optimizing, under protest

i need a routine and i don't want one!!!!

Adrienne Shelly in The Unbelievable Truth capturing the vibe of my structureless mornings, afternoons, and evenings <3

It’s 37 degrees in Chicago as of this typing, and it was 58 degrees on Saturday and then later that night it snowed, so when I tell you I am struggling to keep it together just know I’m on the same broken meds cycle as Mother Nature. I am currently trying to simulate a routine by watching a very long YouTube video about the Bell Witch (a pet fascination since childhood - Kate Batts!!!!) and frying my face with a new red light mask that I’ve been told will make me young again while I attempt to meal plan for the week. Yawn and also snore.

I hate routines. I hate having one and so I don’t really. I tell people it’s part of my whimsy but I am not entirely joking when I say that. There is very little about getting older that I find “fun”, not because it’s bad or unenjoyable, but because “fun” has been redefined in a way I don’t relate to. It no longer means going to Rainbo Club on a Tuesday night to flirt with a doorman named Caligula while you make eyes across the bar at a man you’re seeing in secret who is 15 years older than you but makes you pay on dates. Or drinking so much champagne at brunch that you decide to take a taxi to Evanston where you spend $275 on a bed canopy and snow globes at World Market. There is very little room for spontaneity when you get old and especially if you are me, a sober person. I am able to turn the dial down on stupid decisions these days, but just know I am dragging my feet. My biggest fear about age is not the way it will make me look or feel but rather losing a version of fun that makes life the beautiful surprise I prefer it to be. So my solution has been: no routines.

I’ve been able to get away with this structureless existence for a few reasons. Namely - I work asynchronously from home and therefore have the luxury of sleeping until 10am or whenever I want as long as I don’t miss a meeting. My home is silent save the ASMR whir of city traffic and my cats’ electric water fountain, which allows for this. I will often eat pasta at 11pm or take a bath at 11am simply because I can. Sometimes I will decide out of the blue that I’d like to buy more paintable birdhouses from Michael’s so I’ll take the bus there at lunch and stop for coffee along the way. The other night I went to bed at 8:45pm after watching a few episodes of Star Trek (original series) and woke up at 1am to eat a bowl of oatmeal and paint my nails.

I don’t know that this is a totally different lifestyle from a parent, except they live this way because their toddlers necessitate it and I live this way because I am the toddler. My home is a big toy box filled with literal toys (I sometimes get sad and buy stuffed animals at Walgreens) and the toys of an adult with a personality disorder: a badger skull I found at Woolly Mammoth, a planter shaped like male genitalia from an antique store in Chattanooga, a bowl of aquatic animal Christmas tree ornaments encrusted with pearls and shiny beads, a framed photo of Tom Skerritt in The Rookie on my work desk. Objects that define the sort of person who doesn’t and will never own a planner.

It is my belief that the rigor of routine would simply kill the youthful vibe I’ve cultivated and maintained at the big age of 37. Some would probably call this untreated ADHD but I call it a life, babe. That said, yes, I am currently thinking about the ground turkey I took out of the freezer that I will soon cook and put in Tupperware and stuff into peppers or taco shells for dinner M-F. I am wearing the red light mask at the same time tonight as I did yesterday night because if 8pm is red light mask time, I get to spend all of the hours leading up to it excited about the peptides I’ll rub all over my face after, a sensation so beautiful I might prefer it to sex. I do not want routine but I do want a more creatively fulfilling life, where I actually have the time and energy to write for myself again, and according to David Lynch you can only do that if you have strict daily rituals. (Like and subscribe if you too think about David Lynch’s feta cheese, tomato, olive oil, and tuna fish lunch at all hours of the day.)

(But then of course the devil on my shoulder is aggressively quoting Vilayat Inayat Khan in the other ear: “The human spirit lives on creativity and dies in conformity and routine.” Inside me there are two meditation-loving dead men with great hair sharing diametric routine philosophies, etc.)

Much as I’ll mourn the version of me that lived wildly and dangerously on weekdays before 5pm, if I do stick to a routine that allots time for writing (AND reading AND Star Trek) I can at least comfort myself knowing I’ll conjure mischief elsewhere. A friend told me recently that hanging out with me is always a little bit scary because she never knows what’s gonna happen (what happened recently is we got a little too stoned¹ at a bathhouse and almost got lost on our way to the showers) and I think that’s pretty beautiful. That’s a life I’m happy to lead. Always a few inches away from a danger that occasionally brings joy to others, imbued with an everlasting je ne sais quoi? The Sag in me says you’re welcome.

I’ll keep you posted on my routine journey, the sort of thrilling update I know you anticipated when you subscribed :) :) :) But I think this is relatable to at least some people??? My fellow elders??? How do my 35+ crowd keep life fun without drinking and within the parameters of an appropriate adult bedtime schedule? And by fun, again to be clear, I do not mean grandma behaviors (love those too, I just told you I paint birdhouses) but actions that flirt with misconduct. Give me ideas!!!!! We need some fucking FUN in 2026.

Other random thoughts:

• The Golden Globes were Sunday night, which of course prompted a lot of “the Golden Globes are a corrupt institution and no one should watch” posts which, whatever. The weird moralism around the GGs and not the Oscars, which are similar “schmooze and pay up if you wanna win” nonsense, is kinda funny at least. I thought the awards were fine. I had a nice time watching them (red light mask: on) and didn’t feel mad about anything really. Sinners losing to Hamnet was stupid of course, but the best movie genre splitting at the GGs is especially meaningless this year when we all know One Battle After Another is gonna win the Oscar anyway.

• Although maybe it’s weird to think that all awards shows are just dominos to the Real Awards Show: The Academy Awards and not merits unto themselves. I personally think it’s all made up anyway so I can believe whatever I want :)

• I still love Timmy Chalamet and everyone who has turned on him is weak and unimportant. I am on the frontline with Club Chalamet banging the drums with fire as we chant: Give him the Oscar!!!!

• My aforementioned Star Trek viewing is part of my Trekkie 2026 project, which is… to become a Trekkie in 2026 lol. I’ve seen the original series and most of the movies and Next Generation reruns on TNT in my youth, but don’t have a firm grip on the lore really. I needed something to watch that makes the idea of the future seem pleasant and not fucking terrifying, so here we are. I am currently just watching everything from the beginning in release order, no idea how much of a completionist I intend to be here, like I don’t know if I really see myself watching the cartoons or whatever - but we’re just rolling with it for now!

• In jotting down notes for this post (yes, even this brain fart of an excursion involves some light ~research) I came across this Sylvia Plath quote from her journals that feels very relevant - there always seems to be a quote from Plath’s journals to match a mood of mine, probably because I have a piece of her artwork tattoo’d on my body like any sad bitch born in the 80s and therefore we are connected: “The responsibility, the awful responsibility of managing (profitably) 12 hours a day for 10 weeks is rather overwhelming when there is nothing, noone, to insert an exact routine into the large unfenced acres of time — which it is so easy to let drift by in soporific idling and luxurious relaxing. It is like lifting a bell jar off a securely clockwork-like functioning community, and seeing all the little busy people stop, gasp, blow up and float in the inrush, (or rather outrush,) of the rarified scheduled atmosphere — poor little frightened people, flailing impotent arms in the aimless air. That’s what it feels like: getting shed of a routine. Even though one had rebelled terribly against it, even then, one feels uncomfortable when jounced out of the repetitive rut. And so with me. What to do? Where to turn? What ties, what roots? as I hang suspended in the strange thin air of back-home?”

• I was on my dear friend Steven’s podcast talking about Jurassic Park which you can watch below if you are interested in some Lost World apologia:

1. I’ve probably clarified this in posts before, but I am what the kids call “California sober” in case u were wondering <3