Emchap's Shit from the Internet 03/2/22 š
My birthday is eight days from now, which seems absolutely bananas. It feels sort of fake in the way everything feels sort of fake right now and has for a few years, and itās not helped by the fact that 31 is a pretty nothing age to turn.
I turned 29 the week that lockdowns began in earnest in the US; I was abroad at the time and had to scuttle back, and it was anxiety-producing and weird and then of course everything got worse. It feels like in the US our present moment is I guess as good as itās going to get, which is to say awful. It is so hard to tell anymore if Iām being unreasonable for keeping the disease boundaries that I have, if this is what things are just going to be like. (And of course it feels somewhat small and selfish to be worried about this at all, given Everything Else Everywhere.)
I am lucky to be able to take a few weeks off from work, partially for my birthday but also to mark a transition between roles as I move to a new position. I hope I will be able to decompress but of course am not optimistic, and then I wonder who my ongoing tension is even serving, really. I will go to the gym and try to get stronger. I will get a massage. I will probably make myself a cake and maybe some seven layer or artichoke dip. (I love a dip.) Iāll attend a very nice dinner and a theater event. I will try to become a less embarrassing urban cyclist and maybe work up the nerve to go to H Mart on the bike. (Itās a process, Iām very bad and trying not to get hit by cars.)
As part of that I think I will take a break from the newsletter for the two weeks Iām gone. I think I have not missed one of these except for that time I got my gallbladder out unexpectedly, so it seems like a good time to take a beat. I reserve the right to return if something very exciting happens, though.
Shit to read
Fully wild true crime piece on a murderer/rapist who just fully grifted a bunch of conservative dipshits.
āAm I depressed or just having a rational reaction to eventsā is something I think about approximately 60% of the time that I am awake.
The Good and Cheap cookbook author has a new cookbook.
I laughed very hard at this review of the new season of Love Is Blind.
I loved loved loved this piece about what an online space looks like when itās dying. (It looks like Facebook.)
Similarly, I enjoyed this piece on posterās brain from the same author. When I say that Twitter is a fundamentally unhealthy place for me to be, this is much of what I mean.
It remains just nuts how reliant American health care professional are about weight even when it doesnāt really matter.
Shit to eat
Buy a pound and a half of ground beef that you intend to use for something else, and donāt use it for that.
Instead, dump it in a bowl with three tablespoons of ground up oats, two eggs, as much ginger as you can claw off the desiccated ginger chunk you have in the fridge, half a teaspoon garlic powder, a tablespoon of fish sauce, and a teaspoon of salt.
Mash mash mash. Your hands will get cold because you didnāt thaw the meat long enough.
Roll the meat into meatballs and put it on a baking sheet. You can try to do it with a scoop like the author of the recipe, but they will turn out lumpy and bad.
Into the oven at 425 for 15 minutes.
While thatās happening, dump a can of coconut milk, two cups of water, and two teaspoons of the good better than bouillon into a dutch oven.
To it, add one of these packets and a hunk of ginger. Let it simmer.
When the meatballs come out, fish the ginger out and pop the meatballs in the broth.
Dump half a package of frozen peas in there, too.
Simmer for 15 minutes.
Enjoy.
(Adapted from Smitten Kitchenās braised ginger meatballs in coconut broth recipe, which is phenomenal.)
Shit to watch
Watch the new standup special from Yedoye Travis, who I went to college with and who is very, very funny.
Shit to buy
This drill. I donāt have a fun joke, it was just very pleasant to use when I had to install some shit on my walls recently.