Emchap's Shit from the Internet 10/16/19 🍠
I am writing this while sitting on a rooftop in West Hollywood with some very beautiful fake plants all around. My hair looks good and the weather is finally cooling down just a skoosh, and despite a day of conversations that took a turn for the Uncomfortable, I'm feeling pretty good. The world is also on fire. The unsettling tension of "good for me, bad for everyone" has been the most unsettling part of coming out with the long end of the stick (more or less) as the world burns. I can only assume Republicans sit with the same discomfort but just assume that it's a sign of their own superiority.
This has been a mostly Inside Week in preparation for a company trip to Mexico, which if any of my previous experience with company retreats (at this and previous employers) is worth going on, will be fun and exhausting and emotionally fraught and will end with me crying in a hotel room before the week is over. Such is the nature of things.
Over the weekend, I went out with friends to a mermaid-themed bar (I was slightly high and mesmerized by a porthole looping a video of a human woman in a mermaid costume in a tank), which was a delight. Towards the end, I asked the group if we could go get taiyaki at the Somi Somi location that was nearby. There was a muted enthusiasm to their acceptance, but they said yes, so off we went.
It was vaguely magical in only the way that walks with friends when you are slightly intoxicated can be, and on the way there we saw a whippet carrying a stick the entire size of its body. The dog's very handsome owner cheerfully said "he found it!" when he caught us cooing, which is absolutely the perfect response.
Eventually we arrived at the restaurant, at which point one of my friends went "oh! This place rules!" I was excited that the enthusiasm had picked up, and when she followed up with "I thought you said you wanted to get teriyaki!" I was delighted. The muted enthusiasm became more understandable, and I was touched that my friends were still willing to go with me to get post-bar teriyaki when I seemed to want it.
The taiyaki was as always excellent.
Shit to read
This essay on heteropessimism was the best thing I read this week, and it made me wonder if the move to that as something a a cultural default has had an impact on the willingness of women in my cohort to identify as bisexual. (If heterosexuality is vaguely depressing anyway, it's not worth much effort to put in the effort to ignore same-sex attraction when dating men.)
I loved this Saeed Jones piece on his new hometown, which is apparently home to way more internet poets than I realized.
The line "maintaining this posture strikes me as perfectly reasonable" just killed me.
HONK.
Food halls are fucked up.
The article isn't groundbreaking, but it's great to see the NYT talking about radicalization of white teen boys.
This ode to Florida is great.
Iowa media is imploding, apparently.
Read at least until you get to the compound word.
This article on specific pieces of code that changed the world was just tremendous.
Where did the 5 love languages come from? (I think the premise that we bought into this because it allowed us to couch needs as "this book says x" rather than "I need x from you" is probably correct!)
Shit to eat
In a skillet, dump in some olive oil over medium.
Cut up an onion. Look up the "right" way to do it. Realize the comments are more acrimonious than your average HackerNews article.
Toss the onion and two garlic cloves (minced absolutely the incorrect way) in, alongside a teaspoon each of cumin and coriander. Add half a diced jalapeño.
Wash your hands.
Wash them again.
Poke it around for a while until the onions are translucent. Fret about it, but also realize this is basically soup and it's fine.
Add two cans of drained chickpeas.
Realize this is way more chickpeas than you were expecting.
Also a small can of crushed tomatoes that it took you 20 minutes to find at the grocery store, somehow.
And half a cup of water and a half teaspoon of the good good goya stock cubes.
Cover with a lid and cook for 7 minutes.
The recipe will say it will thicken. It won't really. This is fine.
Add in most of a plastic thing of baby kale.
Re-cover, cook for another three minutes or so.
If, like me, you live alone, decant some portion of this from the skillet into a smaller pot.
Put it over medium heat, make a well, crack an egg in it. Cover it in feta that you crumble by breaking it off the block like a goblin.
Cover the pot and cook for 7 minutes.
Take it out, decant into a bowl, cover in mint and thyme and sour cream (the Greek yogurt substitution trick in reverse) and eat in front of an episode of New Girl.
(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen.)
Shit to listen to
The Magic Mike XXL soundtrack. No, I will not be accepting questions at this time.
Shit to buy
Go to Little Tokyo in LA. Go to the vaporwave homegoods store across from Somi Somi. Buy the pink Windows 10 sweatshirt. You're welcome.