I’m listening to “Don’t Smoke” by The Microphones and walking to get coffee to get out of being home alone all day since I work remotely and I need to talk to someone, and when Phil Elverum says

my bluetooth headphones interrupt with the words “low battery” since I haven’t charged them in a day or two and they start saying this as soon as the battery is half-full, for hours and hours until I finally plug them in. Now I don’t know what else is no excuse to start smoking!

My new phone cost $800 and has no headphone jack, so I bought the Wirecutter’s top budget recommendation for bluetooth headphones. Later I notice two different friends all have the same ones for the same reason: we upgraded our phones and we read the same consumer recommendation publications for people with enough disposable income to buy nice electronics.

Last September I took a redeye back from Portland, Oregon, where I was at a creative tech conference. I didn’t feel very creative, I was tired, I didn’t have time to make stuff because I had to work, everyone who was making stuff for work seemed like a branded fraud, I remind myself that mostly I am thinking this because I was tired and afraid of flying and fed up with working alone from home. And I forgot to charge my headphones before I got on the plane. I could never sleep on planes, but I still tried, through the low battery, low battery, low battery warnings for five whole hours and still the headphones didn’t just give up and die. My seat had no plug. I was exhausted. Low battery!

Where is the rebellion in acting like a fuckup?, Phil sings.
Recharge battery, headphones say.

The sound of voices, and my life needs direction, and I want Phil Elverum to tell me what to do. The next song is called Get Off the Internet. I’m on a plane, hoping not to die since I never liked flying and had a big scary plane incident about a year ago where we thought we were going to crash, but we were able to emergency land safely, greeted by neon ambulances at an airport in Mexico.

Recharge battery. I don’t want to die. Don’t smoke. Get off the Internet.