Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Things to do when the world seems especially scary

Hide from the world. Opportunely be sick through the apocalypse, so you are behind on the horrifying news, and have less energy to care about impending doom. Take your time getting better, watch lots of Gilmore Girls and Elementary and Jane the Virgin.

Spend time with friends. Argue and try to make sense of the world that has stopped making sense. Or just breathe in each other's company. Do something together and be glad that you have this. That you are not alone.

Have sex. Masturbate. Revel in your imperfect body. Derive pleasure that is forbidden to those incapable of understanding consent or love.

Read. Read think pieces, read how things went wrong, read how bad they are going to get. Face your fears. Hold them in your hand and look at them. But also read the funny stuff. The jokes that maybe aren't so funny, the ones that make light of serious business. The enemy is too scary to laugh at, but we can still laugh at ourselves.

Build solidarity. Learn about how it's affecting others, even if due to a combination of laziness, illness, and selfishness, you do this mostly by reading online. Shake off your usual curmudgeonliness to ask your household help if she has enough money and food to get by. Give her the one Rs 100 note you had (with a 500 and the promise of more soon as you can get some) and rummage through your packed food to find stuff she can use. At the ATM, after you and your partner finally get some cash, offer some to a woman standing in line with you whose card didn't work. She refuses, and you continue to worry about her. You feel guilty again for your luck and privilege.

Monday, November 07, 2016

Gilmore Girls is the only show I’ve ever wanted to live in

(Minor spoilers for the first four seasons)

I didn’t watch Gilmore Girls back when it first aired. I remember watching a few scenes back when I had a TV (some six years ago), but I found it a bit boring and never got hooked. But it kept popping up as a pop culture reference. A few weeks ago, after the umpteenth tweet by people whose judgement I respect, I decided to give it a try. 

I started at the beginning, and have been binge watching my way through (season 4 episode 18, so you know not to spoil me). And while the show still gets boring at times (I don’t bother to hit pause when I get up to get food or do the laundry), it is probably the nicest thing I’ve watched on TV, in a long time. (Jessica Jones was the best, but I wouldn’t call it nice.)

It’s boring enough that I don’t obsess over it. But when I’ve had a bad day at work or I’m sick, it’s perfect. (Boring might be unfair: but there are lots of episodes when nothing much happens, just like life! Lots of times when the main characters are being even more self-absorbed than usual, and you don’t care that poor Rory might actually not be the best in her class for a few episodes!) 

I usually don’t bother to read about the show either (compared to when I was watching the Good Wife, and would obsessively read everything I could find about it), but did read a couple of recaps recently, and the reviewer said something about how the Gilmore girls don’t treat their men well: that is, Luke and Dean.