Arrivederci, Y’all

Daddy: Stories is literary darling Emma Cline’s eagerly anticipated new book, a short story collection about ordinary people on the brink of dysfunction. Although Cline’s laudable style is in top form, the actual content of this book is a letdown compared to Cline’s debut novel, The Girls. Daddy: Stories is a catalog of sad sack middle aged men and dispassionate young women floating their way through plot lines that catch your attention on the book flap, but lack excitement once you get into the actual book. Cline’s strength lies in her ability to create an atmosphere of haze and confusion that perfectly suited her last book, The Girls, about a young girl who gets caught up in a Manson family-esque cult. In Daddy: Stories, the characters are just as hazy as the atmosphere, which makes for a boring reading experience. 

Here are some things that happen in every short story in Daddy: 

• Someone has a pudgy, chubby, and/or pasty face.
• Someone drinks disappointing water (stale, plasticky, etc) out of a specific receptacle.
• A man is emotionally unavailable. 
• A woman is described as smart because she knows how to respond to male attention.
• Someone abuses substances, but not even in a fun way, just in a “one too many drinks at dinner” or “half a sleeping pill on a long train ride” kind of way.
• The story ends without any kind of resolution or even a particularly resonant last line.

All of these repeated details certainly did not add anything to a book where the characters were already boringly alike. Cline’s characters are unlikable but not hate-able, pathetic but not sympathetic, protected from the emotions of whatever upsetting scenarios Cline has placed them in by wealth, privilege, or joyless escapism in the form of drugs, sex, and alcohol. They are people you wouldn’t choose to spend time with, but also wouldn’t make the effort to cut out of your life. Occasionally Cline will zero in on a tiny detail that snaps the whole scene or character into focus– the angle of someone’s tilted head, a particular smell in the hot summer air– but a couple of well-chosen modifiers do not make a good book. The best stories in Daddy are the ones most like The Girls, specifically “The Nanny” and “Marion.” If that’s what you’re looking for, I would recommend rereading The Girls rather than trudging through Daddy: Stories. Overall I would say this book was not worth the mild embarrassment I suffered from reading a book with the word DADDY brightly emblazoned on the cover in public.

Cline is an exceptionally skilled writer. Even in this lack-luster book, her talent is obvious. But it seems like Cline wasted her impressive ability to peel back the layers of modern day life on characters who just don’t have that much going on under the surface. Hopefully in the future her characters will be complex enough to stand up to the examination.

A lot has changed since my last blog post! I moved into a house in Allentown with 2.5 of my friends, the semester started, I got rehired at my housekeeping job, and I made a teeny tiny little inconsequential decision to graduate one semester early, which means my adult life starts on February 1st, 2021 instead of May 10, 2021 as previously planned. Does every passing day feel like one step closer to the fathomless abyss that is The Whole Entire Rest of My Life? Yes. Do I regret my decision to move that fathomless abyss four months earlier than previously planned? No! 

Graduating early still feels like a really good decision. I only had one or two classes left to complete in that final semester, and I was able to somewhat painlessly take them on during this semester instead of paying a truly stupid amount of money to take them in the spring. I don’t really feel like I’m giving up my last semester as a college student because even if my school decides to prioritize seniors in the spring, COVID has made it so that even the best case scenario would be somewhat less than ideal. Also, my experience at Muhlenberg hasn’t really been everything I wanted it to be. Over the past four years I’ve spent a lot of my time on campus wishing I were somewhere else. I love my friends and I love my classes, but Allentown and a lot of things about Muhlenberg campus culture just really aren’t for me. I’m looking forward to this new bonus time to seek out new experiences before I buckle down and start looking for a capital-J-Job. 

Speaking of which, uh, if anyone has any ideas as to what the fuck I should do with myself from February to May… Please comment below. I’m hoping to engage in some wacky hijinks, possibly some kooky adventures, but I’ll even consider a grand scheme or two if the opportunity presents itself. Or, depending on what happens after the election this November, maybe I’ll join a resistance or flee the country or hide in an underground bunker living off cold canned soup for all of 2021. If the global pandemic has taught me anything, it’s that you really never know what’s coming! 

You might recall that I was a theater major for the first five semesters of my college career. I switched to English my second semester Junior Year, and now I’m graduating one semester early, which means I completed the English major in two semesters. Which is no small feat! I’m kind of working my butt off this semester to finish everything in time. I’m reading multiple books at once, which is something I never do, but so far I’ve managed to keep everything straight in my head even though both books can be summed up as “Ohhhhh it’s Victorian times, everyone is repressed and we make the women wear ten layers of clothing and never let them have orgasms, and then when they get mad about it we call it hysteria! The Jews are bad and so are foreigners, but at least we have all this beautiful English scenery to distract us from how Jewish and foreign they are.” I read Oliver Twist and only took up like five minutes of class time being mad about antisemitism, and I’m reading the Woman in White and so far I’ve only overzealously pointed out one instance of phallic imagery that I thought was obvious but apparently was not. You haven’t experienced true shame until you’ve raised your hand in class and been like, “I don’t want to be that person, but he’s definitely talking about his penis, right?” and then everyone in class is like “Um, no, we didn’t read it that way at all.” Always good to know that I’m the class perv. 

Aside from classes and reading for classes, I have a nice little weekly routine going on. Like I said, I live with 2.5 of my friends (The .5 is because my friend Maggie lives on campus but she spends so much time with us that she practically lives here), so we’re all constantly together. We go to the Emmaus farmers market every Sunday. We cook family dinners together about once a week. We have frequent movie nights complete with wine and popcorn that we eat off of cheap Halloween-themed plastic plates. It’s very cute, very domestic. 

One of the reasons why this blog post is so delayed is because I’ve been really, really happy, but all of the things that have been making me happy are kind of boring or sound too cliche when I try to write about them. Sometimes I feel sort of lame for enjoying things like the farmer’s market because I feel like I should be enjoying things like parties and barhopping and all that. But, first of all, pandemic. Second of all, I’ve realized that feeling bad about things that make me happy doesn’t help anyone. It definitely doesn’t help me. It’s easy to write about exciting stuff like my graduation plans, but it’s hard to write about how peaceful and content I feel during a day when I mostly just sit around on the back porch with my friends. So I won’t try to describe it or explain it, and most of all I won’t try to justify it. Suffice it to say that I’m doing really well right now, and I’m looking forward to what’s ahead of me. 

In these trying times, the circle of life is something with which we all have become well acquainted. Death is that dark force in the back of our minds; that horrible truth we spend our whole lives trying to outrun, only to succumb at the bitter end. We are reminded of our own mortality every time we lose someone we love. I, like everyone, have suffered many losses over the course of my life. But nonetheless it is with a heavy heart that I tell you all of my most recent loss: my beloved sparkly sandals. 

I purchased these sparkly sandals as a young freshman in college, full of hope and excitement for this new chapter of my life. I began school with the same pair of shitty target brand slides that I had worn all summer, sometimes with colorful socks because this older girl in my theater group whom I admired very much often wore colorful socks with her slides. But my love for these shitty slides was stronger than the material from which they were made, for they soon fell apart right beneath my newly campus-crossing feet. Fortunately I found a new older girl to admire, and therefore new shoes to covet: An upperclassmen theater major whose 90s-inspired jelly shoes spoke to my cheap, tacky heart. Luckily I remembered my sticky, sweaty experiences wearing jelly shoes as a little girl before I could purchase a pair of my own. Also, we couldn’t both wear jelly shoes, that would be too obvious. The key in copying someone else’s style is to do it subtly, so you seem unique instead of like the slimy little copycat you really are. Therefore, I decided to copy the concept of a sparkly, ugly-cute shoe rather than the actual shoe itself. A couple quick google searches later and I found the perfect midrange priced sparkly shoes. And our love affair began. 

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I loved my sparkly sandals. I loved how they resembled birkenstocks closely enough that people occasionally asked me how much they cost. I loved that I didn’t have to bend down to put them on. I loved that they molded to the shape of my feet and that the spot where I put my big toe turned black after only a few months. I think everyone should have an item of clothing just tacky enough that when people say “I love your [item of clothing]!” you can’t tell whether they’re making fun of you or not. My sparkly shoes said, “You can’t make fun of me because I KNOW my outfit is wack!” My sparkly shoes said, “I don’t care what others think! Except I really really do so please comment on my sparkly shoes.” 

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My sparkly sandals lasted a whopping two years, which is really not that bad when you consider the fast fashion industry and the fact that they appear to be made of leftover cork board and craft glitter from an elementary art teacher’s classroom. My shoes were there with me through performances, dances, train journeys, and lots of midnight bathroom runs in my nasty freshman dorm’s bathroom. I treated them like shit, shoving them into my travel bag and kicking them off by the door when I came inside. Their fraying straps and worn soles are signs of love, not abuse. Though I wore them out on my feet, I will never wear them out of my heart. 

RIP Sparkly Shoes. I will never forget you. 

Now, I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this on my blog before so this is like a superfuckingvulnerable moment for me, but I have ~anxiety~. Sometimes I have to take deep breaths and brace myself before walking from my car to the coffee shop because I get anxious at the prospect of seeing people (which could potentially require eye contact or that weird close-lipped smile and slight head nod that white people give each other when passing on the street) or being seen by people (which could mean being judged on my clothes, the upper half of my face that is exposed when I’m wearing a mask, or the weird way I walk because I’m thinking too hard about what I look like when I’m walking). 

I’m hyper aware of myself all the fucking time. I’m constantly watching myself from an outsider’s perspective to gauge if I look as anxious as I feel. I feel like I’m always breaking unspoken rules and someone is going to call me out as the one person who doesn’t get it, the weirdo who didn’t get the memo about the Right Way to be a human being. 

And yes, I know that there are no unspoken rules about how to pick up your to go order from Starbucks or how to take a walk around your own neighborhood. I know it’s all in my head. We’re all weird which makes us all normal, and thinking that I’m the only one who feels this way is actually some twisted version of self-centeredness. Strangely enough, that doesn’t make me feel any better. I still walk around feeling like everyone is looking at me and thinking how weird and different I am. 

So imagine how absolutely horrible it feels when someone actually does look at me weirdly and call me out specifically and make comments about my clothes or my body, the very things I worried that everyone is looking at and judging. Imagine you’re me, and all day long you worry about what your body looks like and how people perceive you while you’re doing mundane human activities like going for a walk or getting groceries, and somebody looks you in the eyes and essentially says, yes, you are being watched and judged and filtered through random stranger’s ideas of what a woman should look and act like. 

That is how I feel every time I get catcalled, which, for whatever reason, is often. I’ve been catcalled twice at the grocery store near my house recently and both times it has seriously ruined my day. And I know what you’re thinking: Rachel, calm down, it’s a compliment. It can’t really be that bad to be randomly complimented by men when you aren’t expecting it, right? That actually sounds super validating!  Someone thinks you’re attractive when you’re not even trying! 

It’s not. First of all, catcallers rarely give compliments– I’ve been catcalled many times and I’ve never heard anything like “You’re so beautiful!” or “You look great!” But more importantly, what sucks about getting catcalled is not the content of the catcall (although it can be very upsetting when the comments are vulgar or cruel), it’s the fact that it’s happening at all. It’s the confirmation that people are judging and coming to conclusions about you when you’re doing even the most mundane activities. It’s confirmation that you have very little control over how people see you and what they think of you. It doesn’t matter if you’re just picking up a few things from the grocery store, you’re still an object in the eyes of those around you. 

My anxiety makes this particularly devastating, but I would argue that this is devastating for women in general because of the way we are socialized to constantly watch ourselves and make ourselves palatable for male consumption. I don’t think men realize how constant and all-consuming of a job this is; how inescapable the male gaze is for women. Remember that TV show that was on Disney Channel in the early 2000s, Lizzie McGuire? In the show, Lizzie’s subconscious was represented by a miniature cartoon version of her that would comment on how embarrassing certain situations were, or what Lizzie was really thinking or feeling. Sometimes I feel like Lizzie McGuire and her little mini-me, but instead of my mini-me only popping up when something embarrassing happens, she’s there all the time and she’s armed with every single image of a woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Every time I do something, mini-me holds up a picture of a beautiful woman doing the same thing and compares normal-sized me to her. Instead of those platform sandals that were popular in the 2000s she wears those chunky white sneakers that every single influencer seems to own, and instead of cute empowering quotes like “Maybe I’m an outfit repeater, but you’re an outfit rememberer, which is just as pathetic!” she says things like, “Ooh close, Rachel, but beautiful women hold their shopping baskets with a certain je ne sais quoi that you just don’t seem to have! Maybe that’s why everyone thinks you’re so weird.” Getting catcalled is like someone made mini-Rachel normal sized, or made normal-Rachel miniature. It’s like giving the reins over to the version of me that is always watching myself. 

A common misconception about catcalling is that women get catcalled more when they are dressed up nicely. In my experience, this is not true. I’ve mentioned several times now that I tend to get catcalled at the grocery store, and believe me, I am at my schlumpiest when I’m making a 4:30pm grocery run to get the one ingredient that I forgot to buy during my 3pm grocery run. I’m talkin sports shorts and a hand-me-down t-shirt that was already a couple years old when I got it during my brief stint in a Jewish youth group. Maybe a bra, sometimes. Definitely my falling apart sparkly sandals that some call tacky but that I like to think of as kindergarten chic. Maybe my College Student Stuck at Home Quickly Reverting to her High School Self Attire gets men going? Or maybe I become irresistible under the grocery store’s fluorescent lights? Maybe since men can’t assert their dominance by hunting and gathering their own food anymore, coming back from Safeway with a reusable tote bag full of prepackaged salami and double stuffed oreos unleashes those Neanderthalian Man Hormones and they just need to assert dominance over whichever unsuspecting lady walks by. 

The point is, how I dress does not affect whether or not I get catcalled, and that makes me feel even worse. Even when I make all of the capital-F-Feminist choices, like dressing however makes me most comfortable with no regard for how others perceive me, I’m still being perceived! It makes me feel like I’m not in control of myself even if I give myself every possible advantage. Even if I consume all of the feminist messaging instead of the patriarchal messaging, I still live in a patriarchal society. I can change my own mind all I want; it won’t change the minds of skeevy men at the grocery store. 

Anyway. I know that catcalling is nowhere near the worst thing that women have to deal with, but it is the Women’s Issue that I have experienced most frequently as of late. Also, despite being the hot button topic in like 2015, people still seem to misunderstand a lot about catcalling and what makes it shitty. I’m sure I’ll write about the glass ceiling once I start to bang my head up against it, or ageism once I start to get wrinkly. Who knows, maybe I’ll still be blogging once I hit menopause and then you all can read all about my hot flashes and mood swings.

You might recall that I wrote my last monthly book review because I had turned to books out of desperation after burning my corneas out by staring at my phone screen for too long. Well the reason for this monthly book review is almost the same, except that instead of burning my corneas out I exposed myself to some information about the personal life of someone I haven’t talked to in over a year, and it sent me into such a tailspin of envy and self-pity that I deleted all my social media off my phone (again) and blew $50 on books to fill my time. Also, despite finally getting a virtual internship, I still have a lot of time on my hands. 

So now that I’ve set the scene for you, here are my reviews of the seven books I read in July. 

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi This was the easy breezy beach read that I brought on a trip to Ocean City. I spent most of June waiting for the ebook to become available at my library and I knew if I chose to delay the download and read it after I got back from the beach I would get bumped to the back of the line. So rather than wait another couple months, I decided to confront my racism on the beach. 

I don’t need to tell you how absolutely imperative it is that everyone read this book. It’s on every antiracist book list for a reason. To be completely honest, although I make a conscious effort to read books by diverse authors, the books I read are mostly fiction. I don’t think I had ever read a nonfiction book about racism before, except maybe some excerpts for different classes at school. For me, the most valuable part of this book was Kendi’s focus on policy. Last month I read Such a Fun Age by Kiley Ried, which raised questions about the more discreet racism that cloaks itself in wokeness. How to Be an Antiracist answers some of the questions Such a Fun Age raises by explaining that a true antiracist person actively fights against racism by working to implement antiracist policy. This definition is such a game changer for me. I really feel like these two books together have opened my eyes to racism in a way that nothing else has before. I really cannot recommend either book enough. 

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett I was not planning on reading this book, but Overdrive, the site that works with Montgomery County Libraries on ebooks and downloads, has special offers where a few books every month are always available for download no matter how many people have already checked them out. This month The Vanishing Half was one of those books. The story begins in Mallard, Louisiana, a tiny town where all of the citizens are descendants of light-skinned black people. Every generation is lighter than the last, and lightness becomes extremely coveted and valuable to the town’s residents. No one leaves Mallard, partially because of its unique culture, but also for a more sinister reason: Once a Mallard resident leaves the town they lose the privilege that comes with being light in Mallard– the outside world just sees them as black. But two twin sisters, Desiree and Stella, run away to New Orleans and eventually make different choices that change the course of not only their lives, but their children’s lives as well. I really enjoyed this book, especially right after reading How to Be an Antiracist, because it was back in my comfort zone in terms of style, but still dealt with racism and colorism. I was also impressed with Brit Bennett’s ability to write compellingly from the perspective of many different characters without losing the reader’s attention or creating an overly fragmented story. 

The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan I reached a point where I was like, “If I don’t get out of this house right now I will lose my mind” and decided to risk my health at a used bookstore. I went to Second Story Books in Rockville because it’s usually mostly empty and it’s one of those bookstores that is completely filled from floor to wall with books. It’s not curated or cute, it’s just completely stuffed with every kind of book. There are makeshift aisles and end caps, and every shelf is double stacked so there’s a secret row of books behind each visible row of books. I browsed the shelves for so long that I gave myself a headache and somehow only walked out with only two books: The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan and Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. The latter I gave to my best friend Paige for her birthday (Happy 21st Birthday Paige! I hope you enjoy this sad book about the Holocaust.) Once I started reading The Opposite of Loneliness I realized that not only had I read it before, but I had performed the first essay in the book for a forensics tournament in high school. It was sort of weird to read an essay about graduating from college in the voice of my sixteen year old self, but I actually think I enjoyed the book even more the second time. The author was a Yale student who died in a car crash at age 23, right after graduating. During her life she was an extremely talented and prolific writer. As an aspiring writer and as an aspiring 23 year old, I am completely blown away by Keegan’s ability to capture experiences and moods any twenty-something can relate to, but also stories far outside the realm of her lived experience with equal skill and attention to detail. 

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins My friend Shelby brought this book to my attention because apparently it is getting a lot of heat from critics right now. American Dirt follows a mother and her eight year old son as they attempt to migrate from Acapulco, Mexico to Colorado after their family is murdered by the cartel. It is possibly the most intense book I’ve read in the past year, and I found myself needing to put it down and breathe for a little while before getting back into the action just because of the sheer amount of violence and stress that the characters face. From the first page to the last page, the characters are constantly beaten down. This is part of the criticism surrounding the book, because the author, Jeanine Cummins, is not a Mexican immigrant. Or Mexican. Or an immigrant. She’s white. Many people are arguing that her book simultaneously exploits and fails to represent the immigrant experience. This is something I think about often: Should white authors write, and therefore attempt to inhabit, nonwhite characters? My gut instinct is to say no because white people cannot fully understand the experiences of nonwhite people. A white author appropriates a nonwhite experience when they try to write a nonwhite character, or reduces a character to his or her race, or ignores the character’s race altogether. But on the other hand, white people dominate the publishing industry at this point in time. Obviously the way forward on that issue is to promote the work of nonwhite authors and examine the systems in place that allow white people to get published more often than nonwhite people. But in the meantime, if the field is dominated by white people and we decide white people can only write white characters, we’re going to get a whole lot of homogeneous white characters. I don’t have any answers or even suggestions on this problem but it is something that I think myself in circles about, so feel free to comment with your thoughts on this issue. 

wow, no thank you by Samantha Irby Samantha Irby writes how I want to write. This is her fourth book of essays, or, as she says, her fourth book of poop jokes. I laughed out loud many, many times while reading this book, and I also tried to read the funniest parts aloud to my parents, who were mostly unamused. So maybe I would recommend this book for people under the age of 35. Although I’m sure Samantha Irby would be horrified to hear that anyone is taking advice from her essays, I actually took a picture of a couple pages from her essay “love and marriage” because it made me feel better about not having a husband lined up for myself at age 21. Sometimes when I watch and/or read too many love stories I just walk around like “whereismyhusband whereismyhusband whereismyhusband my eggs are drying up I’m withering on the vine I’m going to be alone FOREVER and it’s because I can’t peel an apple all in one motion like Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle or because I don’t have shiny blonde hair like Cher in Clueless or timeless fashion sense like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” And it is in those moments that Samantha Irby (or Jia Tolentino or Gillian Flynn) takes me by the hand and says, “First of all, you’re 21. Second of all, men ain’t shit.” 

Expectation by Anna Hope I read the first chapter of this book way back in 2019 at a bookstore in Italy, and I enjoyed it enough to take a picture of the cover and think really hard about reading it, but not enough to actually cough up $20 and buy it. It finally became available through my library this month, and I was really excited about it because the first chapter is this beautiful description of three friends who live in an adorable house in London and spend their weekends having picnics and going to farmers markets and just living that idyllic mid-twenties lifestyle that I imagine for myself if this pandemic ever ends. Well, every single chapter after the first one is about how life goes completely downhill after your twenties. One woman is stuck with a baby and a husband she doesn’t like, one woman ruins her marriage while trying to conceive a child, and the other is a lonely, failed actress whose beauty diminishes every day. I did enjoy some of the more dramatic moments of this book as well as some of the flashbacks to the women’s younger years, but overall the book kind of made me dread my thirties. Samantha Irby built me up, and this book knocked me down. 

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion When I tell you that I checked every used bookstore and every library for this book… I mean, it’s kind of old and kind of a classic which should make it easy to find for free or for cheap, but I checked everywhere for years and I could not find it. I finally caved and bought it full price at Barnes and Noble like a chump, and I only slightly regret it. I liked some essays in this book more than others because some of Joan Didion’s writing is so rooted in the time period in which it was written that I can’t understand it without googling like ten different references to minor political figures of the 1960s, and that’s just no fun. My favorite essays were “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream,” “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” “Marrying Absurd” and“On Keeping a Notebook.” I really do think that Joan Didion is one of the most skillful writers that I’ve read. Every word in every sentence seems so purposeful and exacting. I find it interesting that her writing is so grounded but she tends to write about moments when she, or the country in general, felt disconnected or in flux. 

So I successfully read my way out of my social media-induced doom spiral. Next on my reading list: White Fragility by Robin Diangelo, Untamed by Glennon Doyle, and Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney. So another antiracism book, a self-help book, and a novel by the Queen of Heartache herself, Sally Rooney.

Maybe I should get a different hobby.

You know how when you’re thirteen you haven’t really lived enough life or had enough experiences yet to have a personality? And you know how you are inundated with messages to “be yourself” starting around that time because adults recognize that your preteen years are also the years when you’re most susceptible to peer pressure and the desire to fit in? And you know how social media was juuuust starting to take off when my generation hit those preteen years? And you know when you start an essay in this smug question format but then you kind of lose the thread and can’t remember why you phrased it this way to begin with?

Me too. And all of those things combined– not having a strong understanding of myself, combined with pressure to be myself, further combined with new ways to get lots of information quickly via the internet– led me to create an identity solely based on the media I was consuming. Or to create an identity solely based on the media I wasn’t consuming, also known as “not-like-other-girls” syndrome. I wasn’t like other girls because I hated Twilight, Justin Bieber, wearing makeup, and dancing. 

I recently found my old iPod Touch from middle school. My home screen is a picture of me and my middle school boyfriend, and my notes section is full of my observations from my last summer at sleep away camp. Deep thoughts like “When I get home, I’m gonna buy the box set of John Green books” and “I hate [redacted], she is such a SLUT!!!” are sandwiched between Hebrew slang words that my camp counselors taught me and quotes from songs I liked. Digging through my old iPod made me think a lot about my old cringy middle school self. To further indulge in the nostalgia, here is a review of the Things I Based My Personality On in Middle School. 

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Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. This is a YA novel about two teenagers from very different backgrounds who fall in love on the bus to school. Eleanor was a sad fat girl with unruly red hair who found solace from her troubled home life in alternative music. I had red hair, and I liked music, and like most tween girls I got sad sometimes, so I based my personality off of Eleanor. I decided my middle school boyfriend was Park and we were gonna save each other from our tortuous middle school existences just like in the book. As soon as he could get his braces off, we were getting out of here. In all honesty Eleanor and Park is still one of my all time favorite books. It’s definitely the book I’ve reread the most times. I own all of Rainbow Rowell’s novels, and they occupy the place of honor in my room next to my cute little reading nook. They’ve survived countless room cleanouts and they still bring me happiness every time I reread them. 

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Doctor Who. Every single day from sixth to eighth grade I would come home from middle school and make a plate of “nachos” (Tostitos with microwaved shredded cheddar cheese on top) and watch Doctor Who in the computer room. My whole friend group was completely obsessed. We had the coolest Doctor Who gear from Hot Topic and we would debate which Doctor was the best at lunch. My friends and I even had a group Doctor Who Halloween costume where I was the tenth doctor, my friends were the tardis, a dalek, and River Song. And yes, we did get bullied, thanks for asking. 

Charlieissocoollike. Charlie McDonnell was a popular British Youtuber who made videos about stuff like Doctor Who, science, being British… He just sort of epitomized YouTube humor at the time. He was also in a Doctor Who-themed band called Chameleon Circuit with four other YouTubers who I also watched. Slight tangent, but when I got Bat Mitzvah-ed my parents let me use my closet door as a sign in board, so all of my friends signed their names and wrote little messages in permanent ink on my closet door. Apparently I was very vocal about my love for charlieissocoollike because half of the kids at my bat mitzvah wrote some variation of “Rachel ❤ Charlie!” or “Rachel McDonnell” or “rachelissocoollike” on my door, which I then had to stare at when I got dressed every morning for like five more years. 

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Weheartit. Speaking of YouTube and the internet, the first social media app I ever had was called weheartit. It was kind of like tumblr content in a pinterest format, and it was somehow less customizable than either of them. I would search for artsy Doctor Who edits or song lyrics and stuff like that, but if you didn’t search for something the default content was just sort of artsy depressioncore posts. Like I never ever sought this stuff out but there were always pictures of girls with slashed wrists or pro-ana posts with stuff like “Nothing tastes better than skinny feels,” or really thin girls inhaling cigarette smoke from their boyfriends mouths. Stuff like that. Obviously my parents did not know I had access to this, and again I want to point out that I did not seek out that sort of content, but I definitely did look at it almost every day for multiple hours. This is sort of an odd comparison especially if you weren’t a teen or preteen in the early 2010s but I feel like weheartit was my Skins. Like even if you didn’t watch Skins when you were a young teen, you definitely watched or looked at or read something that had the same edgy, lowkey dangerous vibe as Skins, and you were definitely damaged by it without realizing it. Seriously though, why were so many tweens allowed to watch Skins? I know lots of TV shows and movies get a bad rep for glorifying mental illness, but I really don’t think any show did so as blatantly as Skins. The second episode of the whole series has a scene where this gorgeous blonde girl with anorexia teaches her friend how to make it look like she’s eating without eating anything. She literally TAUGHT an audience of mostly young girls how to get away with anorexia. That’s unconscionable. And that’s why I think kids but young girls especially should not be allowed to have their own personal devices, because they will end up looking at pictures of people cutting themselves and beautiful girls teaching them how to be anorexic, whether they mean to or not. 

The Beatles. Of all my middle school obsessions I think my Beatles obsession was the strongest. It all started when my family took a trip out West. We stayed in log cabins, drove long hours in the car, and hiked through national parks. My parents decided that after roughing it for most of the week we would spend one night in Vegas at a bougie hotel and see a show. We saw the Beatles Love Show by Cirque du Soleil. It blew my tiny preteen mind. I was completely awed not just by the music, but also by the bright colors and the whole aesthetic of the show. I started listening to The Beatles nonstop and I even bought the physical CDs instead of just downloading the music onto my ipod because I loved the colorful CD cases and the designs on the lyric booklets. For all of middle school and a lot of high school, one wall in my room was plastered top to bottom with Beatles posters. To this day I know every lyric and every guitar riff to nearly every Beatles song, even though I don’t really listen to them anymore. I truly did love The Beatles because of their music, but I must admit that part of why I loved them was because they were old and retro and most kids my age didn’t listen to them. Like if Justin Beiber had written I Want to Hold Your Hand and it played on the radio in 2013, I probably wouldn’t have liked it. Likewise, if The Beatles had written Baby, I probably would have liked it. 

There are some aspects of my middle school personality that I’m ashamed of. My not-like-other-girls syndrome bordered on misogyny, even though I can see now that I was really just reacting to the widespread opinion that teenage girls are stupid, and the things they like are dumb. In trying to distance myself from what I had been taught was stupid, I became judgemental of girls who could have become my friends, and prevented myself from doing things that I might have enjoyed. But there are also aspects of my middle school self that I’m really proud of, like my passion for the things I did love. Even if I’m embarrassed of them now, I’m grateful for all of these books, shows, bands, and youtubers for the entertainment and happiness they brought me as a tween.

From Spotify Studios, this is Dissect. Longform musical analysis broken into short, digestible essays. I’m your host, Rachel Weisenthal. 

Just kidding. A girl can dream, right? 

This is the second post in a serialized analysis of Fiona Apple’s newest album Fetch the Bolt Cutters. My lovely friend Maggie Stupar and I will be analyzing each song off the album in a non-chronological, probably unorganized, but oh-so-earnest manner in the coming months because we have a lot of time on our hands and a lot to say about Fiona Apple. This post will cover the first song, “I Want You to Love Me.” 

Much of Fiona Apple’s discography deals with desperately wanting to be loved above anything else. Her songs often describe a painful sort of unrequited love that Apple seems to prefer over the alternative of feeling nothing. There is a noble aspect to this sort of love in the sense that Apple loves without hope of being loved in return. But there is also something masochistic about sacrificing yourself for the person you love and getting little to nothing in return. This painful, unrequited love shows up in songs like “I Know” off of Apple’s 1999 album When the Pawn… and “Jonathan” off of her 2012 album The Idler Wheel… 

It is clear from Apple’s lyrics (and from the endless array of stories about unrequited love in our culture) that when you settle for one-sided love, you relinquish the possibility of being understood. You may think that settling for an unsatisfying relationship will prevent you from being alone, but really it just makes you even lonelier. You’re not alone in the sense that you’re by yourself; you’re alone in the sense that you cannot find belonging with your partner. If Apple’s earlier albums show her realizing and accepting this tradeoff, Fetch the Bolt Cutters shows her rejecting it. This is where the first song of Fetch the Bolt Cutters, “I Want You to Love Me” comes in. 

“I Want You to Love Me” is the first track of the album, and for this reason, I see it as a sort of test. Sonically the song starts out with a syncopated, percussive, almost industrial sounding opening, like rhythmic maintenance work on a train. About twenty seconds in, the song drastically shifts to the skillful piano we have come to expect from Apple. By changing so drastically and so soon– literally mere seconds into the album– Apple immediately has the listener on their toes. Apple is telling the audience not to get comfortable and not to harbor any expectations. This is her song, not yours. 

Now on to the chorus. The chorus changes slightly each time, but give or take a couple words Fiona repeats “I want you to love me.” 

1.And next year, it’ll be clear
This was only leading me to that
And by that time, I hope that
[Chorus]
You love me
You love me

2. And while I’m in this body
I want somebody to want
And I want what I want and I want
[Chorus]
You to love me
You

3. I am the woman who wants you to win
And I’ve been waiting, waiting for
[Outro]
You to love me
You
You

The context changes with each verse-chorus pairing, but the sentiment remains the same: Fiona wants you to love her. This might seem incongruous with the sonic warning in the opening not to expect much, or rather not to expect your expectations to be met because this song isn’t for you. But that’s the key to the song: Whereas in previous albums Apple wanted to be loved and was willing to sacrifice understanding, this time Apple wants to be loved fully, because of and in spite of her flaws. By sticking to her guns even when it means creating something unwanted for the listener, Apple puts herself first. She lays herself bare to the listener in both the lyrics and the music itself, and asks you to love her in full awareness of all her idiosyncrasies. 

The most notable test comes at the very end of the song, when the earnest, pleasant piano descends into cacophony and Apple starts shrieking and making what I would describe as extremely concerning dolphin noises. Somewhere between a manic giggle and a Gelsey Bell-ian extended vocal technique, this is a jarring and disconcerting end to the first song of an album. The pure weirdness of this section simultaneously pushes you away and draws you in, like a car crash you can’t look away from. You’re welcomed into what seems like an intimate moment of vulnerability (Really? She’s willing to be that weird in front of me?) and an obnoxious performance (This girl must really want attention if she’s willing to be that weird in front of me.) Most likely, the song is both. Music is extremely vulnerable for the artist, and it is a performance for an audience. Apple forces her listeners to accept this dichotomy, thereby accepting her as a performer for their entertainment and as a human being just like them.

But back to the chorus. Something else that stays the same between all iterations of the chorus is the extension of the word “you” and the brevity of “to love me,” so that the full line sounds like “I want youuuuuuuuu… to love me.” This is a similar trick to the one in the opening: It seems that the line will end after “I want you.” This leads the listener to believe that Apple has found the perfect person to shower her love upon; she has found the perfect lover who is worthy of her all-consuming love and will give her the understanding that has been missing in the previous albums. In the space of that extended “you” the listener imagines a perfect love for our heroine and author, a completion of the narrative we are constantly fed about a broken girl who becomes complete when she finds the right lover. When she finally hits you with that first “to love me,” it’s a little bit soul-crushing. The love story and all it stands for crumbles before your eyes (or before your ears?). It seems for a moment like Apple is back on her bullshit. Once again she is begging for affection, stuck in another one-sided relationship. But from the context of the song it becomes clear that that is not the case. The tests throughout the song, the constant refusal to meet the audience’s expectations, the assertion that the song will be one her terms, and the overarching theme of liberation throughout the album makes it clear that this song is not a desperate ploy for love, but an assertion that if she is going to be loved it will be for who she truly is. 

The tone on “you” wavers over the course of its duration between a calm, vocally relaxed tone and Apple’s trademark scratching grip on the note, as if she’s pinching the word in her throat to avoid letting go of you. This gravely, scratching quality is consistent throughout all of Apple’s songs, and is heightened even more in her live performances when she physically balls up her fists, scrunches her shoulders, and causes veins to pop out on her neck. This tone and her physical demeanor when performing reminds me of the David Foster Wallace quote, “Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.” In “I Want You to Love Me” this captures the tension between Apple’s newfound goal to find understanding in love and her old habit of sacrificing understanding to get love. Old habits die hard, as they say. 

Furthermore, the extension of “you” simultaneously highlights and diminishes “your” importance in the song.  We can interpret the extension as a sort of audible italics; I want you specifically, no one else. When she finally gets to “to love me,” “your” importance is diminished. She doesn’t want you, she wants your love, your affection, your attention. You are the means to her end. But then again, isn’t wanting your love just another form of wanting you? If she wanted love from just anyone, she wouldn’t put so much emphasis on the “you,” right? Don’t ask me, I’m just a mere internet blogger. I don’t have the answer to complex questions like that. But thanks, Fiona, that one will keep me up for nights on end. 

“I Want You to Love Me” is a powerful song that both stands on its own and functions as a strong opener to the album. It introduces the main tension of Fetch the Bolt Cutters, between Apple’s desire to seek understanding in love and her old habit of accepting love at the price of understanding. It challenges the listener to accept Apple as she is now, not as she was when she released “Criminal” or even The Idler Wheel. She invites us to join her on her journey to cut the bolts that bind her to false love. 

A few weeks ago I started keeping eye drops next to my bed. I was spending so much time looking at screens that by the end of the day my eyes felt dry and itchy. So I decided to take a break from screen-related eye strain to experience some good old fashioned book-related eye strain instead. I’ve had a really good streak of books this month, so I thought I’d do a little review.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

This is one of the books that amazon reeeeally wanted me to read for whatever reason. I got approximately one million ads for it and eventually relented because the cover is pretty. Now that I’ve read it I’m still not sure it was worth it. The unnamed main character in this book decides to sleep for one entire year through excessive use of sleeping pills in the hopes that she will wake up feeling refreshed and ready to take on the challenges of her admittedly shitty life. The book is written in a sort of drug-induced haze that made me, as a reader, feel simultaneously cloudy and anxious. It was not a particularly pleasant read, especially because nothing really happens despite the book being 304 pages. I also read the first story in Moshfegh’s other book of short stories and essays titled Homesick for Another World, which seemed to have a similar plot to My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I think the premise of the book is better suited for a short story format. So much of the plot involves the main character continuously falling into the same cycles, making for a repetitive, boring read when spread out over so many pages. This is one of those books where I’m sure there’s a message buried in there somewhere, but the book did not engage me enough for me to bother finding out what it is. For the sake of this review I’ll venture that Moshfegh attempts to show how outer beauty can obscure inner ugliness, or maybe how beautiful people struggle to get help because outsiders assume their lives are perfect by virtue of their beauty. 

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

This book is part memoir, part self-help, part psychology for dummies and I cannot recommend it enough. Gottlieb tells the story of her unconventional path to psychotherapy and eventually writing, exploring the lives of her patients and her own therapist along the way. I feel like I learned something about myself through every character in this book: John, the bigshot TV writer and major asshole; Julie, the dying cancer patient; Rose, the depressed elderly woman trying to make the most of the later stage of her life; and the author herself, a newly dumped middle-aged woman trying to get back on her feet. The fact that I, a healthy twenty-one year old in the prime of her life (or what would be the prime of my life if I were allowed to, you know, leave my house) could relate to every single character in this book is a testament not only to Lori Gottlieb’s writing abilities, but also to the greater message of the book: No matter who you are or what your life looks like, you should probably go to therapy. My only critique of this book is that it is a whopping 412 pages. I truly feel like everyone could benefit from reading it, but with such a high page count I’m somewhat hesitant to recommend it to people who don’t already love reading or who prefer something more fast-paced.

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

Oh boy. This book is a must-read for anyone with internet connection. Ronson explores the rise of internet shaming by following the stories of people who experienced it first hand. The specific events are slightly out of date (it mostly focuses on shamings that happened from 2012-2015) but the information and conclusions that Ronson draws are definitely more relevant than ever. I was surprised and impressed by the scope of Ronson’s investigation. The book is primarily about internet shaming, but Ronson also explores public whippings in the 1700s, pornography, road signs, and the justice system. The only annoying thing about this book was that Ronson sometimes writes in a way that suggests the reader should already be familiar with him and his work, which I was not. Maybe his popularity has waned in the years since the book came out, or maybe I’m just not up to date. This book would be supplemented nicely with material by Brene Brown, who studies shame and vulnerability. I’m a big fan of Brene Brown but I do feel that her work has not yet made the necessary leap to the internet, where shame is constantly weaponized and celebrated, as Ronson demonstrates in his book. 

Paper Airplanes by Dawn O’Porter (Contains Spoilers)

I first read this book in highschool because a youtuber that I watched (still watch, to be honest) recommended it. On the surface, it’s a fairly standard YA novel about two unlikely friends, goody-goody Flo and bad girl Renee. On my second time reading it I realized how bold a book it actually is. O’Porter covers a wide array of topics like abuse, sex, eating disorders, frienship, and bullying in an earnest way that does not feel like she is simply trying to tick off the “bad things that can happen to teenagers” boxes. I was especially impressed by O’Porter’s portrayal of Renee’s experience with rape. Rather than breaking down as one might expect, Renee convinces herself that the experience was consensual and even expresses that she wishes to have sex with her rapist again. There have definitely been moments in my life, especially as a teenage girl, when I knew that I was uncomfortable but I shoved down my gut feeling to convince myself that the situation was actually what I wanted, often because I wanted to seem “chill” or fit in with other people. It is disturbing and, unfortunately, truthful how thoroughly Renee convinces herself of her own false feelings. Although this is a YA book I would recommend it for readers between the ages of 15 and 25, partially because I don’t think it’s completely appropriate for younger readers and partially because reading it at an older age allowed me to reflect on my teenage years with the added perspective of already surviving them. 

Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid

I jumped on the bandwagon for this one and I do not regret it. This book is well worth the hype. I was number 400 on the waitlist to rent the ebook from my library and I just couldn’t wait (who has that time, even in quarantine?) so I forked up the $9 to buy it on amazon. This book was so good that it almost completely alleviated the guilt of lining Jeff Bezos’s pockets instead of supporting my local library. My friend was in the room with me while I was reading this book and she kept laughing at me because I gasped, laughed out loud, and had to physically walk away to take a break from it. Such A Fun Age follows the story of Alix, a white upper class mother and business woman, and Emira, her young, black, lower class babysitter. Their relationship is sterile and professional until one night when Emira is wrongly accused of kidnapping her babysitting charge, Alix’s daughter. Certain parts of this book definitely made me uncomfortable, and they were definitely supposed to. What makes this book so compelling is that none of the characters are completely right or wrong, which in the context of the book means that no one is blatantly racist or classist. Just like in real life, each character is completely convinced that they are doing the right thing and behaving honorably, and depending on which character you relate to you might think the same thing until a different character proves them/you otherwise. At times this book made me feel like the baggage of slavery and racism have made it so that Americans will never be able to fully communicate with and understand members of the opposite race, at least not without tremendous work and sensitivity from everyone involved. Hopefully that is not the case, but Reid makes it crystal clear that the self-congratulatory displays of wokeness that seem to dominate the realm of social justice today are not the way forward. 

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides 

The Virgin Suicides was my favorite movie for all of high school, but I never had any plans to read the book. I knew that I was more attracted to the aesthetic that Sofia Coppola creates than to the actual story. Also, the writing style is exactly the sort of thing I don’t like: Long flowery descriptions of scenery and in depth histories of minor side characters who only show up once. Very little dialogue. Female characters who never speak, fetishized through the eyes of male characters. But despite all of this, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I think I would have enjoyed reading it in a class or with a bookclub, because there’s clearly a lot of symbolism and repeated motifs that I am sort of dying to talk about. In case you haven’t seen the movie or read the book, the story is told from the perspective of a nameless adult man who lived across the street from the Lisbon family as a child. The book is a sort of retrospective investigation into the short lives and dramatic deaths of the Lisbon sisters. Over the course of a year, the five Lisbon girls kill themselves as the neighborhood boys pine after them. If you’re a particularly sensitive or reactive reader it would be easy to write off this book as a glamourization of suicide and a Lolita-esque fetishization of young girls. However, it becomes clear that the book is against the very things it seems to perpetuate. Every character– the Lisbon girls, the neighborhood boys, the small community in which the book is set– is negatively affected by the girls’ suicides. So to avoid falling into the “There is suicide in this book and therefore it is bad” trap, here’s my unrelated hot take: There are too many comparisons between vaginas and animals. “It was like a wolf bearing its teeth.” “It was like a warm mouth calling out to us.” No it wasn’t, Jeffery. It was a vagina. Probably no woman’s vagina has ever called out to anyone, but if it could it would say something closer to “Get the fuck away from me” than “I want you I want you oh baby oh baby.” 

Normal People by Sally Rooney 

My friend Shelby basically commanded me to read this book (and watch the tv show) once a day for a month, but I’m cheap and impatient so I didn’t want to buy it on amazon or wait in a virtual line behind 200 other people to rent it. Luckily, Shelby finished reading the book right after I finished The Virgin Suicides so I just read her copy for free 🙂 Normal People follows Marianne and Connell over the course of five years, from senior year of high school to the end of college. The two flit in and out of each other’s lives in a way that could be described as an on-again-off-again relationship, but that diminishes the depth of their connection. This book was painful to read at times, especially the sections that focus on Marianne. This is one of those books where you just want the characters to end up happy because they both go through so much, which is absolutely a testament to Rooney’s well-developed characters, but also sometimes makes for a frustrating read. Sally Rooney really drags the reader through the lowest points of the character’s lives. The ending is somewhat vague, and I feel that the characters and the reader deserve slightly more of a reward for living through/reading about various hardships. I was frustrated that there was no light at the end of the tunnel, or if there was it was a very dim flickering candle that could go out if either of the main characters breathed too hard. I was looking for more of a resolution. But maybe I’m missing the point.

Next on my to read list: Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino. I’ve already read the first chapter and it was absolutely fascinating, and she references So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed which made me feel well-read 🙂 This is another book that got a lot of buzz, so I’m excited to get into it.

There are many similarities between quarantine and Fiona Apple’s new album Fetch the Bolt Cutters. Time in quarantine is weird and fake and seems to move at either a breakneck pace or a snail’s crawl depending on what time of day it is and how much will I have to live. Similarly, the meter and rhythm on Apple’s songs changes as it pleases, sometimes predictable and steady, sometimes confusing and untraceable. In quarantine, everything seems laden with meaning. The sky looks blue today BECAUSE THERE’S LESS POLLUTION? My throat is a little tickly BECAUSE I HAVE CORONA VIRUS? Likewise, on Apple’s album, every line is juuuust weird enough that there must be some secret meaning behind it. Take, for example, the titular song on the album, “Fetch the Bolt Cutters.”

It’s an odd phrase, “Fetch the Bolt Cutters.” The sophisticated connotation of “fetch” lends a certain detachedness, which is off-putting because I can’t think of a situation where bolt cutters are necessary but no sense of urgency is required. I would think a more adequate phrase would be “Shit, get the bolt cutters!” or “Damn it, I need a bolt cutter!” Something like that. Granted, I’ve never seen a pair of bolt cutters before and I can’t even safely operate a screwdriver, so in my head all construction projects for which tools are required have a sexy sense of urgency to them.

But I digress. My point is that there is a lack of urgency in Apple’s call to action, which is odd in this otherwise high-intensity, anger-driven album. This song is the moment of Apple’s liberation from societal expectation, from the trappings of womanhood, from manners and niceties, and she calmly requests that someone “Fetch the bolt cutters”? Shouldn’t she demand the bolt cutters with newfound authority? Or even better, shouldn’t Apple break the bolts with her own brute strength and the adrenaline from deciding that she won’t take another day locked up by these damn bolts? Why doesn’t Apple fetch the bolt cutters herself? Maybe the bolts that need to be cut prevent her from doing so, but if her captors will just hand over the bolt cutters when she politely asks, I’m inclined to believe that the bolts weren’t that strong and the captors weren’t that committed to begin with. Maybe her captors would have cut the bolts at any time if only she had asked. Perhaps Apple’s true captor was herself.

The full chorus goes, “Fetch the bolt cutters/ I’ve been in here too long.” The calmness of the first line paired with the exhaustion and shame of “I’ve been in here too long” conveys an overall sense of resignation, not to Apple’s current situation, but to the difficulty of the road ahead. Perhaps Apple had the “bolt cutters” all along, but her fear and trepidation of what a liberated life might entail kept her from using them. Tying in with the theme of expectations placed on women, this line speaks to what can happen when girls internalize the expectation to stay small and unobtrusive. If you tell a girl enough times to be quiet, not to take up space, to follow the rules and be a good girl, after a while she will start to police her own behavior. It takes concerted effort to cut those bolts and decide to take up space, and once faced with a life without limitations many people find themselves unsure of who they want to be. Apple’s new refusal to stay small is made explicit in the song “Heavy Balloon” when she sings, “I spread like strawberries/ I climb like peas and beans/ I’ve been sucking it in so long/ That I’m busting at the seams.”

Interwoven with Apple’s refusal to stay small is her refusal to stay silent. One way this is represented throughout the album is through the repeated sounds of barking dogs. Like Apple, the dogs cannot be calmed down or quieted; they want or need to bark, so they do. This complicates the use of the word “Fetch” and might even undercut the theme of liberation. By telling someone to fetch the bolt cutters, Apple is exerting control over someone, using them for her moment of liberation. Apple rejects this sort of blind obedience in songs such as “Under the Table,” but here she relies on the dog-like obedience of others to liberate herself. This contradiction makes a strong point about the power dynamics in place and the privilege in being able to leave the safety of captivity to risk the joys of liberation. Who do we squash when we strive for a better life? Apple argues that one woman’s liberation means very little if she must perpetuate the struggle of others in order to achieve it. This gives new meaning to the line “I’ve been in here too long.” Apple has been in “here,” the world of her captors, for too long, and has adopted their beliefs. She has turned from captive to captor; by keeping herself small and trying to fit in, she perpetuated the very systems that kept her down. It’s a catch-22: To break the cycle, someone has to leave it. To leave the system, we must sometimes play by its rules.

Though the album and Apple’s biography give many clues as to who the captors and the captives in this song may be, Apple never makes it completely clear. I believe this is intentional. By avoiding the specifics, Apple tells a universal story of liberation and freedom. With “Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” Apple says that it does not matter what is keeping you small, whether it’s the expectations of others, your own expectations of yourself, or just some asshole- This album is your sign to free yourself and prove those fuckers wrong.

A few days or possibly hours or possibly weeks ago because time is fake in social isolation, Muhlenberg officially emailed everyone to say that we will not be returning to campus this semester. It didn’t come as a surprise, but that didn’t make it any less unpleasant to hear. A lot of thoughts went through my mind: I probably won’t see my friends for a long time… I should have brought everything home with me when we first left school… This means we’ll have online classes for the rest of the semester… 

Shit.

Online classes for the rest of the semester. 

I am not a fan of online learning. I know there are lots of benefits, like attending classes in the comfort of your own home, not having to change out of your pjs, more flexible schedules. Most importantly, it’s more accessible to all kinds of students. And I definitely do prefer having online classes to having no classes at all. But online learning ticks all the boxes for situations that make me anxious. 

I don’t know the rules. Whenever I’m in a new situation I develop an acute fear of breaking unspoken social codes. I’m worried that there’s some “right” way to behave that everyone knows about except for me. Most recently this neurosis reared its ugly head in a Chipotle. Until recently I had never been to a Chipotle before, and I was ridiculously anxious that I would do something “wrong,” so I ordered nothing and then felt “wrong” for ordering nothing and I sat with my friend and felt “wrong” about where and how I was sitting. I fully recognize that this makes no sense. I mean, what would the unspoken social code be in a Chipotle? Do all of the employees there get together at the beginning of the week and go “We, masters of the burrito bowl, do now decide that all Chipotle patrons must speak the secret code before ordering their Tex-Mex creations. If customers do not sit with their right leg crossed over their left, scroll through exactly seventeen Instagram posts, and use only one side of the napkin, they will be deemed Wrong By Chipotle Social Code and the next plague of salmonella will be upon them!” Probably not. But it’s possible. And I would never know because in all honesty I’m more of a Panera gal myself. 

Just like I don’t know the secret social code of Chipotle, I also don’t know the secret social code of online learning. I don’t know when I’m supposed to mute and unmute myself during Zoom classes. Like, if I’m done asking a question but the professor is addressing me by answering it, do I mute myself because I’m done talking or stay unmuted because I’m being addressed? How conversational should my tone be on discussion boards? Supposedly everyone is reading everyone else’s posts, so am I supposed to address the invisible audience that is my classmates, or write as if I can’t feel all twenty-five people in my class virtually breathing down my neck? Am I supposed to email my professors on gmail or on canvas? Should I be early for Zoom classes like I’m early to my in-person classes? It’s not as if there are seats to claim, but it feels a little rude to hit join exactly at 9:30 when my class starts, but if I click it “early” then me and the other nerds have to awkwardly share a weird liminal non-space together and stare at each other’s floating heads. Speaking of which… 

People can see my face up close. My skin is pretty bad right now, probably because all I’ve been doing in social isolation is cooking, baking, and then eating whatever foods I’ve cooked or baked. That would be fine if I were attending in-person class, where my face is at least a couple feet away from everyone else’s eyeballs at all times. But for Zoom classes I have to use my godforsaken front-facing laptop camera, and frankly, she and I don’t get along. I usually keep a piece of black construction paper taped over my front-facing camera because I watched that one episode of Black Mirror, but now I have to uncover it and expose my bad skin to my class and the FBI and Mark Zuckerburg and Jesus and whoever else spies on me while I’m learning about seventeenth century literature. 

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The stupid things I say don’t disappear. If I say something stupid during in-person class, I can tell myself that no one will remember it. The words disappeared from the universe the moment I was done saying them. Not so in an online class. If I write something stupid on a discussion board (or, in the case of my less tech-savvy professor, on a very very long email chain) people can go back and read it for the rest of eternity. I know they probably won’t, but they could. And I don’t like that. I can’t be judged on my English Theory and Methods post from two days ago. I’ve changed since then. I’m constantly evolving. I’m an enigma.

I know that everyone is adjusting to online learning. Everyone is figuring out the rules and trying to make it as painless as possible. I’m grateful that continuing classes online is an option at all. I’m sure that as everyone gets more comfortable with it, these anxious feelings will fade and seeing my classmates in a Brady Bunch style grid on my screen will become the new normal. In the meantime, I’ll take comfort in the fact that everyone is just as out of their element as I am.