Syllabus #9

It's the last week of school! 

But summer school is not optional:

Reading:

Contemplating breakfast, how very on-brand of me.  Of all the things I might do differently with the benefit of hindsight, naming this blog isn't one of them.  Now, as ever, I both possess alarmingly affectionate feelings for breakfast, and occasionally eat my feelings for breakfast.  Regardless of what these articles claim about the dubious origins of breakfast rituals, breakfast is my most important meal of the day.  I wake up ravenous.  I could sooner function without caffeine than without something to eat.  Breakfast:  get out of my dreams and into my mouth. 


I feel this article deeply and profoundly.  One of the reasons I love working in the school system is the most obvious of perks:  summers off.  Not just for the reasons you would assume, but also because I get to skip the bulk of patriarchal climate control tyranny season.  Why should anyone be expected to dress in light Roald Amundsen cosplay like you're headed to the South Goddamn Pole every weekday morning when it's 95 degrees outside?  Dressing appropriately for inside office temps in the summer means beginning to sweat profusely the second you walk outside, and the alternative is cognitive impairment and, for me, loss of sensation in my fingers and toes, because I literally have a disease that prevents me from keeping my body warm enough in conditions that even most normal women find tolerable. 


First there was this.  The biggest surprise of all was the continuing existence of Arthur.  It's almost like finding out they've actually still been making episodes of Saved by the Bell with all the original characters for the past 25 years, and Zack Morris is now a Bayside custodian and part-time yoga instructor who somehow manages to be sweet and fatherly towards the students without even a hint of McConaugheying out on the hot chicks. 

Felicidades, Mr. Ratburn and Patrick NoLastName.

But then,

Wait for it....

The least surprising part:  "Sebastian Gorka, the former Breitbart editor and White House aide, ranted about the episode on his radio show. “This is a war for our culture,” Gorka said. “Civil society doesn’t exist, friendship doesn’t exist, family doesn’t exist.”  I dunno dude, I'm pretty sure a wedding ceremony is the literal embodiment of civil society, friendship, and family.  You gotta feel sorry for a guy who doesn't find the narrative structure of Arthur to be engaging enough to suspend his disbelief.  

Alabama:  Where grown men can rape girls young enough to watch Arthur and still almost win elections, but two consenting adult male cartoon mammals can't formalize their union.


But did they ever find the ring, or whatever?  A part of me resisted GoT because it was just so popular and my inner 15-year old is skeptical of what's mainstream, but also, jesus, the time commitment! 


I can't stand how so many food advertisements equate food and emotions, and push food that should be an occasional treat into the realm of all-day-every-day consumption.  I realize that may sound hypocritical, given the name of this blog, but my deep and abiding love for breakfast stems from a place of genuine hunger and an inability to function on an empty stomach, and also centers on the ritual of starting the day with something filling, healthy, and delicious.  Advertising that positions food as a stand-in for feeling your feelings, or as a requisite for building human relationships, is a problem. 


Listening:

I went to a Mountain Goats show recently.  I've been hoping to catch them for years, and finally had an opportunity.  Shortly after the doors opened and well before the show started, I took exactly one picture.  Immediately following the approximately 3 seconds I spent taking the picture, a skinny, pasty, young nerdle sidled over to me and said in the most condescending tone, "Are you gonna Instagram that?  You gonna live stream the show all night?"

Just in it for the 'gram

No, dude, I'm just going to send the picture to friends and then two weeks later share it on here with an anecdote about the obnoxious lamewad who couldn't wait to make fun of someone so he could feel better about himself.  In retrospect he may have actually been negging me, but I'm too oblivious to tell when someone is trying and/or failing miserably to hit on me.


I thoroughly enjoyed the 2-part Howard Stern interview on Fresh Air.  Terry and Howard, who knew?  Like pickles and peanut butter, you wouldn't expect it to work so well, but it does.

Nothing, hear me, NOTHING makes me happier to be alive than hearing Terry Gross discuss things of a prurient nature with her guests.  Talking to "Ask a Clean Person" auteur Jolie Kerr about the technique for removing skidmarks from underwear?  Discussing LSD with John Waters?  Talking to Howard Stern about literally anything at all?  That's my ASMR, baby.

STERN: I love when you say Howard Stern comes again, and I'll tell you why.

GROSS: (Laughter) Tell me why.

STERN: I wanted to write...

GROSS: (Laughter).

STERN: ...A really good book that...

GROSS: Where I could say the title, and it would have dealt two meanings. (Laughter).

STERN: Well, in a way, yes. It definitely has two meanings. Possibly three. But what's really interesting to me is that somehow - I didn't want to imply in the book that somehow the whole show has changed, and you're going to tune in and you're going to hear, you know, this serious broadcast that - blah, blah, blah. We still employ tons of second-grade humor. And "Howard Stern Comes Again" is such a juvenile title. I wanted to make sure we got that in there so - and nothing pleases me more to hear on NPR, "Howard Stern Comes Again."

GROSS: OK. So what you just said. How does it feel to be doing second-grade humor, as you just called it, when you're 65?

And, last but not least, Marc Maron's interview with Lisa Kudrow.  Whenever Marc talks about the food issues he's been carrying around since childhood, it always strikes me as a surprise that men carry can carry around body shame like that, too.  We all have our shit, I guess.