Grooveless Plorn

I’m an artist! I’ve always wanted to be an artist! And I’m a pretty good one! But I work two jobs in an unrelated industry so I can pay rent, and when I’m not exhausted from THAT I can do the thing I enjoy and have talent in as a hobby. And when I try to enjoy other people’s art, it’s completely saturated in AI shit made of stolen art generated by an algorithm used by people who have no skill and no desire to learn, who don’t actually appreciate the creative process.

My colleague has a degree in archaeology! He’s passionate about it! But he can’t afford to keep studying and works two jobs to pay rent. And when he’s not exhausted from THAT, maybe he can go online and watch videos and read articles… which are increasingly saturated by fake videos and conspiracy theories and unsourced bullshit hidden behind fancy headlines full of ads.

It’s like… People with skills and interests are too busy struggling with food and shelter to produce real art and real science and real tangible things, because prices keep going up while quality keeps going down, so the creators and the innovators who aren’t lucky enough to be born into wealth are stuck doing mindless shit they hate while machines churn out slop at low quality and low cost, and it’s all just become a race to the bottom.

#this is why my first instinct when someone asks to come over is MAKE FOOD #you had a huge life event that SUCKED? don't worry about dinner. don't worry about being bad company #come #share a table with us. let us shoulder with you

#[Redacted] panick baked 5 dozen fucking cookies and the birria is in the pressure cooker cuz she heard thru the grape vine #before you had the chance to mention it yourself and has been chomping at the bit to invite you to dinner or us over to cook/clean #the depression den kitchen in a BOGO

#the village is coming- it's just fuckong me with a hotdish and tea to brew with intent to be a safe space to not be okay enough to cook #for yourself

When I was younger, etiquette dictated that a dish taken to someone's house for a form of bereavement (death, divorce, job loss, etc.) should be nice but understated--china, but no loud or overly cheerful patterns. There were no limits on dishes taken for celebration, but it was generally accepted that you shouldn't use plastic because of the risk it would stain in the recipient's dishwasher, and then joy would turn into stress. (Dishes that stained that way were also a lot more common back then.) It wasn't rude to use plastic, but it was considered nice to think ahead.

THAT WAS THEN.

THIS IS NOW.

Ain't nobody got time to wash a fucking casserole dish when they have two jobs and a funeral to plan and the days of most of your friends being Right Next Door are gone.

These are cheap as fuck and you can get them everywhere. Walmart. Amazon. I get mine at the local grocery store. They fold directly into the trash. If you want to get fancy you can rinse it and it recycles (in a lot of places--check your local rules). If you have a friend with special dietary needs these can double as a prep space because they're not already cross-contaminated.

I recommend these for bereavement. For celebrations, I keep what I call pass-forward plates--I'll find a couple of cute mismatched plates at Goodwill, and when celebratory food is called for I use those plates with the instruction that you can return it to me if you're really that pressed about it, but you're more than free to keep it...and pass it forward with the same instructions.

I have only ever had one pass-forward plate come back to me. People love them and they love knowing they can just...toss it in the dishwasher when they get to it.

GOOD DISHES FOR BEREAVEMENTS:

--soups

--casseroles

--one-pan dishes (e.g. pot roast, chicken and potatoes in sauce)

--pasta with sauce (make Alfredo for your friends, it's five ingredients and fifteen minutes)

GOOD DISHES FOR CELEBRATIONS:

--baked goods (cookies, quickbreads, cupcakes, etc.)

--fruit salad (in summer)

--chocolates

i was wrong.