Comments on: I am sick of

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:15:33 +0000

Days like this just means it is time to buy new shoes.

By: Justine

Justine — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:46:17 +0000

Thanks for all the kind words. Bill, especially, you made my day!

By: lunamoth

lunamoth — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:16:45 +0000

It must be something in the air. I was feeling much the same way for the last several days. My husband actually unplugged the router so I’d stop torturing myself.

By: limeywesty

limeywesty — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:53:17 +0000

hug?

By: Caroline

Caroline — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:05:16 +0000

Usually when I’m just about to dimiss something, whether it be romance novels or empire waist dresses, I one that I love.

Awesomeness pops up in the most unexpected places.

By: Dave H.

Dave H. — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:47:50 +0000

Wait, you can’t leave the internet! Who will answer my important cricket question?!?

(Namely, why are second-innings totals so much lower than first-innings totals? England and New Zealand combined for 818 first-innings runs, and the Test Match Special podcast kept talking about how the bowlers had no chance … and then they go out for under 300(*) in the second innings. This seems to happen a lot, but I’ve never been sure why.)

(*I know NZ declared in the second innings, but I just looked at Chris Martin’s career batting stats, and I suspect it didn’t exactly cost them a lot of runs.)

(Also, keep in mind that, for all the great things about the internet, it gives loud voices to the people that used to be confined to standing on boxes in the public square.)

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:09:14 +0000

The Buddha said, “The root of all suffering is wishing there were no jerks on the Internet.”

When I feel like the jerks are taking over, I drag my attention back to the few people I’ve met that exemplify the best in the human condition. Fortunately, I’m married to one and father to two. I also have two great dogs.

You in particular should be proud to have created — in your books and in this blog — a pair of worlds where the things you list above do not exist, or are at least doomed to humiliation and failure.

We all need havens; thank you for giving us two.

By: Simon the Moose

Simon the Moose — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:02:22 +0000

It’s not the internet that’s a problem.

It’s people. (Yes, I realise people have made this point a lot better than me before)

As I always say: There are three types of people in the world- people who are weird, people who are ignorant, and people who are both.

By: JS Bangs

JS Bangs — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 23:10:31 +0000

Using the word “bourgeois” is so bourgeois.

By: Maria

Maria — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 23:01:28 +0000

Whenever I come across dismissive or snippy people who find fault in everything but themselves, I remember I still have a delete key.

Dismiss them right back, Justine. Works both ways.

By: janet

janet — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:46:11 +0000

I recently discovered the perfect cure for this kind of thing.

Math.

A few weeks ago when I was obsessing about something I’d read online, I sat down and did my math homework. Half an hour of logarithmic functions (or whatever it was) effectively drove every other thought out of my head.

It doesn’t have to be math. Scrabble might work, or any other puzzle-type activity that you find utterly engrossing. I find that reading doesn’t work as well because it uses lots of different parts of the brain and involves too many connections to the nonfictional (aka “real”) world. The idea here is to fill up your conscious mind with stuff that is involving and mentally challenging, but essentially unrelated to anything else in your life.

In other words, reading fiction less escapist than doing math. Heh.

By: eek

eek — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:16:09 +0000

Bad day? I hope you found some calming influences offline…

emily