A few weeks ago, the New York Times published a long piece about an awful socialite nobody’s ever heard of and called her “The New Queen of L.A.” One of the descriptive terms applied to her that I enjoyed was:  Ms. Staudinger is a voracious content consumer.

In the same conversation, she’ll recommend a documentary on music in 1971, a book on Los Angeles in 1974 and a TikTok she saw about brain vibrations.

Whoever she is, there were 650 comments complaining about her lack of appeal and importance. But I now refer to myself as a voracious content consumer, because I can’t stop trying to consume “content” in the hope that I will become a better person once I know everything about everything.

This compulsive consumption takes up nearly all my waking hours. I subscribe to fifty thousand newsletters covering politics, art, pop culture, psychology, books, even one from a Christian Ministry for its philosophical essays. I have to read all of them or at least scan them. I get the NYT online, and I have to read all the breaking news, then I have to decide which features to read: the Op-Eds, the heartbreaking human interest pieces, the latest celebrity-adjacent suicide, the film reviews, the health tips, the latest tech, the bemused shit about Those Kids and Their TikTok, and more. Basically, everything but sports. Thank god I hate sports.

Then I have to open all the email from shopping sites that promise to help me look like a French It-Girl. Then I have to scroll through Instagram before googling Pete Davidson.

I still worry that I’m missing  something important. It makes me anxious. But I haven’t been able to stop or even cut back in this stupid endeavor. My brain is filled with information that I don’t have time to process or make use of.

And it stops me from writing! I can’t tell if the stuff I’m dwelling on is interesting to anyone but me. And I don’t want to regurgitate the accepted wisdom of the day. Because we live in “an Attention Economy” according to a billion think-pieces.

Here’s what is foremost in my mind though:

How long will Donald Trump be tormenting us with his existence?
Why won’t Gym Jordan wear a jacket?
Are they kidding about Hunter Biden’s fucking laptop?
Why does Elon Musk want the whole world to hate him?
Is Morpheus8 better than Softwave?
Is silicone really that bad for your hair?
Why aren’t religious people concerned about who made god?
Why did Jane Aldridge marry that creepy gay guy?
Why do we take antidepressants when they’re only slightly more effective than placebos?
Why do people now say “If I’m being honest” instead of “to be honest” ?
Why is everybody writing about the crisis facing men and boys?*
Can we value any experience without documenting it?
Why can’t we explain the persistence of antisemitism?*
Why are people still impressed by luxury brands?
What happens when young people aspire to be Influencers instead of astronauts?
Why can’t we ever get enough of Jeffrey Dahmer?

* I plan to write about these topics because they continue to fascinate me, as soon as I stop voraciously consuming more content. Do you think I should bother? Let me know.

Meanwhile, I’m compiling a file of all-new stupendously egregious denim! Stand by for that too.

I was intrigued by an essay positing that people with autism experience identity differently from neurotypicals. The writer had surveyed thousands of people in online groups, asking the simple question, Who are you?

I didn’t really care about or agree with the writer’s theory but I was prompted to ask myself the question.

Who am I? My mind went blank. It briefly sampled a few images of myself and then rejected all of them, probably in less than five seconds, before I landed on an answer.

I’m a weirdo.

This response surprised and upset me, but there it is, that’s what I came up with. I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? etc.

Just a few days earlier, I’d expressed my sadness at losing various identities that had once provided a sense of cohesive existence. I no longer identity as a mother. I no longer think of myself as a writer. I used to think of myself as a Badass; “You don’t know who you’re fucking with” used to be my attitude toward the world. That self is long gone. I’m just too broken to fight off aggressors or most of the time, even idiots. And finally, old age has ruined my identity as someone who is attractive and fuckable.

Losing these different identities is like losing layers of my very being, leaving me with nothing. So I was grateful to find this comment in response to the Who Are You essay:

Having had my most fundamental sense of ‘self’ identity dismantled, or demolished, several times throughout my life, I feel as if the older I get, the more ‘nothing’ I become. I often feel I am just a thing that happens, a consciousness floating untethered in space. Notions of personal history or identification with any description feel irrelevant. There is nothing transcendent or liberating about it, and it can be very discombobulating. What interests me more than identity is what remains in its absence….

YES. I could never have expressed this as lucidly! But the nothing I’ve become still struggles for answers to everything, in particular answers about itself.

My whole life has been overshadowed by the mystery of What’s Wrong With Me. I’ve read that this is the result of childhood trauma, but who knows. It makes sense that if your parents or caretakers reject you, your lovability will always be in doubt (and therefore, What’s Wrong With Me?) It’s such a poignant situation, isn’t it? Well, it’s poignant when it’s about someone else. For me, it has been a fucked up, desperate preoccupation that’s led to countless suppositions. Genetic depression, Pathological Demand Avoidance, ASD, Avolition, PTSD, and of course Girly Brain. All these conditions probably apply, which still leaves me nowhere but gives me an excuse when I need one. Now, when I do something stupid or can’t figure out how to open something, I just shrug and smugly announce, “Autistic!”

Reducing myself to a weirdo is certainly destabilizing, a word that now crops up everywhere but still serves a useful purpose, unlike “intention” and “intentionality”. Maybe since words still affect me so intensely, I can say I’m a weirdo with a thing about words. That works, don’t you think?

Meanwhile, when I’m not wondering What’s wrong with me, I’m wondering what’s wrong with everybody else. My hair person was complaining about her sister, who I’ve never met but analyzed as harboring a primal jealousy toward her younger sibling. I recently explained to my dermatologist, who was going on about her anxiety, that she had “boundary issues”! Try saying that with a straight face! Last night I explained to my husband that his inability to control an outcome was the source of his distress. I am an endless font of this shit. I will tell you what’s wrong with you EVEN IF YOU DON’T ASK!

I would really love everyone to ask themselves Who are you? and then tell me your spontaneous answer. Any other weirdos out there? *And don’t try getting away with cognito ergo sum unless you’re Descartes.

In advance of International Self Care Day on July 24, I’d like to share my own self care routine, which you can modify to your own needs, according to your free time etc etc. Check with your doctor before starting any new exercise!

I get out of bed after a few hours of nightmares, tossing and turning, and general sweaty discomfort. I stumble to the kitchen to turn on the coffee, and take a cup to the couch, where my phone is. I take my Adderall.

I turn on MSNBC for the liberal-leaning news, and settle in for the next 4 or five hours. At some point, I remember to take my Cymbalta and Welbutrin. While I hear about the latest deranged shenanigans of the Republican party, alarming Covid statistics, geopolitical conflicts and climate catastrophes, I scroll through my Instagram feed, clicking Like and typing “beautiful!” or clapping hand emojis.

In between liking and clapping, I check my email, deleting billions of shopping site updates and pleas from Eric Holder and Kamala Harris. I dutifully look at the 450 new items at Net-a-Porter, careful not to miss a single offering.

Periodically, I get up to pee and inspect my hair situation. Is it nice and smooth or a frizzy rat’s nest? I squirt saline in my nose in a doomed attempt to clear my sinuses and breathe.

In the afternoon, I get dressed and wander around the house, wondering what to do and why I’m even alive. I might go grocery shopping or to the mall, where the endorphins of commerce lift my spirits enough for me to charge something at Nordstrom that I will return in the next few days.

Back home, I continue with the news and scroll Instagram some more. I consult the mirror a few more times to evaluate my hair and wonder if there’s a way to get a neck-lift without getting a neck lift.

I walk the dog for 20 minutes or just let my husband do it.

After dark, I smoke some weed and wait for him to make dinner. My husband, not the dog. We watch TV while we eat, starting with our favorite shows and ending with some poorly written and laughably performed garbage about missing girls and homophobic Spaniards.

Finally, I shuffle off to bed, take a teeny bit of Ativan, and read a novel, preferably something dark and devastating, until my eyes start to close.

There you have it. It’s challenging, sure, but you can do it. I forgot to note all the cups of coffee, the scrupulous avoidance of water, and the chips and salsa. They are actually essential to my wellness program.

What are you doing for self care?? I really want to know, but I will deduct points for the words yoga mat.

I started seeing a new therapist this year, and it has been life-changing. He is smart, funny, sensitive, and has done his own time with depression. I feel such a strong connection that I’m hoping he’ll want to be my friend once ethics allow.

Last week over Zoom, I told him about an essay I read, primarily a take-down of Viktor Frankl. We discussed the sacrosanct regard for Frankl, as a Holocaust survivor, and the viability of Primo Levi’s work, since he ended up jumping out a window.

The essay takes Frankl to task for a bunch of things, but most pertinently for his insistence on finding the positive in even the most horrible experience. It’s not exactly like finding the silver lining of concentration camps…but it comes close.

Frankl maintains that we always have a chance to exert our will, to make choices even when all seems lost. If you’re in a camp and you have a piece of bread crust, you can choose to share it, for example.

Anyway, it was a really good, thought provoking essay. The part I wanted to talk about with the therapist was the false notion that suffering brings you closer to god, or that suffering has any point at all. The bible teaches (apparently) that god imposes suffering on you for a reason. Suffering in this life is a preparation for heaven. Maybe you’re supposed to be grateful, for all I know.

Here’s the paragraph that struck a chord for me:

Because infant and childhood deaths were so common it is not surprising that the rabbis of the Talmud tried to inject a glimmer of metaphysical hope into this most tragic of tragedies. Rabbi Yochanan had lost no fewer than ten children, and his colleagues attempted to console him with the promise of a reward to come: “If one engages in Torah and acts of charity and buries his sons, all his transgressions are forgiven.” That might have consoled Yochanan the Rabbi, but it did not console Yochanan the grieving father. Rabbi Yochanan rejected the very notion that suffering -of any sort-was worth a reward. “I want neither this suffering nor its reward.”

What a powerful statement for those of us who are beyond consolation.

Suffering leads to nowhere good, and teaches you nothing. You might be more  compassionate to your fellow man, but surely at a preposterous price. Trying to find value in suffering seems so American to me, but I guess it’s actually religious dogma. I used to listen to Joel Osteen in the car, and we would snicker at his promises to his deluded followers: “Your wife has incurable cancer and your dog died? Cheer up! God is just biding his time, preparing to send you a spiritual check in the mail!”

Haha, there is no check! Not to mention god. Here’s what came up when I googled “suffering is”:

Never for nothing, eh?

I love Rabbi Yochanan’s quote so much that it might be my next tattoo. It looks good in Hebrew:

So then, I don’t remember how we got there, but my therapist and I talked about guilt and how it was okay to just go to bed in the middle of the day if that’s what you need. He said ice cream would be okay too, a form of self-care. Somehow, maybe we were talking about our mutual dispositions, and he said, “Being sensitive and intense isn’t a bad thing, right?”

I disagreed, and said that the pain of being that way is only valuable if you channel it into art. If it’s just suffering that doesn’t produce anything, it’s like an oyster without a pearl. Then, it’s just suffering; there is no pearl.

“Like the Holocaust,” he observed brightly, like the smartest kid in the class. We both started laughing hysterically.

A good therapist always wraps up the session by returning to the beginning, so it comes full circle. UCLA will only cover a certain number of sessions with its doctors, and I’m near the limit with mine. I will miss him terribly!

And this post is the pearl.

After watching a million hours of MSNBC News the other day, I decided to look for something else to watch. Lawrence of Arabia had just begun on Turner Classic Movies and since I’ve never seen it all the way through I decided to give it a shot.

Peter O’Toole was such a babe, duh, but I mean truly gorgeous. His black eyeliner was subtle but gorgeously queeny. I’m not a fan of blond men but in this case, I get it!

Since it’s a slow movie, I had the time to reflect on Peter O’Toole’s finely chiseled nose and wondered if he’d had a nosejob. Lots of actors did this back in the day, far more than actresses for some reason. So I googled it.

Google has removed all mystery from everything, a double-edged sword if ever there were one, right? I am constantly looking up everyone’s age to make sure I look better than them or at least less wrinkly. I particularly love before and after pictures of celebrities, who keep morphing before our eyes.

So anyway, yes, Peter O’Toole got his nosejob before he became a star but after he’d had some notable success. It came out much better than Harrison Ford’s or Jeremy Sisto’s. It works with his patrician facial structure and I’m okay with it not being natural.

I also read a review of a biography that catalogued his bad behavior on set and in his long marriage to Sian Somebody. His drinking is legendary and part of his persona, but I was disturbed by the account of his divorce. After his wife could no longer endure his affairs, she moved out of their house. He never let her return and refused to let her have her famed collection of antique jewelry. He banned her from visiting her children and a messy court battle went in his favor.

Here the story rung a sinister bell for me: A friend described him as “a man who prided himself on his resolutely unforgiving nature.” I’ll repeat it for emphasis:

a man who prided himself on his resolutely unforgiving nature.

Do you know anyone who might be described like this? I do.

In fact, I used to cherish a self-image that could be described as “You don’t know who you’re fucking with!” I enjoyed feeling like the embodiment of never giving an inch. I scoffed at people who gave up grudges and felt it was proof of how shallow they were; a person of substance should take their grudges to the grave.  If you’re a longtime reader, you know this as deeply as my family and former friends.

Both of my children admired this posture. But Max was nothing like me in this respect. He forgave people right and left…including me. He never even hesitated when someone wanted to patch things up.

I’m trying hard to be different. I’m trying hard to be the shepherd, you might say. I’ve learned to say “I’m sorry, I was a jerk” and “Please forgive me!” In fact, I say it all the time these days.

Life is so hard, so full of calamity and tragedy and unexpected turns. It takes effort to be compassionate, like Morrissey says, but eventually it comes naturally. Empathy is sometimes all we can offer each other, but what are human relations without it?

So I’m trying and I’ll keep trying. There’s nothing noble about being stubborn and hardhearted.

Lawrence of Arabia also reminded me of the disastrous date I had with Michael Shamberg, who bought the movie for us to watch on his gigantic home movie screen and then got huffy when I said I enjoyed the homoerotic energy between the co-stars. So I was going to write about the part where we had terrible sex because he was so ignorant of female anatomy…but I decided not to.

That’s how nice I am now.

Sure, this is a challenging time but even though we are alone we are together like never before. I only wish I had children at home so we could spend time doing homework, puzzles and crafts!

Since it’s just me and my life partner, I begin the day with ten minutes of meditation followed by an entry in my gratitude journal, where I also set my intentions to be present and productive.

I have been making a morning smoothie to drink while I apply a fragrant citrus mask to my feet and elbows, at the same time oiling my dry scalp with African castor oil and wrapping my head in a reclaimed plastic bag. I sprinkle some flax seed and bran onto a crust of bread (no wasting!) and chew slowly for at least five minutes.

Obviously, with so much free time, I am starting those projects I meant to do in junior high but was too stoned or depressed to tackle. I’m learning Swahili, finally! and old Norse, and I’m arranging zoom conferences with impoverished refugee women in Tanzania. We carve things out of potatoes and root vegetables to sell on Etsy, or sometimes we just do native dance moves and draw up plans for menstruation huts.

I have started to press flowers and crochet doilies in case a wormhole in time sends us all back to the nineteenth century! I’m scrap-booking, making collages, covering the driveway with mosaics, tie-dying rags, growing tomatoes and radishes, and making my own pasta from scratch. I’m baking bread like a maniac, because it just smells so good, and also making balloon animals for charity.

I’m hand-washing and ironing all our curtains and re-grouting around the toilets and bathtub. I am nearly done writing a critique of Finnegan’s Wake, which I’ve just translated into Spanish for when my gardener can come back to work. Also, I’ve started reading Spinoza and Kant again, along with the Quran and the Book of Revelations. I still can’t get through the Hobbit, so maybe I’ll save that for the next pandemic.

I have stopped looking at twitter, since the negativity there is so toxic. Instead, I read stories about our heroic workers on the front line, sobbing and sewing masks while counting my blessings at being born in Los Angeles instead of Capetown or a poultry factory.

I’m working out with light weights, running in place for 60 minutes, practicing salsa dancing and twerking, and trying to strengthen my core with sets of 500 crunches and leg-raises. I know that staying fit and toned will help me with the uncertain times ahead.

Staying home has been a learning experience, hasn’t it? We’ve learned to slow down, to stop and listen to our inner selves, and to download food delivery apps. I think we will all be much more resilient and multi-talented when this is over, and if it goes on forever, we’ll all become Superbeings who can get along just fine with nothing but our bellybuttons and Netflix to entertain us til the end of time.

Right?

I went to get a pelvic ultrasound test for my latest round of hypochondria. The radiologist was a small Asian woman with a dour demeanor. “My name Tran,” she said resentfully.

We started a test with the thingy on my belly, which reminded me of the ultrasound tests you get when you’re pregnant. It was a nice feeling. I asked Tran, “Do you have kids?” and she said, “No kids. Not enough money for kid.”

Uh-oh. Now I felt sad. Here I am, a middle class white women who could afford two kids, and this poor immigrant is servicing me, so to speak, on a crappy income, unable to live the life she deserves, that everyone deserves.

“Yeah,” I said stupidly, “They are expensive!” “What are you doing tomorrow [Thanksgiving]? I asked next, hoping to cheer her up with conversation. “Sleep,” she answered tersely.

Oh god, okay. So I said, “Oh, I love to sleep too! It’s my favorite thing in the world!” She brightened up a little.

Next, I had to get undressed and she stuck the thingy up inside me. With my legs in stirrups, and the internal “discomfort”, I remembered the feeling of giving birth, the agony and the ecstasy, and it was shockingly visceral. I wanted to give birth with all my might!

But then it really started to get uncomfortable and I said OW. I asked her if she saw anything awful and she reminded me that she wasn’t allowed to say anything.

She stayed in the room while I got dressed and I asked her in a sympathetic tone when she could go home. It was around 4. She said 4:30. I said, “Oh good! It’s coming right up!” She told me I was the last patient of the day. Then she told me that it was the last day of her job.

Shit! Had she been fired? Or was she just moving on? I asked her what her plan was and she said she didn’t know. “But I am healthy, I have brain, I can do work!” she said plaintively. “I not going to kill myself!” she exclaimed, as though meaning the opposite.

Fuck! What was going on, I wondered, my brain whirling. “Of course, of course, you can get any job!” I told her. “You didn’t like working here?” I asked her. She looked down as she straightened things up. “They don’t like me. They not happy with me. Say I am mean to patients.”

Well, she was kind of mean, but that no longer mattered. I told her that she could start a new life, she was just 40 years old, not too old to have a family or do whatever she wanted. I told her about all the places I’d worked where no one appreciated me, about the time I called my boss a cunt and got fired, the fact that I could not work with people looking over my shoulder and telling me what to do. She listened intently. She asked a few questions.

Now she was smiling a little while we talked about our mutual dislike of cooking on holidays. I thanked her and said it was nice meeting her, and added, “Hopefully, I won’t die from a gigantic uterine tumor the size of a cantaloupe!”

She smiled and said, “You have nothing to worry about.”

One thing I’m good at is tricking the radiologists into telling me what they saw. You don’t get to be my age for nothing.

Most people know at this point in social etiquette not to bark, “Cheer up!” at people who aren’t showing their back molars in a smile. Thank god that’s pretty much a thing of the past. I remember strangers informing me, even as a kid, “Things aren’t THAT bad!” as they walked past me.

But many people do find it difficult to be in the presence of sadness, not to mention grief.

Not long ago, a family member came over to visit, and was moved to share with me their wish that I could be less sad. I have so much going for me, after all!

It was a wish born of compassion. But still. Feeling aggressive, I leaned toward them and said, “Until you have seen your child in a body bag, you cannot understand what it’s like. You just can’t.” I know what a brutal thing this is to say aloud. But at times, I want to make it a teachable moment.

They were taken aback, but rephrased the sentiment to something like, “Yes, but you have to go on living.”

Humans of Earth, AREN’T I ALIVE? How alive do I have to be before you can deal with me? I walk and talk, I put on lipstick, I go to the grocery store, I walk down the street, you know?

Do I have to go on a fucking world cruise or Dancing With the Stars or what?

When I moved to my new community nearly five years ago, I was thrilled to make a new friend: An intelligent, vibrant mother of two who was funny and well-read. The perfect friend, I thought. As it turned out, she started avoiding me. When I finally pressed for a reason, she texted that I was too sad for her.

Even though all she talked about what the sexual assault of her daughter and how much she hated men. I was devastated, but I lived to tell. I’ve chalked it up to Her Problem, Not Mine, as one does.

I’m okay with being sad. Just let me be sad. I am Sad Girl. I am trying to use my sadness as an instrument for good. I’m an excellent listener, if you’re sad too. I try to turn my sadness into art, when I can.

I just read a review of a new Nick Cave album, in which the writer notes about the death of Cave’s teenage son, in 2015:

He has not put the grief behind him; he has learned from its presence.

OF COURSE he has not put the grief “behind him” for fucksake, it has only been four years, Jesus Christ. When can this kind of thinking end?

Most people never even get over a divorce, let alone such an elemental loss.

People need to be allowed to exhibit an entire range of emotions, as long as they don’t do it while driving. Let people be sad, worried, negative, silly, anxious, inquisitive, grumpy and hopeless if they want to be. Unless they ask for your help or your diagnosis, just try to accept this rich tapestry of human behavior.

Here’s a study that might convince you.