What I'm Reading This Week While Wallowing in Existential Despair
A roundup of links worthy of a click
Over the past week, my pop and I have been ferociously texting. It’s as if we’ve discovered messaging and all we do it talk about the weather and old memories. Every day, he sends me pics from our former life and while I felt the ache of nostalgia at first, I began to feel sad to a point where I had to silence and hide my phone. To a point where I couldn’t look at those terrific images of us in various states of glee because it reminds me of the friends and love I’ve lost, the weight I’ve gained, the words that so easily flowed and the better choices I could’ve made.
I feel frozen, stuck in the betweens. I don’t know where to live. Do I stay in Los Angeles or move to Portland or some obscure little town on a map? I can barely figure out what to make for lunch so I’m… overwhelmed. I know what to write, but I wonder—is it worth it? Do people want to read my dark little stories? (maybe) Would they pay money for them? (I doubt it) Should I even keep writing this newsletter? (I don’t know) My pop wonders when I’ll visit New York, when he can see me, and I stall. I try to find the right words to say but nothing comes. I’m evasive. One day. Some day. I type all the non-specific times we can meet until he drops it and changes topics.
How do I say that New York is heavy. I feel burdened by all the history. How the city where I grew up has changed so much it’s at turns too familiar and a stranger all at once? How do I say any of this when I’m always just fine?
The only good bit from the mess of this week is I’ve started a new story. For my paid peeps, I’ll be sending a breakdown this weekend of how I started the story and how I plan to map it out. It’s mostly a writing how-to with sections from the three pages I’ve started and thoughts on where I’m going. So, until next week here’s what I’ve been reading over the past two weeks.
It’s good stuff, trust me.
“What is happiness, anyway? Does anybody know? It’s more like the thing that Christians call grace: you can’t earn it, you can’t strive for it, it’s not a reward for virtue. It exists all right, it will be given to you, but it’s fluid, it’s evasive, it’s out of reach. It’s something you glimpse in the corner of your eye until one day you’re up to your neck in it. And before you’ve had time to take a big gasp and name it, it’s gone.” —Helen Garner on Happiness
Is everything an MLM? Because it sure feels like it.
I can’t believe we’re glorifying a time in the twentieth century where women were far from equal and doping themselves up to exist. When nearly every major writer from that time described people as hollow alcoholics (see John Cheever, John Updike, Richard Yates, etc., etc.) Yes, apparently, some women are desperate to return to the 1950s nuclear family and it’s taken everything in me to not gouge my eyes out.
I’m the only one who doesn’t care about ChatGPT. However, this is the only piece that held my attention. Yes, we know, AI will replace everything. Call me when the shuttle lands.
“Growth often feels a little bad before it feels good because it necessitates a grieving period. You’re in one now. When we transform, even for the better, we must grieve the people we once were; their ignorance, their circumstances. You can grieve the painful times, the opportunities, relationships, and experiences you mention. Remember too that you’ve lived beyond them. Don’t dwell.” —How to make up for lost time.
“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.”—I hate TikTok (some of the trends are deeply dark and disturbing, like a visual Twitter) and apparently it’s garbage.
It’s okay that you’ve forgotten what you’ve read. You’re not a monster.
I found an old review of my second book in LARB. They make me sound smart. I’m into it.
My darkest stuff gets almost zero engagement on line, but I notice this is the stuff that gets almost 2-3X the number of opens, usually from people reading and rereading multiple times... I think a lot of people are scared to comment/like that which scares them most, because maybe they are scared other people will see them engaging and that carries its own dangers.... but they identify with these same fears, dread the same things I’m willing to put out there that perhaps they are not.
That’s what draws me to what you write. It’s not scared to crawl under the skin and rummage around, to disturb order, to chew away the scabs over wounds that aren’t healing. So keep writing; people are reading, even if they don’t engage...
Do NOT — I repeat — DO NOT move to any place in Ohio, even though we have a lot of little towns you can hide in... ok, maybe not hide because the natives here will find you and peer through their blinds at the stranger what moved into the Demargue’s old house on Elm St even though all the Demargues haven’t lived there in 40 years and the city renamed the street Porter Drive about 15 years back but it’s still always gonna be the Demargue’s place over on Elm St. I lost the plot here, but the important part is do not move to Ohio.
Hi Felicia -- a brief excerpt from your current newsletter, with embeds (in parentheses) --
I feel frozen, stuck in the betweens. I don’t know where to live. Do I stay in Los Angeles (LA SUCKS -- big time. Spent a lot of time in various burgs in the LA Basin for work-related purposes; never want to go back.) or move to Portland (Portland is a nice place, altho terminally hip & trendy, these days. Also, the rainy season can be nasty ...) or some obscure little town on a map? (The town might be your best bet; altho if you live for "in-person culture" - theater, concerts, galleries, etc. - small-town living can feel somewhat ... constricted.) I can barely figure out what to make for lunch so I’m… overwhelmed. I know what to write, but I wonder—is it worth it? (... def worth it to your readers; the value to the author only you can decide.) Do people want to read my dark little stories? (maybe/YES!!) Would they pay money for them? (I doubt it/ ... doing it right now --) Should I even keep writing this newsletter? (I don’t know/ ... please consider continuing, if it proves to be of value to you; your insights definitely are of value to your audience)