I Was Not In London This Week

Or anywhere near the Kingdom, United

Forgive this delayed post; my jet lagged ass is doing her best.

I was in America for ten days and SURVIVED. Slay :) And LOOK at this dog I met!

flöof

Was on the east coast for a week to Experience Fall and feature my two autumn moods:

Top: Filled with wonder | Bottom: Nary a whiff of light behind the eyes

Then went to my university reunion to Perform Wellness in front of my peers.

Had a job interview scheduled for 4am California time but in a surprise turn of events they filled the position a day before I even had a CHANCE to display how deeply employable I am. Made for a fun weekend of answering “haha!” when classmates asked if standup comedy is my full time job, and “lol!” when then asked what my day job is.

Lessons from my five-year reunion

• I am not in my Mystery Era

  • “I wonder if Lianna’s coming.” “She is, I read about it in her newsletter.” Embarrassing for me!

  • I need to simply accept that I am not a mysterious person. Rather more like a human embodiment of this bird tweet:

  

  I think about this tweet so much

• The chances of a man being Hot and the chances of a man being Boring are directly proportional.¹

• There was a full baby at our class party. In the past five years, some of my classmates have created life. Last year I killed a plant on the four-minute drive from the store to my apartment.

• It actually is an incredibly good thing that I do not have easy access to weed in the UK. My vibe with it in the States was very “unsupervised child at a birthday party” but with marijuana instead of a tableful of sweets.

• I still have not learned to say “no” to those last two drinks of the night, as evidenced by this chat with my flatmate:

  

  It is the 20s after all

• Stanford University is very beautiful! Why did I not go for more walks during undergrad?²

• If you get high and go to an art museum you will spend several minutes staring at the works of one Morris Hirshfield because OH my god look at these:

Haha WHAT

• You will also gaze upon this painting for too long because “flowers are so beautiful” - a message you will placidly relay to your friend a couple hours later

Way to slay, Ambrosius Bosschaert

I hit my head SO hard two times in the span of three hours so who knows if any of this shit even happened.³ Once on the corner of the trunk door of a lyft, once on the overhead bin of the plane. I also have a bruise on the back of my calf and I really can’t fathom how it got there. The back of my calf? How did I even put that part of my body into a situation?

Overall, and I’m still searching for a more positive way to phrase this: I’d have felt worse if I hadn’t gone to my five-year college reunion.

Three things I saw in London this week:

1. I was not

2. In London

3. This week

Finally, soz to self-promote except lmfao this whole substack is About The Self, I finally made a calendar of my upcoming gigs if any of you freaks care to see me do standup comedy in London:

Lianna’s Upcoming Standup Gigs But Don’t Worry, No One Feels More Cringe About This Than She Does

That link also goes to my ~professional website~! How fun for you.

xoxo,

Lianna “back in my Soup era again!” Holston

1. I’d expand this to all genders to avoid being labeled a misandrist, but I’m not a fucking liar

2. I was a child idiot, that’s why

3. Even worse: was fully sober for both of these