The Quarterly Business Review

All my corporate cogs out there know it’s a special time of the year: the beginning of a new quarter. If there’s anything that has been reliably imprinted on my neural pathways during my two-and-a-half years as a chief of staff at a management consulting firm, it is that it is critical to step back and assess progress against your goals on a recurring basis. Depending on the goal at hand it may be valuable to assess progress at a faster cadence, but given the longer arc of the quest of Hotness, a quarterly step-back felt right. With that, let us review our progress on this journey.

Headline Resolution: A year-long pursuit of unapologetic hotness

I would rate myself yellow on this goal. To be frank, I haven’t felt consistently Hot so far this year. There have been sparks of Hotness: writing this newsletter; acknowledging that the book I want to write is, in fact, a Novel and not a Biography or a Memoir; my whole weekend of wedding-outfits a couple of weeks ago in Mérida; committing to taking myself out to long, indulgent lunches on Sundays; and my dragonfly make-up for a Swamp Gala party in Bushwick. I would also give points to the “Here for the Cheez” performance at Stella and Fly’s weekly Trivia (second to last, the team that came last may have left the event before it ended); my commitment to Monday Learning Hours, during which I have been reading a lot of psychoanalytic theory; the “Conversations with Wellington” and “is it Hot or French” newsletters; and my various “making staying in Hot” adventures. That said, I haven’t really wanted to leave my apartment very much this quarter, and when I do, it’s taking me quite a bit of effort to walk the walk. And, on top of that, at least three illnesses have prevented me from fully leaning into feeling truly Hot, along with, well, Winter, which has kept me sweaty and puffy and a little Sad. I am comfortable saying, however, that Q1 has set me up to have a particularly Hot Q2: as of close of business on April 5, 2023, I have a lot more vocabulary to talk about the various elements of Hotness, I have slightly more confidence to express what I want and what I don’t (slow going, but progress is progress), and I have a wonderful, wild, witty (and Hot) tribe of friends and supporters on this journey to whom writing these dispatches is a complete joy.

Supporting Goal #1: Accumulate my findings on what it means to be Hot. When I find something or someone that is “unapologetically hot”, bring it into this space to dissect. What makes that person or action hot? What can we learn from this Moment of Hotness?

I would rate myself green here. This newsletter has ballooned into remarkably profound musings on Hot things. I never imagined I might find such fulfillment exploring the expansive boundaries of Hotness, though this statement probably tells you more about the extent to which I have repressed my search for pleasure and the erotic than it does about the topic of Hotness. Over the last two months, I have learned that a lot of people, many of whom I deeply respect, have given a lot of thought to the question of why things are Hot, even if they are not using exactly those words. So far we’ve explored Lorde, Han, Hegel, and Alsadir, but I promise that many more are lurking behind the curtains, eager to make their debut. We’ll get there. All this said, I acknowledge that I don’t just want to send you multi-thousand-word-long existential essays using Hotness as an excuse to explore the meaning of life, so I will dock some points for not sharing more fanciful little anecdotes of encounters with Hot things/people in the style of the Can of Sparkling Water.

Supporting Goal #2: Start to draw out patterns and connections, and begin to formulate a comprehensive Theory of Hotness.

I’d say we’re yellow here. We’ve started to draw some connections across Space, Bodies, and Clowns, but those links have been limited to the Erotic and the self-other dialectic. I suspect there’s much more to tease out here. I’m excited to branch out beyond my obsession with the multi-faceted self and psychoanalysis toward the wild Western hinterlands of consciousness, intelligence, desire, vibes, particle physics, and ghosts. If you, my dear reader, have any ideas or suggestions for where to go next, please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email to share your hypotheses or suspicions (unless, that is, your suggestion is about eyebrows, in which case please don’t ask again. The answer is simple: yes, your eyebrows look wonderful and they do make you Hot).

Supporting Goal #3: Build on this seminal text in Hot Studies.

To close, we’re a big, glaring red here. I have not opened once this link since starting the newsletter, and now that I have done so, I’m devastated. This article is the most consequential anthology of any and all data on Hotness on the internet. If I only had just followed its instructions, I would have almost certainly felt more Hot this quarter than I did. For example, why have I not attempted to “walk like a diva”, per recommendation 4, part 1? Nor have I really considered “acting hot around people I am attracted to”. A dropped ball if I ever did see one. I also have overlooked this critical piece of advice:

… and lost sight of this considered reflection about the nature of Hotness…

I’m sorry. I promise to do better next quarter.

Looking Forward

As we look to Q2, I’ll maintain the same goals as listed above, but I’ll add one more to ensure I am widening my aperture and not just writing about psychoanalysis for another three months. Supporting Goal 4 will therefore be, “Venture beyond areas of comfort to consolidate a wider range of perspectives on Hotness”.

Finally, as we embark on a new phase of this journey, I want to once again express my deep, heartfelt appreciation to each and every one of you for sticking around and cheering me on. It’s been a tremendous pleasure to write these notes to you, and I hope that you can all see yourselves between the lines of everything I write. You’re present with each key stroke, with each punny turn. If at some point I excitedly messaged you on Instagram and suggested you guest write for this newsletter, please take that request seriously. If I enthusiastically demanded to interview you for the newsletter, please also take that request seriously. If I didn’t do either of those things but you’d like to do that, please also take your own request seriously and reach out.

And, finally, for the unapologetic sales part of this program: if you enjoy these dispatches, please forward them to your friends! Tell your lovers about them! Forcibly sign your enemies up! All is fair in love and war!

xx