Activating Turd Mode
Am I doing enough?
My husband coined the saying “turd mode.” It has since taken on various forms and phrases among us, like “I can’t wait to turd out later,” or “time to turd.” For us, this simply involves watching a movie/TV on the couch, preferably with our dinner or snacks. If we are extra turdy, the snacks are full of sugar (we have been on a cookie kick lately). But as much as we love these evenings together, the name developed because of lingering guilt that itches at us despite the comfort of our newly purchased sofa from Albany Park. It’s a pesky feeling that has caused the simple act of couple’s tv watching to be tarnished.
Turdified, if you will.
It’s that ever present question: “Did I do enough today?”
I’m working on the third draft of my novel right now. The whole process has been slower than I’d ever imagined. But I think I’m finally accepting some of that slowness. I’ve realized that my writing process requires a lot of thinking. I do a lot of staring into space, pacing my apartment, going on drives with my specially curated Spotify playlists. I need to think and turn things over and pretend my characters are in a movie with their own special soundtracks. I need to see them do things over and over again before I try to commit their actions and mannerism to paper. So yes, the process is slow. But oftentimes, this thinking doesn’t amount to words, and so I question, did I work hard enough on my novel today? Did I write enough? Was there any progress made if I can’t see it in my word count?
My magazine and writing community are undergoing major changes that will be announced soon. It’s all VERY exciting, and I feel like my years of hard work to make this endeavor my real job have an even bigger possibility of coming true. Over the last few months, my days have been filled to the brim in preparation; emails (so many emails), meetings, content writing, editing, formatting, planning, scheduling, posting…you get it. And I love doing all these things. But the problem with working from home, in the same space you live and the same space you write, is that when you go to sit down to watch a movie with your husband after a long day, you think of all the things you did NOT accomplish, that you could accomplish right now if you just moved your butt from said couch to your desk. That question comes about again when I click on the remote. Did you do enough today?
If all the tasks haven’t been checked off, do you deserve this rest?
I’d love to blame my father for this. (Don’t we all). My father is 61 years old and still works every day as a concrete finisher for his business. It’s a labor intensive job, and he does it all. Then on the weekends, when he is not carting my hockey star brother around to various games and practices, he is usually engaging in some kind of home improvement project. Growing up, he put on a huge addition to our house on the weekends and after work hours. I’m telling you my father built a whole house IN HIS SPARE TIME.
As kids, my sister and I would joke with him about his inability to sit still. Especially when he would walk by us watching Nickelodeon in the living room on Saturday mornings, tool belt fastened and a two by four in hand, and called us “a bunch of TV heads.” His tone wasn’t mean, but I always internalized it as a judgment. Sometimes I would even go to the bathroom when I knew he was going to walk by so at least he wouldn’t see me being that TV head.
Even today, my fourteen-year-old brother is now getting the brunt of it; my father literally perplexed at my brother’s desire to watch TV or screw around on his computer after school.
“If you aren’t working, you ain’t doin’ nothing,” I joke with my brother, a phrase I coined that we both like to rattle off when my father is around to make fun of him.
“If I stop moving, I’ll die,” my father laughs. And we laugh too, but at the same time, I think he really believes that.
It’s times like these I’m reminded of Olympia Dukakis as Rose Castrini in the masterpiece Moonstruck when she finally gets the answer she has been looking for as to why her husband has been cheating on her.
“Maybe it’s because he fears death,” her daughter’s fiancé says. Her face lights up, a moment of clarity, and then she confronts her husband, not by mentioning the affair right away but with this beauty of a line: “I just want you to know no matter what you do, you're gonna die, just like everybody else.”
“Thanks, Rose,” he says.
I have not said this to my father. If I learned anything from Moonstruck (and I’ve learned a lot- should that be another post??), it’s that men deal with their fear of death in many different ways, so I’ll let my father sort that out his own way.
But I don’t think about death, and I also don’t feel that if I stop moving, I’ll die.
I really like my couch. I’m a huge fan of sitting still on it.
But I do want to get to a place where I don’t feel like my novel is losing focus or value or even momentum just because I’m taking a break. I’m going to watch the latest episode of Yellowjackets, no matter what. After a long day of meetings and calls and emails, I want to unwind in front of the TV. And while it’s funny to call me and my husband’s quality time on the couch “turd time,” I want to ignore the negative connotations that say I’m not doing enough as a writer. That I’m not doing enough as a businesswoman. My value is not linked to my production, contrary to how modern society makes me feel.
Sometimes turd mode is a truly wonderful place to be, a beautiful way to spend my time—something I deserve.
And with that, I’ll leave you with more wisdom from Olympia.
