Gatorade Wishes and Fever Dreams
And a restorative sandwich!
Welcome to Mess & Noise. Last week I contemplated an indie backlash to the broligarchy and how cancel culture actually works in women’s media. If you’re new here, I’ve written about what happens when we move fast and break things, how embarrassing grief can be, and the real reason middle-class kids are overscheduled. If you’re a regular reader who wants to support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber!
That Girl is Poisonnnnned
Not sure if you’re hip to norovirus, aka the “winter vomiting disease?” It strikes my household once a year and it’s brutal. Physical details aren’t necessary, but I’ll quickly share how this GI infection also makes my brain barf:
All the bad news I’d consumed the previous 24 hours got regurgitated into dark rumination. I kept seeing RFK Jr.’s big prosciutto head flapping about vaccines, and thought of all unnecessary sick and suffering at scale in the future if he’s able to outlaw these things.
My little corner of writhing was nothing compared to what will happen with an administration that’s so vehemently anti-public health. When the USDA gets gutted, food poisoning will be an evermore frequent fact of life. The FDA, CDC, HHS and NIH have already been squelched while bird flu flutters around the country.
Institutions that are meant to hold our daily lives together and keep us safe were already on the ropes. It’s a nauseating fever dream to see them get propped up briefly for these cartoonish confirmation hearings, and receive their final blows.
You can really politicize anything these days, even a stomach bug! After a few days of a bland diet, it was time for a sandwich.
A Recuperative Deli Sandwich
As much as I wanted to smash a Panino Rustico, it was too risky post-norovirus. I needed something mellow; the chicken noodle soup of sandwiches. A basic sandwich from an adequate deli.
Sandwich Stats ✅
Place: Sunset Bagels, West Midwood
Order: Turkey and muenster on a roll with lettuce, tomato, mayo & mustard, bag of chips, Diet Coke
Price: ~$13 all together, excluding tip
Quality of components: Fine*
Structural integrity of sandwich: Good
Service: Nice
*As I mentioned, this wasn’t a day to be sandwich-ambitious, so I opted for “fine,” which is one notch below “solid.”
It was a work-from-home day and I was on a freelance deadline, so a place with fast service within walking distance were the main criteria. That ends my up-front apology for covering a non-aspirational sando.
This was the day after those ICE raids, so I expected any place with a kitchen staff and delivery people to feel a little tense, vibe-wise. It was business as usual though, maybe even cheerier than the last time I’d been in. The paper valentine hearts popping amongst the fake reclaimed wood surely helped.
It was also a clear and downright balmy 39-degree day, so I stayed there to eat al fresco instead of going home and turning it into a sad desk sando. Booth by the garbage cans, please!
There were construction workers eating by the window inside laughing at me for taking pictures of my dumpster-side quotidian lunch. They don’t know about sandwich influencing! I didn’t choose this life. (P.S. I’ve done some top-notch eavesdropping on Build Back Better workers in my ‘hood, more on that in another letter.)
Upon the big reveal, when you open your sandwich like a book and confront the vague obscenity of its overstuffed insides, it was clear the staff at Sunset had forgotten the mustard. Perhaps this was for the best. Any level of spice may have been ill-advised at this point in my recovery.
They had also run out of salt and vinegar chips, the perfect hit of acidity to accompany a neutral sandwich. Maybe that was for the best too?
Do I always put potato chips directly into a sandwich? Of course not. But sometimes the occasion demands it, especially when that occasion is a bland squishy sandwich with no mustard.
I opted for Dirty™ Sour Cream and Onion chips (their website is literally reclaimed wood and exposed brick, lol) in lieu of my standby, and that’s when things got a little more exciting.
I was able to finish the first half of my unexciting sandwich without feeling defeated. Again, this was going from zero to one — a “fine” sandwich is a 100% improvement from saltine crackers and Pedialyte.
But there was no way to finish this mini-monster in one sitting. The center (my stomach) would not hold. Once I realized I could barely taste my Diet Coke because it was too cold, I knew it was time to walk home and meet my deadline. Next sandwich will be a symphony of carcinogen-laden cured meats!
Some links and recs for ze weekend:
Speaking of crumbling institutions and devaluing expertise, this Lever story on the conditions that led up to Wednesday night’s plane crash is devastating. Then there’s this letter to Klippenstein from a pilot/insider about what’s going on around SFO. Plane crashes are rare and horrible, but as I’ve written before, they’re often eloquent case studies in system failures, and what happens when any lines of operation get squeezed too tight.
On a more fun note: Two of Kareem Rahma’s recent Subway Takes were dear to my heart: Where Italians rank on the scale of whiteness and a case for shutting off the internet one day a week.
I’m also reading: The Return of Snake Oil. The L.L. Bean heiress causing drama over her dead trees. The soul-crushing phenomenon of ghost jobs. Full bushes are back. Chris Hayes contributes to the distraction crisis discourse. Both his New York profile and the New Yorker review were a fair blend of generous and critical. And it’s Friday — I’m staying on Eric Adams resignation watch, of course.
That’s it for this one! Let me know what you thought.
Uplifting entry on a grey wintry Friday.
Wondering what kind of sandwich is available at my severed worksite.