Syllabus #211

I could write about all the things I did this past week to drain the last dregs out of this summer before I report back to work on Tuesday.  Instead, I'm just going to tell you about this Underberg shit.  I bought it on a whim today*, and the label says its a digestive beverage that you should throw back in one go, do not sip, do not pass go, do not collect your shattered taste buds.  Dear reader, I sipped it.  I'm wild at heart. 

But now I understand the rules.  They exist for a reason.  Back in the day, my grandmom had this Colonial Williamsburg room spray in some kind of piney, evergreeny scent.  We'd spray it on festive occasions whenever company was coming over, to mask the ever-present aroma of stale cigarette smoke.  Underberg tastes like I'm just mainlining Colonial Williamsburg room spray directly into my mouth.  And yet, with each sip, I hate it less and less.  

*Normally I post these jawns on Sunday mornings but I didn't get around to it until the evening this time.  I'm obviously not in the habit of hitting the liquor store first thing in the AM and sipping on airplane bottles of digestive liquors before the sun has reached its apex in the sky.

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This is probably past the cultural zeitgeist at this point, but please enjoy this roundup of links that demonstrate what an asshat shitheel Jason Aldean is.  NGL I didn't really know or care who he was before his released the racist dogwhistle commercial that is the music video for his good ol' boy racism lullaby, but here we are now.  

I will say that, having grown up in a small town in the Northeast, I haven't an earthly idea what the hell he's talking about.  I wouldn't say we took care of our own so much as we minded our own business until someone was being a real a-hole, and then we...well we gossiped about it?  Told them to their face to stop being an a-hole?   I wouldn't have dared to try a lot of things, simply because it would have gotten back to my mother or grandmother and I would have been in a world of shit for whatever embarrassing, delinquent stunt I was trying to pull.

A thorough breakdown of the issue.

Betsey Phillips has a way of bringing it all into sharp relief.  (Nashville Scene)

Adeem the Artist wins the parody game.  

In other news, this takedown of Duolingo's effectiveness makes me feel attacked.  I am staring into your bucket of truth, and all I see is the futility of my existence.   As of this writing, on Sunday, July 30th, I am on the precipice of hitting a 1600 day streak tomorrow.  Hold me.  

Speaking of Spanish, though, this article about Miami English is fascinating.  The TL;DR is that even native English speakers who don't speak any Spanish are incorporating literal English translations of Spanish idioms into their speech.  For example, Spanish speakers would say "bajarse del auto" to mean "to get out of the car" but it literally means to get down from the car, and that's what people are now saying in English in Miami's particular dialect.  Wild!  Neat!

Analog Reading:

I've been packing it in these last few days of summer break.

I finished Colson Whitehead's Crook Manifesto.  He's never not a delight.  National treasure, this man.  Loved it, no notes.

Read Patrick deWitt's first novel, Ablutions.  It reminded me of something, but I can't put my finger on what.  It was written in the second person, which is always a bit jarring, especially when the narrator is spiraling into alcoholism and drug addiction while tending bar for alcoholics and drug addicts in Hollywood.

Slurped up Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid in just a couple of days.  Slurp is a gross word, but this book was fully of juicy fake gossip.  It was an oral history of a (fictional) smash-hit rock band from the 1970s.  Reid pulled off the impressive feat of weaving a compelling narrative from the sometimes unreliable, contradictory recollections of a dozen or so characters, for each of whom she crafted a distinct voice.  Super fun read.

Syllabus #210

Not a lot to say up top.  Just recognizing that summer is slowly weaning me from her teat, and soon I'll be separated from those sweet jugs and forced to chew on the solid food of the school year.  That is a HIDEOUS metaphor but I think what I mean is that I just don't wanna.  I don't wanna get up at 5 every day and go to work.  Lola doesn't have to - why should I?

Somebody's gotta make money to pay for that Chewy Autoship*

 

*Sidenote - If I was a FedEx driver and I was inclined to Go Postal on an establishment, Chewy would be my top choice.  They will fully put two 20 lb. bags of cat litter, 16 lbs. of dog food, and 6 lbs. of cat food in ONE BOX.  I have to either make Andy bring it inside or open the box on the porch and unload it from there.  HOW ON EARTH did it get to the porch?  Andy could save money on his crossfit membership and get paid at the same time if he just went to work for FedEx, and believe me I've tried to sell that but he ain't buying it.

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Good old Steve King.  

When we start seeing Stedman and Gayle graffiti tags, then we're really in trouble.  

I know so little about country music, sometimes I forget we live in its mecca.  In fact, I'm sure I've walked by Very Famous People in Kroger or something and had no clue. Nevertheless, this article about the evolving dynamics of and clashing politics within country music was thought-provoking, and kind of low key made me want to go down to Broadway to view it through this author's very generous, charitable lens. 

Analog Reading:

Finished Emma Straub's Modern Lovers.  Loved it!  It was one of those books where you just get comfortable with the characters, who have their flaws but are largely likable and relatable, and then you're sad when it's over because you kind of thought you'd all just hang out together for a while.

Now reading Colson Whitehead's new Crook Manifesto, his follow-up to Harlem Shuffle.  It's excellent, of course.  That's all I can say right now.  I'm just letting it wash over me.

Syllabus #209

I'm not in the summertime habit of proclaiming, "What a week!" because time is largely irrelevant and I try to avoid stressful situations from late May to the beginning of August.  But, OOF, what a friggin' week.  Our house was like a sad Sarah McLachlan ASPCA commercial up until Friday afternoon.  Turns out that Frank's sweet little face and diminutive stature concealed a killer instinct.  He was a little too intent on trying to eat the cats, so we had to take him back to the animal shelter.  

The only animal that was blissfully unaffected by the tumult was Charlie, who enjoyed having a new butt to sniff for a few minutes before he proceeded with his usual routine of napping in a sunbeam all day.  The cats were terrified, stress-shedding, hiding, and even vomiting a little.  We never allowed Frank and the cats to actually make contact or injure one another, but it was a lot.  I felt horrible about all of it, and may have cried several times, but multiple old ladies tried to basically steal him from me at the shelter.  I should have started a bidding war.  I'm sure he didn't spend more than an hour or two back at the shelter, and he's already being spoiled by some nice retiree who snuggles with him while they watch General Hospital or whatever the hell is on daytime network television in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty three.

Summertime achievement unlocked

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A department of sidewalks?  Wouldn't that be grand!  

Shouting "I'M FARTING" to punctuate your statement is a varsity level debate technique.  

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Analog Reading:

I threw in the towel, for now, on The Best Minds.  There were a lot of passages that felt like uninteresting tangents to me, and my kindle checkout had expired and I couldn't download new library books without letting that one disappear.  I put it on hold again, and may finish reading the book the next time it's available, but I just wasn't enjoying it enough to justify slogging through it right now.

I devoured Celeste Ng's Our Missing Hearts.  I'm a sucker for plausible dystopias.

Now I'm reading Emma Straub's Modern Lovers.  It's like finally getting to eat a cool, crunchy salad on a sunny patio after a month of eating meat at potatoes in a dank basement.  It's nice to have some lighter fare for a change.  It's not a romance novel, as the title might imply, but rather a story about how our friendships evolve as we age, and what our friendships and romantic relationships mean to us at different stages of our lives.

Syllabus #208

But have you ever been frantically speed-humped by a freshly neutered adult dog who has no idea how to process the rollercoaster ride of hormones he's suddenly been strapped into?  After just reading a book about human menopause (see below), I can only imagine the torment inside his tiny little body.

We are fostering the little moppet that I found last weekend.  We have two weeks to decide if he's going to be a furever friend (I hate that).  He's adorable and sweet and seems pretty smart, but he is also the same size as the cats.  Both cats, but especially Lola, are majorly freaked out.  He has tried to chase them a couple times, and now Lola keeps staring him down and making it weird.  Then he'll growl and give chase, and we just can't be having that.  It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.  He might be better off in a cat-free house.  I'm just so sad about it all because he's a great dog and I love him already and Charlie really digs him and thinks we brought him into the house especially as a present for him, but we also love our kitties and don't want to put them in harm's way.

Frank

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What in the too-much-money-having fresh hell is this?  Well I hate my house now because it doesn't have a fire pole.

Can confirm, tinto de verano is the bees knees.  I made an approximation of it with lambrusco, lemon lime seltzer, and some fresh lemon and lime wedges, but I bet it would be even better if, you know, you actually followed the recipe.  

This new Patrick DeWitt book sounds great.  I thoroughly enjoyed his French Exit and I'm a real sucker for any book about libraries or librarians.  

Analog Reading:

Blazed through Hot and Bothered:  What no one tells you about menopause and how to feel like yourself again by Jancee Dunn.  I realized time is rude and I probably have about 5-7 years before my last fuckable day perimenopause descends upon me, and I needed some cold, hard facts delivered with a side of snark.

Still reading The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen.  It's interesting, but not exactly a page turner.

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng.  Speaking of books that heavily revolve around libraries and librarians.  So far, so good!  It's a very near-future-dystopian information control story in the vein of 1984  or Fahrenheit 451.

Syllabus #207

Hey, you people who regularly go out of your way to do good deeds:  How?  What's it like?  Are you just tired all the time?  

I did one Good Samaritan Act on Saturday, and at the time of this writing on Saturday evening, I'm like, exhausted.

See, on Friday night, we had storms roll through, and Saturday promised to be hot and steamy AF, so I took Charlie for a walk around 7 in the morning, before Satan had a chance to rest his swampy nethers upon the Cumberland Plateau.  We get part of the way around the block, and I see this tiny little black animal just sitting proudly on the yellow line in the middle of a not-that-busy-yet thorofare that people tend to speed down.  As we got closer I could see it was a very tiny, very wet, bedraggled dog of indeterminate breed.  Curly hair like a poodle, little short legs like a wiener dog.  A peener if you will (and I will).

Foot for scale

I stepped into the road to stop traffic and used Charlie as bait (if an animal 4 times the size of the one you are trying to lure can be considered bait) to coax the dog onto the sidewalk.  Charlie thought he hit the friggin' lottery, like I conjured this new best friend especially for him.  Peener Dog had some real BDE (big dog energy, omg don't be gross) and had no problem sniffing and dancing around Charlie, wagging his weird little rat tail.  Then he followed us all the way home like it was the most obvious, natural thing in the world.  

I gave him some food and water and posted his info in several neighborhood and lost pet groups.  He had no collar so that was the best I could do in the moment.  A few people replied that it looked like possibly a neighbor's dog, but I knocked on their doors to no avail.  Let that sink in.  I, an elder millennial who would sooner eat my own hair before I'll answer the phone or open the door to a stranger, KNOCKED ON STRANGERS' DOORS to help this little lost dog.

I then lured him into a cat carrier and hauled him to the vet to get him scanned for a microchip, but dawg was like Naked and Afraid over here, dropped into parts unknown with only his wits by which to survive.  The temperature was climbing AND it was threatening to storm again, so with no leads from the sosch meeds (why can't she just say social media like a normal human person?) I took him to animal control.  I really just wanted to fling open the back door and make like an Olive Garden (the 'when you're here your're family' part, not the 'unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks' part, I friggin' know dogs don't like minestrone) but homeboy clearly had fleas and his unknown health status and untested attitude towards cats made that a big no.

Best case scenario, his family finds him ASAP.  He's too sweet and compliant to not be someone's very loved pet.  At least I hope so.  Maybe he ran off during the storms and his people are frantically trying to find him?  Worst case scenario, no one claims him after 72 hours and my cold grinch heart grows by however many sizes are required to accommodate this scrappy little muppet?  Maybe?  We'll see.

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We didn't start the fire, but this one is a dumpster fire.  So chaotic.  The lack of respect for chronology and the verbal gymnastics required to fit the rhyme scheme are moderately offensive.

I don't know anything, but this song, on the other hand, is delightful. 

Analog Reading:

The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen is keeping me hooked but parts of it are a bit of a slog.  It's partly a memoir and meditation on the author's close childhood friendship with a wildly smart, enigmatic dude who ended up having schizophrenia, and partly an examination of the state of mental health institutions and supports in this country.  The in-the-weeds parts are valid, but I'm mostly here for the human drama because I am a philistine.

The Guest List by Lucy Foley was a SNACK.  The kind of snack I used to eat after school where I'd abandon all self control and just gorge on whatever was in the pantry or candy bowl until I felt ill.  Except this time I didn't have to explain why a package of E.L. Fudge cookies disappeared in 2 days or why the pockets of the pool table were overflowing with Hershey's Kiss wrappers.  I just get to tell you that this was a chaotic, sexy, murderous romp.  'Twas a fun read.