32. Open Tabs
A new format! Let me know if I should do a part two!
(Me trying to get through these damn tabs.)
wrote a Substack far too long ago for me to not be embarrassed to be referencing only now about open tabs. I have 78 open tabs at all time. Rows and rows of shark teeth across my Chrome browser, leering at me, taunting me to read that article, buy that pair of Playboy loafers1 from Duke + Dexter, submit a poem I scratched out to a small literary magazine.’s Alex Aciman waxed on the open tab as such: “These tabs are a chronicle of all the various places my mind has drifted to over the last few months—all the threads that have tugged at my attention…After almost ten years of this, I’ve realized that my eclectic mix of tabs is not actually a laundry list of interesting things I intend to look into in earnest; instead they represent the building blocks of the person I think I ought to be.”In an effort to hold myself accountable to closing some of these tabs, I am listing the first 30 (THIR TY; I told you!!) here. I hope you enjoy this look into my weird little brain:
Gmail. Gmail always comes first. It is the ripe, eggfruited womb from which most of my tabs are birthed.
The website of a company with which I’m interviewing. Wish me luck!
My next Substack draft that’s going to get me in hot fucking water, “On Unionizing Ex-Girlfriends.”
Akosua’s piece that inspired this one.
The “Editorial/Ideas” Substack draft I keep open and fill with memes, articles, and ideas for future personal essays.
My Google Calendar. Coming up this week: a call with the prospective producer I discussed in last Friday’s Week in Me, therapy, Danzig on Saturday oh my god I am seeing Danzig on Saturday, a reminder to binge the new season of Selling the OC, and spending Wednesday in Philly with Audrey and Sean.
An Oxonian review interview with Parul Seghal, one of Akosua’s open tabs. When asked to describe her style of prose, she offers the (staggering) following:
Seghal’s 2021 essay “The Case Against the Trauma Plot.”
The below piece from
on the artist Gwen John2, a new discovery for me:A Substack post from
‘s called “Hell is Being By Myself.”An interview with the new cast of Real Housewives of New York.
A profile on Sarah Jessica Parker that now has the “you’ve read your last remaining article” paywall blocker over it, so I’ll have to read it through archive.ph.
A deliciously Geocities website called DVDRParty listing a region-free DVD of Son of the White Mare (Fehérlófia), an eighties Hungarian animated fairytale with which I am obsessed. Shoutout to Bruce, the site’s proprietor, for responding so charmingly to my emails:
Another paywalled article, “Taylor Swift Has Rocked My Psychiatric Practice.”
12-13. The Paris Review’s Spring and Summer dispatches.
A Todoist homepage that I haven’t looked at in months, listing six things I have not done yet (looking at it now, I got to check off activating my new credit card and a task for my now former boss.
An application for the SAFTA (Sundress Publications) spring residency, conveniently left open to the portion where I’d actually have to submit written work.
A recent post from
’ :A case study by Brandy E. Wyant entitled “Treatment of Limerence Using a Cognitive Behavioral Approach.” Limerence, a state of infatuation or obsession with another person that involves an all-consuming passion and intrusive thoughts, is my favorite mental illness (but I’m biased).
Love-Variant: The Wakin-Vo I.D.R. Model of Limerence, by Albert Wakin & Duyen B. Vo
This dress from Nasty Gal, which will be a futile endeavor as…where will the soldiers (my titties) be quartered on this eve?
“The Underrated Beauty of the ‘Micro-Romance’” by Daisy Alioto, which I elected to read when I clicked onto it and is now closed!
Rachel Syme’s magnificent New Yorker profile on Sarah Jessica Parker. Closed!
“saraj jessica parker nativity” Google search (typo and all), yielding this incredible headpiece discussed in the profile:
An AllPosters page for Pablo Picasso’s “Dora Maar,” pictured above.
One of Dora Maar’s works, below, that I wish I could order in a size large enough to serve as a tapestry headboard over my bed.
Neil Diamond on living with Parkinson’s disease: ‘I was just not ready to accept it’ by Michael Sun for The Guardian. I’m afraid to read this one. I am a Diamondback through and through. I love Neil.
The page for the BackStar Film Festival film short Grape Soda in the Parking Lot, about Scottish Gaelic. As a Gaelic speaker, I need to see this and am trying to get in contact with the festival so I can hopefully write about it.
This short story by Joe Kelly for The Dirt, “The Best,” about an alluring woman with a sex addiction. Closed!
“More,” from Mondo Cane, which is referenced in the short story above. Closed!
A longform YouTube video on the making of The Wizard of Oz, which I believe was suggested in one of
’s newsletters but it’s been months and who knows!A free web upload of David Byrne’s True Stories starring daddy of my loins and life John Goodman. It’s a shock that I have not gotten to this one yet. I think Jason recommended I watch this. Jason? Was that you? I will get to it.
Let me know if you enjoyed even a second of this. It let me close a few tabs! I want to do another!
Love you bitches,
TG
I will only now think of Gmail as womb 😂
Ahhhh I love this format! A fascinating tour into process