1. I never thought I’d say this, but I haven’t done much of anything on the internet for the last year. I still post from time to time, but I haven’t written anything of substance (here) in ages, and lately I go weeks without even checking my email. This time last year I was posting fifteen times a day.
2. I still think about the internet - and the people in it - all the time, it’s just no longer in the same kind of demented fervor omigawdimmamisstheparty breathlessness. I’m quite sure this means I’m no longer addicted.
3. Now that I’ve overcome my internet codependency, I’m slowly paving a digital path for myself, one that I can travel in a healthy manner. I’m in no hurry.
4. The internet and I can’t be codependent any more than my favorite scarf and I can, but still. I project and personify because it amuses me, not because I don’t know the difference.
5. I really hope Donald Trump runs for President, because his humiliation will be awesome to watch.
6. The other day I was craving Starbucks, which, naturally, does not have a franchise in Grenada. So I melted a candy bar and added it to a cup of instant coffee, and BOOM. Party in my mouth.
7. I don’t even drink Starbucks. I also don’t eat McDonald’s or Pizza Hut or Taco Bell or any fast food, really, but I crave all of them like crazy when I see commercials. That’s why I learned to make deep dish pizza from scratch.
8. Thirteen years ago in Paris, I met Margaret Atwood and had a chance to talk to her at length, but I didn’t, because I was scared and also somehow thought it was an opportunity I’d have again. Past me was silly, and should’ve worn more comfortable shoes.
9. Speaking of Margaret Atwood, I just finished Oryx & Crake. I highly recommend it, especially if you enjoy love stories about the end of the world.
10. To Bean, everything on TV is either cartoons or the news, except for Futurama, which he says is both. I think I’m going to appropriate that, and refer to everything in life as that’s fun or insipid as cartoons and everything else as the news. Except for this post, which is both.
1. How I gained some weight during the year I wasn’t in Grenada. I’ve been back for two months now, and it’s still the very first thing people comment on when they see me. It’s stressing me out so much that I hid in my apartment for four weeks, avoiding people. I’ve lost ten pounds since I got here, but no one mentions that. I’m not writing about it.
2. How last year I went through some really awful emotional abuse from my family. Now that I’ve gotten some distance from them, I’m actually thinking about it more, and I don’t want that, because there’s nothing to do except get over it. (I talked to them about it, which only led to specific explanations re: why I deserve to be treated like shit.) I’m not writing about it.
3. Bean’s father is a jerk. This is not a surprise, nor is it something I can’t handle. But still. I’m not writing about it.
4. I’m lonely. I want to have dirty martinis with my girlfriends, get tipsy and talk about how much we love each other. I’m not writing about it.
5. My book, which was almost finished in May, has floundered. I don’t have the physical or emotional space I need to focus on it. I’m worried I’ll never get it together, and that if I do, it’ll be trite and boring. I’m most certainly not writing about it.
6. I stopped taking Wellbutrin back in May. I don’t feel awful without it, but I know I’d feel better with it, but I can’t afford to fill the prescriptions here. I’m not writing about it.
7. There’s a broken pipe in my head. It’s spewing words, and in order to avoid a flood, I had to shut the whole system down. I’m definitely not writing about THAT.
8. I’ve been sick off and on since I got to Grenada. I had two fevers, which were miserable, a cold, and I generally just feel shitty, probably because of the heat and how hard it is to stay hydrated. It makes it hard to keep up with Bean, and everything else. I’m not writing about it.
9. I haven’t had a real job in a long time, and I’m terrified that I’ll never be hired again. I’m kind of a loser, you know? Totally not writing about it.
10. I could use a hug, like a real hug. Maybe I’ll write about that. Then again, maybe I won’t.
Not the way to my heart:
1. “Just let me know if you want some vein.”
1. For two night in a row now, I’ve slept funny on my neck and woken up with a band of angry Sumerians in my right shoulder.
2. The Sumerians claim they’re from Çatal Hüyük, but that’s obviously a lie, because they have iPhones.
3. We’re at the beach.
4. Bean is in the water with his life-jacket and a responsible adult who is not me watching him.
5. Vodka and grapefruit juice since 10AM, because we have rules here in the Caribbean, yes, but they are different.
1. I know it’s Thursday.
2. In preparation for my reentry into the land of endless summer, I’ve painted my toenails blue. “Blue My Mind”, to be precise. Thank you, Sally Hansen Hard As Nails, for existing since I was in middle school; I find that comforting.
3. If I had the time and money to do whatever I wanted to right now, I’d be traveling all over with my little purple suitcase, from Boston to Brooklyn to Florida to Chicago to San Diego to Savannah to London, saying hello and goodbye in person before I leave for Grenada, but I don’t, so instead I’m shopping and packing, which is not nearly as much fun, but it’ll do.
4. I’m nervous. Not in a bad way, which is the way I was nervous a year and a half ago, the last time I was preparing for a big move. Not in an every limb of my body is full of dread sort of way, but rather in a everything’s lovely and I kind of want to cry happy tears sort of way.
5. I don’t know if there’s room in my luggage for all my flip-flops, not if I want to pack all my notebooks.
6. A couple of months ago I started actively preparing Bean for Grenada by talking to him about the island and our friends and family and in particular his father. We spend a lot of time now speculating what daddy will think of this or that. One of the first things I told him was that his father would “fall down” when he sees how big he has gotten. Bean found this very troubling, because of course he took my words literally, and so I explained to him what a metaphor is, and now he’s a four-year-old who talks about metaphors. He also tells anyone who will listen that his daddy is going to FALL DOWN, but I surely prefer that to the last ill-considered line of mine he liked to repeat, the one about how he has his father’s butt.
7. I’m pretty much offline all the time, except for occasional moments like today, when I’m allegedly shopping. At first it was uncomfortable, but now I’m enjoying my internet break, because I’m fully plugged-in to Bean, summer, packing, mental mosquito nets and the family stuff that’s happening related to my cousin getting married in a couple of weeks. I’ll be back after that.
8. Just look at all of those earrings.
9. My mom’s making me a dress to wear to the wedding. I looked in stores for ages and just couldn’t find anything I liked. So I found a linen-rayon blend the color of rust, and I can’t believe I just said that.
10. Blurry photo. GPOY is a knack, one it seems I’ve misplaced. <3
1. Days spent offline: SEVEN.
2. Households moved: TWO.
3. Baskets of clean and folded laundry my 30-years-old-but-elderly brother put in the attic in order to avoid “clutter”: ONE.
4. Stalkery emails received from a certain internet psycho: FOUR.
5. Things I care about more than the idle, cowardly threats of some douchebag: INFINITY.
6. Blog posts I’ll be writing between now and July 13th, when I leave for Grenada: THREE. Maybe.
7. Pyrex bowls Bean dropped on his own head last week: ONE.
8. Pyrex bowls Bean shattered last week: ONE.
9. Injuries sustained during aforementioned tussle with Pyrex bowl: ZERO.
10. How much did I miss you? THIS MUCH.
1. Websites littered with PayPal buttons and photos of a statue of Anubis at the Denver International Airport.
1. The non-prescription cold medicine I’ve been taking for congestion has miraculously soothed my feet, which had been swollen and painful for weeks.
2. This instant coffee tastes awesome.
1. Packing a barrel to ship to Grenada. Everything from my favorite garlic press to some pillowcases I found that feature Ms. Piggy in a slinky purple dress to several cans of Axe body spray. (Don’t hate.)
2. I’m making black bean chicken chili. I’ve also got tzakziki that’s been steeping in the fridge for about a week now.
3. My feet are so swollen my Dansko’s are tight.
4. So if I fill a glass with whole frozen strawberries, and then add red wine to that glass, and maybe a splash or orange juice, that’s totally sangria, right?
5. For Mother’s Day, Bean got me one of those long tank tops that’s supposed to be “instantly slimming”. I finally wore it today and I love it. If I manage to get used to the feeling of a pound of antimatter at my solar plexus, I’m making it my new uniform.
1. When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.
2. When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.
3. Don’t romanticize your “vocation.” You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer’s lifestyle.” All that matters is what you leave on the page.
4. Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.
5. Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.
6. Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.
7. Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.
8. Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
9. Don’t confuse honors with achievement.
10. Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand — but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.
1. I love you.
2. I’m fine.
3. I’ll be back on Wednesday.
4. Tomorrow is Bean’s birthday so I’ll be busy anyway.
5. You look awesome in that top.
1. I do not, at present, own an iPod, but I used to, and his name was “Mister Man”.
2. I’ve never seen every episode of anything, not even The West Wing, because hello? After Sorkin left it turned into a bad acid trip.
3. I’ve never had a yeast infection. My vagina is bionic.
4. I am immune to poison ivy.
5. I don’t like Diet Pepsi because it tastes purple, which is not a good thing.
1. When people carrying clipboards ring my doorbell. Because, really? I have enough trouble mustering up the energy to talk to the people I want to talk to.
