightful to see such badass humans finding joy in this moment.

3. as someone who appears to have such robust queer community, i'd be curious to hear how you have formed it through the years. i imagine much of it is through the work and art you make and through living in Brooklyn for many years. how has it evolved and how do you engage in community amidst your many projects? (asking as someone who has come out as queer in their late 30s and is seeking community)

4. grateful for you!

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J Wortham's avatar

1. RIGHT??

2. It’s my favorite part of the weekend, for sure

3. Ooh maybe I’ll do an essay on this

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Jobu's avatar

Sorry in advance for being long-winded (it's a problem!)

re: #3

Reading your Survival School piece alongside Ezra Klein’s Abundance and Dean Spade’s Love in a Fcked Up World* cracked something open for me. I live in LA, a place where the housing crisis, climate fear, and NIMBY environmentalism all collide—and as a parent of a toddler, I feel that impulse to close off and bunker down stronger than ever, even as I know that urge is part of the problem.

Klein’s call to embrace abundance feels in tension with the scarcity-driven bunkering that feels so seductive in these times. Dean Spade’s rejection of the romance myth and societal scripts resonates deeply, too, as I think about how these scripts shape not only how we relate to others but also how we think about safety and survival itself. Your piece captured how prepping can become another individualist escape fantasy—and how actual survival, the kind that matters, is relational: learning to rely on others, letting yourself be affected, staying open to the world even as it burns.

I find myself wondering how folx hold that line between keeping a foothold in possibility and protecting their capacity, how one cultivates community that remains open while avoiding the bunker mentality, and how the practices of friendship and art-making evolve amidst these apocalypses we live through daily. Now that I'm voicing this aloud, I realize that's what "channeling" is mostly about.

I guess Always Be Craftin’ doesn’t only apply to spoons in the jungle, but also to the daily work of building the worlds we want to survive for.

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Marcy Jackson's avatar

I understand the nervous system overload/overwhelm too. I recently completed a course called Primal Trust, by Dr. Cathleen King. I absolutely love it! Level 1 is all about physically learning how to help regulate your vagus nerve. Level 2 is about learning about who you really are, learning and living your values. I highly recommend it.

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J Wortham's avatar

running not walking!

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Tricia's avatar

I downloaded the meditation app, thank you.

I completed the first week of Chani’s course, and *boop* adhd. I will go back now.

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J Wortham's avatar

the distracted space out and determined return is one of my fave adhd traits tbh

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Rene Lozzi's avatar

I really appreciate your thoughts and perspective. it’s grounding in a moment when it feels hard to catch my breath. Sharing something that brought me a little joy this week: a cherry and beet salad recipe I love.

https://open.substack.com/pub/flamingfare/p/flaming-fare-when-the-food-hits-just?r=7ik30&utm_medium=ios

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J Wortham's avatar

🤤🤤🤤

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Kerrilynn Pamer's avatar

Thank you for this, I just signed up for the chani 28 day course thanks to you ❤️

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J Wortham's avatar

Please tell me how it goes! (If that feels comfortable)

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Kerrilynn Pamer's avatar

I definitely will. Also, just found your substack recently and it's quickly become a favorite ❤️

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Lise K. Ragbir's avatar

This is a balm. 💝

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J Wortham's avatar

ilu

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Rebecca Steinitz's avatar

That is an excellent interview, thank you. I swim in the late afternoon because logistics, but I just switched up my mornings to rolling out of bed and taking a substantive walk without my phone. It’s doing wonders.

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J Wortham's avatar

i also like to swim late! its very both/and for me

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J Wortham's avatar

Forgive all the typos everyone! I'm doing the best I can :)

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Alexander Chee's avatar

Love you, friend, thanks for this, especially the excellent reminder of Chani’s class, which I’ve been telling myself I’m too busy to do. Agree about swimming though I haven’t yet tried the morning swim as a grown person (I was a competitive swimmer in middle school and high school).

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J Wortham's avatar

of course you were!

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