Sail away

I spent most of today in a state known to myself privately (but I guess now also known to you) as "LLTE," which stands for Literally Listening To Enya. Sometimes when I'm trying to soothe my agitated central nervous system there is only one possible route, which is to pop in my earbuds and let Ireland's best-selling solo artist (second best-selling overall, behind obviously U2) ululate gently directly into my amygdala. But to be clear, this is a desperation move. This isn't, "I'm behind on my work and feeling a bit overwhelmed by the news. Enya, chant something in Gaelic!" It would lose its power if I deployed it when I didn't really need it. It is a Pure Mood and the Mood is, I AM HIGH ON CORTISOL AND NEED TO COME DOWN IMMEDIATELY OR ELSE.

I don't know if I am "recommending" this or what. I was thinking earlier this week when I sent out my email about all the newsletters I subscribe to ... like, I don't really think anyone should subscribe to 100 newsletters/podcasts or however many it is (more, I think.) I don't think people should do what I currently do or what I have done. I am not out here living my best life or trying to momfluence! I am playing the hand I've been dealt, intellectually/physically/psychologically, with medium success at times. Other times, it's like, I would happily unscrew my head and swap it with another head, chosen at random from a wall of heads like the one in Game of Thrones's uneven Season 7.

Anyway, I was supposed to send a further list of my newsletter/podcast recommendation out today, but right now I am feeling very anti-recommendation. On a maybe too deep level I feel like I am both not qualified to recommend and also, kind of, burned out by recommending? Where has recommending ever gotten me, you know?

One of the reasons Ruth and I stopped doing Emily Books is that the cultural position of the recommender is so thankless and invisible. One example of this is how we selected Jen Beagin's brilliant, wonderful novel PRETEND I'M DEAD as an EB pick in 2015, sending copies of what was then an under-publicized university press book to our ardent but tiny band of subscribers (still, the book sold more via EB in that iteration than via any other retail channel). Then after Jen won a Whiting Award, rights to the book and her next novel were bought by Simon and Schuster. Which is GREAT! The best case scenario for the recommender is that as many people as possible read (etc) the thing they've recommended.