Most of what I’ve written in 2026 is not (yet) publicly available but a few non-newsletter pieces are, in case you were not aware and would like to read them: Daniel Berrigan and Hating Women, for Bookforum; some thoughts on cops for The Baffler. Next week, a short essay on Epstein for Lux should be online. Other work in progress includes an essay on fostering cats and the sentimental attitude of “loving animals” that allows people to divorce responsibility from sentiment (provocative!), chronic pain, the sex worker rights movement, and of course some book criticism. But there’s lots I want to write here, too: about the fascinations of aging, about enemies, about AI. (Wait, don’t go. I promise to write something on the topic that, for once, won’t make you want to kill yourself and/or everyone else.)
I’m approaching the subscriber limit under which one can have a free account with Beehiiv. Once the limit is hit, the cost of sending out newsletters goes up to $80 a month or $940 a year, until I get to the next subscriber threshold upon which there’s an increase. I knew this day was coming, and I also knew that I didn’t want to charge people to subscribe, nor did I want to pay (in a currency other than time and effort) for the privilege of offering my writing to others. I don’t use that word sarcastically—it is a privilege for me to have you here. But I think spending $1000 a year to send out essays would create resentment on my end.
One solution I considered was individually removing whoever wasn’t opening most of my emails to free up more spots. (With a free account, you can’t organize subscribers by open rate, so I’d have to go through them one by one.) This marries two personal passions, pettiness and administrative repetition. But beyond the inadvisability of leaning into the worst parts of myself, I don’t believe Beehive’s stats are accurate.1 I’d rather just continue making words here available to anyone and everyone who wants them and I’m hoping that some of you feel inclined to help me do that. If half of my subscribers read this far and half of that half sends $2, I’m all set. Of course, half of half is optimistically high so maybe some of you will pass along more than two bucks. Only time will tell! The Venmo account is @TigerBeePress.
Speaking of TigerBee, did you know we’re publishing my friend Harron’s unspeakably hilarious novella Veronica Place next month? It has a special pre-order price and is like nothing you’ve ever read before. I wouldn’t be publishing it if I didn’t love it enough to spend multiple yearly Beehive payments on bringing it into the world; clearly, I am biased. But I also swear on those three kittens at the top of this post, it’s hysterical and sweet and surprising and very special. You can read the first chapter on our website to see if it grabs you.
Speaking of you, “Meant for You” was an impulsive title choice, but it has become a real aspiration. I’m sure plenty of you will or have receive(d) a missive when you’re not in the mood to hear a peep out of me, and sometimes you won’t care about the subject matter or you’ll find my tone off-putting or you’ll intend to read it later and forget. That’s fine. I just want to have done my best to create something that has a chance of being of resonating value. I want to contribute something worthy of your attention, because I’m hyper aware of how little is worth any of ours.
This newsletter’s art, the small vibrant landscape that’s stamped at the top, is taken from Friends, The Beach Boys album that opens with the 38 second song of the newsletter’s title. In his autobiography, if I recall correctly (my copy is at my mom’s), Mike Love says he was touched that Brian Wilson chose to record his own version of “Meant For You” for his solo album in 1995, because Mike had just put the extremely unwell Brian through a protracted and successful legal battle. Mike feels proprietary about everything and everyone, but especially so about “Meant For You,” because the lyrics were inspired by his longstanding meditation practice. Mike is a cruel and selfish monster person2 but like millions and millions of people, I love the music he had a hand in creating. Despite or alongside or because of his terribleness, he did somehow mean it, and make it, for me. This enriching and inconvenient interconnectedness, in which we all necessarily participate, is perhaps a topic for another time.
1 Very early into this project, I subscribed to myself with one of my myriad email addresses, just to see how promptly newsletters arrived in an inbox and exactly what they looked like there, and then I forgot about it. But when I looked my own email up in my subscriber list, it had an open rate of something like 80%. The inbox of that account clearly showed 10+ unread emails, yet here was this fraudulent history of those emails being opened. More evidence that investing or getting attached to quantified indicators of “engagement” is a fool’s errand.
2 Monsters with longstanding meditation practices, of which there are many, is also something I would love to write about here.
