Today is Monday. It’s cloudy. I don’t have to go to work and I’m still grumpy. I 100% know this is because of the choice I made to bake chocolate chip cookies at 11 p.m. last night and eat more than I cared to count, because sometimes you DO NOT WANT TO COUNT HOW MANY COOKIES YOU EAT. Actually, do you EVER want to count how many cookies you eat? Do you? Unless it’s a competition and every cookie matters?
Please don’t misunderstand. All cookies matter.
At any rate, I had a mostly great weekend and got my hair cut right off and dyed all the way to heaven and felt great about it and worked in the yard with Josh and worked on my virtual trivia stuff and watched a couple great movies, and then I ate cookies and now I feel like literal junk.
But they were really, really good cookies.
So that’s the thing, really. Moderation is great, and recommended, and let’s all do it to master life, and let’s hashtag it and filter it and smugly drop it into conversation after we lose five pounds and people ask how we can possibly do it all and still eat what we want, but sometimes you just want to, need to, eat all the cookies.
These are not the posts you see on Instagram. But I kind of wish they were. It might make me go on Instagram more, because it’s kind of a turnoff seeing so much positivity and community-building and MLM stuff when you’re lying, not quite uncomfortably enough to vacuum it up, on a recliner-bed of your own crumbs.
Please don’t misunderstand. All Instagram posts matter. I just like the ones from bakeries most. (Magnolia, looking at you.)
Ultimately, we all want the same things: love and validation. How we best receive those things may vary from person to person, but they matter. It’s why Reddit has Toast Me AND Roast Me subs. It’s why social media worlds keep turning. It’s why people love to dramatically announce they’re leaving a group because of the negativity/crudeness/cruelty/off-topic content posted.
We just want to matter. We just want to count. We just want to feel like, at the end of all of it, we’ll be remembered.
But it’s important to remember, too, that nobody, no matter what their abs look like, no matter how many followers they have, no matter what their house/car/career looks like in photo form, has all good days. We have no idea what anyone’s everyday lives are, aside from our own. We know highlight reels. We see struggles as wispy hints only, as “before” pictures when there’s already an “after,” as alluded asides dropped in under a picture of laughter and sunlight.
Everyone has had their bed-of-crumbs days. Their rejections. Their failures.
All days matter.
No matter how much those days might absolutely crush you, I promise you’re learning along the way. And I promise that you’re not alone, not ever.
Movie of the day: Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics, Netflix. As a kid growing up in the very anti-drug 80s, I developed a terrifying picture of drugs. I wish I had been watching docs like this instead.
Show of the day: After Life, Netflix. This is dark and very hard to watch, particularly if you’ve ever watched someone you loved die, but Ricky Gervais is absolutely brilliant.
Song of the day: Popular, Nada Surf. This feels very on-the-nose for today’s blog. Plus it has brought me so much enjoyment over the years, and I hope it does for you too!
YouTube channel of the day: my friend Nathan Jones has a great channel covering movies, from their existence to blu-ray collections to Criterion to vinyl, and I like it a lot. I got to talk about snacks and the future of movies with him recently, and it was a lot of fun.