Emchap's Shit from the Internet 03/11/20 🍠
I am writing this from the lobby of my hostel in Dublin (hostel travel: still pretty tenable if you're by yourself and have learned to pack ear plugs and eye masks), where I have spent the last few days. I am here because my company had previously booked its twice-annual offiste here, planned for next week, and I was taking advantage of that to spend my birthday here, visit a nearby aunt, and hang out with my boyfriend before the work even. It was going to be a cool trip!
And then.
I chanced it because I'm young and have no known underlying conditions, and because I work out of my house and can quarantine once I return, and because I wanted to see my aunt who I haven't seen since an ill-fated Thanksgiving trip after my mother's death where I burst into tears in the grocery story because of sweet potatoes. I have been furiously washing my hands and avoiding touching my face and ratcheting up my anxiety by reading the maybe-true accounts from Italy about the current state of things. Coming here was probably not the correct response from an epidemiological or moral stance, but I had invested money in the thing and everything felt slightly less dire on Sunday, before Italy shut itself down.
So, it's been an anxious sort of trip, walking around and fielding happy birthday calls and texts from people I love (if I haven't texted back it's not that I'm ignoring you, it's that I can't iMessage on the phone number or SMS at all—my email address still seems to work, who knows, hit me on whatsapp etc.) while trying not to think about the state of the world/my personal complicity in pandemic. I don't live near any of my family, and it's meant that our experiences of the pandemic have been really disparate, which has added an additional surreal layer to the thing.
The anxiety has been ratcheted up by the fact that being in Europe without a ton of money to spend is always less enjoyable than I think it will be. (My friend pointed out that I should stop visiting in transitional seasons, which is VERY correct.) I want to be Out There Walking Around but today was mostly spitting rain and 20 MPH winds, and various things that I wanted to go to (particularly the Book of Kells) were shut down for pandemic reasons. It was a lot of wandering and feeling slightly like I wasn't doing vacation right.
But, it wasn't all bad. I started the day at the archaeological museum, which had an exhibit of bog bodies up. I once went out with a dude shortly after graduation (right after my mother died, I had no business dating), and in my grief and social dead-eyed state, I spent a lot of time talking about bog bodies (bodies thrown into bogs, preserved for hundreds of years by the peat; they're periodically confused for current-day murder victims). We did not go out again. I later moved to New York, matched with a nice-seeming guy in Jersey, and was surprised when he asked if I'd used to live in Atlanta. He said he was pretty sure that we'd gone out before, and I'd talked about bog bodies.
So, y'know, brand.
Beyond that I ate a giant pile of salmon and some very fancy shortbread, and wandered down the way to the natural history museum; I drank beer in a very fancy bar and enjoyed a slightly-less windy walk home. It absolutely could have been worse.
Shit to read
Why are medieval cats Like That?
This is some truly engrossing hobby drama about chess, a thing I do not care about and am terrible at.
Just in case you wanted to be angry.
In part because of this piece on staying connected to community during viral outbreaks, I assembled a casserole and froze it before I skipped town. Worse case scenario I just eat it when I get home.
This is extremely "sort of eye-rolly white people" but I did think it was interesting.
Did you know a chicken can't go deaf?
Many gender and sexual identities have existed for much longer than we give them credit for.
A fascinating glimpse into Japan's lost and found system.
I'm in to this concept. (I always thought Charlotte's tradeoff of marriage for a parlor she was in charge of seemed like not the worst deal.)
Shit to eat
Go to the cafe at the Dublin Archaeology Museum on the recommendation of a twitter friend.
Ask for the carrot cake, which has been recommended to you.
Be told they don't have it.
Panic-order the millionaire's shortbread you see instead.
The cafe woman will look at you like you are losing your mind.
"The caramel?"
"Yes, sure."
Eat it with a fork. It'll be very good.
Shit to listen to
The fancy cafe I was in today played the only good love song, which seemed emotionally hostile.
Shit to buy
Soap.