This Is Not the Life I Ordered - Reading the Sunday Times

 Something Facebook reminded me that I wrote a year ago today: 

Decided to take a rare leisurely look through the NYT for nothing specific, but to just gallivant through it like someone might walk around the Met on a gray weekday afternoon. These days I usually read the Times with a quick and swift purpose, the way a prisoner eats: taking in just enough sustenance to keep me alive and then using that fuel for my humdrum in-the-know life. But today I wanted the indulgence of the NYT, which is how I have read it for most of my life, primarily when it was on paper and just turning the page could find you someplace unexpected that you would never have normally navigated on purpose. I learned a lot on my way from Arts and Leisure to Dining Out. This is how I used to read it before it became this practical-serving resource of reliable views and thoughtful perspectives on news I'd find scrolling down my Timeline or hearing in chirps on CNN and MSNBC. This is the way I used to read the paper, when I read it on paper. Especially on Thursdays and Sundays, when some of my favorite arts, lifestyle and culture sections were featured. Today I started with Magazine, a regular part of my weekly culture diet from college until about the last four or five years (blame digital), and realized I don't know who the hell anyone is anymore. Seriously. All these people, these Dippas and Duas and Twigs and Lil Somebodys. Who the fuck are these people? They might be timely but they didn't seem very Times-y. The only person I recognized was Philip Roth and he's two generations before me. Glided over to T Mag and there was a Zac Posen cooking video (talk about someone who's won the life lottery...) but I haven't cared for the style world since the mid-aughts. Btw, does Sunday Styles even still exist? I skipped the Books section of the paper because I could build a whole separate library of books I bought over the pandemic that I haven't even cracked open yet. Just so strange because I used to get so excited reading these sections of the NYT and now I'm one of those people I used to pity, despise and look down upon: the person who doesn't know what's up. Over the last few years I've often lamented 'le mort de cool.' But maybe cool isn't dead. Could it be that maybe, just maybe, I'm just not cool anymore? #cuesexandthecitymusic #myinnercarrie