Odessa's Oddities & Curiosities | Week of 1/6/2025

Dear friends,

Happy 2025! As my dad (& the fellow nerds of Twitter) noted, 2025 is likely the only perfect-square-year we’ll experience in our lifetimes, so embrace that. We welcomed in 2025 decked out in tartan with disco-dancing and champagne.

I spent the great majority of this past week completely offline, which was glorious. I’ve been thinking a lot about my phone and attachment and adulthood. And all the ways my phone subs in for stress and pleasure and distraction.

Before this break, I was beginning to become concerned about my attention span. I felt like a slurping sea monster who just needed more and more distraction. It wasn’t enough to have a podcast on 2x speed in my ear, but I also needed to be scrolling and maybe in the middle of a few text conversations. (Chris Hayes is actually writing a book about attention, previewed in his op-ed here.)

I remember when my parents first got me a flip phone in fifth grade. I rebelled against carrying it on me. All of a sudden, they wanted me to call them before I went to Athena’s house, and be available to pick up when they called. My parents teased me for always sending them to voicemail. Had I knowingly subscribed to a new umbilical cord? (This was the metaphor I used in this essay I unearthed from 2017 where I bemoaned my lack of a smartphone).

My burgeoning metaphor for adulthood is kind of like an octopus — tentacles once anchored to home and family gradually reaching out to new things. I’m slowly getting grossed out by my own metaphor. But the point is that the ability to go offline this week was also a process of regression. I needed to rely on my parents for all the things I use my phone for. I moved those tentacles homeward. And I could be blissfully detached.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve been trying to decide whether going offline is a process of detaching or attaching. My instinct would be to say I got to detach from everything, but that’s not true. I re-attached to my family.

And aside from the hours I waste on Instagram, I really noticed the low-grade anxiety that comes with being constantly available and responsive. (Maybe that’s just some social anxiety shhhh). Turning off my phone for a long stretch was a joy. Not that I don’t enjoy connecting with people through my phone, but with my phone powered off, likely dead in the other room, I only had to respond to the present moment. And it was fucking amazing.

I read so much. (More on that to come). With my phone off, I reacquainted myself with the art of people-watching. I talked to myself more. I talked to strangers. I did close-reading of labels and menus and signage. I felt the fine veneer of a superiority complex as I reminded my family to get off their phones and be in the moment with me.

During this break, we went snorkeling and saw this massive sea turtle only feet away (how the hell did evolution come up with that?) And in the company of my rattling snorkel breaths, I spent a lot of time thinking about the social behavior of fish.

I don’t feel great about returning to my phone. But I know that’s part of the process. Part of figuring out my own boundaries. My tentacles. But if I’m slow to respond in the next weeks, know that I left my phone in my parent’s coat pocket.

Anyway, I’ve got books to recommend—enough reflection!

I’m still in the process of reading The Books of Jacob, a near-1000 page tome I picked up at Goodwill by Nobel-Prize-winning author by Olga Tokarczuk. (Interestingly, the Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to an author based on a body of work, but the Nobel Prize in Economics or Physics is for a specific idea/discovery).

And I totally understand the Nobel Committee’s decision. The Books of Jacob is majestic—also, major kudos to the translator (Jennifer Croft). There were so many delightful descriptions. And Olga builds this major cast of characters. You’d think there’d be too many characters to remember, but the descriptions are so vivid that when characters return they just come back into focus like old neighbors. Plot-wise, it follows a false Messiah Jacob Frank in 18th-century Poland (which was especially interesting after spending so much of my semester learning about Jewish history).

I also read The Coin, which was refreshingly honest. I have always hated the phrase
“refreshingly honest”— it makes me think the speaker spends too much time with dishonest people. But with this book, it’s the perfect phrase. The narrator is unnerving, unraveling, re-raveling. The novel is funny, sometimes gross, but always compelling.

I did buy Nexus to read on the trip, but it got quickly volleyed between my parents—the source of many heated debates.

In other books, How to End a Love Story was a great romance novel/peek into the screenwriting room. And The Dagger and the Flame was a well-built fantasy world.

We also watched many movies (and I binged a few reality television shows). My mom showed us The Officer and the Gentlemen. Blooma and I watched It Ends with Us (powerful) and First Daughter (adorable). Speaking of the first daughter, there’s this great piece on Amy Carter.

I binged Polo (like Drive to Survive but for Polo) and Love is Blind, Habibi (very interesting to see the cultural differences between Love Is Blind USA). Also Book Club (fabulous) and Martha (fascinating). All on Netflix.

I also saw two films at our local theater: The Sequoia. (Growing up, Mill Valley never felt like a small town to me, but now, I run into at least two people every time I leave the house.) First, A Real Pain. A brilliant film about two cousins visiting their late grandmother’s house in Poland. Dark humor. Beautiful cinematography. Wow. Second, A Complete Unknown. And let me just say all the hype around this film is duly earned (and remember I’m a contrarian at heart). The film is paced extremely well (by well, I mean fast—remember my short attention span). Timothée Chalamet is beyond brilliant. He inhabits Bob Dylan — and he’s actually singing and playing throughout the movie. Dare I say, I prefer some of Chalamet’s covers… Before watching, I didn’t really get Bob Dylan’s music. But goddamn, this film superbly places him in the context, and I’ve had Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan on repeat ever since. It deserves all the Oscars. I was so emotionally wound into the movie that I burst into tears at the end—not that the ending is particularly sad at all, but I was so overwhelmed I just needed to have a good cry.

Now I’m back to my home rhythms, eating lots of fruit, playing The Sims 4 (ahem with a new expansion pack), and ravaging our local Trader Joe’s.

I just came back from my first-ever five-mile run along the gorgeous Mill Valley-Sausalito Bike Trail and wanting to end with some gratitude for all the beautiful flora and fauna I saw along the path. Elegant egrets. Ducks in synchronized formation. Humans sun-bathing. Packs of bikers. Majestic Mt Tam as the background. Ah, I love being home.

With love & curiosity,

Odessa