Hey Julia! Love reading the newsletter. Re: solarpunk as a genre, you might like Elvia Wilk's book of essays called Death by Landscape. She's interested in sci-fi storytelling and "new weird" fiction, and her writing has introduced me to a stack of other great books (Emanuele Coccia's 'Metamorphoses' is one) plus about a zillion tabs and saved PDFs on this topic.
I hadn’t given much thought to the extent to which I enjoy being alone together. It turns out I really do love when life allows for those types of experiences. One example that immediately comes to mind: going to museums/art exhibits with loved ones.
I much rather prefer everyone goes their separate ways inside the exhibit and when we are all ready to leave, the conversation of what everyone thought follows. I enjoy learning about each and everyone’s personal digestion of the content just as much as the museum/exhibit itself.
I'm loving these. You are inspiring me to begin a substack of my own. Should I?
On yawning, I learned in my hypnotherapy class that we yawn after someone else because of rapport (or at least one of the reasons), if we don't have rapport with someone (or don't want to show/build rapport) we won't want to yawn with them. I think that is linked with the wolf pack concept of community, as a confirmation that we are in sync.
My name wasn't popular at all before the 70's and only got popular in 2012!! Wow!
You brought a huge smile to my face when you mentioned Solar Punk. I've been researching about it, and could this actually become our future? And without it, do we have a future at all? I wish I could draw environments well to help making these dreamy green communal spaces more present in our collective imagination.
I still have a lot to comment on but this is starting to look like a full book of silly comments, so I'll leave it as is. Please keep posting, I'm loving it. I can feel the amount of love and care you put into each one of these letters.💖
PS. I love the knitted sweater! I tried knitting a scarf and it has huge holes (that I sewed back together), but my yarn ended so it's unfinished. I'm proud of myself for getting that far though :)
I feel like I've spent the past two years ruminating about how I would like to exist in the world. Often I wish I could just be invisible as I moved through the world but able to reappear at will. Say like when I want to order coffee and croissants but then move unbothered through the congested streets near my work.
But I've also spent a lot of time ruminating on themes in horror, one of my favorite genres, and how sometimes I think fear plays a large part of why I feel the compulsion to be alone. When in actuality I'd like to be a part of the world. I love meeting new people and learning new things. So the past couple months I've been borrowing a phrase from the film The Witch "Does thou want to live deliciously". Which to be honest I do! I've been trying to say yes to more activities and invites even when my entire being is screaming to hermit. Even though it's been scary and I feel nervous, I'm glad I've been trying to get out more.
On the note of baking I am beyond excited to start making recipes from Magnus Nilsson's The Nordic Baking Book. It's this absolute tome of recipes that is almost like a culture study and gaze into the history of baking around the nordic countries. In particular I want to try to make an almond sponge cake (Mandelkaka in Sweden). I am however waiting until it feels like the city I live in isn't about to catch on fire haha.
I really wanted to get more into baking recently and I mostly love muffins and cookies. I really wanted to make some banana cookies because I don't think I've ever had those before. Unfortunately, I didn't think about how watery the bananas would make the cookie mix so instead I turned them into muffins! And they were very good
Absolutely loved reading this! As for the muffins, I’m a big fan of the cinnamon butter puffs from Marion Cunningham’s The Breakfast Book. They are not really muffins but they are cinnamon-y and butter-y and perfect.
These bring me so much joy Julia! I feel I exist in a similar kind of zone, I am also an INFJ (apparently we are pretty rare!) and struggle with wanting to be alone but feeling deprived. I find it wonderful to have a best friend who (even though he is in NY and I am in LA) can FaceTime and talk or say absolutely nothing as we both scroll through the internet sometimes checking in with a new tidbit of info. Also walks really help. I can hear and see other people but, if times just right, don’t ever have to have a conversation with anyone!
Now for the muffins - my favorite recipe is just a box Cinnamon streusel muffin because when I was a kid my neighbors would bring some over and I could only have one if I finished my carrots. I guess this stuck with me. 
Really liked this update and your drawings. When I read about your experiences and the way you interact with your community and those around you, it makes me think that maybe it's not the world that is rotten to the core, but that it's just that I'm on the wrong part of it. Please continue making this world better with your art, in any form it takes.
Loved reading your new letter, Julia. Reading it I hear Suzie's voice which isn't weird becuase it is your voice :) Thank you for introducing us to the idea of an ornamental hermit among other pretty stones scatters across your post. Much love x
Being an ornamental hermit sounds amazing. "So, what do you do for a living?" "I hangout in a garden, and I know things." That would be so much fun, spending time leisurely learning about cool new things, while being revered as a source of immense wisdom, having a relaxing garden around, and being mysterious. There aren't any listings for "ornamental hermit" on indeed.com though.
The first thing that came to mind when I read "friends fussing about in a house" was having roommates. I've had a couple of roommate situations in which we could hangout at the apartment, doing separate things, but there were people around to talk to in passing, or even hangout if we wanted to. We could be doing separate things together, like reading books in the same room or something, or more realistically, idly tapping around on our phones. Even being in completely separate rooms not talking to each other feels different than being in an apartment alone. I get the impression that's what "alone together" means, doing independent things, but somehow still having company.
I'm an ISTJ, so I can definitely appreciate that kind of thing.
No social hangover. That's good to hear. I love hearing about little triumphs like that, when things just go well.
I don't have any good muffin recipes - yet - but I can tell you how I'd like to exist in the world. More "alone together" time could be nice. Having the right community and the right friends is pretty important for that kind of thing. Of course, living in Orlando seems to be the wrong place for that. I guess my answer to how I'd like to exist in the world is "somewhere else". lol
There are so many great things here to comment on. Every one of them could be a rabbit hole, leading to its own lengthy conversation. It's all really fascinating stuff. Jenna said it pretty well - "lovely to read". I'll try not to comment an entire article in response to your article though. lol
This is so cool! I did my AP Art sustained investigation on Nostalgia but my research felt rushed and incomplete. It’s so cool to keep learning from other people about it!! I live in a big city and seeing other’s experiences in diving into the community is motivating and so so incredible
Hey Julia! Love reading the newsletter. Re: solarpunk as a genre, you might like Elvia Wilk's book of essays called Death by Landscape. She's interested in sci-fi storytelling and "new weird" fiction, and her writing has introduced me to a stack of other great books (Emanuele Coccia's 'Metamorphoses' is one) plus about a zillion tabs and saved PDFs on this topic.
Hello Julia,
I hadn’t given much thought to the extent to which I enjoy being alone together. It turns out I really do love when life allows for those types of experiences. One example that immediately comes to mind: going to museums/art exhibits with loved ones.
I much rather prefer everyone goes their separate ways inside the exhibit and when we are all ready to leave, the conversation of what everyone thought follows. I enjoy learning about each and everyone’s personal digestion of the content just as much as the museum/exhibit itself.
Thank you for recommending Solarpunk,
Oscar
I'm loving these. You are inspiring me to begin a substack of my own. Should I?
On yawning, I learned in my hypnotherapy class that we yawn after someone else because of rapport (or at least one of the reasons), if we don't have rapport with someone (or don't want to show/build rapport) we won't want to yawn with them. I think that is linked with the wolf pack concept of community, as a confirmation that we are in sync.
My name wasn't popular at all before the 70's and only got popular in 2012!! Wow!
You brought a huge smile to my face when you mentioned Solar Punk. I've been researching about it, and could this actually become our future? And without it, do we have a future at all? I wish I could draw environments well to help making these dreamy green communal spaces more present in our collective imagination.
I still have a lot to comment on but this is starting to look like a full book of silly comments, so I'll leave it as is. Please keep posting, I'm loving it. I can feel the amount of love and care you put into each one of these letters.💖
PS. I love the knitted sweater! I tried knitting a scarf and it has huge holes (that I sewed back together), but my yarn ended so it's unfinished. I'm proud of myself for getting that far though :)
Good Evening Julia! Thanks for this entry.
I feel like I've spent the past two years ruminating about how I would like to exist in the world. Often I wish I could just be invisible as I moved through the world but able to reappear at will. Say like when I want to order coffee and croissants but then move unbothered through the congested streets near my work.
But I've also spent a lot of time ruminating on themes in horror, one of my favorite genres, and how sometimes I think fear plays a large part of why I feel the compulsion to be alone. When in actuality I'd like to be a part of the world. I love meeting new people and learning new things. So the past couple months I've been borrowing a phrase from the film The Witch "Does thou want to live deliciously". Which to be honest I do! I've been trying to say yes to more activities and invites even when my entire being is screaming to hermit. Even though it's been scary and I feel nervous, I'm glad I've been trying to get out more.
On the note of baking I am beyond excited to start making recipes from Magnus Nilsson's The Nordic Baking Book. It's this absolute tome of recipes that is almost like a culture study and gaze into the history of baking around the nordic countries. In particular I want to try to make an almond sponge cake (Mandelkaka in Sweden). I am however waiting until it feels like the city I live in isn't about to catch on fire haha.
I really wanted to get more into baking recently and I mostly love muffins and cookies. I really wanted to make some banana cookies because I don't think I've ever had those before. Unfortunately, I didn't think about how watery the bananas would make the cookie mix so instead I turned them into muffins! And they were very good
Absolutely loved reading this! As for the muffins, I’m a big fan of the cinnamon butter puffs from Marion Cunningham’s The Breakfast Book. They are not really muffins but they are cinnamon-y and butter-y and perfect.
Wonderfully acute! Right in the lonely part of my heart.
Thank you for sharing these thoughtful remedies.
These bring me so much joy Julia! I feel I exist in a similar kind of zone, I am also an INFJ (apparently we are pretty rare!) and struggle with wanting to be alone but feeling deprived. I find it wonderful to have a best friend who (even though he is in NY and I am in LA) can FaceTime and talk or say absolutely nothing as we both scroll through the internet sometimes checking in with a new tidbit of info. Also walks really help. I can hear and see other people but, if times just right, don’t ever have to have a conversation with anyone!
Now for the muffins - my favorite recipe is just a box Cinnamon streusel muffin because when I was a kid my neighbors would bring some over and I could only have one if I finished my carrots. I guess this stuck with me. 
Really liked this update and your drawings. When I read about your experiences and the way you interact with your community and those around you, it makes me think that maybe it's not the world that is rotten to the core, but that it's just that I'm on the wrong part of it. Please continue making this world better with your art, in any form it takes.
Loved reading your new letter, Julia. Reading it I hear Suzie's voice which isn't weird becuase it is your voice :) Thank you for introducing us to the idea of an ornamental hermit among other pretty stones scatters across your post. Much love x
Being an ornamental hermit sounds amazing. "So, what do you do for a living?" "I hangout in a garden, and I know things." That would be so much fun, spending time leisurely learning about cool new things, while being revered as a source of immense wisdom, having a relaxing garden around, and being mysterious. There aren't any listings for "ornamental hermit" on indeed.com though.
The first thing that came to mind when I read "friends fussing about in a house" was having roommates. I've had a couple of roommate situations in which we could hangout at the apartment, doing separate things, but there were people around to talk to in passing, or even hangout if we wanted to. We could be doing separate things together, like reading books in the same room or something, or more realistically, idly tapping around on our phones. Even being in completely separate rooms not talking to each other feels different than being in an apartment alone. I get the impression that's what "alone together" means, doing independent things, but somehow still having company.
I'm an ISTJ, so I can definitely appreciate that kind of thing.
No social hangover. That's good to hear. I love hearing about little triumphs like that, when things just go well.
I don't have any good muffin recipes - yet - but I can tell you how I'd like to exist in the world. More "alone together" time could be nice. Having the right community and the right friends is pretty important for that kind of thing. Of course, living in Orlando seems to be the wrong place for that. I guess my answer to how I'd like to exist in the world is "somewhere else". lol
There are so many great things here to comment on. Every one of them could be a rabbit hole, leading to its own lengthy conversation. It's all really fascinating stuff. Jenna said it pretty well - "lovely to read". I'll try not to comment an entire article in response to your article though. lol
This is so cool! I did my AP Art sustained investigation on Nostalgia but my research felt rushed and incomplete. It’s so cool to keep learning from other people about it!! I live in a big city and seeing other’s experiences in diving into the community is motivating and so so incredible
This was so lovely to read.