We're Back, Bitches.

Otherwise known as: don't listen to bad advice from good people.

A few months ago, I listened to some advice I shouldn’t have.

It was well meaning, I think, but it was basically advice to move on from the Dear Fuckers era and brand in favor of something softer and more introspective. At the time, the advice made sense. Sort of. But after a few months, I quickly realized…fuck that.

I am who I am, and I’m tired of softening my sharp edges because they make some people uncomfortable. I’ve done it so fucking many times in my life and career. If I had a dollar for every time I was told to be less something—less fat, less loud, less sweary, less opinionated—I could fucking retire.

Most recently, I’ve been going through some pretty hefty life transitions. I took on a new, bigger role at work with a new team, new boss, and new remit. I sold a house. I bought a house. I moved. I sent my kid off to college.

And somehow in there convinced myself that I needed to be less again so I could…I’m not even sure. Play the part? Embody some new idea of “life era”? I dunno. All of the rationale for toning it down started to feel shitty and disingenuous and once again like I was trying to be someone I’m not.

One of the moments of enlightenment came recently because I’m watching the absolute dumpster fire of our current administration where we’ve spent years protecting pedophiles while somehow also making it fine to starve people for sport and political clout while they kidnap and disappear American citizens in my city and it tripped my feral switch all over again.

I’m so tired of pretending that I have to fucking shrink myself down when absolutely incompetent, small, corrupt men with bad suit tailoring and tiny hands can get away with rape and murder and somehow even get elected President and try to diminish and continue to disenfranchise women (ALL women) in the process. So here the fuck I am.

If you want to get more sweary missives, click the button like a good gi— er, just do it.

I’m not a political writer. I’m not qualified for that and I don’t fucking want that job, anyway. I’m content to doomscroll just like you do and eventually throw my phone across the fucking room like the maladjusted, middle-aged perimenopausal angry crone that I am becoming.

But I do like to write. I’m okay at it. Some days. But it’s not going to be about politics so much as because of politics. Because fuck all of this nonsense, right in the ear, alongside the ever-crazymaking and warped expectations we have of women and the audacity of entitlement that makes these clownpunchers think they can dictate how we show up.

I spoke at an event this week. It’s a speech I’ve given many times now on a topic I’m very passionate about and that is going to be my next career investment. And I was enraged once again watching an entire room of women grapple with the bullshit that is labeled “imposter syndrome” because they have been convinced that the problem is THEM instead of the fucking SYSTEM and double standards they have to be subjected to at every turn, and once again…there was the anger.

The anger that we are supposed to appease, fit in, smooth over, tame and soften while an entire fucking clown car of deplorables is about to drive a few hundred years of democracy off a cliff. So I’m honestly just tired of pretending I should be sorry for being angry when there is plenty to fucking be angry about.

Do I want anger to define me? Of course not.

Do I want to use anger to fuel me? Absolutely the fuck I do.

Then within the span of several weeks, I had multiple, unrelated people reach out to me and ask what happened to this newsletter and why it stopped and begging me to bring it back. Honestly, I’m surprised AF that anyone reads this shit, but hey…

Who am I to deny the people what they want?

There’s a lot more going on right now and we’ll talk about that later (yes, I’m going to write the fucking book), but for now…welcome back to Thunderdome, motherfuckers.

The sweary newsletter is back, and I’m back with it, and the next man to tell me that I should be less angry is going to get an envelope full of rancid tuna salad with raisins mailed to his house along with the mail-order masculinity pills he has on backorder from that Facebook ad he swears he didn’t click on.

Missed you. Mean it. Hope you’ll stick the fuck around because we have some shit to talk about.

With love and angst,

Amber