the most distressing subject line I've seen this year (so far)

2025 sure has felt like a long year, hasn’t it? I’ll let 30 Rock take this one:

I don’t know how everyone else is doing, but I’ve fully given up on any and all resolutions to be a better, more productive, more actualized me. Not that I made any resolutions of that kind to begin with. But we’re barely into February and I’ve fully returned to my default state of “as long as the kids are fed, loved, and safe, it’s ok to go full goblin mode as much of the time as I can.” Which means: my softest pants, early bedtimes, long baths, and zero shame.

Goblin mode has been the only thing insulating me from the onslaught of terrible news. There’s so much happening that I hate that I can’t even begin to process it all. I can barely even process all the anti-trans news that directly impacts my family, which

Erin Reed

has been heroically reporting on her terrific newsletter, which you should subscribe to:

Several of the newsletters I subscribe to (like this one and this one) have addressed this week the physical toll that this kind of misery can take on your body and the pressure to bounce back from it. It takes an emotional toll, too. I’ve felt waves of icy rage flood my body in moments that definitely don’t call for it, like when I step on a toy a kid left on the ground or when the only parking spot left is one I have to squeeze into because some asshole parked his Tesla over the line. Both of which are frustrating, sure, but typically not blindingly infuriating. My emotions have no proportion right now. I respond to terrible news with numbness and minor annoyances with apocalyptic anger.

Which is why, when I saw this email from Bon Appetit, I was nearly incapacitated by incandescent fury:

What the fuck, Bon Appetit? When I saw the subject line “Massage your kale with avocado” in my inbox I said — out loud! — “Go to jail.”

It’s hard to pinpoint what, exactly, offended me so deeply about this. Is it the aggressive healthism of it, which I’d sort of hoped we’d left behind in January? The commanding tone, which immediately activated my demand avoidance? The way it sounds gross, bordering on actionable,¹ from a tactile perspective? The fact that raw kale always sucks — I said what I said — and even in California, most of the avocados you can get this time of year are pretty inedible?

And then, horror of horrors, I looked at the recipe that the technique article linked to, and it sounded… good:

I’m not sure why they didn’t lead with “adobo-marinated chicken salad with caramelized red onions”, because that sounds approximately 1000x better than “Massage your kale with avocado”. In fact, I wanted that salad. So I went out and got the ingredients and squeezed every avocado in the store until I found some that weren’t as hard as rocks. And then I scooped out their flesh and massaged some goddamn kale with it.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the proof:

I’m so glad the Substack gallery feature made those last two pictures bigger, because you can really see how gross my hands felt at that point. And I’m a person who’s pretty ok with getting my hands into my food. I actually enjoy the part of the scone-making process where you rub the butter into the flour. This was so, so much worse.

From a purely sensory standpoint, it was even worse than making meatballs by hand. Although I’d give it a slight edge over meatballs overall because, unlike with raw meat, you don’t need to worry about contamination of surfaces and how you’re going to turn the sink on without using any hands to wash off the ground meat paste that leaves a thin coating on your skin. The avocado also washes off your hands more easily than that paste, which is nice. But the sliminess during the massaging process is really, really unpleasant.

But then I got to eat this beautiful salad:

I regret to say that the massaging process really did distribute the avocado, lime juice, and salt throughout the salad in a way that ensured there were no bites of nothing but raw kale, a thing I still hate. It was delicious AND earned me a full day of shame-free goblin mode, the thing my heart most desires. Not that you have to earn freedom from shame. But it really does suck how much better I feel when I eat some vegetables and go outside and take a walk.

I wish I could say that this salad solved all of my problems and now my emotions are all fixed and that I didn’t lose my entire mind when I found out that my kid who was staying home from school because she’d spent the morning puking hadn’t showered or washed her hands and was now playing with every single toy in our playroom. But it’s only a salad, and I’m only human. There’s a lot of 2025 left — an email I got today that I can only assume was meant as a personal attack said we’re 11% of the way through the year — and I predict it’s going to be a slog. My plan, roughly, is to embrace my unexpected and inappropriate rage as a path to potential absurdity, fun, and chaos. I’m actually kind of excited to see what other “massage your kale with avocado”-type adventures the other 89% of this year might hold. And it’s kind of nice to feel excited about anything right now.

What’s bringing you unexpected rage or excitement these days? Share in the comments!

1. I see you, fellow autistic people, wincing at the mere thought of putting your hands in there.