Emchap's Shit from the Internet 05/25/22 🍠
I am on day two in a row of being off from work due to migraines, which feels like I’m cheating somehow despite the fact that it’s unpleasant because I could, technically, push through once I’ve had my meds and work. I tested my one rep maxes for my lifts yesterday and hit all my goals—160 lbs bench, 230 lbs squat, 235 lbs deadlift. There was another horrifying shooting and a bunch of children are dead. Being alive right now feels like a series of completely disconnected events that are just all happening at the same time.
I was trying to figure out what caused the migraines (which peaked in my last year living in Atlanta and have been relatively few and far between since I moved to NYC, dropping to almost zero out on the west coast). I’ve never isolated a clear environmental variable for them, and as best as I can tell, at this point it’s just stress. Everything feels overwhelmingly, unhingedly bad all at once. We’ve had a strong declining empire vibe for most of my adult life, but in the last 6 months it has picked up to a truly horrifying pace; things are unstable and bad and held hostage by a bunch of paid-for elderly freaks who refuse to slink off under the porch and die and are instead making it our problem.
After I was at the gym yesterday I walked to the fancy grocery market/bougie bodega down the street for the first time. It was one of the few uncomplicatedly pleasant things for the week. I chatted with the guy at the counter about how they were selling teeny tiny jars of Duke’s mayonnaise and how they had purple grits for sale, and he showed me the mill they use to grind the corn. I bought peonies and they’re in full bloom on my mantle. I want to go back and buy sesame paste.
And then I got news of the newest shooting, and I ate dinner, and I had a nice night, and got up to another migraine and sat with an ice pack strapped to my head all day. I used the mochi flour I bought to make mochi in the oven, and it turned out.
Shit to read
I finally read Bullshit Jobs this week and enjoyed it a tremendous amount. I knew the general premise, but really thought the author’s analysis was much more interesting than I was anticipating. (Specifically his thoughts on caring labor.) Everyone should read it and talk to me about it.
This AHP piece on working through covid hit home for me. I felt tremendously guilty taking complete no work sick days this week despite the fact that I was ill and I theoretically have unlimited PTO and nobody cares. I don’t even know where the pressure is coming from.
I introduced my boyfriend to the steak blasting article this week, which I realize now doesn’t actually use the term. (It was apparently coined in the comments, RIP.) (At least some of the comments are still available in the wayback, and lol, particularly at the old Danny Lavery pre-writing-career ones, I think—he was evil melis, right?)
A deep dive into whether garlic is easier to peel now than it used to be.
A long and sad writeup of a child star who fell off the radar.
Shit to eat
Straight-up I have had migraines on and off for two days, tonight I am ordering Taco Bell delivery because I’m a garbage person.
Shit to watch
The #antiwork hashtag on tiktok
This crossover event between two of my favorite food youtubers.
Shit to buy
Taco Bell.