2020 for the wins

Counting your wins, a unified theory of oatmeal, and quitting Facebook

A few days before the holiday break, I found myself eavesdropping on the beautiful woman who works in the office down the hall from mine. She was on Zoom, talking to her team about their 2020 “wins.” Wow, I thought, this woman is some kind of dynamo. She and her team had wins—plural!—in this foul year of our lord, two thousand twenty. I had to know this woman’s secret, so I invited her to dinner. I cooked her favorite meal: grilled ribeye steak (medium-rare), roasted potatoes, and sautéed asparagus. I made baked tofu for myself.

“This looks delicious,” she said as she cut into her steak.

I nibbled at my baked tofu, wondering how to ask about these “wins.” Confidence is sexy, but it’s also intimidating. Frankly, I was nervous to be sitting across the table from a winner. And not just any winner, folks. A winner who could claim victory in a year unanimously agreed upon to suck ass.

“I heard you talking about your wins,” I said.

“Oh yeah…”

“You guys had a lot of wins. Like a lot of wins.”

She agreed, but when I asked what the secret was, she credited the wins to her team. Great, I thought, I’m going to have to cook dinner for another dozen people if I want to know the secret to winning in a year built for losing. Except, that’s not possible right now because local public health measures limit our live-work space to two people. Maybe, I thought, I need to get on a Zoom call with these winners, find out what they like to eat, do a series of porch-drops, then get on a second Zoom call and charm the secrets to winning out of these winners. Or, maybe I could just do a Charlie Sheen marathon and soak in his wisdom for winning.

“What are your wins this year?” she asked. “Besides these roasted potatoes, which are the tits, by the way.”

My roasted potatoes are the tits. Everyone says so. And I have leveled-up my all-around roasting game in quarantine. But could I count roasting excellence as a win? That seemed like a stretch.

“I don’t know…” I shrugged. “I’m not sure if I had any real wins, you know in the classic sense of the word.”

“You have to write your wins down,” she said.

“I don’t know. Seems silly.”

“It’s not silly, it’s important,” she said. “Try writing them down. The wins can be anything you accomplished that you’re proud of. Personal, professional, doesn’t matter. You had wins this year, you just need to recognize them, so you can appreciate your progress and keep on trucking.”

“But…”

“Write your wins down,” she insisted. “Otherwise, you won’t see them, and they won’t be real.”

“Write your wins down…” I said, the digesting her words one at a time, as if each one carried ancient wisdom. “Write. Your. Wins. Down.”

The following morning, I made a list of my 2020 wins. The process took about thirty minutes. It paired well with coffee and a bagel. For inspiration, I used a soundtrack, compliments of Freddie Mercury.

When I finished, I had a list of 20 wins, not counting my “roasting excellence” unlock. Holy shit, I thought. All this year, I thought I was losing, but it turns out I was winning. Ain’t that a kick in the ass?

Now, I know what you’re thinking. This is the part where I share that list with you, right? Wrong. I’m not going to share that list, not in its entirety anyway. Some wins are personal, some are private. Two wins were political. Three wins were financial. Four wins were connected to my mental and physical health. Two of the wins involve non-disclosure agreements. One win was ecological. One win was communal. One win was spiritual. One win was embarrassing, but a win nonetheless. Several wins fell into multiple categories because people are complicated. Two wins were interconnected because life is also complicated. The interconnected wins were quitting Facebook and launching “Situation Normal.”

---

Many of you first discovered my writing on Facebook. For years, Facebook was my story distribution platform. I shared stories on Facebook about my everyday encounters with baristas, Lyft drivers, bookstore clerks, and Trader Joe’s cashiers. I shared stories about the telemarketers I tortured with my out-bound prank calling scheme, vignettes from my political organizing, travel adventures, strange conversations I overheard around Los Angeles, and of course, Larry stories. I told tales of the paparazzi who repeatedly mistook me for a celebrity, and of a truck-driving, rap-loving poet at the post office who swore I was Jerry Garcia, back from the dead, and grateful enough to give him my (Jerry’s) autograph. Occasionally, I even managed to pull together stories that are seemingly about mundane things like oatmeal, but are in fact, narratives that reveal what Douglas Adams called, life the universe and everything. Here’s that story.

The Trader Joe’s cashier asks if I found everything I was looking for.

“No,” I say. “You guys used to sell these oatmeal packets that have chia seeds and no added sugar. But I don’t see them.”

“Let me look it up,” she says.

“My fear is that they’ve been discontinued.”

“Don’t you put that out into the universe,” she says. “Don’t you do it. Don’t you even think it. You hear me?”

“I’m not trying to put that out into the universe, but it’s been three weeks and I haven’t seen them. And it’s not like there’s a space in the shelves, like you’re just out, like they’re super popular and I just can’t seem to get them while they last. It’s as if they’ve vanished—poof. So yeah, I’m dealing with a lot of fear here. Because the other oatmeals have sugar, or they don’t taste quite right because there’s something about those chia seeds that really level-up porridge. And the thing is I’ve been trying to do vegan for breakfast and...”

“Damn,” she says. “You are dealing with a lot of fear. We do need to get to the bottom of this.”

“Right on, thanks.”

“The computer doesn’t have a listing for this item, so I can’t tell if it’s been discontinued, or if it’s temporarily out of stock, or what. But you know Trader Joe works in mysterious ways.”

“Is there even a Trader Joe, or is that just a clever marketing thing?” I ask.

“We don’t talk about Trader Joe.”

“So he exists?”

“Damn it,” she says. “You know too much.”

“I don’t know anything. I don’t even know what happened to my oatmeal.”

The cashier waves over another employee.

“It’s the one with quinoa,” the second employee says.

“Yes!” I say. “There’s quinoa and chia seeds. I forgot the quinoa.”

The cashier looks it up.

“Is this it?”

I look at the computer screen. It’s oatmeal all right, but not my oatmeal.

“That’s not it.”

“Well, that’s good,” the cashier says. “This one has been discontinued.”

A third employee joins us. He suggests several alternate searches, but they all come up empty.

“Damn,” the cashier says. “This feels like a real Russian Doll situation. I just watched that show. So good.”

“Me too! And this does feel like a Russian Doll situation. I mean, on one level I’m literally looking for oatmeal. And OK, we’re talking cereal, not a cat, but still. Also, I’m really worried that the oatmeal I’ve been eating for breakfast for months doesn’t really exist, and that this is some kind of glitch in the system. That’s just my luck to have an entire existential crisis over breakfast.”

“Well, it is the most important meal of the day,” the cashier says.

“True, but what is a day? What is time? What is reality? Maybe there’s an alternate universe where you’re selling me the right oatmeal.”

“Maybe there’s an alternative universe where you’re selling me the right oatmeal,” she says.

“Touché.”

“But let’s get to the bottom of this universe,” she says.

“Can you have the computer list all oatmeals Trader Joe has ever sold?”

“I told you, we don’t talk about Trader Joe,” she says. “Also, that will take too long.”

“What can we do?”

“Ask Diane.”

The cashier calls out or Diane.

“We’re looking for oatmeal packets that have quinoa and chia seeds and no sugar. Do we sell those?”

“Or, do they even exist in this universe?” I ask.

“Oh—they’re very popular,” Diane says.

“So they exist. I’m not crazy.”

“They’ve been temporarily out of stock,” Diane says. “But they’re coming back. A lot of people have been asking about it.”

“You mean I’m not alone in the universe?” I ask.

Diane looks confused and walks away.

“You’re not alone,” the cashier says. “And I don’t think this is a Russian Doll situation. But just in case it is, come back to this location, find me, and I’ll try and connect you with other people who are looking for oatmeal.”

“But I’ll be here next Sunday looking for oatmeal regardless,” I say. “And unless your schedule changes, you’ll be here working your usual shift.”

“Then the universe is as it should be.”

“Well, let’s not get carried away,” I say. “The universe is a series of mysteries, wrapped inside a labyrinth of enigmas, but at least I know what’s happening with my oatmeal.”

There’s something very 2020 about sharing a story that references Russian Doll, a show that’s this century’s answer to Groundhog Day. Russian Doll premiered in 2019. At the time, I thought it was a brilliant dark comedy about how life’s complications and the mysteries of time conspire to imprison us in a DIY purgatory. Now, I realize Russian Doll was a primer for how to cope in 2020.

Which brings me back to my quitting Facebook win in a roundabout way. Back in 2016, I vowed to quit Facebook. I made that same vow in 2017, and again in 2018, and 2019. Then 2020 landed like the proverbial straw on the camel’s back.

I’d love to tell you that quitting was a moral stand because Facebook prides itself on moving fast and breaking things like your privacy and our democracy. Or, that I just had to quit Facebook because the platform spreads hate speech. Or, that I objected to the idea of the world’s most powerful media and technology company being owned by a man who cannot be fired. Or, that the man who cannot be fired created a business model that monetizes outrage—which goes a long way to explaining why the politics of division is all the rage these days. Or, that the final-final straw was the revelation that Facebook was complicit in Myanmar’s genocide.

I’m pro-privacy and pro-democracy. I’m anti-hate speech and anti-genocide. I distrust concentrated power. I’m skeptical of outrage, especially when it’s sold for profit. These are natural positions for me, but when push came to shove, my values weren’t reason enough to quit, let alone take a moral, albeit quixotic, stand. Why? People loved my Facebook stories.

Sure, thanks to Facebook, privacy is a joke, democracy is under attack, hate speech is spreading like a virus, and social networks have become the “killer app” for authoritarians because surveillance equals control and misinformation is the essential ingredient for genocide stew. But did you see how many Likes my post got? For years, I grappled with these contradictions—values on the one hand, the need for people to like my writing on the other—and I lost every time. Like I said, people are complicated. Did I mention they are imperfect, too?

Then one day, 2020 happened. I was living that Groundhog Day life we all know too well, that Russian Doll time loop kind of life. Same shit, different day. But always Facebook—first thing in the morning, dozens of times throughout the day, always one last scroll before bed. Dopamine hits for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Wash, rinse, repeat.

That’s when it hit me. Facebook sucks. It sucks worse than 2020—which is saying a lot. Facebook sucks because it makes me miserable, and if I’m miserable, I cannot write.

So, I quit.

Or, put another way, I won.

Prizes included more time, improved mental health, and a better story distribution platform (“Situation Normal” on Substack). In the grand scheme of things, these are personal wins that aren’t likely to change the internet storytelling game, or slow down Facebook’s juggernaut of suckitude.

But as the dynamo down the hall told me, the secret is to count your wins. They can be personal, professional, civic, ecological, humanitarian, financial, communal, spiritual, culinary, etc. The category doesn’t matter. What matters is that you recognize your wins. Otherwise, time really will compress into a flat circle, and life will begin to look like a purgatory of your own making.

Write.

It.

Down.

For the win.

(And if you like, please share one of your wins in the comments).