Some days I fall down a YouTube spiral of Broadway showtunes, FDA loopholes, and 14th-century revenge stories, so deep I forget what I was even searching for.
Girl scrolling on the phone – credit © Bongkarn Thanyakij| Dreamstime.com
One minute I’m sipping a berry mango kale smoothie and cracking up over a Randy Rainbow parody, and the next, I’m googling whether my “gluten free / heart-healthy” snack is full of seed oils. (Spoiler: it is. Of course it is.).
Note to self: only buy if it’s organic, gluten free, made with avocado oil and cannot be found in any of the shops near me. It must be ordered online, thereby incurring a larger carbon footprint + supporting one of our evil overlords, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, so I guess I need to pick another snack. Oh wait, that snack is how much? For the same price, I could support clean water access for an entire community. Or… I could eat a cracker.
Lithium battery plant – © Jason Bennée | Dreamstime.com
Then I’m listening to a Status Coup report on heavy metals from a lithium battery plant fire in California leaching into the soil of an area known as ‘the salad bowl of America’. So now I don’t want to buy berries from California. And due to the agricultural runoff in the Rio Grande Valley, it is unsafe to buy produce from Mexico. And thanks to the Trump cabal dismantling federal agencies designed to protect our health and safety, we’re left to fend for ourselves. Now I’m researching the feasibility of growing my own tomatoes in our Colorado apartment…
Suddenly I’m wondering if my canned chickpeas are laced with BPA (check here for a Cheat Sheet: BPA Free Canned Goods) and whether my dental floss is quietly shoving microplastics into my gums.
Deep breaths…
That’s usually when I reach for the medieval YA fantasy I picked up at the library—because apparently I need to read about a runaway princess outsmarting her captors while mentally mapping out the collapse of late-stage capitalism.
YA novel princess – credit © Jechm1 | Dreamstime.com
I used to think my curiosity was a problem.
Too much. Too intense. Too all-over-the-place.
But now I know: this is how I listen to the world.
🔍 I ask questions because I care.
🧠 I spiral because things matter.
📚 I gather real and imagined stories, because they help me process all the chaos and beauty and the WTF of being alive right now.
And maybe the point isn’t to tie it all up in a neat little post.
Girl with thumbs up – credit © Fizkes| Dreamstime.com
Maybe the point is that I keep showing up, with my slightly-worried heart and my library card and my tabs open to composting tips, PFAS-free dental floss, and feminist folklore.
Maybe the point is that I still give a damn.
So, if you’re spiraling this week too — into a niche topic, a weird worry, a quiet obsession — you’re in good company.
What topic grabbed your attention this week—for no obvious reason? Tell me. I’ll probably want to google it too.
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