Emchap’s Shit from the Internet 10/31/18 🍠
It has been an emotionally challenging few weeks. I'm coming up on a week out of a breakup; work is very frustrating; and due to many of my local friends being new friendships or otherwise occupied with travel, combined with working out of my home, I have felt very lonely when trying to Go Out And Do Things. (I realize no one is out here attending out-of-town weddings AT me, and yet!) I am feeling sort of soggy and adrift, punctuated by brief periods of joy at the realization that Gritty exists and you can invite him (them?) to your wedding.
And then of course there's the tension between wanting to write this newsletter each week and wanting not to lie about my emotional state (very sad, punctuated with bursts of slightly manic post-breakup energy), and remembering (as I do every single time I talk about myself on the internet, which is all the time!) the time when I was in late elementary or very early middle school, and my family found my LiveJournal full of small dumb sad shit in the way of the early 2000s internet/adolescence, and it was awful in the sort of casual way where the person bringing up the embarrassing thing doesn't think about it ever again and the person on the receiving end thinks about off and on until they are dead. (The fact that basically very single person who is alive has multiple of these is one of the baffling parts about being a human in the world. How is that possible! Why are we!) My sadness is small in the face of how fucked the world is, generally, and my life is so good in so many other ways, and I still spent most of last Friday bursting off and on into tears while angrily writing professional emails.
Things will get better, or improve in some bad areas and get worse in new currently-good ones, or we'll all be absorbed into the grim specter of armed fucking fascism and none of this will matter, and I know that that is true. I'm attending a party tonight. I feel less adrift about the whole thing. At some point the veil will lift, and I'll be able to start writing about rich dude's yards or dumb internet bullshit again.
Shit to read
Sad poetry beloved by Tumblr is of course my jam in this the present emotional moment. (No it's not Rupi Kaur; I'm sad, but I'm not 17.)
Stephen Colbert mostly comes off very well in this interview.
I aspire to the sort of rich woman self-possession displayed by Ina Garten.
A friend sent me this list of all Sufjan Steven songs, ranked, and it's great. I think this piece—an interview with the Lowell of Carrie and Lowell fame—is a great accompaniment and provides some context on the album.
I love the secretary problem, and in its dating iteration I think it's 100% what most people who want to get married do anyway.
I enjoyed this piece on art and permission to represent your own life.
Samin Nosrat is a treasure and this interview with her is a small warm hug of online content.
Ask Polly answered the question this week! (This man is a garbage man.)
Shit to eat
After having gone out with a friend the previous night, get up at 8am the bleary-eyed morning of a brunch you've agreed to host in your home.
Heat your oven to 450, set the racks at thirds.
Put a cup and a half of flour, a teaspoon sugar, and a teaspoon salt in a bowl. Half-heartedly whisk.
Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and a cup of water.
Stir it all together (add water if you need to).
Take the dough and make a big rectangle out of it on your floured counter.
Debate tying your hair back or cleaning the counter or otherwise putting in an effort since this is going to be fed to people.
Do not do any of those things. Live on the edge.
Roll the dough out thin with a floured roller.
Wet your palm and wipe it across the dough top (or use a brush to manage this if you are an adult who owns kitchen tools).
Pat on sesame seeds and rosemary.
Use a satisfyingly large knife, cut the crackers into cracker shapes. Poke each one with a fork.
Transfer them to a floured baking sheet with a spatula.
Bake them for 15 minutes, or less if your oven is not garbage like mine.
Serve them with fontina and runny brie to your guests, and feel sightly smug about it.
(Post that shit on instagram, too; it gets amazing engagement.)
(Adapted from the Kitchn's recipe)
Shit to listen to
Shit to buy
It's Halloween. Buy a bagged assortment of the good candy, get some pumpkin beer, watch Young Frankenstein, and do you.