Included Below: Weird / Everyone is Missing / Trampoline Hall / Buried Alive / Hammers & Nails. Click HERE for further information about this newsletter. To those from before and those who are new-
I. WELCOME!
It’s not a mystery.
Anyone else feel weird lately? Or is it just me? Probably just me. I really try to be a reasonable person who keeps himself somewhat informed of what is happening in the world. In terms of the pandemic, I’d consider myself cautious but not paranoid. During all these rolling lockdowns and opening things back up, I’ve generally trailed behind by a couple of weeks. So, for example, if a mask mandate is lifted, I’m probably going to stick to wearing the mask for another two weeks. I mean, at this point, what difference does it make?
During this current opening up, the one that was supposed to be the opening up of all opening ups, I’ve been feeling a bit weird in social interactions. I’m way up in my head these days and thinking and analyzing the smallest exchanges in ways even I would regard as excessive.
I’m a weirdo and can be awkward in the best of situations. To me, the last few weeks have definitely been strange - on the one hand, it’s as if we are existing as though this is all completely normal and let’s forget the last two years ever happened what pandemic nice mask dumbass you’re paranoid. And on the other hand, medical professionals are waving their arms trying to get our attention and urging us to be more careful. Wherever you fall on this spectrum, I don’t care, believe whatever you want to believe (and I definitely do not want to hear about it anymore). Cause that’s the point, right? We get to choose whatever we want to be true and that becomes our truth. And that’s kinda just a bit sad to me because it means there’s no chance of creating any sort of a shared reality.
I actually feel better after writing this. Whenever I’m feeling weird or down or confused and I wail about it to my therapist - “WHY?! Why am I feeling this way?” She always reminds me that it’s not a mystery - the world is a weird and confusing place. Always has been, always will be.
The pandemic loosened ties between people: Kids stopped going to school; their parents stopped going to work; parishioners stopped going to church; people stopped gathering, in general. Sociologists think all of this isolation shifted the way we behave. “We’re more likely to break rules when our bonds to society are weakened,” Robert Sampson, a Harvard sociologist who studies social disorder, told me. “When we become untethered, we tend to prioritize our own private interests over those of others or the public.” Improvement may be slow. But experts think human interaction will, eventually, return to the pre-pandemic status quo. The rise in disorder may simply be the unsavory side of a uniquely difficult time—one in which many people were tested, and some failed. ——— Olga Khazan / Why People Are Acting So Weird / The Atlantic.
Q - I’ll just reiterate: anyone else feel weird?
II. TALES FROM THE DREAM ROOM
Each month welcomes an exclusive story from a parallel world.
The Dream Room is a place that where everything is interconnected. The sights and sounds and people that inhabit this world feel familiar. The tales pulled from the Dream Room are sometimes true and sometimes fiction, they may scare you or make you laugh. The Dream Room is a place not to be taken lightly and if you’re ready to enter, read the excerpt below and click on the link for the full story.
EVERYONE IS MISSING: I walked around some more and enjoyed the silence.
After a few days, I started missing people. Not people in general, that was fine. My people. My family and friends. Where had they all gone? Why was I the only one left here? I desperately wanted to see all the people from my life in something more than just memories. I went to a hotel down the street from me and tried sleeping in a new room each night. But I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t shake the feeling that this was just a dream and I needed to just wake up.
There was a lot of freedom of being left behind. There was also challenges. If you needed to do something that you didn’t know how to do, you had to just figure it out. That’s how I learned to hot wire a car. I found a SUV with a full tank of gas and stocked the backseat and trunk with food and supplies. I would like to say that hot wiring a car was as easy as it looked in the movies, but it took me a while.
Read the whole story at this link.
Q - If you were left behind, what would you do first?
III. PAUL’S PICKS
A recommendation of something watched, read, or listened to.
Trampoline Hall is a barroom lecture series started by Canadian author Sheila Heti. The event takes place every month at The Garrison, a club in Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods area. The show consists of three talks each followed by a question-and-answer period, and is hosted by Misha Glouberman. The show is curated and the only requirement is that speakers have to pick topics that they are not a professional expert on.
A few weeks ago, I went to the first live Trampoline Hall since the pandemic started. It was both a bit surreal and comforting. Surreal because this was a show I would attend all the time and it still felt a bit weird to be at a thing like this. Comforting because this was a show I would attend all the time and it felt totally normal.
I don’t really know how to explain this show, it very much is real lectures. They have been some of the very best things I’ve seen and some not so much. But it is always entertaining. I like it because it’s something you can go to with friends or by yourself. If you happen to live in Toronto, I’d recommend checking the show out. You can join their mailing list and find out when tickets go on sale - they sell out fast. They join the list and listen to the Trampoline Hall podcast HERE.
Q - Have you ventured out to something live - music, comedy, storytelling, etc - yet?
IV. FROM THE ARCHIVES
An old story from my blog brought to you in a new way.
I LOST MY SENSE OF HUMOUR AND FOUND IT BURIED IN THE SAND (MARCH 2014): I realized that somewhere around the fall of the year 2013, I lost my sense of humour. I became very serious and boring, and let me tell you, when you have my prominent nose and below average height, your sense of humour is all you got in comparison against chisel-chinned, six-packed, six foot three guys. Without my sense of humour, without my ability to tell a story, I was going into battle with nothing.
If you lose your sense of humour, how do you go about finding it? It's not like a pair of lost keys where you simply retrace your steps to realize they're just in your pocket. So, my choice was not the most brilliant - I turned inside, and holy crap, there was a serious lack of humour going on there. I mean, there was lots to laugh about - my loneliness, anxiety, fear - but not laugh out loud funny. Funny sad funny, the kind where you fake laugh but really want to cry. So I cried. A lot. Maybe if I cried enough, a river of tears would take me back to a place where I could laugh again.
So, the winter largely sucked, my sense of humour frozen under all the snow. An opportunity appeared to travel down to Costa Rica with seventeen people from my co-working office space. After many months of working very hard, I felt I deserved a break. Plus, I knew a few people going and wanted to get to know them better. We flew down south, took a bus out to the jungle.
Read the whole story at this link.
Q - Have you ever lost something and found it again?
V. WATCH, LISTEN, READ, OR DO
Something to take with you.
This episode of the Stories We Don’t Tell Podcast features the last story I ever performed in-front of a live audience. It doesn’t happen very often, but I remember being quite happy with both the story and the reception from the audience. The writing felt strong to me and was pointing in a new direction. Listen to the story at this link.
Two and a half years later, we’re hopefully going to be doing another Stories We Don’t Tell soon. Sometimes we like to take a bit of a break between shows. This break has just gone on a bit longer than usual. Keep an eye on the Stories We Don’t Tell website and Facebook Page. Something will be happening there very soon. And remember that there is tons of content available here:
SWDT Podcast: 144 episodes of writing tips, tricks, and secrets of the storytelling trade. Plus, tons of live stories from the event.
SWDT Blog: if you don’t like listening to something, a lot of the episodes are transcribed here. Plus, other writerly things.
SWDT Book: If you’d like to cozy up with some great stories, get your very own copy of the book.
Q - Is there something you have missed over the last two years that you recently were able to do again?
You’ve probably noticed that I’ve included a question at the end of each section. No, this isn’t required homework. However, if you are compelled to write to me with your thoughts, I would love to hear from you. Who knows, I might even share some of the answers in future newsletters (anonymously, of course). Email me here: jpd@pauldore.com.
March 2022 Edition: Intimations / Love Story / Things Fell Apart / Win Some, Lose Some / I’m Leaving It.