Readers,
You ever get bored enough over a school break that you stand in your kitchen and stare out the window and thwack the blunt end of an EpiPen Trainer into your thigh over and over, just to feel something? The needleless orange plastic tip thudding against your jeans? Clicking out from its body, so you have to pinch with two fingers and slide it back in so you can pretend to stab yourself again? Anyone else?
Even if you haven’t, and you’ve lived the privileged life of the unallergied, you know the feeling. Spring Break just ended. You frolicked, you lounged, you drank and you ate and you found yourself flopped onto a couch scrolling through something or another. Your non-scrolling hand crawled up your arm to pick at a scab, then up again to your face to scratch at your scruff. At a certain point, you scrolled so hard your eyes glazed over and all you saw on the screen was fuzz. You kept scratching, even though there’s no itch. Your eyes flipped up to the window of your bedroom, of your hotel, of the airport, and you saw the exact same fuzz. The world blended together, screen and life fused in their equal boredom.
Then you came back here and now you’re in a four-week-long sprint with two Noah Lyles’ flanking your sides telling you you’re not pumping your arms enough. Your body feels jacked up with adrenaline like you’ve been stabbed with a real EpiPen, needle and all. God. This sucks. We’re all breathing hard. Lungs are burning. Legs are solidifying. Lights are getting too bright. You wish for the boredom you wished was anything but just last week.
Take a breather. Here’s an EpiPen Trainer for you. Seven stabs to your thigh this week: Alex Moore visits a Cooling Conference to help us figure out how to deal with the sweat. Miles Kirkpatrick considers the legacy of Lil Pump. Hudson Warm reviews The Ugly Stepsister and All Flesh amid our body-obsessed culture. Zachary Minter reflects on the service industry. Kira Tang clocks the potential in BTS’ return, Rohan Shivakumar watches a couple stare at each other, and Michelle So goes to Joshua Tree. Jolts of energy, but nothing too aggressive.
You gotta stop running, shake out your legs, take a sip of water, and keep on reading.
Most daringly,
Will and Oscar
