This may be me confessing that I've deluded myself into thinking of you as Friend... but this reminds me of how often my bf will be talking about something I know nothing about/would never care about if a random stranger were talking about it (e.g. Ferrari, building computers, the Mets roster in the 1980s) & he apologizes, like, "I'm sorry for making you listen to this; you can't possibly be interested"--but the fact is, I AM interested, because he is interesting, & I am interested in how he thinks about the things he finds interesting. I think this happens with people you care about, such as partners or family members or friends. I guess writers have the opportunity to become something of the same thing--a kind of friend who we think is interesting--such that if you say, "Hey, here's a cool thing," I'm likely to go, "Ooh. Tell me." So! Thank you for that.
[I confess I still skip the Neon Genesis Evangelion posts... Not yet brave enough...]
I enjoy the novelty of this newsletter. It is not always a themed focus here, but certain rhythms get added. It is a good reminder that while not everything needs to be catered to my taste, it is nice to know that there are enthusiasts of all sorts that you are either encountering and/or serving with what you are profiling. And I gain a little more sympathy and understanding.
i love reading notebook by bdm.... newsletters are ideal for a reader like me whose primary interest can be boiled down into saying, as lovingly as possible, "now what's so and so on about?" every day
This resonates with me and with my experience of writing, too, and also why I like newslettering. Thanks for putting it into words. Also, as an unrelated aside, I read your essay, "The Bad Patient," in The Drift over the weekend after you linked to it and, wow, it totally arrested me. I've been thinking about it a lot, in and out of various doctor's appts myself today, and I've found a lot of relief in your words about illness as a "mutually agreed-upon fiction" as well as the distrust built into the exam room but also just the experience of being sick in general, even (for me) when there's a very common physical etiology. There's a beginning of a new way of thinking about myself in relationship to and with medical professionals, cancer, the women writers I've been researching and studying who died of breast cancer, that's lodged itself in my brain since reading your essay; I can't quite articulate it yet, but when I do I can't wait to engage with your essay further. Also wow, what shit luck for you to go through all that. Anyways, I appreciate your wide-ranging newsletter posts, essays, musings! Thanks!
One thing I really hated about the chronic illness memoir genre (after reading a genuinely horrifying number of memoirs, most of which never earned a mention) is that they practically all imagine a person who has a cancer as being like… the sick person everybody respects and believes and so on. "If I only had cancer, people wouldn't treat me badly.…" This is so completely untrue, it baffles me that it's such a common statement as to basically be a cliche. (In general, whenever people are like, "you wouldn't say this about X" the answer is always "people absolutely say that about X").
In any case I've appreciated reading your own illness writing a lot—even people who have "been there" in some way don't always have the ability to communicate what's going on the way you do. (When I was writing the bad patient piece I was talking about it with somebody and I was like… "writing this has made me aware I'm crazy but I don't think I'm THE ONLY crazy person.")
It's not about illness but have you ever read the novel Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald? There's this extended sequence where the central character is on trial inside her own head for whether or not it was all right to have left her husband.… it's very funny but I also thought of it a lot both while writing and while actually being sick.
I did also read so many chronic illness memoirs for my field list during my phd, and I really struggled with so much about them, which is why I found your essay really good— generous and clear-eyed in a way I could not be myself for a long time about these illness narratives. I had to really work at that, and the hagiography of the cancer patient bothered me so much even before I found myself becoming one. Having taught writing to cancer patients since last summer now, I also have been so interested in and humbled by how many of the women write about the same issues they had in trying to get help with functional or “crazy” diagnoses like ehlers-danlos or fibromyalgia were also present in trying to get correct diagnoses and helpful treatment plans for their breast cancers. My own tendency toward dismissal of the whiny sick lady has been challenged after hearing about these experiences (and yeah living them). (Even as my rage increases at the ascension of the feminist medical professional who writes her own narratives lamenting the crazies she sees in her office, a la the Stacey Wentworth or Jennifer Gunter cultural commentary models).
At the same time, I’m constantly banging my head against what a disservice some of our most accepted or popular forms of illness narrative do to the experience of being sick, reading illness, understanding ourselves, lives, and deaths against the backdrop of social media screens and contemporary life. Anyways! I am also one of the crazy ones! Obviously!
lol… Jennifer Gunter. yes. she's also adjacent to another problem of mine which is that since everything gynecological etc is understudied… you have on the one hand people who are let's say in the group of patients adversely affected by hormonal birth control. they ask their doctor "can birth control make me feel bad in X way" and are told "no." (this has happened to at least one friend of mine)
then those people go online to get help, find out actually it's quite documented that birth control can make you feel bad in X way, and they find random influencers being like "if you absolutely despise your boyfriend, that's just the luteal phase talking #girlthings." at this point they know their doctor is either lying to them or ignorant so they're just on their own. what are they supposed to do?
none of the above means "hormonal birth control is bad," it just means it's a bad medication _for some patients._ but medical authorities act like patients cannot be trusted with any sort of ambiguity and so create their own problem.
And many people buy *not enough alcohol* due to the absolutely pathetic eau de vie situation at the state store and the price of shipping a container to a major port.
It's been lovely watching you hop around from topic to topic! I'm probably not the first person to say this, but I had roughly zero interest in Taylor Swift a few years ago, but your writing has opened my eyes and made me reconsider topics that I had prematurely closed myself off to. Thanks for that! Thankful for your writing as always.
This is relevant to my interests
you rock!
I think you’re great. So there.
very much my favorite newsletter. please continue to do whatever you want
This may be me confessing that I've deluded myself into thinking of you as Friend... but this reminds me of how often my bf will be talking about something I know nothing about/would never care about if a random stranger were talking about it (e.g. Ferrari, building computers, the Mets roster in the 1980s) & he apologizes, like, "I'm sorry for making you listen to this; you can't possibly be interested"--but the fact is, I AM interested, because he is interesting, & I am interested in how he thinks about the things he finds interesting. I think this happens with people you care about, such as partners or family members or friends. I guess writers have the opportunity to become something of the same thing--a kind of friend who we think is interesting--such that if you say, "Hey, here's a cool thing," I'm likely to go, "Ooh. Tell me." So! Thank you for that.
[I confess I still skip the Neon Genesis Evangelion posts... Not yet brave enough...]
I enjoy the novelty of this newsletter. It is not always a themed focus here, but certain rhythms get added. It is a good reminder that while not everything needs to be catered to my taste, it is nice to know that there are enthusiasts of all sorts that you are either encountering and/or serving with what you are profiling. And I gain a little more sympathy and understanding.
Keep hopping around, BDM!
i love reading notebook by bdm.... newsletters are ideal for a reader like me whose primary interest can be boiled down into saying, as lovingly as possible, "now what's so and so on about?" every day
This resonates with me and with my experience of writing, too, and also why I like newslettering. Thanks for putting it into words. Also, as an unrelated aside, I read your essay, "The Bad Patient," in The Drift over the weekend after you linked to it and, wow, it totally arrested me. I've been thinking about it a lot, in and out of various doctor's appts myself today, and I've found a lot of relief in your words about illness as a "mutually agreed-upon fiction" as well as the distrust built into the exam room but also just the experience of being sick in general, even (for me) when there's a very common physical etiology. There's a beginning of a new way of thinking about myself in relationship to and with medical professionals, cancer, the women writers I've been researching and studying who died of breast cancer, that's lodged itself in my brain since reading your essay; I can't quite articulate it yet, but when I do I can't wait to engage with your essay further. Also wow, what shit luck for you to go through all that. Anyways, I appreciate your wide-ranging newsletter posts, essays, musings! Thanks!
One thing I really hated about the chronic illness memoir genre (after reading a genuinely horrifying number of memoirs, most of which never earned a mention) is that they practically all imagine a person who has a cancer as being like… the sick person everybody respects and believes and so on. "If I only had cancer, people wouldn't treat me badly.…" This is so completely untrue, it baffles me that it's such a common statement as to basically be a cliche. (In general, whenever people are like, "you wouldn't say this about X" the answer is always "people absolutely say that about X").
In any case I've appreciated reading your own illness writing a lot—even people who have "been there" in some way don't always have the ability to communicate what's going on the way you do. (When I was writing the bad patient piece I was talking about it with somebody and I was like… "writing this has made me aware I'm crazy but I don't think I'm THE ONLY crazy person.")
It's not about illness but have you ever read the novel Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald? There's this extended sequence where the central character is on trial inside her own head for whether or not it was all right to have left her husband.… it's very funny but I also thought of it a lot both while writing and while actually being sick.
I will check this novel out! Havent read it!
I did also read so many chronic illness memoirs for my field list during my phd, and I really struggled with so much about them, which is why I found your essay really good— generous and clear-eyed in a way I could not be myself for a long time about these illness narratives. I had to really work at that, and the hagiography of the cancer patient bothered me so much even before I found myself becoming one. Having taught writing to cancer patients since last summer now, I also have been so interested in and humbled by how many of the women write about the same issues they had in trying to get help with functional or “crazy” diagnoses like ehlers-danlos or fibromyalgia were also present in trying to get correct diagnoses and helpful treatment plans for their breast cancers. My own tendency toward dismissal of the whiny sick lady has been challenged after hearing about these experiences (and yeah living them). (Even as my rage increases at the ascension of the feminist medical professional who writes her own narratives lamenting the crazies she sees in her office, a la the Stacey Wentworth or Jennifer Gunter cultural commentary models).
At the same time, I’m constantly banging my head against what a disservice some of our most accepted or popular forms of illness narrative do to the experience of being sick, reading illness, understanding ourselves, lives, and deaths against the backdrop of social media screens and contemporary life. Anyways! I am also one of the crazy ones! Obviously!
lol… Jennifer Gunter. yes. she's also adjacent to another problem of mine which is that since everything gynecological etc is understudied… you have on the one hand people who are let's say in the group of patients adversely affected by hormonal birth control. they ask their doctor "can birth control make me feel bad in X way" and are told "no." (this has happened to at least one friend of mine)
then those people go online to get help, find out actually it's quite documented that birth control can make you feel bad in X way, and they find random influencers being like "if you absolutely despise your boyfriend, that's just the luteal phase talking #girlthings." at this point they know their doctor is either lying to them or ignorant so they're just on their own. what are they supposed to do?
none of the above means "hormonal birth control is bad," it just means it's a bad medication _for some patients._ but medical authorities act like patients cannot be trusted with any sort of ambiguity and so create their own problem.
And many people buy *not enough alcohol* due to the absolutely pathetic eau de vie situation at the state store and the price of shipping a container to a major port.
as someone whose ambivalence about the identity "writer" is very wrapped up in "but who the fuck cares," i feel this!
It's been lovely watching you hop around from topic to topic! I'm probably not the first person to say this, but I had roughly zero interest in Taylor Swift a few years ago, but your writing has opened my eyes and made me reconsider topics that I had prematurely closed myself off to. Thanks for that! Thankful for your writing as always.