Category Archives: General Anxiety

Greetings to all, anxious and calm. This coming Tuesday, June 11, Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety, will be released in paperback by Simon & Schuster. It’s a lovely looking thing, in my opinion, and even soothing (paperbacks, soft and non-lethal as they are, can be very soothing).

I’m going on tour to promote the paperback’s release and would love to see you. I’ll do a little reading, answer some questions, maybe do a spot of hyperventilating if I’m asked nicely. I’m making appearances in the following cities/locales: Boulder, Denver, Berkeley, Marin County, Seattle, St. Louis, and Concord, NH. Full information is below. I hope you can make it out. As always, bring Xanax. I tend to run out.

Tuesday, June 11, 7:30pm: Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl St., Boulder, CO

Wednesday, June 12, 7:30pm: Tattered Cover Book Store, 2526 East Colfax Ave., Denver, CO

Thursday, June 13, 7:00pm: Books Inc. Berkeley, 176o 4th St., Berkeley, CA

Friday, June 14, 7:00pm: Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera, CA (Marin County)

Tuesday, June 18, 7:00pm: University Bookstore, 4326 University Way NE, Seattle, WA

Wednesday, June 19, 7:00pm: Left Bank Books, 321 North 10th St., St. Louis, MO

Thursday, July 11, 7:00pm: Gibson’s Bookstore, 27 South Main St., Concord, NH

I hate to leave the numbing cold and soot-encrusted ice piles of NYC in February, but I’m headed to the Bay Area for a few (Jewish-culture-related) book events. They are as follows:

1. Tuesday, Feb. 12, 7pm: Osher Marin JCC, bit.ly/Wk4Rvh (with a panel of experts who may or may not attempt to cure my anxiety RIGHT THERE ON STAGE!)

2. Wednesday, Feb. 13, 7pm: Oshman Family JCC, (Palo Alto), bit.ly/Z5yKSM

3. Thursday, Feb. 14, 7pm: Jewish Community Library (San Francisco), bit.ly/X0OrHN

C’mon, West Coasters. You talk a good Zen game, but I know you’re nervous!

Here’s the full episode of my talk with the great Marc Maron. We talk about all sorts of things: sex, self-involvement, circumcision, college, love. Do it up!

WARNING: Those readers offended by vulgarities, explicit sexuality, and stubborn, roiling, ugly resentments against family, culture, and the universe should proceed with caution. 

This Thursday I’m going to be on WTF with Marc Maron. Here’s a preview.

A reader sent me this old Bob Newhart sketch. Not the most effective form of therapy, but heck, I’m willing to try anything.

Or should I call it “avalanche anxiety”?

“Busyness anxiety”?

“Silence anxiety?”

I’ve been slammed, folks. This is a good thing. I’ve been talking on the radio, publishing essays, traveling here and there, and going on TV. The “reading public” — that shrinking but powerful and beloved entity — has shown a sincere interest in Monkey Mind, and I’m enormously grateful. My cup runneth over.

But some things have slipped, and foremost among these has been my presence here on the website. There have been no videos, no “Ask Dan’s Mom,” no “Tales from the Amygdala.” The gears have slowed. But with any luck — and, I suspect, an unwise amount of coffee — they will start up again soon.

So stay tuned. In the meantime, I give you this — a pleasant conversation I had recently with Gayle King on CBS This Morning. The only weird part was forgetting to leave the studio before I took off my makeup. (The makeup woman, incidentally, was one of the coolest people I’ve met in a long time. A Turkish woman. We spoke of Istanbul, where I dream of someday living. Gayle King was supercool, too. We had a long conversation in the green room about how I lost my virginity.)

I’ve got a new piece in The New York Times about anxiety. This one is about anxiety and habit; I argue that while anxiety might come on as an affliction/disorder, it continues because it is a habit of mind. Whatever else might help us feel better, recovery demands that we find some way to alter the damaging, insalubrious patterns of thought into which anxiety leads us. (“Lead” might actually be the wrong verb; it seizes us by the lapels and yell into our ears.)

The essay, titled “The Anxious Idiot,” is part of the Times’s great Anxiety series. It’s the third I’ve done for the series. The first essay, published in January, was called “It’s Still the ‘Age of Anxiety.’ Or Is It?” The second essay, published in May, was called “Do the Jews Own Anxiety?”

I’ve added some new events to the Author Appearances department of this website. Most immediately, I’ll be out in Los Angeles on Monday, reading and signing books at Book Soup, and I’ll be in the Boston area on Thursday, at Brookline Booksmith. I hope you can make it out.

Also, I’ve been invited to a very cool event, sponsored by The Jewish Week, at Congregation Rodeph Sholom, on the Upper West Side. I’ll be in conversation with Joy Ladin, the author of Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders. I’ve just received Joy’s book and it looks fabulous. I’m really looking forward to talking to her. The event is on Wednesday, July 25, at 7pm. Information here.

Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety is now available at your friendly neighborhood bookseller — or from whomever or wherever you choose to buy your books. Publication date was July 3, and the book’s been getting some very nice attention, including an interview on NPR’s Talk of the Nation.

Check it out. I hope you like the book. Just remember: if you don’t buy a copy your inaction will trigger a series of debilitating panic attacks from which I will never recover. That’s on you.