Small Joints #24

It’s spring!

My astrologist Kat is opening up a few spots for my subscribers, and she's usually referral only. I like to see her for beginnings and endings. It’s a little like a map for uncharted territory. Last time, she and also my psychic (respectively) said I had to get back to routine because I can get swept up (a euphemism if I’ve ever heard one). I strapped myself in and submitted the BIG edit of Petty Intrigues by adding… 12 000 words (if you’ve missed me this is where I’ve been). Use code MARLOWE for 20% off your first session. BOOK HERE!

I need to practice getting back in the game over here, so here are some thoughts I’ve had and you can see how organizing into any coherent form can prove difficult with the speed my mind flits from one thing to another. I figure you will accept this as a free post from me!

-The last three or four months I dragged myself across the floor of the most recent edit to send back to my editors, while physically dragging myself across Europe and then with much more difficulty, dragging myself out of my bed for the remainder of winter. The world starts fires with zero discernment and I oscillate between fixating on the latest catastrophe or firmly burying my head in the sand.

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-Everyone should have a friend who works at a hospital. Earlier in the year I had a brief dalliance with a medical professional and it put much of my small annoyances into great perspective. Everything seems silly when someone you’re across the table with is faced with LIFE or DEATH on a daily basis. When I feel like I need a reality check or I’ve been around too many academics, I often call my aunt who works as an immigration lawyer in Michigan. She, famously, gave me the dating advice “collect and select.”

-I ask myself how is this possible, how can I complete the task of a weekly newsletter about my silly musings and how can anyone have 52 ideas a year to write on without being completely sick of themselves. No wonder everyone clings to one topic and beats a dead horse with it. You know, people used to have staff meetings about what writers should write pieces on… at MAGAZINES and NEWSPAPERS! I am not a newsroom!

-On Reddit someone declared they did not like my writing and my persona of a “sardonic, worldly woman of color.” Can a girl travel, can a girl write, can a girl LIVE? I always think the racial aspects of people’s criticisms of me to be the cherry on top of whatever misogyny is happening. Soon after, this coincided with someone passing our table at Altro Paradiso to exclaim, referring to me, “WHY is she SHOUTING????” As mentioned in my note, whenever I get scolded at a New York restaurant an angel loses its wings. There is an 85% chance the scolder was a New Yorker critic and I would like to close my eyes and believe it was not so my world view stays intact. Anyway, the question still stands… Can a girl live…

-Watching any red carpet or anything related to fashion has created a particular body dysmorphia even in me—someone who is noncommittal about that kind of thing and who has decided weight fluctuations are simply a part of life. It’s making ME very stressed! I’ve been calling it “organ failure thin.” It is bad for everyone.

-I’ve been thinking quite a lot about audience, industry and persona… really around my engagement with it. I think my developing phobia of sending out newsletters is tied to knowing I will eventually have to do all the things for the second book. The urge to keep something for myself and to incubate until I have to go out in the world again. Not as myself, but as a speaker, presenter, and perhaps lastly as an author. Just because I may be good at it, or present as much more extroverted than another writer, does not mean it doesn’t take it out of me. I think I was only meant to be engaging and charming for an audience of 5 people at a dinner party. To have to then elevate that to a MUCH wider audience has been a learning curve I have spent most of my career getting used to. As I’ve mentioned, with my first book promo I developed this gagging thing that came up whenever I grew anxious. I’ve spent the last few years trying to figure out how to stop it and have been prescribed an assortment of medications (anticonvulsants!). This is all to say, I side with Helen Dewitt on her having difficulty with “normal” tasks and publicity commitments.

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-The astrologists are saying this Aries stellium we are in right now should hearken back to whatever was happening in your life in February 2019. I can’t remember off the top of my head so I scrolled all the way back. Besides seeing an exhibition of Pierre Bonnard at the Tate modern, a screenshot appeared that I had to look up where I got it from.

This happened to be from a NYT interview with Elena Ferrante. This is something I’ve been harping on about for ages, and is a real theme in Petty intrigues. I was glad to be reminded that my philosophical problems between women and men are one big circle that encompasses at least half a decade. I couldn’t stop at that reminder, I was led to reading another Ferrante interview from 2016 with Sheila Heti, where Ferrante says the BRILLIANT AND FITTING:

I’ve never felt narcissism to be a sin. It seems, rather, a cognitive tool that, like all cognitive tools, can be used in a distorted way. No, I think it’s necessary to be absolutely in love with ourselves. It’s only by reflecting on myself with attention and care that I can reflect on the world. It’s only by turning my gaze on myself that I can understand others, feel them as my kin. On the other hand, it’s only by assiduously watching myself that I can take control and train myself to give the best of myself. The woman who practises surveillance on herself without letting herself be the object of surveillance is the great innovation of our times.

-I randomly fixated on a very random musician for about an hour last month and all my friends crucified me for my “taste” in men (he’s corny but very beautiful, so kill me!). Lo and behold, while in New York, he happened to materialize at a bar I was at which felt very INSANE. He’s based in Australia (stop, I know… this was my most embarrassing crush that I had for 1 hour), so it just felt very unlikely I would ever seen him in real life. After he left, I kept saying “I’m MIFFED! I’m MIFFED!” and Colleen held her head in her hands in disbelief and disappointment, “Sometimes I really don’t understand you.” The lesson is, sometimes you create a far flung and embarrassing crush just to pass the time and then there they are! In front of you!

-AI has ruined my favourite thing in the world, videos of animals. We will really reach a point where we cannot believe anything we see unless we see it with our own eyes. I grow to hate screens more each day. I was in New York for two weeks and did not open my laptop or answer an email (Sorry! The modern world is turning me against it!)

-Upon telling my friend about my problems with Substack he said, “Well, at least at some point you’ll be able to take what you’ve written there and make a book.” I responded almost involuntarily with horror! I see this newsletter as exactly what my DESK looks like. Clippings from different things I like, notes, post-its. This newsletter is my… marginalia. Nothing is polished here and it’s not supposed to be! For my own purposes. I told him, “My art is the novel,” and he said, “How funny.”

-A man told me he hated going for dinner, when I shared this with friends they said this is a common sentiment. I have never heard of this before? I asked why and he said, “It takes too long and it’s a waste of money.” I mean, I did start to get tired of going to dinner every night in Greece because it takes 3 hours and I drink about a litre of watered down wine and smoke too many cigarettes (a habit I only take up in Europe). How can someone hate going out for dinner? As I told him, “But LIFE happens at the table!!!!”

Ciao for now. Here’s a photo of my pomeranian riding my suitcase. Say what you want about me, but if you come for my animals I am going for the jugular.