Shaved Meats, Piled High: February 2019
When Will There Be Good News?
I was in the corner grocery store in my neighborhood, trying a thought experiment. (Apparently exposing one's self to temptation can help one build the muscle necessary to avoid temptation, so I was staring down a package of Utz Cheese Curls.) In the corner of the store, a woman was playing the "entertainment-only" slot machine. When the game ended, she went to the counter to buy Pick 3 and Pick 4 lottery tickets. And my scattered mind went wandering down its own path, from slot machines to lotteries to Candy Crush-esque games to social media.
I've been told that gambling is the one non-chemical addiction that lights up the same part of the brain as drugs and alcohol. But I think social media delivers a similar kick. I often find myself running in circles -- no, not circles, a triangle, from Twitter to Facebook to Gmail, looking for something, anything, to boost my spirits.
But. BUT. Eschewing this unholy trinity is not an option for me and maybe not an option for you. And there are positives to all three, things I genuinely enjoy. So I have to find the sweet spot in which I use these -- services? utilities? -- without allowing them to abuse me.
Last month, I read the 1965 novel Stoner in one day. I had long been meaning to read John Williams's book, despite knowing nothing about it except that smart people said it was wonderful. It does not have the most promising opening line I've ever read.
But the book asserts itself in the second paragraph.
(Sorry these photos are so darn large.)
I read it off and on through the length of a Saturday, in which I flew to Florida, took a walk, stopped for lunch, then continued to coffee, finishing in time to dress for the first faculty dinner at Writers in Paradise, the annual writers conference where I have taught since 2006. I felt calm, serene, happy. The subsequent week, I spent almost no time online because of the demands of the conference. Again, I felt centered.
Now I have been home for almost three weeks and I have been abusing social media again, checking in like the Skinnerian rat that I am, hoping for pellets. All signs point to quitting. And yet -- that's not possible. Instead, I'm trying to keep my online consumption at a reasonable level; using Freedom to block my Internet access twice a day (once for writing, once for the parenting "window" of 5-8). When it was suggested to me, via my agent, that Instagram stories were the new hot mode for writers, I decided to pass. For whatever reason, I haven't caught the Instagram bug and I see no reason to expose myself. (The Mystery Box's photo is posted there monthly for those who do like the format.)
And yet here I am, "talking" to "you" -- subscribers who have signed up for this newsletter, presumably because you are interested in my books and, possibly, what I have to say. Also, irony or ironies, this Tiny Letter is going out late because I'm locked out of my email as I type this and I need my email to import photos.
Complicated, isn't it?
By the way, I did not buy the Cheese Curls.
READ/READING: The Golden State, Lydia Kiesling; The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai; Strangers in Their Own Land, Arlie Russell Hochschild; Evicted, Matthew Desmond; Stoner (duh).
REREADING: From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg.
ME ME, ME: At fine and not-so-fine bookstores July 23. As we say in New Orleans this time of year: "You're so purty."
Laura Lippman
February 2019