bathed in static
POUND OF FEATHERS, POUND OF IRON
Strange interaction at a (thankfully rare) work meeting: it was a fancy affair for many important psychiatrists (and me, who is neither), with a good spread of breakfast breads/fruits/beverages. A woman (one of the important psychiatrists) was waiting for the coffee station and watching while I poured cream from a little pitcher into my cold brew. “You don’t measure?” she asked. “I do not!” I said, cheerfully, and then we never spoke again. Oh important psychiatrist, what was your point? Does the imprecision bother you (little pitcher instead of sealed cups of creamer)? Because it is a little-pitcher setup, how exactly was I supposed to measure anyway? Was it the calories, important psychiatrist? Please say it wasn’t the calories.
Another part of my work angst, besides being cream-shamed, is a lot of recent mandatory training. I took a workshop about “psychological safety,” which is a very Portlandia-ass phrase. It could have been worse, and it mostly focused on how employees should feel empowered to speak up with ideas or innovations without fear of being ridiculed, and I was like YES and DUH and OF COURSE, and can we just show one PowerPoint slide with DON’T BE A FUCKING JERK in 24-point font and leave this Zoom? The “Leave” button is right there.
Also, power to the people and all that, but I have definitely worked with people who will CRITICALLY misunderstand this message. When they are told, “you should feel free to speak up with ideas” they will hear “your every idea is magical and great and will be implemented ASAP; please mention it repeatedly! Do not stop just because you are told it is not something that is going to happen.”
THE VERMIN HAVE MOVED ON
Sometimes in our back yard we see a little bitty mouse, eating up birdseed scraps. At the end of summer we started to sometimes see a rat. The mouse sightings had us going “ohh little mouse friend” and the rat sightings had us texting the alderman. Alderperson? Alderthem. Aldercreature.
This is prejudicial, and I know it is. I have a lot of work to do on myself.
(VERY LONG SKIPPABLE DIGRESSION: Okay, so checking on the taxonomy of mouse and rat and how far back the similarity goes: a mouse and a rat belong to a different genus (mus vs rattus) but the same family (muridae). That’s pretty close, man. To the point that I’m not sure, Linnaeus, that you really needed to get down to mus and rattus. Maybe just let them all be Rhodentia and murids.)
Maybe the city did come out with traps or poison (I did not personally see any) or maybe we discouraged the rats ourselves through better birdseed hygiene (swapping the finch seed for more log- and suet-brick feeders), but the rats now seem to be gone. I kind of forgot why I started this story. OH it was to say that one of my favorite sights of 2024 was when there were actually two (TWO!!! UNACCEPATABLE! Not In My Backyard) rats next to each other, eating ground seed, and a squirrel got in between to PUSH them off, because that is his seed damn it, the sheer disrespect is off the charts. The rats tried to keep eating the squirrel judo-flipped both of them. Just casual Jackie-Chan-style, just punched to his left and to his right simultaneously, rodent mouth full of seed, and flipped his enemies into next week. And that’s what I’m thankful for, I guess, seeing this Sciuridae vs Muridae battle live and in person.
—mimi smartypants is ambient indie techno for the art-rock kids who love coldwave and hate hyperpop.