Friday Funtimes

Not only is it a Friday, it is going to be warm-ish, which means that a lot of the ice will melt away, making life overall less treacherous. Let’s see if I can rustle up a few takes to mark this happy occasion.

One

I love this so much. I found it by way of scrolling on some site or other. It’s about how we’re all becoming cranks just by being online:

Opinion writing, I argued, was an easy job with a terrible cost to the soul and the mind. I have since come to realize that I’d overlooked something fairly obvious — the problem is far bigger than that. Say what you like about the state of punditry, but at least these people are being financially compensated for having their brains turn to pure goo. Online, we’re undergoing the same procedure, every day, for no money. Or maybe “we” is too strong here. Maybe you’re not doing any of this. I always find writing about the internet difficult because I have no way of gauging just how common my particular level of mental deterioration may be. Perhaps you are a resident of a part of the internet I’m unfamiliar with and where none of this applies. But I’ll tell you something: I doubt it. I have not, since my father brought home a Compaq Presario in 1995 and plugged it into our phone line, encountered one pocket of space in all of the World Wide Web that does not, to some degree or another, crankify all who inhabit it. Part of this is just logistics. Online has drastically lowered the barriers of entry into the Order of Crankhood.

Seriously, you should read the whole thing. He doesn’t have any particular recommendation to avoid becoming awful on the internet, other than just being aware that it’s bound to happen. We can’t get off social media, I guess, so we just have to live with the state of affairs. I mean, I suppose “we” could get off Facebook. Would that be too drastic an act?

Two

I have solved the problem of Facebook for myself by filling my feed with The Far Side, The Brutalism Appreciation Society, The Moody Maximalists, and Victorians Vile Victorians. A few friends also make their way in among all the comics, but other than that, I don’t see anything very alarming. My knee-jerk reactionary blood pressure elevation moments have diminished quite a lot. I mean, what am I going to do? Write angry letters about seeing the same cartoon more than twice a day? No, I’m not, because I laugh every time.

Three

Speaking of being reactionary, I was going to say more about whatever it was I was talking about yesterday–what you wear and what you’re trying to say with what you wear–but then I didn’t have time to think about that because I had to cook lunch. Also, in the spirit of living in the place that I do, I personally was wearing a large Binghamton Sweater (watch the Binghamton Movie with Hugh Grant and Marissa Tomei, it’s a thing) and a pair of snow boots and some horrible trousers with a large puff coat to complete the look. What I like to do is wrap myself in my puff coat, which is essentially a down blanket, and sleep on the couch in the middle of the day to avoid the ennui of even being alive. What does this say about me? How am I performing my identity through my wardrobe? It says I’m cold, and it’s the middle of February. That’s what it says.

Four

My oldest child is having to take a Yoga “Wellness” class as part of her education into modernity, and has been in fits because, though we all know that “leggings are pants” she can’t quite bring herself to believe this important truth. Also, it’s freezing, so wearing leggings as her outfit for the day is not appealing. Yesterday when I picked her up she was wearing an elegant long brown skirt and red sweater over the horrible legging option, plus huge coat, as per winter, and her hair was in a bun. This is not because we taught her anything about the purity culture. It’s just because she is contrary. The puff coat, however, entrenched me in my belief that clothes are only loosely about conformity (dressing the same as everyone else only better than all of them) and rebellion (trying to be different so as to be someone at all) and all about the weather.