#8 What to do with the things you don't want

This summer while in Italy I posted a picture of myself on a Massa Lubrense beach in a bathing suit with a damn inspirational quote written across it to Instagram. It was one of about five posts to my stories I made over a six month period, and it was something I did because for a minute I missed the internet.

A few days later, back in Rome, I was trying to take my friend Amity a plant at her yoga studio in between classes. Her studio is on the second floor inside a massive and opulent 18th century building, and when she didn't answer the door I sat in the stairwell doing what people like me do in stairwells, which is read all the DMs they claim they don't read as the smallest attempt to preemptively disappoint people.

That day, in those particular DMs, there were many messages in response to the beach picture. The messages were mostly nice, or rather all of them but one were nice, and when I read them I got the sensation I always get when I read nice things, which is a certain kind o…