x=x=x
is the new xoxoxo
September 2008
16 posts
bench press update
205 lbs 6x, 210 lbs 4x
places i have never been
istanbul
buenos aires
tadzikistan
the buzzing
JOAN: Anxiety is good. What you said yesterday really resonated with me. The stuff about hearing your own voice.
MOLLY: Which stuff exactly?
JOAN: I’m trying to remember. We were sitting on the couch. You were talking about what counts as fulfilling work for you.
MOLLY: Not cutting to fit, but writing to the internal metronome, I think it was.
JOAN: Yes, exactly. And then something about if you cut to fit too much, for too long, you forget…
MOLLY: Forget what? That you’re cutting to fitting? I don’t think so. Don DeLillo, who I believe to be the best living American stylist, was an ad guy for ages. Or was. “Americana” is so good it’s unreadable. I mean, the sentences are so good that it reads like one long poem. Gordon Lish is like that, too.
JOAN: I’m cutting to fit 340 out of 365 days. But that’s okay. Those 25 days are hot.
MOLLY: I don’t think you’re being accurate with yourself. You have a misperceived notion of what you do. But maybe that’s good. We’re walking around with puritan brain trusts to prevent us from too much pleasure. So god forbid pleasure is not counterproductive. The whole system is shot. I am not exaggerating. I really do believe this.
JOAN: Yeah, our brains and culture of success/productivity…
MOLLY: —I am so sick of fielding small emails and requests today—
JOAN: …were built for a different kind of work. Something more industrial, where units and time were more closely linked.
MOLLY: Yes exactly. I always thought things had to be hard, or hurt, to be substantial.
JOAN: Do you feel like you are getting peppered?
MOLLY: Totally. I can’t deal at all. Especially today. It’s the guilt of all the people I haven’t written to. Just a whole avalanche of stuff melting down. About 20 people I haven’t emailed back. All of whom I like, but to what end? To them, I am singular, but to me, they from a whole. And they suck all my time. I don’t want to email and then have them email ad infinitum. In Bolivia I had none of it. No feeling I had to visit people I liked.
JOAN: Good work happens when walking around and thinking about nothing. You can’t think about nothing when you’re thinking about email.
MOLLY: Enforced isolation is critical to happiness and productivity. Leaving the country is very good. The goal is to reduce the buzzing. The buzzing makes me nuts; I have a much lower tolerance for it than others, I think.
JOAN: Oh God, the buzzing.
MOLLY: That’s it. We must leave at once!
bench press update: progress.
200 lbs. x 4 reps
200 lbs. x 3 reps
no assist
