Welcome to the show.

Gooooood morning! I hope your body is caffeinated and your inbox is clear. Let’s talk shop!

Mini Musings

I know I promised this newsletter would have a formula I’d stick to every week, but I felt like the first edition deserved a little intro. So, hi! I’m McCall, a 28 year old gal who’s currently living in Denver, Colorado.

About a week ago, I had a realization. Despite spending 99% of my time at my full time job writing and storytelling, it still wasn’t scratching the itch.

I’ve had a note on my phone for over a year where I put story ideas, a sentence I heard someone say that I loved, and thoughts to be written, but never taken them anywhere outside that note—until now, with this newsletter.

Whenever I wrote in the past, it felt way too self-aggrandizing, so my goal with this newsletter is to remove the ego from all this and just write for the sake of writing, and most importantly, do it every week.

The two things that make me happiest in life (besides my friends and family) are making art and being outside. My north star for all this is that, at the end of every newsletter, it just sounds like me. The idea is to achieve that through writing about the things I love.

Anyways, thanks so much for being here.

Artiste In The Making

How ironic that one of the main purposes of this newsletter was to hold me accountable for drawing every week, and yet this section was the one I procrastinated the most on.

I held my first ever farmers market stand last December and realized that as much as I love doing custom commissions, my work is way too specific. It comprises of random places across the US that mean a lot to my customers, which is why I have so much fun drawing them, but doesn’t exactly call for recognition from my Colorado audience.

In an attempt to remedy that, I’m spending the next few months doing what I’m calling “localizing” my art; creating art for the actual target audience I have in Colorado and drawing well known spots all over the state. First up, Butte Bagels in Crested Butte.

After this I’m thinking: 6th Alley at A Basin, Empire Dairy King outside of Winter Park, and then who knows. Lemme know your favorites!

The Wild, Wild West

A moment of silence for the official goodbye to ski season, please.

NOW, I’m reeeeeal excited about this section because the next month of my life is dedicated to training for a hike I’ve wanted to do for five (5!) years. The one, the only: Mount Sopris.

She’s a beast and half. Located in Carbondale, CO and coming in at 12.9K feet tall, 4.4K feet of vertical gain, and 13 miles for the hike itself.

There’s a very high likelihood I don’t summit Momma Sopris when we make this attempt. The insane snowfall in Colorado this winter was amazing for skiing, but not so ideal for an early-season hike. The snowline sits at 11K-11.5K feet right now, and we’ll be well beyond that for the final push. My only rule for hiking is that a reverence for Mother Nature is required, and I’m definitely not trying to trek through feet of snow, at the risk of losing the trail and getting cliffed out, for the sake of summiting.

All that to say, cross your fingers for warm weather in Garfield County. While I gear up for that, I’m thinking this will serve as a little section to show the fun things I’m doing to train. Phase 1: Yoga at the best place ever.

What I’m Noodling On

• I recently listened to this episode of The Out of Bounds podcast and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. It’s a super in-depth conversation with Ben Leoni about the housing crisis ski towns. Mini spoiler? Airbnb’s aren’t the problem, zoning laws are.

• Bonus points: I emailed Ben with a few questions after I finished listening and he sent me this book rec: Billionaire Wilderness by Justin Farrell. I’m only a few chapters in, but the main idea is we have so many interviews and books about people in mountain towns who are teetering at or below the poverty line working service jobs. Why don’t we have any interviews with the billionaires who perpetuate that system? And why is there such a tendency for people to use environmentalism to vindicate themselves?

• The podcast + book combination about American housing and billionaires got me re-thinking about one of my favorite topics: champagne socialism. (See: Bernie Sanders being, well, Bernie Sanders, and amassing a $2M real estate portfolio). Here’s an oldie-but-goodie from one of my favorite podcasts on the subject.

I would genuinely love to hear from you. Hit reply and tell me what you like, tell me what you hate, or just say hi. Bye for now!

-McCall