Emchap's Shit from the Internet 11/3/21 🍠
I am writing this from a hotel room in Boulder, where I am currently at a team offsite with the other Americans on my team. (The Europeans, to my complete jealousy, are in Lisbon.) It’s been a weird reminder of how much my social skills have atrophied these last few months; I’ve never really been at my best in crowds anyway, and meeting 22 coworkers in person for the first time when 3/4 of them joined in the last 3 months has felt—though they are all perfectly nice—somewhat overwhelming.
I used to love work retreats, and I don’t know if it’s the location or the overwhelm or the looming specter of potential disease, but mostly I’m just tired and wanting to go home to my own bed and my own dumb cat and my various Amazon deliveries. (And of course I recognize that this is is all tremendous amounts of champagne problems.)
Certainly part of it is that I don’t feel super well, and of course covid means that that’s terrifying. I’m vaccinated and masked when not eating, but of course one never knows. I’m sure that most of my discomfort (fatigue, sore throat, dry eyes, dry nasal passages, dry mouth, feeling like all of the moisture has been sucked from my body by the godforsaken mountain air) is just related to a) shout-talking at people in restaurants when I’ve mostly not spoken to groups in a year b) the fact that I need to source a humidifier c) the fact that I was on an also-dry airplane yesterday, but of course it’s all concerning, because one of the things that covid has done is remove our ability to view any sort of physical decay as probably cause for minimal concern. (I can still smell and taste just fine and do not have body aches, so realistically I am not super super concerned. And yet!) And of course if it turns out it’s NOT just the mountain air, I will feel like a monster. (Granted a very unlucky one, but.)
It’s been lovely to meet everyone, and the hotel we’re staying in is lovely (I only ever wind up staying in nice hotels for work, which is silly) and I want to take a moment to commune with the town where my mom went to college, but all I really want to do at this point is curl up at home in bed and go to sleep. (It doesn’t help that the cafe that I’d hoped to get some pie at turns out to be the one that’s connected to a child abuse cult, so I’m grumpy about that.) Hopefully drinking water like it’s my job will put me in better spirits.
Shit to read
Talia Lavin’s work on child abuse in Christian communities remains tremendous. (This piece is specifically about the sexual connotations of their absolute freak obsession with spanking, specifically.)
This Choire Sicha piece about how to ride bus caused me to fully melt down laughing.
This piece on child labor and poor kids made me think back to a few different kids I knew in high school who worked their absolute tails off.
A long and thoughtful piece about the metaverse from a (I think) pretty academic lens.
A shorter, and very fucking funny, one.
And a mid-sized piece that should be, I think, considered the final word on the subject.
Shit to eat
Take two big slices of french bread.
Put mayonaise on both sides of them, a thin layer.
Heat up a skillet on medium heat until water sizzles when sprinkled on it.
Put the bread down.
Cook until it’s crispy. Flip.
If you want, shred some cheese on the top of the bread so it melts as it cooks.
Then, put the bread on a plate.
If you have leftovers you need to eat, heat those and put them on the toast.
Otherwise, use that pan to heat olive oil over high-medium-high until it smokes
Crack two eggs into the oil
Let them cook for 15 seconds and then turn the heat down to medium high
Let them cook until the whites are cooked through
Gently flip them over and cook for 5-10 seconds, just a second to seal the yolk
Carefully put them, yolk up, on your toast and leftovers.
Enjoy.
Shit to listen to
I have been enjoying Behind the Bastards lately. Just skip all the ads, which are awful.
Shit to buy
This framed print.