9 Jun
2022
click to embiggen if you’re the nosy type

Just a series of impressions and lists from the last month, which seems like a blurry dream thing that never really happened, and yet here we are…

⌛ I think I finally have my desk the way that I want it. Except for that old fossil of a work phone, which, unfortunately, stays until I am no longer working my day job. Which you know, is what pays the bills, so I kinda need it for now. UGH. I do want to add a little plant propagation station and this adorable mushroom lamp. I am afraid I may be unduly influenced by mushroomparasol’s Instagram account.

⌛Speaking of Instagram, I am finding that place profoundly depressing lately. I hate complaining about likes and views and “engagement” but man oh man. I have almost 12K followers over there. 11.8K, to be exact. I have been hovering at that number for the past year, and I have had that account on Instagram for over a decade now. TikTok, on the other hand, I have about 10K followers there and I only created that account a little over a year ago. So I have gotten nearly the same amount of followers in one tenth of the time? Huh.

And as of the beginning of June, my account seems like a frigging ghost town. And I have to ask myself, is no one seeing what I am sharing, or is it that I am really boring and no one cares? I mean, I get it. You can look at stuff on these platforms but you are under no obligation to like it or comment on it or interact with it at all. So no, just because you’re my friend, or just because you generally enjoy the things I talk about, that doesn’t mean you have to “heart” everything I share. Of course not. BUT man. It’s weird. My earnest posts usually, or at least in the past, get around 100 likes, and my stupid jokes or memes usually get like 500+ (so frustrating when people pay more attention to the thing you only gave half a second’s thought to as opposed to something you spent time on or care about, but whatever.) Anyway. This week? Posts are getting like, 20-40 likes. Even a BOOK post! ALL of my friends love books! I don’t get it! I’ve heard it’s an algorithm thing, and I don’t know exactly how that works, but ugh. This is a bummer. And I am not even trying to make my living off of what I am posting there! I imagine full-time artists and writers and small business owners and people who provide services must really be feeling it. Influencers, too.

But fuck those guys. I don’t give a shit about influencers. So. I don’t know what to do about any of that other than start spending more time elsewhere. So if you are on twitter or TikTok or Facebook (yes, I am still over there) feel free to say hi!

⌛ Two things I have watched lately and really enjoyed: Severence, which apparently is nothing like Succession. But I had lumped them together because they had similar sounding coporate-speak names.  And which I had no interest in until I realized that Severence is actually a sci-fi tinged psychological thriller. And it is GOOD. (Still don’t know what Succession is, but I also still have no interest.) Also, Shining Vale, a horror comedy starring Courtney Cox and which was a ridiculous delight. If I am being honest I have never given a thought to Courtney Cox (I’m sorry Courtney Cox) but man she was a hoot in this. Also I don’t even know where Warwick Castle is but because I am me I had to find this shirt that she was wearing in a certain scene from a certain episode.

⌛ We’ve gotten most of the wall art hung up in the house! Here are a few peeks…

⌛ I made my first batch of cookies in the house

⌛ I found a new signature fragrance (a monk at a bake sale!)

⌛ Got really excited about this forthcoming illustrated Weird Al book!

⌛ Bought a disco sequined jumpsuit and a neon psychedelic eyeball turtleneck

⌛At long last, we have a proper guest room! With a proper guest bed! And now that William Morris bedding is finally getting some use! I bought it a few years ago and then we promptly went and got a bigger sized bed. Le whoopsie.

⌛I have been looking for the perfect canisters. A sort of vintage situation, enamel, with rosemaling or some sort of Scandinavian floral motif art on them. I found them on a site called Chairish and I am sure I overpaid for them, but that’s okay because they were –exactly–what I was looking for.

⌛I have made some version of this spicy “honey” garlic broccoli and tofu 2-3 times a week for the past two months. I use actually honey because I am not vegan and often swap out the tofu for soy curls, but they’re both good.

⌛ I have been obsessed with the idea of the grinder salad sandwich that’s all over TikTok but then I saw that someone skipped the sandwich part and just turned it into a salad and we have been eating some version of this every single day for lunch.

⌛ I started reading Janelle Monáe’s book, Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer and I wasn’t far in but I was really enjoying it, but then the library took it back from me. Rude. I look forward to picking it up again.

⌛ I’ve really been excited about getting titles from NetGalley, where you have the opportunity to obtain advanced copies of books that haven’t been published yet, for review purposes. I’ve gotten some really excellent ones that I was really looking forward to and some really incredible things that I never even would have heard of! Well, at least not until after it had been published, and then people got excited about it, maybe. At any rate, MOTHERTHING hadn’t been on my radar but I got it through NetGalley and now it might be my favorite book of all time.

⌛Yvan and I have been walking in the mornings. This is such a lovely neighborhood to walk in, with lots of trees and birds and bats and even some hills (in FL!!!) and a view of the river. We’ve been waking up around 5:30 and making a circuit of two miles or so. Not a lot, but enough to wake us up and sort of give us a feeling of “well, even if we get nothing else done today, we did THAT.” But on the days we do it, we both remark throughout the day how much energy we have, what a good mood we’re in, etc. I know it doesn’t cure all ills, but man. Walking. I love it. 

⌛ We’re still working on getting the old house ready for sale, so we haven’t really spent most weekends in the new space. I can’t wait until that’s off our plate. Maybe this new house will finally start feeling like home, like I really live here, when I plan to go nowhere and do nothing and finally have a proper FUCK OFF WORLD! weekend. Fingers crossed!

If you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee


Sierra says

I have been finding Instagram so terrible lately too. If I try to just look at the feed over half of it is “suggested to follow” so I don’t see anyone I actually follow and primarily look at stories. I wonder if other folks are making the shift to only looking at stories too. The only time I see your actual posts is if I make the effort to go to your profile. So dumb.

S. Elizabeth says

Oh, man. What a pain Instagram is. I hate it when a platform seems to have a good thing going for it and then they gotta go and screw everything up. Thanks for weighing in!

Deirdre Clyde says

Lately I wake up to about five three-day-old posts at the top of my Insta feed that stay there all day, even when it claims there is new content for me to see and I refresh. I have long been in the habit of going straight to the pages of my favorite content creators (I look them up so regularly that the search tool is basically just a dropdown menu of my faves), but lately if I'm on the web version I have to do a hard refresh to see new content. I do admit, though, I don't usually "heart" posts unless they really make me feel some kind of way; usually I just grin and think "cool, cool" and move on to the next thing. I certainly don't want people whose content I really enjoy to feel abandoned, though, so I'll try to remember to engage with things a bit more.

S. Elizabeth says

Right, I totally get that! I think it's so dumb to get people to engage and participate in ways they typically would not, and I would hate for someone to start doing that for me! I wish stupid instagram would just stop complicating things, ugh!

Anna H. says

Agreeing with the other commenters about instagram. The feed/algorithm is such a hassle lately that I went from using it regularly to maybe checking it every few weeks. If it helps any with your social media figuring out, I do see your tumblr posts sometimes (though that has the opposite problem of instagram where if you don't see them within like an hour you'll never see them) and came through that today.

S. Elizabeth says

I am so pleased to hear that someone other than me is still looking at Tumblr, ha! That's wonderful, and thanks for letting me know.

Add Comment


Your comment will be revised by the site if needed.