for a minute there i lost myself

"karma police" by radiohead & this won't be the most profound thing ever written

Just a couple hours ago, I was sitting on the back porch, chatting with my husband. “So what’s on the docket tonight?” he asked, then seemed to remember it was Tuesday. “Ah, newsletter.”

I lounged back in my chair, resting my feet on a firewood log that turned out to be the exact perfect shape for this purpose and so we’ve never burned it. “Nope,” I said. “I’m taking a break.”

“Have you ever done that before?” he asked. Yes, incidentally. The day after the election. Christmas. And last week.

“I just did,” I said. “This’ll be two weeks.”

He looked at me a bit skeptically. “Is this a cat who can’t clean itself situation?” he said. “You should write something. It doesn’t have to be the most profound thing ever. But I think you should.”

It’s hard to know when to take a break and when to push forward, isn’t it? I was going to say it’s one of the hardest parts about being creative, or this career, or working for yourself, or whatever, but I think it’s kind of generally hard no matter what your situation is. And the advice I’d give a friend (“you should absolutely rest! you’re burned out!”) is not always the advice I give myself (“okay, but not YOU, you’ve got a lot to do and a book coming out in LESS THAN TWO MONTHS GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER,” etc.)

But sometimes you do kinda know the answer in your body. I think of it like taking naps — personally, I’m very pro-nap! But I know deep down whether it’s a good nap (a Saturday afternoon where I have no particular bedtime or need to wake up the next day for anything, well before dinnertime so you’re not risking “devil’s nap” territory, it just feels lovely to rest) or a bad nap (you’re not considering any of the aforementioned timing factors, you’re depressed and just trying to fast-forward the day). Last week I really needed to fucking lie down. This week I know I was probably just trying to fast-forward a bit, and my husband is right, there’s something cathartic about getting back to writing and my routines.

The newsletter last week was going to be titled despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage and if that doesn’t give you the vibe I don’t know what will. I’m not going to get into all of it, because truly, that’s part of why I didn’t end up writing it, there’s no need to get into all of it, but — it all stemmed from this road rage incident I was involved in where this guy almost hit my car trying to force his way into my lane and then screamed obscenities through his open window right into my face. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he yelled, and I haven’t been able to get that out of my head. What the fuck is wrong with you?

Like I don’t spend my time screaming obscenities at people in traffic I don’t yell at the ump for the whole game AS THOUGH I CAN TELL WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY THAT EVER CHRIS SALE PITCH IS A STRIKE AND EVERY JOHN BOYLE PITCH IS A BALL AT MY PERFECT VANTAGE POINT OF FORTY-FIVE DEGREES OFF HOME PLATE AND UP TEN ROWS I don’t call for people to be deported for no goddamn reason I don’t fuck with the stock market or people’s retirements or social security or student loans I don’t see the problem if a trans woman wants to play women’s sports that’s why they’re called women’s sports I don’t want to prevent people from getting necessary healthcare whether it’s gender affirming care or abortions or whatever people need to take care of themselves I don’t want to roll back DEI initiatives that are helping bring the best and brightest minds into the room especially rooms which have historically been hostile to them I don’t want to remove books from libraries I don’t understand why dental insurance is separate from health insurance I apologize for who I was when I saw that LEGO only made a cute little locker room set for about 6 MLB teams and mine wasn’t one of them, that’s not who I am, that doesn’t reflect my values

My point is that lately I’ve been feeling like the physical manifestation of this gif, LITERALLY I could feel all the blood boiling in my head:

The big stuff, the small stuff, it was all hitting me the same. And I don’t know if I believe in karma — I think I believe in it more for the good stuff than the bad, whatever that says. Like I do believe that if you put good out into the world, you’ll get good back, but I’m cynical enough to believe that sometimes people put bad into the world and I just don’t trust those bills to always come due. I cried the whole rest of the day about that road rage incident — I’ve cried even thinking about it to write this newsletter — and I bet that guy doesn’t think about it at all. The heckler at the game went home with a sore throat and a bunch of stories for his pals and meanwhile my nerves were as shot as Mrs. Bennett’s lol.

Which is my way to segue into some of the stuff that’s been good over the past couple weeks, that’s helping bring me back into myself a little bit! I saw Pride & Prejudice at Tampa Theatre for its 20th anniversary (me at one point, “is it the 20th or 25th anniversary?” *remembers that we literally all call it “The 2005 Pride & Prejudice* “oh yeah”)

I’ve been doing some cleaning around the house. I’ve been trying to ride my bike more. I’ve started reading this giant tome of a biography about Sylvia Plath:

I know, I know. The optics on reading a book about Sylvia Plath after you’ve admitted you’ve been feeling depressed aren’t great. BUT. That’s actually (kind of) one of the points of the book, is that we often reduce Sylvia to her suicide when there was so much more to her and her work. It’s really engrossing and I’ve been loving it. It makes me want to write poetry. It makes me want to not just be a writer but do the work of a writer, if that makes sense. “. . . everyday, one has to earn the name of ‘writer’ over again, with much wrestling,” as Sylvia put it. It’s given me little bon mots to text my friends, like this gem from Ted Hughes (I know, I know) that you can use the next time someone teases you with a gossipy tidbit: “O delicious, succulent, what a prime plum for my vindictive and most contemptuous critical palate . . .” I’ve already gotten to text that once today and it was very satisfying.

I’ve also read a lot of excellent newsletters in the last week that partially inspired me to get back to mine after all, including Anita Kelly on Earth Day and writing to the same themes (something I think a lot about!); Regina Black on “In Defense of Arousal” and why both horror and romance are genres that make you feel; Rachel Runya Katz on queering “straight” sex in their books; and Nikki Payne on why it’s important that your family approves of your partner (I’m sorry to be this guy but I am STILL chuckling over my own addition to the scholarship, “my mama don’t like you and she likes everyone” (Bieber et al. 2015), the “et al.” really kills me for some reason).

I’ve also been listening to a lot of Radiohead, which again, probably doesn’t seem like the best choice if you’ve been feeling down but it’s working for me. I revisited the video for this song — “Karma Police” — when I went to include it at the top, and it’s one of those videos that is inextricably tied to the song for me. That car driving down the street, the headlights, Thom Yorke in the backseat, I just play the video on loop¹ in my head anytime I listen to the song.

There’s a line in The Art of Catching Feelings where Daphne texts Chris: “Alexa, play ‘Karma.’” She’s trying to feel Chris out as to how he feels about his own heckler at the game who’s, well . . . also her. Not that he knows that! A little piece of trivia for you is that originally it was “Karma Police” rather than “Karma.” I know people have strong feelings about Taylor Swift references in romance novels — believe me, I know! — but I stand by this change because “Karma Police” would’ve been *my* reference, but “Karma” is absolutely Daphne’s. It fits her character better!

As a way to bring it all the way back to “the cat who can’t clean itself,” I’ll tell you that my own cat Luna was driving me a little crazy today. She loves parking up on the corner of my desk, and normally I have no issue with her being there, but this morning she was just GOING TO TOWN on herself. The cleaning, the licking, the way she was pushing papers around, I’m sorry but I hit my limit! I removed her from my desk and then temporarily put a stack of books in that spot so she wouldn’t have room to jump back up and get right back to it. When I told my son about this he said I’d basically put up “hostile architecture” and he had his fun teasing me about it the rest of the night. It ended up being a pretty hilarious little riff that I’m sure I haven’t heard the last of. (The hostile architecture has been removed and she’s happily and respectfully just sitting on the corner of my desk as we speak.)

A few things before I let you go:

• There’s still a Goodreads giveaway going on for Never Been Shipped, open through the end of the month;

• There’s a Barnes & Noble preorder sale going on April 23-25 that includes Never Been Shipped, just use code PREORDER25;

• Of course my favorite way for you to preorder would be through my local indie Tombolo Books, where I’m delighted to personalize in any way you would like, just put your request in the Comments section of your order;

• This Sunday, April 27, I’ll be signing books at the new B&N Palms of Carrollwood location from 1:00pm - 3:00pm;

• Also this Sunday, April 27, I’ll be the conversation partner for Denise Williams, talking about Just Our Luck (which I loved!!!), at Steamy Lit Tampa starting at 5:00pm.

Currently reading . . . In addition to my giant tome on Sylvia Plath, I’m also listening to Stephen King’s Needful Things on audio, which is 25 hours long. I just need to be CONSUMED right now. I remember this book unsettled me so much when I read it as a teenager so I’m excited to dive back in.

watching . . . Speaking of consumed, I just finished Say Nothing on Hulu, a nine-episode miniseries based on the nonfiction book about by Patrick Radden Keefe of the same name, which follows “murder and memory in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.” It’s a really good book, and I thought the show was excellent. I’ve been trying to get everyone I know to watch it so we can talk about it.

There were a lot of dramatic scenes involving cars, though (if you watch it you’ll know what I mean) and Hulu KEPT cutting to this ad of two stick figure people driving in a car to remind you not to drive distracted, and it was a little jarring. There was just something about TENSE SCENE IN A CAR DRIVING OVER THE BORDER followed immediately by la la la cartoon people getting texts about a football game before turning on Do Not Disturb. But that’s on me for not paying for an upgraded Hulu without ads.

listening to . . . My daughter has gotten really into Alex G and so she had us listening to his first record Race. It’s really good! I enjoy branching out and that my kids are old enough to bring music to me instead of always the other way around.

1. Maybe the second most iconic use of lighting gasoline on fire in a music video? (I’m thinking of “Du Hast Mich” but I’m sure there are other examples.)