Emchap's Shit from the Internet 09/4/19 🍠
I spent Labor Day weekend out east, first in NYC and then upstate for a beautiful wedding of two people I love very much. It was a lovely trip (I only burst into tears around a campfire because a friend told me I was worthy of love once), and I got to do that enjoyable thing of swooping into town to see friends that one rarely sees, allowing one to entertain fantasies of always being this popular and exciting. (Which of course isn't what happens, as I know from having lived there while friends with these people.)
(Memo to 16 year old me: You don't wind up living in the UK and in fact dislike your only trip to London, but you do become the sort of asshole who says "back east", which is basically the same thing.)
I was a lovely trip, and emotionally heightened as only a three-day wedding in the woods with no cell reception and 20 of your former coworkers who have known you since you were 23 can be, and by the end of the campfire s'mores-making and stargazing and lower east side-wandering I was considering whether I should move back to NYC.
I texted this to the friend whose place I was occupying while she was out of town, and she very intelligently pointed out that no I don't want to fucking move back there, I hated it from months three through twenty-four of my time there, and I'm just hitting the two year limit of how long I tend to stay in a single place and thus looking to jump ship. She was correct, of course.
(What I want isn't to live in NYC so much as to be both wealthy and unemployed in order to wander around during the daytime and eat beautiful, expensive food. I really need to focus on being a pampered second wife to a titan of industry.)
As if to reaffirm my friend's assessment, the day I left was accompanied by a sideways rainstorm through which I had to drag my suitcase into the bowels of the Essex and Delancey MTA stop, because there are no elevators on the MTA basically anywhere—just narrow, ladder-steep stairs. I arrived looking like a drowned rat and a tourist and ready to head back to my home.
(LA, as if to reaffirm its status as difficult in its own way, was 99 degrees today. I am revoltingly sweaty.)
The night after I got back was a pre-booked Dodgers game trip with friends. (It was Hello Kitty night, we got promotional fleece blankets, and it ruled.) I was excited for normal baseball things (ice cream out of a hat! with churros! Hello Kitty throwing out the first pitch!), but while my friend and I were waiting in line for our pulled pork-covered nachos and Dodger dogs, we looked up at the pre-show entertainment they were doing on the field, and I got to see a very LA thing. The pre-show activity before the national anthem was the citizenship ceremony for 15 new Americans who have elected to join up despite our whole Deal. They swore the oath on the field in front of a judge, and got to wave tiny American flags, and then the anthem was sung by a very talented child. Several people in line for nachos cheered. I teared up.
Then a person in a Hello Kitty costume threw a pitch—badly—and sashayed off the field. The Dodgers proceeded to knock it literally out of the park a few times. I ate churro ice cream out of a hat and had a wonderful time in the company of my friends, themselves all former New York residents (for much longer than me). New York was fun to visit, but I prefer my life in LA, at least for now.
Shit to read
This is the most staggeringly "in this photo and don't like it" description of the bad part of my job.
Bill Hader can get it and Barry is a wonderful show.
Is this a safe space to say that I think the 2005 Pride and Prejudice is actually pretty good, has aged well, and mostly got ragged on by people who confused liking the miniseries with having a personality?
This is a tremendous article about the horrible circumstances our current social order places people in, featuring my home town.
I enjoy seeing what Michelle Tea is up to now that xoJane is dead.
While I was in the woods without cellphone service feebly refreshing twitter like an addict, I finished They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, which was fucking staggeringly excellent. Today I finished 1919, which was a great and quick poetry volume. Recommend both.
Shit to eat
On the way up to see two friends get married, stop in a grocery store in a small town. Stay quiet about the snack selection because you feel slightly out of place for no real reason except your own insecurities and also because you're on a weirdly delayed period and feeling kind of gross and nauseous.
See a display of Little Debbie products and decide that the hill you die on is 25 cent snack cakes.
Oatmeal Creme Pies, obvi, you're not a monster. Zebra cakes? gtfoh.
Spend the weekend drinking a little and dancing a lot and acquiring a goddamn sunburn despite applying sunscreen.
Cry at the wedding ceremony while avoiding eye contact with the crying person next to you.
Later that night, when a well-intentioned friend asks what is supposed to be a joking question that pokes at a sore spot in your personal life, burst into embarrassing tears in front of a large fire that you are sort of worried is going to burn down the cabin you're staying in and take with it your stupid tech dweeb water bottle and suitcase.
Burst into more tears when the same friend realizes they've made a misstep, apologizes, and delivers possibly the best and best-targeted compliment you've ever received in your life; the sort that both soothes a profound vulnerability while also making you angry that someone else is able to see that you are vulnerable about this large and obvious thing.
After a failed attempt to go weepily look at some stars, give up and return to your cabin. Sleep in several layers of clothing and wonder how annoyed one of the other people in the cabin would be if you crawled into one of the tiny beds with them and stuck your cold feet under their shins.
Figure the answer is "pretty", and don't.
In the morning, pack up all your things and head on the road. At the next rest stop, meander inside and run into three other groups of people from the wedding you have just left. Hug them again.
After you've purchased and inhaled an overpriced cheeseburger, clamber back into the car.
Eat an oatmeal creme pie.
Shit to listen to
This Miranda Lambert video is a nonsense delight.
Shit to buy
Someone buy me one of these large fake butterflies.
And this robe.
I bought this pouch in NYC and it made me laugh.