Issue #158: What It’s Really Like to Share Your Life Online

Plus an AMA and my recent breakup.

I’m currently in the midst of an international adventure, so I’m featuring guest recommenders each week while I travel. The first two recs this week come from

Tembe Denton-Hurst

of the book-centered newsletter

Extracurricular

(I interviewed her here, when her novel Homebodies came out!).

📚 Playing in the Dark by Toni Morrison: This is the most recent book to crack me open and reshape the way I see literature. It functions exactly as good criticism should. It invites you to investigate while also offering a framework to structure your understanding. Morrison is a brilliant thinker and that’s on full display here. If fiction is more your speed, I’m in the middle of If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English and am bowled over by the prose. - Tembe

📺 “Lady in the Lake” on Apple TV+: I look forward to this show every week, often measuring my days in how long I have left until the next episode. It’s this really interesting inversion of a murder mystery, centering the victim while also balancing the ambition of the journalist seeking to make her name off her murder. The show also has a great soundtrack. Listen to See-Line Woman and thank me later. - Tembe (Note: Readers may remember I loved this show too—a double vote!)

💿 ‘Gonzolain’ album by Chamberlain/Gonzalez: I came across this duo in the most Portland of ways, at a friend’s backyard art show, where I was immediately taken by their ethereal harmonies over guitar (reminiscent of another under-the-radar favorite, Jim and Sam) and self-effacing banter (“Our band is our last names… in the great tradition of presidential candidates?”). I downloaded their most recent album for my plane ride, but can easily see myself playing it on a rainy evening as soon as I’m home. - Leslie

Today’s issue is a big one—I write about what it’s really like to share my life online, then dive into your most-asked questions around my workout routine to making friends, plus some easy, breezy questions like these:

• What motivates you in life? What is your end goal for when you're on your deathbed?

• Where is your head at on the kids question these days?

• What do you miss most about marriage, and what do you love most about your life alone?

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My first relationship since my divorce fit neatly into a modern fairytale. Girl gets divorced, girl begins to find herself, girl proceeds to sign book deal, buy house, and find love again. And she lived happily ever after. Except that the subject of Morning Person is my life, and life rarely goes so smoothly.

In reality, the same morning the article touting the success of my new relationship went live and weeks before we were booked to head to Japan together, my boyfriend and I broke up.