The Internet Went Out in My Home for Two Weeks and I’ll Try Not to Be Insufferable as I Share My Insights About That Experience
Plus: advice from someone who uses a lot of pens and pencils in his daily life, a fantastic story collection I recommend, and a new four-week class I'm teaching.
Look, I know the headline was scary. That’s why I’m honored that you’ve joined me here, on sentence two of this month’s Tumbleweed. A few years ago as I prepared to begin teaching a ten-day Zoom class during the pandemic of yore (that’s still ongoing now, so also nore?) a wasp built a nest in my outdoor phone box, disabling my home’s internet. My husband, who is a handy type, was able to detect the problem and get the internet working again in a day.
But in mid-August, the phone box wasps returned. And this time, simply removing the nest did not restore our internet. And so began The Fortnight With No Internet, during which the household teenagers were despondent and we entertained a series of gentlemen callers from our provider, Centurylink, who each maintained a different theory about what to do, some of which involved digging up the phone line underneath our yard to have a look see. Some of these gentlemen, it brings me no pleasure to report, would notify us of their imminent arrival and then stand us up.
The internet went down during the World Track Championships, which was a real hardship for me, as I'm the biggest track head I know among the cohort of people who move as slowly as I do. Finally, Centurylink sent a crack team of like five dudes, who were able to fix it, but not before I gleaned some insights from life offline.
I saw you recoil as you read that last sentence. I promise, I’m not going to suggest you curb your own internet use for the mental clarity and freedom from tyranny it brings. We have Jonathan Franzen for that. I’m not going to write one of those creepy essays that are like, I Gave Up All Sugar And Now I am A Ripped, In-Demand, Consequential Billionaire. But I will gently suggest that having only intermittent internet access was rejuvenating in some ways, even as it was taxing in others. (Such as not knowing what times movies were being shown or rec centers were opened, because there are no longer notices in newspapers or phone books. Friends, the world has changed.)
During the offline fortnight, I had to think strategically about when I absolutely needed to use the internet. I would check my emails when I ran errands at businesses with wifi, and I would make an appointment for a study room at the library a few times a week for longer internet tasks.
This practice made me feel like I was visiting the internet instead of living inside it. And I kind of liked living in my own house—I guess the house of my mind? Which sounds like I'm going crazy when I type it out like that. But in fact I felt less crazy.
Instead of splitting up my day by checking email constantly, or doing some online research or business as it occurred to me throughout the day, I made a list whenever I thought of a task that required the internet. I put it aside until the next time when I would visit the internet. I caught up on my thinking. I read a lot of books at night. I had no idea what any celebrities or politicians were up to, like in the olden days when they’d just appear periodically in some televised holiday extravaganza and you would think, “Huh, so that guy’s still alive, and I never knew he could play the banjo.”
Now the internet is back, and although I’ve enjoyed gorging on videos of Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson winning their respective, significant footraces, I’m considering occasionally pretending that the internet is available by appointment only. You are welcome to do as you like.
The Assorted Whimsy Portion of The Tumbleweed
I just finished up teaching a four-week class on the basics of fiction for Lighthouse Writers Workshop and I’ve got a new session on advanced fiction craft moves, Special Topics in Fiction, coming up November 13. One of the pieces of advice I give my writing students, especially beginners, is to start keeping a writer’s notebook. One of the sections in that writer’s notebook should be for observations and overheard lines of dialogue. This gives writers ideas for stories and characters, and helps them hone their ear for the rhythms of dialogue.
Over the past few weeks, I took my own advice and listened to people as I was out and about. I went to Staples for my kids’ school supplies on the day before school started, which was a bad idea. Never go to the most popular office supply store in town. Go to the weird one that people avoid because it’s a little run down and off to the side, and gives off a vibe of either being haunted or two weeks away from takeover by Spirit Halloween. That store will not be out of stuff.
So there I was, at Staples, wandering its ransacked aisles with only a smattering of off-brand pencils remaining, navigating through the crush of anxious parents and annoyed teenagers who had been dragged there by those parents (the younger children having already assembled their supplies with time to spare), searching for a kneaded gum eraser for my son’s art class. I overheard a dad walking with a disengaged teenager, who was ignoring him, as he said:
“I use a lot of pens and pencils in my daily life, and I’ve formed strong opinions about them. Let me know if you want to hear my thoughts.”
And that is parenting in a nutshell—you, desperate to impart wisdom, the teenager, desperate to escape the recitation of that “wisdom.”
Next, I got my hair cut. I don’t have to tell you about how the salon is a good place to eavesdrop on gossip. it’s also a good place to find a spark for a character, as I did when the woman getting her hair done next to me asked her stylist, “Did you ever smoke?”
"No," her stylist, a fifty-something woman with dyed red hair in a high ponytail replied, her voice gravely. "Not except when I did tons and tons of cocaine. But that was decades ago."
A vision of those long-ago decades flashed through my head and they were filled with nightclubs, red lipstick, and either late-night rides on Harley Davidsons or early mornings with Wall Street bros. I was also enchanted by the notion that what you did decades and decades ago might not count. Sometimes one overheard line can make an entire character bloom in your mind, like the internet is inside your head.
The Book Recommendation Portion of The Tumbleweed
Manuel Muñoz is one of my favorite writers, and I’m pleased to recommend his new collection of short stories, The Consequences. These ten stories explore the difficulty and beauty of lives unfolding between the border towns and agricultural fields of Texas and California. Muñoz writes with precision and emotional clarity about a variety of Mexican and Mexican American characters whose lives intersect in the Central Valley of California. Their problems are elemental: missing husbands, duplicitous bosses, financial difficulties, and the twists of love—requited, unrequited, and misdirected.
In “Anyone Can Do It,” when a young mother’s husband doesn't return from fieldwork one day, she learns a hard lesson about trust and self-reliance. In “The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA,” A woman accustomed to the routine of fetching her partner after he’s been deported shows the ropes to a young woman who is new to the shock of this treatment. I love the deadpan voice of the narrator:
"Some of us have rings on our fingers and some of us don’t, but we all know what it means to watch the calendar turn to the last day of the month. We know what some of the farmers do on final Fridays, and we know what to do on Saturday mornings. The farmers put their dusty hands on a phone receiver and very calmly place a call to the migra."
In “The Reason is Because,” a teenager at home with a newborn while her faithless boyfriend takes another girl to the carnival longs "for the boring days at the high school…[where] her daydreaming didn't seem so pointless." In the title story, Mark, who enjoys a tidy home and a government job in Fresno, falls in love with the handsome Teddy, who lives for "the neon intensity" of weekends spent clubbing in L.A. Mark doesn't realize the depth of his affection until Teddy falls ill and travels home to Texas to die amid a family who knows him as Teodoro and never understood his lifestyle.
Muñoz excels at capturing the essential human dignity of each character as he carries on in the tradition of John Steinbeck, writing with extraordinary empathy and artistry and inviting readers to contemplate the lives of the people who pick the corn, peaches, and nectarines for America's tables.
The Happenings & Links Portion of The Tumbleweed
I joined Bluesky. And also Threads. I don’t know what’s going to happen—I feel like I’ve been married to Twitter for 14 years and then Twitter all the sudden had a midlife crisis, became more abusive, dyed its hair black, and ordered me to call it X, so while I will remain on X while we work out the custody agreement, I’m trying other social media options and it feels weird, but Bluesky seems friendly, so look me up if you’re there! (I don’t have any invite codes. I’m just a proletariat.)
On Saturday, September 30, I’ll be participating in the Counterpath Indie Author & Press Book Fair at Counterpath Press in Denver (7935 East 14th Avenue), along with many other writers with books published with small presses. The amazing Hillary Leftwich is organizing it and intends it as a community-building, networking event. If you love to read or write, come join us! Admission is free, and there will be books for sale and readings and even a dance party in the evening. It runs from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and Westword is hyping it already!
Awesome Colorado outdoor adventure/memoir author Tracy Ross invited me to participate in a benefit she’s organized for the Nederland Library on October 8 from 3-6 p.m., the Colorado Local Authors Open House. There will be three panel discussions, books for sale, a wine tasting and more, all for $10, which gives you a $10 credit toward the purchase of a book. Online registration for the event is open until October 4 or until all the seats are taken.
My first Fiction Four Pack at Lighthouse Writers Workshop this fall went so well, I’m offering another one. This four-week class, Special Topics in Fiction, will run on four consecutive Mondays beginning November 13 at Lighthouse HQ (3844 York Street) from 6:30-8:30 p.m. We’ll be learning about some tricky craft moves, including multiple timeline narratives, multiple perspectives, incorporating humor in your fiction, and more. Sign up on the Lighthouse website.
As always, The Tumbleweed welcomes your questions and comments about writing, reading, taco eating, the Denver Nuggets, rabbit wrangling, Deion Sanders, and baby seals.
I laughed out loud several times, Jenny--“a ripped, in-demand billionaire” 😂 (probably misquoted but I think I’m close!)