Never again for a little while.
I don't know what I was thinking. I should know better. But I made the mistake of checking the news this morning. It's been a couple of months since I've done that. I guess I was thinking that at some point I’d have to go back to writing columns about stuff happening in the world rather than stuff happening inside my head. But honestly, the stuff inside my head is nicer to think about than the stuff happening out in the world.
I've just looked up, and it's lunchtime, and I feel like shit because I spent the day doomscrolling. And honestly, what has come of it other than this terrible nausea of the soul? Nothing. Like absolutely nothing changed. Nothing changed for the better and my reading the news didn't make anything worse. Other than my disposition.
So I guess I will redouble my guard against this mistake in future. I will len into my efforts not to read the news and everything will be fine. Yes. Yes, that sounds right. I'm sure everything will be fine.
Oh my, you really picked A DAY to check the news. Goodness.
I was late for a team meeting yesterday because, 5 minutes before the meeting was due to start, I thought I'd just check in on Twitter and see what was happening. Big mistake. HUGE. Because the first thing I saw was Space Karen giving an honest to god Nazi salute at the inauguration, and I went down the "did I just see what I thought I just saw" rabbit hole, and joined the meeting in a panic 5 minutes late.
Having joined I then blurted out what had made me late to my hitherto blissfully unaware team who all went "WHAT?? Like, for real?" and I had to reassure them that, yes, he did it, and just in case anyone was in any doubt HE DID IT A SECOND TIME and everyone took on this face: 🤯
And don't get me started on the media's "Musk made an odd gesture" crab walk away from what we all saw, and all the ancient/classical historians going "there's no such thing as a 'Roman salute', and you totally saw what you thought you saw", the modern historians going "Nah fam, that was 100% a Nazi salute," all the Nazis going "that was 100% a Nazi salute, we're so back," and all the neurodivergent people going "Can confirm that autism doesn't trigger spontaneous Sieg Heil gestures, so don't even fucking go there."
And news organisations are wondering why people aren't engaging with the news anymore. FML.
Of all the days to pick, right after the Trump inauguration- it was always going to be ... 'special' lets go with special.