Emchap’s Shit from the Internet 1/2/19 🍠
Happy 2019, motherfuckers.
I ended the old year in a very #onbrand way (which is to say I went to a sandwich-themed party, consumed an edible, ate an entire bowl of frosted animal crackers, and was in bed by 11:50) and started the new year in an optimistic one (falling asleep to the sound of fire crackers). I spent the first day of the new year talking to almost nobody, not leaving my house, and cooking. After an Emotionally Intense Christmas Trip, it was the right note to strike.
It is weird because I can remember ringing in 2016, 2017, and 2018 with the vague optimism that this new year would not—like the preceding trash year—be the worst. Every year I have been disappointed on a global level (famous people keep dying, the living famous people keep being revealed as horrifying creepshows, the world is on fire in increasingly literal ways), and often on a personal one (Atlanta made me want to claw my eyes out in wallowing directionless malaise before I left, New York was cold and wet and sad half the year, the same problems of my personality kept rudely manifesting no matter where I lived).
And on a global level, for sure, 2018 was Bad. But on a personal level it was... okay, kind of? It feels almost like I must be forgetting some horrible personal thing, the way the last few years have gone. But I moved to LA and for the most part have really, really enjoyed it; I've found friends and joined clubs and cooked so much more than I did in New York and taken to many luminously golden hour-ed selfies on hills. I got into and then back out of a relationship and I'm sad about it not working out but not having done it, which is rad (#therapy). I baked a bunch of stuff I hadn't baked before and mostly it turned out!
I've been struggling a lot the past few years with what to do with myself now that I'm at a period of life where I could (if I wanted to) tread water for the next 30 years. I am fundamentally a working dog, and so in the absence of clear goals to achieve, in a situation where I am so profoundly lucky enough to be able to be motivated by personal whim and internal fulfillment, I am a little adrift.
I don't do resolutions, but I do think that if I have a focus for the next year, resolving that tension is it; I want to feel secure that I am building towards a life that near-future me will like.
Shit to read
Did you miss this Elizabeth Wurtzel piece on finding out her biological father was not who she thought it was? Because you owe it to yourself to read it; it is BANANAS.
Like on one level I realize recipe bloggers are giving us free food content and we should be grateful, but people who do the long narrative around their recipe without clearly labeling the recipe are the WORST.
I am obsessed with the USCPSC twitter account, which is the absolute best and weirdest approach to a twitter account that mostly tells you not to plug space heaters into power strips, and really enjoyed this thoughtful and kind interview with the dude who runs it.
Male gaze, female-presenting nipples, etc. etc.
The hottest woman I know spends large sums of money on remaining that way (which she once helpfully outlined to me in a document about how to make my skin better; shoutout to Biologique P50 and its corpse smell) and that was all I could think about in this documentation of another woman's beauty costs.
Hootie and the Blowfish deserved better. (I caused quite a stir on twitter today when I mentioned today that I hadn't realized that Darius Rucker, who I am aware of mostly as a Country Dad, was the titular Hootie.)
Shit to eat
Heat a dutch oven.
Pour some oil in it.
When it's hot, dice an onion and toss it in there, with a few cloves of minced garlic.
Cook that for 5-10 minutes, until it's soft and smells nice.
Add 2 cups of broth, half a teaspoon of red pepper, and a teaspoon of salt.
Stir. Taste. Add more salt if you need it.
Turn it up to boil while you rinse and tear up two bunches of collard greens. Toss the middle stems; they're a pain. (Or use them for stock, I don't know.)
Once it's hot, toss in the greens.
Turn the heat down to low, cover the pot, and cook for somewhere between "an hour" and "whenever".
Take the greens and be glad you found them instead of kale for once at the grocery store.
(Adapted from Divas Can Cook)
Shit to listen to
I have been listening to "Love U Forever" on loop every time I've been out walking for the last week, and it's great. Make your life feel like a movie where someone's about to make a grand gesture for your affection. It's great.
Shit to buy
Seriously go buy a vegetable if you have just been eating bread for the last two weeks (#self).
My exchange size of this bra is waiting for me in my mailbox and it's on sale and it's so good, y'all.
I think this is the year where I buy a really nice hamper.