Eyes in for their regular check at the ophthalmologist and confirmed to still be eyes. For some reason, the dilation drops hit me extremely hard and I spend the next 18 hours in a useless blown-pupil haze. After the last few appointments, I’ve made a habit of spending it just randomly ambling home via whatever public transit I stumble across. Something to be said for a quiet, winter walk.

Whenever people say they love Chicago but couldn’t handle the winters, I wonder if they know that we get to give our snowplows punny little names. Not revealing all my favorites, but I will go ballistic if Make Snow Little Plans doesn’t join the fleet.

Gutted to hear our neighborhood bar may not be long for this earth. No kitchen, no credit cards; just stiff, solid drinks and a short walk home. Trying to take as many friends as often as we can until the end. I’ve always loved the way Time Out pitched it:

Ten years from now, when this strip of Armitage is populated with coffee shops and vintage clothing stores, this old-school, soul record–playing, classic cocktail–mixing bar will be overrun with hipsters vying for their turn in the photo booth. Start hanging out here now so you can say you knew it in the good old days.

My most unpopular opinion is that I completely agree with Simon that nobody’s listening to your microphone to serve you ads, and that this recent settlement will keep the urban legend alive forever. Beyond the catastrophe that would ensue if someone actually got caught doing this, the real “turns out” of it is that we all leak so much data about our interests and preferences through a million other avenues that can be collected more easily that there’s just no reason to bother 😬👍.

Started our rewatch of Severance before the second season kicks off next week. Immediately fell back in love with the tone and the whole world they built. I’m a sucker for any show that just lays all the pieces out for you without holding each one up to the camera and making sure you saw it while two characters say how important it is into the middle distance. “Every time you find yourself here, it’s because you chose to come back.” So good.

Speaking of the dystopia of labor: hard to decide what to clip from this conversation between Ezra Klein and Oliver Burkeman on productivity and burnout. I particularly enjoyed Burkeman’s take here:

Klein: I remember wondering whether the issue people were having was an issue of expectations — this belief that our lives were supposed to feel good. They were supposed to be, if not easy, then manageable, controllable. Work was supposed to be a source of meaning and even pleasure, and if it was actually soulless and overwhelming and always wanted more of you than you wanted to give, that was a problem to be solved…

Burkeman: …Go back to the medieval period, when people would have lived in this situation of completely endemic uncertainty. I don’t think it’s necessarily true that they didn’t find the opportunity to be happy. I think the crucial distinction is that they wouldn’t have postponed that until they felt in control. They wouldn’t have said, “Before we can have a festival, before we can sit back and look at the stars, we have to know what we’re doing here and feel in charge and in control of things"…

All-dressed chips at the grocery store! This is not a drill!