A very special Scumbler announcement
The newsletter is getting an intern.
I don’t have an interview, a cartoon, or a movie review for you today. This edition of The Scumbler is dedicated to a piece of personal news, which has been occupying ~75% of my attention for the last eight months. The news is: I’m pregnant! If everyone sticks to the plan, the little guy will arrive in mid-July, which is — and I am shocked by this information daily — quite soon.
His legal name is still undetermined, but Alex and I call him Critter.
Pregnancy has been the strangest and sweetest experience of my life so far. The absurdities have included routinely pissing myself on the street, because third trimester bladder control is no match for my seasonal allergies, and developing a newfound lust for sour gummy candies. It’s bizarre, in a fun way, to watch my stomach undulate as Critter performs his mysterious nighttime floor routines. (What is he thinking? What is he doing?) Ridiculous, too, is the fact that Instagram only realized a few weeks ago that I’m pregnant. I thought the surveillance state was supposed to be good at its job? I’ve been Googling pregnancy symptoms with impunity since November — often at 4 a.m., when I spend an hour or two checking in with my old friend, The Void — but somehow I was well into the third trimester before Zuck’s minions unleashed a flood of millennial folk wisdom about weary nipples and hot mom outfits and exercise routines that absolutely guarantee you will not tear during delivery.
I’m grateful to have dodged those videos for as long as I did. They might drive me off social media for good.
Then there’s the concept that I’m growing a person within my person. I know I sound a bit like a stoned college freshman whenever I marvel at the fact that he’s already in the room with us. Like, he’s hanging out inside my stomach right now, and in a few weeks he’s going to be out there in the world. It’s mind-blowing to me. Incredibly boring, no doubt, to almost everyone else.
As weird and wild as pregnancy is, I have also felt unbelievably lucky. It took a while for me to get pregnant — not nearly as long as it takes some people, but long enough that I take nothing about it for granted. I love carrying my little buddy with me everywhere I go. I love being in this quiet gestational bubble with Alex. The other night we discovered that Critter wriggles in response to a flashlight held up to my stomach, and we had fun playing that game until we decided that we should stop torturing our baby.
Obviously, I have a lot to say. I’ve been writing about it, privately, and I will be dropping some pregnancy essays in the coming months.
This brings us to some Scumbler business. I’ll be going on maternity leave for a few months beginning in July, but fear not — the newsletter will continue publishing every week during this time. I’ve been secretly cooking up a bunch of exciting stuff for you:
Guest posts (and illustrations!) from some very special friends of the newsletter
A whole mess of Eliza cartoons
Postcards from maternity leave (thank you to the vintage postcard sellers of eBay)
The aforementioned pregnancy essays
The guest posts and toons will be free for all subscribers, and the postcards and personal essays will be behind the paywall, where the dirty laundry belongs. It’s going to be good, and the fun will continue apace when I’m back.
Some of you may be wondering if the arrival of The Scumbler’s unpaid intern means that the content of the newsletter will be changing. Yes… and no. This operation has always been — and always will be! — a reflection of my current interests and preoccupations, and parenthood is very top-of-mind these days. Next Friday, for instance, you’ll be receiving an interview with the extremely cool and down-to-earth fashion designer Sandy Liang about the art of dressing during pregnancy, because I simply could not figure out what to do about pants for the first, oh, five months. But parenthood will certainly not be my entire focus. I’ll still be writing about movies, cool people in D.C., Oscars red carpet looks, professors who become actors, old issues of Gourmet magazine, and whatever the hell it means to be a working writer in 2026. (Some good stuff coming up on that front soon.)
Now it’s time for the hard sell. The encouragement and engagement of this wonderful little community means so much to me — but I’m especially grateful to those of you who have chosen to spend your hard-earned cash on a monthly or annual subscription. The support of The Scumbler’s paid subscribers helps keep this operation churning out delightful and eclectic cultural missives every single Friday. That has been the case since I turned on paid subscriptions last year, but it’s especially clear to me right now. As a freelancer who doesn’t receive paid parental leave, your support has never been more material.
For all of those reasons, if you’re not currently a paid subscriber but find this newsletter to be a meaningful part of your week, I hope you’ll consider upgrading your subscription. I know that’s a lot to ask, so in honor of this season of change — and as a heartfelt thank you for reading my weekly sermon — I am running a special sale on annual Scumbler subscriptions. For the next month (starting right now!) you can visit this page for 20% off an annual subscription. That means you’ll pay $64 for the year, rather than $80 (or, as I like to think of it, a bit less than one fancy espresso drink per month). A pretty good deal!
(I also know that not everyone can afford to spend $64 on a “delightful and eclectic” newsletter, to quote myself from 30 seconds ago. If that’s you, drop me a line and I’d be happy to comp your subscription. A lot of people have been generous with their support of The Scumbler, and I would be honored to pay it forward.)
All right then. Thank you for indulging my sales pitch. It doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’m learning. Onward!
With love,
Eliza (and Critter)
Congrats Eliza!!
mazel tov!