2 1/2 new year's resolutions, 1 shrimp taco
I have two wildly conflicting resolutions this year:
1) Learn how to do nothing.
2) Get better at prioritizing the important stuff. Which means...
2a) Get less good at all the little fiddly stuff. Doing immaculately sorted loads of laundry, promptly noting bills due in the calendar, responding to every single email that comes in. Even as I write this, I'm itching to check my dumb email because that seems more (instantly) gratifying than finishing this sentence. As if anything important has come in since 12:20am on this, the morning of January 1st.
I'm still here! I did it. I let the urge float by. I hate meditating, I find it excruciating, but same muscle I guess?
I need to practice doing one thing at a time. Not only when I'm feeling inspired, which does happen occasionally, but also when I'm not. When I'm feeling distracted, or I'm not sure what comes next...
Like now.
I need to just sit in it. Do nothing.
Although. That's not the kind of greater nothing Jenny Odell is aiming at with How To Do Nothing. I haven't yet read the book—it scares me. I think I'm afraid it will bore me. And her whole point, from what I've gleaned, is to let yourself be bored. Or to move beyond bored? (I'll read it, I promise. I loved her conversation with Ezra Klein.) Jenny wants us to go sit in a rose garden and truly do nothing. Step off the hamster wheel of "productivity."
I really am hugely conflicted about this. I live with a constant, nagging urge to be DOING and ACHIEVING and DOING DOING DOING, which spurs me to accomplish the fiddly stuff, but maybe gets in the way of, like, actually doing?
*****
This month in tacos: Speaking of conflict! I know we're supposed to eschew shrimp, or at least exercise caution when ordering them. But. El Huarachito, in Lincoln Heights, has a perfect perfect off-menu "gobernador" taco, which is shrimp inside a crispy fried shell with so much melted cheese and crispy delicious cheesy edges. If you feel like breaking the rules.
🍤🧀😐,
Laramie
p.s. As always, here is your trusty taco map.
1) Learn how to do nothing.
2) Get better at prioritizing the important stuff. Which means...
2a) Get less good at all the little fiddly stuff. Doing immaculately sorted loads of laundry, promptly noting bills due in the calendar, responding to every single email that comes in. Even as I write this, I'm itching to check my dumb email because that seems more (instantly) gratifying than finishing this sentence. As if anything important has come in since 12:20am on this, the morning of January 1st.
I'm still here! I did it. I let the urge float by. I hate meditating, I find it excruciating, but same muscle I guess?
I need to practice doing one thing at a time. Not only when I'm feeling inspired, which does happen occasionally, but also when I'm not. When I'm feeling distracted, or I'm not sure what comes next...
Like now.
I need to just sit in it. Do nothing.
Although. That's not the kind of greater nothing Jenny Odell is aiming at with How To Do Nothing. I haven't yet read the book—it scares me. I think I'm afraid it will bore me. And her whole point, from what I've gleaned, is to let yourself be bored. Or to move beyond bored? (I'll read it, I promise. I loved her conversation with Ezra Klein.) Jenny wants us to go sit in a rose garden and truly do nothing. Step off the hamster wheel of "productivity."
I really am hugely conflicted about this. I live with a constant, nagging urge to be DOING and ACHIEVING and DOING DOING DOING, which spurs me to accomplish the fiddly stuff, but maybe gets in the way of, like, actually doing?
*****
This month in tacos: Speaking of conflict! I know we're supposed to eschew shrimp, or at least exercise caution when ordering them. But. El Huarachito, in Lincoln Heights, has a perfect perfect off-menu "gobernador" taco, which is shrimp inside a crispy fried shell with so much melted cheese and crispy delicious cheesy edges. If you feel like breaking the rules.
🍤🧀😐,
Laramie
p.s. As always, here is your trusty taco map.
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