Basically, the title is the post. I started this draft two weeks ago, so who knows what specifically I was referring to. By the time this lands in your inbox, it’ll be something else. Choose your own barf emoji!
Speaking of your inbox, is it increasingly dreary? Do you just want to skip the sombre hot takes on fascism and instead read about daily life under fascism, at least for ten minutes every few days, while you smoke, vape, or chug your healthy coconut juice shots or whatever? For example, do you want to read about getting your hair did under fascism, battling the gas company under fascism, comparing cat litter brands under fascism?
That is what Just Some Lady is banking on. Frankly, I am too. Last weekend was my annual food co-op board retreat, which I dreaded because who tf wants to drag their fat carcass out of bed on a Saturday morning to discuss executive limitations and policy governance especially when the night before you were up enthusiastically drinking with your work mom, meticulously cataloging all the ways the world has stopped up the crapper and what you can’t do about it. But! To paraphrase my fellow board member, sometimes it is sweet relief to debate what is a reasonable interpretation of policy L.1.2, rather than put your life on the line for democracy, which you’ve already been doing all semester in your day job. Fun!
Anyhoo, I need a break that does not involve doomscrolling (bad for my mental health) or bullying people on the Little House on the Prairie subreddit (kind of mean but I love it). I need a break that involves connecting with people I like and hearing about their normal lives. Yet even as I say this, I’m reminded of a passage from Charlie LeDuff’s Detroit: An American Autopsy. In response to accusations of zeroing in on Detroit’s problems and not giving enough press to its successes, such as, like, a new art gallery opening, LeDuff writes:
…[t]hese things are not supposed to be news. These things are supposed to be normal. And when normal things become the news, abnormal becomes the norm. And when that happens, you might as well stick a fork in it.
So if we’re going to stick a fork in the American experiment, hey! Let’s just dig the fuck in like the traumatized, cannibalistic teenage plane crash survivors in Yellowjackets and worry about the consequences in 25 years. I don’t know about you, but I expect to be dead by then. Also, you should watch Yellowjackets so I can fight you on Reddit about things that do not matter in the slightest.
—CB
Addendum: Sally vs. kumquats
