thanksgiving subscription sale + classifieds + reflections on my favorite book

Manon Cezaro, Domino, paint on plaster, houses, horses and gods

Hello! I am doing my twice a year subscription sale! For the next three days if you sign up for an annual subscription it is $42 instead of the usual $70. Thanks for being here and supporting me for ~4 years (!!!) now. It feels insane and I couldn’t do it without you. Being a paid subscriber gives you access to all of the Sunday posts (a mix between anonymous relationship stories, reading recommendations), as well as priority access to all the community stuff we do here, from meetups to accountability group. I’m very grateful to all of you guys.

Community Classifieds

These are mostly posted in the order they were received, I can’t post them all but trying to figure out a system! In the future, if you’re a paid subscriber, feel free to email me at avabearexpress@gmail.com with a classified. It can be personal or professional :)

From Dan: My hope is to help quarterlifers who feel lost, stuck, and overwhelmed to get more clarity, build confidence, and create change.  I had a ‘turning 30’, ‘turning 25’, and just overall identity and existential crisis throughout my life so the goal is to help anyone else wrestling with these tough things to do so with more grace, efficiency, and cost effectiveness than I did to figure out my life. Here’s my coaching/substack.

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From Shannon: I am a local San Francisco Yoga Teacher (currently at Arise Yoga). You can find my Weekly Shanaanegans Substack here where I elaborate on different themes I've been sharing with my students or the latest playlists I've used to sequence my classes. I have a background in trauma-informed yoga and am looking to cultivate an inclusive community for people to practice yoga from all abilities. I want my yoga classes to hold space for the people who need it most, especially when it comes to empowering everyone to listen to their bodies, be autonomous in making their own choices, and move with the utmost intention and care.

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From Anaika: I write wonderer's abode, a Substack publication by Anaika Kakoty, a queer brown teenager sharing their art and thoughts on the arts. Philosophical and intellectual essays, poetry, social commentary, and visual art can be found in it.

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From Neal: I run a variety of services for the SF megascene, including housing and matchmaking.

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From Chris: 1. I run unhinged social events in San Francisco.

2. I help people outgrow persistent insecurities on a pay-for-results basis.

Today I was thinking about how my favorite book is, now and forever, Chris Kraus’ I Love Dick. I Love Dick is a freewheeling, referential epistolary novel about a nervy and verbose woman who falls in love with her husband’s art critic colleague for no discernible reason and proceeds to go on a road trip and write a lot of letters. Though the two premises are not comparable, the book it reminds of most is somehow Lolita. In different ways, both narrators have a “fancy prose style.”

I Love Dick is a “you get it or you don’t” book, which is part of its appeal. There are probably legions of people who would dismiss it as cringe based off its title or premise, or simply would wonder why our narrator would humiliate herself over someone who at no point displays anything more than indifference towards her. We don’t need to worry about them.