Emchap's Shit from the Internet 8/16/17 🍠
I am in Atlanta this week, which is where I am from, and it's the first time I've been back since January 2016, which is nuts, and it's all a Whole Lot. I'm mostly enjoying staying in my dad's small, tidy house with a hammock and a deck, and eating tremendous amounts of food at all the places I grew up eating, and running into people unintentionally. (Two, so far—one where she was working at a bookstore, and another where he was writing at a coffee shop, and both people of whom I am tremendously fond.)
It has been weird being reminded of how spaced-out and full of trees Atlanta is. It is so green! The climate is such that you're basically only carving out space in a forest, and there is absolutely a sense that if you turn your head away from the trees for too long, the ents will come back in force.
I was really, tremendously unhappy the last year of my living here. It felt a bit like a dog with its leg in a bear trap being unwilling to gnaw its own arm off to get free. (This was something I tended to talk about while drinking, which made me super fun to be around, I am sure.) And I don't want to move back now, if ever, but on the flip there is a feeling of physical ease here for me: I know what to say to service workers and where to stand and how to be in the space. In New York I am constantly self-conscious about how I stand on the subway, and how I stick my elbows out in the tiny bullshit narrow aisles of stores, and how all the chairs are tiny and awful.
There's no resolution to this. I am excited for the rest of my trip. I drank a tankard of sweet tea today. I'm going to go sit on the porch and listen for birds.
Shit to read
If you are married to a Trump supporter, divorce them: both solid advice, and the title of this Jennifer Wright piece. I have nothing funny or clever to add; I have no idea how people date others of different political persuasions in the US, because the side that isn't mine is one of abject cruelty. This week has been horrifying and scary and I can't imagine what it is to be more visibly Jewish or a PoC or any of the many other more visible axes of oppression. I've been donating money and using the 5 Calls app. It feels a little bit like something.
This long-read on an Asian fraternity hazing death touches on Greek culture at US universities, and on the establishment of a pan-Asian identity for American immigrants, and is just really tremendously well-done and sad.
When we inadequately fund services for folks who are struggling, the burden of care falls on other civil servants (often librarians, in this case a super cool bus driver).
A colony of rare bats has moved into a fiberglass triceratops. This makes me very happy.
La Croix + booze is the drink 2017 needs. (I tried mango + tequila, because mango is inexplicably the only La Croix flavor my dad keeps in his house.)
Shit to eat
Stop into an indie bookstore on your block.
In a fit of "oh god the indies are dying" guilt, purchase a copy of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. (If you don't own this cookbook or its meaty companion volume, super recommend; they're great.)
Poke around in it until you find a warm chickpea + arugula salad, realize you have the two title ingredients, and put the cookbook away because you're going to be improvising the rest of it.
Cook like a third of a bag of chickpeas, or just buy a can and use them; honestly for all that everyone says that dry beans are cheaper, canned beans are not that expensive and are worlds more convenient.
Drain them.
Heat three tablespoons of olive oil, and add half a teaspoon of oregano and some minced garlic (I went with three cloves).
Add a teaspoon of sugar (or honey, if you have it in your house like an adult, which I did not) and a tablespoon of vinegar (preferably rice; I used white, because again, not an adult).
Cook that for a while until it's all brown but not burned.
Add the chickpeas and a bunch of salt and pepper.
Keep tossing the chickpeas until they're coated.
Do you have half a log of goat cheese you need to get rid of before vacation? Toss that in there and stir until it's mostly melted.
Dump all of that onto whatever salad greens you have, preferably arugula.
Toss, and eat hot.
Shit to listen to
Go listen to some Etoile de Dakar. It's the music for sitting somewhere warm.
Shit to buy
I'm very into the idea of owning a lightbox, and I like this one.
I resent paying for my makeup primer because it's expensive, but it is really fucking effective.
How much do you think Girlfriend Collective paid for girlfriend.com? Their leggings are back in stock in a bunch of colors; I just ordered a pair in the original midnight. I'm excited to own fancy bitch not-pants.