Emchap's Shit from the Internet 04/20/22 🍠

I’m writing this during my lunch break, for the very exciting reason that tonight I’ll be attending a fancy restaurant Seder where I’m going to eat more pickled fish and vodka than I can imagine. (And probably some more normal Seder foods but you know, Russian restaurant.)

My poor scratchy raccoon hands are finally finally finally beginning to look kind of normal again (after a long period of wounds + scabbing over + weird thick skin). Even though they’re still healing and doing that horrible dry skin thing where they catch on clothing, it feels like an end is finally in sight. If nothing else, I can stop sleeping in gloves, which I think both my cat and my boyfriend are very excited about (one for ear scratching reasons and the other for “it’s offputting” reasons, your guess as to which is is which).

A friend came over earlier this week, and we wound up chatting about how horrible everything is right now and how powerless it feels for any individual witness. Once you’ve set up the donations you can set up, it really does feel like there’s a diminishing return on Awareness. I’ve been thinking about that this week as we’re now at such a density of awful shit going on that Twitter, my main personal vice for the last 10 years, has started to feel not worth it. It doesn’t help anyone for me to be furious at the takes of people I’ve maintained weird online awareness of for 10 years and it doesn’t help anyone for me to cry at photos of Ukrainians who found their pets after evacuation and it doesn’t help to be worried that I’m going to see photos of corpses unintentionally. (My friend, very wisely, is simply no longer on social media, which honestly seems like it might be the path forward.)

Maybe this is how I’ll get back into books as an adult?

Shit to read

• This essay on the death of company culture reminded me so much of the culture of my most personally influential former employer. I was there all the time and it probably wasn’t good for me, but it did result in some of my longest-lasting friendships in adulthood, and a lot of that was from drinking beer in that office.

• We all have poster’s disease.

• I have a few concert tickets purchased for this summer and man this essay was a bummer.

• This made me laugh more than it should have.

• Absolutely fuck the NYPD.

• It feels like everything is going to be bad forever, even though I know it isn’t helpful to think that way.

• Good for them, I guess.

Shit to eat

1. Inspired by this absolutely unhinged money diary, order a bagel for delivery. Unlike the subject of that article (please be fake), also order a half-dozen bagels and some cream cheese.

2. The next morning, take one of those half-dozen bagels (poppy seed, sesame was out), and cut it in half.

3. Broil it because you refuse to buy a toaster.

4. Slather in the cream cheese you bought.

5. Enjoy.

Shit to listen to

• Emperor X is fascinating to me as a band that I like when recorded and have very mixed feelings about live. Anyway, go listen to “Erica Western Teleport”, which is constantly stuck in my head.

Shit to buy

• Drinkmate, the non-Soda Stream fizzy water maker

• Some Flavor Essence flavors, to flavor your new fizzy water.