On Alone, Birnam Wood, the IPCC report and the magic of gastroenteritis
Beloved subscribers,
How’s it going? Around here things have been grimmer than a Cormac McCarthy novel—mainly because everyone in our house has had gastro. I can’t think of anything funny to say about this because even trying to think up some good vomit jokes is making me want to vomit.
For mysterious reasons that I can’t quite figure out, I have also been feeling weirdly stressed out about my novel. It’s probably just because there are so many things now that are completely out of my hands and I just have to wait and see what happens, and—as my partner will tell you from his experience of trying to cook dinner for me when I am already hungry—I am not very good at waiting!!! It is my least favourite thing to do other than vomiting!!!! It makes me very anxious!!!
Please let me know if you have any tips for managing anxiety, because my usual methods:
mindful eating
moderate drinking
intimately connecting with loved ones
… are just not working out as well as you would think.
Television
While the family was down with gastro, we decided to watch an entire season of Alone in a single weekend. The premise of this show is that ten people get dropped off in separate places in a vast, inhospitable wilderness, and whoever lasts the longest without tapping out gets half a million bucks. It is weirdly mesmerising television given that—apart from the occasional bear attack—almost nothing happens. It’s just a lot of footage of people sitting around being cold, hungry, lonely, and increasingly beardy, and I think the main appeal of it for my family of invalids was that the contestants appeared to be suffering even more than we were. Even my animal loving, mostly-vegetarian children were into it, seemingly unbothered by the scenes of people dismembering mice or skinning sea otters or cutting the heads off cormorants and examining their entrails (‘there’s fish in there! And a lot of worms!’).
I thought about how I would go if I went on this show, and the tragic truth is that I would be tapping out within minutes, possibly before I even arrived in the wilderness. I mean, obviously I am quite at home in a hostile environment full of large predators (I used to be a lawyer!), but I am just not good at enduring physical discomfort. The only part of the experience I feel like I could easily cope with was the bit where you are completely alone. I love being alone!!! I love it so much that if I were in that iconic ‘All By Myself’ scene from Bridget Jones’s Diary I would do it as an euphoric disco anthem à la It’s Raining Men:
Me, living my dreams
On Alone, it was both raining men (all the contestants) and also raining rain (water falling from the sky). All the testosterone was a bit disconcerting at first, as I haven't watched many shows focusing primarily on men in recent years—not because I hate men (you guys are terrific! Getting out there every day with your genitals bouncing around on the outside of your body, just living your lives like it’s normal, lol, I love you guys!!), but because until TV streaming services were invented we all had to watch shows that were for/by/about men almost all the time and I got soooo bored of them! I will still watch a man show occasionally but it has to work extra hard to be interesting to me.
The men on Alone were having a very hard time being Men on Alone—they all became highly introspective and did a lot of crying, self-examination and re-evaluation of their past relationships and behaviours, and it was honestly beautiful…but it also made me laugh a little bit. Men will literally live for months in a yurt made of sticks in a frozen wilderness eating slugs for survival instead of going to therapy!!!
(To be clear, I was laughing in solidarity; I am also not going to therapy.)
The men who seemed to do the best mentally were ones who were able to entertain themselves by reciting poetry or whittling musical instruments out of tree trunks or just being generally silly. This actually gave me some fresh hope for my survival in a post-apocalyptic future. I have always assumed that because I have no useful practical skills (I used to be a lawyer!) I would just be immediately killed off and eaten—or perhaps melted down to fuel oil burners or make soap or whatever—but now I think maybe there will be a market for post-civilisational comic relief? I could make zines about my hilariously incompetent misadventures adjusting to life in a barren wasteland (Isolation Bear 2: More Isolated, Less Bearable) or do some incisive observational comedy about bunker life (‘Have you guys noticed how everybody’s on the starvation diet these days? Like, oh, you’re avoiding both carbs and protein? So original, Brenda!’). Anyway, what I’m saying is, when the end times come, please keep me in mind for all your weddings/office parties/ritual killing requirements.
Books
The best thing I read in the last couple of weeks was New Zealand novelist Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood, which is a tragic satire about a billionaire and a grassroots environmental group. It is extremely good, although I probably would have enjoyed it more if in the back of my mind I wasn’t constantly thinking, ‘omfg, has she cornered the market for 2023 novels featuring billionaires and grassroots environmental groups written by an antipodean person whose first name is Eleanor???’ Without giving too much away, all these things are also true of another book coming out later this year by someone you all know and love/wouldn’t spit on if she was on fire:
Surprise! It me!!! Incidentally, this is the new headshot I wrote about the other week. If you don’t zoom in too close I think it is pretty cute and you can’t even tell how much I am scrizing (screaming with my eyes).
It really is weird how the act of writing a book has changed the way I read all other books. Now, every time I read anything that I like, instead of being grateful to the writer for providing me with pleasure and emotional or intellectual enrichment, I’m instead overtaken by…rage.
YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT SOME OF THESE BOOKS, BOOKS THAT I HAVE NOT WRITTEN, ARE…GOOD???? BETTER THAN MY BOOK?????!!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!! I WILL KILL YOU!!!!!! I WILL SLAUGHTER YOUR FAMILY!!!!! I WILL DRAIN YOUR BLOOD AND FEAST UPON YOUR VERY BONES!!!!!
This is clearly a problematic and unhelpful emotional response rearing up from some primordial part of my brain that probably should be removed with a laser, but until that technology exists I suppose I must make do with therapy living in a yurt made of sticks in the frozen wilderness vomiting out my feelings through the magic of gastroenteritis/this newsletter.
Other Things
Speaking of the end of the world, the IPCC released a new report on climate change last week, which might also have contributed to my stress levels. Even though I now consider myself a probable key player in our post-apocalyptic future, on balance I would probably still prefer it if we didn’t set the earth on a course of irreversible catastrophe, destruction and despair. Sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing but I find it’s good to remember that there are small actions we can all take to make a difference—eg:
divesting from fossil fuels with your banking/super
advocating for greater climate action with your local politicians etc
rising up to gently but firmly overthrow capitalism 😊
Anyway, just throwing around some ideas, no pressure!!!
Until next time,
xx Eleanor
PS just after I finished writing this newsletter I read Lindy West’s recap of Bridget Jones’s Diary which made me lol several times and also made me want to go watch the movie again immediately. Worth a read!
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