Emchap's Shit from the Internet 08/7/19 🍠
Over the weekend, I did two firsts—one an LA first, and one a life first. The LA-specific one was that I finally had a bacon dog. Bacon dogs are to LA what falafel carts are to Manhattan, in that they are basically everywhere you might get foot traffic and they're great if you're drunk. The dog was (as the name might suggest) wrapped in bacon before being covered in sautéed onions and peppers and it was $5 and it was cooked up on a tiny grill in front of me and it was good as h*ck.
I ate the dog outside of the life first—I attended my first arena concert. (Not counting seeing Lizzo last year at xoxo in what she dubbed her half-arena show.) Because 2019 is about making 10-year-old me's dreams come true, the arena show was the Backstreet Boys. It was in the Staples Center, which seats 20,000 people, and it was a truly bananas fucking experience.
The band has—as they reminded us an uncomfortable amount—been a band for 26 years. And of course I was completely, completely obsessed with them for a while as a child, being pretty squarely in their prepubescent demographic in the late 90s. (Being a fair-weather fan, I bounced between them, N*Sync, and The Spice Girls.)
The show was fun! They had truly bananas 90s screensaver graphics behind them, and there were pyrotechnics, and they dressed in goofy costumes, and because I am now old enough to not care about being cool, I got to enthusiastically warble along with everyone else in the venue to songs that I will, apparently, just remember until I am dead. It was truly a weird and fun experience to be in a room full of people jamming the fuck out to the soundtrack to their adolescent sexual awakenings.
My favorite moment of the evening was at the end, though. The Staples Center, not fucking around, turned the house lights on as soon as the encore was over. As part of the polite "get the fuck out" vibe, they cranked up the house music—which was "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls. The show's demographics being what they were, you could feel a room-wide pause as people realized what the music was. And then, essentially, the entire room started very politely singing along.
I mean, duh. We were all children in 1996 and we are all now old enough to appreciate that "Easy V doesn't come for free, she's a real lady/And as for me, ha you'll see" is a very funny (if #problematique) line, actually. It was great.
Shit to read
Cat Cohen's "Into the Gloss" basically boils down to being 26, but was nonetheless fun to read.
AWS enforces noncompetes, in case we were looking for new reasons why the borg that runs the internet is high-key garbage. (I will miss my worker protections when I leave California, a little bit.)
I waffle on whether or not I want kids, but it's pretty clear that coparenting with men in a cohabitating situation is still, in 2019, a situation in which I would lose. (I like dating software engineers for a lot of reasons, but as I eye longterm partnership it is not lost on me that they are essentially the only Americans who get significant paid paternity leave.)
This made me cry.
I am so excited for Jia Tolentino's book.
Why is every piece of language evangelicals give us so cheesy and bad. (If you ever use "love on" near me in that context I will stop speaking to you. It is a revolting phrase.)
I loved this piece on Jane the Virgin and sexual anxiety.
This long read about Mapplethorpe's legacy and what he means in a context in which is sexual portraits no longer shock except in how they objectify Black men is great.
I thought this long dig into the chronic Lyme movement to be so, so, so good.
TIL about what the Freemasons are up to.
This article about the existential distress of tech company employment + recognition of how lucky you are is, uh, pretty much my time in New York.
A great writearound about what it is to be a fan.
Shit to eat
Make plans to get pancakes with a man from the internet.
The day before you are supposed to get the pancakes, open Tinder and realize he has unmatched you.
Stew.
In the morning, debate whether you still want to go to the diner, which is fun but overpriced.
Decide that you can make your own pancakes.
Into a mason jar, add (in order): half a cup of condensed milk, half a cup of water, your last egg, 2 tablespoons of oil, a cup of flour, 2 tablespoons of sugar, a teaspoon of baking powder, and some salt.
Shake it while singing the Spice Girls to yourself.
Heat up a cast iron skillet over medium-high and add more oil than is called for, because you like your pancakes crispy.
Pour out enough for a big-ass pancake.
Toss blueberries on top of it. Pretend for the purposes of this letter that you washed them.
After a few minutes, flip it. Let it cook for another minute while you make coffee.
Slide it onto a plate, eat it covered in maple syrup and accompanied with your coffee and Wellbutrin, and be grateful you didn't have to put on a bra.
Save the extra batter in the jar; enjoy pancakes for a few more days.
Adapted from this Kitchn recipe.
Shit to listen to
I loved loved loved this episode of Call Your Girlfriend about marriage and friendship through a historical lens. I need to read Marriage: A History.
Shit to buy
I bought this goofy hairbrush as part of my nosedive into curly hair youtube, and I've been pleased with how it makes my hair look!
I saw someone wearing this shirt at my coworking space and lost it.