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 have already complained about my trouble retrieving words, and about my senility, which is currently resulting in the escalating loss of jewelry and household objects. But here’s something new: Along with the loss of my vocabulary, is an increased sensitivity to word usage.

If this sounds contradictory, think again. The loss of my words makes existing words all the more potent. Or maybe it’s just an autistic sensory thing, like reacting to the seams in your socks. I’m trying to read a long essay about friendship in the Atlantic, but each misjudgement in the prose is killing me.

I can say misjudgement not out of pedantry ( is that the correct word??) but simply because my ear knows right from wrong. I can’t help it. It’s not an achievement, it’s just innate, like a sense of smell. It’s sprachgefühl.

I asked my husband, a musician, what it feels like to hear someone play the wrong note, but it turns out there are several kinds of wrong in music. Plus, he doesn’t “feel” things as acutely as I do, according to him. But he agreed that a singer who can’t follow a tune is exasperating.

I might not be able to know a wrong note from a hole in the ground, but I do know this: The following sentence is ruined by one single word.

Most of us have [Problem Friends] though we may wish we could tweeze them from our lives.

Right? The word tweeze right there is so awful. It makes you wince. Clearly the author chose that word deliberately but did she want us to wince? Why not just use expunge or expel? Even “jettison” would be better, although I hate that word and would be glad to forget it. Or if she’s trying to be funny, how about “defenestrate”?  Defenestrate is always funny, even when applied to actual defenestration!

So the essay has become a challenge, since I’m keenly interested in the subject of friendship, but the lapses in judgement are like potholes interrupting my flow. Was potholes good for you? Are you glad I said it was a challenge rather than calling it “problematic?” I could have said, “like nails on a chalkboard” but then I’d feel bad about myself.

You see how troublesome this shit is. Before I forget, I wanted to share a list of words I couldn’t retrieve in the last few weeks. My plan was to keep a comprehensive list and then try to compose haiku with them. But I keep forgetting to write them down, because senility. Here’s my list:

mariachi
linens
Napoleon Dynamite
rapport
attention
shingles
surface
hindrance
concierge
kangaroos
concierge
tsunami.

I wrote concierge twice because I keep forgetting it. I keep wanting to say “Courvoisier” even though I didn’t know what it was before googling it.

Getting back to the Atlantic essay, try this sentence:

But the lacuna in the literature is also a little odd.

God, what the fuck?? Lacuna, for fucksake? Why not just gap? I mean, I see that it’s an alliteration, but when an alliteration interrupts the idea being conveyed because it’s so stupid and uncalled for, why use it? When I used to read books and screenplays for a living, I remember having to read something by Danielle Steele. Her writing is so bad that I started screaming “editor!’ every few minutes. I guess that’s what makes a best seller.

Anyway, I plan to finish reading the essay and see if I can retrieve enough words to write my own essay on friendship, or rather the break-up of friendships, and how painful or liberating it can be. I am getting to be an expert on this. In the time of Covid, I’m finding I have no tolerance of craziness in my relations, despite being desperate for companionship. I use to quip that “I want to be the craziest person in a relationship” and this holds true more than ever. Or, if you prefer, “now more than ever.”

I’m not one to look for old friends on Facebook and I usually ignore those fake requests from LinkedIn. I don’t care about my ancestry and I’m not interested in friends from high school because for one thing, I didn’t go to high school. Mostly I’m content to just keep tabs on the Ex-wife, as I’ve mentioned before. If I need to feel smarter than somebody, she always delivers.

But a few weeks ago, I clicked on a LinkedIn notice, and while there, it occurred to me to look for the Tragedy. Something must have triggered this. Maybe something I watched on TV. So I typed in his name and there he was! No photo, and only one job listed, one that had ended. I sent a request to join his network and then returned to my regular programming.

It was a surprise when he responded with a long reply. It was great to hear from me! He had found my blog a few years ago, and had read the archives. He was so sorry about Max. He had thought of writing to me a thousand times. My writing was so good! He even read my stuff at Miista! As for him, he’d moved back to his hometown. He had never married.

My predominant feeling, my only feeling, was outrage.

WHAT?!? You read about the loss of my son and didn’t have the decency to express your condolences? How hard would that be? There’s the risk that I’d be annoyed, but please. I personally have written to strangers after reading about their loss. A senator, a governor, a regular person. I just want to offer sympathy and if possible, some words of comfort.

Then there’s the general feeling of being stalked. Stalked in the sense of reading all about my life and my thoughts without making a peep. It feels invasive. Even though I write for the entire world, I don’t expect the people I know to pore over my blog. It’s not a group letter about my vacation in Paris, France. I write from a need to express myself, to send a message in a bottle to someone who might relate or understand.

Okay, so there I am, fuming. I read the letter to my husband, who says Big deal, what’s so enraging? I read it to my sister, who says, Oh my god, what a fucker! This is one reason to have a sister. A huge reason.

I called a friend who I’d met at the bookstore, who had known the Tragedy and knew the whole story. His reaction was, Aw, how nice, and what a sweet guy. Ha. I reminded him of all the times we would argue about the best candidate to anally penetrate the Tragedy, thereby to teach him a thing or two. It came down to Vince Neil versus Steven Tyler. The debates were fierce, and accompanied by hysterical laughter.

Such was my bitterness at being rejected.

I could have ignored the letter but instead, I chose to reply and be direct. I wrote back:

But you broke my heart! So callously!

The last time we spoke, you looked me right in the eye and said, “I was never in love with you.” Said with no affect.

Would you like to moderate that in any way?

He did want to moderate it, in fact. And the whole affair came rushing back to me, a delirious mixture of bliss and despair.

A long time ago, in a burst of cocky self-actualization, I started writing a novel. It was so long ago, I wrote in longhand on legal pads. I remember being excited by the opening sentence. I felt it summed up the whole book, in its forceful self-deluded tone. I shared it with a friend who has published several novels.

“Dr. Goldberg called it transference, but I knew in my heart that I really did hate her guts.”

My friend said it was a bad sentence.

I took some time off and then decided to ignore her. I was on my way to writing the best thing ever.

The story involved all the key elements of my life and then some. There was an ineffectual therapist, a bad marriage, sibling rivalry, adorable toddlers, an adulterous affair that knocked the wind out of me for several years. I didn’t have an outline or an ending but the writing came easily and I savored the build up to the passion of the affair. I couldn’t wait to get to that part but I paced myself. It would be like opening the flood gates of the Mississippi. I don’t know if the Mississippi has floodgates, because I just made that up, writerly writer that I am.

Anyway, I wrote around sixty-five pages and then things got hard. I started using a thesaurus, which I found horrifying. When things get hard, traditionally, I give up. This was no different from all the things I had stopped trying to do: sewing, ballet, rolling joints, riding a bike, learning German, organizing important papers, driving on the freeway, and too many other endeavors to list.

I put the legal pads on a shelf in my closet and I haven’t seen them since. When I moved four years ago, they were the last thing on my mind. Now that I’m mostly unpacked, I have no idea where they are. Did I throw them away along with my teenage diaries? I’d like to see what I wrote, just out of curiosity and maybe to find inspiration. I can find my kids’ preschool artwork but not those fucking legal pads.

At least I have that first sentence! And I have a clear memory of Dr. Goldberg, named after my real therapist, Dr. Goldberg, who would lean over and untie my shoe when she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

I could start writing about Dr. Goldberg. Or the sibling rivalry. The bad marriage…why bother? Contrary to Tolstoy’s opinion, unhappy families are all alike, it’s the happy ones that fascinate and deserve scrutiny.

I could write about the affair, which I find I recall in alarming detail, but Don Henley says Don’t look back, you can never look back.

Is he wrong, like Tolstoy? I mean I hate the Eagles, don’t you? Fuck Don Henley! While I decide what to do, you can enjoy another affair I had, with Mr. Michigan, which I called “fiction” to protect the innocent, whoever that was.

I am so happy to be contributing to the MIISTA Blog!  They are a great a company whose shoes and values I fully endorse. Go and see. I have written about men in dresses, social media hate mobs, and that venomous piece of shit Donald Trump.

I am not happy to all of a sudden find I have carpal tunnel syndrome. What the fuck?! I don’t want or need new problems. There should be a limit. Last time I went to my doctor, she gave me a print-out that included a part called Current Problems. It was a list of 16 things, starting with Depression and ending with “Marijuana use.” EXCUSE ME, but marijuana use isn’t a problem so make that 15 things please.

Now for ugly, did you know that blogger and influencer Sea of Shoes is getting married?!? That’s right, she is all grown up and ready to tie the knot with some older metrosexual food blogger! It’s sure to be a festive occasion filled with Dallas socialites and the elite intelligentsia who once showered me with comments about the state of my vagina!

I look forward to covering the event to the best of my abilities, even though the bride to be blocked me on Twitter for correcting her grammar. But I understand. I have to block Nazis and republicans all the time.

Speaking of Twitter, here is my favorite user, who sparks joy like Marie Kondo has probably never experienced.

Jane Pratt has finally launched her new online magazine and I want to know why something so awful and pointless can even get off the ground. Everything about it is stupid and bad.

And where’s Tavi?? Remember when this was going to be a joint project? Who is our Blogging Business Deal specialist? Please report back on this intriguing mystery.

Meanwhile, this awful Jane crap got me thinking about how there is really nowhereto go online if you want some entertainment for smart people. The Huffingting Post is just populist garbage, Jezebel is too full of itself and has too much attitude, The New Yorker isn’t visually appealing, Arts & Literature Daily has too many choices to sift through, pop culture websites are too geared toward the bourgeois hipster, etc etc.

Why can’t we have something good, with lots of thoughtful, funny, sophisticated, and provocative essays and photos?

I started talking about this to a friend, and tried to explain the target audience for this imaginary project. All I could think of was “you know, people like us: bitter intellectuals.”

He liked the sound of this overlooked market and so do I. I want to start an online magazine for Bitter Intellectuals. We’ll have a daily column about annoying words or phrases, obviously. We’ll have reviews of movies and music, critiques of other blogs, advice on stuff that grown ups care about, debates about politically incorrect subjects, merciless satire, personal stories of defeat and humiliation, and so much more. With good art.

Who would like to get in on something like this? Who has any experience in starting a no-budget venture? Who wishes there was a place to go online where they would never see words like “social-networking” or “game-changing” or terms like “tresses” or “locks” instead of “hair?” Most important, who has the enthusiasm to make me follow through on this?

I’ve had an epiphany and here it is: I don’t want to know about anyone’s personal style!

After reading about Andrea Linett, a nice woman who looks like Sarah Jessica Parker, at stylelikeu.com, I find the whole Look-at-My-Wardrobe craze to be WAY too much information. It’s all so embarrassing.

People seem to be hopelessly enamored of their own specialness. I hate the word “enamored” but I’m using it to get in the mood. I think the awful prose of the stylikeu wordsmith is rubbing off on me!

Try this: “Among the voluminous amount of people that inspire Andrea is …”

Are you happy with the usage of “voluminous?” Me neither! It just gets worse until you want to stab yourself or puncture your eardrums.

Here’s what Andrea says of her boots:

In the Los Angeles Times this week, I read that Danielle Steele spends four to five  million dollars a year on shoes for herself and her daughters. This was revealed by a longtime shoe salesman at Barneys.

Fuck! This puts a lot of things in perspective. It makes me feel better about wasting my money on shoes, and it makes me feel terrible as well. Danielle Steele is obviously a billionaire, but how can one justify this expense? It seems pretty inexcusable, but so is spending $500 for shoes when so much of the world is starving. The whole shoe thing is out of control. The LA Times tried to lay the blame on Christian Louboutin, who says it’s not his fault. The shoes pictured above sell for $1,400 at Barneys, but he’s not putting a gun to anyone’s head. Maybe they should raise the price to $20,000, since the women who keep this brand in business will still pay up.

I once had to read a book by Danielle Steele, back when I read screenplays and manuscripts for a living. I was appalled at how awful her writing was, even though I expected it to be pretty bad. I remember one line I quoted to my friends, that was something like “Peter gave his customary smirk, but then he always did.” I couldn’t get over it. She must be so important that she doesn’t need an editor! She has sold 550 million books, and yet she can’t actually write!

But now that I’ve learned more about her, I’m beginning to see why she needs all those shoes. She’s been married five times, once to a rapist and once to a heroin addict. She’s had all sorts of huge melodramatic problems to overcome, including the death of a troubled son. She’s involved in several worthy charities, and she’s said to be ‘shy.’   She certainly knows the meaning of hard work.

I would like to ask Danielle Steele if those shoes make her happy. Mine don’t make me happy, except of course for the Vivienne Westwood boots I can’t walk in. I think I’m a better writer than Danielle Steele, but I could never finish a whole novel, even a crappy one. I’d like to think that some day, we’ll all realize how meaningless our shoes are. But I know it’s a long way off.