wanna write you a love letter

#23: gemini season (2025)

Jun 20, 2025

Hi, happy solstice! Thanks for being here. What lovely protest weather we’ve been having.

Here are some reflections from Gemini season this past month (May 20th - June 20th). Cancer season and summer start tonight, and you can find an overview of some of the upcoming astrology at the end of this newsletter.

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I took a writing class about love letters that wrapped up last week. I really liked the readings and prompts, and I feel like I got a lot out of the class overall.

I signed up for it partly because I don’t think I’m as good at letter writing or expressing my feelings as I’d like to be. I wanted to see if I could improve some. I was also kind of hoping for a meet-cute, which sadly didn’t end up happening. It would’ve been such a good story! A cute femme did tell me I have elegant hands, though, and the fluttery feeling that compliment gave me definitely counts for something.

(It reminded me of this photo I saw in Dark Room: San Francisco Sex and Protest, 1988-2003, a collection of lesbian photographer Phyllis Christopher’s work that I’d definitely recommend checking out!)

We sure do (art by cartoonist Kris Kovick in 1989)

I liked how broad of a definition of love letters the class had, and how expansive the idea of love too. We read and wrote romantic letters as well as love letters to friends, family members, and the self, among others. We submitted a completed letter for workshop at the last class, and that workshop was a neat experience.

I pushed myself by writing a lovey-dovey one for it instead of a friendly one. It was a little bit of a challenge because I am single and apparently I struggle to fantasize romantically.

More than one past partner has told me they felt like I wasn’t very romantic. In my defense, romance is just harder in long-distance relationships. But I also don’t think I’m, like, the most romantic gal out there, so I can see where they were coming from.

Anyway, I’m more comfortable writing about breakups than about being in love, so it was a fun challenge to write a sweet, gay little letter to no one. From folks’ feedback in the workshop, I think I did okay. I was worried they’d be like, Wow she isn’t good at love letters and must therefore not be good at love either. And maybe that’s true! But no one said that at least, and regardless I’m planning on sharing that one and maybe another letter here soon. Maybe that will change an ex’s mind about me.

This past month I also saw Squirrel Flower play for the first time. The show was magical! Her music has soundtracked a lot of my evening walks and long-distance drives over the past few years, and I liked her even more live. Something about the sound and the mood of her music really lends itself to live performance. It’s hard to explain how exactly, but I haven’t been that affected by a show in a few years.

She played some new songs that I liked a lot, one of which she put out on a live album recently: “Not Me”. I was listening to that album on the drive home and thought about how I wished I had an electric guitar. I’ve only ever had acoustics and a classical guitar, and I was thinking about how it would be fun to get back into guitar but try something new.

I opened up facebook marketplace when I got back just to see what was out there, and the first electric guitar listing was a cheap, pink, sparkly one. Cut to a few days later:

I’ve been shredding and it’s been great. But cut to a few days after that:

Playing for several hours a day after not playing much guitar for a few years, on top of a physically demanding job, caused a tendonitis flare up in my right wrist and some kind of nerve compression situation in my left wrist, the hand I use on the fretboard. Yes, I got an injury from too much fingering.

I’m supposed to go easy on my wrists for now — and I have been, with the exception of these recent six-hour lesbian sex dates. I left that part out at my follow-up appointment yesterday when I talked about how I’m still experiencing some pain. The PA reminded me about the importance of wrist warm-ups and stretches before and after activity.

Remember, dykes: be sure to do your wrist stretches, regardless of what kind of fingering you’re doing.