Screentime & Despair #7: Tantrums and horny cicadas
can't wait to see what this subject line does for open rates
The cicadas in my neighborhood did not get the memo to scream inside their hearts.
(Pause while I google whether bugs have hearts.) (Good news: They do!)
I can’t figure out whether the cicadas have been here, screaming, every summer—or if I’ve just never been home so much to hear them. Or if they’ve actually been here and just the screaming is new, because…*gestures wildly*.
(Update from Google, the screaming is their mating call. You do you, horny cicadas.)
The cicadas aren’t the only thing I’ve heard screaming in my neighborhood.
(Does that sound ominous? Honestly, what isn’t ominous these days?)
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Let me set the scene for you: I find myself with ten minutes of quiet time to myself. I grab my book and head outside with an iced latte hacked together with off-brand Nespresso pods and entirely too much milk. I read five words, stop, marvel at the fact that I’m alone and reading and isn’t this great and then panic that my ten minutes is almost up.
Suddenly, above the chorus of cicada screams, I hear the sound of a child screaming. It’s not mine—it’s coming from one of the other houses on my street where a 4 to 6-year-old child lives. The screaming is muffled, but I can identify it clearly. I know that screaming. It lasts for three minutes, uninterrupted, until the screamer is too exhausted to continue and crawls into the nearest lap for a hug.
The first thing I think, when I hear the muffled sound of children screaming, is oh thank god. I’m not alone.***
The second think I think is, wow, that was dark.
It only happened in our house a few times, the screaming, but when it did I felt helpless and frustrated and devastated.
It sounded like this: AAAAAAAAAAAGHKKKKKKKKKK
But I heard this: I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE MOM! I MISS MY FRIENDS! IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW MUCH YOU LOVE ME, YOU ALONE DO NOT HAVE THE TOOLS TO MAKE ME HAPPY.
Do you think it would be weird if I knocked on my neighbor’s door and was like “Hi! I heard your kid screaming today. Would she like a friend? Would you?”
***
At the beginning of this pandemic experience, I found myself entertained by a Twitter thread that asked “what’s the first sentence of the best novel that will be written about this epidemic?”
First of all, lolol at “epidemic.” The rest of the thread is similarly outdated—the responses are about cruise ships and toilet paper and other references from back in Season 1 of this stupid show.
But since reading that thread, I experience my life through the lens of Pandemic Novel First Lines. Is it a brain exercise? A defense mechanism? We may never know! All that to say that I would probably read a horror book with the first line The first thing I think, when I hear the muffled sound of children screaming, is oh thank god. I’m not alone.
>> “Now More Than Ever” — again, poetry just makes sense.
>> So, the iced lattes I mentioned above? I’m trying to capture the high of sitting down at a coffee shop, pretending to write, while sipping a coffee that doesn’t taste like coffee. And to make my coffee not taste like coffee, I’ve been making syrups—which sounds fancy and time consuming but really can be done while microwaving chicken nuggets and answering a five year old’s existential questions about life and death (WHY ARE THERE SO MANY?) Anyway, I now stock culinary lavender and vanilla bean paste in my kitchen and have been making this mint vanilla syrup and lavender syrup and I am pleased to report I’m writing just as little as I was while sitting at coffeeshops!!
>> I have been riveted by every single one of Noah Kalina’s newsletters. I’m inspired by how he makes even the most mundane story fascinating.
>> I’ve tried all of Sarah Kieffer’s pan banging cookies, but these sugar cookies might be my favorite so far. They’re so nostalgic and gooey and you get to BANG SOMETHING and whomst among us couldn’t use that release right now? Also her book 100 Cookies just came out yesterday and I have big plans to put a picture of it on instagram with the caption “our distance learning textbook just arrived” so please act surprised and comment with at LEAST a “hahhahahaha” so I know you actually laughed. (none of this “lol” or “haha” business)
>> Speaking of how we type our laughs, I recently finished Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, written by a linguist about how we speak online and I thought it was fascinating. Here’s an interview with the author.
>> Other great books I’ve read recently: This is My America and Slay, two YA books about being Black teens in America; Their Eyes Were Watching God, which was WAY better than it was when I was 17; Friends and Strangers; and I’m currently reading Luster and the writing is so clever it makes me want to throw my keyboard out the window (in a…good way? idk.)
>> I’ve watched this video literally 30 times and laughed every single time. Like, a real, “OMG LOLOLOLOL 💀” laugh.
Thank you for reading! If you have a screaming child, can you reply to this email so we can be friends?? Or follow me on one of my instagrams (lol yes I have more than one instagram like a true millennial) —the one about books | the one not about books
I too have screaming children... ha