Anticipation is the drug the Internet traffics, especially online shopping, the elixir of an imagined future, more perfect, more serene, pain free. I wanted that this morning with a clawing hunger, desperate, grubbing. What did I want, exactly? I wanted to go on the website for Savvy Rest, and find out if the layers of latex were three inch Dunlop or two inch Talalay. This could change everything. I wanted to read reviews of latex beds, to find out if latex does work better for sleep, if there is fire retardant in the box springs. I wanted to plan a vacation in Barcelona, find book reviews of Natalie Ginsberg, and something I couldn’t quite place– maybe yoga pants, maybe fruit fly traps, maybe sheets. I woke up in full flight, running from something, hungry for escape. Not just a little hungry. Flat out. Ravenous.
Tag: Internet
Last night D. spent an inexplicable amount of energy trying to convince me that the Internet is not a destructive habit, but my way of feeding my creative self. I said, no, it’s not. She argued: lots of writers and artists need to do other things– garden, clean their kitchens– isn’t that where you get your story ideas? I said: no, it isn’t. She said: how do you know it isn’t? I think about my long days, seven in the morning until one or two the following morning, the hours spent avoiding my work, my family, locked in the grip of a problem that won’t be solved, the hours I have added up, trying to imagine how much time I have lost, trying to figure out why I haven’t produced any stories. I say: hundreds of hours. She says, I’m just playing Devil’s advocate. I say, I don’t need a Devil. I need to write.
I wake up wanting more than anything to check my email, tell myself I can’t go on the Internet and then immediately check the weather. A little ad in the corner catches my eye—“why all shampoos are bad.” I wonder for a brief moment, why are all shampoos bad? Then Jesse comes in, says drinking water makes him feel sick. I tell him his intestines are a mile long—he says really?? A mile?? I say he better check with Danny. Which he does. Comes back to report it’s actually 23 feet. Then tells me all the funny jokes he has heard in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the ones where the American guy asks how to say thank you, and the Greek brothers teach him to say “You have nice boobs” and “I have three testicles” instead. I let Jesse tell me because I know it won’t take long. Because I don’t know what to write. Because the hard work of figuring out what to write has begun.