148: an all-purpose prayer

"NYC is terrible in many ways but it remains a terrific place to run into people on a summer night." Molly Young on zines, roses, and various other delights

Molly Young is a writer and zinemaker. Her latest zine, Privacy, is an account of her pregnancy and features Warheads (yes, the candy), presumptuous 25-year-old surfer boys, and a bit (a lot) of blood. It is tender and honest and, like all of Molly’s writing, one hundred percent her. I don’t recall exactly how or when I first came across Molly’s writing but I know that I was immediately delighted by it. Delight suffuses her work—the delight she takes in life’s little surprises (“Lo…a bargain bin of quince”), the delight she takes in language. (I think about the article she wrote about “garbage language” often.) Molly is a writer who I deeply trust, especially when it comes to her book recs. Some of the best books I’ve read (eg. L.P Hartley’s The Go-Between) were her recommendation. Here’s Molly:

I walk to Devoción for an iced black coffee and guava croissant. Today’s assignment is to write an introduction for a book of photographs. I’ve taken pages of notes on the book but haven’t typed or organized them, so I do that and start to piece together a text. By afternoon I have a rickety draft.

While I’m working my phone is always Bricked. The writer Catherine Lacey introduced me to the Brick device and I send her an imaginary kiss every time I use it. Little does Catherine know that she is being barraged by invisible non-consensual kisses all day every day.

The weather is 94º. All summer I’ve been wearing Muay Thai shorts. Here is today’s pair. Muay Thai shorts are an elegant solution for summer heat because they are made of satin and look like a parade float. My friend Kate introduced me to them. You can customize the writing on the booty area—she got a pair embroidered with “THE ROW.” Haha! Size up if you are ordering because the elastic waist is quite cinchy.

After work I go to the Odeon for a drink with Liz Franczak, who co-hosts the podcast TrueAnon. Liz is funny and glamorous. I order a martini and we share French fries.

For an article I’m working on, I am reading Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. I don’t have anything nice to say about it. I get through 100 pages and feel nauseous, then reward myself with a YouTube workout that promises to make my ass enormous. I am always trying to achieve an enormous ass.

After asswork and writing, I fetch my daughter from daycare and we go to the park. She loves dance music so I play La Bouche and we explore the outer limits of wiggling.

Later, after she’s asleep my husband and I finish watching SHIFTY, the new Adam Curtis documentary series about Britain. It is exhilarating.

While watching the film, I pack zine orders. I love the production model of making zines. My husband, the brilliant designer Teddy Blanks, designs all of mine; the idea is to create gorgeous art objects / keepsakes. Teddy laces the zines with all manner of visual twists and riddles—e.g. the typeface on the cover of my new zine is a custom font inspired by Rosemary’s Baby. We want people to discover new elements and Easter eggs every time they page through.

Order a copy of Privacy for yourself, your dentist, your dentist’s receptionist, etc.

I get a lot of emails asking me for tips on zinemaking— so I put together a doc with stuff I’ve learned. To anyone reading this: if you make a zine, let me know so I can order it.

I check the surf report and there’s going to be a swell tomorrow, so I make plans with my friend Minsuk to meet at Rockaway in the morning.

The next day at 5:30am I strap my board to the car (a 2009 Jetta that is on the brink of implosion) and gun it to Rockaway. Minsuk and I trade waves and become wholesomely intoxicated by the sun and sea. I am home and showered by 9:30am and work on an article until it is time to get my kid from daycare. On the way home we stop at a bodega and my daughter gestures cryptically at a bouquet of yellow roses, so I buy them. At home we distribute the roses between eight jars and place them around the apartment. This is a clever trick for “extending” a bouquet.

For dinner I make pasta with brown butter, parmesan, garlic and basil from my roof garden. Then I walk to Deux Chats to have a martini and French fries with Willy Stalely, my editor at the New York Times Magazine. He texts that he is running late so I stop at a grocery store to amble around and see if there are any cool fruits. Lo, tucked between the pedestrian apples and bananas is a bargain bin of quince. (“Random.”) I buy one quince.

Willy arrives and we talk about work. In addition to being a freakishly good editor, he is also a genius writer; I reread this essay by him all the time. We run into the writer Sammy Loren at the bar. NYC is terrible in many ways but it remains a terrific place to run into people on a summer night.

Later at home Teddy and I watch SMITHEREENS, a 1982 film about an annoying but magnetic scamp bouncing around lower Manhattan. The film is about an ATTITUDE and an ERA—and about the familiar quandary of having creative energy but no place to expend it.

My kid is full of beans this morning. We eat pancakes and I lather her up in sunscreen because the kids are doing “water play” at daycare today, splashing around in a little pool and being hosed down like hound dog puppies. They love it.

Before work I finish reading a galley of an astonishing debut novel by Lauren Rothery called TELEVISION, which comes out in December. It’s a Hollywood story, cool as a cucumber and glittering with startling observations about love, technology, work, media and film. Plus: it’s funny. I’ve been urging everyone I know to pre-order it for the selfish reason that I want Lauren incentivized to write more books, endless books.

After work (more research/writing) I meet my friend Nakiba for nachos in Park Slope. We discuss a book project she’s working on and then she walks me to the G train. She informs me about a dupe for Delina perfume that costs 1136% less than the original. This is thrilling news. I love Delina, even though a reviewer on Fragrantica said that it is “reminiscent of toilets.” Nakiba promised to bring me the dupe next time we see each other and this thought keeps my mood ecstatic even though the G train is delayed by 50 minutes and smells like pee.

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This morning we take our daughter to the Transit Museum, which features a huge collection of antique subway cars. Let me tell you: subway cars used to be WAY nicer.

With an Instax camera I take photos of the kid holding onto the subway pole like a jaded commuter. Instant cameras are a lovely way to document your kid because they liberate you from your phone—I am always trying to be liberated from my phone, as the Brick indicates—and kids love watching the film emerge. Kids also like taking photos; my nephew Frank took this artistic shot of me dancing with my stepmother:

I spring out of bed at 6am, feed and dress the kid, eat an omelet and get down to work. Tonight I am speaking with Rachel Kushner at McNally Jackson to celebrate the paperback release of her novel Creation Lake. To prepare I reread the book and make notes for questions to ask. Interviewing someone is like being a ballboy at a tennis match; you want to do your duty unobtrusively and get out of the way so the interviewee can slam glorious shots over the net!

I text with my best friend Alice—we’ve been inseparable since the age of 7, and she also happens to be my favorite writer—and make plans to work together this week.

Then I get nervous about the event tonight. Public events are slightly harrowing. But I remind myself that I’m interviewing an author, not going to war, and let’s have a little perspective please.

For moral support I get an ice cream cone on the way to the bookstore—vanilla embedded with sour cherries—and mentally recite my favorite prayer from the 14th century mystic Julian of Norwich: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Isn’t that wonderful? Truly an all-purpose prayer.

Get more Molly:

The Life and Errors of Molly Young

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