That’s what Anne Carson, the new Nobel Laureate in Literature, said when asked what advice she gives writers.
Blog day. Take dogs to the Vet day. Beautiful October weather day. Got enough, and quality sleep day. Didn’t eat breakfast but counted the protein in my coffee.
Also: Instead of AG1, an electrolyte drink called Prfct. That’s the name of it.
Apparently, electrolyte drinks have an aversion to vowels.
LMNT, for instance. What’s with that? They said it tasted like Tang. It does not taste like Tang. It tastes too sweet. They said to put it in 8 or 16 ounces of water. I put it in my 24 oz Owala bottle with tons of ice, and only then could I handle it.
Walk the yard. Sip. Sip. Try to hydrate.
My ankles and feet hurt.
My knees hurt.
My hips hurt.
My back and shoulders hurt.
My arms hurt.
Have I missed any body part?
Everything hurts. Today is Day 93 of Ashtanga yoga and Week 5 of consistent 6-day-a-week Ladder workouts.
Progressive overload.
I may have overloaded yesterday.
My 20# weights are going to go out of fashion pretty soon if I keep this up. I don’t use the 20s for everything. Just the deadlifts, but still.
25s and 30s are in my future. Weights are expensive, though. I’m getting quite the collection on the computer room floor.
I finished Black Bag yesterday. I really liked it. Gave it 5 stars.
It won’t win the Booker, and some people are outraged that something like that even got short-listed and Switzy, which I haven’t read, got shut out.
What I liked about it was that it wasn’t moody and dark like John of John, that it wasn’t Ozzie and Harriet like The Things We Never Say. It was quirky and dark and funny and deep.
Like a Beckett play. Absurd, but with echoes and ripples that resonated out and out, then vanished before I got the meaning.
It was like an acid trip, but not.
It was like reading the news, but not.
It absolutely deserved to be short-listed, pointed to: “HERE! Pay attention to this. This voice is new. This voice is different.”
The themes are serious, but the treatment—that’s what sets this apart. And what are the themes? Performative alienation, for one.
The desire to be seen and not seen at the same time. The comfort of anonymity.
Anonymity hijacked into a cult.
The depths of friendship in all its quirky nuances.
The writing was unselfconsciously profound. It deserves a second read, which I will not give it, of course, because Reading Challenge, hello? But it deserves a place on my bookshelf, so I’ll order the hardback.
I think the reason I liked it so much is that I too, walk around in a Black Bag.
See me, but don’t see me.
See me, but pretend you don’t.
I need approval and love, but am afraid to ask for it.
I will put myself out there, but only in a Black Bag.
The yoga studio is my black bag.
This blog is my black bag.
I am ostentatiously hiding in plain sight. I am moisturizing and working out and cultivating patience, trusting that if I persist, I will get what I want.
And what is that?
A long and vital life, walking briskly and upright.
Inside a black bag.
