Welcome to “Another Important Piece of Writing” a monthly newsletter/life update/writing exercise/rant/potenially the next most important piece of literature from the 21st century but probably not.
I recently used a power drill after finishing watching the new Dahmer series and I gotta tell you, it did not feel good! Not that it felt like I was (spoilers??) using it to pierce through a human skull, but because I worried what my neighbours would think of ME had they too like the rest of the world, also just finished the series.
That’s all I can think about now! I heard somebody else using a power drill and jumped to the worst of conclusions. Worse still when I realised it was just a blender and I was just being overly paranoid for no good reason. Get your juice, girl. My deepest and most humble of apologies!
I hate true crime! The fact that we’re turning the worst thing that could happen to somebody into a form of salacious entertainment makes me siiick.
“Oh but it’s just so crazy that something like that could happen!” People say as they’re lulled to sleep by a podcast that details the grizzly details of how women of their exact age and demographic have been historically slaughtered en masse.
Read the news then, that shit’s gonna blow your socks off! I say as somebody who regrettably became so deeply entrenched in the Dahmer series I had to sleep with the lights on thinking “It’s just so crazy something like that could happen!”
I’d love to know what it is about true crime that makes for such appealing watching. What is it about it that makes it such addictive and curious watching? Why is it so engaging and why can’t we take our eyes off of it? It’s as if we’re watching a car crash unfold before our very eyes but needing to know the backstory, motivation, genesis and fetish of everybody involved or witnessing it.
What IS IT about the mother of 2 who slammed into the back of that Nissan Sportage? Was this something that she had always thought of doing, even as a child? Who’s to say how many people she’s rear ended in peak hour traffic that we don’t even know about? Will this begin to evolve into T-boning, eventually to make her way around to full frontal collisions? Does this turn her on, to ruin somebody else’s day and put more money into the hands of the local smash repairs – and can she cum any other way?
That’s my hot take of the day. Murder = bad, not murdering = good!
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I have heroically begun working back in an office (holds for applause). That’s correct, after 2 years of living in the mouldy wastelands that is Sydney, toiling over coffees and cakes and even working an awful pick and packing job that I did for my old chiropractors wife – I successfully resecured employment back in the administration sector (doing the lord’s work, saving lives, etc.)
Oh, it’s great to be back in the office. I’m obsessed with the empty niceties of “How was your weekend?” and completely lying about what you did to give off the illusion you are a full and well rounded person that does only a little bit of this, and not too much of that. The “Please see email below’s”, the “Sorry, my coffee hasn’t kicked in yet!’s” and being informed that there is but a RIFT – as history will eventually see – between the cat people and the dog people of the office!
I feel like I’m cosplaying as what a child thinks an adult woman should do for work.
“She dresses nice and goes to the office and she talks on the phone and works on the computer!” I imagine a small boy telling the class as I immediately cut him off before he starts to describe what her home life should look like. I couldn’t bare for him to find out that it’s just me whacking nuggets in the airfryer as soon as I get in the door because I’m going from getting paid weekly to fortnightly, and since I started in the middle of the pay cycle I gotta make my first pay stretch. You know, adult stuff!
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If you don’t know by now, I am held together by thinly veiled and utterly basic self help tips masquerading as mental stability. In one of my many attempts to improve my mental health/self esteem/reasons to go on I downloaded an affirmation app called Mantra.
The idea is that it will send you an affirmation to say aloud at various times of the day to slowly make you believe in yourself and what you bring to the table, I suppose.
It normally spurts out something along the lines of “I create value for the people around me”, “There are no limits to what I can’t achieve” and “I do the best I can” etc. You know, stuff designed to remind you you’re not a complete piece of shit. Why would a free app selling ad space to the highest bidder lie to you?
Apps/ideas/tools like these that don’t necessarily make things better but they also don’t make anything worse – a chaotic neutral mental health tool. Sometimes I fuck the notifications right off but sometimes I actually quietly whisper them to myself in the hopes maybe one of these ideals will finally stick.
Lately however, the app seems to be moving in a direction designed to push me into business ownerships and entrepreneurship. Every second day or so the app throws out a mantra that I can only describe as something an MLM would use to bait vulnerable women into selling poorly constructed leggings to bored housewives. Appros of nothing the app has decided that “Entrepreneurship is the safest bet to security and wealth” or “My business is my safety net”.
I’m only just learning to believe in myself but the app is insistent on convincing me the only person I can rely on is also myself?
That’s a lot of pressure for somebody that needs to be reminded “People like you” and “I promise they’re not laughing at you, they were laughing at something on their phone and you happened to catch one of their eyes as you passed them on the street”.
Not only do I feel like I’m consistently letting myself down, but now I feel like I’m letting this app down by destroying its belief in myself to start a non-discript yet somehow ground breaking… Start up? Side hustle? Non for profit? Let me know when I’m getting close, Mantra.
I’m doing fine by the way, I’m just pottering along making enough money to keep myself alive and making ends meet. I just don’t know what this insistence on (let’s face it) women to be side hustling, girl bossing and yass queening all around town!
Can’t I just be a gal in the arts actively revolting against while reluctantly participating in capitalism until she can find a way to make her funny’s her main source of monies?
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