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Critical Analysis of Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

• Categories: American Literature Literary Devices Me Talk Pretty One Day

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Words: 870 |

Published: May 14, 2021

Words: 870 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

• Sedaris, D. (2010). Me talk pretty one day. Paris: Hachette.

Should follow an “upside down” triangle format, meaning, the writer should start off broad and introduce the text and author or topic being discussed, and then get more specific to the thesis statement.

Provides a foundational overview, outlining the historical context and introducing key information that will be further explored in the essay, setting the stage for the argument to follow.

Cornerstone of the essay, presenting the central argument that will be elaborated upon and supported with evidence and analysis throughout the rest of the paper.

The topic sentence serves as the main point or focus of a paragraph in an essay, summarizing the key idea that will be discussed in that paragraph.

The body of each paragraph builds an argument in support of the topic sentence, citing information from sources as evidence.

After each piece of evidence is provided, the author should explain HOW and WHY the evidence supports the claim.

Should follow a right side up triangle format, meaning, specifics should be mentioned first such as restating the thesis, and then get more broad about the topic at hand. Lastly, leave the reader with something to think about and ponder once they are done reading.

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Me Talk Pretty One Day Summary and Key Themes

“Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris is a delightful and insightful collection of 27 essays that delve into the author’s unique experiences and observations. 

Sedaris masterfully intertwines humor and irony to explore various aspects of his life, from his childhood in North Carolina to his adventures in France.

Full Summary

The book starts with a humorous yet poignant account of Sedaris’s childhood, particularly focusing on his struggles with a speech impediment. In the essay where he recounts his experiences with a speech therapist, Sedaris’s use of irony and self-deprecation highlights the awkwardness and discomfort of his school days. 

This sets the tone for the book, which frequently explores themes of identity and belonging.

Sedaris also offers a hilarious yet tender portrayal of his family, especially his father Lou. 

Whether it’s Lou’s obsession with jazz leading to an ill-fated attempt at forming a family band, or his fascination with technology and mathematics, Sedaris paints a vivid picture of his father’s eccentricities. 

The story of his guitar lessons with Mr. Mancini, a little person who becomes more fascinating to Sedaris than the instrument itself, is both funny and revealing.

The essays in the first part of the book primarily focus on Sedaris’s life in America, including his college years and early adulthood. His journey through various art disciplines, his foray into performance art, and his struggles with drug use and his disdain for mainstream art are explored with candid humor and self-reflection.

In contrast, the latter half of the book, aptly named Part Deux, shifts to Sedaris’s experiences in France. Here, Sedaris delves into the challenges of living in a foreign country, learning a new language, and understanding a different culture. 

His attempts to learn French, his interactions with his strict language teacher, and his observations of French society are filled with comedic misunderstandings and cultural insights.

Sedaris’s essays are not just humorous anecdotes; they also offer a deep look into human relationships and self-perception. 

For instance, his exploration of his relationship with his younger brother, The Rooster, and the unexpected bond he shares with their father, showcases a different side of familial dynamics.

Additionally, Sedaris reflects on his own insecurities and aspirations in essays like “21 Down” and “Smart Guy,” where he confronts his perceived lack of intelligence and his desire to be seen as a genius. 

His relationship with Hugh, his partner, further adds depth to his narrative, showcasing his personal growth and self-acceptance.

The collection ends on a humorous yet touching note with a story about his father’s bizarre habit of storing and consuming questionable food items, showcasing Sedaris’s ability to find humor in even the most mundane aspects of life.

1. The Quirks and Complexities of Family Dynamics

Throughout the collection, Sedaris delves into the intricacies of his family life, painting a vivid picture of each member’s unique personality and the dynamic within the family unit. 

His father, Lou, is a standout character, with his eccentricities and unfulfilled dreams shaping many of Sedaris’s experiences. From Lou’s obsession with jazz and technology to his unusual approach to food conservation, Sedaris explores how these quirks affect their relationship and his own development. 

Similarly, the relationship between Sedaris and his siblings, especially his younger brother, The Rooster, adds layers to the theme. 

The Rooster’s unabashed and unconventional approach to life contrasts sharply with their father’s expectations, yet their bond remains unshakeable. 

Through these familial interactions, Sedaris examines themes of identity, acceptance, and the peculiarities that make family relationships both challenging and rewarding.

2. The Struggle with Identity and Self-Perception

A recurring theme in Sedaris’s essays is his struggle with his own identity and how he is perceived by others. 

This is evident from his childhood, where he grapples with his speech impediment and the social stigma attached to it. His journey through various phases of his life, including his experimentation with drugs and performance art, and his eventual foray into writing , all point to a continuous search for self. 

This theme is further explored through his experiences in France, where he finds himself as an outsider trying to fit into a new culture. 

His struggle with the French language and his observations about the cultural differences between Americans and the French highlight his ongoing quest to understand himself and his place in the world. 

Additionally, his relationship with his partner Hugh brings a personal dimension to this theme, as Sedaris navigates the complexities of intimacy and self-acceptance.

3. The Absurdity and Humor in Everyday Life

Central to Sedaris’s narrative style is his ability to find humor in the mundane and the absurd in the ordinary. 

Whether he is recounting his father’s ludicrous food-saving methods or his own absurd performance art shows, Sedaris has a knack for highlighting the comedic aspects of everyday situations. 

This theme is not just for entertainment; it serves as a lens through which Sedaris offers commentary on broader social and cultural norms. 

His observations often turn mundane events into profound reflections on human nature, social expectations, and the often-unnoticed oddities of daily life. 

By doing so, Sedaris invites the reader to look at their own life through a humorous, albeit slightly skewed, perspective, making the ordinary seem extraordinary.

Final Thoughts

“Me Talk Pretty One Day” is more than just a series of funny stories; it’s a nuanced look at the absurdities of life, the complexity of human relationships, and the journey of self-discovery. 

Sedaris’s witty and often self-deprecating humor, combined with his keen observations, make this collection a captivating and enjoyable read.

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A team of Editors at Books That Slay.

Passionate | Curious | Permanent Bibliophiles

Me Talk Pretty One Day Themes

By david sedaris.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by people who wish to remain anonymous

Identity and Insecurity

The collection of essays in Me Talk Pretty covers a wide range of topics but most notable is Sedaris sense of identity and Insecurity. As an American living in Paris, who can barely speak French, Sedaris is forced to cultivate a creative personality to blend into life in Paris. The author also has trouble with his sexuality, but what is most notable about his dilemma with his own identity is his obsession with how he perceives himself.

Additionally, Sedaris expresses his sense of insecurity which is fueled by the need to embody a particular identity which he perceives to be more appealing to his environs. Unapologetic in his rendering, the author expresses his sense of insecurity with his personality. According to the author, displaying his self-consciousness merely displays what it entails to be human.

Class and Belonging

In the collection of essays, Sedaris describes his struggle with class and status since he was a child. His parents were very class-conscious. When the family moved from New York to North Carolina, his parents insisted that Sedaris and his siblings avoid adapting what they referred to as the North Carolina “backward way of life.” Later in his young adult life, Sedaris recognizes the big gap between him and the exuberantly rich individuals. During his stay in New York, the author sees himself a failure after he encounters wealthy entrepreneurs in the city. As the years go by, Sedaris comes to terms with his status quo; he decides to build a life centered on happiness and ultimate fulfillment rather than a wealthy lifestyle.

Family, Support, and Love

In his essays, Sedaris dives deep into the complex relationship between family members and the lasting influence it has in one’s entire life. He describes family relationships as exhausting and emotionally draining. Loving someone unconditionally without expecting anything in return can be tiresome. In conclusion, the author describes loving and supporting another human being regardless of any blood ties as knowing how to put up with them.

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Me Talk Pretty One Day Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Me Talk Pretty One Day is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

What’s is the setting time place social climate

This depends on which specific essay you are referring to.

What type on conflict are represented here

This depends on which story in the collection you are referring to. The collection of essays in Me Talk Pretty covers a wide range of topics but most notable is Sedaris sense of identity and Insecurity. As an American living in Paris, who can...

Why do you think Sedaris uses nonsense jumbles of letters— meismslsxp and palicmkrexjs, for example—in several places? How would his essay be different had he used the real words instead?

David Sedaris sprinkles scrambled nonsense words like " meimslxsp " and " lgpdmurct " into his essay His purpose is to illustrate his adult self returning to study the French language in Paris. He finds the experience "nerve-racking". Words and...

Study Guide for Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day study guide contains a biography of David Sedaris, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Me Talk Pretty One Day
• Me Talk Pretty One Day Summary
• Character List

Essays for Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.

• Techniques That Create a Great Effect in Literature: Evaluating "A Talk to Teachers" and "Me Talk Pretty One Day"

Wikipedia Entries for Me Talk Pretty One Day

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Are Smartphones Just a Scapegoat for Our Unhappy Children?

Why ditching phones won’t save the kids..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

I feel like all the trains in Italy. Cancellato!

Cancellato! I once got stuck in Pisa when they canceled the trains.

Yeah. It was a great opportunity for me to tell my kids about the failures of European social welfare capitalism.

Oh, good. Good.

The kids love that. [MUSIC PLAYING]

From New York Times Opinion, I’m Ross Douthat.

I’m Michelle Cottle.

I’m Carlos Lozada.

And I’m Lydia Polgreen.

And this is “Matter of Opinion.”

We’re — [LAUGHTER] no, we’re reunited. We’re all recording —

And it feels so good.

(SINGING) Reunited —

— in the same room together. I could almost touch all of my co-hosts.

Please don’t.

And then Carlos would call H.R.

But I will not because we’re talking about disconnection, virtual alienation. We’re going to talk about kids and smartphones.

Dun, dun, dun.

So there is a lot of evidence that kids — American kids, maybe kids around the developed world — are not doing so well over the last 10 years. Not just in a sort of kids being kids way, but there is a real shift in rates of depression, anxiety, mental illness diagnoses, suicide and suicidality. All of these things are up for young people, and so are hours spent on smartphones.

And there’s a widely circulated theory, seemingly plausible, but also hotly contested, that screens and social media are responsible for making teenagers, especially, unusually unhappy. So this is a big problem since screens and smartphones are sort of the defining technologies of our age. And I’m hoping we can resolve this problem here today in a podcast. [LAUGHTER]

Maybe not. But maybe we can debate some solutions, responses, and talk about what might be going too far in our desire to protect kids. So let’s get started with a personal question. For those of you, us, who have kids or teenagers, in the house or out of the house, what are the rules for smartphones in your home?

So I’ve got the oldest, I think. Mine are 20 and 18. So right now there are no rules. It’s obviously a free for all. But when they were —

It’s a vicious landscape.

It’s “Lord of the Flies” at Michelle’s house.

The only contact I get is when somebody wants to text me for money. But —

That was me, so I’m sorry about that, but —

Dang, Ross! So going back, though, I think we hit the smartphone button when they were in seventh grade because that’s when they went to middle school, and that’s kind of just — that was the standard around here. And then we tried to set limits on screen times and things like that. And I have to say the pandemic made that infinitely more complicated.

So first rule of parenting is you don’t talk about parenting. [LAUGHTER]

No, the first rule of parenting is that each kid is different, right? So I have three kids. One kind of mid-teens, one early teens, and one is finishing up elementary school. My oldest, who is 16, has a smartphone. He only got it last year. And he uses it mainly to be in touch with us, with his editor at the student paper, with his friends.

My daughter who’s 13 has one of those little mini old-fashioned iPods which she uses to communicate with text and email with friends, with her dance group or her orchestra friends, and to listen to books. And my youngest, who’s 10, wants an Apple Watch, but isn’t getting it. [MICHELLE LAUGHS]

They don’t use any kind of social media. We don’t ban it, but we discourage it. And part of the trick is that they really don’t have a lot of free time between theater, or dance, or baseball, or student journalism. They don’t have a lot of time to go on social media. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that it stays that way, at least until they reach the age of reason, the age of reasonableness. [LAUGHS]

We’re still waiting on that at my house.

But that is —

Good luck with that.

— the way it works so far in our home.

Huh, that’s interesting. I mean, I don’t have kids, as you all know. But I’ve tried to imagine what rules and limits would I want to set. And I think in some ways, Carlos, what you’re describing, it sounds like both an ideal but also very tough. Because in order to make sure that your kids have really, really full lives, it probably requires a lot of engagement from you and your wife. And living in the modern world —

Little sleep, yes. [LAUGHTER]

— we’re all very, very busy. And —

And think about the way that I grew up — and we’re all Gen X — and I had perhaps an extreme version of the free range childhood. Even though my mother was technically a stay-at-home mom, she did not want to see us home all day. And we sort of ran wild. It’s hard for me to imagine wanting anything different for my own children. But I realize that’s not the world that we live in.

But Ross, you have the youngest kids of all of us. So you’re just staring this down, and you have a bunch of them. So —

We — well, yeah, and the oldest is 13, and she still does not have a phone of any kind. And my assumption is that we will crack and get her some kind of what my kids call a dumb phone next year for eighth grade. She is trying to negotiate with me to get a smarter phone, insisting that she would never use social media. She will probably invoke the idea that she’s so busy, the excuse —

The lie my feeds are feeding me?

The lie your kids are feeding you. But it is very unlikely that we would crack on that. But we really haven’t entered fully into this world. But I want to pick up on Lydia’s comment about the free range childhood, because one of the reasons we’re talking about this this week is that this debate has been running for a while, but it’s resurfaced because of a new book by Jonathan Haidt called “The Anxious Generation,” that’s basically Haidt making the case not just that there’s something specific about, let’s say, the social life of teenage girls on Instagram or TikTok or the social life of teenage boys playing video games, that’s a problem for mental health, but also that this is a substitute for exactly the kind of childhood you’re describing.

So it’s not just the screens themselves are the devil. It’s also that the screens themselves have reshaped social life and eliminated certain features of childhood that taught people how to be adults, taught people how to navigate interpersonal dynamics in person, how to communicate with the opposite sex, how to settle fights on the playground with their friends, this kind of thing.

Haidt has a number of critics who basically say he’s making a correlation/causation mistake. That, yes, it happens to be that mental health has gotten worse over the smartphone era, but that does not prove that the phones are the problem. Do you guys buy the argument?

I mean, I’ve read the competing correlation/causation arguments, and, of course, have looked in detail at every single study and weighed them —

I have been personally running regression analyses in my spare time.

I was going to say, I have so many histograms, you would not believe it. [LAUGHTER]

You would not believe the number of histograms. But to me, the bigger question is one of emphasis. Should we be more concerned by the vacuum that was created by putting children into a much more protective bubble? Is the problem that we need to solve the transformation of childhood into what many kids experience as much more tightly controlled and scheduled and mediated through parents as opposed to mediated through your friend groups and learning how to build your own boundaries and relationships and things like that, or do we tackle the problem at the level of smartphones?

Look, I personally believe that I have a dysfunctional relationship with smartphones. And so it’s very easy for me to look at kids and be like, oh, yeah, of course they must also have a very dysfunctional relationship. But honestly, I don’t know.

I think it’s always a problem to put too much emphasis on any one particular culprit, and it is generally our impulse to blame technology. I mean, TV — did TV ruin kids? Probably. But that is —

I mean, look at us.

— one of the panics that we had. And then for years everyone told us that violent video games absolutely positively were turning our children into sociopaths. This, on one level, is what we do. We decide it’s something that we can tackle simply or blame simply. But then there’s 30 questions I have as to what we’re really worried about here.

I mean, are we upset about kids sitting around on their phones rather than playing outside, worried about them doing less in-person socializing, worried about them becoming addicted to external affirmation from their online groups, upset about them having access to scary news and inappropriate information, upset that they’re not as independent, worried about bullying? I mean, there’s so many things that fall into this category that we’ve just decided are all about smartphones.

So I think the virtue of the Haidt argument, it’s a technology is doing something bad argument that has a pretty narrow and focused zone of concern. And that zone of concern is the fact that young people report being unhappier as young people than was the case generally in our cohort and preceding generations. And this pretty clearly tracks to a kind of point of divergence.

I think 2012 to 2014 is sort of a break point in the data. If you just look at the charts that Haidt puts together, you say, well, yeah, something clearly happened in this window that is not just teenagers or teenagers. You need some explanation. And that’s why his critics have tended to also put forward contingent time bound speculations. Like it’s the aftermath of the financial crisis, it’s the rise of school shootings and school shooting drills. There is, I think, a quest for a particular kind of explanation because you have this divergence in the data.

Now, there is also the response or argument that what we’re seeing here is just better diagnosis. That kids have had these mental health problems all the time, and, for better or worse — many people would say for better, some people would say for worse — we’re talking more about mental health. Maybe that’s the whole divergence. We’ve become more open to these discussions or more likely to offer these diagnoses, and that alone is enough to —

We’re a therapeutic society.

Right. We’re a therapeutic society and it’s finally achieved takeoff, and that’s where we are now. I try to be skeptical of the Haidt thesis because it confirms my priors. Like Lydia, I have a toxic relationship to my smartphone. I don’t use that much social media. But the social media I use I’m addicted to and make the excuse that it’s part of my job. So I have a natural inclination to buy into the argument. So I try and be more skeptical of it. But I think that right now it’s a pretty parsimonious explanation for at least some of this divergence.

You’re saying parsimonious in a positive sense?

Right. In a positive — in a positive sense, yeah.

Because the data are quite dramatic. I mean, I was looking for other sources of information about this because Haidt, in his book, talks about, actually, this data is global. These are things that we’re seeing in other countries. So I was looking at other alternative sources of data on this.

And there was a UNICEF report that was published in 2020. And it’s really interesting actually how much of an outlier the U.S is. And this is a place where I actually have a significant amount of skepticism about the Haidt book. It counted 38 of the wealthiest countries in the world, and the United States was 32nd in terms of mental well-being on this list. And the top five were not what you would expect. They were the Netherlands, Cyprus, Spain, Romania and Denmark. So this is just —

I mean, I would have predicted Romania.

Yeah, absolutely.

But maybe not the rest.

Absolutely. The reports in this study on the effect of technology use was one quarter the size of the effect from bullying, for example. So I came to this information saying, like, oh, yeah, this all sounds plausible. But the more I dug into other sources and other cuts at looking at this question of child happiness, the more skepticism that I had that this one explanation was enough. I think you need to take the changes of childhood and technology together.

Haidt does push back against the critics who say it is a monocausal explanation by saying that, look, I’m talking about the changes to the independent childhood that we had in the ‘70s or the ‘80s versus today. And I accept that defense of his. But in some ways, if you look at just his body of work, even just his “Atlantic” articles over the years, he does feel like he’s beating the same drum over and over again with slightly different speeds.

I read each piece individually and I feel persuaded. I read them together and I feel suspicious, right? I don’t mean suspicious in an ill intent on the part of the writer kind of way. But I think of a worldview that maybe explains too much.

And I also wonder if different kids are different. So when I was a kid, my mother was obsessed — obsessed with us not watching too much television because she thought it was going to rot our brains. She would come home and she would put her hand on the top of the TV set. And if it was warm, she’d know — [LAUGHTER]

— that we’d broken the rules. And my mother did not mess around. She’d unplugged the TV. She’d get out a pair of scissors and she’d snip off the plug.

As a punishment, so that we would not watch it again.

Totally, totally badass.

That’s real parenting.

But I want to tell you — I want to tell you, it’s even better parenting. You know what my brothers and I did? We would go to RadioShack and we would buy a plug, and then we taught ourselves how to reattach a plug and then not make it look like —

Yeah, but this is exactly —

You have skills.

This is the bypass of childhood.

Kids are going to bypass any form of control over —

But Haidt would say that is the kind of childhood creativity that is being lost, the ability to do end-arounds when your parents —

To McGuyver your TV set!

Ross you mentioned school shootings. I mean, this month, believe it or not, will mark 25 years since Columbine. And the kids that Haidt is talking about are kids that have grown up entirely in a world formed by that experience. I don’t just mean Columbine, but I mean the experience of lockdown drills in schools, knowing that every day they’re going to a place where they’re meant to be taught and educated and protected, but that they feel at risk.

The reason my son has a smartphone is because there were bomb threats at his school, which he covered as a student journalist. But that’s why he has a smartphone to begin with.

I find that argument totally unpersuasive to explain the divergence that you see —

Oh, no, no, I meant —

— starting in the early 2010s.

No, I’m not saying — I’m not saying —

It doesn’t track, particularly, with the rise of school shootings. It doesn’t track at all with general violence in schools, which was much higher in the 1980s and early 1990s than today. And it does, allowing Lydia’s point that the data is complex, it does show up — the teenage mental health issue — in lots of other countries that don’t have active shooter drills and so on.

What’s odd in this debate is that Haidt is making an argument that in a way tracks pretty well with a lot of traditional left wing preoccupations. He’s saying a bunch of big rapacious capitalist entities, in order to make a profit, are exploiting your children and destroying their mental health.

And a lot of people on the left are like, no, that’s not satisfying enough. It has to be something that Republicans did, right? Because Silicon Valley isn’t coded as Republican. It has to be climate change because we can blame Republicans for that. It has to be school shootings because we can blame Michelle’s Southern relatives and their guns for that.

That feels very sensitive.

I don’t know. It’s like you’re just looking for — I mean, there are many reasons why children can be anxious all at once. I worry a little bit about Haidt pointing to smartphones as the overwhelming reason. There are multiple reasons why any one kid can be having trouble.

And another — and this is where I was headed. I wasn’t saying that therefore the explanation is school shootings. In the panoply of possible reasons for kids to be struggling, another is — Lydia and Ross have mentioned that you have your own toxic addictive relationships with your phones. I mean, these are also kids who have grown up with parents —

With parents, yes.

— who are entirely tethered to their devices and who basically — a few years ago, I read this book by Sherry Turkle called “Reclaiming Conversation,” and she had a line that has stuck with me since then where she says that all our relationships now come with the assumption of divided attention. And that is all the more so with children seeing the divided attention that their parents, already distracted and busy and tired parents, give to them.

All right, let’s take a break. And when we come back, we’ll talk about whether we should be even looking for solutions here. And if so, what they might be.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

One of the things that I’m interested in is when you start talking about what to do about it, then it gets really sticky, though. And I think one of the things that does bother me is when the states start looking at, well, how are we going to save our children?

They start talking about putting limitations on what kids can do on their phones. And you quickly get into questions of First Amendment rights and things like this. None of which is going to matter if you’ve got kids who are watching their parents sit on their phones all day long 24/7. That’s like lecturing kids not to do drugs while you’re sitting there dropping acid.

So there is a question about how we’re going to tackle this. And this just seems to be one of those areas that we rush to because it seems very easy to tackle. We’ve had several states try and limit what kids can do and what their social media account age is. But it’s a lot of constitutional questions, and a lot of time and energy going into something that doesn’t strike me is going to be all that useful.

I mean, just on the personal side, Michelle’s first, right, since you’re the senior parent in this conversation, meaning the one with the most experience.

Yeah, call me old.

The one with the most experience.

Walk that one back, Ross.

The wisest.

Your kids are basically through high school into college, right?

Mhm. And if you look back over the last 10 years, setting aside the state, setting aside government, are there things that either you as a parent or you as a consumer of school-based services — are there things that you wish you had done differently or things that you wish your kids’ schools had done differently?

So, now, one problem that I do think parents have is once you hit a certain age with kids, you can’t limit their screen time because they’re doing homework online. So I would try to keep limits on my kids’ screen time, and they would just be like, well, we’re just doing math homework on our computer.

And unless you are going to stand over that child every minute — and let’s be clear, it wasn’t a question of I didn’t want to put in the time or effort to stand over my child. It’s also, you can’t police your children like that. I mean, you have to give your children a little bit of freedom to screw up or whatever. So it was absolutely impossible on some level.

It got even worse during Covid.

Yeah. And COVID —

It was impossible, where it all got conflated.

— completely — my kids’ friends and my kids themselves had real Covid isolation issues. And it became really dark at certain times. And it was really hard to tell whether being able to connect with their friends on their smartphones was helping or hurting or whatever because technology has taken over our lives. I tend to think that as a society when we’ve given up on being reasonable about something, we then try to put limits just on the kids.

I asked my daughter, who’s 13 — I told her that we were going to have this conversation, and I asked her what she thought about rules and limits and bans. And she said she didn’t have a problem with there being rules and limiting access to certain things. She’s like, we do that for lots of other stuff that seems OK. But maybe you all should have some limits, too. She felt that —

Her reaction was that it shouldn’t just be for children. That a lot of bad things happen on social media when adults use social media.

Yeah. I don’t how we think we can save our children if that’s the approach that we’re going to take.

Well, I guess I’ll speak up for the kids first approach then. I completely agree that obviously the example that you set for your kids makes a huge difference. And I obviously think social media and smartphones have a deranging effect on adults too. But childhood is both a era of greater personal social emotional vulnerability than adulthood and also a period in which we take for granted that it is possible to impose substantial regulations that in a free society we can’t impose on adults. And we do this with lots of things. We do this with driving. There’s lots of terrible drivers on the road, but we don’t say, oh, we can’t let adults drive because we’re showing kids that they’ll be bad drivers when they grow up. Same with alcohol, tobacco products, all of these things.

And we can argue back and forth about where the exact line should be. But I do think that social media age requirements, things like banning smartphones from schools and so on, are just obvious first steps, that don’t get you close to fixing all of the problems, but are things that you should just do and see what happens.

As you were talking, I was thinking about some of the cultural differences about this. I don’t think there’s any society that’s like, OK, we want to teach our children to have a healthy relationship with tobacco. But when it comes to alcohol, there is a different attitude. Alcohol is seen as an important source of conviviality, of pleasure, of enjoyment, and cultivating one’s temperate enjoyment of it is something that starts relatively early in life.

And let’s set social media aside for just one second and just talk about technology and screens in general. We are all going to live in a world where screens are going to be a part of it. And I’m not going to give my baby a bottle filled with watered-down wine, right? But I might give my 13-year-old, a very, very small glass of wine watered down with seltzer at Thanksgiving or whatever. That to me feels more of an approach that I could get behind rather than just ban it. And I think about my own consumption of television. I mean, I told that very funny story about my mom and cutting the cord. The reality is that if there is a television on in a room, I cannot pay attention to anything else. I mean, if there was a television over the other side of your shoulder, Ross, I would be so distracted.

Fascinating.

Whereas, my wife, who grew up in a household where the TV was on all the time, can just tune it out. It’s just white noise to her. So I guess if we’re going to live in a world with these technologies, how do we prepare kids to have healthy relationships to them, to turn them into tools that can serve them? The problem is if it just takes over your entire life. [LAUGHS]

To be the optimist — the cockeyed optimist here, right? Lydia brought up tobacco. The United States had a massive public health campaign against tobacco that, in fact, did lead to dramatic changes in smoking’s social acceptability and all of these things.

And there is this range of proposals in Congress. There’s the Kids Online Safety Act, which would require tech platforms to make various design changes. Protect Kids on Social Media Act, which would establish an age minimum and parental consent. And then there’s this general — there’s a lot of grandstanding in Congress about what Meta has done wrong and the different ways these platforms have exploited kids.

And to the extent that you find the public psychological health arguments around tech and social media persuasive, is there any law or public health measure that you would like to see pass or imagine would be helpful? Or does it just not seem like a political problem?

I’m not convinced it’s a political problem. And I also think a lot about the ways in which such laws could be used. As a queer person, I think about kids who are trying to figure out who they are and what are the places that they might connect with other people like them.

Obviously, I grew up in a connection desert growing up in East and West Africa. We didn’t even have a home phone for a while. So I don’t romanticize the disconnected life at all. I think loneliness has lots of different facets to it. And I think that IRL friendships are great. But friendships over distance I think can be very, very meaningful. We have a whole literature of epistolary friendships —

Letter writing is another lost art —

Another lost art. I mean —

— that the smartphone has killed.

Yeah. Voice memos on the other hand — [LAUGHTER] so, yeah, I’m skeptical about the role of legislation in this area. I mean, I think, actually, profound social changes are needed. I think that we need to rethink the way that we treat children in society, the amount of freedom, the amount of autonomy that we give them. Obviously I believe that they need to be protected from dangerous things. But — and this is just my bias from my own experience, having been a very, very independent kid — I’m a strong believer in child independence.

I think laws sometimes reflect social changes and sometimes anticipate them. And I would be open to a lot of the kind of reforms that Jonathan Haidt suggests, to some degree, of limiting access to social media. I’m persuaded by the potential educational impact of smartphone bans or at least severe reductions in smartphone use in schools.

At the same time, I still believe that there is a multiplicity of factors behind the mental health and well-being crisis that we’re seeing with kids in the United States. So I’m both open to them, but skeptical that they would solve the underlying issue that we’re facing.

All right, well let’s close out by just looking forward a little bit, because I’m curious where you guys think this debate will be in 10 or 20 years, maybe at the point where some of our children are parenting themselves.

Oh, I can’t wait for that.

Can’t wait for that. And grandchildren reversing the birth dearth. [LAUGHTER] Anyway —

Different podcast, Ross. Different podcast.

Different episodes.

But isn’t it all the same episode, Lydia? I’m curious, generally, because there’s also a way in which when technological change happens, sometimes by the time you figure out what’s going wrong in one particular dispensation, we’re headed into a new dispensation, right?

So just hearing the way that schools rely on the internet and tech for assignments and so on, does that survive the age of ChatGPT and AI assistants? Is it possible that we’re going to head into a landscape where all of education is going to have to recalibrate itself?

They’re never going analog again, Ross.

Well, that’s —

They’re not going back to analog. It’s too — it’s not going to happen.

OK, but so then what is the world on the other side of AI or on the other side of any other looming technological change, on the other side of virtual reality?

We don’t know. That’s what’s so great about it. Could you have predicted where we are now 20 years ago? I don’t think you could have. Come on.

I mean once that’s true once Elon Musk has put chips in all of our brains, then we’ll experience the singularity and we’ll know what’s happening.

All right, let me —

No, no, I have a real answer here.

Let me — all right, Carlos — but no, let me first say, I am detecting just an incredible level of fatalism from all three of you about technological change.

And I agree with all of you that, yes, of course, we are not undoing the internet revelation — excuse me —

See, Freudian — paging Dr. Freud.

We know what you want, Ross.

We know what I want. I want the singularity, too. But it seems to me that there’s a huge question here, which is, are we going to master these kind of technologies or be mastered by them? And I feel like, are all of you just content to drift into the Neuralink future? Carlos, the humanist, I appeal to you to close us out with resistance. Come now —

Hashtag resistance.

— speak for paper, speak for print, speak for analog.

I only read on paper. Here I am saying that on a podcast. Who’s read “Canticle for Leibowitz“?

Well, you know I have. That’s a —

It’s a book that I highly recommend. It’s a book in which the existential perils of technology are taken so seriously that we attempt to fully simplify our lives to purge ourselves of these technologies. Yet, inevitably we recreate them with the same destructive results. And just because it fails, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t make the attempt.

So I think it’s foolish to be optimistic in this world, but it is not foolish to be hopeful. But even as we make those attempts, I’m skeptical of a silver bullet answer to the problem that we’ve discussed today. We will simply move on to a new version of it, which then we will look back with longing on this simpler time. The way that Lydia talked about the television story, we’re going to talk about trying to — you remember back in the 2000s when we tried to regulate smartphones? And we didn’t know that the fill in the blank was coming next and that was going to be even more insidious and destructive.

Brain chip. Lydia is right. Brain chip.

No, but I think that’s — I think that’s a really good way of putting it, Carlos. And I think that the reality is that things stop being cool. Facebook has been abandoned to the boomers and —

Oh, you cannot pay kids to be on Facebook.

— other social media. And I think it’s one of those things that’s seen as a punch line. But kids reject the things that their parents are into, and are addicted to, and want to talk about, and want to focus on. And I think that things become not cool. And that’s definitely a thing that I’m seeing among young people that I know, that they’re like, you know what’s not cool is spending all your time on social media.

And on that note, I’m going to return home and explain to my 13-year-old daughter that it is her duty to make the smartphone uncool in her middle school and high school. And we’ll leave it there. And when we come back, we’ll get hot and cold.

Just tell her how cool you think it is and that’s going to do it.

All right, guys, it’s time to get hot cold. Who’s got one this week?

I’m hot cold this week.

So I just returned from “Matter of Opinion”‘s official vacation destination, which is Italy.

And I happened to be there during Holy Week. And so we did Palm Sunday mass and Easter Sunday mass in Venice. The Palm Sunday mass, it was, first of all, very few people. And we thought like, how on Earth, in Venice, on Palm Sunday, there are only 50 people in this church? Because we were at the Latin and Gregorian mass service. And we experienced —

Carlos, be still my heart.

My children experienced the Latin mass, which they had not done up to this point in their lives. And it was wonderful. We had an absolutely — see, I was afraid that this —

Ross is going to weep.

I was afraid that this would trigger an outpouring of Rossness. But it was so beautiful.

In a good way!

Just to stipulate for listeners, who may have some stereotypical view of me, I do not attend the traditional Latin mass.

Neither do I. And I went to Catholic —

I went to Catholic grade school, high school, and college. So I’ve been to many variations of our liturgy. And my wife and I were trying to explain to the kids, even whispering during the service, that they had entered a sort of time warp where they got to experience something that is a lot less common these days.

And I think of myself as very much a Vatican II Catholic. I’m all in favor of the opening up of the liturgical experience, of the role of laypeople in the church. But it took a long time. Palm Sunday mass is generally long. And the Latin mass version is, I think, a good bit longer than normal.

But even so, it was both a wonderful experience for me to think about a church before the church that I have known, and also for my children to have a sense of this experience and to have them feel — I hope some small part of them felt part of a much longer history and tradition.

That’s so beautiful.

You heard it here. I am hot on the Latin mass.

Ross is speechless.

I don’t have anything. I can’t add anything.

I’m hot on the Latin mass.

That sounds like a really, really amazing experience. I’m glad for you and your family.

That is downright beautiful.

Amazing. OK, we got to stop there before anything happens to spoil the Catholic mood.

Don’t say a word.

He says to the protestant!

He says to Michelle.

To the Southern Protestant.

I have not brought the Southern Baptist into this discussion!

OK, good. Guys, it’s been a pleasure. We’ll be back next week.

See you next week.

Good to be back.

Bye, guys. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Thanks so much for joining us. Give us a follow on your favorite podcast app and leave us a nice review for “Matter of Opinion” while you’re there, so other people can know why they should tune in, too, mostly for the Latin mass recommendations. If you have a question you think we should think about next, like why the Latin mass is awesome, share it with us in a voice — [LAUGHING]

— OK. Sorry. [LAUGHTER]

Carlos, this only happens once. I have to milk it. If you have a question you think we should think about next, share it with us in a voicemail by calling 212-556-7440 or send us an email by writing to [email protected].

“Matter of Opinion” is produced by Phoebe Lett, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, and Derek Arthur. It’s edited by Jordana Hochman. Our fact-check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Original music by Isaac Jones, Carole Sabouraud, and Pat McCusker. Mixing by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. And our executive producer, as always, is Annie-Rose Strasser.

[SINGING IN LATIN]

• April 5, 2024   •   38:40 Are Smartphones Just a Scapegoat for Our Unhappy Children?
• March 29, 2024   •   36:17 Finding the Line Between Celebrity and Politician With Tressie McMillan Cottom
• March 22, 2024   •   38:05 Obama, Trump, Pence: Revelations From Reading the Swamp
• March 15, 2024   •   36:00 What Do You Do if You Hate Both Biden and Trump?
• March 8, 2024   •   41:36 Trump 2.0: ‘A Blueprint for Retribution’
• March 1, 2024   •   37:16 The Pro-Life Movement Had a Plan Post-Roe. The G.O.P. Didn’t.
• February 23, 2024   •   38:30 Will the Economy Favor Biden or Trump? Paul Krugman Weighs In.
• February 16, 2024   •   34:40 The Presidential Fitness Test
• February 9, 2024   •   35:37 Our Super Bowls, Ourselves
• February 2, 2024   •   42:02 The Gender Split and the ‘Looming Apocalypse of the Developed World’
• January 26, 2024   •   36:53 Could Israel Cost Biden the Election?
• January 19, 2024   •   35:20 Why Is There No Effective Anti-Trump Constituency?

Hosted by Michelle Cottle ,  Ross Douthat ,  Carlos Lozada and Lydia Polgreen

Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

It’s not just bad vibes — America’s kids are not OK. As study after study shows worsening youth mental health, a popular theory has emerged: The rise of smartphones and the addictive nature of social media is making young people miserable. But can it really be that simple?

This week on “Matter of Opinion,” the hosts debate the myriad possible factors contributing to teenagers’ unhappiness, and discuss how parents, schools and the government can protect kids without doing further harm. Plus, a sui generis Lozada family vacation.

(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available within 24 hours of publication in the audio player above.)

Recommended in this episode:

“ The Anxious Generation ,” by Jonathan Haidt

“ Reclaiming Conversation ,” by Sherry Turkle

“ A Canticle for Leibowitz ,” by Walter M. Miller Jr.

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected] .

Follow our hosts on X: Michelle Cottle ( @mcottle ), Ross Douthat ( @DouthatNYT ) and Carlos Lozada ( @CarlosNYT ).

“Matter of Opinion” is produced by Phoebe Lett, Sophia Alvarez Boyd and Derek Arthur. It is edited by Jordana Hochman. Mixing by Pat McCusker. Original music by Isaac Jones, Efim Shapiro, Carole Sabouraud, and Pat McCusker. Our fact-checking team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Michelle Cottle writes about national politics for Opinion and is a host of the podcast “Matter of Opinion.” She has covered Washington and politics since the Clinton administration.  @ mcottle

Ross Douthat has been an Opinion columnist for The Times since 2009. He is the author, most recently, of “The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery.” @ DouthatNYT • Facebook

Carlos Lozada is an Opinion columnist and a co-host of the weekly “Matter of Opinion” podcast for The Times, based in Washington, D.C. He is the author, most recently, of “ The Washington Book : How to Read Politics and Politicians.”  @ CarlosNYT

Lydia Polgreen is an Opinion columnist and a co-host of the “ Matter of Opinion ” podcast for The Times.

Me Talk Pretty One Day

David sedaris, everything you need for every book you read., david sedaris quotes in me talk pretty one day.

No one else had been called, so why me? I ran down a list of recent crimes, looking for a conviction that might stick. Setting fire to a reportedly flameproof Halloween costume, stealing a set of barbecue tongs from an unguarded patio, altering the word hit on a list of rules posted on the gymnasium door; never did it occur to me that I might be innocent.

The question of team preference was common in our part of North Carolina, and the answer supposedly spoke volumes about the kind of person you either were or hoped to become. I had no interest in football or basketball but had learned it was best to pretend otherwise. If a boy didn't care for barbecued chicken or potato chips, people would accept it as a matter of personal taste, saying, “Oh well, I guess it takes all kinds.” You could turn up your nose at the president or Coke or even God, but there were names for boys who didn't like sports. When the subject came up, I found it best to ask which team my questioner preferred. Then I’d say, “Really? Me, too!”

“One of these days I'm going to have to hang a sign on that door,” Agent Samson used to say. She was probably thinking along the lines of SPEECH THERAPY LAB, though a more appropriate marker would have read FUTURE HOMOSEXUALS OF AMERICA. We knocked ourselves out trying to fit in but were ultimately betrayed by our tongues. At the beginning of the school year, while we were congratulating ourselves on successfully passing for normal, Agent Samson was taking names as our assembled teachers raised their hands, saying, “I've got one in my homeroom,” and “There are two in my fourth-period math class.” Were they also able to spot the future drunks and depressives?

“Seriously, though, it helps if you give your instrument a name. What do you think you'll call yours?”

“Maybe I'll call it Oliver,” I said. That was the name of my hamster, and I was used to saying it.

Then again, maybe not.

“Oliver?” Mister Mancini set my guitar on the floor. “ Oliver ? What the hell kind of name is that? If you’re going to devote yourself to the guitar, you need to name it after a girl, not a guy.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “Joan. I’ll call it…Joan.”

“So tell me about this Joan,” he said. “Is she something pretty special?”

Joan was the name of one of my cousins, but it seemed unwise to share this information. “Oh yeah,” I said, “Joan’s really…great. She’s tall and…” I felt self-conscious using the word tall and struggled to take it back. “She’s small and has brown hair and everything.”

You certainly couldn’t accuse him of being unsupportive. His enthusiasm bordered on mania, yet still it failed to inspire us.

[…] I broadened my view and came to see him as a wee outsider, a misfit whose take-it-or-leave-it attitude had left him all alone. This was a persona I’d been tinkering with myself: the outcast, the rebel. It occurred to me that, with the exception of the guitar, he and I actually had quite a bit in common. We were each a man trapped inside a boy’s body. Each of us was talented in his own way, and we both hated twelve-year-old males, a demographic group second to none in terms of cruelty. All things considered, there was no reason I shouldn’t address him not as a teacher but as an artistic brother.

I knew then why I’d never before sung in front of anyone, and why I shouldn’t have done it in front of Mister Mancini. He'd used the word screwball , but I knew what he really meant. He meant I should have named my guitar Doug or Brian, or better yet, taken up the flute. He meant that if we’re defined by our desires, I was in for a lifetime of trouble.

Either one of these things is dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations. The moment I took my first burning snootful, I understood that this was the drug for me. Speed eliminates all doubt. Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Do I really look all right in this plastic jumpsuit? These are questions for insecure potheads. A speed enthusiast knows that everything he says or does is brilliant.

Immediately following the performance a small crowd gathered around my father, congratulating him on his delivery and comic timing.

“Including your father was an excellent idea,” the curator said, handing me my check “The piece really came together once you loosened up and started making fun of yourself.”

Our parents discouraged us from using the titles “ma’am” or “sir” when addressing a teacher or shopkeeper. Tobacco was acceptable in the form of a cigarette, but should any of us experiment with plug or snuff, we would automatically be disinherited. Mountain Dew was forbidden, and our speech was monitored for the slightest hint of a Raleigh accent. Use the word “y’all,” and before you knew it, you'd find yourself in a haystack French-kissing an underage goat. […]

We might not have been the wealthiest people in town, but at least we weren’t one of them .

There was no electricity for close to a week. The yard was practically cleared of trees, and rain fell through the dozens of holes punched into the roof. It was a difficult time, but the two of them stuck it out, my brother placing his small, scarred hand on my father's shoulder to say, “Bitch, I'm here to tell you that it's going to be all right. We'll get through this shit, motherfucker, just you wait.”

I was given two weeks to prepare, a period I spent searching for a briefcase and standing before my full-length mirror, repeating the words “Hello, class, my name is Mr. Sedaris.” Sometimes I’d give myself an aggressive voice and firm, athletic timbre. This was the masculine Mr. Sedaris, who wrote knowingly of flesh wounds and tractor pulls. Then there was the ragged bark of the newspaper editor, a tone that coupled wisdom with an unlimited capacity for cruelty. I tried sounding businesslike and world-weary, but when the day eventually came, my nerves kicked in and the true Mr. Sedaris revealed himself. In a voice reflecting doubt, fear, and an unmistakable desire to be loved, I sounded not like a thoughtful college professor but, rather, like a high-strung twelve-year-old girl; someone name Brittany.

I jotted these names into my notebook alongside the word Troublemaker , and said I’d look into it. Because I was the writing teacher, it was automatically assumed that I had read every leather-bound volume in the Library of Classics. The truth was that I had read none of those books, nor did I intend to. I bluffed my way through most challenges with dim memories of the movie or miniseries based upon the book in question, but it was an exhausting exercise and eventually I learned it was easier to simply reply with a question, saying, “I know what Flaubert means to me, but what do you think of her?”

As Mr. Sedaris I lived in constant fear. There was the perfectly understandable fear of being exposed as a fraud, and then there was the deeper fear that my students might hate me.

“Who are you ,” she asked. “I mean, just who in the hell are you to tell me that my story has no ending?”

It was a worthwhile question that was bound to be raised sooner or later. I’d noticed that her story had ended in mid-sentence, but that aside, who was I to offer criticism to anyone, especially in regard to writing? I’d meant to give the issue some serious thought, but there had been shirts to iron and name tags to make and, between one thing and another, I managed to put it out of my mind.

One more flush and it was all over. The thing was gone and out of my life. […] And I was left thinking that the person who'd abandoned the huge turd had no problem with it, so why did I? Why the big deal? Had it been left there to teach me a lesson? Had a lesson been learned? Did it have anything to do with Easter? I resolved to put it all behind me, and then I stepped outside to begin examining the suspects.

In the evenings, lacking anything better to do, I used to head east and stare into the windows of the handsome, single-family town houses, wondering what went on in those well-appointed rooms. What would it be like to have not only your own apartment but an entire building in which you could do whatever you wanted? I’d watch a white-haired man slipping out of his back brace and ask myself what he'd done to deserve such a privileged life. Had I been able to swap places with him, I would have done so immediately.

Somewhere along the way she’d got the idea that broke people led richer lives than everybody else, that they were nobler or more intelligent. In an effort to keep me noble, she was paying me less than she’d paid her previous assistant. Half my paychecks bounced, and she refused to reimburse me for my penalty charges, claiming that it was my bank’s fault, not hers.

Moving people from one place to another made me feel as though I performed a valuable service, recognized and appreciated by the city at large. In the grand scheme of things, I finally had a role to play. My place was not with Valencia but here, riding in a bread truck with my friends.

I was mortified, but Bonnie was in a state of almost narcotic bliss, overjoyed to have discovered a New York without the New Yorkers. Here were out-of-town visitors from Omaha and Chattanooga, outraged over the price of their hot roasted chestnuts. […] The crowd was relentlessly, pathologically friendly, and their enthusiasm was deafening. Looking around her, Bonnie saw a glittering paradise filled with decent, like-minded people, sent by God to give the world a howdy. Encircled by her army of angels, she drifted across the avenue to photograph a juggler, while I hobbled off toward home, a clear outsider in a city I’d foolishly thought to call my own.

My father has always placed a great deal of importance on his daughters’ physical beauty. It is, to him, their greatest asset, and he monitors their appearance with the intensity of a pimp. What can I say? He was born a long time ago and is convinced that marriage is a woman’s only real shot at happiness.

Before beginning school, there’d been no shutting me up, but now I was convinced that everything I said was wrong. [...]

My only comfort was the knowledge that I was not alone. Huddled in the hallways and making the most of our pathetic French, my fellow students and I engaged in the sort of conversation commonly overheard in refugee camps.

“Sometime me cry alone at night.”

“That be common for I, also, but be more strong, you. Much work and someday you talk pretty. People start love you soon. Maybe tomorrow, okay.”

In communicating any religious belief, the operative word is faith , a concept illustrated by our very presence in that classroom. Why bother struggling with the grammar lessons of a six-year-old if each of us didn't believe that, against all reason, we might eventually improve? If I could hope to one day carry on a fluent conversation, it was a relatively short leap to believing that a rabbit might visit my home in the middle of the night, leaving behind a handful of chocolate kisses and a carton of menthol cigarettes. So why stop there? If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt? I told myself that despite her past behavior, my teacher was a kind and loving person who had only my best interests at heart. I accepted the idea that an omniscient God had cast me in his own image and that he watched over me and guided me from one place to the next. The Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the countless miracles—my heart expanded to encompass all the wonders and possibilities of the universe.

A bell, though—that’s fucked up.

I asked myself, Who wants to be handcuffed and covered in human feces? And then, without even opening my address book, I thought of three people right off the bat. This frightened me, but apparently it’s my own private phobia. I found no listing for those who fear they know too many masochists. Neither did I find an entry for those who fear the terrible truth that their self-worth is based entirely on the completion of a daily crossword puzzle. Because I can’t seem to find it anywhere, I’m guaranteed that such a word actually exists. It will undoubtedly pop up in some future puzzle, the clue being “You, honestly.”

People are often frightened of Parisians, but an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than another American. France isn’t even my country, but there I was, deciding that these people needed to be sent back home, preferably in chains. In disliking them, I was forced to recognize my own pretension, and that made me hate them even more.

My brain wants nothing to do with reason. It never has. If I was told to vacate my apartment by next week, I wouldn’t ask around or consult the real estate listings. Instead, I’d just imagine myself living in a moated sugar-cube castle, floating from room to room on a king-size magic carpet. If I have one saving grace, it’s that I’m lucky enough to have found someone willing to handle the ugly business of day-to-day living.

Hugh consoled me, saying, “Don’t let it get to you. There are plenty of things you’re good at.”

When asked for some examples, he listed vacuuming and naming stuffed animals. He says he can probably come up with a few more, but he’ll need some time to think.