Black Friday and #OptOutside

I first saw REI's #OptOutside campaign via a banner ad. "We're closing on Black Friday," said the ad copy. "Holy shit," I said. "Finally, someone gets it."

I hate Black Friday. I hate it. It's bad enough that it's consumerism run amok. But there's also the narrative that surrounds it, or that it surrounds itself in--at this point, I guess you'd say it's both. You see stories about Black Friday all over the news, giving the hype--GIANT SALES! GIANT DISCOUNTS!--a deeper imprimatur. Every year, we hear of the steady race-to-the-bottom of retail's earlier and earlier opening times. Every year, we see more videos of people stampeding over each other to get into stores. This is how important it is to buy things, these stories and videos imply. Because keep in mind: where are you seeing these stories but via ad-supported media? The whole idea of advertising is to create demand where it wasn't already, to create need. Which is to say that the media itself is--indeed, has to be--complicit in this madness. To do otherwise, to either cast genuine opprobrium on what they force us to witness or else to opt out entirely, would be to cast their whole existence into doubt.

Thus every year, the intensity of hype feeds back on itself and gets worse.

So when I saw a major U.S. retailer responding to the perversity of Black Friday by just opting out--closing their doors, giving their employees two days off, and thereby doing a little to fight against the deeper dissolution of the sanctity of what really should be a pretty internally-focused holiday--I was like, YES.

Look, I have no illusions: #OptOutside is a marketing campaign. I learned about it via an ad, and yes I recognize the irony. I get that REI is using disaffection with consumerism to, to some degree, drive consumption.

But nothing about that changes the fact that they aren't going to be part of the sickness that day. As marketing campaigns go, REI can count me in. Indeed, #OptOutside seems like such a positive development that I am literally going to buy in. Speaking my mind, as I am doing here, is lovely and all, but I want to reward REI for their stance, and beyond my public declaration of support, I'm going to support them with my money as well: I'm going to do my Christmas shopping at REI.

Yes, that means that I'll be battling out-of-control consumerism with consumption. But not on Black Friday. And that matters.

Maybe, just maybe, other businesses will take note, and we can begin to move away from the depths of our craziness.

Oh, and one more thing: Yes, I'll be opting outside.

How to Win the Love of Your Stripper, Part 2

Yes, true, but: what if she is someone who is simply working as a stripper?

Perhaps it is like this: she discovered over the years a talent for taking her clothes off, and so, one day, reflecting on the career choices ahead of her, decided to go pro. It was a reasonable choice: lucrative, not especially arduous (besides the small detail of needing to wall off a certain part of herself in order to maintain her sanity). It's her job, but it's not her calling.

The heart of your challenge is this: she is someone who is an expert at being looked at without being seen. This is her defense against the hardship of her job. How, then, can you win her heart, when she cannot trust that it is even truly she and not a shadow whom you wish to love?

How to Win the Love of Your Bartendress

Honestly, I have no idea.

The best available research indicates that it's impossible: she is hit on so consistently and constantly that, here at the bar, she notices flirtation aimed her way the way most of us notice gnats in summertime: just a thing that happens, of no real significance.

Not hitting on her offers you no advantage, either. Like most people with good self-esteem, she seeks the click of instant mutual attraction. Your resolute attempt to draw her attention by not drawing her attention is thus, by definition, doomed to fail.

But take heart: though she does not love you and, as best as science can tell, never will, it is very much like she loves you. For just watch her. (No, not like that. In action, I mean. Don't stare. Yes, she has very fetching cleavage, and she's not wearing that blouse by accident, but that's not what I mean.) Watch the careful-yet-assured way she holds the jigger while she measures the gin and then the vermouth as she prepares your martini. Watch how delicately the mixing spoon swirls within her fingers. Watch how she spears the olives on the toothpick just so, dead through the middle of each.

No, this isn't love. But it is done with the care of love. Enjoy your martini and accept that this is enough.

How to Win the Love of Your Barista, Part 4

My favorite coffeeshop is open from too early until quite late, and in order to cover all the shifts, eight different girls work there. Those eight comprise about twelve total girls worth of cuteness. (The hiring manager clearly knows what he--I'm gonna assert that it's a he--likes.)

It's November now, a time of tights and long-sleeved shirts, and so it's not clear just how many of them are actually baristas and how many are merely working as baristas. Cuteness alone is no indication.

The cute girl working as a barista is more likely to be receptive to your advances, and so there is temptation. Some might ask: Is it not enough to go on a date with a cute girl who works as a barista? No, it is not. What has that accomplished? There are many cute girls in the world who are not baristas. We have higher goals in mind.

Speak of Raven and Raven Appears

Special Saturday Bonus Piece (You Lucky Bastards)

I was about to publish Thursday's Daily Refill. All that was left for me to do was assign it a category. I went to click on "Occult Mysteries," but it wasn't there in the list. "How odd," I thought. "I remember creating that one for Tuesday's piece, just two nights ago."

So I went to the list of all my posts to see if I had somehow posted Tuesday's piece in a different category completely--and it wasn't there at all. Neither was Wednesday's piece. I certainly remembered publishing both pieces, but neither seemed to exist.

Now, here's something you probably don't realize: right now, I publish every Refill twice: once on Daily Refills and once on the Free Refills homepage. My intention is to figure out how to make everything that gets published on Daily Refills show up automatically on the homepage as well, which I'm sure isn't hard to do, but so far I haven't taken the time to find the plug-in that will do it. So for now I'm still publishing in both places every day.

I went to the list of pieces on the homepage, and neither Tuesday's nor Wednesday's piece was there, either.

At which point I fell into a state in which I questioned my very grip on reality. I was sure that I had published the pieces. I remembered doing so. I keep the same pattern every day: I publish first on Daily Refills and then immediately on the homepage.

"Maybe," I thought, almost literally dizzy with confusion, "I only think I even wrote those pieces. Maybe it all was a dream." But no. I took a quick glance at Emacs, and there were the files for each, in exactly the state I remembered them.

I was pretty distressed. I don't miss publishing days. It just doesn't happen. Since I started daily publishing back in the spring, I haven't missed a day.

In a daze, I reposted Tuesday's and Wednesday's pieces. I checked later and they were still there. Last time I checked, they still are.

So what happened? Well, one thing I am sure of is that I didn't somehow fail to publish the pieces. I could imagine forgetting to click the "Publish" button--but not four times in a row. We can safely disregard that possibility.

So what does that leave? Some kind of server-side glitch? A hack into the website? Both are possible (and you can rest assured that I changed my passwords).

But I doubt that's what happened. For two weeks, I've written about the mysterious disappearances of possessions of mine. I've written about trickster gods and house spirits and their rambunctious play in the fields of our lives. So maybe, just maybe, they're just trying to confirm my initial hypotheses. "Those missing shirts?" they're saying. "Oh yeah, we have those. In the meantime, count your possessions closely, and make sure you keep backups of all your files."

Friday the 13th

Our culture traditionally views Friday the 13th an unlucky day. I am watching my possessions, especially my shirts, very carefully today.

But, really, which do you think would be unluckier? That something I own disappears today, or that something that disappeared returns? At this point, which is likely to have the greater impact on my increasingly tenuous grip on sanity?

Hello, Worms

When I began this discussion of the missing shirts, I didn't realize that the exploration would take two whole weeks. But once I started in on the topic, it became clear that, really, I'd been avoiding the full implications of the shirts' (and other items') disappearances. It's far easier to just believe that they're missing, that somehow I just lost them, even though that flies in the face of everything I know about my own behavior, all the ways that I am careful not to lose things, which honestly gets borderline obsessive.

I don't know why I'm surprised. If you open a big can of worms, it's kind of silly to exclaim, "Goodness! Look at all the worms!"

When I started, I guess I thought I was just writing about some missing shirts. Now I see that, really, I'm discussing mysteries of great metaphysical importance.

In the meantime, I can't find my riding tights. I brought them to Alaska to wear as an underlayer, and I remember unpacking them when I got home.

Hello, worms.