Amy de Souza

Signs of Intimacy and Other Things We Found in Gary’s House

Sometimes a life is already packed long before anyone seals the boxes.

A new essay: Signs of Intimacy
amydesouza.substack.com/p/signs-of-i...

#personalessay #memoir #writing #substackwriters

The Safety Net as a Life Hack I didn’t hear this story firsthand.

I wrote a blunt piece about how “it’s there for the taking” turns safety nets into optimization games—and why the people who need help most are the least likely to get it.
amydesouza.substack.com/p/the-safety...

#Essays #Culture #Ethics #Inequality #Poverty

My Mother Was Not Allergic to Cats My mother told me she was allergic to cats.

New essay: family fear, pandemic life, and finding my way back to cats I never thought I’d have. 🐱💔🧹

My Mother Was Not Allergic to Cats
amydesouza.substack.com/p/my-mother-...

#Cats #Memoir #PersonalEssay #Pets #JimBelushi

And Then It Just…Stopped During COVID, I watched people I knew become convinced that Tom Hanks, Oprah, Ellen DeGeneres, and other public figures were part of a secret child-trafficking cabal.

New essay: And Then It Just…Stopped — about what happens when a mass belief doesn’t end with reckoning, but quietly fades into silence.

amydesouza.substack.com/p/and-then-i...

#Culture #Psychology #MediaCriticism

In Praise of the Referral I am what market researchers call a market maven: someone who shares opinions about products, places, services, and experiences—and actually tells other people about them.

A referral isn’t transactional. It’s relational.
amydesouza.substack.com/p/in-praise-...
#trust

The Conversion Machine I noticed it for the first time when Charlie Kirk died.

New essay: The Conversion Machine — on political evangelism, strained relationships, and the pressure to be “converted” instead of understood.

amydesouza.substack.com/p/the-conver...

#Politics #Culture #PersonalEssay #Disinformation #Psychology

Apria Healthcare is a nightmare. Weeks of delays for sleep apnea parts, no order number, no tracking, no delivery. Customer service apologizes endlessly, promises fixes, then hangs up. Nothing ever happens.
#apriahealthcare

Buy Once, Cry Once: Learning the Cost of Denial There is a phrase people often use when talking about purchases: buy once, cry once.

New essay ✍️
Buy Once, Cry Once — on denial, money, and how avoiding what we really want often costs more in the end.
open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...

I Don’t Need a Crowd Anymore On friendship, adulthood, and the peace I didn’t know I needed

My dad used to say I’d show up to the opening of an envelope — I loved going out.
Funny how much that’s changed.
New essay on quieter friendships + shrinking circles:
🔗 open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...

No Indoor Plumbing, No Interest On the funny little rules we make about what we’ll allow ourselves to enjoy

New essay: No Indoor Plumbing, No Interest
We all have those “I don’t watch ___” rules — until one story surprises us.
Read:
open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...

#Writing #Essays #Film #Culture #Storytelling

🙏I really appreciate that. I agree it’ll take years of analysis before anyone can fully define what’s happened, and that’s exactly what drew me to the topic. I wasn’t trying to make a legal or moral judgment so much as to explore how language can get ahead of law — and what happens in that gap.

The Weight of a Word Trying to Understand the Word “Genocide”

Words can wound, protect, or accuse.
My latest essay looks at one of the heaviest:
Genocide.

Why this word hits differently for Jews — and what happens when language outruns law.

open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...

#Substack #Writing #Language #Genocide #JewishPerspective

Redial A Story of Grooming, Betrayal, and Unnamed Violations Perpetrated by Christopher McWillie

I’d wake up to him on top of me saying, “I’m gonna fuck you, you dirty whore,” then he’d roll over and sleep like nothing happened.

No one called it assault. Not even me.

#Redial #ChristopherMcWillie
🔗 open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...

🤣

Reconnecting with Mr. Transactional How AI Helped Me See a Relationship Pattern I Couldn’t Before

I fed a relationship meltdown into AI to understand the pattern.
Spoiler: the machine wasn’t wrong.
#relationships #boundaries #healing #selfrespect #lettinggo #psychology #memoir

Read: Reconnecting with Mr. Transactional
🔗 open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...

Into the Manson Caves That Time We Followed a Shirtless Teen Through a Hole in the Earth

We followed a shirtless teen into the infamous Manson Caves.
Flashlights, graffiti, poison ivy, the flu—what could possibly go wrong?

✍️ Read my latest essay: open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...

#IntoTheMansonCaves #UrbanExploration #LosAngelesStories #WritingCommunity

I Was Sent to School for Bad Kids Inside Vista Del Mar, the place for kids who were “too much.”

Just published:
I Was Sent to School for Bad Kids

Inside Vista Del Mar. The place for kids who were “too much.”

#PersonalEssay #Memoir #Trauma #FirstLove #IraKruskol
👉 amydesouza.substack.com/p/i-was-sent...

StrikeTV Bikinis, Blondes, and a Faux Porn Fiasco

During the 2008 writers’ strike, my dad (#StevenEDeSouza) was directing, I was casting.
It was bikinis + comedy. Someone thought it was porn. It wasn’t. But the fiasco? 🤯
👉 open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...
#Hollywood #WritersStrike #CastingChaos

First Date: Yogurt. Second Date: CDC Guidelines. A dating story from my post-divorce, pre-this-marriage era

New on Substack: First Date: Yogurt. Second Date: CDC Guidelines.
A post-divorce, pre-this-marriage dating story featuring yogurt, ex talk & an HPV confession.

👉 open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...

#DatingAfterDivorce #PreThisMarriage #SubstackWriters #Memoir

Studio Caffè Magazzino Soup, Small Talk, and the Start of Something Bigger

From lentil soup to a lasting friendship.
My latest Substack: Studio Caffè Magazzino — Soup, Small Talk, and the Start of Something Bigger

open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...

#Burbank #CafeCulture #FriendshipGoals #MemoirMoments

The Steamy Streamys A 2009 time capsule from the red carpet of web TV’s awkward first awards show

🎬 The Steamy Streamys — 2009’s red carpet chaos, web TV style.

With the Angels (shoutout to @MaryFeuer) was somehow up against Battlestar Galactica 🤯

Cringe, chaos, Papa John’s… and Lisa Kudrow. 🍕

📖 amydesouza.substack.com/p/the-steamy...
#StreamyAwards #WebTV #2000sNostalgia #Hollywood

Not One of Them Had Kids We said we wanted children. We lived like we didn’t. Now we’re in our 50s — and it’s clear.

New on Substack:
Not One of Them Had Kids
We said we wanted children. We lived like we didn’t. Now we’re in our 50s—and it’s clear.

A reflection on the life I built without children, and the men who did the same.

🔗 amydesouza.substack.com/p/not-one-of...

#ChildfreeNotLess #MidlifeReflections

Comfort Sleep Clinic A Tale of Wires, Urine, and Total Administrative Breakdown

Just dropped a new one:
🛏️ Comfort Sleep Clinic: A Tale of Wires, Urine, and Total Administrative Breakdown
Where the only thing studied more than your sleep is your tolerance for chaos.

amydesouza.substack.com/p/comfort-sl...

#SleepStudyFail #HealthcareHumor #ComfortSleepClinic

Just published a new story about my grandmother Evelyne—chain-smoking, casino-hustling, Dove Bar-loving force of nature who went from Atlantic City to running errands like a general in orthopedic shoes. 💄🚗

#GrandmothersOfInstagram #FamilyStories #WritingCommunity

Activity Partner (And Other Denial Mechanisms) Back in 2007, I learned something strange:

Some men are in full-blown relationships and still insist they’re just “activity partners.”
New Substack is up—about denial, matchbooks, and the time I had to tell a guy he had a girlfriend.
🔗 amydesouza.substack.com/p/activity-p...
#ModernLove #DatingFails #Situationships #TrueStory

Menopause, AI, and the Case of the Missing Collagen Today I turn 52. My face got the memo. Loud and clear.

Menopause, AI, and the Case of the Missing Collagen

Today I turn 52. My face got the memo—loud and clear.

open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...

#Menopause #Midlife #Perimenopause #AgingHonestly #SkincareOver50 #RealTalk #Alastin #NoBotox #AIandAging #ThisIs52 #SubstackWriters #WomenOver50

First Kiss Jesse gave me my first kiss. Gaby gave me a lifelong friendship—and a grilled cheese hack I still swear by.

Jesse gave me my first kiss.
His little sister Gaby gave me a lifelong friendship—and a grilled cheese hack I still use.
A story about being twelve, causing trouble, and finding your people.

📝 open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...
#FirstKiss #ComingOfAge #GrilledCheeseWisdom #SubstackWriters

The Catch-and-Release Generation What Happens to Connection When Everyone’s Just One Swipe Away

New post: The Catch-and-Release Generation
What happens to connection when everyone’s just one swipe away?

open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...

#DatingCulture #ModernLove #CatchAndRelease #SwipeFatigue #SubstackWriters

The Chemistry Trap Why That Spark Might Burn You

Ever smell someone and feel your whole system react?
Not love. Not lust. Just biology on blast.
But that spark? It’s not always a green flag.

🧠💔 The Chemistry Trap is up now.
#Dating #Relationships #Pheromones #TheSpark #Matchmaking #LoveVsLust #Essay #Substack

open.substack.com/pub/amydesou...

I Want, I Need, I’ve Got to Have What a middle school meltdown, a pair of Guess jeans, and a grown-up breakup taught me about yearning

New Substack: I Want, I Need, I’ve Got to Have
At 12, it was Guess jeans and the Galleria. At 35, it was a man who couldn’t give me more.
A story about yearning, rebounds, and owning what you need.

amydesouza.substack.com/p/i-want-i-need-ive-got-to-have

#PersonalEssay #Relationships #Nostalgia