Emchap’s Shit from the Internet 1/9/19 🍠
As someone who long-ago participated in the $50 a pop personal essay industrial complex (no I will not link to my xoJane piece), and who has been writing about myself online in some capacity since I was 12, I've been thinking more and more lately about what I share about myself online, and how.
This is partially because writing about myself—as I am doing now, I realize—stokes a thread of self-absorption that I don't love about my whole Deal. But more of it is about what access people think they have to you and to your inner life, even though me-at-27 is smarter than me-at-12 about putting my tenderest thoughts out for consumption.
People who speak to me about the newsletter (which I'm not complaining about, of course, inject that external validation straight into my heart) and think it represents a canonical version of my experience increase my fundamental worry that those around me don't always know me very well (in part because I don't always let them). Because of the seeming intimacy of an email versus an Instagram post, I think folks are sometimes willing to see what's here as less totally mediated than they would a filtered photo.
But of course the newsletter filtered for my own privacy and so that my dad stops calling me to Ask If I'm Okay. Otherwise it would just be an email-length subtweet about who hurt my feelings this week and a list of things I've cooked. It's very mediated!
On top of that, I was thinking about Jami Attenberg's comment here, posted as part of a thread about her re-entry into that economy with an essay she published about moving to New Orleans (linked below). And I think she's right, mostly—the most interesting essays require a perspective and often a timespan that is poorly served by the immediate response. I've had several different phases in my life at this point, given that I move from spot to spot every few years (at least for now) and the emotional arc of any place for me truly is only available in hindsight in a way that's not available in a weekly newsletter because of course it's not.
I don't know that there's much to do with that, but.
Shit to read
I read Heavy this weekend and am halfway through An American Marriage and both are so good it is astounding.
Please read this review of Lindsay Lohan's new thing.
This is a depressing article about a serial killer.
The writing is a little Much but I did enjoy reading about a very fancy fruit bowl.
This is the deep dive into the economics of Magic: The Gathering's secondary market that you didn't know you wanted.
Anne Hellen Peterson's writing often rings really true to me, and I enjoyed her larger Buzzfeed piece on burnout, her newsletter expansion on it, and her round up of responses from others to the piece (with a focus on intersectional responses, which I think was a good correction of an issue with the original).
I loved this piece on small post-life-change apartments and particularly loved the Ikea rug that everyone has showing up in them.
All my favorite internet advice columnists did a round table and I love each with my whole heart.
This article led me to continue to table getting an Instant Pot for another week.
Attenberg's piece was I thought better than the average Leaving New York essay in part because she's older than the average writer of them, and in part because it grapples with the place she left New York for.
Every single part of this piece on Monty Python and teen culture was so good.
Shit to eat
Buy a pack of boneless, skinless chicken thighs on sale.
Stick the whole thing in the freezer.
Realize, belatedly, that this was a bad idea in the exact way you knew it was a bad idea at the time, and you've now got a block of chicken all frozen together.
Dunk everything in a bowl of water in the fridge for a few hours, get it thawed enough to break half of the thighs off, and break apart and re-freeze the others separately like you know you ought to have originally, bless your dumb heart.
Proof a teaspoon of yeast in a quarter cup hot water.
Add it to a cup and a half of flour, half a teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and a teaspoon sugar.
Stir it up.
Add 3/4 cup of buttermilk.
Stir everything, knead it for three minutes, and cover it and set it aside for an hour to rise. You should knead it on a floured surface, but if you decide to just sort of knead it in the air over the bowl, then, eh.
Take the thawed thighs, and cook them in a pan on the stove; medium-high heat, some oil, five minutes each side. Season it so that you won't be made fun of for the culinary traditions of your people, even though it's going in a whole casserole and probably it doesn't matter much. Stick the thighs in the fridge.
Put a tablespoon of oil, flour, and chili powder (the mild blend kind, not the fuck you up kind) in a saucepan. Cook it for a few minutes.
Add a cup of water, 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, a quarter teaspoon of cumin, quarter teaspoon of garlic powder, and little bit of cayenne pepper (or some ancho you have lying around, whatever). Add half to a full teaspoon of salt, depending on what you're using and whether you bothered to put any in the chicken.
Cook the sauce until it's a little thickened. Taste and add more salt if you need it.
Add a drained can of black beans and the shredded chicken in with the sauce, and stir it up.
Tear the biscuit dough into chunks, and add it in to the mix. If you are me, your biscuit dough won't have set well, and it will not matter even a little bit.
Pour everything into a greased 2 quart dish, cover it in foil, and pop it in the oven at 375 for 20 minutes.
Take the foil off, and put it back in for another 15.
At some point in there, start a video therapy session and feel slightly guilty when you have to go remove the dish from the oven. Show your therapist, who will make polite admiring noises.
After therapy, put a cup of shredded cheese on top and pop it back in the oven for 7 minutes (if there was not an hour-long break in there) or 10 (if there was).
Top with chopped up green onions, wolf down two helpings, and head on out into the night.
(Adapted from BudgetBytes)
Shit to listen to
I went to see a screening of Hale County This Morning, This Evening last night, and super recommend it if you are at all interested in dreamy documentaries about rural black life. It covers a huge timespan for only being an hour and fifteen minutes long, and was one of the most interesting films I've seen recently.
Shit to buy
A plane ticket to Miami.