Hi and hello.
is one of the funniest people i know and i know steve martin personally!!!Erika is also one of my earliest substack pals and it was so fun to hang out and chat with her for Both Are True Live. I would honestly just go ahead and listen to the entire convo. Here are some ‘pull quotes’ of smart funny shit that Erika said.
ALSO go subscribe to Erika’s newsletter
right now you clowns.
Quotes
The Barista Years and Customer Service Zen
"It honestly was the best job I've ever had," Erika said about her barista days at an independent San Francisco coffee shop. "It was like living in Gilmore Girls, it was the fucking cutest."
"It's also like really low stakes socializing. You do small talk, but it kind of feels like it serves a purpose. Because you could, like, actually brighten people's days."
The Philosophy of Parenthood
"It makes me realize that the world we live on is that," she said, comparing her 18-month-old daughter's wonder to watching alien life in Scavenger's Reign. "Here is alien life in a way. Because you want to get them some toy where you're like, this would be fun, wouldn't it? And they don't care because everything is the coolest thing they've ever seen in their lives."
"We're like, moon, and she goes, circle, and I'm like, technically it's a sphere... and really it's this object that's 240,000 miles away and orbiting us. And at some point, you're going to progressively realize how small we are in the scale of everything. And I'm like, what a strange thing to have to tell someone someday."
The Creative Struggle of Being Both Artist and Parent
"I feel like my perspective was, I would love to be a dad. I don't think I want to be a mom. I want to be a dad."
"When you're with your child, just fully disconnect from your work brain, because when the work brain is still happening, it makes being a parent feel really unpleasant because you're like, oh, there's so many things I need to be doing and like you need so much attention. But like if I'm like, let it go, let it go, let it go... And then it can be extremely beautiful."
The New Yorker Grind
"The acceptance rate for print, which is the pie in the sky, is... I'm going to have to guess here because I don't know officially. It's got to be like 1%?"
"I haven't submitted a single panel in a really long time because the acceptance rate is so low and the labor is so time consuming. And I'm like, I'm making no money doing so much work."
On Style and Letting Go of Perfectionism
"I never went to art school. And so for a long time, I felt like I needed to prove something by being like, oh, I know what I'm doing. And like, oh, the human form, let's be all rigid about it. And that just sucked all the joy out of it."
"When a moment happens, like I don't see fingers at all. Like I see like somebody's crazy face and that I remember, you know. But I don't like, I don't even think about their like hands or most of their body, you know. Like and I think it's cool when art mirrors that."
The Influence of 90s Animation
"Being disturbing kind of entertained me, for sure. I was scared, no question. But the animation itself is to this day so high level. The facial expressions and the gestures are so unique and imaginative and impressive."
"It truly was my greatest inspiration to becoming a cartoonist. It was just like it brought me so much joy, it made me laugh so much, it gave me kind of a demented sense of humor that I'm more than happy to have."
The Art of Finding Your People
"I always try to drop either like a poop joke or like something a little morbid and then like they bite I'm like here we go."
On Therapy and Body Awareness
"I had no idea how disconnected from my body I was... she taught me to feel my body and... your body's sending you signals constantly."
"I didn't realize I was basically chronically holding my breath... I tell my husband that breathing for me is going into the avatar state. I have to work so hard to just be like, I'm breathing light."
On Memoir and Motherhood Content
"When I first made this choice to become a mom, I was a little worried that I was like, oh, here we go. You know, I'm going to be so boring only talking about being a mom. But then I was like, this is an extremely common lived experience that men will have. Like, why am I invalidating it?"
"I straight up find having a child for the past 18 months to be the most interesting philosophical experience. It's just my whole world perspective has completely shifted in a way that I find fascinating, honestly."
Check out other BAT Live episodes
we're all just watching the numbers with jelly donuts dribbling down our shirts
I feel like somebody on the park bench on a Sunday morning eating a jelly donut and like dribbling it on herself while other people like jauntily scurry by.
comedic catastrophes (The Chatfield x Dobrenko Tapes)
You know that feeling when you’re a little intimidated by someone on the internet but also feel like you’d probably become good pals if you just sorta talked to one another?
i feel inadequate and so does everyone else w/ Ava of bookbear express
I’m writing this from the YMCA lobby where, in front of my little table, sit a tangle of five year olds listening intently to their lifeguard teacher. She’s just asked what the rules are and they’re taking turns answering.
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