The LEGO Effect

Those tiny little blocks are great for mental health

I have built two LEGO flower sets in the last three days. I would have made more, but those things are expensive. I love LEGO, and get an extremely type A satisfaction from meticulously following the directions of the colorful little instruction booklets and getting a ship in a bottle, or the Beatles’ yellow submarine, or Hogwarts, at the end. I filled my apartment with LEGO sets years ago and had to stop making them, but now I am at my grandmother’s house and I haven’t filled any of it with LEGO so I felt free to start again. I bought the succulents set, settled in, and all too quickly, had a perfect little succulent garden. But, as soon as I was finished, the calm serenity of following instructions was gone and I needed another fix. So the next day, I bought the orchids. Happiness, followed by the same feeling of loss that I feel at the end of a good TV binge. I would go back for the wildflowers and the birds of paradise but I have to pay my rent.

I once meditated for 365 days in a row to try to make myself like meditating. It did not work. It didn’t work for yoga either. I realized that I prefer active meditation. Running, archery, reading fiction, LEGO. I can lose hours at a time doing something that so fully engages my mind that I can’t think of anything else. I guess, as I say that, that running is less active meditation and more active focused thinking time, but still, I feel the same at the end.

Fortunately, two of those things are not as expensive as LEGO and archery (which I guess would be free if I had a backyard and didn’t still need coaching) but only with LEGO do you get a beautiful plastic monument to your meditation at the end. One day I will be able to afford the Titanic, Millennium Falcon, and Atari sets. For now, I’ll settle for the occasional LEGO splurge and the few hours of peace that I get from simply following directions.

What do you do to meditate, actively or not? I’m taking suggestions.

What to do

Watch

Class of ‘07 (Amazon Prime)- Women at their high school reunion at a Catholic girls’ school in Australia find themselves stranded as the world ends and they seem to be the only survivors. This show was so much better than anything about a high school reunion since Romy and Michele.

Alone (Netflix)- I don’t know when Season 9 of Alone landed on Netflix but I just discovered it the other day and I have been in woodsy heaven. I recommend watching it soon, before Netflix’s password sharing foolishness makes us all cancel. If the Flix thinks I’m going to confirm that I belong to the account that I pay for once a month, they must not know how many other streaming services exist now.

Listen

Believe in Magic (podcast)- Scamanda meets Mommie Dead and Dearest. That’s all you need to know.

Queen Havoc and Her Murder Cult (podcast)- Did you know there was a MURDER CULT in South Africa between 2012 and 2016??? I didn’t either. Binge this and we’ll both know more than we did before.

Read

I have been to all 50 states and 5 continents. My dream is to visit all 7, and then add all of the territories. I do not want to visit every country in the world because I refuse to ever step foot in Dubai. I also will probably never see all seven continents, because this Atlantic article laid out in black and white what I already knew in my heart- the only way to preserve Antarctica is to stay away. I’m devastated, but the penguins deserve it more than I do.

WE FINALLY HAVE FLYING CARS. It’s about time.

Last year a friend and I went to Universal Studios. We were two footloose and fancy free adults who paid the $165 each for two parks because Harry Potter World is built into two parks specifically so you have to pay for both. Our first line of the day (for the HULK roller coaster, a classic) was so long that after an hour we had barely moved but we realized that the express pass people were flying through. So we got out of line and spent $135 EACH on express passes. We flew past everyone else but we felt like garbage doing it. It was so wildly expensive, there was no way a family with kids could afford it. With the passes, we went on every ride we wanted to. Without them… we maybe would have made it on three all day. These days, it feels like everything is so expensive that only single people with LEGO money can afford it. I happen to be one of those people, and it’s still tough, but I can’t tell you how many times a day, when I’m pumping gas, going to the movies, or having drinks with friends, that I think about how much money is flying out of the door, and how expensive it is to have fun. $100 is the new $20 and honestly I don’t know how anyone is doing it.

TikToks

So THIS is why Etsy is full of garbage now.

I have a new favorite priest.

MOIRA ROSE AS JEAN VALJEAN. Give this woman a Tony.

NO BUT REALLY PLEASE SHARE ME I NEED MORE PEOPLE TO TALK TO ABOUT PODCASTS.