Last night, the usual suspects had dinner at Lauren’s house. She made us these wonderful pizzas in her fancy pizza oven. So yummy! We don’t often get together in person that much, so it’s a treat to spend an evening together. (no pictures of us!)
Dessert pizza! Nutella and strawberries.
Jeremy bought me this Apple Watch for mother’s day. Well, I asked for it for mother’s day (about a week before the actual day) and he said – great! I’ll get it for you and then promptly forgot to order it. And then mother’s day came and went and there was no watch and I didn’t mention it – being passive aggressive as is how I do – and I didn’t bother me for more than a minute that day, really. And then time passed and I decided that I didn’t want it anymore. And then one day a few weeks ago, Jeremy was like – I’d like to buy you an apple watch and then I said – well you were supposed to buy it for me for mother’s day. but now I’m not sure I want it anymore. This is how we normally argue – which is really not very much. So he bought it for me last week after I hemmed and hawed for a few days. But I have to say that I love it. Vince will tell you that I like to get rid of things that are addictive. My favorite line in Middlemarch is about Dorothea giving up something she loves:
Her love of riding is so great that “she felt that she enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked forward to renouncing it,”
I love not being beholden to anything. Not so entwined in anything that I *must* do that, or *must* possess that. Everything is ephemeral, everything! Lovers and money and possessions and identity and opinions should be fluid or at least not held on so tightly. So when I feel obsessed with something, I try to give it up. And I really needed to give up my phone. I had given up on social media a few years ago. But still the phone was in my hand -reddit, the NYT, Wordle, Pokemon Go, wikipedia, shopping youtube videos. Hours and hours a day. But with the watch I can leave my phone behind and just get the text messages. And music. And my to do list. But not much else. I tried it at first this weekend, leaving my phone parked in my bedroom and I walked around the house and somehow I felt like I was back in high school. A little bit bored. Wondering what to do. I went and read a book. We’ll see how long this lasts.
I have always said don’t love something too much. Be it a lover, pet, jewelry whatever it may be for it is never really yours to keep.
Re: phone Margo Price read at the Bookfestival here. She spoke about how she and Loretta Lynn had been friends. She wished she could have lived as LL did when a phone was something that rang in the kitchen on a wall. She said how lucky those of a certain age didn’t grow up with social media and cell phones. I never thought about it but she’s right.