Time to Go
the impossibility of time management in the digital age
Greetings time travelers,
I’ve been thinking a lot about time recently. I have had a long time to do it, since I am typing this while I am on hold.
When I called this help line 18 minutes ago, I was told I could expect customer service to pick up in 20 minutes, or I could hang up and someone would call me back in the order received….initially I hung up, but that was three hours ago when I didn’t feel like waiting the 12 minutes the automated voice told me it would take. No one ever called back.
Now, only two minutes to go!
Ah, except, the same voice just came on and told me that it would be 26 minutes until someone could pick up.
I do not now how this is possible.
I always have the option of hanging up.
I am on hold because a system won’t work. Three people have told me “this is a known issue, we will let you know when we have it resolved” then left me hanging four weeks. Until the issue is resolved, they can’t release my funds. They are sorry about this but there is nothing they can do.
(Did you see Les Liaisons Dangereux? “It’s beyond my control.”)
Is there a way to make wasting time a crime? Remember Alice in Wonderland? They were on trial for killing time, I believe.
I spent some of today’s hold time coming up with new middle-man ways to make money:
being on hold for other people (you could do this remotely - conference in the person and they can text you when the customer service person picks up)
dealing with stupid online travel booking sites (like an old-school travel agent but the worker uses your phone to navigate the idiotic apps you have to use to book travel while you are given a neck rub by another associate.)
entertainment for the time after you’ve finished eating and before the server brings your check (recent trivia, game show style: what did you actually eat? when will you ever see this person again? Why are you even here? What are the six things you might be doing right now that would be more fun?)
Do things
I did some great things this week. I attended the Poets & Writers gala with a dear friend who was a VIP. So I got to see some people. (I took a lot of photos to prove to myself that this actually happened)
Tuesday, I went to a terrific reading series called Rooftop Readings in Brooklyn that wasn’t on a rooftop. The first reader was a cautionary tale: she spent 17 of her 20 allotted minutes telling the audience all the things she had been planning to write that she ended up cutting or not being able to figure out how to write, and then she read for 3 minutes from the published book. It was…different.
The show New York, New York is in previews, which is good for them because the first act currently consists of a lot of introductions and even more set changes and one show-stopping tap number. I love seeing shows that aren’t quite baked.
Then, on Friday, there was a gorgeous tribute to Richard Howard on the anniversary of his passing. The star-studded lineup included Jennifer Franklin and Binnie Kirschenbaum, but also Mary Jo Bang, Rika Lesser, Vijay Shashadri (who I hung out with a while at the gala) and Edward Hirsch, Grace Shulman and lots of others…all reading Richard’s poetry.
Once, I saw him riding the subway (Richard Howard, who has not only a Guggenheim, Levinson Prize, and Pulitzer, but also a MacArthur) and I recognized him by his trademark round glasses (that always matched a natty buttoned-down outfit) and he shocked me by exclaiming loud enough that other train passengers looked over, “hey, I know you. You’re the writer! How are you, dear?”
It made me a devoted follower. And it was semi-earned because I was the one fiction writer in the MFA program who insisted on taking all the poetry courses.
Then, last night, I went to a book launch for Terese Svoboda’s Dog on Fire which I had read in one sitting on the flight from NYC to Seattle last month. She shared the stairs-landing with Chloe Caldwell and Colter Jackson (it was in Catherine Textier’s apartment - very Paris Salon, outrageously “in”—I clearly need to move to Alphabet City if I want to make it in literature.)
Which reminds me—
I think I’m supposed to be planning one of these. Anyone have a gorgeous apartment they want to loan me? My debut story collection is out April 15. If you haven’t preordered, please don’t let me stop you. In fact, here’s the link.
But as a distraction, here’s the cover reveal for an anthology that features my crazy-weird story called “All Clear” which is a retelling of a Kaiju attack…from the point of view of the people whose properties and loved ones are collateral damage.
Random Final Thought:
Don’t look back.
You do more in a week than I do in a year - or two!