It's Magda's birthday! Please buy nothing.
Among the best things in life are a catnap, a nationwide economic blackout, and a cake full of Sunshine.
Because the Polar Vortex is merciful, this has been an invigorating week. After months of Siberian dank, nothing gets Doug out of bed quicker than the prospect of a day above freezing. And wow, did yesterday deliver! Fifty-six degrees! Birds sang, scarves unfurled, and snowdrifts melted to reveal all those leaves he never raked up.
But the bigger story behind this pod-free Wednesday is that it’s Magda’s birthday! (A celebration she shares with Johnny Cash, Levi Strauss, Erykah Badu, Fats Domino, and Jackie Gleason.) As she turns 52, she’s trying to reconcile feeling happy to be getting older with being terrified about what her old age will be like as an American progressive Christian woman.
These are the gifts she has given herself today:
a new, beautiful Coach handbag, free from the local Buy Nothing group;
her childhood birthday cake (see above) from the recipe her mom always used from the side of the Crisco tub (Magda uses butter);
listening to the second half of Rick Astley's truly delightful memoir Never, which she highly recommends even if you don't enjoy being rickrolled; and
taking a nap on the couch beneath the cat.
You’ll notice none of those things is a big-store purchase, because neither of us is in the mood to buy much of anything from any company that’s bigger than a bread box. If we’re to fight off being trampled by rapacious “greedflation,” the biggest weapon we have left is our wallets, and that’s why we’re taking part in this Friday's economic blackout. If we have to buy anything, it will be from a local seller, with cash. And we’re ready to keep it going for a while, because just the one day might not send enough of a message to people who think they can bully us into feeding their coffers.
We have some big thoughts about how people our age are being told we're being served but actually aren't—which feels eerily similar to how we felt in our late teens and early 20s. We’re as bereft as any generation to watch the American Idea collapse into oligarchy and grift, but we've still got a lot of time left in this new reality to figure out how to keep going, whether or not it’ll ever shift back.
So when our birthdays come along, we’d really love it if you spent zero dollars and just reached out to say hi, however you feel most comfortable. Every day reminds us that the best gifts don’t require GooglePay.
Thanks for reading, and not all heroes wear capes.
Magda and Doug