A Friday Chat About False Dubses
And sonder.
EMILY: How are you?
NICOLE: Doing well! how are you?
EMILY: I’m great! I’m currently migrating my bullet journal over for August. Or it’s not “migrating” the way bullet journal people talk about it, but it’s preparing for August and making sure I don’t miss anything.
I’m so glad it’s Friday! I’m really looking forward to this weekend. I’m attending a really good friend’s wedding and I’m just really looking forward to it. 😀
NICOLE: Nice! Is it a destination wedding, or close by?
EMILY: It’s here in Seattle, at the University of Washington! I believe they both attended. Plus — I don’t know if you went to the UW — but Dubs, the live husky mascot, will be in attendance.
NICOLE: THEY BOOKED DUBS?!
EMILY: THEY DID
AND HE SAID YES
Have you met Dubs???
NICOLE: Never in person.
EMILY: He’s occasionally on campus for student photo ops and when she and I were in school together we would always hunt him down. However, lots of UW alumni (a) live around here and (b) buy their own huskies, so there’s frequently false Dubs (Dubses) around.
Dubses? I’m going to let that stand.
NICOLE: I am LOLling.
EMILY: To me, who didn’t grow up in a city, the strangest thing about living in a city is that you’re living alongside this network of what is essentially parallel universes.
Like, now you know that there is a Dubs fan club that can identify—and loathes—a “false Dubs.”
And I know that all around, there are total niche worlds that people I see every day participate in that I just couldn’t possibly access because I can’t do everything!
NICOLE: Sonder, right?
EMILY: Sonder?
NICOLE: Although I think that word technically refers to people’s internal thoughts rather than Dubs Fan Clubs.
EMILY: I’ve never heard that word! I like it though.
Well, if all people think about is Dubs, it can cover both. Let’s just say the Venn Diagram can be pretty narrow. 😉
NICOLE: I totally get the idea that living in a city means not knowing 95 percent of what is happening, all the time. I grew up in a small town and… it was just different, to know pretty much everyone you passed on the street.
EMILY: Oh yes, and the local politics are really interesting too.
The stakes feel so low, but when everyone around you has an opinion, you’re talking allllllll day with everyone you see about this construction permit or that new superintendent.
NICOLE: Wait, how is that not Seattle? We gripe about construction permits constantly.
EMILY: Ha ha! You’re right, I guess! People don’t change, they just scale up?
How many cranes can you see from where you’re sitting right now?
NICOLE: Zero, but I’m in a semi-basement apartment. How many cranes can you see?
EMILY: Hm, a mixed blessing. I can see twelve from the rooftop of my work building, but I’m not there right now.
I am in the heart of Amazon country. (I don’t work there though! Just to be clear to the readers.)
NICOLE: Hahahahahahaha! I know a handful of people who work for Amazon, so I always feel a little badly when I write about it. Also I use Amazon constantly, I mean COME ON.
EMILY: I do too, which is…technically…shopping local?
I feel very weird about the Whole Foods buyout! Mostly very curious to see what will happen. I actually shop at Whole Foods A LOT so will be keeping an eye out for changes.
I think, too, that criticizing Amazon’s effect on the city, especially its impact on the city’s transportation and housing infrastructure, isn’t really a personal attack on the employees themselves, just on a system that let this nonsense happen.
NICOLE: But but but — and maybe this would have happened without Amazon, or without Amazon being THE ONLY AMAZON — I’m doing the Seattle Public Library Book Bingo challenge, and I’m getting so many books sent instantly to my Kindle for free.
And yeah, the Kindle was not free, but whatever. And I’m getting access to all kinds of stuff that I wouldn’t be able to buy or watch or experience otherwise, much of it at very low prices.
Ugh how do I even deal.
EMILY: Oooo, we should do a second Friday chat about e-books and access! I am a librarian, so I think about this a lot.
NICOLE: YES. I am ready for that. LET’S DO IT.
To be continued…
If you’d like to be part of an upcoming Billfold Friday Chat, please email nicole@thebillfold.com.
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