Ask Molly

For years, Molly has found herself overshadowed by her twin sister Polly, who is known for her upbeat and positive advice. This constant comparison has left Molly feeling irritable and overly proud. To make matters more complicated, both sisters write under the same pen name, "Heather Havrilesky." We agree, it does have a somewhat artificial ring to it.

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Articles

Glaze

1 week ago | askmolly.substack.com | Heather Havrilesky

I’m starting a new pottery class today. We’re going to learn about glazes: how to mix them, how they interact with each other. We’ll be making test tiles to see how different colors react to each other on different clay bodies. This is how speed dating should work: Experiment first. See how everyo…
Therapy

2 weeks ago | askmolly.substack.com | Heather Havrilesky

Hello, forever-lovers, soulmates, besties, and common creepers! It’s time to give you an update, but I’ve been delayed by factors that I think you’ll understand: 1) quality control, which demanded throwing out four to five drafts some of your less stringent and exacting newsletter writers would…
Dawn

1 month ago | askmolly.substack.com | Heather Havrilesky

Powder Puff (2022), Flora YukhnovichI ask and an answer comes: don’t force the light, don’t stare straight into the sun, close your eyes and let the sinister earth breathe through you, let the stubborn stones speak, millions of years and they didn’t shrink, crumbling is another way of reorganizing yourself, eroding is another way of smoothing rough edges, listening to the tides, waiting patiently for the day when this low berm becomes a tall cliff overlooking the wide ocean.
Swampy

1 month ago | askmolly.substack.com | Heather Havrilesky

“‘Whenever choosing a house,’ old Uncle Frog used to say, ‘see that there are plenty of damp patches on the walls. And if the roof leaks, so much the better.’” — Racey Helps, Kingcup CottageToday I woke up and one bird was singing. I listened more closely. A towhee.
Crumble

1 month ago | askmolly.substack.com | Heather Havrilesky

If All The World Were Jell-O (2019), Flora YukhnovichHello, soulmates and forever-lovers! Have you missed your better half, your everything, your sun and moon and stars? I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been absolutely up to my ears in the blood-dimmed tide lately. I mean, right? What a mess. Literally everything I own is blood-dimmed now. “What’s good” I texted a friend yesterday. “The ceremony of innocence is drowned,” she texted back. “Again?” I texted back.
Critical

1 month ago | askmolly.substack.com | Heather Havrilesky

I sometimes wish I had no capacity for critical thinking. Life would be fifty million times more relaxing if I simply accepted my fate like a peaceful goldfish circling in a small bowl that will soon kill him. The goldfish never knows that he will die in any number of gruesome and torturous ways — swimming upsid…
Snow!

2 months ago | askmolly.substack.com | Heather Havrilesky

Puits d’amour (2021), Flora YukhnovichIt’s going to snow AGAIN, TODAY (!!!!), so naturally I’m listening to Vince Staples’ “Feels Like Summer.”I need a rap about snow. The ideal would be “The Recipe” by Kendrick Lamar and Dr. Dre but with snowflakes instead of weed, and hot chocolate instead of chocolates in the sun.
Memory

2 months ago | askmolly.substack.com | Heather Havrilesky

Memory is an act of resistance, but my memories refuse to stand their ground. They cower in the basement or hide under the covers. Don’t drag them out or they’ll swerve into oncoming traffic and drive straight over that cliff into the cold ocean. When they do appear, my memories are reckless, telling me it …
Lossless

2 months ago | askmolly.substack.com | Heather Havrilesky

It’s Better Down Where It’s Wetter (2018), Flora YukhnovichLossless: Noise expunged from the track, grief banished from consciousness, no memory, no mourning, no night, no morning, just 7000k LEDs blasting through every shadow, every doubt, every shadow of a doubt. Forward progress day and night without consciousness, without reflection, work for the ca…
Origins

2 months ago | askmolly.substack.com | Heather Havrilesky

Minuet (2020) Flora Yukhnovich‘Heather Havrilesky’ did a podcast a few days ago and the interviewer asked her why she wasn’t just known as ‘Heather,’ implying that she should simply combine Ask Polly and Ask Molly into one cohesive entity under her own name.