Week 12, 2026: Milkshakes and anarchy
The springtime puts me in a particularly anarchist mood. Two springs ago, I deleted Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok. This spring, it was Substack, Pinterest and Tumblr. I used to post monthly photo dumps on Tumblr but now I can just do that here.
My current app detox to-dos:
- WhatsApp > Signal
- Spotify > ??? (Something with last dot fm integration)
- Gmail > Fastmail or something
I have a head start on the first one. I really want Meta out of the picture but, realistically, I’ll never fully give up WhatsApp. I know way too many middle-aged Arabs to pull something like that off. My second-best case scenario is moving my closest comrades to Signal and keeping my remaining contacts on a WhatsApp lifeline.
My presence on the indie web has certainly fueled this springtime mood. The longer I’m here, the clearer it is that I don’t need social media to form and nurture virtual connections. I love discovering new blogs, reading essays and learning about new creative endeavours on Bear. I’ve finally accepted that it's time to try to understand what Linux is and why some of the coolest people out there won’t shut up about it.
My CSS tinkering has been slow because I hate every change I make and need a second (and third and fourth) pair of eyes to tell me if it’s a pile of dog shit. I recently changed the colours of my blog to be sunbird-inspired, like I said I would. It's more obvious in dark mode.
Halfway through the week, I wrote my most scathing book review yet. It was for a tell-all about the 2011 Egyptian revolution from the POV of the head of state TV. I expected bias but was shocked by the apathy, self-aggrandizing delusion and blatant disinformation. At one point, the author excused policemen running over protesters as being down to a driving skill issue. Some people are truly despicable.
What I did appreciate was seeing how many chances the Mubarak regime missed to prove that they were interested in real reform. Eighteen days of catastrophic failure. Every time I think about the courage it must've taken for those young people to hit the streets, I get emotional. There was so much optimism.
There was a new moon on Wednesday evening. I wrote a list of my wishes: A pair of running shoes to replace my worn-out ones, eggs and waffles at Denny’s with Ru, a painless wisdom teeth removal surgery that’s free of accidental nerve damage, beautiful spring weather, stackable gold rings, more e-mails from people who read my blog, a sudden hair growth spurt that pushes me ever-closer to waist-length curls, the ability to pull off a jean mini-skirt, clear skin, a sleepover with JK, the desire to wear heels casually, the end of murderous drone debris, a first date with somebody out of my league, access to pilates classes that are a walk away from the flat, the courage to tell my most religious friend that the rumours from middle school are true and for her to still want to be my friend, a pair of cute ballet flats, the discipline to end my ukulele hiatus and learn how to play a Fairuz song, a job that changes the trajectory of my life, infinite optimism and honesty and courage, a new wardrobe, the ability to run a 5K in under thirty minutes.
On the first day of Eid, I got into my drip and wished my favourite infidel a blessed day. Eid is a great chance to revisit the story of the Allahakbarries, watch Four Lions and eat a pint of pistachio camel milk ice cream.
One of the characters in Four Lions was a terrorist who had a few lines in Arabic. He spoke in perfect Modern Standard Arabic, which greatly amused me, because Arab terrorists usually speak gibberish in English-language films. Since then, I’ve been randomly switching from my dialect to Modern Standard Arabic, much to Medo's amusement.
That evening, Medo and I signed a waiver to try a Reaper-spiced tender at Dave’s Hot Chicken. My reputation in having an indefensible heat tolerance was severely shaken. The vanilla milkshake barely helped. My snotty face ended up on Medo’s Instagram stories.
Mother’s Day fell on Saturday. We surprised her with a cinema date at a super fancy place that just opened because novelty is her favourite gift. She loved it, even when the screen went black for twenty minutes. We were all in shock. I whispered to Medo, that moment when you’re pirating a film on a dubious site and it starts acting up. The staff half-heartedly apologized for the technical difficulties and restarted Hoppers (2026). I cried through most of it. I had a milkshake afterwards. Vanilla > chocolate. Real milkshake-heads know.