an interview

what I've been up to, kind of

Lights up. Two versions of Sidney sit across from each other in metal folding chairs. They are in some sort of void. Tiny star-specks glitter in the distance.

Sid is wearing a green hoodie and an old black denim jacket. Sidney is wearing a giant button-down green shirt and jeans. There is something vaguely different about each version, but it’s hard to tell what that is, other than their clothes.

Sidney: Thanks for meeting me here.

Sid: Yeah cool place. I like the reverb. What was this about though? You seemed pretty agitated on the phone.

Sidney: Basically…I just realized that the People probably have some questions.

Sid: People. What people.

Sidney: You know. Our readers.

Sid: Our readers? I think they’re probably just living their own lives tbh. I doubt they’re keeping tabs.

Sidney: Maybe some of them are curious about why you’ve been so quiet.

Sid: Bleh. Okay fine. Ask your questions. And then I gotta go. I’m making a risotto. You’ve gotta stir it every few minutes, you know. So it doesn’t burn.

A saucepan appears stage left, floating in the air.

Sidney: Risottooooo. Nice.

Sid: I’ve been really into risotto lately.

Sidney: So into risotto that you can’t write a newsletter?

Sid: Hey man.

Sidney: Don’t hey man me. Show some respect. I’m you in a universe where you were born two minutes earlier.

Ah. So that’s what it is.

Sid: Sorry. Go on, then, ask your questions.

Sidney takes out a comically large iPad. Like, it’s so large that they have to lean almost all the way backward to be able to read anything on it.

Sid: cool iPad.

Sidney: (squinting into a screen as bright as the sun) Thanks. So. Any soul crushing bad news lately?

Sid: Wow. Okay. Getting into it.

Sidney: I have to do this fast before I burn off my corneas.

Sid: Sure. Right. Well, I applied for grad school in Helsinki and found out this week that I was rejected.

Sidney: Rejected?! But everyone thought you would for sure get in.

Sid: They said my film degree didn’t make me qualified enough to study English.

Sidney: You were probably just too sexy for their program. They could sense it.

Sid: Yeah. That’s probably what it was.

Sidney: That sucks though. I bet you were pretty sad. What did you do to cope?

Sid: I sobbed for a while and then Ville and I went to the movies to see Sinners.

Sidney: Did you like it?

Sid: Well, at first I thought it was going to be a movie about basketball. But it turned out to be a movie about vampires. And I really enjoyed that. I genuinely think that movie had some of the best filmmaking and storytelling I’ve ever seen.

Sidney: That’s a pretty big claim coming from someone with a film degree.

Sid gives Sidney a look.

Sidney: Low hanging fruit. Sorry. But hey — why did you think it was going to be about basketball?

Sid: I didn’t realize that Michael Jordan and Michael B. Jordan are two different people. I thought it was going to be a basketball documentary. I’m really bad with pop culture stuff in general.

Sidney: Fair. Glad you figured it out. Why haven’t you updated your Letterboxd?

Sid: I just don’t feel like it.

Sidney: Okay. Weird. Moving on. What have you been reading lately?

Sid: (stirring astral risotto with one hand, a little distracted) Reading? Oh, um. This month I’ve read a lot. I read L.A. Woman by Eve Babitz, Misunderstanding in Moscow by Simone de Beauvoir, The Vegetarian by Han Kang, The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson, and now I’m halfway through Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Sidney: A book called Nausea is a pretty funny read for someone with crippling emetophobia.

Sid: The emetophobia has actually been way better lately, actually.

Sidney: Why’s that?

Sid shrugs theatrically and drops the risotto-spoon on the floor. Since the floor is actually a cosmic void, the risotto spoon disappears and reappears in another dimension, unreachable.

Sid: UGH.

Sidney: Just stir it with your mind. Come on. We’re neither here nor there. Metaphysically speaking.

Sid: Oh. You’re right.

The risotto stirs itself. Sid and Sidney are focused on each other again.

Sidney: How’s the Artist Way going? Did you give it up? Did you finish?

Sid: (absently scratching their neck) I’m about to finish week 11 actually.

Sidney: Very nice. How’s it been? My sources have been telling me that you’ve been talking about it to whoever will listen. You’ve also gotten a lot of people into it. Like you’re some kind of…guru.

Sid: Ew. I just like sharing. It’s been fun to talk to my friends about it since a lot of them are doing it now too.

Sidney: Any big revelations?

Sid: I have tiny bangs now.

Sidney: You’re dodging the question.

Sid flops over in their seat, pretending to be a slug, or a worm, or something incapable of sentience and therefore unable to answer the question.

Sidney: Helloooooo

Sid: (sighing loudly) I guess I’m just having a harder time putting stuff into words lately. Everything around me is the same but inside I feel fundamentally different, in a positive but kind of scary way. And that’s a hard thing to quantify. Or write about in newsletter.

Sidney: A writer having a hard time putting stuff into words?

Sid: Alas.

Sidney: But you’ve been writing.

Sid: My novel, yeah. I’ve actually been putting most of my creative energy into my novel. I’m going to try and finish a full rough draft this year.

Sidney: For real?

Sid: Yeah. One of the biggest things I learned from The Artist’s Way is that being a novelist really is my true north. It’s what I need to do in this lifetime. So that makes a lot of things easier now that I know that.

Sidney: Maybe it’s good you didn’t get into grad school right now, then. You’ll have a better shot at actually finishing your book.

Sid: Yeah. Maybe.

Sidney folds the iPad into a small square, then eats it. Sid watches in silence. The smell of risotto is so strong that, in the dimension next door, someone’s stomach growls, seemingly for no reason.

Sidney: Say, is there enough of that for both of us? That iPad didn’t really fill me up.

Sid: Yeah. There’s enough.

They eat silently for a few minutes, with the aura of two people who have already said goodbye but then realize their cars are parked next to each other and now they have to walk the same direction.

Sidney: Off the record. Is there anything else you’ve been working on? I think it’s still unclear to the Readers where most of your time goes.

Sid holds up a finger. They’re chewing. Sidney waits patiently.

Sid: I’ve been doing a lot of work on the first season of The Lost Poetry Club — adapting a few stories, writing stories, getting ready to direct a story, too. A lot of stuff with that.

Sidney: When’s the season coming out?

Sid: Hopefully this summer!

Sidney: Very nice. I bet you’re excited.

Sid: Yeah. It’s a very different medium than I’m used to, but I’m learning so much and gaining a lot of tools in my creative toolbelt. I’m grateful.

They both finish eating. Sidney gets up, brushes off their pants. Lingers by the cosmic door.

Sid: Do you… need anything else?

Sidney: No. Just — this is a cool newsletter you’ve got here. I wish you would finish some of those drafts you have kicking around in your noggin.

Sid: I want to, trust me. But I’ve also shifted my expectations for myself a lot. The Artist’s Way has really clarified that I need to create for myself first and foremost. Substack sort of started to feel like I was chasing views and trying to write essays that would go viral. It was draining. And not very authentic.

Sidney: That makes sense. You need to recalibrate.

Sid: That’s a good way of putting it. Yeah. Recalibrating.

Sidney: Well, I’ll be going then. Good luck with … everything.

Sid: Thanks. You too.

xx Sidney / Sid