Syllabus #37

I had a dream that I stole a tube of CBD hand cream from a stall at a farmer's market.  I rubbed it all over my body and felt like I was ensconced in a pillowy marshmallow, floating in a mug of hot chocolate.  It sounds sticky but really it was glorious.  Why did I steal it?  Probably so I could justify slathering it all over. 

In real life, even if I was somehow persuaded that a CBD-infused product contained a high enough concentration to do anything at all, I would probably still convince myself not to spend the money.  And if I experienced a momentary lapse in cheapskatery, I would definitely ration that $30 tube of artisanal snake oil to make it last until the day marijuana is removed from the federal list of Schedule 1 drugs and everyone incarcerated for non-violent marijuana charges is exonerated and given some form of reparations, which is to say, probably decades from now, if ever.  I would be in a nursing home at age 113, rubbing that shiz on my gnarled, arthritic knuckles.

All I see is TOILET.  "Early to bed, early to rise, make's a man's colon healthy inside."  That's how it goes, no?

Speaking of living forever, here's this week's food for thought.  Full of fiber for efficient processing of waste, as usual:

Just another reason I'm going to live forever.

Have you read all of these?  Have you borrowed them from a library?

This saddens me.  I definitely wasn't the kind of kid who printed out the full length Monty Python and the Holy Grail script and carried it in my backpack for the entire duration of middle school and at one point could quote it line by line.  A kid like that never had any hope of being cool.  In fact, over 20 years later, she's still a pretty embarrassing human to be around.  But perhaps the joke's on us.   Could it be that he's not dead yet?

Sometimes I feel like we're all wearing Doomsday wristwatches.  This is a perfect either/or question for a dating app profile:  If you were a perpetual clock, would you be a Doomsday Clock or a Clock of the Long Now?

Proof that the world is ending (so maybe I won't make it to 113):  Grownups drinking milkies in the most serious of settings.  To be fair, Liz Warren might be staving off the osteoporosh, and Sally Field with her Boniva is probably not allowed on the Senate floor.  Can they request goat or non-dairy milks?  Would they have to pause the impeachment proceedings to hold a debate on what constitutes a true milk, and whether something has to have mammary glands to be able to produce milk?  I might down a glass of milk laced with arsenic if I had to listen to Ted Cruz orate on the nipple-less nature of oats, soy, and almonds.

If you want to stave off the end of the world and get the lurid image of adult milk chuggers out of the forefront of your mind, take this quiz to help you make an informed decision about which reasonable grownup to support in the coming primaries.  I wasn't surprised by who ended up at the top of my ideological matches, but I was surprised by who fell to the bottom.

Do you stan for Goodnight Moon, or are you on Team Ann Carroll Moore?  Maybe she enjoyed a little too much control and didn't always use her powers for good, but if it weren't for Notorious ACM, we might not even have children's libraries.  Maybe my very job wouldn't even exist.  Despite that, the most compelling part of this article was the merely parenthetical anecdote describing how Margaret Wise Brown died:  "Recovering from surgery for an ovarian cyst in a hospital in France, she playfully kicked her leg up, cancan-style, to show a nurse how well she was feeling; the action dislodged an embolism from a vein in her leg, which traveled to her brain, killing her nearly instantly."  Jee-zus.

Analog Reading:

I'm starting off strong this year.  So far I've finished 6 books and will likely finish a 7th today.  This week I read:

The Heap by Sean Adams - This was a fun read.  Bleak, absurdist humor in the vein of Catch 22.

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead - Read this book.  Don't hesitate.  Go to your library right now.  If it's closed, break in, but just like, use self checkout or leave a note, because librarians are pretty protective of our book babies' whereabouts.  If an independent book shop is closer, go there and buy it.  There's a reason this book was on every smart person's Favorite Books of 2019 list, including Obama.  The story itself is powerful and important and wrenching, but the writing.  Sweet baby Jesus, the writing was masterful.  There was one moment towards the end where I had to put the book down for a few minutes and say "Whoa" out loud to no one.  I mean, Charlie heard me but he has about a 6-word vocabulary so it probably didn't register.  I am truly in awe and would recommend this book as shining, glittering example of the "show, don't tell" writing convention.

Now I'm about 2/3 finished with Normal People by Sally Rooney and plan to finish it today.  As well written as it is, at first I was annoyed that I found myself enjoying it because it seemed like a 2010s Irish rehashing of a 90s American teen movie where the ugly outcast girl and the hot popular guy hook up and that suddenly validates her existence.  You know, minus anyone putting pubes on a slice of pizza.  But the book is so much more than that, and at the very least we see a more 3-dimensional portrait of the inner lives of both characters.  However, if you haven't read this book yet, I'm sorry you won't be able to picture the main characters as anyone other than Rachael Leigh Cook and Freddie Prinze Jr. now. 

Syllabus #36

As I write this, it's snowing gently outside my balcony window and I'm enjoying this MLK Monday off from work.  I can't help but feel cheated that it's snowing on a day that school was already closed.  Out of spite, all of the below is required reading.  There will be a test.

Another day, another car fire on Briley Parkway

"It occurs to me that Larry David may be the most self-actualized person I have ever met."  I'm one of those jerks who sits down to maybe 2 total hours of TV a week and feels a little smug about it, but I will turn that boob tube on with gusto for LD.  I cannot wait for Season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  It provides a highly accurate projection of what kind of person Andy will be in 20-30 years.  It's not that Larry is ever wrong, it's just that he cares not for the nuances or for the little things most of us let go in order to lubricate the wheels of social interaction.

This really hits me where I live.  The things we have tried and the money we have flushed down the toilet attempting to carve out a semi-normal existence for Charlie defy logic, and the only thing that even sort of works a little bit is good old fashioned drugs.  For us.  Kiddingnotkidding.  Charlie's on Prozac.

I guess it bodes well for us that Larry David claims to actually be a very happy person.


Glitter bomb blowing up a toilet near you.  As if the Squatty Potty commercial with the rainbow ice cream shitting unicorn wasn't enough.

For the love of decency and rational thought, please use your brain and exercise your right to vote in the upcoming primaries and again in November so we aren't faced with four more years of this blatant disregard legal principles and logic.

Looking forward to this one.  Let's add it to the pile.

Mom and dad are fighting.  Why do we have to fight?  Poor Tom Steyer, whose existence in general perplexes me, is just like the divorce kid, waiting in the car after weekend visitation is over, watching his parents argue over child support. 

Your cat will eat your corpse.  Two words:  Moist decomposition.  Don't read while eating, unless your New Year's Resolution is some kind of retrograde BS about losing weight.

Andy doesn't read this, but I'm gonna shout it into the void anyway.  Valentine's Day is coming and all I want is a pickle bouquet.

"That minimalism is a phenomenon of class is a line of inquiry Chayka too often fails to fully explore—perhaps because the minimalism he does admire is itself a form of luxury, produced by affluent artists for rich clients, displayed in places it takes disposable income to visit"..."This longing is not just for less stuff, but for less self, the rough edges smoothed off to create the ideal, generic, frictionless fit. Why do so many people want this, I found myself wondering..."  I think there's a big difference between consuming consciously and having a conspicuously minimalist lifestyle.  For many people, living with less is not a choice.  Keeping things around that may potentially be useful again in the future is necessary when you wouldn't be able to afford to buy a new one when the time comes.  If you have plenty of money to throw around to buy things at your point of need or desire, then you can afford to live with less clutter.

Analog Reading:

The Gin Closet by Leslie Jamison
The Heap by Sean Adams

Analog Experiencing:

If you ever have the opportunity to go to a Lucha Libre wrestling match, for ¡Por Dios, vaya!  For the love of god, go!

Syllabus #35 - New Year, New Classes

New throne, who dis?

New decade, same old routine.  Or is it?  Those of you who are astute at observing patterns may notice that this missive is coming at you after a longer interval of silence than usual.  I can explain!  The thing is, I just didn't feel like pulling a post together until now. One of my goals for the year is to cut myself some slack.  Some might call it giving myself permission to be lazy, but I prefer to think of it as awarding myself the agency to choose whether and when I do things that are optional.  Obviously, I still have to keep going to work and paying my bills.  But, like, sometimes maybe I can choose not to vacuum and just read a book instead.  The animal hair tumbleweeds will still be there tomorrow. 

Throughout this overly generous hiatus, I have hoarded so many links.  Brace yourself for the deluge.  Some are probably growing barnacles by this point, so wade through at your peril.

I'm all about this embracing of one delicious vice instead of a traditional resolution for deprivation in the name of self improvement.  What would your vice be?  Mine would be making chocolate banana "ice cream" with cocoa powder and frozen bananas and just not even caring that I will definitely be eating all of it in one sitting even when I know I probably used 5 bananas and that is way too many bananas to eat in a day.  God, that's the lamest vice.  I need to get out more. 

This is...relatable.

This article basically listed all of my main food sources as either pre- or probiotics.  My gut microbiome is spectacular.

Have yourself a little light toilet reading.  If they were being fully transparent and self aware, they would call themselves Hemorrhoid Magazine.

Get it together, people


Terry is not afraid to push your buttons.  Be like Terry.

The author of this article has never received one of MY Christmas cards, which are custom made each year for a select group of people and consist of absurd and often vulgar Mod-Podge collages of images culled from National Geographic, Oprah magazine, and various free publications.


My only thought when reading this article about the Wawa data breach, immediately prior to my trip home for the holidays:  NOOOOOO.  Fortunately, my mom came through with a Wawa gift card so I could caffeinate myself with reckless abandon.


Even with disposable cameras, I used to capture a lot of dreck.  Over the holidays, I flipped through some old photo albums from middle and early high school and it's a true mercy that digital photography and social media weren't a thing in the 90s.

The truth is out there.

Have you read any of Obama's favorite books of 2019?  I've read only 3 so far (Trick Mirror, Maid, and Inland) but have a bunch of others on hold for 2020's reading journey.

Nobody asked me, but I woulda voted for Obama.  Or Rick Steves.  But I guess we clearly are divided if such polar opposite figures were reported to be equally admired.

Analog Reading:

Finished The Overstory by Richard Powers.  Highly recommend.  I was uncertain whether I would enjoy something classified as ecological fiction, but it was an exquisite metaphor about nature and humanity. 

Finished Uglies by Scott Westerfeld.  2 out of 5 stars, would not recommend, unless you are under the age of 17 and/or enjoy hate-reading books.  I read it for a book club (which I am really stoked to have joined!), and was relieved to know that everyone else pretty much felt the same way I did.  We had an interesting critical discussion about the book, but the general consensus was - cool message for teenagers, but way too choppy and unsubtle for adults.

Halfway through Three Women by Lisa Taddeo.  I don't know what I was expecting but I can't put it down.  I guess I didn't realize the book was so focused on these women's sex lives, but maybe I just wasn't paying that much attention to what was being said about this book when it first garnered so much attention.  I'm not mad at it, though.

Until next time, whenever that may be.  Give yourself permission to do whatever the hell you want this year, as long as you aren't hurting anyone else or letting your life fall into utter squalor and decrepitude.

Jazz Age

Happy New Millennium

Wherever and however you may be embarking on this new decade, just keep moving forward.  Whether you resolve to stop overplucking your brows, or get a new couch that didn't sit in front of a TV broadcasting the Watergate Hearings, or finally install that antivirus software so Y2K doesn't crash your computer and wipe out all those rad MS Paint drawings, you just keep on keeping on.