dads have it right. reading the newspaper first thing in the morning is the shit. i subscribed to my local newspaper recently and i, a neurodivergent person who cannot for the life of me develop habits, immediately took to reading the newspaper with my coffee each morning. like it's some kind of evolutionary instinct: fight, flight, freeze, read the obits and sip on some lukewarm folgers at 9am. is the news depressing as hell? yeah. but now i know the local arby's failed its health inspection. i know that all those sirens i heard last night were for a domestic dispute two streets down from my apartment. i know there's a new food truck a town over. i know the middle school principal has been on administrative leave because he refused to punish a boy who stole clothes from the girls' locker room. i found out two dudes were fired from the state teachers' retirement treasury for mismanagement of funds and i called my grandma like, "hey have you heard about this?" because that's her primary income and of course she has because she watches the news 3 times a day, and we gossiped about state teachers' retirement fund embezzlement. i wake up and i don't even think about looking at my phone. i turn on the coffee pot, step outside, and grab the paper. touching grass first thing in the morning: life changing.
