Emchap's Shit from the Internet 07/10/19 🍠
I have spent much of today in transit to Portland for a professional conference. Given that I was traveling with a coworker that I like, it wasn't too bad—even working on the plane was pretty seamless. (If Alaska Airlines is in the market for a new marketing tagline, I would suggest "our tray tables are large enough for you to work on even if you have a bodacious rack", because that is not always true and I am absolutely looking at you, American.)
Everything here is green, and it's raining, and my room at this goofy, slightly over-designed hotel comes with apparently complimentary Pride-themed kombucha. (For a brief and heartrending moment, I thought this was in exchange for no coffee machine; it turns out that they just put the coffee machine in the closet for—one assumes—aesthetic reasons.)
But I am happy to be here, closet coffee machine or no, and to see coworkers I am so rarely in the same physical space as, and to wander around the bars that I have fond, somewhat liquid memories of from my last trip out here. One of them gave me a jello shot last time and I hope to replicate that success.
I enjoy business travel, because it's the sort of self-contained activity that it feels (in my heart of goofiest hearts) that I can win. I can have the perfect travel outfit (stretchy jersey pajama jumpsuit + jacket + sneakers) and the tech dweeb suitcase and the employer-branded backpack to hold the previous employer-branded waterbottle. (Though this is a joke slightly at my own expense, I do actually recommend all the linked items very much.) I can buy Global Entry and Marie Kondo my suitcase and know exactly how to minimize the time it takes me to get through security so that I can spend a comfortable 2 hours sitting at the gate, typing away on my laptop.
Sure, everyone else got on the plane, but I got on the plane the best.
I pushed my personal limits today, and elected to sit in my gate chair until everyone was already in line, because (as everyone points out to me) the seating is assigned, you don't get points for getting in line early if you're going to gate check your bag. And it was fine, and I didn't die, and my blood pressure rose a normal amount, thank you. Both me and my bag made it to the northwest. I'm sure the amount of my teeth that I lost to stress-grinding during the experiment was worth it.
Now that I am here, I am off to drink beer with my peers at other companies, and eat pizza, and wander in a pleasant, company- sponsored haze. With any luck, I'll get that jello shot.
Shit to read
The sexiest story about Epcot you'll read today.
What should you get at H-Mart?
Inject the Atlanta/Old Town Road content into my veins.
This story is about grief and laptops and it fucked me the entire way up.
It is a great joy to watch a terrible film be torn apart.
Hell yeah queer paleontologists.
This oral history of Walk Hard is exactly as good as everyone has said.
I thought this breakdown of what's happening in Hong Kong was solid.
Well this made me feel some things!
Cootie catchers! I am fascinated by the anthropology of childhood games.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews vaccinate their kids; it just turns out they're way more social than the herd immunity model assumes.
Shit to eat
Buy a pound of strawberries with the best of intentions.
Eat half of them before things start to go south.
Into a pot, toss half a cup of sugar and half a cup of water. Leave it to boil for 10 minutes, which is probably too much, because it will be the consistency of corn syrup.
Add some more water.
It's fine.
Toss in the strawberries—washed up and chopped—and let them cook on a low simmer for 25 minutes or so.
Stir in half a cup of red wine vinegar and some balsamic if you're feeling saucy.
Let it simmer for a few more minutes.
Once everything is all combined, dump the pot into a fine mesh strainer sitting over a bowl. Leave it alone for an hour.
The liquid goes into a jar and the fridge; the solids can go on whatever you'd put jam on. Or, just eat them. They're amazing.
Over the next few weeks, as you feel yourself melting in the heat, pour a tablespoon of syrup into a glass with some seltzer, and feel quietly smug that you did not have to pay $4 for this at your coworking space.
Shit to listen to
This song about a partner pointing out that your star signs are not really compatible as you get kind of half-ironically and then non-ironically in to astrology pairs well with the fact that two different people told me they check my horoscope this week. I feel loved and also slightly baffled.
Everyone needs some Regrettes in their lives.
Shit to buy
A ticket to Portland. Or to LA. Come west!
This water bottle matches the floor at my coworking space, and it's the same as my namechecked one up top, for cheaper.