this little piggy fears the market
soft incognito
In my absence, I’ve discovered NyQuil, Elderberry cough drops, beta blockers, a psychiatrist, Nature’s Way CalmAid, a $260 yoga class-pack covered by Condé Nast’s wellness stipend that I cashed in just hours before the deadline. I can’t bring myself, at the moment, to be interested in telling you bimbos about my depression this round, nor my breakup, which was less like a car wreck than it was hitting nine or ten speed bumps at full velocity and scraping the undercarriage past the point of no return.
Instead, I somehow got the idea, in the midst of all this self-pity, that instead of writing about it, I might revert to my Orthodox (Christian) roots, and implement a good, old-fashioned fast—a fast of self. There is a single person who has been irritating the living Christ out of me so that I have a low, vexing hum surrounding me at all times like a hive of bees, and it turned out to be my very consciousness. What hell! At some point in the development of saloon, and my obsequious documentation of my life in New York, I started to develop that relationship to social media I have been warned about and been so far immune to. It was less jealousy of others as it was a creeping disgust with myself. I was perturbed by my own language—my mention of “getting the shot,” during an otherwise natural moment of entertainment, beauty, etc., and became particularly sensitive to the way myself and those around me live and breathe and rouse from their beds in service of the deity of our time: Content.
All things you need not be lectured about as you’ve thought of them in your own time. Anyway, I hadn’t.
The only thing “self-fast” turns up on Google is the “soul fast,” and the only video, even more damningly, is one from Liberty University that recommends the soul fast for those with “dietary restrictions,” that keep them from “food fasting.” I’m not linking the video because I don’t want Liberty University’s Youtube page getting any sort of traffic. Anyway, it’s exactly what you expect—a girl in a smoked mustard1 Altar’d State top calling you to abstain from secular music. Surely, this exists in Buddhism under another name and with perhaps more religious integrity than that of a D2 swimmer so moved by Ephesians she moved to Lynchburg, Virginia.2
And basically there came a time where I zoomed out and was seeing that I was receiving about 50 emails a day, 50 texts a day, over 70% of which required an actionable response, three to four phone daily calls going unanswered, as well as having plans nearly every night, drinking all weekend during more plans, fighting with my ex-boyfriend daily, crafting saloon once a week, and working about 50+ hours/week at a job I’m still not very good at. Instagram became an extremely stressful additional piece to that where I felt entirely too compelled to track my own life with updates, as well as engage with the dozen reels I was being sent from different group chats throughout the day and various DMs, which also felt to me highly actionable. I felt, in short, far too accessible to everyone, far too afraid to appear rude because of any chosen inaccessibility, and was reading absolutely never.
This on top of what I last complained about, which is the constant barrage of noise through which I can never escape in The City That Never Sleeps. And lastly, Substack began to gross me out. What I joined as a reader greedy for the first-person perspectives of thoughtful content otherwise deemed unpublishable by the slush piles of various mediacrats, became a venue for that audience somewhere between Instagram and Twitter (and this is to say it’s not how I am liking Substack, it is not to say how you should be using Substack). It became an overwhelming eddy for the OOTD slideshows of college-educated white women on the six-figure creative director track. Obviously beautiful, aesthetic, but it became another source of comparative content instead of a thought-provoking reprieve from other social media cycles.
I began to see the regurgitation that also turned me from Tik Tok—people reprising the same content as if it was their original, a fusillade of SATC stills—Carrie gnawing on her pen in her silk nightgowns then captioned “me to my 0 subscribers,” bald-faced copycatting and moodboarding seasonal wardrobes in the same two or three colors (looking at you, baby blue). My algorithm on Substack became another affiliate machine, through which I had to compare myself, and engage, silently, in a discourse that made me feel lonesome for not having a $3,000 bag.
Let me clarify that I’m a 27 year old white woman living in New York City highly interested in fashion and design, who loves seeing OOTD’s, spends a great deal of her income on clothing, and is absolutely delighted by a well-crafted moodboard, like any of my peers. But I didn’t want to see it here. It felt like another avalanche of expectation and comparison.
So anyway I’ve just spent a couple weeks less on my phone. I’m back to checking Instagram every day or so on my desktop. I’m “restacking” things I find interesting, and otherwise staying out of there. My phone is religiously on Do Not Disturb, I’m still not picking up the phone, and I owe probably 24 people reading this a text, email, or phone call. I’m mentally ill and as soon as my breathwork is working, you’ll receive an Re from me. In the meantime, I’m recommending a few things to you! Because I online shop for a living now, and otherwise am trying to cast out my inner demons by eating 20 oysters a week.
irl stuff:
The Nutcracker, NYCB - I’m recommending this with the caveat that my ticket was $72 instead of $240-something, so that’s how much I had to care about it. And I’ve spent $72 on a lot of bad stuff before (final sale Miista boots), but this was amazing. I would have pictures to show you but I’m on my high horse now so I don’t. I’ve never seen the ballet before so maybe the feeling of coming out of your skin into a cloud of opiate design is regular for this kind of thing, but anyway I didn’t know that. This was like living, as The Nutcracker is specifically intended to be, in a dream. Children in ornate gowns twirling around rosy adults, a live orchestra and a little blooming crush between kids, bulbous rats crawling from stages right and left, and that one creepy ass Nutcracker at the heart of it all. The costumes were outdoing each other constantly, with head-to-toe bells and hoop skirts and ribbons gliding apart from their dancers. The Sugar Plum Fairy was breathtaking, almost as much as the absolute cake on her dance partner. I’m sorry, it has to be said. We were speechless at the legs of this man, and as Iz put it—I think we would’ve actually seen less if he was naked.
Looking up close at a cow. That’s prob gonna be a hard one for some of you and I’ll clarify that I was extremely scared the whole time because they’re huge and their noses are very wet which is gross but it felt good to be up close to something that had no idea about anything. The same way it feels good to hold a baby, kind of.
I’ll get a big eye roll from everyone who’s NYC-based and more NY than me but I finally went to Veselka and it more than delivered on the hype. I had a short rib pierogi?? a braised beef pierogi? Heaven on earth. I also had borscht with meat in it which I didn’t know was the usual but it was honestly amazing. It was also cheap.
I will take you to the top of the WTC—literally. The only perk of my job I care about is that it’s $20 for tickets to the top and then you get to use that $20 for a drink. The only sticky part is you have to hop a railing to get out of having your picture taken and then aggressively peddled to you but one good thing about being depressed is that your threshold for embarrassment is on the floor. The views are obviously sick, the bar is terrible, and the best part is the Midwestern families hustling in all irritable from spending their day walking 8 miles in the freezing cold only to find their most expensive trip of the year was to an ugly, mean city with $6 drip coffee, but then they sort of light up looking out at the view.
cultural stimulation:
Blocking The Dare from your Spotify profile. Enhances the app experience significantly
I caved and absolutely love the new MJ Lenderman album, but mostly love a song from 2021 that everyone else already knew about “TV Dinners.”
Speaking of which, here is my December playlist, which has Sinead O’Connor, Alice in Chains, and Secondhand Serenade to keep things spicy!!!!!!
Miles got me onto X Files which is the most appropriate winter watch and withstandable (coining that) for even the most timid TV-watchers. I’m on season 1 and loving—it’s spooky and very 90’s and has nothing at all to do with anything, which is really my sweet spot rn (see: cows).
If this video appears in your life, the entire blessing of the universe will come to you. YouTube algo delivered this to me and I thought I’d Share The Love™ and make you engage with something that will bring the entire blessing of the universe to you.
This article on the mystical organ sounds of Kali Malone really did it for me. I don’t actually love this music but I don’t care and that’s not the point of it!
Iz’s article on Fair Isle sweaters is so extremely charming and cute and informative:
buying stuff:
I’m saving you the cost of seeing my psychiatrist and recommending these lavender pills to you which don’t do a lot but do a little something, especially if you’re constantly overstimulated and irritable like no one I know
Nooooooo I’m sorry this $168 sweater is one I wear every day and it’s so well-made and so cute and the best color </3 this is a very good Christmas money purchase
This FRAMA Herbarium hand cream Kate got me for Christmas is my new favorite beauty product…ever. It smells so good, has 0 of that church-y old lady rose smell that lotions so often have, and is just the right consistency, rich without being slimy.
And I’m also sorry that The Odeon martini is…..really goddamn good.
I forgot about Blanchard Coffee, which I first had in a pie shop in Richmond in 2016 and remember in that moment finally feeling like I Understood Coffee, but I picked up a couple bags while I was in Charlottesville, and it’s still super good, particularly Handshake.
These roll-out shelf organizers from Simple Human (as well as their roll-out trashcan) are really changing the game for me. If you’re someone with an organization tick or any kind of control freak, this will elevate your kitchen experience pretty immediately. I’m amateur-to-idiot level with a drill and I had very little issue installing.
“smoked mustard,” I only caught in edit meaning I wrote this in the fog and flow state of first draft—do you see how fucking sick I am??? THIS IS YELLOW!
obviously I am here being a c*nt I have no idea what this girl’s story is and it could be devastating. I’m only trying to entertain you and give my unquenchable rage a soft outlet
❤️
Thank you for this. I really relate to how you've been feeling lately, and reading your thoughts about accessibility has helped me feel a little less insane!!