⚠ the gentlest of content warnings for discussions of mental health ™
It’s newsletter time! I’m starting to surface out of about 3 weeks of a real raccoon style depression phase, so apologies for sending this out in MARCH, 2 days late. How many of you have also been *wild* levels of depressed lately? I bet some of you haaaaave! I’m sorry. It really sucks!
I have a hastily-prepared missive for you this month, friends – but at the top, I just want to say I miss you all on Twitter. I miss the validation of existing in public with my friends when it’s too cold and grey and S.A.D. out to exist in the real world. Twitter used to be my Winter Palace of public socializing – and I miss the easy, opt-in social engagement and validation of being able to put myself out there with almost no effort.
{[ Speaking of depression, Katherine and I just finished watching through the original 26 episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time last night (Netflix dub, don’t @ me) and holy shit this was a show for CHILDREN?!? More with this later, maybe? I finally get all the references now. Wow. That Miss Misato, huh. Gosh. ]}
I quit Twitter in part because it’s so easy to fall into the habit of treating interactions with your friends as transactions, and I don’t want to do that – but it’s been difficult to stay away. I want to be seen to be participating, and appreciated for contributing, to the ocean of opt-in, low-effort community on Twitter. This is the dilemma.
I don’t know if I’m saying I’m logging on again – I am emphatically Not as of when this has shipped. I just miss hearing about everyone’s new pets, hot dates, funky art projects, whatever. I was a daily, invested participant in my bubble on Twitter for 14 years and I got really used to seeing the inside of some people’s lives – and sometimes it feels lonely to just not be there anymore. How odd, and how normal, a feeling.
Back to Neon Genesis Evangelion. I am so angry at Hideaki Anno, for making a cartoon about the cycle of childhood trauma and loneliness of depression that got really popular and ended up on Netflix, when I honestly just wanted to enjoy a big robot show and eat chocolate. I don’t want to be doing therapy in my anime. But the themes do feel cloyingly relevant to my feelings on Twitter, rattling around in my head in a silky instagram-therapist voice. It’s got me dwelling. I miss the good things about Twitter, but the only way to really have them is to get back in the EVA. Which makes Elon Musk Gendo?
Anyway.
§ I combined some special interests
Earlier this month I endeavoured to follow a wonderful recipe for Roman bread as the Pompeiians made it: Panis Quadratus. I highly recommend you read the linked blog post if you’re at all interested in baking, or really in classics in general. These are two of the things I love and I had to try this out. Whole album of images here, to save some space:
Panis Quadratus is this kind of 8-sectioned bread that the peoples of the ancient Mediterranean were eating, throughout Greek and Roman times. It’s notable because there is a lot of archaeological evidence for this bread, so we know a lot about how it was made. Again, the article goes into all of it in beautiful detail. The bread itself though:
I think I did pretty dang well! What makes this bread particular is the way the 8 pieces are meant to be broken apart, or cut in two and used as a “plate” and also for dipping. It’s not a bread for one person living alone, it’s measured out and baked to be eaten by multiple people, together. I was planning on trying my hand at some lovely food writing this month on the topic of community and baking bread and anime, but I’m still way too deflated for that so let’s roll on.
I will say that I did feel myself transported just a tiny bit, back to what life must be like in Roman times: where this specific bread was common enough to be namedropped hundreds of years apart, in ancient writings. The life of peoples before Christianity is a big special interest of mine, and baking panis quadratus really felt like I was touching a part of that.
My loaf was a mix of whole spelt, whole wheat, Einkorn wheat (basically, an expensive, heritage “ancient grains” version of wheat). I tried to use what they probably used in Roman times, when huge guild bakeries made thousands of these a day with highly-standardized consistency to feed entire cities. Except most people didn’t eat wheat at all back then, wheat was expensive compared to spelt, barley, millet, etc.
I highly recommend the article, if not trying to bake this. I recommend making it a little smaller than the author suggests, and also make soup that night. You’ll really want soup.
§ Uhhhh
There’s not much else really to say, this month has blipped by and I’ve not really been up to much. I saw the new Ant-Man with Kat, and we both really liked it! I don’t get why people don’t seem to like it. I’m in a waxing phase of Marvel enthusiasm right now, but I can see waning on the horizon – not just yet.
I’m also not really going to address the ongoing slow creep of genocide that Florida, Oklahoma, and really so many states I actually can’t keep track of are perpetrating in America. This is not the space for that, and I expect everyone on this mailing list is aware of the issue and is, at the very least, sad about it if not able to do anything.
It’s bad, folks. Stay alive down there.
Everyone on this list with a bad brain and/or uncooperative body these days, have the best back half to your week and a restful weekend. It’s almost spring.