[Seth Says] March Times On
How is it March already?
I'd already lost my time sense years ago, but now it's completely gone. Of course, it's also true that I have nothing approaching a regular schedule these days.
I'd thought I was going to be spending yesterday evening writing an article for a client, but the promised notes and background info didn't show up, so I got to play video games, and then today I got an email with detailed notes so I'll be spending this evening writing up that article.
I'd planned on having a funnier opening to this newsletter rather than yammering about work. But at least now I can proclaim this as
THE I'DS OF MARCH
I know that's technically not for another week, but I won't be writing a newsletter that week, so I thought I'd take a stab at it now. I still can barely believe it's March. Mentally, I am still in January (and not this year)("Yeah, mentally you're like an 8-year-old" "Shut up, poopooface"). I've only just doffed my very warm fleece-lined hoodie in which I live during the colder months of winter, and replaced it with the moderately warm blanket in which I enwrap myself during the slightly less cold months of winter.
I was comfortcore before it was cool. (Is it cool yet? If anyone cool is reading this, feel free to let me know.)("Dear Seth: I'm cool." "Thanks for letting me know!")(Yes, I do imagine tiny conversations all the time, thanks for asking.)(I realize I'm doing a lot of thanking in my imaginary conversations. What can I say, practicing gratitude is associated with greater happiness and I'm trying to live my best life.)(Oh no, I want that to segue out of parentheses, I guess I'll just repeat it for people who skip the parentheses.)(Although realistically, if someone is skipping all the parentheses I am hard-pressed to imagine them enthusiastically reading this newsletter in the first place.)(Which says a lot, given my vivid imagination that is capable of producing a variety of very short and stupid conversations.)
That is because comfortcore is in keeping with my philosophy of living my best life, regardless of how the rest of society might feel about it. (Within reason; not going on a bender of highly illegal things to inspire hatred, natch.) But certainly living in a way that might cause people to look askance (which I grew up thinking was "ask-'nts", like you're ASKing "what the hell is wrong with you?") is nothing new for me, and like many neurodivergent folks, I've made peace with it because I've decided it's much more important to be happy than to be normal.
IT WAS THE BEST OF LIVES, IT WAS THE WORST OF WORLDS
"What the Dickens is he talking about?"
Obviously it's a bit of an exaggeration to call this the worst of worlds with so many wonderful things and people in it, but it's hard to ignore the plethora of un-wonderful. So we continue on trying to live well amidst harsh times, and find silver linings where we can (and hope they are not actually mercury linings)(although the world does oft seem mercurial and I cannot keep up).
One mercury lining is that some of the un-wonderful may be slightly exaggerated. For example, apparently when the GOP nominee for NC governor was quoted as saying, "I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn't vote," there was broader context, so maybe he doesn't actually plan to remove women's right to vote yet, just wants to forward a party platform that has announced their opposition to women being allowed to choose to not be pregnant, or to use IVF to become pregnant, or to file a no-fault divorce, etc., which I'm sure comes as a great comfort.
Which reminds me:
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!
I was just on a walk with a friend and was lamenting the strain of rabid fanboy misogyny which seems to object to women starring in comic book movies (a lament that I immediately followed up by saying, "which reminds me, happy International Women's Day!", because apparently I can only communicate via wry sarcasm). And I looked at Twitter (always a mistake) to see that the latest trending topic is #Gamergate2. Which, y'know, since the first one brought forth a whole lot of awful and misogyny, was not a thing I hoped to ever see a sequel for. Because as much as it may not be the best time ever for women in the US, my understanding is that it's especially not great these days for women in the gaming industry. (and that's on top of how it's not great for anyone in the gaming industry outside of the C-suite, but that's another newsletter.)
Wouldn't it be great if I had some clever solution to all of this to end on a note of positivity? (I mean, the solution is just "women are people, so stop being awful", but that's not terribly clever and also quite difficult to convince awful people of.) Well, I've got nothing; I'm no hero. But my favorite woman did bring home Greek takeout for us to celebrate the weekend, so that's good for me.
I thank you for reading, will be back in two weeks with another column
OH MY GOD I FORGOT MY COLUMN
Well, I'm not gonna go back and edit this newsletter, so without much context, here's my latest column, about my discovery that the filters on dishwashers have to be cleaned:
That's what I get for rambling politically, I guess. Anyway, I hope your weekend also contains some tasty food and/or some other form of good.
People who make Greek food... they're the real gyros.
(That worked slightly better when it was going to more closely follow the "I'm no hero" comment, but now my last-minute column inclusion has disrupted things and it's too late to fix it.)
Feta Compli,
Seth