half baked ideas

on embracing whimsy

As a certain game show host (and my tiktok mutual) likes to say, “the only way to begin is by beginning” and while that’s true, it also means that the only way to end is by ending…and I don’t like endings. My endings aversion has never been more evident than taking a peek inside my substack drafts folder. So many well intentioned ideas that lost their spark or faded into obscurity or were just plain bad have gone there to die in recent months. It turns out having a silly little email job takes brain power and causes your whimsy to slowly fade away with each “circling back” and “per my last email” your tip-tapping fingers type. But I say no more! I am reclaiming my whimsy from this day forward. missabowbissa will NOT die! I’m like Tinker Bell (need applause to survive) and you are all my Neverland admirers and our symbiotic relationship demands my tip-tapping fingers deliver you some damn whimsy. I accept likes, shares, and subscribes in return.

In an attempt to reclaim whimsy, I now present to you all the ideas I’ve had and not written/finished/published this year.

when harry met sally but for queer people

In which I compare Heated Rivalry to When Harry Met Sally (think about it) because I had just watched When Harry Met Sally for the first time. Unfinished because everyone was writing about Heated Rivalry already and, let's be honest, I didn’t have anything revolutionary to say.

buffy buffy buffy

tbh I can’t remember if that was the intended title or just a placeholder. Please read it a la Armand in Interview with the Vampire season 2 episode 5 - “Lestat! Lestat! Lestat! Lestat! Lestat!”. I had a dream that I would have really important and groundbreaking thoughts about Buffy the Vampire Slayer while I binged the series for the first time but mostly it was just “good”…and also sometimes “so 90s”. But we all know that. And then I stopped watching. Once Eliza Dushku showed up and Buffy didn’t have a tortured vampire love interest for a second, they lost me. So sorry to say it. Hope I didn’t get the Chloe Zhao produced reboot cancelled. Unfinished because all of the above.

hi, I’m exploiting childhood nostalgia for capital gain...and you’re watching disney channel

Personally my favorite of the unfinished ideas - and one I might revisit. I have finally reached an age in which nostalgic reboot culture is targeted towards me. My thesis was something about the world being very very bad and clinging to the patches of joy we have left like Hannah Montana or American Girl Dolls while also acknowledging the guilt of consumerism and the capitalist trap of nostalgia based marketing. But then again, I did just fly across the country to go to Disneyland last week and paid extra for Disney Channel Nite, the exclusive, after dark, ticketed event designed to appeal to precisely ME. I had a great time! I went to a DJ set where Charli xcx was mashed up with We’re All In This Together from High School Musical and I waited in line for an hour to take a photo with the Disney Channel wand ears. Successful night. Unfinished because I wrote one sentence and then decided doing this was funnier than finishing that.

So, now we have unearthed my drafts folder and revealed my shameful unfinished ideas. You might be thinking, 3 drafts isn’t bad. And it’s not, to a normal person. But I don’t multitask. I don’t binge multiple shows at once. I don’t read two books at a time. I don’t leave 3 substack articles unfinished. I come up with one idea and I painfully agonize over finishing it for as long as it takes my bony little fingers. This was torture for me. But now we can all walk towards the light together.

Not in a death way! In an embracing whimsy way! It’s so whimsical that I haven’t published a single article in 2026! It’s whimsical that I have a stabbing pain in my left shoulder from sitting and typing for 8 hours a day every day. It’s whimsical that I have unopened boxes all over my apartment even though I moved in December. It’s whimsical that my coffee table is a storage bin of Christmas decorations and my tv console is a folding table because despite moving in December, I don’t have real furniture. Whimsy!

Is whimsy just…anti perfectionism? Is this therapy? Have I reached enlightenment? We’ll find out next time…on the whimsy edit. Successful ending.