As Liz points out, Garbo said, "I want to be LEFT alone," which, even though I am not a world-famous Swedish movie star, I totally get. About once a day, I get a message on my iPhone that my mailbox is 99 percent full. First thing in the morning I sit down and answer or delete at least 30 or 40 messages as a desperate measure because my e-mail gets bounced back when I have 1000 messages. These voicemail and e-mail lists are like albatrosses — they pile up and then I can’t face them. I feel like I did in college when I skipped so many classes, it was too embarrassing to go back or beg the professor for understanding, so I’d drop the course or – worse — take a failing grade. Last week, I spent two solid days doing nothing but going through e-mail and I got rid of about 300 and now they’re back again. I also hate that there is virtually nowhere safe — people can get you anywhere, anytime. If they allow cell phones on planes, I’ll just die. I love that feeling of suspension. For a few hours, you are free to answer to no one and to listen to only the sound of your own voice (if you’re lucky). Planes are where I get some of my best writing done. I remember that after Katrina, cell phones and even landlines far from the storm center did not work for weeks. It was one of the very few silver linings of the storm — you were cut off, you couldn’t get calls, much less return them, and you had an excellent excuse.

Of course, I am being a bit disingenuous. Because when I want to reach someone myself, I’m annoyed as hell when they don’t answer the phone or call or e-mail me back — immediately. Still, I think we’ve lost something with all this instant communication. There are no boundaries. When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to call someone’s house after six o’clock in case they were having dinner. Now there is never a moment when you’re not available and the idea of bad manners has reversed. Now it’s bad manners NOT to be open to this constant stream of interruptions, during the now-quaint idea of the dinner hour or any other time.

As for simply being alone, full stop, I like that too, but usually less than I think. When I really hit a wall, I take the dog down to my mother’s beach house on the Gulf Coast of Florida, and I read and sleep and walk, and after about three days, I find myself dying to chat — to anyone. I have a few glasses of wine and start yakking on the phone to the very same people whose calls I don’t take when I’m feeling harried. Or I strike up long conversations with people I would usually only nod to at the bar of the local restaurant when I am waiting for my takeout dinner. Gone are my Clint Eastwood scowl and New York Times to cover my face. By the time my husband arrives for the weekend I am thrilled beyond words to see him. In the end, I am about as far from Garbo as anyone could get. I am a pretty social animal. I just need a time manager — or a shrink — to help me clean out and manage my in-boxes.