A Friday Chat About Today
We knew the dinosaur park was a terrible idea.
NICOLE: It’s Friday. Yes it is. Friday has happened.
MEGAN: Yep, time didn’t stop as I thought it would last night, at 1 in the morning, laying in bed and scrolling through Twitter for no reason other than force of habit and an impending sense of doom. How are you feeling?
NICOLE: Bleh. I’ve felt terrible this whole week. That anxious, hyper feeling you get when you know you’re going to be broken up with even though the conversation hasn’t happened yet. And today is like, okay, it happened.
MEGAN: Yeah, I have been super salty all week and I thought at first it was because I work a lot (that’s the usual reason), but yesterday, after I finished my night shift, I realized it was obviously because of the inauguration. And now I know what the problem is, though you could say I always did, but just didn’t want to deal.
NICOLE: And I feel like I have to be on alert to everything that happens next, because how can you do the right thing if you don’t know everything that’s going on? I know that I don’t really need to keep up on every subpage the Trump administration has scrubbed from WhiteHouse.gov to go march tomorrow, but I still feel like I have to know everything that’s happening.
MEGAN: Yes! It’s not FOMO precisely, but something like it, except with more doom. Like, the very real fear is that information will become less and less available and we’ll move away from transparency, so the instinct is to arm yourself with all of the information while it’s still available. But, if you do that and store it all in your brain, your brain fills up with shit and less with good stuff — there is still good stuff happening — and then you’re a walking garbage can of anxiety. I think figuring out what we need to pay attention will be personal for everyone, but it’s okay to indulge either instinct. Like, read all the things, file them away OR step away for a sec. Both are fine.
NICOLE: The other problem is that in all of the narratives of disaster — both the real and the fictional ones — the people who did the best were the ones who paid attention the earliest. But we’ve also been paying attention for a very long time. At this point we’re not Ian Malcolm saying “you know your dinosaur park is a terrible idea, let me drip sexy water on your hand,” we’re Ian Malcolm saying “I told you the dinosaur park was a terrible idea, let me recline shirtlessly on this counter.”
MEGAN: LOL, thank you for that, I snorted. But, seriously, the disaster is here. Like, it happened. Here we are, this didn’t happen because we’re all on the same drug, it happened because…lots of reasons. So now that it’s here and it’s happening, all we can do is stay informed, stay ready and…also kind of just live our lives.
NICOLE: It’s like, “What is happening today? Okay, I’ll do these things in response to that, and also I’ll buy groceries. And also I’ll put $25 into my Fuck Off Fund.” Which… can we tell Team Billfold about what’s happening next week?
MEGAN: Oh, yes let’s bring some light into this dark panic bunker. The anniversary of Paulette Perhach Fuck Off Fund piece is, uh, today, which feels darkly fitting.
To celebrate and to also inspire literally everyone and thing to get their finances in good fighting order, we’re doing a Fuck Off Fund Week starting Monday! We’ll be running a bunch of features about Fuck Off Funds and their necessity from some really great people. I might write one, too, because I’m close to giving my freaking cat a Fuck Off Fund, somehow. That’s where my head is at.
NICOLE: I don’t think cats appreciate money, yet. Although they do know how to tell people to fuck off. But yeah, I’m excited about next week, and I’m going to write something too, and there will be a bunch of features about using money to resist… whatever comes next.
MEGAN: To be clear, the cat’s Fuck Off Fund is really my backup, in case I have to use my actual Fuck Off Fund to pay the internet bill or something. Money! It’s useful for resistance and the smaller resistance of living every day. We need to do both. What are you doing this weekend to take care of yourself?
NICOLE: I am marching, and after that I’m probably going to put on my pajamas and not get out of them until Monday morning. Lots of books and Netflix. How about you?
MEGAN: After much inner turmoil, I’m going to march for a bit tomorrow and then I have a bunch of the kind of fussy obligations that I need to do but always get mad at myself for scheduling on weekends. Tonight, however, I have none. So honestly, I’m going to get really stoned, read a book and see what the fuss is about the Young Pope. Oh, and flowers. I’m going to buy flowers.
NICOLE: Always buy the flowers.
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