Attention Inventory: Salty Salads, Clicky Keyboards, The Odd Woman

5 things holding my focus (including one noteworthy toothbrush)

Life is full of things we didn’t choose, not to mention an algorithm that’s fine-tuned to serve up distractions disguised as discovery. There’s a different kind of freedom in following what actually fascinates you, in letting your attention wander on your own terms instead of being passively led.

Attention Inventory is a list of 5 things that have held my focus this month: what I’ve sought out, stumbled upon, or fixated on by choice. The idea here being to take this as inspiration to make your own version…or maybe just take a moment to notice what’s been pulling you in.

1. WALKING & TALKING

I read Vivian Gornick’s The Odd Woman and the City. I don’t remember how or why it crossed my path.

The memoir feels like a love letter to life in New York, in the company of others, piecing together who you are through conversation. It’s about getting older, about the way time crystallizes and calcifies. Her writing is deceptively simple but profoundly sharp, and certain scenes will stay with me for a long time. I’d imagine some may find her perspective bleak—there’s no false promise of growth, no softening of loneliness, disappointment, or dread. But her wit is so cutting and so funny that it feels more like a bracing dose of reality rather than deluded optimism.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship, conversation, and connection—the way some bring an unguarded flow, while others leave you tiptoeing around landmines. Thinking about conversation as a means of survival.

“They walked and they talked; they took tea and they talked; they went to museums and they talked. They talked books, they talked writing, they talked the moral imagination. The exchange was, of course, not personal in any usual sense, but the intellectual honesty that animated their talk resulted in a conversation that made each of them feel less alone in the world.”

“Good conversation is not a matter of mutuality of interests…or commonly held ideals, it’s a matter of temperament: the thing that makes someone respond instinctively with an appreciative ‘I know just what you mean,’ rather than the argumentative ‘Whaddaya mean by that?’ In the presence of shared temperament, conversation almost never loses its free, unguarded flow; in its absence, one is always walking on eggshells.”

Also recommended: Gornick’s earlier memoir of childhood, Fierce Attachments.

2. ORAL FIXATION

Last month I wrote about these perfect marker/pens from Japan and I have never felt more…at home amongst my people:

I’m back with another niche recommendation that has become a full-blown character in my life. My husband bought this toothbrush at Tokyo Hands, mostly as a joke; it’s absurdly oversized, like something a cartoon character would use. But turns out the joke’s on us: it’s the best toothbrush I’ve ever used.

3. CREAMY TECH

As a modern woman, my life is an endless loop of clicking, clicking, clicking. Switching between various-sized screens and clicking some more. We demand more clicks! “Let’s double-click on that.” Insatiable.

Because I need to keep up my quota, I did something really…off-brand.