Syllabus #38

Now that it's Groundhog Day and January is officially, blessedly behind us, can we speak confidentially about how we felt about last month?  Because, between you and me, I don't see what all the fuss was about.  Yea, we're tired and depressed and irritable.  The entire internet has been acting like January 2020 was epically arduous.  Have we somehow forgotten how much January always sucks?  Yes, this impeachment roller coaster and the corona virus and Brexit and Australian wildfires and Kobe have us all shook.  Yes, some of you are probably on diets (why tho) and some of you haven't been drinking (me either, good for us, it feels fantastic), and yes the weather this time of year makes we want to face plant into a loaf of bread the size of a sleeper sofa and eat my way out, but how is that different from January 2019, or January 2018, or January 2017?  January's been shitty for a long time, guys. 

Everybody just be cool and pet a kitty.  Read a book, drink some water.  We'll be ok.

HAHAHAAAAAA.  I'm cackling.  Truly.  At the top of my emotional labor to-do list would be "perform exercise in futility by hoping there is any chance this list will be divided in a ratio other than 97%-3%."  'Til death do us nag.

Don't tell the Senate, but in this speculative fiction dystopian future controlled by block chain technology, milk is officially over.  I mean it's pretty much over already, given the high likelihood of a swift and disappointing outcome to the impeachment trial.  Welcome to our totalitarian hellscape.  If a glass of milk brings you a moment of solace, then bottoms up.

This resonates with me on a gut level.  There is so much about American excess that I find embarrassing and regrettable, but as Xenu is my witness, I will never willingly live in a situation with less than a 1:1 human to toilet ratio.  I don't care about showers, it can be a powder room.  The extra toilet is key.  When I get the urge to poop, it's not a now or later situation.  It's  very much a now or this will be a story you try to play off as funny but actually it will make people uncomfortable and you should probably see a doctor about that later situation.  I have lived in 1-bathroom circumstances with Andy, and more than once have I had to seriously contemplate the merits of pooping in a trashcan because my need arose at the precise moment he stepped into the shower, wherein he has very strong opinions about existing in an environment full of "poop steam."

That this exists is...utterly chilling.  Also brilliant.  I just have one question for the people who make these videos.  Who hurt you?

Do you have opinions on the American Dirt controversy?  When I first heard of the book through Oprah, I was intrigued because Mama O is wise and, though not infallible, usually has impeccable taste.  The subject matter is something I care about.  But every subsequent take-down of the book has me feeling...still intrigued on a different level and prepared to hate-read it to see what all the fuss is about.  The most reasonable and clearly articulated argument I have heard against it is some version of this article and what Michael Eric Dyson had to say about it on the January 31st episode of Bill Maher.  The objections to this book are not necessarily rooted in the identity of the author.  Anyone can write about anything if they do it well.  But it's a pretty high bar you need to clear when you claim to be bringing someone else's trauma into the light, when there are so many less-privileged voices who could do a better job of telling their own stories if not for the gatekeeping that occurs at high levels within the publishing industry.

Local rodent confirms climate change.

Would you go on a psychedelic retreat?

Analog Reading:

Finished Normal People by Sally Rooney.  I enjoyed it but I wouldn't say I was especially moved by it.

Re-read The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin for my book club.  How would you live your life if you knew the date you would die?  Hands down, the thing I would most look forward to is just letting it all go to hell during the last week.  The very last day, just a non-stop smorgasbord of every delicious thing that I rationally know will make me feel horrible for days to come, because I know I won't be around long enough to deal with the fallout of lost sleep, bloating, and constipation.

Now reading The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett.  I loved The Dutch House so much I decided I needed to read more of her work, starting with this, her first novel.

Watching:

The new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  If there's one constant in this world, it's Larry David.

Accidentally watching under duress:

The Goop Lab.  WHO thought this show was a good idea?  What kind of sadist greenlit this project?  In full transparency, I was exposed to about 10 minutes of this because Andy watched the episode about the psilocybin retreat and I walked in the room to tell him goodnight and couldn't look away from the slow motion car accident of watching him watch this show.  The thing I least understood about the show (aside from why it exists in the first place and also why nobody was steaming their vaginas in this episode) was why Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar winning actress, appears so dead inside, so uncharismatic and insincere in all of her on-camera interactions with her staff and colleagues.  She looks like someone with a master's degree working at The Cheesecake Factory in a down economy, trying to up-sell another round of drinks to a handsy couple on a first date.  She'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, as long as that something else involved jade eggs inserted into a certain part of the female anatomy I've already mentioned but don't want to bring up again because it would start to get awkward, and the last thing I want is to make it weird by continuing to talk about Gwyneth's vagyneth.

It's ok if that made you uncomfortable.  I'm not proud of it.