Is this fine?
On some bad and chaotic events this week
I think of time as split between normal time and chaos time. There are times when every day feels about the same; things are calm, they are about as normal as life can get. And then there are times when the world just feels kind of off its rocker, when everything feels a little batshit. Times that make me look up whether mercury is in retrograde even though I don’t care about astrology.
Lately, things have felt a little batshit. This week, for example, I started working a 6 a.m.-3 p.m. shift, which is a change from a 1-10 p.m. shift. It’s a good change, but takes some adjusting, especially since I'll now have to be at the office at 6 a.m. a few times a week. For the past two weeks, my dog has been retching periodically and the vet thought it was acid reflux (just like mommy!), but then we realized she actually had an upper respiratory infection. That’s nothing compared to Shawn’s parents’ dog, who had to get emergency surgery this week for a herniated disc. The other day, my sister’s dog ate a piece of chocolate for the first time at the age of 11 (he’s fine).
Right now, I’m a little stoned and pretty angry after reading a frustrating article in New York Magazine about the letter by New York Times contributors about the paper's biased coverage of trans issues, and the way it continually treats "gender diversity with an eerily familiar mix of pseudoscience and euphemistic, charged language." The letter compares it to the way the paper treated the AIDS crisis in the '80s. While the NYT hasn't released a public statement on the issue, they did, in the meantime, publish an Op-Ed that compares criticism J.K. Rowling for her transphobic behavior to believing in QAnon.
Everything about it just really makes me angry, and I feel qualified in my anger because I work in copy editing now and read news stories from 25 cities every day. There are certain types of stories I edit closer than others, and stories about trans issues are at the top of the list. Last week I had to send a note explaining that “cross-sex hormones” and “gender alteration” are not acceptable phrases to use. It's an edit that exists in the same universe as the common edit note that “shooting involving a police officer” is not an acceptable way to say “a police officer shot someone.”
At work yesterday, I edited two stories about John Fetterman as they broke, about his admission to the hospital for depression. I’ve always thought it insane that politicians, unlike celebrities, are not supposed to talk about any mental health issues they experience because being a high-ranking politician seems like one of the more stressful jobs a person can have. Every day there are people who are struggling and dying and tell you it's your fault. You can’t even go for a walk in the park alone. In Michelle Obama's book, she wrote about how suffocating it felt that she couldn't open a single window while living in the White House. I have my own critiques of Fetterman, but as a lifelong depressed person, I have to admire the chutzpah.
At least I can drink water and brush my teeth normally again. We had a 4-day long water boil advisory, which the city addressed so poorly that it prompted me to tweet at them, something I never do to an organization. There was a water buffalo at the end of our street, which is basically a massive jug of water you can use to fill empty bottles or gallon jugs, an alternative to boiling. We had a buffalo right on our street, but some people who were told to boil water were two neighborhoods over from a buffalo. I have no idea why they're called buffaloes, and part of my annoyance was that the city didn't explain to anyone what they are or how to use them. They just said "here's a water buffalo, which of course you all are familiar with and have definitely heard of."
Of course, there’s another mass shooting and UFOs and catastrophic floods and don’t forget about the train wreck and its trail of dead pets. That I couldn't drink tap water for a few days pales in comparison to the toxic air they're breathing.
Eventually, all the above events will cool down and I will reenter normal time, which is really an illusion since there are always chaotic events happening everywhere in the world.
Some things that are not soul-sucking:
Shawn's birthday is tomorrow and we are going to get Chinese food and go to Dave & Buster's
Watching Magic Mike's Last Dance in theaters on Valentine's Day. I need to watch the ballet scene again.
The prospect of going on my first tropical vacation in April
This guy's TikToks just crack me up
This photo of Sesame:
