READCATION, anyone? [The Cait-battical Vol.1]

Morning chickadees,

It is I, sabbatical Caitlin. Hear my plaintive cry echoing from the bottom of the sabbatical well. Splish splash I am taking a bath--- in the cool waters of non-work.

I mean... not exactly. I'm going to be honest with you– so far, the three weeks of Cait-batical have not exactly felt empty and free. I'm still taking phone calls and emails (mostly for Order of the Good Death and legalization issues) and catching up on health-related appointments I'd let slide. Staring at my phone a lot. I'm not floating by doing the blissful backstroke of nothingness.

But the good news is that I also don't feel tense, fried, overwhelmed. Yesterday I had a revelation– is this what a normal amount of work feels like?!  Have we just all been working beyond our capacities for so long we've forgotten what a balanced day feels like?!

THANK YOU- by the way- for all of your extremely high vibes, kind comments and messages. I read every one. Not only because they we lovely, but because so many of you are going through the same thing, are about to go through the same thing, or have gone through the same thing and come back out the other side with a more balanced, engaged relationship to the work you do.

I GET IT, YOU'RE HAVING FEELINGS, BUT WHAT HAVE YOU DONE THAT'S FUN?

I'm so glad you asked. As I announced in the video, dear Louise, my long term writing partner has decided to strike out on her own. As soon as I heard her plans I did what we all would do– blacked out her name in my diary and told those around me never speak of her again... how dare she leave me!

(No, I'm kidding, we booked a place in the upstate New York woods for a good ol'fashioned readcation.)

That's right, a readcation. By definition, a readcation is where you read a bunch of books that have nothing to do with, say, the creation of longform historical YouTube documentaries. Novels, for instance. Gentle little novels. (Mine all turned out to have an EXTREMELY strong death theme because apparently I attract them like botflies to a corpse.)

WAIT, LOUISE NEVER GOT TO SAY GOODBYE TO US!

Ok fine, here are some thoughts from Louise:

*****

SEVEN LONG YEARS I'VE WORKED WITH CAITLIN EUSTICE* DOUGHTY AND FINALLY I AM FREE TO TELL MY DARK TALE.

Kidding, kidding, kidding. I leave Ask a Mortician as I came to it –  excited (if not a little overwhelmed) about all the things that could be. Jokes on you Caitlin, I'm packing up my AAM desk and along with all the staplers I'm taking some serious SKILLZ I picked up as your writing partner. Working with you made me a better writer and taught me to be relentless when I believe something could be bolder, truer, tighter.

Quick Louise/Caitlin Origin story.

Louise sees the first AAM vid. Against her better judgement (meeting new people is historically awful) she emails Caitlin. They become friends. Fast forward several years, Louise is unemployed. Sad. Jumps on social media and is like, "Anyone need to pay someone to write about dead people? Hahaha but really." Caitlin answers the call.

Thus began our collaboration on over 300 videos.

FACT: I had bangs before I worked with Caitlin.

FACT: The first video I wrote was "DUDE, Your Mannequin is a Corpse".

FACT: My three fave vids I've worked on are "The Trial of the Corpse Pope!", "The Bubonic Plague in...San Francisco?", and "The Forgotten Disaster of the SS Eastland". (From 2017 onward I've had my grubby paws on most of the videos that have come out -- take a dip into our video archive! Notice my attempt to incorporate Ninja Turtles!)

This little section is already overwritten (Louises gotta Louise) so I'll wrap up my word count with a hearty THANK YOU. Thank you deathlings. Thank you for supporting this wild work. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for acknowledging the killer work that the entire team – Timothy, Andy, Ericka, Sarah, Lauren, Landis along with Caitlin and myself – has done over the years.

If you still go near Twitter I'm @LouiseHung1. I'll let y'all know there when I have an Instagram that is more than pictures of my cat (soon). Also keep an eye out for my first novel, Hungry Bones, coming out in 2024 from Scholastic (middle grade book about death and ghosts and being Chinese American!).

Thank you from the bottom of my dusty old heart. [CUE OUTRO MUSIC]

*Eustice is probably not Caitlin Doughty's actual middle name.

******

WHAT DID YOU TWO READ ON READCATION?

Here's the lineup.

My favorites were Yellowface and The Spare Room.

Louise's favorites were Joan is Okay and All the Lovers in the Night.

HAS IT BEEN HARD TO NOT WORK?

Yes and no. You may have heard about the scandal at Harvard Medical School's body donation department. I have a lot to say about what happened, HOW it could have happened, etc. But saying more means work, pure unadulterated work– and I'm not supposed to be doing that!

You are also probably (by that I mean 100% certainly) aware of what happened with the men visiting the Titanic in the submersible. How am I not supposed to be researching and engaging with that?! I'm one of the world's foremost Titanic dead body junkies (extremely niche group). Work is stalking me through the night and trying to drag me back in. 

But Louise actually had something very wise to say about that: "your inaction speaks louder than words."

So yours, for now, in inaction, 

Caitlin of the Sabbatical