I hate Calibri. have a visceral reaction every time I see this fucking font. I cringe and try to get away from it as fast as possible, switching it to just about anything to get the hell away from it. Calibri is the nails on the chalkboard of fonts. Calibri is the crawwwsqueeeak of styrofoam. I hate Calibri and wish it would be banished from all major platforms.
Category: What happens if I change this
I think this was another Ann Friedman find—an excellent, delightful newsletter for and about older women called And Then What Happened. It’s from Wendy Crisp Reid Lestina, and I’m so glad I found it.
Ann Friedman put out an excellent newsletter yesterday that was rich in ideas and resources. I’m really going to savour this one.
One of the links she pointed to was an archive of over 80,000 zines—like, real-deal zines from back in the day—over at the Internet Archive. I want to spend the rest of 2024 diving into these! Twin Peaks zines! Anarchy zines! Riot grrrl shit! What a time to be alive and Gen X.
Probably about once a week for the past few years, I have thought to myself, “Paul Simon is going to die one day, and when he does, it will be sad.”
Accused sex trafficker Matt Gaetz as Attorney General? Known science-denier Robert Kennedy as health secretary? Repulsive dingbat and embarrassing con artist Elon Musk running the (checks notes) new Department of Government Efficiency? What fresh hell is this?
This week was a reminder of the anxiety-inducing wave after wave of Trump-related news that we faced for four years, and that we will no doubt go through again.
My coping strategy, until inauguration day, is to read the headlines but not click on any stories. I have given myself permission not to fully tune in until January.
Then I’ll no doubt return to the horrible state of wanting to bury my head in the sand, but feeling compelled to stay informed.
Ugh.
Sometimes when my kid and I have a real moment of fun or connection together, I have a stab of guilt that, if the natural order unfolds, I will die before her. I just feel really bad about leaving her. I think this is what it must be like for so many parents.
I am doing what I can to make sure that doesn’t happen for a good few decades.
I took my bike out on an unfamiliar route yesterday. I’d thought I had plotted out a *perfect* route to get to my destination—perfect being defined as completely safe and entirely removed from traffic. It didn’t quite work. There was an unexpectedly inaccessible green space, an unknown street where a known street should have (“should have”) been, and a major arterial route (with a separated bike lane, granted) I was not at all prepared for.
As my perfectly mapped out plan landed on a pile of countless discarded plans, I felt a very specific kind of emotion: the sadness of failed perfectionism, a tactic that did not deliver on its promise of safety.
(I looked to see if the Germans have a word for this; didn’t find one, so I used Google translate to come up with “Traurigkeit über gescheiterten Perfektionismus.”)
Planning was so much a part of my arsenal during a very chaotic childhood. I would write up timetables for my Lego schoolchildren as a way to bring order to my little world. I kept lists as a way of soothing my nervous system. Developing and re-developing routines provided me with gut-level comfort.
No matter how much I am able to show myself that this tool of comfort simply cannot keep me safe, I feel it still so much ingrained in me. The sadness I felt yesterday at a plan gone awry made me seriously wonder if I’ll be 87 years old, still tooling around with a core belief that, as long as I study options and plan meticulously, I can ensure my safety.
On the other hand, I have done such a good job of dispelling other perfectionist and harmful beliefs from my childhood, maybe this one little holdout isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Ryan Ken is by far one of my favourite people on the internet. Ryan has an incredible combination of compassion and intelligence that is wrapped up in a singularly unique POV. This makes their tweets and TikToks super, super engaging. I always stop when Ryan’s work comes across my FYP, because I am always guaranteed to either learn something or to laugh (often both).
I saw this TikTok of Ryan’s land on my screen tonight. I was so taken by it, I had to inscribe it in full. I don’t know what comments exactly prompted Ryan to make this video.
However, what it touched on for me is meme I’ve seen in the past day or two. Zionists are making fun of a Palestinian boy in Gaza who was recorded sleeping on his mother’s grave because he missed her so terribly. It is an absolutely gut-wrenching video. To know that there are heartless people in the world who could mock a child for mourning his dead mother is, as Ryan says, absolutely depraved.
Here is the text of Ryan’s video:
One of the reasons that I don’t feel particularly compelled to go back and forth with people in the comments—online or otherwise—is that it’s clear to me the process of writing is not a reflective exercise for a lot of people. That it is purely a mechanical one of emotion to output.
But for me, as a writer, the process of writing—even an internet comment—is a process of deep reflection. The decision to write, why am I writing, to whom am I writing. The process of writing in itself is an invitation for reflection, of editing it, is an invitation for reflection. Sometimes the writing of it makes me realize it’s not worth saying.
And it’s clear to me that, for some people, it’s not that at all. And I often don’t feel compelled to engage in a fight, because a lot of times people are confessing to you some of the most damning things about themselves, with the belief that they have invited you to some sort of debate.
For example, with my last video, some of you told me—a person you do not know—that what emotionally comforts your spirit in a time of anguish and pain is relishing in the suffering of other people.
What am I going to say about or to you that is more of an indictment of your character than that? That what gives you a dopamine hit, what releases the tension from your jaw, is mocking the victims of genocide.
I’mma tell you, the best read I got ain’t got nothing on how you just ate yourself up in my comments.
And I think that’s why, no matter how nastily it’s framed, it seldom has the ability to move me one way or another. And it almost feels unfair to go back and forth with someone who lacks that much critical thinking.
I say that not in, like, an intellectual superiority way. I actually think critical thinking is a profoundly emotional exercise. It is about the ability to sit with information that challenges you. It is about realizing that things from people you trusted—teachers, parents, family, church—might have been wrong or incomplete.
Your very sense of self might be propped up on something that you learn to be factually incorrect. And that is a very vulnerable way to move through the world. And I think critical thinking is about being able to ride the emotional wave of that.
…[S]o many people are using [TikTok] to emotionally regulate. That putting your work out into the world invites you to become other peoples’ diary that they should be keeping. And so, i’s just fascinating to watch that people think they’ve really got you.
I think that shit is depraved. I truly, truly think that shit is depraved.
In my lowest moment, if I’m the type of person who finds some sort of relief in mocking the victims of genocide, I feel like I’m already spiritually dead.
I don’t know what I can do about stoping the country from taking my physical life, but I absolutely won’t let it take my spiritual one.
I will not have imperalism become integral to my sense of self. I think that is a spiritual death.
I’m not saying it’s not a human reaction. Human beings are doing it. And if human beings are doing it, it means I am capable of it, too.
I just think that that is a very depraved thing to admit about yourself. Truly. Like some of you volunteered to tell me that you wouldn’t even be the n*****s that Harriet shot, because at least they had the courage to leave the plantation in the first place. Some of you would have been soothed, just by knowing there were slaves who were worse than you.
And I think, for me, if I cannot have my freedom, I will not substitute somebody else’s suffering for that. That’s not worth it to me.
And I don’t think there is anything I can say about that behaviour that is worse than what you already know about that behaviour.
If it isn’t obvious to you in today’s world, I really don’t know how to explain that your own happiness and liberation will always be tied to that of others.
I saw this on a TikTok comment this morning and it sums up my feelings about both Trump voters and Zionists:
I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.
Apparently that saying above is an old one, according to the commenter who wrote it. But it does feel awfully new and real.
I don’t think the problem is just that what used to be called “civil society” is lacking in empathy. I think it’s the post-covid crumbling of societal norms, the emboldenment of hateful leaders, the spread of misinformation that supports a lack of critical thinking, AND the widespread lack of empathy.
As writer Ryan Ken tweeted:
If you are a woman who has obsessed over her food, body, and weight, there is one tiny blessing that has come out of this American presidential election. And it is the deep, irrefutable knowledge about men simply do not give a fuck about you.
In this current patriarchal system, so many of us turned to dieting and other forms of disordered eating because we wanted the safety and cachet of thinness. We wanted to secure the social capital that goes along with having an ideal body. We wanted others to like and admire us, and we wanted the fellas to love and fuck us. So job #1 along the way was manipulating the body to be as socially acceptable as possible.
But what this election shows us is that men’s opinion of us could not be any lower.
So why would we continue to try to manipulate our bodies to please them, when they have so much contempt for our bodies in the first place?
Men do not care about your health, your access to health care, your bodily autonomy, or your ability to control when and whether or not you get pregnant. They do not care about your ability to leave your husband (and I do mean husband). They do not care about your ability to access affordable childcare. They do not care if you or your partner or your children or your loved ones are trans. They do not care about you at all.
So why would you continue to centre their opinions of you and your body?
Sure, sure, #NotAllMen and all that. And certainly not specific, individual men who genuinely pull their weight in the household, practice emotional intelligence, buy their partners tampons and chocolate once a month, and other green flags.
But truly: how much can the male gaze continue to matter to you when your body means so little to the men who feed the objectifying powers of the male gaze?
It’s time to unlearn that bullshit.
I’ve been super sick this past week, hence the scant posts. Arriving back on the blog now on election day in the U.S. I’ve decided to allow myself one very simple coping mechanism to get through the coverage tonight and whatever is going to unfold in the next few days: looking away. I will titrate the coverage as much as I can tolerate and then allow myself the luxury of looking away. I will remember that all these people are going to die one day, and I will allow myself to be comforted by the thought.
Is it a Zen approach (e.g. “I can’t control the outcome of this election”) or just denial (“AAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”?)
I think it’s more like a suppression of the knowledge that our own federal elections are coming up in Canada soon, and if the pundits are to be believed, we’ll be getting our own version of Trump Lite up here. At that point, I won’t be able to look away.
So maybe it’s just that I’m getting ready to fight.
Here’s something really critical to know about people who are mean to you about your weight. It’s not just that they suck. It’s that, deep down, they KNOW they suck.
The first time I really, really confronted this reality was back in 2022, when Ryan Ken tweeted this thread:
I liked these quotes so much I made a TikTok out of them.
But the corollary is this: if you’ve constructed your self-esteem on either the opinions of others or on the size of your thighs, the degree to which you like yourself is always going to be shaky.
Any effort to seek validation through external means is always going to result in a self-esteem that is shaky as fuck.
The goal is for you to like you, no matter what size or shape your arbitrarily-assigned meat sack is.
One of the big lies of the weight loss industry is the idea that you can like your self more if you like your body more. That’s why weight loss is supposed to deliver happiness. Control your body = control your self-esteem.
But it really just doesn’t work that way. When you’re laying in bed at 3:00 am, thinking about how you fucked up at work that day, or how much your spouse despises you, or that your parents still control how much belief you have in yourself, the size of your body will not bring you any comfort, no matter how tiny you are.
Listen, I don’t care how uncool this sounds: I am super pumped to watch the new Matlock series starring Kathy Bates. I fully understand that just the word “Matlock” fires up every ageist instinct all of us have ever had.
But! An older woman who takes advantage of the invisibility foisted upon her so that justice can prevail? That older woman being portrayed by the formidable Kathy Bates? Sign! Me! Up!
Thanks to @starshyne for tipping me off to this lovely short film by Raquel Sancinetti about her 107 year old friend Madeleine (gift link to New York Times).
One of my whole things about aging is how poor the representations of this time in life really are. That’s why part of this blog is to collect and collate the ones that do this well. One excellent effort countering this is Sari Botton’s Oldster, her Substack newsletter that comes out a few times a week. Featuring interviews and reflections from Botton and other writers, it’s a dynamic peek into the questions and answers Gen X and other generations are contemplating as we age. Thank goodness for that.
That’s what the New York Times wrote this spring about Miranda July’s book All Fours, and boy, did they nail it. I’m only halfway through, but I’ve been reading it compulsively since last night. Not even knowing the ending, I want to declare: anyone going through perimenopause HAS to read this book.
The novel begins with the protagonist (an artist who sounds not dissimilar from July herself) preparing to drive solo from her home in LA to New York. She doesn’t get far, though, when she stops in a small town and spends two and a half weeks creating a numinous, and entirely separate space for her life. When she returns to her regular life back at home with her husband and child, she struggles to figure out an impossible question: how can she have everything she wants?
I think the book is resonating so deeply with readers is partly because July does such a fantastic job of entwining the main story with the protagonist’s unfolding perimenopause. The perimenopausal symptoms and questions are in the background in the same way they are in so many of our lives: as a side character who may or may not be fucking up our main quest.
On the surface, the central character (who is not dissimilar from July herself) is not particularly relatable to readers. Her wealth, profession, sexuality and marital dynamics separate her from many of us. But the subtleties of her experiences caused me to gasp and grin several times throughout the book. There is both a nuanced and vibrant sensibility that I could not help but identify with throughout. For example:
“Maybe it all began now, my life as a wife comfortable in her own home, a real wife. I tried to remember how Pinocchio had become a real boy. It had something to do with being in a whale, maybe saving his father’s life; I had done anything like that. But surely a woman was more complex than a puppet boy and she might become herself not once-and-for-all but cyclically: waxing, waning, sometimes disappearing altogether.” [Me bolding for emphasis]
I never would have expected the reflections on this stage of life to come through so powerfully and beautifully from a novel, only from personal essays or other non-fiction. I’m terrifically grateful to July for creating this book. I will report back later this weekend when, no doubt, I’ll have finished devouring it.
I know I need to put more time aside for journalling these days. I can tell because sometimes I wake up in the morning and my mind is so FULL. I need the journal to help clear this stuff out.
Is Bisan still alive?
I need to order new glasses.
Is my kid awake yet?
Don’t forget about that meeting today.
Oh, my mom died–right.
It will be nice to have dinner with my friend tonight.
Spouse and I never finished watching that TV show.
Stop looking at email, and just get writing.
How can I write when there is so much suffering in the world?
I find it easier to wake up really early when the days get short. I absolutely love sitting in the dark while the house and the world are still quiet. Now that we’re heading into fall, I can put aside time to journal in the early hours of the dark, my page only lit by a candle and the glow from my laptop.
This Netflix animated series did not get the flowers it deserved. It’s weird, it’s touching, it’s prescient. And the titular Carol is a middle-aged woman who is lost amongst a very specific form of chaos. I loved it. 10/10 would recommend.