Syllabus #141

Breaking news - I drank like 1.5 beers yesterday and I have a headache today.  We were out at a bar and there was this large group of young people all dressed up like old people - gray wigs, canes, sweater vests, pearls, all of it.  I almost asked them what was up with the costumes, but I was so afraid they would tell me it was someone's 30th birthday that I just let the mystery be.  

Perhaps I should have pulled a fake grandma aside and asked anyway, and imparted some words of elder wisdom from the other side.  Drink all you can now, I would have whispered, clutching their arm with my gnarled, liver spotted hands.  One day, you'll wake up with a hangover just from watching a Whiteclaw commercial that played before your cardio barre video on YouTube and you'll realize it's all over for you now.

Let it be known to all and documented here in print, that on Sunday, February 20 in the year of our Lort two thousand and twenty two, Andy raved about a vegetarian meal.  I made this mushroom stroganoff, and after making all the requisite masturbation puns, he tucked in and enjoyed the hell out of it.  His exact words were, "This is the best non-meat meal I've had in a really long time."  I almost wish we had an Alexa eavesdropping on our every utterance just so I would have another witness to this miracle #blessed.

I don't have suitcase packing anxiety, but I have major leaving-the-cats-alone-in-the-house anxiety.  I just worry about them constantly.  Are they sad?  Are they lonely?  Is Charlie bothering them?   Are they safe?  What if there's severe weather?  What if they are rolling around on the floor with their little paws tucked under their chins, making little mew noises and being heart-shatteringly adorable and I'm not there to witness it??

This is completely demented and cruel, not to mention illogical.  

All this new fiction set during covid times.  Writing about it through the darkest depths of that time must have been an ordeal.  I only barely feel ready to read about it, but a lot of these books sound compelling.  I've already read The Sentence and Our Country Friends (which was probably a mistake to read in Portugal when I was so worried about getting omicron and then getting stuck there). 

Boozy Mountain Dew, released to a highly exclusive consumer audience of three states only.  TO WHAT do we owe the pleasure?  Just don't mix it up with your regular Mountain Dew and put it in your baby's bottle.  

Analog Reading:

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich.  The story shifted back and forth between a literal, paranormal haunting, and the existential haunting of cultural legacies.  By the end, I was sorry to say goodbye to the characters.  I kind of wanted to keep hanging out, and maybe apply for a job at their bookstore.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.  Oh god I can't put it down.  It's a damn good thing I didn't read this book before covid or I would have probably thrown myself off the roof of our apartment building in March 2020.  But now that things in our actual pandemic have turned out to be less horrific than the aftermath of Station Eleven's Georgia Flu, it's a fascinating read.  I've always liked books about how people attempt to rebuild civilization after an apocalyptic event, and this one does not disappoint, even though it's a little too real.