Emchap's Shit from the Internet 12/30/20 🍠
It’s the last Wednesday of this horrible, destructive, wasted year; that also means that I’m a few days away from the fourth anniversary of this thing, making it I think the longest I’ve maintained a weekly writing cadence. (Which of course means that I have to think about how I’ve known the friend who prompted me to start it for even longer than that and then I have to consider that my time at Trello started more than half a decade ago and then I have to go stare at a wall.) I will say I’d totally forgotten that the first one of these contains my all-time favorite online dating story, involving bog bodies, and that I used to format the reading section very differently.
I don’t have anything smart to say about it; I’m taking the dead week of the year to rest between jobs/make ricotta/sleep until noon, and I’m tired and sad and lonely just like I’ve been all year, and I finally cut my hair again because it needed doing and it won’t be safe again for a while.
It’s weird to look back at any of the old newsletters. I generally don’t because it makes me want to crawl inside of myself and die, which has always been my response to anything I’ve ever written once a month or two has passed. You can tell in the newsletter archives when I started antidepressants, I think—I was so unhappy for so much of my time in New York that I used to regularly get emails from my family with more than slightly concerned Just Checking In energy, and that has happened less since I moved to a place I didn’t hate, started working a job that wasn’t my entire social life, and went for a twice a day bupropion pick-me-up. It’s weird to see this year veer back into that while still not being full of quite the level of flat dread that I felt then.
I should be spending tomorrow getting drunk and making grilled cheese with my friends, and am so sad that this year means I can’t. I am at least well stocked with collards and black eyed peas and cornbread components, and have whimsical cast iron in which to make the cornbread, and perhaps fish-shaped cornmeal batter will be enough to convince 2021 to get its shit marginally more together.
See y’all next year.
Shit to read
Not to be all gloom and doom but this description of the US’s current vaccine rollout process just filled me with the most profound dread. It’s hard to think things will ever be better.
A friend sent me this deep dive on SoulCycle’s collapse and I am obsessed.
This piece on how repetition tricks our brain into turning sound into music is bananas and there’s a demonstration of the illusion embedded in the article, go listen, it’s freaky.
The year in white people. Just a reminder of how much shit I’d forgotten had happened this year.
Like five separate people sent me this longread on the bucatini shortage and I love each of them.
I thought this piece on the risks of tenderness as a thing to hide behind when avoiding accountability in queer spaces was really good, and solidified some feelings I had about some deeply frustrating behavior I’ve seen on the bad bird site recently.
When Ask Polly hits, she hits.
I’d forgotten how long JK Rowling’s descent into terfdom has been going on and appreciated this very long history and their identification of her absolutely weird fixation on controlling the boundaries of the world she’s created.
Shit to eat
Stay up until 1 in the morning because you are unemployed.
You’ll hear a noise.
You will not know what the noise is.
After a few minutes you will realize that the noise is rain, on your roof, and California has fundamentally broken you.
While listening to the rain and texting with your friends about the rain because this is what passes for excitement now, get totally freaked by unexpected thunder and more freaked by your power going out.
Yes you are 29 years old and still afraid of the dark.
Shut up.
Report the power outage to your power company and finally go to sleep.
Wake up in the morning, and realize that, unfortunately, your power is still out.
When it comes back on a half hour later, engage in group textual debate about whether you have to throw out your groceries, which you do not want to do because you went shopping yesterday and also you have shitty renter’s insurance that won’t cover it.
Decide that—since everything still seems cold—it’s probably fine but you can do something with the dairy to calm yourself.
Pour six cups of milk and two of cream and a teaspoon of salt into a pot, and bring it to a simmer. (You will stop paying attention and it will boil slightly over. It’s fine.)
Once it reaches temp, add 3 fl oz of lemon juice, take it off the heat, and go away for five minutes.
When done, get your biggest bowl, a kitchen towel, and a strainer, and carefully pour the cheese onto the towel-covered strainer.
Go away for an hour and when you are done, you will have whey for bread making and ricotta for bread eating and a perhaps misplaced sense of security about your food safety.
(Based on Smitten Kitchen’s ricotta recipe. It has not made me sick as of writing.)
Shit to watch
This man hatching a duck with his body heat. Yes the most wholesome part of it is him talking about how he likes how the ducks walk.
Shit to buy
Aerie’s having a very solid sale if you also want to buy a bralette for house-lounging.
I watched enough of the horny Emily Dickinson show that I’m very into this dress.
This very cute lip gloss that is shaped like a bunny.