Emchap's Shit from the Internet 01/19/22 š
Having a very grumbly no good very bad sort of day, emotionally, for any number of boring work and rain and pandemic sorts of reasons. Itās challenging to evaluate any sort of feeling in the present moment, because like, Iām unhappy, but the world is also objectively on fire right now, and I donāt know that being unhappy is an unreasonable response. Things are not great!
Normally I at least have levers to pull: quit my job or move cities or adjust my antidepressants etc. but right now it seems like any positive that that change would bring me is dwarfed by the enormity of how fucked everything seems. I was chatting with a coworker in Argentina today about how since we live alone and covid is Everywhere right now, we spend a huge portion of our time just in our little houses, doing our little jobs, letting work take up an outsized amount of emotional space because we have a really limited amount of things to pay attention to right now. (And this is of course easy mode.) A strong vote in favor of āradical life changeā being a poor response to this, since if I fucked off to Buenos Aires right now I have strong evidence that Iād be in the same position, just with better weather.
I've been resolving this as best I can by watching youtube videos of someoneās dad installing outlets so that I can work up the courage to do the same, which is soothing in its own way, and by ordering pizza, which is soothing in exactly the way youād imagine. Iām impulse buying stupid shit on Facebook marketplace (today, a 30-lb plaster zebra bust, because how could you not) and spending too much time on the phone and generally trying my medium-ist.
I do not have a good button for this! On to the articles.
Shit to read
I enjoyed the essay about the authorās decision to become sober during the pandemic, and the exchange with her doctor absolutely made me cry.
A non-irritating piece about how someone wound up in QAnon and wound up leaving.
This article about the gentrification of psychedelics was interesting, I thought.
This essay about a covid nurse who was sexually harassed by her boss made me want to flip a goddamn table.
Shit to eat
On a long weekend Monday off, preheat your oven to 475.
Scoop out a heaping half cup of flour.
Add to it a teaspoon of baking powder and a pinch of salt; mix.
Add a small spoonful of the bougie-ass shortening that Whole Foods sells instead of Crisco (it was this or rendered duck fat). Pinch it in with your hands.
To this, add a quarter cup buttermilk or diluted yogurt. Stir.
Sprinkle with flour, cover, let sit for 20 minutes.
Knead in the flour until you have a workable dough.
Pat it out into a circle, and use your newly-purchased biscuit cutters to cut two biscuits from the circle. Make a little blob out of the remnants and put it on the sheet, too.
Bake for 12 minutes. If you have a wire rack and some foil and another baking sheet, use those to bake bacon alongside.
Cover the biscuits with butter or honey or cheese or whatever you want, and enjoy your breakfast.
(Adapted from Amanda Mullās momās biscuit recipe, which is challenging to find, so I just use the screenshots.)
Shit to listen to
Shit to buy
A 30-lb plaster zebra head with fucked-up ears, which you plan to put hats on.