Emchap's Shit from the Internet 11/20/19 🍠
This morning, while discussing the emotional labor thread that everyone on twitter has had every horrible response to (never become the main character! my feelings on it are primarily this!), a friend sent me a link to this defense of the Find My Friends app, which is one of those apps that I 100% forget is on my phone.
I was thinking about what the author describes, and though so much of it is Very Cheesy and Very New York, I get the appeal. I currently live in what gets jokingly referred to as a low-rent cohousing community—a bungalow complex with 12 units, in which I am friends with 3 of the other households.
We're packed in together in individual houses for the most part, but we're only a few feet from each other—I can see a friend on her computer as I type this, and last night I bopped over to another's to help her set up her credit card autopay because I saw her talking about it on Twitter and it was a 20 second walk. The author is talking about a digital version of the same comforting sense of community.
But of course, as I have said on here before, much of my community is flung all over the place. When I opened the app I was reminded that the one friend who was already sharing her location with me lives 2000 miles away (she was at home; when I opened the app just now to check that figure I saw she'd gone off to work). Of the friends that Apple suggested I add on the app, I had one across the driveway from me, followed by Denver and Austin and Tempe and New York and Philly. I can't use the app the way the author does, because so many of the people I love are far away, but it is nice to be able to see that they're bopping around at home or at work or wherever they might be.
I shared my location with them in part because I'm about to spend the next week flying up to the top of the country and then wending my way back down on the Pacific Coast Highway, and there's something comforting about knowing that if I do get road-murdered, someone can alert the authorities. An in-town friend who responded to the location share with "are you okay?" vowed to avenge me if that happens, which honestly is one very valid definition of friendship, as far as I'm concerned.
So many of the privacy nerds that I know would be horrified by my sharing my location with my friends, but there is something very Text Me When You Get Home about it. And of course the privacy nerds I know (almost all men) are all using Android phones, so they can't see me anyway. The people who can track me down are—at least for the moment—all women.
Shit to read
A real memento mori of a Cut piece as we enter into cuffing season. It did of course make me think about sitting on the MTA, nestled on the shoulder of a man with whom I am no longer on speaking terms.
Ask A Fuck-Up continues to be excellent.
As does Saeed Jones.
Cats looks bad in a "I want to get baked on New Year's Day and see it" sort of a way. Last Christmas looks bad in a "oh, that's bad" sort of one.
Great, the Nazis are recruiting with memes.
I loved loved loved this piece on good vs. bad challenges.
This person, like everyone who has ever written a personal essay for the Cut, seems exhausting.
Shit to eat
Start work at 8am, with a cup of coffee.
Work until 9:45am. If nothing has broken in the night, these will be your most productive hours of the day, and you will spend much of the rest feeling guilty about that.
Realize to your horror that in order to accommodate that, you've become one of those people who doesn't check your email until after lunch.
Put your computer to sleep and go to the kitchen. Turn a burner to medium and put a non-stick pan on the stove.
While it heats, crack two eggs, some cream, and 10 turns each of pepper and salt into a small glass bowl.
Beat it together with a fork. How well you do this will depend on the day.
Spray the pan with canola oil, dump the eggs in, and turn the other front burner on high.
Grab two small tortillas from the fridge, and place one on the burner for 15 seconds.
While it heats, agitate the eggs.
Flip it with tongs for another 10, toss it onto a plate, and put the second tortilla down for its 15.
Agitate the eggs again.
Flip, 10 seconds, plate.
At this point, the eggs will be done, if you like them runny. They will not be done if you're a coward.
Turn off the burner and let them sit in the pan.
Dollop a glob of hummus onto each tortilla and spread it around. Half of the eggs go on top of each tortilla.
On top of that, a sprinkling of pre-shredded cheddar, some cilantro, an eighth of an avocado per taco, and a dab of Pace (accept no substitutes).
Fold each in half, carry them back to your desk, and continue your day.
Shit to watch
I am truly forever fucking up my left shoulder, and this helped. Shoutout to Yoga with Adriene for a truly impressive production schedule.