SO: Yeah, exactly. I mean, in a way we’re laughing at ourselves because, you know, we were all westerners and feeling like, oh my God, this is so, you know, it, it brought out the fifth grader in you giggling at these penises.
LA: [laughs].
SO: And, and yet it’s absolutely logical and, you know, maybe a bit one-sided in terms of gender, but still there’s this great worship of fertility in general. And so this was my favorite kind of trip, which is that it was a thematic instead of just going to Bhutan, which any, uh, I promise you is worth going in the most unthematic way, just go and see it. It’s a- absolutely gorgeous and the people are lovely, the traditions are amazing, but it also had this through line of the quest for fertility, which was fascinating. And the people on the trip were all trying to get pregnant, and were really looking forward to these fertility festivals and blessings in hopes that that was going to influence their ability to get pregnant.
So it was just an incredible trip. And I’ve thought about it. I actually went back to Bhutan one other time after, just on my own, because I became close friends with someone there. And it, it was just a magical, magical place. E- especially that moment in time. I mean, it, it’s become a little bit more open to the world, a little more, um, kind of buffed up for, for tourism. But, um, it was just an amazing experience.
LA: After the break, how time zones make communication so hard between people who desperately want to connect. When I spoke to Susan Orlean, I was in London en route to Greece and Turkey. She was at home in the Hollywood Hills. No matter how much I travel, it’s still oddly disorientating to be talking to someone who’s framed by an afternoon sky when, where I am, it’s pitch black outside. How do you handle time zones and time differences?
SO: Oh, I, I hate them. In fact, every now and again, I’ve thought, “Why don’t we just have everybody in the same time zone?” And, you know, for you, seven o’clock might be the very middle of the day, for me it’s the morning. It… but I am… [laughs] I find them very disconcerting. And it’s very funny when someone I’m close to is in a different time zone, I feel disconnected, more disconnected from them. Because I think there’s this feeling that if someone’s far away, but you’re, you know, that you’re having lunch and they’re probably having lunch as well.
