Hello, I am anxious!

Exactly a week ago, in a frenzy of overwhelming anxiety, I hit up the ol' group chat:

My dear friend and supreme genius Annelyse Gelman responded, "i hate how much demand there is to have a coherent 'presence' on the internet & how impossible it is, in that position, to ask for support" and it was a real YEEEESSSSSS moment.

It is very hard to ask for things — money you know you deserve, attention and care you know you need. I'm trying to get better at it, and also trying to get better at being less judgmental (/jealous) of people who do it freely and openly. When I am at my darkest, I'm not even looking for help, necessarily — just acknowledgement of that darkness. A "Yo, that is real! Wow! Sorry that's happening!" Just a witness. And even though it feels mad emo to speak about it openly on twitter/tumblr/facebook (what is this, your LIVEJOURNAL? get back to the memes and thinkpieces! [sidenote: if you aren't following wholesome memes, do]) I am trying to embrace incoherence.

Speaking of incoherence: I've been thinking and reading a lot about meaning(/lessness) lately. I finished Zero K a few weeks ago, and it's lingering in the way only a story about suspended animation, potential immortality, and personhood can. A quote:

"What is the self? Everything you are, without others, without friends or strangers or lovers or children or streets to walk or food to eat or mirrors in which to see yourself. But are you anyone without others?"

You have to be in a certain space for this, open to such broad and sometimes obvious (but no less meditative!) ideas. I have very much been there.

But what it was missing was humor. Maybe it's my utter inability to take myself (or most people) 100% seriously, but I need my philosophy to come with some self-imposed air holes. Sure, life is meaningless, but come on, dude. Have some fun with it. Don DeLillo seems EXCEPTIONALLY unfun. Look at his author photo:

Lighten up, dude! Crack a smile! I promise, we will still know you are a Serious Author.

Someone whose meaningless is in equal parts maddening and entertaining is Joy Williams, specifically in her recent Ninety-Nine Stories of God. This is my second attempt at reading this collection of micro-fictions, most of which are no longer than a paragraph. I have a hard time with absurdism — what is the joke? Why am I not getting it? Joy Williams, is this whole book just you telling me I'm stupid??? I tried it and tossed it aside a few months ago, and didn't pick it up again until I read the New Yorker's recent review:

Yes!! Yes. Perhaps the point of fiction like hers — of "difficult" fiction — is to hang out in that discomfort, to have the option of finding your way out through meaning, but to also have permission to take the words at face value. The sentences flow beautifully, the words and rhythms within those sentences hint at a purpose, but no story is long enough to settle into one. She refuses to confirm or validate our meaning. Sometimes I hate it; sometimes I love it. I find it to be a nice break from neat, structured narratives.

But you know who was the master of difficult and funny fiction? My main man, Sam Beckett. I haven't read anything by him recently (though I did get a tattoo he drew) but there's this: My parents (whaddup, Carlo and Linda!) stopped by my apartment with their friends Ed and Debbie over the weekend. Ed, my dad's former colleague, saw my tattoo and said, do I have a story for you:

It's back when Beckett was still alive. Ed's friend is in a PhD program, working on a dissertation about him. In doing his research, he finds out that he and Beckett share a birthday. So — why not? — when their birthday comes around, he buys a birthday card, writes a message about how he and Beckett share the date, and sends it to Grove Press. Done, he moves on with his life. Months later, he receives a card from Beckett's secretary: Mr. Beckett received your card and thanks you, and wishes you a happy birthday. Now, with a new and more personal address at his disposal, the friend tries his luck, and sends a letter thanking the secretary for the card, explaining that he is working on a dissertation about Beckett, that it just so happens he will be in Paris the following year, and wondering if Beckett will be there as well. He gets a response: Beckett will be there, and would be happy to see him at his home.

So! The guy arrives in Paris, travels to the address given, rings the bell, and is welcomed by the secretary. She leads him to a living room, tells him to have a seat, and says, "Mr. Beckett will be with you shortly. You have a half hour with him. You may not ask him any questions, and you may not talk about literature."

She walks out one door, and then, from a different door, a tall, gaunt Beckett enters. He sits down across from the guy, who, at a loss, breaks the no-questions rule and asks, "What would you like to talk about?"

And Beckett thinks about it a moment, then answers, "Boxing." So they talk about an upcoming Ali match Beckett is apparently very excited about, until the secretary returns and says time is up. Beckett thanks him for visiting, and leaves.

What a guy!

Anyway, here's what else has made me think, laugh, cry:

- "My mom loved our blackness because she loved us, and now that love had put our very identity out of her reach." How My Mother Helped Me Find My Blackness by Ijeomo Oluo (The Establishment)

- No really, brb, calling my mom: I'm An Adult Woman And I Call My Mother Three Times A Day by Michelle Ruiz (Vogue)

- "It's part and parcel of this moment, in which dogged physicality is associated with goodness, particularly in women, chalices that we are of the basest of cultural expectations." Athleisure Is Not For You by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd (Jezebel)

- In support of marrying someone who is wholehearted NOT your best friend: Stranger Than Friendship by Helena Fitzgerald (Catapult)

- I've always said my superpower is recognizing any actor or extra or minor celeb. Is this my new calling? The Detectives Who Never Forget A Face by Patrick Radden Keefe (New Yorker)

- My personal and unbiased favorite of the "How To Talk To A Woman Even Though..." parodies: How To Talk To A Woman Even Though She's A Ghost by Tom Phillips and Hannah Jewell (BuzzFeed)

- Bar soap is out, ska is IN: The Latest Edition Of The Newsletter Sent To Every Millennial In The World by Jason O. Gilbert (Fusion)

- Of course it's great that friends and family rise up to help and encourage a friend who's been recently diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma — but why hasn't her nine years of ulcerative colitis garnered the same support? But I'm Already Sick: Thoughts On Cancer Privilege And Bloody Poop by Ricki Schecter

And here's what I've added to my to-read list:

• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson, inspired by this New Yorker profile of Stevenson and his work with the Equal Justice Initiative

• The Vegetarian by Han King, based on its description in the New York Review as "to be about — besides meat-eating — marriage, obedience, care-giving, adultery, art, human violence, post-human fantasy, taboos, the resolution of the desperate, 'the crushing pressure of Korean etiquette,' and much more."

• This Is Really Happening by Erin Chack, because she is my work wife and also a really good writer

We did it, guys! A tinyletter! Thanks for reading. Send me thoughts, recs, psychological pain you need witnessed. See you next week.

<3
AR