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Episode 472: Melissa Febos and the Art of Personal Exploration with ‘The Dry Season’
0 Playsin 18 hours
"I talked to my wife, and she was like, 'You're probably tired. You've been writing this book non stop for six months, and you probably just need a break. Like, go get a gelato and chill out.' And I was like, 'I can't,' then I was like, 'All right, fine, I will.' And then I ate a bunch of ice cream and watched the Pam Anderson documentary on Netflix in the middle of the day. And after, I don't know, four or five days, I had an idea, and I was like, ready to get back to work," says Melissa Febos on Episode 472.
Melissa is the author of five books of nonfiction, including her latest, The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex (Knopf).
In this conversation, we talk about:
- Writing in community
- Literary stardom
- Being a weirdo
- Wile E. Coyote
- The jealousy dragon
- The theory of bottoms
- And the liberation of quitting things
Really rich stuff. You can learn more about Melissa at melissafebos.com and follow her on IG @melissafebos.
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Introduction & Announcements
00:00:00
Speaker
AC and Effers, the frontrunner is officially out. I like to think I don't ask for much. Now's the time to buy a copy or three, and if you read it, you know the drill. Need ratings and reviews.
00:00:12
Speaker
I won't read them because I don't want to be driven insane by visiting the Big A, but that's the world we live in. Ratings and reviews. Your call to action to support the book. Me and ye olde CNF pod.
00:00:25
Speaker
And if you're still on the fence, and why would you be? There's an excerpt of the book over at Lit Hub. Dig it. like Oh, I'll never finish this book if I wait until I have a whole day to write and I can like light my little candles and touch my crystals or whatever.
Meet Melissa Feebos
00:00:44
Speaker
Oh, hey, CNE for just a creative nonfiction podcast, the show where i speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Meara. Welcome to the Thunderdome.
00:00:55
Speaker
Melissa Feebos is here and she needs no introduction. So enjoy my conversation with Melissa Feebos, author of The Dry Season, A Memoir of Pleasure, and A Year Without Sex. It's published by Knopf.
00:01:09
Speaker
Nah, nah, nah, we'll do the thing. Melissa Feebos is the author of five books, Whip Smart, Abandon Me, Girlhood, Body Work, and now The Dry Season. Melissa is particularly skilled at using the personal as a trampoline into other threads.
00:01:26
Speaker
And The Dry Season is just one such example of that. I mean, there's a meditation on Wiley fucking Coyote in this book. Melissa's list of accolades and accomplishments are too many to mention, but let's do a few, mkay?
Melissa's Accomplishments & Projects
00:01:40
Speaker
Girlhood was a Lambda Literary Award finalist and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism and named a notable book of 2021 by NPR.
00:01:54
Speaker
Time, The Washington Post, and others. Bodywork, her craft book. was also a national bestseller. In 2022, she received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Kenyan Review, The Believer, McSweeney's, and lots more places. And frankly, I'm sick of it.
00:02:12
Speaker
Show notes to this episode and more at brendanomero.com. Hey, hey, there. You can sign up for the monthly Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter, something I've been doing forever. People who dig it, really dig it.
00:02:24
Speaker
Just like this podcast. First of the month, no spam, can't beat it. You can also consider Patreon if you think all this effort is worth a few bucks. Patreon.com slash cnfpod.
Writing and Creative Ventures
00:02:38
Speaker
Oh yeah, by the way, I also started what's proving to be a pretty popular little venture called Pitch Club. It's at welcometopitchclub.substack.com. I have a writer. Audio annotate a pitch, ideally a cold pitch that involves more salesmanship.
00:02:53
Speaker
I think this has a chance to be pretty special. It's not going to take over the world, but then again, we're not world taker overs. I've gotten the most subscriptions to this kind of thing.
00:03:04
Speaker
than any other thing I've ever done. Why? It's tactical and it's practical. It's going to help you get where you want to go. Nick Davidson was the first featured writer and got a couple more coming.
00:03:15
Speaker
Got Kim Cross and the National Magazine Award winning Running a Tour. Yeah. Dig it.
00:03:24
Speaker
Had a blast speaking with
Themes in Melissa's Work
00:03:26
Speaker
Melissa. We're about the same age and grew up in Massachusetts. So that's a nice connection. Wicked nice connection. She's pretty special.
00:03:38
Speaker
She really came to play ball. So I think you'll dig this one. We talk about writing in community, achieving literary stardom, her, not me, being a weirdo, both of us, Wile E. Coyote, the jealousy dragon, the theory of bottoms, and the liberation of quitting things. It's great talk.
00:03:56
Speaker
I've been wanting to talk to her for a long time, and this does not disappoint. Parting shot on me undertaking a different kind of dry season for a bit, maybe forever, but for now, let's hear from the singular greatness that is Melissa Feebo's hook.
00:04:20
Speaker
People who do this for fame are foolish. That is, it's so true. I actually would not mind just growing people's flowers for them. Go get a gelato and chill out. And I was like, I can't.
00:04:31
Speaker
This is going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me
00:04:45
Speaker
You wanted to be a writer from such young age and like the ruthlessness you had about yourself from the beginning, I think such a wonderful way to describe yourself at that point. You know, when when you locked into this idea that this could be a vocation for you, like what were you reading? What was it that crucible through which you're like, oh, that that's the thing I'm going to lock into.
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, what wasn't I reading? i was definitely a kid who i was a super voracious reader, like possibly an addictive reader. I was like reading, staying up all night with a flashlight in my bedroom. I was reading during classes at school. Like that's all I wanted to do. And I think pretty much as soon as I figured out that a writing, that being a writer was like a thing you could do instead of another kind of job. i mean, sort of, didn't understand the nuances of that as a kid, but um as soon as I heard people refer to writers as like actual people, I thought, oh my God, is that an option? Because I choose that option. and I just latched onto it immediately. was probably like nine or 10 or something. And I latched onto it immediately.
00:05:53
Speaker
um Because I think I already I mean, I loved reading, but I also already had a relationship to writing that was in many ways very similar to my current day relationship to writing, which is that it's a place for me to put the stuff I can't talk about.
00:06:09
Speaker
You know, it's a place for me to have a conversation with myself that I can't or won't have with other people. Yeah. Would you consider yourself an internal processor where things make start to make sense to you ah in the in the quiet times and not maybe not necessarily, and this is what I relate to, like I'm not very good on my feet, but if I can write it down and kind of metabolize it that way, I feel far more secure in what I'm thinking.
00:06:37
Speaker
Yeah, I would say yes and no. I definitely identify as an extrovert. Like I get a lot of energy and like conversation with other people, especially people that I have intimate relationships with, and intimate friendships with, is a really good way for me to sort of get to a new idea or like develop an an understanding of something. The problem is that I'm incredibly secretive and just like a very private person, actually, which sounds ironic, I think, coming from a memoirist, but is actually pretty common when it comes memoirists and
00:07:09
Speaker
And so for me, yeah, I need to sit alone with something for a really long time before I'm comfortable talking about it, especially if it has to do with me and my like personal experiences and sort of private thoughts about something.
00:07:24
Speaker
um i have to figure out how to talk to myself about it first before I can talk to other people about it for sure. Right, right. And there's a ah moment where you wrote it. Excuse me. about the kind of that that early ah appetite for for reading and writing. And I love this that you said, i I had always been driven by the desire to become what I chose.
00:07:44
Speaker
I had dreamed of being a writer as a child and pursued that reality with unwavering doggedness until I succeeded. And I'm always attracted to people who have ah very singular focus.
00:07:56
Speaker
And ah ah just for you, where does that singular focus and drive manifest? Yeah, thanks. Me too. Those are totally my people, the at addicts and fetishists, weirdo, obsessives, for sure. i You know, for me, writing, definitely. But there is no experience that is sort of ah out of the question in terms of my own obsessiveness.
00:08:23
Speaker
So like when I lock in on something, and that can be actually quite dangerous, you know, I have... um really hurt myself sort of obsessing and like driving in one particular direction towards one particular feeling or experience um many, many times. I've done it with exercise. I've done it with food. I've done it with people.
00:08:43
Speaker
And so in many ways, my survival has depended upon me locating those obsessions and interests that are safe for me to manifest my obsessiveness. And so writing has been like certainly at the very top of that list for sure. um But I would say, i you know, I also have a real huge devotion to my recovery and the sort of ways that I help other addicts and alcoholics recover. That's a huge part of my life.
00:09:12
Speaker
Yeah.
Writing as Mental Health Practice
00:09:13
Speaker
and And I definitely like with some checks and balances, I still do get pretty obsessed about like certain kinds of physical activity and certain kinds of weird foods. Like I'll eat the exact same thing every day for like six months and then I will be sickened by the very thought of it and I can never, ever put it in my mouth again.
00:09:34
Speaker
yeah i'm ah weirdo. I'm kind of an extremist. Yeah, the there's something there's something attractive about the all or nothing mindset because the some constraints that are put on you when you have that focus, it just everything else falls away. But in the same way, can lead to it can lead down very nefarious roads. and In what ways has being all or nothing, in in what ways has that served you?
00:09:59
Speaker
Sure, yeah. Being all or nothing is, I mean, the ability to sort of hyper-focus on something um can be a real gift. Certainly artistically, it's incredibly helpful that I've always, like I used to write in coffee shops when I was, lived in New York, which is so crazy to me now, but it's like once I start focusing on something, especially with writing or any kind of creative pursuit, the rest of the world just falls away.
00:10:23
Speaker
You know, like I am not thinking about what anyone's going to think about it later. not thinking about what i have to do later that day. i am just fully in that space, completely devoted to it. You know, I would say also like, you know, the dry season is about a year that I spent celibate and,
00:10:41
Speaker
If I could have just had a more balanced relationship to love and sex, like, believe me, I i would have. I tried for really long time. um But the only thing that worked for me was this all or nothing. Like, I just had to stop cold turkey in order to figure out what was going on with me. And that yielded so many rewards. So in that sense, I think my all or nothing personality has benefited me. But I think like, I don't know anything really, like sometimes teaching, like when I'm teaching and I'm in the classroom and I'm like, you know, focused on talking about something I care very deeply about and trying to communicate that in a clear way to other people. Like I'm not thinking about anything else. Like I am fully in it.
00:11:23
Speaker
I mean, the problem is that when I'm fully locked into something, sometimes it keeps me from being present for other stuff. um But Mostly I wouldn't trade it in. Mostly i have figured out over the last 40 years how to mitigate the negative effects and preserve the benefits of having that kind of brain.
00:11:43
Speaker
and so writers I speak with on the show and and more recently, ah Megan Baxter, essayist, ah written some wonderful, wonderful things. And she embraces and others have to kind of a more seasonal approach to to writing and having like fallow periods to regenerate, feel the well, and then they can lean into a more, you know, like a harvest period, if you will.
00:12:05
Speaker
And, ah you know, for you, do do you embrace kind of a given your teaching and your writing some of that degree of seasonality? Yeah, to some extent, but I would say I'm a little more consistent in my writing, mostly because writing is such an integral part of my mental health hygiene. Like when when I don't write, I get really grumpy and resentful and I start keeping secrets and it's just like the place where I offload like what's going on with me in many ways. And it's also like if I'm just walking around thinking shit, I am thinking the same thoughts over and over again. And mostly I'm thinking about myself. ah Like I'm not great at thinking.
00:12:47
Speaker
my best thinking happens in writing. you know When I write things out, it subjects my thoughts to a kind of linearity that ah just like swirling around in my brain doesn't really happen. And so I'm just like a lesser human when I'm not writing.
00:13:03
Speaker
That said, there are definitely limits. like I get tired. i don't always have the bandwidth to do it And you know especially like right now I'm on the cusp of publishing this new book, right? And I'll be sort of doing a lot of outward facing stuff and touring and reading and promoting a book like i love it, but it exhausts me in a way that requires like a pretty serious recovery period. So I won't expect to be writing again until probably the fall, you know.
00:13:29
Speaker
um Similarly, when I'm doing a long project, like writing a book, there usually comes a point about two thirds of the way through when I just am tapped out. And I have to like take a break and maybe I could work on some other little short, fun thing, but probably I just need to like watch TV and sleep for a little while.
00:13:44
Speaker
So I've learned, i used to fear the fallow periods and think, oh no, but if I stop, like I lose my momentum and like, what if I never come back to it? But that doesn't happen. I'm too obsessed with writing. It's really built into the center of my life. Like it's so much of my life is oriented around writing. Like I'll never stop doing it.
00:14:01
Speaker
um Even if I stopped publishing, I wouldn't stop writing. yeah So I really try to do a little more like listening to my body and my spirit and taking breaks when I need them. But I wouldn't say that it happens like on a regular schedule. It has more to do with what I've been up to and what else is going on in my life.
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah, a fellow Massachusetts native in Andre DeBuse III, when he was on the show several years ago, he was just like, yeah, if I go a day without writing, like I feel all fucked up and depressed.
00:14:27
Speaker
And in only the way that Andre can can articulate that. And it's ah it's really true. It's just like one of those things where you know with him. he just He needs to do it kind of like yourself, even if he's not publishing. I suspect he'd be down in his bunker and his yeah yeah his legal pads writing in pencil.
00:14:43
Speaker
Totally. Yeah. I think when I was in college, I realized that, you know, writing is extravagantly hard. It's even when you love it, as I love it um it's really difficult. It feels in the moment easier to do something else almost all of the time. And I sort of was like, oh, I need to, it has to be a need.
00:15:02
Speaker
Like i ah it has to feel like an imperative. that i write And I think I sort of brainwashed myself to be miserable when I'm not writing because I knew that's the only way it all the time.
00:15:12
Speaker
Sometimes it's kind of inconvenient. Like sometimes I need a break and I take a break and I'm still grumpy about it because I'm not doing it. But, you know, it's better than the inverse, I think. Right. And um ah given your your body of work and, you know you're on the cusp of um of the dry season coming out and, you know, what are what have been some, you know, so some lessons that you've learned as you've accrued body of work in books that you've been able to carry from book one through, you know, your current, you know, was book three or is a book three or book four?
00:15:46
Speaker
It's book five. Jesus, my bad. But yeah, sos so it's a book five. it's jo week um Yeah, there've been so many and there's new ones with every book, right? Every book is like, you know, I think it takes me like two to five years to write a book. So I'm basically getting a PhD in writing that book. um And there's a lot of lessons of writing that come through that education. and You know, I would say early on, it was my first book. I just learned not to be too precious about my process.
00:16:15
Speaker
Like, ah you know, when I was writing my first book, I was adjuncting at like five different schools and totally broke and, you know, commuting all over the five boroughs of New York. And I was like, oh, I'll never finish this book if I wait until I have a whole day to write and I can like light my little candles and touch my crystals or whatever.
00:16:35
Speaker
Like i need to be able to write on Metro North on the, on the subway, you know, like I need to be writing in the coffee shop when I have five minutes between student meetings or on the airplane or in the airport. I've gotten so much good writing done in airports or like in my parked car, you know, just to like pull it out. And like, I've got 20 minutes, let's write a couple sentences.
00:16:56
Speaker
um And that's been so huge and really, really just helped me. And now I have the luxury of like mostly writing in this nice home office, you know, but if I need to write in on the airplane, I still can, you know, and I would say probably the one other biggest thing has been writing in community. You know, I think there's this stereotype of the writer as this kind of like, know,
00:17:18
Speaker
bearded hermit who's like alone scribbling and like eating sardines and kind of in their own world. And that's not at all how the writing gets done for me. Like I need to be very deeply ensconced in community in order to do writing because it's so solitary and because it takes so long, like the human spirit is not built to work that long on something without reward, right? And we don't get the kind of reward that publishing brings for years and years when we're writing books. And so I think we need like a lot of hugs, a lot of commiseration, a lot of like laughter and,
00:17:58
Speaker
like companionship. Like we need to see ourselves and our struggles in other people. And also i i think particularly for memoirists, because I'm often writing about like past traumas or, you know, deep self excavating, like I need to be talking to like a fleet of therapists and friends and 12 step programs. Like I need, it it takes a village to help me do my work. Yeah.
00:18:21
Speaker
Well, yeah, it' to your point of community, especially nowadays, being so digitally interfaced, actually being in physical proximity to people is all the more important and certainly nourishing. You don't almost don't realize how starved you are for it until you actually do that and do that work.
00:18:39
Speaker
And, uh, know, my friend Ruby and I, and, and Eugene here, like, so we do a quarterly live podcast at a, you know at a brewery right now. And it's just ah this idea of recording the show, doing something in person, in community to foster that. And, you know, we have ambitions of making Eugene kind of like this baby Portland, getting, getting people who are already going to Powell's and stuff and get them, getting them down here too in conversation.
00:19:04
Speaker
Um, this idea of community. So I love hearing you talk about that. Yeah, I love that. And I think there has to be a live aspect to it. Like when I was in grad school, I started me and friend of mine who was in my grad program started a reading and music series where we would just monthly hold an event on the Lower East Side where we would have three writers in a band play. And it was like maybe nothing in my whole education ever did more for my writing than the ways that that series sort of fostered community in New York and and beyond. Just like being in a room with a bunch of other bodies, like talking about art and appreciating art just gave me such a sense of belonging.
00:19:46
Speaker
And given that, you know, over the last, you know, a few years, you know, I always love getting a sense of a writer who, by and large, had starts anonymous, as most of us do.
00:19:59
Speaker
And then when someone like yourself achieves a certain measure of literary fame, there's a lot of attention in that. And then you have to find a way to metabolize that and process it in a way that,
00:20:09
Speaker
you know allows you to keep going, keep creating, and then be that public-facing self. So just over the years, as your profile has lifted, how have you yeah metabolized that increased visibility and you know desire for your time and yeah is in your presence?
Balancing Personal Narratives & Reader Responses
00:20:25
Speaker
Sure.
00:20:25
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, definitely requires an increasingly nuanced sense of my own boundaries. You know, I think when I started writing and with memoir, it's the response from readers, I think is really different from other genres because there is something inherently really powerful about knowing that there is another living, breathing person walking this earth who has experienced the very things that you have and that maybe you felt alone in. And so I get these like emails from readers who are like, we might be the only two people on earth who have ever experienced this. We must know each other. We're soulmates, you know? And like,
00:21:00
Speaker
You don't want to like not respond to that email, but you can respond to all of those emails, you know? So I had to really clarify for myself what my job on this earth is. And my job on this earth is not to like be the BFF of everyone who reads my books, but it is to write books.
00:21:18
Speaker
And by writing the book, I've already given them the companionship that I have, right? Yeah. And that sort of has to be enough. And like, sometimes I do write back, I try, but I can't always do that. And letting go of that has been really important and really sort of freeing for me.
00:21:33
Speaker
But, you know, I have to say it's like being a writer with a little bit of fame is really different from being like an actor with fame or like any other kind of artist. I think I still am just like, first of all, like writer famous is just not the same. It's like other writers know who you are, but like a very, very small percentage of our regular people know who you are or give a shit.
00:21:52
Speaker
And I'm basically just like in my little life, like, you know, nothing about my day to day life, like principally changes based on like the number of people who are reading my books. Like I'm a person with a job, you know, and so I'm incredibly grateful for that, that I get to just like keep things pretty right sized, at least so far. And I think.
00:22:13
Speaker
um And I think for me, because my relationship to writing is so specific and so personal, I never wrote because I wanted other people to read it. I always wrote because I needed to express specific things and to externalize them in some way. And because the puzzle of artistic creation is like a really absorbing and satisfying pastime for me. Like, I love it.
00:22:37
Speaker
And like I said, I would do it even if nobody was reading or publishing my work. And so you know, it's like, it's not impossible. It's not possible to totally separate like reception and audience from the artistic practice, but I'm really, really grateful for the extent to which that has been possible for me. And it's also a very conscious practice. Like,
00:22:56
Speaker
you know When my first book came out, I read everything anyone wrote about me. And I was like, okay, I'm never doing that again. and like i am It's my job to publish the book and do a good job of trying to get it into the hands of the people that will find it meaningful.
00:23:10
Speaker
But like what they do with it and what they think about it is like largely none of my business. And I should try to avoid it as much Yeah. Do you find that when you're taking on a subject that because of that parasocial relationship or connection that others might feel towards you, you, that you might be reluctant to take on a subject? Cause like, I don't want to invite what might come along with the fallout and the reaction to it.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah. You know, that would make sense, but no, I never loved. Um, It's like, I only write about things when it feels insistent inside me. You know, like I am never sitting around being like,
00:23:56
Speaker
what would be a cool thing to write about? Or what would people like to read about? I am just like constantly trying to sort of like pummel down the thing I'm afraid of talking about until it needs to like explode for me, like Athena from her father's head. You know what I mean? So like that's the dynamic I'm working with inside myself. And so by the time I write about something, it feels like Do I have a choice? I don't know. i could not write about it, but I don't know if I could write anything else. Like, like sometimes there's just a subject that gets to the front of the line and refuses to let anything else out until you write about it. And that's kind of how I experience it. You know, like I'm thinking of an example where i had scheduled, I've written about getting a breast reduction surgery and i had scheduled it. This was like in 2018. And I remember walking with my wife in the park, in Prospect Park.
00:24:49
Speaker
And I was like, you know, it's interesting because like it's such a sort of complicated subject for me and I felt so conflicted about it. It would actually be a really good topic for an essay. Too bad I would never write about it and could never even talk about it in public.
00:25:04
Speaker
And she started laughing, this like very knowing laugh. And I was like, oh fuck. Because I realized what she was thinking, which is like every time I've ever thought that about something, I did end up writing about it. So it's almost inevitable that I was going to. And then like cut to me post-surgery, still woozy from anesthesia being like, bring me my computer. And she was like, why? And I was like, I just have to make some notes before I forget.
00:25:29
Speaker
She was like, oh my God, you're out of control. So if i if I don't want to write about something or feel like I couldn't possibly write about it, it's almost a guarantee that I'm going. to Oh, my God. That's that's hysterical.
00:25:42
Speaker
And i with with personal writing and memoir, too, it's always so important to have distance. And for you, ah how do you gauge what distance is appropriate for you to then write about it with ah with that degree of detachment that um yeah that gives you the perspective you need?
00:26:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. And, you know, I think obviously sort of temporal distance and the kind of dimensionality that time gives you your you and your perspective on past events is a hugely important part of memoir and all personal nonfiction.
00:26:18
Speaker
But I don't think it necessarily has to come from the central timeline. Like I've written my second book takes for its main sort of narrative structure, i really chaotic sort of addictive relationship that i experienced in my early 30s. And I started writing that book while I was in the relationship.
00:26:38
Speaker
Like I couldn't even tell you what my middle name was during that time. But like for me, writing is how I survive things. And I just like needed to document what was happening and what my mental state was. It was like a survival thing.
00:26:51
Speaker
But in the final work of that book, The other aspects of it included like really deep thinking about my childhood and my familial lineage and like ancestral lineage. And so there that dimensionality existed, but it came from a ah different sort of aspect of the book. It wasn't from the central timeline, which was really, really immediate and didn't have a lot of reflection because I just didn't have that capacity at the time.
00:27:18
Speaker
um But like the dry season, for instance, is about an experience I had almost 10 years ago. So there's a lot of the intervening insights and thoughts that I had since then. so I think as long as...
00:27:31
Speaker
that dimensionality is coming from some other time period. I don't think it has to necessarily be like what people consider the central story. And and that's been a really interesting insight that's come to me over the course of writing my books.
00:27:45
Speaker
Yeah, and given with with the the dry season and with the, aside from the experiment for lack of a better term of doing, of being celibate for a year, which is, yeah you know, in and of itself, a really fascinating spine and through line through which to thread all these other things.
00:28:02
Speaker
You know, what about this book's generation, like opened up to you and really you maybe surprised you over the course of the ah the writing of it and the research of it? Sure. Yeah, there were a lot of surprises, as there always are. um When I started the book, I had this...
00:28:19
Speaker
concern ah that it would be boring because that year was so happy. And I'd never written about being happy before. And I thought, is there what if there's no there there? like I don't really know how to write about happiness.
00:28:32
Speaker
Maybe there won't be enough conflict. And so my first conception of the book was that it would actually sort of prioritize the research and that it would kind of be a book about voluntary celibacy across history as a laboratory practice.
00:28:46
Speaker
And that the memoir would kind of be like a complimentary timeline that would weave in and out of it or something, kind of like Olivia Lang's um The Lonely City. i don't know if you read that, but it sort of makes profiles of artistic figures. And then the narrator kind of like strobes in and out of it. It's a great book. but But then as soon as I started writing The Dry Season, I was like, oh, no, I have plenty to say about that year.
00:29:12
Speaker
And what I hadn't considered was that in order to tell a story about my celibacy, I had to tell a story about my whole romantic life leading up to that point. Like how had I gotten there? Right. And there was plenty of conflict in that timeline. So not to worry past Melissa. Um,
00:29:27
Speaker
And you know the research, like it was both exciting and kind of a heartbreak that so much of the research I thought I was gonna include ended up falling by the wayside. And the figures that I ended up including in the book were this like really weird, ragtag, fascinating group of people, but they weren't even all celibate. like Some of them were people who were just as messy in love as I was.
00:29:48
Speaker
So it's just, you know I think everybody goes into writing a book with a plan or a lot of people do, I always do. And then as I get to know the book that I'm writing, as it starts to emerge, the book tells me how to write it and I can put my plans aside. I almost always have to put my plans aside eventually. Yeah. well It kind of harkens back to the Mike Tyson quote. Like everybody has a plan until get punched in the face.
00:30:13
Speaker
ah How did this book punch you in the face? We use that. when We use that. Everything always goes back to that Mike Tyson quote. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I would say when I figured out that I couldn't, you know, I also like, in addition to wanting to write a book that told a comprehensive timeline of voluntary celibacy across global history, I also wanted it to be, as I often said, sleek and sexy book.
00:30:43
Speaker
Like I wanted to write like a fun, fast book. And, you know, about ah half of the way through, I was like, oh, shit, I'm not going to be able to include most of this research.
00:30:54
Speaker
And it's not going to be a sleek and sexy book, especially if I include that research, but maybe not even if I include this smaller. I was just like, oh, my I have to make some choices here about what kind of book I want to write, you know.
00:31:06
Speaker
um Do I want to write a fun little skinny book or do I want to write about the process of radical self-transformation? Because I can't actually fit that into 150 pages, you know? um And so I had kind of a reckoning um about what what kind of book I was writing and had to make those choices.
00:31:22
Speaker
um I would also say it was, and maybe this goes back to your previous question about sort of ah writing patterns over time. Like I had my first sabbatical while I was writing the book and I'd always sort of thought that my problem with writing was one of time and that if I had endless time, I could write endlessly.
00:31:42
Speaker
and I had this year and I really protected that year. And i went to a bunch of residencies and I kind of did write endlessly for about six months. And then I hit an absolute wall. And I was at a residency on the Italian Riviera having all my meals cooked for me. And I couldn't write.
00:31:59
Speaker
And I was just like, what's wrong with me? I feel like I've gone dead inside creatively. And I talked to my wife and she was like, you're probably tired. You've been writing this book like nonstop for six months.
00:32:10
Speaker
And you probably just need a break. Like go get a gelato and chill out. And I was like, I can't. um And then I was like, all right, fine, I will. And then I just ate a bunch of ice cream and like watched the Pam Anderson documentary on Netflix in the middle of the day. And like after, I don't know, four or five days, i had an idea and I was like ready to get back to work. But it was such an important revelation because I was like, oh, I can't write endlessly. Like there is a tank of creative energy.
00:32:37
Speaker
And I can spend it all. And then I just have to wait. Like, I can't force it. I'm not a machine. Like, i am a human being with an imagination that needs to be fortified. Yeah, I love what you said a moment ago ah ah about yeah just this idea of radical transformation. And then, you know, you write in in the book, too, about ah it's often not like this lightning stroke. It's more like a strike. it's It can be i love the image that you created. It's more like you're noticing kind of air pollution, like the quality of the air.
00:33:06
Speaker
um Really? Yeah. And and so so many of us who might be looking to do something ah radical, there's a tremendous amount of inertia and it's very hard to to undergo that transformation. So, you know, what did this, you know, writing this book reveal to you about that very inertia? Something you've experienced on myriad occasions, I think, in your life.
00:33:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, probably the extent to which it can function without or even realizing it. Like, I know when I'm eating the same thing obsessively every day for a month, right? um i know I knew mostly when I was addicted to heroin.
Personal Insights & Life Patterns
00:33:42
Speaker
um But I did not know what was wrong with my romantic relationships and how I had gotten to a point of like total undoing in my early 30s after having been in nonstop relationships for like 20 years.
00:33:55
Speaker
um And then part of what my period of celibacy revealed to me was that there was this kind of, there was this inertia of participation in sort of um romantic dynamics and structures and ideals that I wasn't even aware of, that I hadn't chosen, that I'd just been kind of conditioned in and absorbed as a human being living in the United States of America and growing up in the 80s and ninety s Like,
00:34:21
Speaker
um I thought that to be a good partner, you had to like sacrifice your true self in many ways. And that sort of constant compromise and um ensuring that people were mad at you or disappointed as little as possible was like generous and made you good. at When in fact, it was kind of manipulative and was making everybody unhappy and made my relationships totally unsustainable. But I've been in therapy and like been a feminist for a really long time. And i I, just had no idea that those scripts were sort of guiding my choices and my behavior for a really long time until I chose to look at them.
00:35:00
Speaker
And so I think the choice to accurately appraise who you are and what you've been doing is so important to the process of change. Like, resolutions fail because we just try to stop a behavior. We're like, I'm going to stop doing this thing forever. And first of all, forever is super unrealistic. That's never worked for me. I give up instantly. i have to start with like a day, right?
00:35:22
Speaker
Or like three months, like I did with my celibacy. But I also have to look at myself and think, why do I need this thing? Or why do I think I need this thing? Like, what am I getting from it? Because I'm getting something from it.
00:35:34
Speaker
And where can I get that somewhere else? Or like, how can I look at myself in a more generous way and think, what do I need that I might be able to give myself instead of like,
00:35:46
Speaker
doing it through this habit that is like harming me and or other people. And just to like, like the habit of really, really looking at ourselves, which is not something we're taught to do. We're taught to take action, right? And action is really the first step and change. It's, um it's a question of looking.
00:36:06
Speaker
Yeah, and i you you're write about ah you write so well about this idea of you know whether you're you want to, know say, quit drugs or quit drinking, or in in the case of this book, you know sex, that it's that you you articulate so well that it was that it can be it can feel depriving, it can be about deprivation, but there's a ah rewiring of the brain that really liberates you and it it doesn't feel like it's dead depriving.
00:36:33
Speaker
And I just wanted to get you to just kind of speak to that and how, know, sometimes liberating yourself from this stuff, and it it is no longer a deprivation to, you know, limit a certain input.
00:36:46
Speaker
Totally. i would say in my case, always, not sometimes. Like I've been addicted to a lot of things and I've had really, really hard habits to break. If they're, you know, not quite addiction, then it's like a very strong attachment to a behavior or a thing.
00:37:03
Speaker
And it, you know, for me, that is the illusion of dependency, right? It's like when I get locked into something like that I convince myself that I need it.
00:37:15
Speaker
Like with drugs and alcohol, I was like, oh I won't be able to make art if I don't do drugs and alcohol. Like I won't be able to have fun, which is like the most hilarious thing for me to look back on in hindsight. Cause like the art did not begin. The fun had not yet begun until I got sober, like very truly and literally. um And it is only when I put down the thing that I'm dumping all of my energy and focus into that I get to sort of spend that energy with more agency. I get to give it to things that I choose instead of, you know, it's like F. Scott Fitzgerald has this very famous quote that's like, first you take, first, what is it? It's like, first you choose the drink, then the drink chooses you, then the drink chooses the drink or something like that.
00:38:01
Speaker
Much to the chagrin of some listeners who don't like it when I punch into a conversation, I'm merely doing this to clarify the quote that Melissa is referring to. ah Scott Fitzgerald, he said, first you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.
00:38:19
Speaker
Moving on.
00:38:22
Speaker
Every single time I have put down something that I thought I was dependent on, my life got so much better. Not just in a like, my blood counts are better now, but I am literally happier. I'm having more fun. I'm laughing more. i am having an experience of the sublime. Like I just, you know, when we hear the words like abstinence or sobriety or celibacy, we think of what we're going to lack and what we're going to be deprived of or what we're giving up.
00:38:49
Speaker
um We don't think about what we are going to get when we remove the thing that is taking up so much space in our lives. Right. And the ways that everything else we love is going to flourish.
00:39:00
Speaker
Yeah. And ah in the book, too, I love the kind of the the tangent you take or the set piece or. about Wile E. Coyote in and ah the cartoon character. like is that how did How did you arrive at kind of micro-profiling Wile E. Coyote and how he tied thematically to this?
00:39:20
Speaker
Oh my God, thank you so much for appreciating that. It's like, that is the kind of shit in writing that pleases me so much when I'm like, how did I get here? But it feels so right.
00:39:31
Speaker
I think I was just like, you know, when you're writing, I was trying to name something that is very essential to my personality and that I have so much experience with. And I was just sort of rooting around in the attic of my own consciousness and trying to think of like the right analogy, like who is like, what is dramatic enough?
00:39:52
Speaker
And then I thought of that poor bastard who is like, so such a perfect example of the negative side of like locking into something where it's like, dude, eat something else. Like this is ruining your life. Like how many times do you need to get hit by a fucking piano or jump off a cliff? Like stop it. But he can't, he can't, he needs You know, he needs to chase that silly little fool.
00:40:17
Speaker
And so, yeah, when I thought of him, i was like, oh that's why I always liked that Looney Tunes cartoon, you know. um And then I went and did a little bit of research into it. And it was like, so perfect.
00:40:30
Speaker
Like I just um and I just love finding those totally unexpected points of connection. um It is it feels like so quintessentially like creative nonfiction like essaying specifically is just sort of like digging at something in your mind and in the archives of the world and trying to pinpoint something exactly and the way that that can include like these incredible eccentric surprises. Yeah, isn't that the the best where you're you might be looking at one thing and then something else emerges, but it it makes sense.
00:41:03
Speaker
And it it is so electrifying to come across something to be able to connect these two seemingly disparate dots and make them make sense together. It's it really is a where the juice lies a lot of the times.
00:41:15
Speaker
Yeah, it is. It's super juicy. There, um let's see, there there was a moment too where you write of of self-indulgence and and I love it You're like writing a new book when the first flush of inspiration waned and you were left trudging toward a new idea driven by instinct without clarity.
00:41:32
Speaker
And that rung to me, and that just stuck out to me so strikingly, ah that's instinct without clarity. I was wondering if you' just kind of take us to that moment when when ah when that is and when that is hitting you, instinct without clarity.
00:41:47
Speaker
Totally, yeah. I mean, I think that that is like the most beautiful part of that single-mindedness, right? Because when I am in that place of self-forgetting that art delivers to me, there's no bad side to that, you know? And I think, like, I really believe that that making art is like drawing upon a different kind of intelligence. It's not, it doesn't come from the part of my brain that's like concerned about what other people think of me or how I'm going to get to my to-do list or do I have enough money or like, why won't this cut on my finger heal? You know, like, it's just like, it is pure relief from all of that.
00:42:28
Speaker
And like a diving down into like the oubliette inside of me um that like doesn't give a shit what anybody else thinks and is like deeply in touch with nature and the universe and the fucking cosmos, right?
00:42:43
Speaker
And it sounds dramatic, but it is dramatic. It's like, we spend so much time thinking about ourselves and in that like worried little surface part of our thinking that I need that relief so bad. And it's just amazing because it's like,
00:42:57
Speaker
I don't know. We've all heard that, that probably false fact that we only use like 1% of our brain's capacity. But I think artists use more than that because I feel like we're dipping into the big lake when we're making art, you know? And like, there's this quote in this Mary Oliver essay, it's called of power and time. And I just, she's, she's such a bad-ass. um It's such a good essay. i I use it every time I teach, but she has some wine in it. That's like,
00:43:25
Speaker
She's describing writing poems and she says, I have wrestled with a star and I am stained with light and I have no regrets or something like that, where it's just like, hey, sorry, I didn't call you back. I was wrestling with the star and I'm stained with the light and you can fuck off because that's all can do.
00:43:42
Speaker
Basically, you know, she oh wait, the last line of that essay, she says, ah she said, um she was like, rejoice if I am late, rejoice if I do not arrive at all.
00:43:56
Speaker
Like she's talking about standing people up and just being like, it means that I was in the zone, bro. Like I'll always choose it over showing up for my calendar appointments. Like it's just what it is. And, you know, um in my experience, artists are like really intense artists.
00:44:11
Speaker
people who are often beset with like a lot of mental illness and addiction and like an oversensitivity to the world. Like we tend to take in too much and it's like ah touching a raw nerve and we need a way out. And I think art is that lever. Like we get to like go into ourselves and go into the universe and get away from um the chaos and overstimulation of like being a human being in the world.
00:44:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, speaking of like certain things hitting a nerve and being being a writer or being like overly stimulated by a lot of the things that are coming at us, ah be it from other writers and or.
00:44:47
Speaker
ah Yeah, primarily other writers, too, because they that gets us into a lot of comparison traps and, you know, bitternesses and resentments and jealousies. And that's something I've wrestled with for for years as podcast listeners.
00:44:59
Speaker
came out of that crucible to try to metabolize and burn or burn a cleaner fuel. And I just wonder for you, because ah getting into the headspace of what it means to be a creative person and wrestling with feelings of envy or jealousy, like how how have you metabolized that in your life?
00:45:15
Speaker
Totally. Yeah. um I don't know anybody who's exempt from it. It's just, it's tricky. We work for a really long time and there's no real logic to when we get rewarded or if we ever get rewarded in the way that we want. And in my experience is that even when I do get rewarded with the things that I want, they don't feel like I thought they would feel like I don't feel permanently secure. And I'm not just like, you know, in a, on cloud nine for the rest of my life.
00:45:45
Speaker
And so, ah you know, I remember being in grad school in my twenties and looking around at my peers and having, you know, like I know teach in an MFA program and MFA programs have a lot of good things going for them, but they are also these like little Petri dishes where young people are like,
00:46:04
Speaker
it's just heightened and dramatic and you're always comparing yourself to other people and nobody really knows anything and nobody's really writing well yet. And it's crazy. um But I was just like looking at my peers and feeling those feelings and being like, Oh, I want what she has. Or like, why is that person have an agent I don't or whatever. And that feeling is so gross. Like it made me feel rotten on the inside. It was such an ugly feeling. Like I felt ashamed of it and it made me cruel and,
00:46:33
Speaker
I thought, whoa, like i cannot feed this dragon. Like I cannot lean into that because what is the point of this if that's feeling?
00:46:45
Speaker
And I already had the sense, which I think was correct, was that it doesn't matter what level of success you have. like that dragon and their power over you is contingent upon how much you feed it, right? Because I had met people who were like finalists for the National Book Award or winning the Pulitzer who were still griping about their peers who had gotten whatever the thing is that they hadn't gotten or they've gotten more of it.
00:47:11
Speaker
And i was like, i don't want to devote my life to this really hard and worthy thing just to be living in a mental space of scarcity. So like, how do I avoid that?
00:47:21
Speaker
And I made a very, very conscious decision at like 25 or whatever that I was like, okay, I need to act as if I need to act as if I live in a world where there's enough to go around, where I am assured that I will get what I need and that my generosity will multiply a boomerang back to me. Like I just have to live that because there's no way that I can create that reality inside of myself without it. There will always be opportunities to live in scarcity and to feel deprived.
00:47:51
Speaker
always. Right. And so I started doing that. I started like sharing job leads and calls for submissions and like just trying to be as generous as I could.
Writing vs. Publishing Pressures
00:48:01
Speaker
And it wasn't coming from a true spirit of generosity only. It was coming from like trying to sort of like hack my own emotional faculties. um And it honestly, it totally worked. It totally worked.
00:48:14
Speaker
And that and trying to really tease apart like the difference between publishing and writing, because like that way misery lies. like to To be motivated by publishing goals in my writing practice is to poison the well. right I just like need my relationship to writing to be really, really separate from my relationship to the professional aspects of it and all of the like egocentric concerns of that. They are very different jobs. They draw on very different parts of my brain.
00:48:45
Speaker
And one of them is like very central to the project of my whole life. And the other one is like my job. Yeah. And I feel deeply ambivalent about it many ways.
00:48:56
Speaker
Yeah. What do you think it is about these, these dragons, these appetites that have such an arresting power to rob the best of our energies so that we, that, it that it does, it robs us from being as good and abundant as possible. Yeah.
00:49:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, think it's capitalism for sure. And I also think that there's like a ah very biological instinct, right? I think we are we are tuned to look for threat or to be worried about survival. It's like, this is why I don't read bad reviews of my work because like so many more generous, like glowing things have been written about it. But like, what do I remember?
00:49:40
Speaker
Can I quote to you from the good reviews of my books? No, I cannot. I don't even remember them, you know? And so I just like have to be careful about where I let my mind go and focus on. And I found that I can like sort of manually refocus it in the places I want it to go, but that's not my first instinct. Like I can't act on my first, and my first instinct is to be like, what do they have? And why have they taken it away from me even though I never had it, you know? um i And I try to just like like,
00:50:12
Speaker
You know, I have a friend who talks about like his conception of like a higher power or the universe or the way he tries to conceive of like relating to himself is sort of like the way he thinks about his like toddler child, which is like, oh, whoa, little buddy.
00:50:29
Speaker
so yeah you can't use that knife to cut vegetables. You're going to hurt yourself. Let me just take that away from you instead of being like, you fucking idiot. Give me that. Which is like how I feel about myself when I'm like comparing and despairing or like being petty in my mind. I'm like, Oh, you're such an asshole.
00:50:46
Speaker
But instead to just be like, no no no, no, sweetheart. Like you actually like don't have the mental faculty to be able to use a stove yet. You're going to hurt yourself. So let me just put you over here with some blocks, you know?
00:50:59
Speaker
ah That's so well put. yeah And speaking of like the negative reviews, like what my first book, I remember this one, this one guy wrote, he's like, never met a simile he didn't like. And I was like, oh, mother, i was like my motherfucker.
00:51:12
Speaker
And but I still remember the goddamn thing. And I can quote it to you verbatim. yeah Yep, yep, yep. i There is a ah ah short review in The New Yorker of my second book that was overall pretty positive, but it had one line that was like, as moments of false profundity.
00:51:32
Speaker
And I was like, oh, damn you, New Yorker. I was just like, what a... What a fool. What a fool that we remember it. But again, it's just like i want to just want to be like, OK, I know that hurt, didn't it? But you're OK. You're OK. Let's keep it moving. Yeah.
00:51:48
Speaker
When as you like ex in dry season, as you like extricated yourself from ah from sex for the year and you were out of this very toxic relationship. And, you know, you were starting to get more clear eyed. And then you had your friend Nora, who you call in the book, like you saw her going through something very similar to you.
00:52:07
Speaker
Just take us to that moment of the clarity that you could see since you were no longer in it yourself, but almost powerless to affect any degree of change in the person you saw self-destructing in the face of a similarly toxic relationship.
00:52:23
Speaker
Yeah, it was such a teacher, you know, and it felt so um like such a kind of synchronicity to watch someone going through that experience right after I had sort of come off the heels of it.
00:52:38
Speaker
um And I think like early on, I over-identified or felt like I wanted to control her or um it was just so easy to project my experience onto it. But, you know, relating to another person I loved who was like caught in a situation where she was sort of powerless and making choices that were really painful taught me so much about how to relate to myself, right? Because I thought, okay, she is not me. She has her own journey. And clearly like no one could have prevented me from being in that relationship or making those choices. Like anyone who's experiencing an addiction or like stuck in a compulsive, like you're not done until you're done.
00:53:18
Speaker
You know, like I really, really believe in the theory of bottoms and like, you just have to be done before you're ready to change and no one can get you there. um And I thought like, what, what would have helped me when I was in that space?
Empathy & Self-Forgiveness
00:53:32
Speaker
And I think, like that was probably the best way I should be responding to her, you know? and And because I loved her so much and I didn't blame her for it and I understood it, it made me feel so much more forgiving of the choices that I've made and really helped me to accept, like, I just couldn't have gotten there any sooner than I did, you know? And just like, you know, and I think this is like,
00:53:55
Speaker
basic understanding of anyone who's learned to deal with having an addict or or, alcoholic in their life or anyone suffering from addiction is like, all you can do is like have good boundaries and love them and be like, I will be here on the other side of it. Right. Like I'm not going to participate in this or support it, but like,
00:54:12
Speaker
I'm going to love you from this distance and I'll be here when you're ready. And ah ah moment ah like ah just an element of shape and structure with the book that I that I that I appreciated and liked was.
00:54:24
Speaker
So you start at this moment in the airport where you're feeling this, you know, this real charge of attraction kind of at the the nation stages of your celibacy. And then, you know, whatever you traffic through that. But then by page 196 in at least my galley, you know, we kind of come up um that moment again and then the chronology proceeds from there.
00:54:44
Speaker
Just when you're thinking of structure, you know, how did that occur to you just in terms of shape, in terms of writing the thing like this? feel This makes logic. ah This seems logical to me.
00:54:57
Speaker
Sure, yeah that excuse me that wasn't the case in the first draft. you know i you know i i consider chronology my friend, and when it's possible to tell a story chronologically, I do, um because that's how we generally experience time, and I try to be as...
00:55:13
Speaker
um gentle on the reader as I can be. And so I told the story chronologically. and then, you know, when I was dealing like sort of in the final stages of the first draft, like, I think somebody might have even suggested it to me. um i showed those pages to someone and she was like, this is the opening of the book, right?
00:55:32
Speaker
And I was like, well, no. And she was like, why not? And I was like, well, ah because it happened in the middle. And then... And then I thought, all right, well, what happens if I put it there as a kind of teaser to also show where we're going, you know, and to like sort of um broadcast early on that this wasn't going to be easy. Right. Yeah.
00:55:55
Speaker
And I also just like the idea of having kind of touchstone in a book, like a scene that you return to with increasing amounts of knowledge of the narrator so that your experience of it sort of develops. And I, you know, that's my experience as a writer and I wanted to offer that to the reader so they don't know anything about the narrator when we encounter that opening scene. But then by the time we circle back to it, like two thirds of the way through the book, they know so much more. And so I think they're inhabiting that scene with me in a really different way, a different kind of identification with the narrator. And um narratively, that just made sense to me and it seemed fun. And yeah, and it made it through all the rounds of revisions.
00:56:32
Speaker
Yeah. And another thing, too, which was ah just illuminating, something I always like to do in a book, too, is the the second I tend to finish a book, I always like to circle back to the start. Like, I want to see if there's an echo.
00:56:44
Speaker
And this this book has like a literal echo in terms of how you end it and then start it. i Just I loved it. But I just want you to get your your thinking of like, oh, yeah, you know, that this rings true for this story.
00:56:58
Speaker
Totally. Yeah. I mean, i it's like ah so circular. It's kind of corny where I actually like end with the same line that I start the book intentionally. And it's a line that I borrowed from May Sarton's Journal of a Solitude, which is a book that was really important to me ah during my celibacy. it's you know In a way, like there's a there's a lot of focus on circularity in the book. like I talk about the infinity symbol and um sort of cycles of behavior and also sort of generational cycles through time and sort of this greater lineage of people who are trying to do something different in the way that they're living.
00:57:36
Speaker
and i thought sort of borrowing those lines from Sarton's book and repeating them in that way really sort of like in a literal way placed the book inside of those ideas and that lineage. um And I'm also just like, i love symmetry. Like all my tattoos on my body are like pretty perfectly symmetrical. Like it's just something that pleases me aesthetically. And that might be the largest explanation for it.
00:58:01
Speaker
When you were sort of getting to the the end of your year of celibacy, was there ever ah kind of a period of of mourning for it as you had settled into it?
00:58:14
Speaker
Um, you mean during the celibacy morning for like what I come before or like after the end of the celibacy? Kind of like, you know, at at the end, like as you had settled into it and you realize how liberating it was and you're coming up on the the end of it, you know, you might have like as you were looking to, you know, get into relationships again, of which, you know, you met your wife at that time. But then there's like, oh, I kind of I kind of missed that time. That was that was that was good. I yeah miss it.
00:58:41
Speaker
For sure. For sure. Definitely. I mean, you know, towards the end of my celibacy, I really thought I would I might never be in another relationship. Like, truly, I was so happy and my life was so much better that I was like, why would I risk this?
00:58:54
Speaker
um You know, and then I fell in love and life went on. But you know I have thought about it that way. and And it's been really fruitful because sometimes that kind of thinking is a flag for me that I'm like, you know my wife and I have agreed to be in the kind of relationship and to cultivate the kind of relationship where we can enjoy the things that I enjoyed when I was celibate, where we can operate autonomously, where we can ask for and take as much alone time as we need. um And so sometimes if I start like romanticizing being alone,
00:59:27
Speaker
I think, okay, like, what do I need to do? do i need to like ask her to like go away for a few days so I can be alone in my house? Do I need to go dancing? Like, why do I think that my life right now can't contain those pleasures? Like, obviously it's different living with another person and like being in a partnership, but in a different configuration, I feel like I i do have access to all of the the joys and privileges that I had when I was celibate. I just have to remember it. Mm-hmm.
00:59:55
Speaker
That's wonderfully put, Melissa. in ah And as we come down to the kind of end of our time together here, um I always love closing these conversations down with ah by asking the guest, you in this case, ah for a recommendation of some kind. It's just anything you're excited ah that brings you joy that you want to share with the listeners. And that can just be like ah going and go and dancing or a pair of socks, fanny pack, doesn't matter. what What would you recommend?
01:00:16
Speaker
No question about it. Women's professional basketball, WNBA. i am obsessed. I am going to go catch up on my games right after this. Like I i was a big like sports kid. We were Red Sox fans in my household. And and then I sort of like abandoned sports fandom for a really long time. i had a brief period of being a football fan.
01:00:38
Speaker
um, in my late twenties and it was just like too consuming and I stopped. Um, and I've like gotten back into being a sports fan and it makes me so happy. And it's like, I'm so excited that my book tour is happening during basketball season so that I have that kind of escape every night after I do my reading.
01:00:55
Speaker
Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I love like, know, Brianna Stewart and sabri ah Sabrina, Sabrina Ionescu and yeah, watching, watching with so many of these players can do Asia Wilson. and they Yeah. They're just, they're, it's the phno yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty cool to see the, the growth of the sport and yeah.
01:01:15
Speaker
no ah Yeah. It's been really cool to see people getting back into it I'm actually going to go to a Liberty game after one of my readings in New York on my tours. Oh, fantastic. well Well, Melissa, this was so wonderful to get to have this conversation about writing in the dry season and and a bunch of other stuff in between. So just thank you so much for the time.
01:01:33
Speaker
Oh, thank you so much, Brendan. It's really been a pleasure. I love the podcast.
01:01:42
Speaker
Thanks to Melissa Feebos. That was fun. You can learn more about her MelissaFeebos.com. Follow her on social media at Melissa Feebos.com.
01:01:52
Speaker
She's reached a kind of literary stardom now. Pieces and interviews in all the major magazines and newspapers and websites and creative nonfiction podcasts, the last one being the real feather in the cap.
01:02:04
Speaker
Some of the passages that Melissa writes about that deal with addiction really struck a chord with me, and I hesitate to say that I'm addicted to alcohol, beer in particular.
01:02:15
Speaker
But I do have a conflicted or troubled relationship with it. So much so that I often will take prolonged periods away from drinking because I get so tired of what it does to me emotionally, physically, financially too, because I have good taste in beer.
01:02:34
Speaker
I'm one of those people who has a hard time stopping once I start. But if I don't start, I'm good. Future Brendan never regrets not drinking even one IPA, let alone four or five.
01:02:47
Speaker
It's probably a red flag that you constantly find yourself reappraising your relationship to a substance, yeah be it sugar or drugs or alcohol. And yes, I know that alcohol is a drug. Sometime last week, I inexplicably had four IPAs and wasn't even that drunk, which is another red flag of sorts.
01:03:07
Speaker
I fell asleep that night and woke up with the most agonizing neck pain from falling asleep in a terrible posture. I slept like shit anyway. Even on a good night, I don't sleep particularly well, but throw in a few beers and I am assured of having a pretty crappy day the next day.
01:03:28
Speaker
And, yeah, bad sleep, that's a hallmark of the seasoned drinker. I have pretty high blood pressure and possibly sleep apnea. None of which are helped by drinking.
01:03:39
Speaker
and Come Saturday or Sunday morning, if I elected not to have a few beers the night before, I'm always so happy. I wake up refreshed. No cotton mouth, no headache, no shame.
01:03:51
Speaker
i'll I'll turn to Melanie. I'm just like, ah, I just feel nice this morning. Get my coffee and just feel nice. and don't feel like I'm in recovery, recovery mode.
01:04:02
Speaker
I have a lot of shame around drinking. I'm not sure where this comes from. I've caused my friends a lot of grief over the years, yeah dating all the way back to high school and antics back in high school. My all-or-nothing tendencies get the best of me with booze.
01:04:16
Speaker
I don't have much by way of an off switch. I can go right down the roster of my friends and rattle off innumerable flagrant fouls.
Host's Personal Reflections on Alcohol
01:04:25
Speaker
I don't mean fistfights, but I tend to get loose-lipped and say mean things.
01:04:29
Speaker
I, like many others, tend to think I'm way funnier than I actually am. mean, Jesus, I think I'm way funnier than I actually am sober. Throw in a few IPAs, and my gosh, I'm insufferable. And my wife and I attend all the Eugene Emerald's home games baseball team.
01:04:44
Speaker
And they serve delicious craft beers for $13.50 for 20 ounces. It's insane. After a tip, it's $30 a round. Again, insane. But I'm struck by this feeling of FOMO.
01:04:57
Speaker
And I love the taste of beer. you know Non-alcoholic beer has come a long way. like athletic breing Athletic brewing is great. I'm still an ambassador, though I don't really tout it as much as I'm sure they'd like.
01:05:09
Speaker
but it's still not the same. Even though I love the free wave, that's probably the one that comes closest to actual alcoholic IPA, hazy IPA. a And the fact that it's not the same is the point.
01:05:22
Speaker
But you don't get the buzz. And I kind of like when the edges get fuzzier. I tend to lighten up. I get more chipper. I talk a little more. You know, not obnoxiously so most of the time.
01:05:34
Speaker
I just get a bit more talkative. I'm more pleasant to be around for the most part. I smile more. I'm capable of having fun. You dead sober, I'm something of a wet blanket.
01:05:47
Speaker
I don't know how to have fun. I don't even know what it is. so I'm taking something of an indefinite break from it. Saved me from shame and bankruptcy. When I went out to dinner last week but at pesini Pastini, Pastini, fucking know, ahead of my sparsely attended Powell's event in Beaverton,
01:06:07
Speaker
I didn't get beer or wine, though it was offered. i I bought a liter of Pellegrino sparkling water. It was delicious. I love sparkling water. I looked at the bill and was like, seven bucks?
01:06:18
Speaker
But then i was like, oh, B.O., you never flinch when you buy two beers for $15. And you're going to balk at that? You know a liter of water And tasty bubble water. I love bubble water. We have a soda stream. we Of the few things that we were early adopters on, we were an early adopter of soda stream like 15 years ago. And we still do it. We drink so much of that stuff. and we We love it.
01:06:43
Speaker
Anyway, at the house I stayed at in Portland, my host offered me a glass of wine when I got back from the event. And I said, hey you know, I'm good. Just ice water. And in no judgment, he just got me a glass of ice water and I was relieved.
01:06:55
Speaker
Like I set myself free from this invisible ball and chain to this substance that I've been conditioned to think is the key to unlock any and all good times. Honestly, it's probably caused more pain than pleasure over the years.
01:07:09
Speaker
But you know, my my my wife and I, we we love breweries. We love the feeling of a good craft brewery, just the atmosphere of it. We love that ice cold beer after an eight mile hike.
01:07:21
Speaker
you Camping and beer and campfires are fun. We love drinking hard ciders and IPAs and dancing to 90s grunge music in the house. We've tried it sober and it's not the same.
01:07:34
Speaker
It's like we're forcing it. Like, have fun without the booze now. Do it. And I do these resets or abstaining probably twice a year. Yeah, it's just I drink too much and then have to reset.
01:07:48
Speaker
Then i ease i ease back in inevitably and I'm fine for a bit. I'm like, yeah, one's good. Why do I always need to go to four or five? Then I have one or two in public and invariably stop off at Fred Meyer for a six pack and have a couple more at home. Sleep like shit.
01:08:05
Speaker
Wake up with a neck ache, a headache. Start the shame cycle. Take my blood pressure and it'll be like 154 of a 101 and be like, yeah, the shit's killing me until the next happy hour.
01:08:18
Speaker
But getting a kombucha at a brewery just is like, the he wass like yeah, it's good and all, but his I don't know. So I'm taking a break from it.
01:08:29
Speaker
I'm tired of it. I'm tired that I have to take breaks from it. I'd like to think I can have a good relationship to it the way I have a good relationship to Pepsi Zero Sugar.
01:08:41
Speaker
I love that soda, and I drink like two a year, and I'm good because all those chemicals are objectively bad for you. Yet it won't get through my head that beer or alcohol is every bit as bad.
01:08:55
Speaker
But that's the culture we live in, too. We're conditioned to think you need it to have fun. Anyway, future Brendan always needs to remind present Brendan that future Brendan never regrets not drinking the night before. Future Brendan is often relieved.
01:09:08
Speaker
But talk of war. They got the best margaritas in town ever. Shut up, B.O. Don't tempt yourself. Melissa writes about addiction very well. And I saw myself in it.
01:09:22
Speaker
You know, she's in recovery. She's been in recovery for years and she can articulate it with a degree of clarity and lucidity that I recognize in the text. I'm like, oh, I really see myself in that.
01:09:35
Speaker
Even though I haven't hit what you would say is rock bottom. I'd like to avoid that collision with the bottom. I have too much left to do in this world to bottom out on booze.
01:09:47
Speaker
That's so boring, so basic. So stay wild, CNN Evers, and if you can't do, interview. you.