Emchap's Shit from the Internet 05/18/22 🍠
This week has been a grumbly, unpleasant one in the way that all weeks are now. Everything seems hopeless and bad and then I feel bad for doomsaying and then I read eight pieces of the saddest reporting I’ve ever seen on the same website where I also find funny jokes about weed and pictures of dogs, and work seems pointless and even though the rain has let up I just feel grim about it all.
It’s interesting because when I felt like this in New York, I was pretty aware that it was not necessarily the World At Large that was making me feel that way—a lot of it was simply that I was an unmedicated depressed person in a city that made me sad, surrounded by people who made a lot more money than me. But at this point, it just feels like no matter what choices I might make, everything is sort of inescapably awful and pointless feeling.
I was talking to a friend today about how much we’d both like to experiment with part time work and how of course in the US it’s so much harder to do so simply because of how health insurance is structured (and then you feel guilty for complaining because you do have benefits and feel guilty for the whole entire Thing since the world has likely always been this bad, just for places you don’t pay attention to), and so it just feels like you’re in a pointless little gnawing circle indefinitely.
That said, this week I did hit two weightlifting goals. I can now officially bench 135 (them big plates) and deadlift 200, and last week I squatted 200. None of it matters much but it is pleasing, to be able to do a thing I did not used to be able to do. (When I started I could deadlift 135, bench 60, and squat 105; it’s been 10 or 11 weeks since I took the first benchmark.) I know that noob gains won’t last forever, but there is something nice about the apparently genuine excitement my coach has about the weight I’m going to be able to move over time.
Shit to read
TV looks like shit and the reasons will surprise you (they won’t it’s labor conditions).
John Waters! A weird old gross delight!
I have never transitioned, but I enjoyed this Danny Lavery piece on shitty family responses to attempting to do so.
I loved loved loved this piece on gender and home labor, and the distinction she draws between men willingly splitting tasks vs. men owning their part in coordinating them was, I thought, well-articulated.
Our healthcare system is an absolute fucking nightmare.
As always, enjoyed this Swole Woman piece.
Shit to eat
In a stroke of brilliance, decide that instead of turning your leftover chicken and cauliflower taco filling into lunch tacos, you’ll turn it into a burrito.
Heat up the filling in a skillet.
Dump it into a burrito tortilla with some cheese and cilantro. There would be sour cream, but you don’t have any.
Fold it up and roll tightly like tiktok taught you.
The tortilla will crack, laughably badly.
Get a second tortilla. Heat it. Transfer contents and toss first tortilla.
Try again.
Crack again.
Debate, just for a moment, whether it’s insanity to try again.
Fuck it.
Third tortilla. Heat. Transfer.
This one, blessedly, will not crack. Back into the skillet with it to grill.
Flip it, and realize immediately your mistake as the thing beings to unravel.
Scoop it out, put it on a plate, and endure the unpleasant experience of re-folding a hot burrito back into place.
Eat at your table, and think about how it’s not a very satisfying meal.
Shit to listen to
Shit to buy
Excited for my bath tray to arrive.