what you get for not asking
YAWN
So little excitement. It feels strange to complain about that because it is not like my life was very “exciting” even in Regular Times.* But there was more to look at! Someone said the weekends feel like 30-minute lunch breaks and I felt that.
I had a long meeting yesterday and not only did I spend a lot of time preparing for it, I did not even get to have a YAY THAT’S OVER feeling afterwards because the proceedings caused my to-do list to grow by about six weighty items.
Overall I like working from home and although I have a feeling office time will be required in the After, I am planning to negotiate continuing in some form. Working from home improves my…overall attitude? If I drag my ass through subzero temperatures and public transit obstacles to go work in an office, and then do the same thing to get back home, you had better believe I am NOT cracking open that laptop on evenings/weekends. But after a work-from-home day, with nicer food and more frequent breaks and a short afternoon nap, I work all kinds of extra hours to get things done. I feel more ownership of it? It is more of a gift to my future work-from-home self than extra hamster-wheel labor for The Man?
It is very much labor for The Man, don’t get me wrong—I am salaried and the hours tend to expand to fit the work. But somehow because my laundry is done and I was able to take a walk in the middle of the day I am not at all resentful of a few hours’ grind on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe I am just like a 2-year-old? Or a really smart, difficult-to-train dog? If you make me think something was my own idea, I will do it even if it is actually more work.
*If you need a creepy voiceover intro to your dystopian student film, just record a little kid talking about COVID. “Before the virus, we used to go to school.”
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN DISPLEASED
The other day in an online forum I said that I did not care for a thing that a certain writer person does in their online newsletter* and a person said, “Meh it’s their content, they can do what they want” and…thanks? Because I was going to demand that they cease writing it immediately.
I am sure this was just a throwaway “simmer down” response from this other person but it bothered me for a full day. What the fuck? Since when can you not criticize—or even dislike—a piece of content just because a person created it? Somebody better tell all the film critics they are out of work and personally apologize to Tom Hooper. He worked really hard on that adaptation of Cats!
*Don’t get me started, you know I wish all these things were just on the plain old internet.
A FEW ENJOYABLE READS FROM 2021 SO FAR
- Apartment by Teddy Wayne
- Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
- How to Behave in a Crowd by Camille Bordas (who I think is married to another author I like, Adam Levin? I think? None of my business, I guess)
- Okay I swear I’m not prioritizing NPR reviews, nor did I learn about these books from NPR, they are just some of the first I found on Google that are any good
- Invitation to a Bonfire by Adrienne Ceil
- The Redshirt by Corey Sobel
BECAUSE NOT ENOUGH IS HAPPENING
I think that perhaps not having sufficient real experiences is resulting in a lot of extra-vivid dreams. My brain picking up the slack, as it were. Dream synopses:
- I had an alternate family, all South Indian. My dad was a drunk.
- Me and Aaron Paul were co-starring in a buddy cop show. He wore suits and followed protocols; I was the Mulder-esque wild card.
- At a fancy hip crowded restaurant and my “friends” were being very mean to me. Every time I tried to join the conversation they sent me away to get something from the bar, where I was similarly ignored by the staff. (No mask anxiety in this dream—that wasn’t even an issue—just standard “everyone hates me” energy.)
DEADSTOCK, FACTORY-LACED
I have a bottle of Tums “Chewy Bites” antacids that I sadly seem to be turning to more often after ingesting any pleasing amount of fat or grease. Today I noticed that the bottle says “Limited Edition.” Is that supposed to make me feel cool? Oh she got that PINK LEMONADE Tums flavor, what a hypebeast.
—mimi smartypants: so dope that she’s pretty much on fire, etc.