Unsolicited Existence by Alejandra Smits: Home Affairs

Are funny people the ones having less fun?

Alejandra Smits — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 16:02:40 GMT

Multiple humans1 have said it: Tragedy + Time = Comedy. Yes, but the tragedy has to be lived in a body, a sentient one. Meaning: one has to suffer. I’ve been asking myself this question for a few years now. Are funny people the ones having less fun? It was once sparked by the close observation of the funniest people I know. Are they having fun? It’s not like I’m at the cusp of happiness, but at least once or twice a day, I have some fun. Depending on my mood, I can make people either cackle or bore them to death. One body, a million settings.

Funny people make us laugh. Who’s making them laugh?

We all know what name-dropping looks like. Someone tells a story, and in that story, a famous person makes an appearance. Name-dropping can be justified, and when it is, I wouldn’t even call it name-dropping. But sometimes it is only a mechanism of social self-positioning: “I know this person, therefore I’m important.” Lately, I’ve been observing the opposite approach, and it is what I call name-keeping. Of course, in order to notice someone is telling a story and deciding not to name the famous person who’s in it, you need to know the story in advance. But that doesn’t really matter.

It’s such an elegant thing to witness: Someone so confident in who they are that they don’t need to drop any names to make a story appealing and engaging.

What I’m currently reading

Paperback > > > > > Hardback

(If it’s a book you must read, always paperback. If it’s an art piece, then hardback. Those should be the rules.)

Moods, walks and other animals

Alejandra Smits — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 15:02:50 GMT

I missed the appointment with my psychiatrist for the second time. I forgot again. I know it’s hard to believe. I can barely believe it myself. But it happened. And then, for the one appointment I didn’t forget about, she, my psychiatrist, canceled when I was already in the waiting room. In my Spanish (and free) newsletter, I talked about this image I had: my Higher Self trying to keep me from taking benzodiazepines and SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) by swiping my brain half an hour before my scheduled appointment with the only person allowed to prescribe these to me.

I don’t know for sure if she (my Higher Self) is actually pulling some universal strings, but for now, I’m listening and won’t be scheduling a new appointment. To soothe my anxiety and existential despair (and fill the void social media has left), I’m turning to other activities. Take this puzzle board as an example. I will go to such lengths to erase the friction of the tasks I do want to do in my spare time.

The puzzle was completed in two days. And those days, I was actually a happy person. Okay, maybe not happy, but for sure a not-depressed one.

Puzzle ritual: whenever I feel the urge to grab my phone, I try to find and place at least one piece.

For many years, I viewed walking, or rather, “going for a walk,” as an activity only psychopaths would do. I didn’t understand the concept of leaving the comfort of your home unless you had to go somewhere else. I now see how out of touch I was with the nature of life. Life itself is a long fucking stroll. That’s it. You’re always ending up at home. And when I die, that will be the real, purest homecoming.

So I’m a proud advocate of the promenade. My legs move, and with them, my view shifts from my standpoint to many moving targets. It is precisely this word, standpoint, that captures the limit we impose on ourselves. Why would you want to stay standing on a single point for any longer than a few minutes? Let alone a whole life.

Another thing I’ve been noticing lately during my walks. If I’m spiraling, walking gives me a sense of the natural rhythm of things (slow), informed by my legs’ speed (yes, slow, I can’t go faster, otherwise it would be running). It reminds me of the true rhythm of life. Like that Tao Te Ching quote: “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” I never regret going on a walk.

In order to have a better grasp of how I really am, I’ve been tracking a few habits and my overall mood of the day. This kind of log not only informs you about how you really are, but it also gives you objective data to jump to a few hypotheses about the things that make you feel good or bad. Here’s my October Habit & Mood Tracker:

Mood: Green: Good. Grey: Eh. Red: Bad/Anxious/Sad

From it, I can draw a line between walking 10k steps or exercising and how I felt by the end of that day. I ain’t no scientist. Yet here I am, studying myself like one.

One of the books I read for one of my book clubs in September was It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne De Marcken. If I had to review it in one sentence: It Lasts Forever and Then I Hope It’s Over Soon.

The finished puzzle. Framed and hung in my son’s bedroom. Now he (my son) can marvel at it and go, “Look, my addict mother is recovering, she’s really trying!”

My husband said he wasn’t feeling black (talking about the t-shirt he was wearing), as he switched it for a white one, “I’m leaning more towards white…”

I said: Yeah, unfortunately, that’s exactly how half of the country is feeling, too.

Lola, the lizard currently living in our home.

But moving on to merrier subjects.

I don't know much but I know I'm not a car

Alejandra Smits — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 17:38:24 GMT

Almost every day, I drive by a billboard that reads, “I really needed to remember feeling that I was love able.” Interesting quick-etymology-consideration corner: Being lovable, something we all desire: to be adequate to receive love, really could mean the love moves, yes, but in the opposite direction: I am capable of loving. The more I think about it, the more sense I find. Especially when I ponder the question of the ability to love in Spanish. Lovable, in this sense, would literally translate as amable, which also means: kind. To be apt for love is to be kind, because that who is kind has enough room to hold the love.

And with all of that, all I wanted to say was: this is why I can be such a bitch sometimes.

My foot against my son’s. It made me realize his feet aren’t so little anymore. A moment of truth and fear: time is irreversible.

My son is so obsessed with cars that he needs to clarify that people aren’t cars. Which brings me to a realization I had in the shower last night: the rules of improv are the same rules you should follow when having a conversation (or are playing) with a toddler. The rule, singular, is the following: