Emchap's Shit from the Internet 02/13/19 🍠
I am a season subscriber at the Geffen Playhouse, for the slightly embarrassing reason that I was never a season ticket holder anywhere before I moved here, and I wanted to Take In Some Culture when I did. (On the whole it has been a worthy investment, support your local arts scene, etc. etc.) I chose the Geffen specifically because I saw one very good play there and they employed a very determined development rep who was good at her job. I miss her intermittent polite but goal-oriented calls.
The way that it worked when I bought the tickets was that the development rep asked me what day of the week normally worked for me, and I said Thursday because that seemed like a nice night to see theatre, and she added me to the fourth Thursday of every show, and I put them in my calendar, and that all seemed fine.
All of which is to say that I had forgotten until I looked at my calendar this week that a) Valentine's Day is this week b) I am spending it seeing a Duke Ellington musical (alone) starring Dulé Hill and accompanied by however many of Westwood's elderly couples have decided on this as a fun night out. (I am without fail the youngest not-a-UCLA-student person in the audience whenever I go.)
I suppose that in terms of Valentine's Days, it's not the worst. Dulé Hill is very handsome and they sell hot chocolate at the theatre. I will probably get some sort of soup and sandwich combo at the City Bakery down the street. It'll be fun. I will live my one wild and precious life taking in theatre with the elderly; there are worse choices to make.
Shit to read
I enjoyed this article about the perverse incentives of venture-backed startups.
Don't be a dick to people whose houses you're takin photos in front of!
Just a lil horrifying nightmare read about student loans.
I absolutely loved this piece about animal cognition and birds and what we owe other creatures.
This exploration of the hard choices of hospice is obviously my jam.
A story about a neuroatypical child adopting a Maine Coon made me sob at my desk this week as a former intolerant-of-change child who has now structured her life so she rarely leaves her house.
So did these two articles about a beloved dead dog.
Sure we can't buy homes but we can have really nice water bottles. (One of my acquisition swag pieces was a s'well and I love that thing.)
Please read this piece about being kicked off twitter.
Opportunity the good rover seems to have died, and I'm very sad about it. (Relatedly, this Tumblr post about Curiosity singing Happy Birthday to itself does me in every time, as does "I'm okay and I'm on a comet" from the Philae landing.) It is fascinating to me that the little robots summon up the same protective instincts in people as babies and dogs. (Did you know if you submit your Roomba for service, you can tell the company to give you back your Roomba?) I get sad about it for much of the same reason that I am sad about Laika. It did a good thing and we left it alone!
Shit to eat
Buy $20 of Girl Scout cookies from an internet friend's kid.
Grumble that a) they're now $5 a box instead of $3.50 and b) the online ordering requires you to pay $10 for shipping.
Wait a week.
Forget about it until a somewhat unwieldy box shows up on your doorstep.
Cut the box open, stash the cookies in the freezer, marvel at the names being different than you grew up with for reasons of copyright law that you no longer remember, and wait.
Next time you are hungry, ignore the fruit you bought specifically for snacking, and house a couple thin mints.
Shit to listen to
I don't understand what is happening in this BTS music video but I support them in their endeavors.
Shit to buy
The fudge-covered shortbreads that the Girl Scouts are doing are actually really good?