(Unspecified Adjective) Thursday

 Oh look, it's Thursday again. I'm less surly than concerned about my mental health right now, but Terrified-of-Spiraling-into-Numbness-and-Despair Thursday doesn't have the same ring. 

I AM surly about the heaping helping of misogyny coming across my social media feeds right now (and always, but the last few days have featured some banner entries). First, Simone Biles withdrawing from the Olympic finals because her mental health was endangering her well-being, and being accused by many people of 'being a quitter', 'not persevering', 'proving that the new generation is weaker', 'taking a spot that someone else would have loved', etc. etc.

The fact that a lot of people criticizing her are pasty white men who could barely walk around the block probably fits some definition of irony, but it's not really relevant to me - I don't like criticizing people based on their looks even if they're worthless tools, and some of the criticism is actually coming from other athletes. The fact is that no one has one iota of justification for opining on why, or if, Simone Biles deserves to walk away. She has given unceasingly to a sport and a country that failed to protect her. She has reached pinnacles of achievement most people can only dream of. Does anybody really think that it was an easy decision to walk away at that point? Well, yes, stupid people steeped in a bubbling, fetid stew of toxic masculinity and American individualism (which is ironic again because somehow the American people think that Biles OWES them a gold medal - I mean, go flip over a fucking bench yourself if you're so proud and self-reliant). 

Someone showed Piers Morgan defending a British football player over mental health struggles, paired with his denigration of Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles over the same issue. Gee, what could the difference possibly be?

Hard on the heels of this was the news that Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney for releasing Black Widow to streaming and theatres at the same time. This wasn't in her contract, which tied her pay to the box office earnings. She tried to renegotiate when she found out what they were doing and Disney refused.

A quick Google search shows that Scarlett Johansson's net worth is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 156 million. Am I a big fan of people having millions of dollars while other people don't have enough to live on? Nope. Do I think the income equality in our society is a big problem that needs serious attention? Yep. Do I agree with the people on social media screeching "ffs, how much money does Scarlett Johansson even NEED, she wants people to go to the theatre and DIE just so she can have MORE MONEY?" No I do not. 

It was a fucking contract, people. Anyone saying "she has enough money, this is a non-issue" while not also laying into Disney for being slimy bad-faith negotiators and counting on the fact that she can't stand up to them is not making the virtuous point they think they are. I also have trouble imagining that the tone would be the same if the actor in question was, say, Robert Downey Jr. 

Finally, some guy that Eve and her BFF were in English with a few years ago unfollowed all their S.M. accounts and when the friend asked him why he said "I unfollowed all the girls who were getting too political". Not that it really matters, but 'political' in this case basically means 'saying maybe don't be shitty to gay or non-white people". So they said, oh, kk, fuck off then.

So everybody sucks and I am angry and I need a social media break again. So I told Eve I'd take her shopping and told her she could bring a friend and she said "A friend?" and I said "yeah, obviously you have to bring all of them. And two of them wore adorable matching overalls, and they all carried the friend who is in Texas around on Facetime and we had her try on outfits and enormous scrunchies. 

 

I went outside to wait for them at one point and saw these mannequins

When they came out, all I had to do was point at the mannequins and they knew exactly what to do.

Are they not amazing? Davis did the ankle thing even!

Someone in one of the stores told Jackson and Alison they looked really cute and they said "our crazy mom made us dress the same". And then the person looked at me like I was the crazy mom (of four children the same age and one who lives in a telephone). Whatever, I owned it.

On the way home a couple of the girls were talking about trying to make their (ex)-boyfriends watch movies that were important to them: "We were watching The Princess Bride and he kept trying to kiss me and I was like 'WE'RE NOT HERE TO MAKE OUT, I'M TRYING TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING THAT IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE CULTURAL LEXICON"; "I tried to watch Whiplash with him so he could see what it's like being a drummer but he just (redacted)."

Boys are dumb. Misogyny sucks. My weird children are awesome. That's all I got for now. 

Surly Thursday, Midsummer Edition

 I just posted yesterday, but I just realized it's Thursday (it is Thursday, right? Time has lost all meaning), and I just now saw something else that made me angry and realized that I have been VERY ANGRY this week, so maybe this is a good way to siphon off some of that rage.

Of course, now that I've sat down to do that, I can't think of any of the things that have been making me angry, which pisses me off. Okay, good, that's one.

Front and center, naturally, is the anti-vaxxers. I might actually just have to give up Twitter AND Facebook for a while because I go on intending to ignore them but I always seem to see something - so smug, so cement-headed, so proudly, obnoxiously STUPID - and I want to smash something. Someone actually said that the Delta variant cases are high somewhere where a lot of people are vaccinated and said he was pretty sure it was the vaccines causing the mutation. Yeah, that's why we have all kinds of mutant strains of measles and polio floating around the world, right? FUCK OFF.

I went to Indigo to get a birthday gift, and for the first time ever ended up with a bitchy cashier. I was asking for a gift receipt for everything except two things, and the first time I said "the Tru Earth" and she didn't understand what I meant, which is fine, but then I said "that, in your hand" and she snapped "what that? How am I supposed to know what 'that' is?" which, hold up bitch, I called it by its ACTUAL NAME and you didn't get that either, so what are my options?" Not doing a capital-letter fuck off for her because working retail sucks and she might have had her reasons, but it was unpleasant.

Dumb car drivers. Dumb grocery cart drivers, who park their cart in the dead middle of the aisle while perusing pickles - there are fucking ARROWS right now, it's not like we can turn around and go down another aisle to get around you. 

Someone posted this video on Facebook the other night of a recipe - I don't know if this link will work. It starts with a glass pan with chicken breasts in it, and then they dump in cream cheese and an egg and lemon juice and spices and mix it ham-handedly, almost flipping the chicken out of the pan, rather than mixing the other ingredients in a bowl first and adding it to the chicken. I was INCANDESCENT with fury. I felt like I was watching a war crime perpetrated against chicken. I was very aware that this indicates that I am not well. 

I am vexed that I can't own In the Heights right now. I watched it as many times as was mathematically possible in the 48-hour rental period, and I probably should not spend another 25 dollars to do the same, but I want to. 

I am idiotically replying to way too many assholes on Facebook right now. It's like I can't stop myself, even when I know it's useless and I'm becoming annoying even to myself. I stopped doing it on Twitter, because for some reason on Facebook I can stick to my rule of never swearing at anyone, and staying restrained and polite even while telling someone they're a dull-witted doorknob who adds nothing of value to the human race. On Twitter I just end up saying 'fuck' a lot until I eventually black out from impotent wrath or get my account restricted again.

Okay. Deep breath. Do I feel a little calmer? Perhaps. Maybe the next time some dude on Facebook says "try rereading his statement" as if I disagreed with it only because I CAN'T FUCKING READ is the correct conclusion I won't throw my computer across the room after using seventeen synonyms for asshole. 

I can't find a good picture to go with this post, and if I post without one the default is a seasonally-inappropriate Christmas one that Facebook always picks. Now I'm mad again.

Eve is tired of everyone's bullshit too. Shit, this picture is still seasonally inappropriate. Goddammit.

Meandering

 I don't really know what to write about. I've been feeling a little out of sorts for the past couple of days. We had a great week-end - went out for dinner with our lovely neighbours which was fantastic until Matt got most of a beer dropped on him, but we were just about to pay and leave anyway so it's not like we had to match our meal to whatever brew was wafting off of him. The poor waiter was mortified, and so grateful that we weren't assholes about it that it made me mad for all the people that are being assholish enough that it was a surprise to him that we weren't. We also went for a birthday drink for my friend Jody (HI JODY) and went to see Black Widow in the actual movie theatre. So maybe I"m just a bit funned out.

Monday I got groceries and cooked a bunch of things. Yesterday I mostly read. I'm reading three non-fiction books right now, which is two more than I'm usually reading at a time. One is about The Troubles in Ireland and it's fascinating - I always knew about the subject vaguely but in no kind of depth or detail, and the writing style in Say Nothing is pitched perfectly for me to understand and retain. It's very long and taking me longer than it usually takes to finish a book, which is fine.

I'm also reading Broken by Jenny Lawson (the Bloggess) and What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon. I will never not love anything written by the Bloggess, and I have again laughed so hard while reading it that my husband has stomped off to sleep elsewhere, but it's not quite as good as her first book (I haven't read the second yet). She's still funny and relatable and insightful, but this reads much more like a series of blog posts, often with some women's-magazine-worthy summing up points (which again, no judgment, I do this myself) like "we are all like those juiced limes - a little shriveled, sort of used up, ready for the compost bin but that's okay because we really put the snap in those mojitos first" (not an actual quote from the book). The Fat book is excellent but exhausting and enraging to read - we are just at the very beginning of what Gordon terms "Fat Justice" (my new superhero name), and just envisioning the comments that would follow if the book was an internet article makes me ragey and weepy and very tired. 

I knew that BMI was bullshit, but I didn't know the details of its racist bullshit inception, or the way that the National Institutes of Health arbitrarily lowered the threshold to be medically considered fat in 1998 (Gordon's article about BMI, substantially the same information as in the book, is here). And still, if you google BMI, the first page of results you get aren't about what a racket it is, but about how to calculate your BMI. 

To balance out the rigorous intellectual material I have been consuming in paper form, I have been watching absolute crap TV. Do not give me anything "exceptional, realistic and gritty". Any kind of "literary journey"? Nah. "Marvel of craftsmanship, sounding the depths of the human soul"? I'm good. On the other hand, any sci-fi series with an outlandish premise (the whackier the better), weak worldbuilding, melodramatic dialogue and laughable writing? Sign me the fuck up. Currently I'm watching some abomination about mermaids. Sure, there's a bit of a laudable thread about the human Fear of the Other and some surprisingly affecting non-traditional relationships (yes, I do mean a one-third mermaid threesome, shut up, it was mostly wholesome), but mainly I'm in it for the mermaids walking around on land hissing at people and being insanely hot.

Today I didn't really feel like getting outside but I forced myself to do some errands and walk on the river trail, and it was good. Sweaty, but good.

Sometimes the path seems so clear

 Collette was talking last night at bar night about how she always sees plants and berries on her walks and wonders what they are so I kept sending her pictures and making her look them up on our group Whats App.

Apparently this is chicory

Usually I would ask "should I eat this?" and she would advise me accordingly. Then I said I walked too far and my foot hurt and asked if somebody could come pick me up, thinking everyone would know that I was joking (I mean, my foot really did hurt, but I was asking if I should eat random orange berries and texting pictures of water and asking what this weird moving stuff was, so there was a theme) but three people offered to come get me and one actually called to ask where I was.

 Just when you think your friends are assholes, man. Well, they are, we are all assholes, but not the kind of assholes who are assholy to waiters or believe in BMI or leave their friends lost on the river trail or advise them to eat Tatarian Honeysuckle which causes stomach upset and diarrhea. 

 

Let Me Entertain You With My Awkwardness

 Things are weird. I am weird. I am weird with things. Things are weird with me. Me with weird are things. 

My Facebook account is restricted for 24 hours because I commented "I wanted to murder her father" on someone's post in my Book Bingo group, about an abusive father who also happened to be A FICTIONAL CHARACTER.

Right after I got this notification, I tried to log into Cloud Library (the express ebook platform for the library) and it was glitchy, so I deleted the app and reinstalled it. Then I tried to log in with my library card number and pin number and it didn't work. I did it roughly ten more times, checking the number carefully, and it still didn't work. Was this a big huge deal? Not really. I could read books on my Kindle app. I could read books on Libby (the NON-express ebooks library app). I could read books from, like, the shelf made of actual paper. But NOTHING ON MY IPAD WAS FREAKING WORKING and it was bugging me.

Before the technology irritants, I had to drive my mom to her dental surgery appointment. I believe I have mentioned that it's never a super fun time driving my mom somewhere like this, when I'm nervous about finding the place and she's nervous about me finding the place and she's nervous about the procedure and, well, this time, she had also been fasting, so imagine that. 

I said I'd pick her up at 12:20 for a 1:00 appointment. I picked her up at 12:22. At 12:40 she said "I feel like we're still quite a ways away from it" (she had no idea where we were or where we were going). I said "it's a 25 minute drive and I picked you up forty minutes before the appointment". She said "You didn't pick me up QUITE forty minutes before". "........"

I dropped her off (a good eight minutes early, thank-you). I did that weird thing where I tried to knock off a few errands, but it wasn't my usual neighbourhood and I didn't know exactly how long I had and I was nervous about missing the call from the office when she was done, so I was a bit on edge. I went to the drugstore, picked up a couple of grocery things, then went back and parked near the dental office. It was around the time they said she'd be done, but they were a few minutes over. I was low on gas, and I had seen a gas station just around the corner, so I started to drive back towards it. Then the phone rang and I answered and they said my mom was ready. I was right at the gas station. Could I have taken five minutes to fill up? Absolutely. Did I? No I did not. I pulled a U-turn and went back to the office, thinking I had plenty of gas to get home and I would just fill up there.

I fetched my now-effusively grateful (also mildly stoned) mother and started for home. The low gas light came on just as we got back on the highway, with no gas stations in sight. 

I have no idea how far I can go with the low fuel light on. I have no idea why I didn't just say "I need gas" and pull off. The goddamned CAR said "This vehicle is low on fuel, do you want to search for nearby fueling options?" and I said NO. 

Anyway, I talked to my mom normally while keeping one anxious eye on the gas gauge and screaming internally WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS to myself, until we made it almost home and I saw a gas station and pulled over and felt massively relieved. And dumb. 

I had talked to Collette about going to the House of Cheese and the One Plant store next door after my mom's appointment was done. My mom's house is really close to Collette's, so I texted her that I was ready and drove over to her house. We had also talked about going for a walk this week and when I got to her driveway she had texted back "want to walk over and kill two birds with one stone?"

Where we were going was far. Like, really far. Further than I've ever walked on a normal walk. I know Collette's been walking a lot lately, so maybe she thought it was a normal walk? I waffled briefly, but I need more exercise and Collette is a really good friend and a very strong personality and I might have a small problem saying no to her. So I said "okay". She said she'd put some sunscreen on and be right out.

I googled how far it was. It was eight kilometres. EIGHT KILOMETRES. ONE WAY. CARRYING CHEESE.

I am a grown-ass woman, and I steeled myself to say "I do not feel like walking sixteen kilometres today, Collette." 

She came out of the house and got in the car. I said "Um, so..." and she said "yeah, we're not walking, Rachel just reminded me where it actually is, I thought it was by Walmart" (more like one kilometre away). 

Collette is a really good friend with a really bad memory.

We bought a triple-cream brie, a cheddar with claret and a smoked gouda. We went next door and bought, as my niece always says, "some weeds" (which is pretty much as intelligent as I sound while trying to ask for anything there). Then we couldn't find the exit, but that was okay, because we had a ton of cheese. 

I have gotten so much better at being less weird and hesitant about speaking up for myself. By the time I'm, say, a hundred and forty-three, I'll be perfect.