You're fiddling. Rome is burning and you're fiddling.

I am trying to delete my TikTok. I told you a few posts ago that I'm off of it, so it makes sense to just delete my account now, but I can't log in to do it, so I'm stuck until it becomes less buggy and lets me.

It joins Facebook and Twitter in the Apps I Once Couldn't Imagine My Life Without graveyard. RIP! I would love to think that when a new one comes along, I will have learned my lesson. But I don't know if I have! Or I know the lesson, but I might choose to ignore it so I can see what the fuss is about. There's a strong chance I will hear about whoever the new Charli D'Amelio is and need to get eyes on 'em myself. I learned about the Costco Guys way late and secondhand, and it just wasn't right. And yet I bet many of you reading this are living really nice, full lives and couldn't pick A.J. & Big Justice out of a line-up. (That was certainly true of a Los Angeles improv show audience the night I decided to do a pretty faithful and unfunny scene about the Guys loving the double chunk chocolate cookie, but we are NOT here to relive my comedy glory days.)

I have a pathological need to be in the loop and know all things, but I am working on it. I have been trying to be more honest when someone makes a reference I don't know. The old me nodded along and surreptitiously googled later, but now I bravely say, "What??" This is how I recently learned the story of Nero fiddling as Rome burned. Like the musicians on the Titanic, I said. Well, no..., she said (nicely), which she's right about and I respect, because I think I might have said sure if the situation were reversed.

Nero is the name of a childhood friend's dog, though, so I'm kind of stuck with that Nero-wise and don't know if my brain will be updating. I know it's not totally filed away yet because to remember this reference I had to google "Nero laughing," which he might have been doing too, idk. That guy was crazy.

I do fear that we all need to be parting ways with Google, which means I should probably stop using it as a stand-in to mean searching. I've switched my default search engine to DuckDuckGo, but I have a lot more to do to de-Google my online life.

Tech Won't Save Us is a good podcast that discusses this kind of thing. Should I do recs in this? When I read newsletters that do links at the end, I get a little upset because I thought I was done reading but now they're giving me more to read and I already have so much to read. That answers my question, I guess: I will give recs but not for articles to read (until I really want to and change my mind).

I enjoyed the film The Ballad of Wallis Island. It's better than the trailer would have you believe. I also recently put out a trailer for my own movie, and you can watch that here (or here or here). I think it's good! And the whole thing's even better.

I'm also enjoying playing this game, Clues by Sam, recommended to me by my dad. I like to think it is healing my brain from its TikTok years. Very demure, very mindful.

And for your troubles, here is a rainbow I saw on a walk the other day: