Reading the paper gives me the empty feeling.
I think that’s pretty common, but most people I know get upset when they’re reading it because they come away feeling like the world’s going to shit. Or to hell in a hand basket. It’s always one of those two things.
For them, it’s the beheadings, the fracking, the ebola, Toronto mayor Rob Ford’s bug-eyed crack binges.
I actually love the crack binges.
To me, they’re a sign that the world’s getting more interesting. I wish a NYC mayor would do some crack, that’s fun stuff to read.
I know the world’s in a bad place, but it doesn’t bother me in a deep way. I don’t get grumpy about “the broken system” or “what’s going on with our planet.” I don’t weep for the atrocities like my friend Victoria does. She truly cries, not even pretend. She actually feels the global suffering. Not me. That’s another chip I’m missing.
What stirs up that lingering soul-weight of “something’s depressing me but I forget what” for me is mostly in the Styles section. Also, Sunday Business.
Creative stuff. Parties. Ideas. Hemlines. Internet. Millennials. I’ll never be one and I don’t want to, but I feel like they’re on to something I should buy a piece of.
Just the word “clicks” makes me feel like I need to catch up with something.
Everything I read or glance at adds up to an all-day “shoulda-coulda-woulda-still-should” malaise.
Here are some of the thoughts I’ll have during a typical paper-read.
Kids are using Instagram to become famous and I’m still on FB and I don’t get why you’d want to use Instagram instead but I know just thinking that makes me old.
I should’ve created an app. Are app creators smarter than I am, or did they just figure it all out at the right time? Exactly. It’s probably not too late to create and sell one but am I going to? No, so why not just move on?
Eff Gwyneth Paltrow, I’m not even going to read that because it’ll make me feel bad.
Should we have bought in Brooklyn? No, then I’d have to go to those parties where you bring your own absinthe cocktail recipe or fave pi’s and vintage typewriter.
Queens is the new Brooklyn, which means we should be buying property in Queens, because in 5 years people will be saying, “who knew we should’ve bought in Queens? And I’ll have to say, “I knew. But I didn’t anyway.”
Should I meditate?
Never mind that, why didn’t I think to open a place where people meditate?
Fine, I’ll read about Gwyneth Paltrow. Yeah, just what I thought, eff her and her photogenic 50-something CEO and her collaborations with Stella McCartney and Band of Outsiders. I’d like somebody to make me some perfect basics for my wardrobe, must be nice. My only collaboration is with Custom Cleaners on 6th Avenue. They make my jeans tight and custom-shred my undies.
Look at him, selling marshmallows with faces on them. It’s not the idea, it’s the follow-through. That’s the difference between him and me.
Yes, Ms. Corner Office, of course you get up at 5 am and swim. I wake up at 9 and still feel like crap, and I’d never ever want to put on a bathing cap or change out of a wet swimsuit at some place that smells like pool, so I’ll never be a tycoon like you.
Of course she’s best friends with Lena Dunham and Mindy Kahling. Barf.
Hey, I know her, she was my friend’s camera person! And now she’s going to be the new face of late-night television, because she consistently made web videos every single day for 7 years. Consistency, all about consistency. I should’ve done that. Even though I don’t want to be the face of late-night television.
Twitter lit up over something I didn’t watch. I should’ve watched it and I should be better about using Twitter.
Who are all these people who always look good enough to be snapped “On The Street”?
Damn, all these successful people meditate.
“Nuclear Pact.” Why do those words put me to sleep? I’m a bad person.
Now you.
Do you get the same panicky feeling of not doing enough in your life when you read the paper?
Or are you one of those people who gets the “world’s going to poo-poo” blues?
TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS.
Laura, you are an amazing writer….I love your style. Nothing to feel inadequate by all those people in the NY Times….we all need you and your blog. You are our Laura Times….so much better reading!!! We love you. I am willing to bet we would all post that in the Style section or wherever the rich and famous belong. I’ll be able to say, “I knew her when….”
I get my news from Facebook and the Talking Shrimp blog.
Thank you!!!
Well then. I should probably tell you about the new nuclear pact. Except I don’t know anything.
Newspapers are still around?
You kidding me? The newspaper is irreplaceable. Know why? You can’t spread out a laptop screen to put Chinese food on when you’re home alone and secretly eating dinner on the couch.
See, now I didn’t think about this. Only mine would be Mexican food. So maybe I need to revisit this newspaper concept. But only because guacamole is a pain in the ass to get out of any fabric!
I’m more of a half-full than half-empty type. I read the paper from back to front, reading the Op-eds and editorials then the local news first and running out of time before I get to the worst international stuff. I leave that to Dad, who always thinks the world is falling apart. I can’t relate to the style section, and I make sure that I don’t get too involved with the mess of the world. I’ve given up thinking I can change even a piece of the world, but I gobble up political news and issue many opinions which may or may not be valid or fact-based.
Yes, Dad wrote to tell me where I could find the scammers and world-destroyers if I leafed through the business section. I was content with just the people who made me feel inadequate.
My husband is a high school english teacher and he reads a pile of newspapers every morning to prepare for his day and stay relevant and exciting to his teenage students. So while I’m working in the kitchen making breakfast and packing lunch for him and my two kids (and a delicious frothy latte for myself) he is sharing with me the hideous front page horrors from all around our globe.
I am generally not domestic, by the way, and I kick and scream practically every moment, but I do make everyone’s meals almost every day and forget to feed myself almost every day (but I never forget my frothy latte).
I do not like hearing about the world’s horrors – I would love to pretend that life is beautiful and fair and love is everywhere (I am a major Pollyanna.) My husband is the opposite, he looks for the negative and thinks the worst of most situations. He doesn’t seem adversely affected by this assault of bad news but I am shaken by a single picture of a child in need.
I like to connect with my husband in the mornings and I like to pretend I am staying up to date with the goings on in the wide world but I would much prefer to stick my head in the sand.
The glamorous pages you mention in your post? Never! The envy and self doubt that it would bring up would crush me. I stay as oblivious as possible in this world of instant information and overload.
Kristen,
Perhaps you and I should trade spouses for a day and see how that works. I read the sports first, because it is totally irrelevant, and then finish with the comics because they make me laugh. Meanwhile, my wife is scouring the news for every horrible event she can find in the vain belief that if she reads about it and feels bad, then it really didn’t happen…or so I suppose.
I know that there is plenty of bad stuff happening in the world, but unless I can un-decaptitate someone or cure them of ebola, then I don’t want to spend my day in a funk over it. It’s good and responsible to know what the current social justice concerns are, but I can’t wallow in the same news day after day after day. Perhaps we could just set up a morning chat session for our spouses to share the bad news of the day and get it off their chests so that we can then talk to them about all of the positive, happy parts of life.
Wait, your husband reads newspapers to stay cool and relevant to KIDS? Shouldn’t he be reading Instagram? (Which I believe is what they consider reading now.)
Yes. Yes, I do think ALL those things.
You know what? I never used to, because a lot of that fluff and crap didn’t exist and wasn’t thrown in front of me 27/7 on every screen and page (I still read printed things, hear my dinosaur roar). This was the peaceful, less-stressful Iron Age. During that time, I did things like raise my 4-under-8-years old boys, pick kids up from school, sort, wash and fold mountains of laundry, wash dishes (ETC.), and curl up to write (with a pen and paper) magazine articles and essays in rough draft during the little ones’ 2.5 hour naps {it can be done! Naptime was a rule until Kindergarten} and between the hours of 9pm – 1am, when I got my writing done — published, paid-for writing.
Oh, and I was then married to my college love who played golf for our living on the PGA Tour and was gone approximately 9 months cumulative of each year traveling. (Obviously home enough to produce 4 pregnancies.)
And it was wonderful. Even now, I don’t swim at any time of the day, or meditate. Unless you count thinking about stuff as I walk my dog 3x a day.
We just know too much now, Laura. Too many things that actually do not matter. Obviously I’m working on a long life here… what do you know about life today, I hear people (much, much younger people) cry.
I know I want to disconnect, even though in order to make a living, I can’t do that. But I don’t want to disconnect from your blog. So there’s that to think about — you are accomplishing something very large.
I feel better when I read your blog. You often voice thoughts I have – like today. I’m NOT the only one! I have company in this nutsy world.
Keep on keepin’ on.
I love hearing your dinosaur roar, Marci Diehl. It’s camp counselor to my dinosaur.
I did NOT know you used to be married to Tiger Woods. That’s pretty cool.
Oh no, I definitely just read the lifestyle sections and scan for people younger and more successful than me.
That’s the place for them! A treasure trove.
It’s almost as bad as reading the Alumni Mag.
That never made me feel bad, because everyone in it moved to Washington or SF to do something government-related or pro-social. That doesn’t make me jealous. I think Stanford’s alumni mag would give me a quarterly FOMO-related heart attack, though.