Easy button activated

Internet friends, we’re headed into summer here in the northern hemisphere. For the Walkers, that also means a graduation and a graduation party. I’m trying not to hyperventilate looking at my work schedule (uh it’s supposed to slow down on the news front in the summer, isn’t it?) and museum board functions. (Pro tip: Joining a board means more than meetings, apparently.) (That’s a joke but also not a joke.)

A theme recently in work and home and friends has been: People apologizing for not getting back soon enough on email, choosing to bring something purchased instead of homemade to gatherings, or not being able to meet an ambiguous deadline.

You guys, we all need to collectively chill the hell out. And yeah, I have a plan for that because of course I do:

I like to answer emails AS SOON AS THEY COME IN. But look, how many emails actually require that kind of a quick response? I’ve started just turning email off for long periods of time. (I still respond because it takes two seconds to write, “Got it, thanks!” Just not immediately.) And if someone apologizes to me for not responding quickly, I tell them not to worry about it — because it’s low stakes. (If it’s high stakes, I’ll call and tell you.)

I kind of like to show off at gatherings by making something homemade and / or unnecessary elaborate. It’s a lot of work. But Jo has declared that her grad party dessert will be: A store boughten fudge cake. Because that’s her fav apparently? And I am going to be OKAY WITH THAT. Also, I had a gathering at the house recently for some ’90s summer camp friends and no less than three people apologized to me as they handed me what they’d brought — because they thought it wasn’t fancy enough, or it was purchased, or … I don’t even know. They could have come empty handed and I wouldn’t have cared. (I come from a long line of tiny German women who like to feed the people. I am never underprepared.) (I am also not tiny.) So when someone at Jo’s party says, “I like these cakes from (store that shall not be named, not because it’s the Voldemort one but because I don’t take advertising dollars),” I am going to say, “YAY FUDGE THANK YOU.”

I am our obit department, events department, one third of our history page, the person who collects / formats / decides what goes where for the entire B section, the person who proofs everything, the person who puts stories online on the website and pushes them out on social media, and the person who has several beats to cover for the newspaper. So you know what? If I don’t get that one thing done that doesn’t even need to be done ASAP, then why the hell am I worried about it? Literally no one else is. So my story goes online before it hits the weekly paper, who cares.

So look, easy button activated, okay? Self-care! (I heard someone say once that the ultimate self-care is simply peeing when you have to pee. YOU GUYS THAT IS LIFE CHANGING.) I will say no unless it’s a hell yeah. (And not something that can get me fired or sent to a divorce lawyer.) (HA HA HA Eric is a patient man, props to that guy.)

Uh this isn’t really the post I meant to write, but words, they do what they want. I could edit and rewrite but … nah. That’s the whole point of this.

Happy almost June everyone.