It’s hard to believe I used to post multiple times per week on my personal blog (remember those?) and now I can’t even manage a newsletter every few months or so. I mean, it’s certainly not a lack of free time. I have a lot of ideas—maybe too many, and that’s the problem—but I haven’t felt much like putting fingertips to keyboard (jeez, is that even worse than saying “pen to paper?!”) this year.
Especially if I’m not being paid for it. I did manage to contribute a few pieces to Travel Oregon over the summer, I’m always doing maps for Eater PDX, which barely qualifies as writing, plus I launched a B2B blog for the company at which I’ve been working part-time since July (“Fish Food” was not my idea for a title, but that’s not the type of thing I make a stink about). So, I guess that’s not nothing.
Mostly, I’ve been using Instagram where words fail me. In the past few months, I’ve started @mature.themes as a companion to “The Middle Ages,” this here newsletter, instead of relying on a website no one wants to visit and I don’t want to update, and @unamerican_activities to showcase all of the best in American chains abroad.
Join me there, if you’re bored enough!
(And forgive me, I still don’t fully understand the etiquette for follow-backs when you have multiple Instagram accounts. I hate being rude, but then I don’t really need to see what everyone posts three times. I’m probably overcomplicating this.)
Does anyone else feel frozen? And the possibility of a new president and a potential vaccine doesn’t make you feel any less frozen?
That’s probably par for the course, considering we’re still in the midst of a pandemic with no end in sight, we’ve experienced social unrest (what a bland way to say we live in a shit hole country and people are fed up) for years, and for me, personally, I haven't had a full-time job in almost exactly one year, which makes it hard to think about the future. Plus, I’m still not convinced moving to Portland was a great idea, though I don’t have any better ideas right now.
Radical financial transparency ahead:
To put a finer point on things, my Portland mortgage is more than double what it was when I lived in Queens ($832 vs. $1,850 + $5,247 in annual property tax—I just got the bill) and made six-figures. Not to mention, the last time I checked, my credit card debt added up to $33,661!!! (In my previous life, I never even carried a balance.) Oh, and I’m paying $671/month for insurance (which, to be fair, works out to $357 with my low-income tax credit, which I will probably have to pay back part of next year) when I used to pay zero.
I mean, this is not all a direct result of moving to Portland (though in retrospect, I wish I hadn’t paid off my student loan when I sold my Queens apartment because I could use that $10,000 now and it was only ~3% interest) and moving someplace else would not likely solve any of these woes. Blaming circumstances is kind of a crutch (can you even say that anymore or is it ableist?) anyway. And even though in my mind, I can see that Kristen Wiig gif, I know I’m just broke and not genuinely poor. Good news, though! HBO Max will finally be available on Amazon Fire TVs tomorrow.
The weirdest part is that I’m not really fretting. Maybe it’s because I have not yet dipped into my severance—a privilege, I recognize, despite the $17,000 withheld for taxes!—I received nearly two years ago. I would never characterize myself as an optimist, but it’s not as if I couldn’t get a job (I turned down one in February because the salary just didn’t work) but I’m old and don’t want to take something just for the sake of it because then you’re stuck. I did that last year and it was a disaster. But thanks to the pandemic, it’s not weird to be unemployed. In fact, I keep qualifying for unemployment so I’m just riding this year out and hoping for a better 2021. Phew, enough about me.
Because I love conflict, I have been eagerly awaiting the generational shift when the oldest millennials start turning 40, which I had thought was next year, but based on highly anecdotal evidence the shift is well under way as millennials and Gen Z duke it out over center parts vs. side parts, core readers are starting to feel too old for Reductress, Refinery 29 dared to include a 50-year-old women in its Money Diaries, Substack is mentoring seniors, and more. By the way, much of the above is stuff I’ve already mentioned on @mature.themes, so...
I just managed to look at the Buzzfeed News Reader newsletter that has been sitting in my email since September (I’m even one of those inbox zero types) and couldn’t help notice that two of the 14 included links (which I realize isn’t an extreme ratio) mentioned being moms in the headline or dek: “Being a mother during a pandemic made reading almost impossible. Then I started listening.” “COVID-19 Turned My Anxieties About Having A Baby Into Reality.” These would be just as at home in a copy of Redbook, if the print version still existed. Sounds like some serious adulting is going on.
I’ve was also struck by the use of “mom pooch” in one of the feminist, heavily Brooklyn-based, mostly millennial Facebook groups I’m in, which seems oddly retrograde. I don’t think I’ve encountered that sort of language since my first NYC job at AmericanBaby.com in the late ‘90s. Aren’t youngsters all about body positivity? Gen Z would never.
Is all of the millennial-focused media, which is pretty much all media at this juncture, going to have to pivot to not alienate younger readers or will it just die off and be replaced? (I actually think this could be a thesis for an article if I were motivated to research more, talk to some experts, and refine my thoughts.)
Similar to how Boomers have dominated the past half-century, I suspect millennial culture will simply become culture and we’re going to be subjected to it until Gen Z becomes middle-aged and there’s a radical reckoning. I can only hope I live to see it!