I am of the opinion that pretty much everything we do is in service of the delusion that our lives have meaning and that the stuff that we spend so much time worrying and complaining about actually matters when deep down we know that it’s all empty and futile, a grand charade we perpetuate in order to distract ourselves from the certainty of death, so I am the natural audience for anything that argues that people who constantly broadcast just how busy their enormously complicated, task-heavy lives keep them might not actually be breaking under that crushing burden.

I am old and I remember when the original version of this song was new and just the other week a random series of searches resulted in my traveling down a Robert Palmer rabbit hole, all of which is to say that I was perhaps more primed to find this unexpectedly moving than you might be, but you should probably still give it a chance anyway, because you might just think it is full of the same feel I got from it, which is, “wow, that’s really something.”

“’He said Shaq gave a bitch a mil — I don’t do that ’cause my name’s Shaquille. I love ’em but don’t leave ’em. I got a vasectomy, now I can’t breed ’em. Kobe, how my ass taste?’ The crowd at the club joined a smiling O’Neal in repeating the zinger several times in unison while he bent over and flaunted his Barkleyesque rump.” [Related]

“Not all bots are used for fraud. Google Inc., for example, uses bots to find information on the Internet.”

Gwar’s David Murray Brockie has died. Brockie was 50.

At this point in the game the possibility of another two inches of snow is something you kind of shrug at and then go about your business, right? You have internalized it now to the extent that you wake up each morning with the default belief that there will be snow falling, about to fall, or having just fallen. Winter is wound deeply within the fabric of your soul, perhaps never to be disentangled, and whatever you do for the rest of your life you will be carrying around the expectation that things will be cold and gray wherever you are because that’s just the way life is now. So two inches? BFD. That’s nothing compared to the blizzard buried inside you, the permanent frost on your spirit. Also, in case you have forgotten, don’t do this.

The New York Post is doubling down on a truly grim tabloid story: “What’s behind epidemic of financial industry deaths?” This is a follow-up on last week’s… identical story, which was a follow-up to two previous stories, all by the same author, in which “a rash of eight financial-industry suicides so far in 2014” have “baffled” mental health professionals.

But back in the real world, actually the rate of suicide in people “35–64 years increased 28.4%” from 1999 to 2010, according to the CDC. The suicide rate among whites in America increased 40% in that period. In New York City, there are approximately 475 suicides a year.

About 5% of jobs in New York City are in finance; Let’s say there’s about 400,000 people employed in finance in New York City. (There were about 500,000 of those jobs in 2000 and 425,000 in 2010.)

Statistically speaking, there should be 23.75 suicides a year in the finance industry in New York City alone. Six suicides in the first quarter of the year would be “right on track” (I know, gross, sorry) for 24 suicides in 2014.

Except then when you read the story, two of these suicides were in London, one was in Singapore (that was Autumn Radtke), one was in Hong Kong, one was in Washington state, one was in Stamford, one was in Syosset, and then only one was in Manhattan.

So, great news! New York City’s finance professionals are vastly under-killing themselves, compared to the population at large. Put that on your tabloid.

Relatedly! The Post is banging the drum on the even-more horrifying student suicide epidemic. Unfortunately*, with 10 schoolchild suicides so far in 2014, that number is also below par for recent averages. With 66 suicides last year, there should have been at least 16 suicides by the end of March to meet or exceed 2012’s terrible and upsetting count. (*YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN by “unfortunately.”)

https://giphy.com/gifs/T1E5u35uWZDnq

Some things to take in during this CALM BEFORE THE STORM weekend….

• How do you solve the problem of hiking? Surprise, it’s with audiobooks.

• What do you do on the Day of the Goose? Spoiler… it doesn’t end well for the geese.

• Should you be a telemarketer? No, it’s insanely hard. (I was so bad at it.) And yet, if it’s that or making coffee in Brooklyn, how will you decide?

• Here’s a flashback maybe you missed from December that we’re rereading: Jenny Kutner’s story about her eighth-grade history teacher. (We got back to it via their triple-murder story.)

• A good tab that is still open and as yet unread: Carrie Battan on Lars von Trier. It could be worse! A year ago, we were seeing Sprrinnnnng Breaaaaaaaakers and worrying about Jurassic Park 4: The Jurassicing.

• Also if you want to judge if something is feminist enough or not, why don’t you read through the back issues of Ask Polly? Then let us know!

• The great news also is that if you’re on the go, you can read the week’s biggest stories on your iPhone by subscribing heeeeerrre.

★★ The gray broke up, and blue showed through the perforations in the shade. Now the furniture delivery was early, but it was warm enough in the sun to rush out in a hoodie. Out on the river, a cloud cast a shadow, one patch of darkness. Then more clouds cast more shadows. They blew away again, returned again. Midday, under the cloud cover, it felt colder than it had been three hours before. A proper coat was a little stifling on the trunk, while the extremities were still chilled. There was no right way to be out in it.

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

The Valley of I Hate Myself

After a few years of You can have me if you don’t hurt me
and You can kiss me if you promise to leave soon,
I pack my stuff and head south.
I drive past the ranch style homes of I like to watch it burn
and the freakish dust bowl of If I can’t have you no one will,
and into the valley of I hate myself.
Forget the bad weather and the dead weight of ghosts,
the plus sides make themselves immediately clear:
if you plant something, it is almost certain to grow,
if you want to live off the land, there is plenty of it.
Every night the moon is full
and the torrid hum of people having fun — 
well, it just isn’t there.

As far as neighbors go, they’re far from nosy.
They stop to say hello only if you’re armed or bleeding.
They aren’t interested in the feel-good moments of
I think I might come clean or
I know I can fix what I once so carelessly broke.
They only want the good stuff — 
the cheating on the husbands, the booze, the drugs,
the solemn way you broke everyone’s hearts, mostly your own.
They like to hear about all that time you wasted
when you could have been Making Something of Your Damn Life.

Guilt is the religion of choice here
and every Sunday, the pews are full of people
who’ve come to sing the songs of Kurt Cobain or Karen Carpenter.
The stores are stocked full of meat and cheese and alcohol
and the meth labs are clean and unionized.
The coke dealers are so well-liked
one of them ran for mayor and won.
It’s no wonder people never take day trips
to the nearby town of Everything’s coming up roses
or attempt to try the new Chinese place in Life’s what you make it.

But the highlight of it all has to be the walks I take at night.
I stroll past the recycling center of self-loathing
and the dumping ground for dreams that die hard,
and head onto Main Street, stopping
to look in the window of the local pawn shop.
There’s a guitar and a typewriter and a gold heart locket on a chain,
a trinket to remind us that the thing in our chests
can’t possibly be as empty as it feels.
A few other people pass by, people who were lonely in life
and now are here together
and we share tight small smiles
some of which might even be read as I love you.

Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith is the author of the recently published novel Trinkets

from Little, Brown and co-screenwriter of such films as Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You and The House Bunny.

You will find more poems here. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.