Author Archives: Sally

Sally Garnatah writes silly things. Some of Sally’s stories are true. For legal purposes, consider all of these posts to be … autofiction, if you can stomach that kind of quasi-pretentious literary stuff. Sally doesn’t read autofiction, though. She’s too much of a country girl. You can find her down by the Tennessee River, out in the woods, standing in a sorghum field — or you can find her right here, on her blog.

Woman Marries Cat

Here are some notes I made about an imaginary rom-com. This is my attempt at coming up with a believably unbelievable premise for a film:

• A woman marries a tuxedo cat because he’s already wearing a tux. This is an excellent method for saving money — and she posts about it on her Financial Management TikTok account. Or her Financial Management YouTube channel. Or both, because she’s all about cross-platform monetization.

• She does it for publicity. She hopes to meet and marry a millionaire — a local millionaire? A well-known animal-loving celebrity? (Must figure this angle out.)

• She ultimately falls in love with a magazine editor who can’t decide whether the article should be called “Cat marries woman” or “Woman marries cat” — but since the film is called Woman Marries Cat, we’ll probably go with that one.

If anyone wants to turn this into a film, then I’ll gladly accept an executive producer credit. TIA.

What I Post — And Where I Post It

SUBSTACK: This is where I post posted my random musings. (I’m Doyle Harcavy.) It’s like a written podcast — news-y stuff and current trends and observations. It’s also a bit like pages from a diary — I sprinkle in details about my own reactions to current events.

MEDIUM: This is where I post essays about being a young woman, about living in the South, and about family history.

THREADS and BLUESKY: Quippy stuff. These are half-formed thoughts.

SUBSTACK NOTES: Too long to be a Thread, too short to be in the newsletter — that’s where these thoughts go. I’m probably not going to be using Substack in 2024, though.

TIKTOK: I’ve posted a few video essays — but only very short ones. I tend to stick to a three-to-five minute framework. Like I’m in a public speaking class.

WATTPAD: I used to post poems on Wattpad — and on AO3. Roses are red, violets are blue, be glad that I don’t inflict my poems on you.

JAMAIS MAYVILLE: This is where I post silly little thoughts, silly big thoughts, and a little bit of everything.

Peach-Tree Switches

There ought to be a Rice Purity Score for the oddly-specific methods of abuse — physical and mental and emotional — some Southern and/or rural folks have inflicted on their children.

#64: Have you ever been beaten with a switch from a peach tree?

#65: Have you ever had a whoopin’ or a ***-kickin’ from an old man wearing Ostrich boots?

I don’t endorse corporal punishment — and this is because I’ve been on the receiving end of it. I’ve been belted and switched, and I didn’t deserve it. No child deserves any of that.

I’m aware of how wildly awful that stuff is — and I would never dream of giving a child a switch from a peach tree when I could offer them fruit instead.

Authenticity

I’m making a list — and I’ve already checked it twice. Earlier this month, I mentioned that there are some people obsessed with proving that they’re “authentically country” or “authentically Appalachian” or “authentically Southern.”

If you’re authentically doing your thing, then you probably don’t need to take great pains prove yourself. I don’t feel like I have to flash my credentials, but if you’d like to see them:

  1. My mom’s mom’s mom’s family — the folks on my maternal side — were sharecroppers. They picked tobacco and corn under the blanket of humidity that smothers western Kentucky every spring and every summer.
  2. My mom’s dad was a cattle farmer. He wasn’t a rancher — he was a farmer, with a small-ish farm and a wood lot and a pond for the cows and the snakes.
  3. My mom’s dad’s dad and his family were sorghum farmers.
  4. My dad’s mom’s brother and his family were cattle dairy farmers. They had cattle, but they mostly did dairy operations. They milked cows all the time and all of that. My dad would go over to the farm and bale hay. My dad’s cousin — one of his favorite cousins, a man whom we all remember fondly — would muck the stalls and sing “It’s Such A Pretty World Today” while he was … tidying up.
  5. My dad’s dad had a tobacco patch, but he never planted again after coming up a nickel short on his crop. (He didn’t make a profit. He lost money on that enterprise, is what I’m trying to say — and he never planted another tobacco patch.)
  6. My dad’s dad was a miner. He ran a dragline and did above-ground strip mining in the Western Coal Fields.
  7. My dad’s dad’s dad could sharpen an ax finer than anyone else in the county. (I’d noticed that this was the kind of job you could do while sitting down, which suited him. He was a pretty … casual man. He would always weigh down his bushels of turnips with rocks before going to the market. That’s just … that’s just how he was.)
  8. My dad’s dad mended and tarred his own fishing nets. He loved to go fishing out on the Tennessee River.
  9. My dad’s dad’s dad was a bona fide alcoholic. He would get … a little bit happy and float down the river — mostly for fun, but also because he didn’t have a license or a vehicle.
  10. My dad’s dad was good friends with the local bootlegger.
  11. My dad’s dad’s dad’s uncle was the oldest living Union Army veteran in Kentucky.
  12. My dad’s mom’s brothers played the violin and the mandolin. The mandolin-player put out an album when he moved down to Arkansas. (He was also a long-haul truck driver. He was a cool guy.)
  13. My mom’s dad’s mom played the guitar. She was a tiny little woman — unlike me, a big-built gal — but she was apparently quite the entertainer.
  14. My mom’s mom — my beloved grandmother — was a hairdresser and a laundress and a housecleaner.
  15. My mom’s mom’s mom ran a hamburger stand and worked in a munitions factory and a clothing factory. She was the real deal. She was hard-working and objectively beautiful. I only inherited the first part, but … I’m glad to be like her, in some small way.
  16. My dad’s mom’s brother was a long-distance trucker. I only found this out years and years after he’d retired. (I guess I mentioned this earlier — but it deserves a separate mention!)
  17. My dad used to drive a dump truck, while we’re talking about big trucks.
  18. My dad’s mom’s brother was blinded in a spar mining accident.
  19. My mom’s mom’s mom’s brother’s wife was blinded when she got chemicals in her eyes while sharecropping.
  20. My mom’s mom’s mom’s brother was shot and killed on his own brother-in-law’s front porch.

The guy who wrote Hillbilly Elegy has nothing on me.

Facebook’s Agony Aunties

One of the worst things about social media is all of the advice-giving. Relationship advice from codependent people. Parenting advice from twenty-two-year-olds who have only been married two years, with only a tiny infant to cull experience from. “Sage” life lessons from a seventeen-year-old who has a podcast microphone.

I don’t like to be down on (most) other people — but I often roll my eyes at this Digital Creator/Expert cottage industry.

As much as I dislike it, I’ve decided to just keep doing what I’m doing — which is not taking their advice. None of the advice applies or makes sense, so the best thing to do (in the short term) is to simply ignore the foolishness.

That’s just my advice, though. 😘

Hay Is For Horses, Straw Is For A Drink

… and straw shouldn’t go in my hair, don’t you think?

I realize that’s a ridiculous and unnecessary rhyme, but I wanted to preface this ridiculous and unnecessary post with something that’s as goofy as I am.

I’ve never worn straw in my hair, I should say. I have thick, super-curly hair, so I try not to stick too many foreign objects in my curls. I have to admit that I did put feathers in my hair back in 2012 — back when that was trendy.

I only wore clip-on feathers. I didn’t get any sewn in. If any Gen Z or Gen A folks are reading this and didn’t realize that Hair Feathers were not only a real thing, but also the height of early 2010s Indie Sleaze fashion, then … let me disabuse you of the notion that anything that awkward couldn’t possibly be it.

Hair feathers were it and then some. Everyone from tweens to forty-something indie rockers got in on the befeathering. 2012 was a wild year, that’s true — but I miss that era so much. Not to be stuck in the past, but I really loved the Blog House/Indie Sleaze years.

The only other “accessory” I’ve worn woven into my hair — other than a headband or flower crown — is rice. This was entirely accidental. I went to a Halloween showing of Rocky Horror and I walked around with rice in my hair for several days. Even after washing and detangling it, I would find little grains of rice. I dealt with that situation by combing it all out, one grain at a time.

Back in November, I would braid my hair every night before going to bed — but every morning, it would look more wild than ever. From time to time, my hair looked decent in the morning, but by mid-afternoon, it looked like frizzy straw. I felt like a hay bale.

But everything changed when I bought the UnBrush. This brush is incredible. I’m not doing any spon-con — and I don’t want to.

I just want all the curly-haired folks to know that this brush works wonders! I love it!

Not Another Business!

I have never been self-employed.

Not really, I should say. I’ve always been in school, working for someone else, or doing both of those things. Other than a brief period of unemployment after finishing graduate school, I’ve always been studying or working.

But because I’m friends with lots of folks who do media and art — freelance writers, photographers, videographers, folks who draw and paint — I see that lots of my friends have their own studios, or LLCs, or business accounts on Facebook.

I’ve never been tempted to set up my own business, because I know that it’s not for me. The two most “business venture”-y things I’ve done:

(1) I started a podcast, but I only posted about twenty episodes over the course of a year. That was more of a personal project, anyway, so I didn’t expect to sell any ads or make any money.

(2) I have a Teepspring storefront, where I “sell” all sorts of shirts (and stickers and mugs) with silly slogans on them. I’ve never made many sales — but I didn’t plan on making that my primary source of income.

With the podcast and the storefront, I didn’t feel like I was making “business moves.” They were just fun creative projects. Not very time-intensive, and they didn’t involve too much labor.

I like a good project. I’ve done lots of projects, from helping to build a deck to filling sandbags to doing bad oil paintings — but I don’t want a second job.

And this is coming from someone who’s worked two jobs at the same time before. I remember my six-day work-weeks and the days where I would work from 8 AM to 8 PM. I like being able to come home and have dinner before 9 PM.

I don’t want my own photography business — even though I only shoot landscapes and no portraits, so that point is moot — or my own freelance writing/PR business, because it seems like a lot of work for minimal payout.

The market is chock full o’nuts saturated right now. Everyone in the market has a podcast, a blog, a content creator page, a professional page, and a wall of platitudes that they sit in front of during their Zoom consulting sessions. Everyone in the market is worried about aesthetics, monetizing hobbies, side hustles, and branding. Everyone has a personal brand that features their name and their image quite prominently. Everyone has been told to brand themselves — because it could affect your business(es), past, present, and future.

Earlier today, I saw a post bemoaning this face-first style of branding. The marketer said that they were actually getting tired of having to brand every post, to make sure every post fit Their Brand, to get dressed up a certain way to film their content, to have their personal page linked to their business page, and so on and so forth. They said that their “next business” would be “faceless” — as a means of reclaiming some privacy.

I SMH’d IRL. (And I don’t really say things like that — but that’s precisely what I did.)

“SMH,” I said. “Starting a second or third business just to have some more privacy?”

I understand where they’re coming from. I do. That’s why this blog is semi-anonymous. (I don’t post pictures on here, and I think only people who know me on a personal level would be able to speak on the Real Sally — whoever that is.)

But I think it’s wild how people are overburdened by their side hustles and business ventures — so they’ve decided to start another one. 😵‍💫

I see what the ultimate goal is — to jump ship from the photography business to the anonymous “Farmer’s Wife” recipe blog, from the photo-heavy recipe blog to the anonymous “Angora Lady” yarn sales site, from the knitting YouTube vlog to a faceless vlog with close-up shots of the hands, only.

People are tired of getting dressed up for their cooking videos — and they’re realizing they could just show shots of the counter and their hands. They don’t have to put on a full face of makeup or trim their beard to do an audio-only podcast about urban legends. People just want to be comfortable while they’re working. Having to be on all the time — as an influencer, as a micro-celebrity — is exhausting.

I’m glad I’ve never started a business. I’m fine with following someone else’s rules during the day, so that I can go home at night and not have to worry about things like overhead, sales figures, SEO, brand reach, or anything that requires strategic financial planning.

I’m glad I’m not an influencer, or a content creator, or a consultant. I am an anonymous blogger — and this is the only faceless business I plan on having.