Tracy Can't Come To The Column Right Now

Mah Jongg! And pretty rings created by my mahjong friend, Dale! Link to her website, below.

I don’t want to panic you or my editor, but I almost didn’t write this column.

Summers in the Hamptons are always the busy season, but this summer has been my busiest busy season. Which is crazy because I thought last summer was my busiest busy season.

My daily activities are foraging for food, maintaining our shelter, and keeping up with my bodily upkeep. And I have Hampton-specific summer activities: Hosting houseguests, foraging food for those houseguests, and sitting in traffic behind other people’s houseguests while I forage.

I also have hobbies. Not quick, easy hobbies like Tiddlywinks or playing the slots. I have slow, difficult hobbies like golf and mahjong. How can I be expected to also spend hours in my writing garret pounding out a 900-word humorous column when I have all these goings-on going on?

I’ve considered holding a séance to get my mom to write me a note. Except it would take her too long on the Ouija board to spell out “Tracy can’t come to the column right now. She’s too busy with her extracurriculars. Check back this winter when the traffic dies down.”

It would be fine if I was good at golf or mahjong. I just learned how to play mahjong, so I have an excuse. But I’ve been golfing for twenty years, and I still play like a beginner. People always tell me I’ll get better once I’ve had a little more experience. “You can only learn by doing,” they say.

Friends, I’ve done a lot of doing and I’ve learned nothing. What I need is eight more inches in height, some hand-eye coordination, and to resign myself to the fact that my golf game is, well, sub-par.

Eighteen holes of golf takes at least four hours. A five-mile walk and 120 shots is time consuming. I suffer through my middling abilities because every so often, I hit a gorgeous shot. One that arcs into the air and then flops gently onto the green. I call that fancy golf.

Fancy golf is why the game is insidious. One fancy, gently flopped shot beats 119 mediocre swats.

Today, I parred the sixth hole. Then I got tens on the seventh, eighth, and ninth holes. That one par will bring me back to the course another day. That’s how they get you.

Well, that and the outfits and snacks.

My golf ball is hiding in the rough again.

I’m still new to mahjong, so I don’t know how they get you. But for me, the closest thing to a fancy flop shot is being one tile away from a winning hand. I feel like I might know what I’m doing.

Friends, I don’t know what I’m doing. Mahjong is complicated and chaotic. I had to take three, two-hour classes to learn the basic rules. But those were just the basics – the rest is learning by doing.

I needed to find a regular game. The local mahjong scene was a good place to start. It includes Monday Mahjong at Wölffer Wine Stand and Martinis and Mahjong at the Pridwin on Wednesdays.

Perhaps alcohol is how they get you?

I now ask every woman I meet if she plays. I talk about mahjong with my golf partners. I keep a separate “mahjong girls” list in my contacts. I’m in a “Mahj” group chat and a weekly game.

Last week I switched my Costco and Round Swamp Farm food foraging day (the pucks are visiting) so I could play with a woman I’d met once. She’s renting out here and leaving town soon. I’ll never see her again. It was a mahjong one-night-stand. No, it was a mahjong one-afternoon-stand.

I feel guilty about cheating on my weekly mahjong partners but a game’s a game. Even with a stranger. I’d be willing to play mahjong in the alley between the liquor store and the Pilates studio.

Sometimes, before I go to sleep, my thoughts alternate between my swing follow-through and the rules of the Charleston. Or I watch videos. My Instagram feed consists solely of golf tips, mahjong rules, Zendaya, and oddly soothing footage of cargo containers falling off ships in stormy seas.

In the movie “Goodfellas,” the main character, Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta, had an errand-filled day the day he (spoiler!) finally got arrested. He had to drop off some guns at Jimmy’s, bring his brother back to his place, start making dinner, then meet the guys from Pittsburgh to get the drugs he was sending down to Atlanta. All the while, he couldn’t decide if a helicopter was really following him or if the cocaine was making him paranoid. And he was worried no one at home was stirring the gravy for the ziti.

My Hampton summers are filled with Henry Hill days. Last Friday, I had a golf lesson in East Hampton, then stopped at the post office before going home to change from my golf outfit to my mahjong outfit. I drove to Watermill to play for three hours, went home and grabbed Mr. Hockey and two beach chairs so we could meet friends at Wölffer’s live music night.

I don’t need cocaine or paranoia to see helicopters. We live near East Hampton airport.

I didn’t get arrested like Henry did. However, my putting stroke is a crime.

So yeah, this column almost didn’t get written. Don’t tell my editor, but next month’s column is iffy too.

I’d better dig out the Ouija board.

 Published in The East Hampton Press on August 20, 2026

https://www.27east.com/east-hampton-press/opinion/columns/article_9be7df83-8e20-416f-be0f-0bbdebdb57bd.html

Photos by Me!

Dale's website: https://www.dalenovick.com/

Pink Golf Ball by Srixon and my friend Patsy.