The World That's Coming

Clearing files from your computer can become an impressively nostalgic way to spend time, I’ve discovered; sure, there are the files you remembered existing and the ones that you have no attachment to — I am both impressed and appalled at how many of my everyday work files that I have somehow managed to accidentally squirrel away in places that surprise me — but there are also the things that you’ve entirely forgotten about that bring back a flood of memories: Here’s the non-disclosure agreement I signed for that review that never ran! I think, or Here’s that audio file where the guy I was interviewing just said something so sexist the piece got shut down! I write enough different things every day (Usually at least six stories for various outlets, and this as well) that I forget what I’ve done almost as quickly as it’s finished, so it’s weirdly amusing and wonderful to get to go back and remember these things. And then put them in the little trash bin icon, and click “empty trash.” Goodbye, weird life.

There’s a new baby on the block — so new, in fact, that he doesn’t have a name yet, although his five-year-old sister told me very sincerely that “Burpkins” was in the running, adding that he’d be called “Burp” for short — who arrived this weekend. To the surprise of few, he was the talk of the neighborhood this weekend, with all of us marveling in his very existence, or at least the speed of his birth (Labor lasted an impressively short amount of time, under an hour). While we’ve been breathlessly sharing stories and speculation about his arrival, his potential name and everything else about him, meanwhile, his parents have been slowly recovering from his arrival. Watching them look (understandably) sleepy and dazed about the entire experience, it struck me that while the news of Burpkins’ arrival is a communal experience, the reality of it is an intensely personal thing that we can’t really share in. The difference between a minor meme and a human being, perhaps.

And what does it mean when you dream of Astro Boy? I’m asking for a friend, of course — a friend that happens to look very like me, and had strange dreams in which people were congratulating him for creating Astro Boy, even though that obviously wasn’t the case.

My favorite part of the dream was that I kept telling people, no no, that’s not me, I didn’t come up with that guy, but everyone just thought I was being overly modest. What is this world of overly complimentary people, and how do I get there? My ego would thank me.

There’s a song from a quasi-Britpop band of my youth that I always remember the refrain of, every year on the day: “Stay out of my way/On Valentines Day,” it went, oh so jauntily. I can’t remember why such a warning was being made — perhaps there was comedic disaster around the corner? — but for me, the overwrought romance or bust nature of the day has always seemed a little overwhelming, and a little desperate.

To confess that almost feels dangerous, as if I’m saying that I have no time for romance, when the opposite is the case. And yet, I don’t like thus holiday and never have. If that makes me a Love Curmudgeon, then so be it.

I’m not sure whether it speaks to my state of mind or to some particular pop prowess of Taylor Swift, but “Shake It Off” has been in my head fairly continuously this week, in a way that has ended up being more pleasant and catchy — and maybe a little bit inspirational, or at least motivational — than annoying. It helps, I suspect, that I’m not really singing the entire song in my head all the time, but essentially just the horn riff from the verse, over and over again (Yes, not even the drums, which are astonishingly catchy; did people write think pieces about the drums in this song when it came out? They should have). It’s become a musical mantra in my head, a reminder to keep moving, keep active and work through all the deadlines and everything that have to be tackled. I’m just not sure how it ended up in there, is all.