eggphrases.com will soon be on Substack, and also still on eggphrases.com. After a brief writing hiatus brought upon by, I don’t know, a massive mocktail (happy Dry January, for those of you who observe) of not feeling like it and what’s the point and I’m too fucking busy and it’s too much effort and wait but I want to be part of the pack awoo and yeah, mostly just not feeling like it and feeling guilty for not feeling like it which makes me not feel like it more but ultimately all those are excuses because the real reason is you know, time passing and me not doing it and then time continuing to pass. But none of that matters because guess what bitch? We back, hoe! (Now mentally bring up the sound clip of Sandy Cheeks saying no you ain’t here.)

Today, we lead with a quote from a book:

“In fact, it is sufficient only to capture the tragic and dissolve it in irony; by no means should you be over-emphatic. Even if your soul aches, when you write you should think about how for most people your problems are secondary, unimportant, that you cannot be credible and authentic if you are self-pitying. Pure tragedy is no longer so obvious in a world in which horror is everywhere and enters your house along with the morning news bulletin. This is why, in order to throw it into relief, what is needed is Shklovsky’s estrangement, that is, you have to show its amusing, bizarre, absurd side. And if it seems to you that a tragic event does not have such a hidden side, then conjoin it with some amusing or bizarre event. In that way, you will bring it to light.”

~ Iulian Ciocan, Before Brezhnev Died

I read Before Brezhen Died by Iulian Ciocan, translated from the Romanian by Alistair Ian Blyth, last November. 

Since then, I’ve consumed other bits of media: I watched the entirety of Bojack Horseman over a week, I watched Tuca & Bertie, I read Mornings Without Mii, translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori, who was also the translator of Convenience Store Woman (which I read in April of last year while I was in Moldova). 

I got Mornings Without Mii from Green Apple Books in San Francisco while I was on vacation the week around New Year’s, with two of my friends. We went to Lake Tahoe and I’ve always known I love snow (it’s like a sandbox but better. You can make anything with snow), so this was a great reprieve and also a little magical. It’s a really pretty lake.

Recently while at work I read this opinion article in The Guardian while wading through a flood of online AI slop to write something on 2026 predictions in the field of hiring (2026 as in the year, not two thousand hiring predictions, in case you were going to misinterpret this). I found it refreshing and loved the ending paragraph.

I also watched Okja after remembering reading about it in this n+1 essay which I read also earlier this month or maybe last year. I watched it with my partner at his sober living house yesterday when I visited. Thank you, Bong Joon Ho.

And of course, this list would not be complete without mentioning Marty Supreme, which I saw on Christmas Day with my best friend. She said the ball was CGI, and I said it wasn’t, and that there was a stunt double playing Timothee Chalamet. So I’m here to set the record straight. I was wrong — a lot of the clips of the ball were CGI. So this is a public apology.

Oh, and I’m also watching Season 2 of Culinary Class Wars. Which made me want to eat Korean food, so I went to Seoul Asian Market here in SA and also got korean food in Austin yesterday.

And here’s a fact I’ve been annoying people with lately. If you’re around me long enough in recent weeks, you’ll probably hear it or have heard it already. Women are statistically better investors than men.

Sometimes you feel like you need an escape rope. It’s like in Pokemon Ruby for the Gameboy Advance, which is the Pokemon game I played most extensively growing up, but I’m sure the mechanism exists in the other versions as well. You’re in a cave and you can’t find a way out so you use the TM Escape Rope. It’s like that Origami Angel song, too. Sometimes I feel so stressed and anxious and bored (especially at work) that I wish I could use that TM to save me from this stupid cave of my own will.

So that’s all on the docket for today. I’m just shaking everything out. It’s like when you get water in your ear so you have to turn your head to the side and shake it out. That’s what this is.

And this is where we end this exposition of personal media consumption and rogue analogies. Close out, mentally, with the interpolation of Nivea’s “Don’t Mess with My Man,” as sampled by JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown on the track that shares a name with this post.