We went to a meditation center this morning. The meditation part was aight. I had never really made an effort to meditate before, because it's hard for me to sit still, and I consider yoga to be a reasonable but movement-based analogue. But I gave it a whirl. It was nice. Maybe I'll go back.
After the guided meditation part, though, the guy leading the experience gave a talk about impermanence. I was really vibing with his message about not waiting for everything in life to be perfect before you can start enjoying what you have or being happy. But. Of course there's a but. This woman sitting across from me could not sit still and it was stressing. me. out. I eventually had to just look at the floor instead of sitting upright and letting my gaze fall naturally in front of me, because all I could see was this lady who should maybe, ah, meditate a little more, or take some ludes, or something, man. She was like, running her hands through her hair, and then rubbing her temples, wringing her hands, kneading her thighs, stroking her arms, god, why do I know all this and why is it still eating at me hours later? Maybe she was autistic and that was all stimming? Maybe she was supes hungo and it was all she could do not to barf into her mask (in which case honey, I have been there, although I barfed into an N95 because of food poisoning, not a hangover)? I dunno her life. All I know is I need to let it go. It's a me problem, but boy was it jarring to witness.
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| If you're in Nashville, highly recommend Zoolumination! |
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Sssimply fascinating. Mom, don't click on that, it's an article about snake genitals.
The Netflix true crime docudrama about the Moscow, Idaho murders is writing itself. Also, tell me people haven't looked at this MF's face every day since puberty and said, "Well that boy is going to absolutely dismember someone someday." That bone structure is destined for psychopathy.
Analog Reading:
At the close of 2022, I finished The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. And by close, I mean, it was 2023 on the East Coast and still 2022 on the West Coast. I fell asleep at 11:30 Central Time with about 30 pages left in the book, and then when WWIII erupted at midnight in East Nashville, I woke up and finished the remaining pages before going back to sleep. This book has it all. The pressures and societal expectations for childrearing that fall unfairly on mothers, sexism, racism, surveillance culture and authoritarianism. A real romp.
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan was my first book of 2023. I am tempted to sit right down and read it again. It was that good and that rich, and had so many interwoven threads that it's hard to summarize. A rich tapestry, if you will allow the tired phrase. Rereading its predecessor set in the same universe, A Visit from the Goon Squad, and then rereading Candy House would be an even better plan. Maybe I'll close out the year with exactly that. Note to self.
Currently alternating essays in Rachel Kushner's compilation, The Hard Crowd with chapters from Aubrey Gordon's What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat. I loved Kushner's novel, The Mars Room, and this essay collection is a mix of personal essays and cultural criticism. I'm more into the personal essays than the criticism, but whatever, it's fine. And I'm a huge fan of Aubrey Gordon's podcast with Michael Hobbes, Maintenance Phase, so I am very much reading the book with Aubrey's distinct, enunciated cadence in my ear. That's not a bad thing, though. In fact, and this is a real tangent, I realized how much I appreciate her enunciated, articulated speaking style the other day when Andy put on Mazzy Star while we were driving to Home Depot for a piece of wood to cover up the edge of carpet Lenny shredded. Her* mumbling-ass, weird, fucked up way of singing infuriated me to such a degree that I couldn't even concentrate to park the car until I turned that shit off.
*Ok, full disclosure, I thought Mazzy Star was an individual person until just this moment when a google informed me that it was the name of the group, but sweet tap-dancing christ, would it have killed that chick to use some hard consonants every once in a while?
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