Syllabus #249

I just realized there are only 24 school days left before summer break.  More like the summer break that shall not be, because I'm a schmuck who signed on to do summer school, but at least it's not a full-time gig, and the expectations are slightly scaled back.  But anyway.  Only 24 more days!  I am baffled as to how it could already be late April, and also horrified by the mountain of tasks that I must summit before May 24th.  Every year it feels like frigging Everest, and I worry I'm going to run out of oxygen and they'll find my frozen, gnarled corpse buried in a crevasse a generation from now.

This anthropomorphized strawberry and a pint of his more normal-looking friends cost me NINE GD dollars at the farmer's market.  It was one of those situations where the price wasn't marked and the woman at the booth had already rung up the purchase before I learned the price, which was about 300% more than what I was expecting but I was too embarrassed to tell her I changed my mind.  The strawberries are good but not great, and every time I eat one I picture two quarters falling out of my pocket and it's really ruining the experience for me.

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Today's links are brought to you by 1800NOPE.com

I feel like I need to invest in a beekeeper suit for the emergence of this cicada brood.  I'm not emotionally prepared for what's about to happen. 

If I was working any kind of retail and someone tried to rob me using a snake, I'd be so grateful it wasn't a firearm I'd give them all the cash in the register, and then I'd dig out my own wallet so I could give him a tip.  I think maybe the judge needs to go easy on this guy, is all I'm saying. 

Analog Reading:

I'm about to finish Tommy Orange's The Wandering Stars.  It's really very good, but I have gotten so in the habit of reading plot-driven Stephen King books that it was a process to shift into this slower, more prose-oriented, character-driven novel.  Also, the first section that was written in like, 2nd person omniscient perspective, speaking to the ancestors, was a little hard for me to get into.  

Next, I have a hard decision to make.  I have The Shining, The Women, and James cued up on my Kindle, locked down in airplane mode so I can take my sweet time with these library loans.  Which one will it be?  Stay tuned.

Syllabus #248

We really had ourselves a time this weekend.  We made big plans to be real humans who do things in the world, and boy did we execute.  We went to the zoo!  

If you want to be literal about it, we drove to the zoo.  Twice!  The misleading magic of Apple Maps took us to a back exit that let out into an obscure office park, so we pivoted technologies.  Google Maps led us faithfully to the actual entrance, from whence we made a slow, scenic crawl towards a parking lot.  

Along the way, a helpful sign hinted that we would need to present our pre-ordered, timed-entry tickets when entering the zoo.  A more helpful sign would have been placed out on the road, before an uninformed, spontaneous zoo-visitor is locked into a one-way traffic pattern from which there is no escape.  Sounds like the real endangered species here is spontaneity itself.  

In a way, I feel like the 20 minutes we spent trying to extricate ourselves from the zoo parking lot were more impactful than spending $60 to look at caged animals.  It was much more immersive.  We were the caged animals.

The small cat exhibit is always open

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Full disclosure, I haven't read any of these articles yet, but they have piqued my interest:

Why is OJ's Bronco in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee?  I have been to that museum!  I also saw Ted Bundy's Beetle.

The people behind all those NYTimes games.  I have a bone to pick with whoever is responsible for some of the more ludicrous categories from Connections.  The mental gymnastics required to come up with the commonality between some of these words is absurd.  Like going from point A to point F and assuming your audience will have the same train of thought to connect points B-E in between.  That's not connections, that's telepathy.  And don't even get me started on the day the entire puzzle was emojis.

I need to rewatch the Seinfeld series finale and then go back and rewatch the Curb finale.  Andy insists that the entire Curb series was just a spite series, 25 years in the making, to exact revenge for the Seinfeld finale.

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 Analog Reading:

Holly was over too soon.  Part of me is holding out hope that maybe she'll show up in another Stephen King book someday.

Finally got started on The Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange.  I am enjoying it so far, but it's a conscious effort to slow down and relax into the slower pace of this story, and to appreciate the prose.  It's a big shift after reading a Stephen King book that keeps you turning pages and almost skimming over parts because it's the action more than the prose that is important.

Syllabus #247

Are the kids ok?

Monday was April Fool's Day.  My butthole clenched when I realized the ominous date fell on a weekday.  I was sure I'd be having kids tell me it's snowing and try to sneak whoopee cushions onto my chair all. day. long.  AFD is right up there with Halloween, Easter, and Valentine's Day as days you do not want to be caught dead in a school zone.  It's the only non-candy-centric holiday to crack the top of the list.

You know what happened?  

Absolutely nothing.

No snakes in a can.  No handshake buzzers.  No whoopee cushions.  No shocking tall tales or attempts to trick and humiliate.  No prank phone calls.  No saran wrap over the toilet seat.  No vaseline on the door handle.  No bucket of water balanced precariously on the top of a door left slightly ajar.  No Ex-lax in the teacher's coffee.  

The youth have lost their edge.

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Was there a teenage girl alive in 1999 who didn't want to be exactly like Kat Stratford from 10 Things I Hate About You?  Abrasive icon.

I can't think of any earthly reason why I would go to Kansas City, MO, except to go to this immersive children's book museum.  However, I lowkey might be too scared to enter the Goodnight Moon exhibit.  And god forbid if there was a Polar Express exhibit.  I've still never made it all the way through that book.  Stephen King might be demented, but Chris Van Allsburg is a freak.

Larry David is having a moment.  It's only a matter of time before we're walking around with WWLDD? bracelets.  

Analog Reading:

Finished Ann Patchett's State of Wonder.  It started out a little slow for me, but once I was hooked, I was ensnared with the compressive force of an anaconda.  This was quite different from any of her other books I've read.  It gives echoes of Heart of Darkness and is a lot more tense and adventurous than her usual fare.  The overall gist is that a woman who works at a pharmaceutical company is dispatched to the Brazilian jungle to track down an elusive researcher who is supposedly developing a fertility drug on her company's dime.  The book was published in 2011, and it reads so differently today than it may have before Roe v. Wade was struck down.  The story hinted at a lot of interesting implications about women's reproductive choices, and the ending left a possibly horrifying outcome unexplored.  I can't help but wonder (or wish) if there was more to the story that Patchett wanted to explore, and chose not to for narrative expediency or other editorial reasons.  

Now reading Stephen King's Holly.  When I opened this book on my Kindle, I thought to myself, ahh, surely there are a good 600+ pages here for me to say goodbye to one of my favorite characters in recent memory.  Imagine my dismay and despair when I saw that this book clocks in at a mere 463 pages.  What gives??

Syllabus #246

I know Louis Gossett Jr. had a remarkable, century-spanning career, but I will always and forever remember him for this bizarre fever-dream of an anti-drug video that we viewed countless times in elementary school.  The movie could only have been made by people intimately experienced with all manner of illicit substances, because you would have to BE high to think this would make a kid anything but WILDY FASCINATED by drugs.  

Imagine it's 1995.  You walk into Mr. Potter's science class and see the AV cart at the front of the room.  You know the one, with the big ol' CRT television secured to the top with a nylon strap so it doesn't topple off and crush a child.  Are you watching a grainy VHS about seed germination, or the outer reaches of space?  Maybe.  Probably.  But if the stars align and it's your lucky day, it means you're in for the ride of your life:

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I've read about this Barkley marathon before, and there's an astonishing kernel of hubris deep in my brain that says "I could do that" but truly, who am I kidding?  I run 4 miles on a hilly but paved trail and act like I deserve a medal...I'm not sure I could manage the ensuing 96 miles, through the woods, in the dark.

A partial solar eclipse is in store for us in Nashville, but perhaps a total eclipse of my heart, nonetheless.

This is just extremely cool.  What a generous gesture from Tommy Orange.  Still waiting for my hold on his new book to come in.

I don't agree with everything in this scathing takedown of Curb's 12th season, but I will concede that this isn't LD's finest work.  It's still funny, but it is fair to say the grievances on which the plots are built feel like more and more of a stretch, or overly contrived.  Honestly, I'm waiting for a spinoff about Susie, because she steals every scene.  Her wardrobe never disappoints and always gives "Spirit Halloween for Bergdorf's," while her vocabulary would make a longshoreman blush. 

I used to turn up my nose at Stephen King, but that was before I read any Stephen King.  Now I am a proud stan for this prolific, wildly talented sicko.  I'm sure he's actually a great guy in real life, but damn does he take you to some dark places on the page.

NGL I didn't read this article, I just find the 90-dog-salute of it all to be delightful.  I sure as shit don't want to be alive at 90, but maybe when I hit 60 or 70 I'll get me a cat salute that is commensurate with my years of experience.

Analog Reading:

Finished If It Bleeds, a Stephen King story collection.  The titular story involved Holly Gibney, so of course I liked it.  However, being a novella, it felt rushed.  The capitulating action seemed to happen too quickly and too neatly.  I see now that King's books are long for a reason.  With the exception of The Stand, which really had a lot of extraneous description in it, I think he needs that space for his plots and his character development.

Read Autobiography of a Face, by Lucy Grealy, an Irish-American writer who survived Ewing's sarcoma as a child and spent decades enduring dozens of reconstructive surgeries on her jaw.  What I thought was so peculiar about this excavation of her experiences was that she had a twin sister that she barely mentions.  I don't recall if they were identical, but it seems to me that if your face was suddenly severely disfigured, and there was someone else still bopping around with the previous version of your face, that would factor heavily into your self-perception.  

Read Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett, which is a memoir of her intense and perhaps codependent friendship with Lucy Grealy, spanning the entirety of their friendship, which began at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and lasted until Grealy's heroin-related death at age 39.

Devoured (if you'll allow me the distasteful pun) Louder Than Hunger by John Schu.  It's a YA/middle grade novel in verse, so I read it in an afternoon, and boy did he manage to squeeze out some emotions with that deft economy of words.  

Started State of Wonder, also by Ann Patchett, but this time a work of fiction.  I need a little palate cleanser before I go back to Stephen King's dark universe to finally read Holly.

Syllabus #245

There should be a rule that the first week back to school after a holiday of a week or more should NOT be a full 5-day week.  When I grow up and become beneficent dictator of the world, I'm going to do something about that.  I might also do something about like, reproductive freedom, equal rights and freedoms for LGBTQIA+ individuals, universal healthcare, voting rights*, social safety nets, infrastructure...should I go on?  You get the picture.  But first thing's first.

*yes, in my beneficent dictatorship, voting rights are still important

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Oprah has come a long way from her "wagon of fat" days.  As someone who has never objectively been fat by medical standards, I don't think my opinion counts for anything in this whole diabetes-medicine-as-cosmeceutical revolution.  But I'd like to weigh in, if I may.  Pun fully intended, will not be apologizing.  If I existed in a much larger body, I would be tempted to take these.  But I'd be so scared about taking them, loving the results, and then being forced to stay on the drugs forever.  What if I can no longer afford them, or they become unavailable to me for some other reason?  

Not the same thing at all, but I have noticed my hair at the crown of my head and around my hairline has been kind of thin maybe forever but definitely after I had a major stress-shedding event around the Fall of 2021.  I thought about using supplements or serums.  I did a lot of research.  I even asked the dermatologist (probably not the best person to ask, but who else would you ask?  Actual question because I don't know).  And, partly because I am a cheapskate, I never pulled the trigger.  But the larger reason was that everything I read suggested that once you stop using whatever treatment, all that new growth falls out eventually and you're back to where your bald ass started.  

Reading about this guy almost makes me want to watch SNL.  Except then I'd have to figure out how to stream it from wherever.  And it would also mean actually watching TV, an activity to which I currently devote less than 1 hour a week.  Not out of any kind of moral superiority.  I honestly wish I cared more about movies and TV so I had normal-person things to bring up in conversation with casual acquaintances.  I just cannot bring myself to have an interest, outside of Curb Your Enthusiasm (in its final season) or Righteous Gemstones (which is between seasons).  

Also, I think I have watched exactly 4 movies in the last 2 years:  Love Actually (twice during Christmas break), The Goonies, Saltburn, and the first 3/4 of the Weird Al biopic starring Daniel Radcliffe (thrice, without managing to ever remain conscious for the last half hour or so).  So if anyone wants to talk about Larry David sittng in his car and yelling the c-word at Siri, or the bathtub and/or graveyard scenes from Saltburn, I'm your gal.  Otherwise, I hope you like to read, or we should probably just make small talk about the weather and go our separate ways.

One thing about me is that I love a good class-action lawsuit.  The best part is that I'll sign right up for it, promptly forget about it, and then months or years later, I get a check in the mail that just drops into my hot little hands like manna from heaven.  And then instead of treating myself to something fun, I just stick it right in my savings account, because I don't know how to live.  At all. 

Analog Reading:

Finished The Outsider by, who else, Stephen King.  I keep saying he is at his best when his plots remain planted in reality, even though he's known for supernatural horror.  This book veered into the supernatural pretty late in the game, but that's also when my best gal Holly Gibney showed up, so I'll allow it.  I really enjoyed this one, somewhat to my surprise.  I mean, I'm never surprised to enjoy a Stephen King book, but I generally prefer when the horror is perpetrated by humans or exists within someone's mind, rather than originating with actual supernatural forces.  ALSO, Steve gets a cookie for this one because I cannot recall one solitary usage of the n-word.

Since I can't get enough Holly, now I'm reading If It Bleeds.  I keep picturing Holly as the actress who plays Aurelia in Love Actually.  Aside from the fact that that actress is Portuguese and may or may not speak English, she gives the right amount of skinny, twitchy, self-contained, homeliness.  But, as you know, my movie references are rather limited.

Syllabus #244

We've Spring Breaked.  We broke Spring.  Spring is broken.  Spiritually, that is.  Official Spring won't hit until Tuesday, but in our hearts and minds, we're already there.

I enjoyed a nice visit with the parentals, I walked, I ran, I zoomed in on lots of flowers.  My sleep schedule is still all messed up from the time change, and then driving back and forth between Central and Eastern time.  Monday morning will be a real treat.

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What this article about bewbs fails to mention is the proportionality of it all.  Are Sweeney's boobs objectively that big, relative to boobs everywhere?  Probably not.  But relative to her own tiny body?  Yep, they're tig ol' biddies.

This NYT roundup of the funniest novels since Catch-22 was ever so useful.  My TBR list in my public library account grew by half a dozen books, thankyouverymuch.

I'm not sure if this link will render properly, but Saturday's New York Times Daily newsletter had some real gems in it.  The mini-essay about baseball was a treat.

Analog Reading:

Finished Tripping on Utopia:  Margaret Meade, The Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science.  It was ultimately pretty meh.  I was intrigued by the topic, and the content itself was not uninteresting.  However, the structure of the book jumped around from topic to topic and just skimmed the surface of each moment in time in such an unsatisfactory way.  Also, there were a few central figures in the book, aside from Margaret Meade, and then a whole mess of people who would be introduced for a short passage and then never spoken of again.  It was hard to get invested in the overarching story while constantly trying to remember who was who.  Obviously, there were a ton of people involved in this movement that spanned multiple decades, but the book would have been more engaging if it had narrowed its focus and delved deeper into fewer aspects of the time period.  This felt like the entire contents of a survey course shoved into less than 300 pages of reading.

Now reading yet another book by my old pal Steve King:  The Outsider.  This is separate from the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, but promises to bring back my best girl Holly Gibney.  I started it yesterday and have already read over 160 of the ~650 pages.  It's gripping.  It's horrific.  It will almost certainly take a whiplash inducing turn that I could never see coming.  But so far, zero n-words have been used in the production of this book.  I mean, there's still time, but I'm rooting for Steve here.  You can do it.  Just cut that word out of your writing cold turkey, homeslice.

Syllabus #243

I'm disgruntled.  I'm disgruntled and I'm never going to get gruntled about this one thing for as long as I live.  I probably say this every year, but Carson Daly and the fine folks at MTV sold us youngs a bill of goods back in the 90s with their MTV Spring Break specials.  Never once in all my years of adulthood has Spring Break found me standing knee-deep in a pool, looking hot, bronzed, and oiled, surrounded by scores of my nearly-nude peers as we bounce to the illest beats.  

Do I actually want that?  Absolutely not!  But it was promised to me as destiny, and I feel cheated.

I'll tell you what I actually want out of Spring Break, and it would make for terrible television, which is why I never thought to want it until well into my 30s.  I want it to be sunny, and just warm enough to go out in a light jacket and pants, not so hot that I'm sweating in my jorts.  That's summer, save it for later, andplusalso I don't want to have to shave my alarmingly pallid legs that thoroughly just yet.  I want several consecutive days of having no chores to do.  My only obligation is to exist.  Eat.  Read.  Go for luxuriously long walks and look at little flowers growing in people's yards.  Discover the perfect microdose* of my pot brownies so I can be high but not so high that I fall asleep as soon as it hits.  

*I have achieved success on this front, after extensive research!  The correct amount is 1/16th of a square, which is 1/16th of a pan.  I am a cheap date.  At my current rate of consumption, which is once or twice a week, one tray of brownies would last me nearly 3 years.  Don't worry, though.  I'm sure they'd be ok in the freezer for that long, just from a food safety perspective, but somebody else eats a whole dang square all at once, which is honestly a little disturbing.  I feel like that amount would put me in some kind of state of psychosis.

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Tommy Orange's new book sounds excellent.  Can't wait for my library hold to come in.  

Show me your kitties!  I might have to try this at the end of the year, but I will have to be very deliberate about branding.  Also, Mr. Homer doesn't speak for all of us.  He might not have a high bun, but you can pry mine from my cold dead scalp.

Mr. Homer said that using cats as the vehicle to forgive patrons for losing or damaging books or other borrowed items could help to soften the stereotype of the stern librarian.

“We don’t really have the high buns and ‘shush’ people anymore,” he said. “We are still book lovers, cardigan lovers and cat lovers.”

Just another reason to not go to the movies!  The idea of shoving my fist into that grimacing plastic orifice only to extract kernels of corn makes me want to launch my body into the sun.

I like big pants and I cannot lie.  I'm here for the ebbs and flows of fashion, but one thing I will never again embrace is the ultra low rise pant.  My hip bones do not yearn to breathe free.  My pubes do not need to play peekaboo with the waistline of my pants.  I have neither a tramp stamp nor the whale-tail of a thong to expose above the back of my pants - just an unadorned, unadulterated asscrack.  I have tasted the sweet freedom of high-rise jeans and I will not be denied.  I will no longer wear pants that have to be tightly belted or constantly hiked up into place lest they fall dangerously low on my woefully scant cheeks.  

Analog Reading:

Finished End of Watch.  Man.  Even though the underlying premise of the story (telekinetic mind control via a hypnotizing demo video on a hacked handheld video game console) was a little bit corny, Stephen King is a masterful enough storyteller that I was able to, if not suspend my disbelief, at least compensate for it and get sucked into the plot.  I just love the Holly Gibney character so much, and can't wait to read the remaining three books in which she's featured.

Read People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry.  It's not the sort of thing I'd usually seek out, but it was fun.  A fluffy counterpoint to any Stephen King novel, that's for sure.  I did get kind of tired of the two protagonists' 12 years of sexual tension buildup, just from a practical standpoint.  Like, shit or get off the pot here, folks!  If you would both just use your words like grownups, you wouldn't be playing these will-they-won't-they games for over a decade!  But then, of course, there'd be no story.  Perhaps better in real life, but not in book form.

Now I've pivoted back to non-fiction with Tripping on Utopia:  Margaret Meade, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science by Benjamin Breen.  Tripping balls in the 1930s - who knew?!

Syllabus #242

I rejoined the land of the living this week.  I tested negative the morning I was allowed to return to work, which was a relief.  I wouldn't have felt good being in close proximity with people, even wearing a mask.  But I felt like that clean bill of health gave me permission to not wear a mask.  I hope I'm not a monster for that?  But the thought of having to deal with fogged up glasses and a swampy face and sore ears for 8 hours a day just made me wanna go back to bed.  Also, every time I put on an N95 I'm transported back to the time I had food poisoning and projectile vomited into a mask on a Portuguese tour bus.

uh-oh spaghetti-o

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This brief musing on what constitutes "American style" seems wildly optimistic to me.  If I were asked to describe American fashion, I think the thing that stands out the most is our willingness, nay, penchant, for going out in public in pajamas or exercise clothes.  I am guilty of the latter, but usually only because I actually plan to exercise after running an errand and don't want to get changed twice.  But leaving the house in pajamas would really be crossing the Rubicon for me.  I don't get that one.  And where do you draw the line?  Are they the pajamas you already slept in, or the ones you're going to sleep in?  Surely not both, right?  Like you didn't sleep in them, wear them out in public, and then get back in bed in the same dusty ass clothes, right?  If that's your journey, I guess you have larger problems to contend with than your sartorial choices, but like, if you're going to get changed at some point, why not before you leave the house?

Eagerly awaiting the new Sally Rooney book!  I normally wouldn't say, in March, that I'm already looking forward to September (as we all know July is the pinnacle of any teacher's calendar year) but I will be excited to read Intermezzo.

This is an interesting perspective on policing the use of language.

RIP Richard Lewis.  The origin story of his friendship with Larry David is just perfect.  

Analog Reading:

Finished the utterly brutal but all too realistic Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.  The slowly-then-all-at-once creep of a violent, authoritarian regime seems to be a regrettably plausible scenario.

Reading the also utterly brutal but entirely unrealistic End of Watch  by Stephen King.  It's the 3rd book in the Mr. Mercedes trilogy.  I have become quite fond of Bill Hodges and Holly and Jerome.  I am not fond of King's stubborn refusal to find ways to show that a character is racist without using the n-word.  Also, I wonder if he has ever met a Black person in real life.  In one scene, he sets up a description of a bad neighborhood by describing some young Black guys on a street corner selling drugs and playing hacky sack between drug deals.  If you, like me, thought hacky sack was one of the whitest things a person could do besides not use a washcloth*, you're not wrong.  I am ashamed to admit that I googled 'black people and hacky sack' just to see, and the first result was this comedy sketch about the world's only Black hacky sack player.

*for the record, I do use a washcloth, and was surprised and amused when I learned of this stereotype, but have since learned that it is surprisingly valid

Syllabus #241

Greetings from quarantine!  Yes it's true, the virus so nice I've contracted it twice.  I feel mostly fine except for the sheer volume of what can only be described as ectoplasm issuing forth from my sinuses.  I definitely don't need to call urgent care but I just might call Ghostbusters.  

All I can do right now is go for walks, because I am a pariah unfit for entry into public spaces.  At least the weather has been nice for February?  Anyway, the other day I set out for a long and luxurious Snot Girl Walk (like a Hot Girl Walk, except nasty and infectious).   While walking the perimeter of McFerrin Park, I saw a person lying on their back in the grass in kind of a weird location, just a few feet away from the parking area.  There are vast expanses of grass where it's probably more pleasant to lie down and relax away from cars, so I didn't immediately clock this body as a sunbather.  Also, it's nice for February.  It was sunny but still windy and only in the low 60s.  If you're gonna lay out in a place like McFerrin Park, sorry but I'mma need to see obvious signifiers that you are sunbathing, please.  If I don't see a blanket, snacks, reading material and/or a boombox (or maybe a time machine, because who am I kidding?) I am going to have to ask myself:

Is this person:

a) sunbathing

b) overdosing

c) a dead body dumped in the park

d) astral projecting

I need to contextualize you, person on the ground!  I don't want to have to get involved, but I don't want to be the monster who just gawks at a dead or dying human and continues on my merry way like none of my business...

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This interactive story about homelessness in America hits pretty close to home.  It includes a lot of coverage of a tent city in Nashville.  I kept looking at the photos and wondering if I've ever seen any of the folks around.  I make it a habit to keep granola bars in the center console of my car so if I'm ever at an intersection and an unhoused person is looking for help, I can just hand them a bag.  

This interview with a sociopath made my skin crawl.  But it was also reassuring!  I often read descriptions of mental illnesses or neurodiversity and worry, oh god is that me?  Do I have that?  But I can say with 100% certainty that I am not a sociopath.  They don't feel guilt or shame!  What a luxury!  Can you even imagine the freedom?  Sometimes I wonder if there even are other emotions besides gradations of guilt and shame.

My old friend, the Presidential Physical Fitness Test.  I am arguably more fit now than I was in high school, but I bet not much has changed for me in this government-mandated shame vehicle.  (Am I crazy or did they also used to weigh us in front of the whole class?)  The only one of these tests I'd be able to pass, to this day, is the sit and reach.  I actually used to get yelled at in gym for being too flexible and showing off.  Have never done a pull-up in my life, and surely never will, but you better believe I'm gonna maintain the ability to put my legs behind my head until the day I die.  In fact, that's probably how I will die at age 107, and I don't even mind, because I actually just now decided I want an open casket and I want to be embalmed in that position, legs behind head, middle fingers raised to the sky.

Analog Reading:

Finished Die With Zero by Bill Perkins.  I get that he wrote this for a specific audience, but it just drips of privilege.  I thought it was going to be more practical about how to make your retirement savings last as long as you need it to, while also figuring out how to craft an enjoyable life instead of just scrimping and saving.  And it was sort of that, but it was also like, every dollar you don't spend on something epic is a portion of your life energy that you wasted, and also don't be a fatty because that makes your life less enjoyable.  Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but as I was reading it, I just kept thinking about all the people who don't have the luxury of thinking the way he encourages us all to think about money.    

I came and got Come and Get It by Kiley Reid.  After attending her author event at Parnassus, and learning how much research and scholarship went into this book that has such depth and nuance but is also just plain fun, I feel like an absolute little piggy snarfing up this entire book in like 3 days.  It's like when you toil in the kitchen for days to prepare a Thanksgiving feast and then your guests belly up to the table already filled up on cheese and crackers.  Also, they're drunk and finish eating in 15 minutes, and then don't even help you with the dishes.  I'm sorry, Kiley.  I really enjoyed your book, and I can't wait to see what you do next.  

About to finish Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang, another author whose talk we attended at Parnassus when she was on her book tour.  I kept putting this one off because I had so many ebook holds flood in all at once, but this little involuntary vacation I'm on has given me an abundance of reading time!  This book came out of the author's very strange early covid lockdown experience, but I think it also comes from her own deeply rooted issues with food and, in my unprofessional opinion, disordered eating.  I am enjoying the book's darkness and quasi-apocalyptic context, but I also want to be like, has anyone asked this author if she's ok?

Later today, I believe I will start another book that promises to be unbelievably brutal, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.

Syllabus #240

I drew this for Andy.  The inside, as you might infer, says "You Picked Me"

I saw a post on the Nashville subreddit asking for recommendations on where to go for a first date on Valentine's Day.  

Let that sink in for a sec.  A first date.  On Valentine's Day.  That's a real masochist move right there.  Why set yourself up for that kind of pressure?  I think the sweet spot for VD (heh) is people who have been exclusive with their partner (any level of commitment from dating through marriage) for more than 6 months and less than 5 years.  

Too early in a relationship, and it's like, y'all probably don't love each other, so what are we doing here? (Says the woman who moved in with her now-husband of nearly 14 years after a scant month of dating, like a couple of hetero lesbians, and I mean that with all the love and respect in my heart for actual lesbians.). And beyond the 5-year mark, it's like, we know what we're doing here, no need to go out for an overpriced meal at the precise time of year when restaurants are slammed, and service/quality is guaranteed to be at its absolute worst.  Just stay at home and do something nice for each other.

Enter our Saturday night.  Actual Valentine's Day fell on a Wednesday, and for some reason when I was planning out meals for the week, I took no heed of that.  Didn't even consider that maybe I'd cook something halfway decent we could both enjoy.  I was just like, I tutored today and got home from work late, Andy, heat you up a hamsteak and microwave some broccoli, I'm off the clock, big dawg.

And then I felt kinda bad about that, probably because I always feel kinda bad about something, and I surely have a lot of internalized misogyny about what women are supposed to do.  But I also like to putz around in the kitchen when I have the time.  So I made the time.  And it capitulated with this:

Two-tiered chocolate pavlova looks like it belongs on a Garbage Pail Kids trading card, tastes like it descended from the heavens on the silky wings of an angel

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For Saturday's dessert, I made Smitten Kitchen's Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova Stack.  Of course I had to put my own spin on it, and by that I mean I am lazy and don't like to follow directions.  In the interest of time and because we are just two people who don't normally eat something this decadent, I skipped the raspberry curd and cut the recipe in half.  I made two slightly smaller meringue discs, and just used whipped cream and the chocolate drizzle on top of each layer.

But we all know, if you don't eat your meat, you don't get a treat, so first there was dinner.  I made sure to harden our arteries real good with the rest of the pint of heavy cream I had to buy for the pavlova, and whipped up Joy the Baker's Marry Me Chicken.  I served it over some butter and herb rice pilaf.  Chef's kiss.  For my plate, I skipped the chicken (duh) and had the sauce, tomatoes, and olives over the rice, and I kind of just wanted to make a big bathtub full of the stuff and climb on in.  I considered throwing in some tempeh strips for me, but I got lazy (seems to be a theme around here).  In the end, it wasn't necessary.  The creamy sauce, the savory tomatoes, the briny olives, plus the texture of the rice, ugh, damn, it was perfect.  If Andy says it's good, and offers no notes, you know it's good.

I'm reading this article on Slate about a new Peanuts special featuring Franklin, and I can just picture Charles Schulz poking a gnarled middle finger up out of his grave and his ghost swooping around over the headstone intoning "goooood grieeeeeeef."  Sounds like they really screwed the pooch with this one, and I ain't talking about Snoopy.  How did they manage to go backwards and tokenize Franklin more than ever?

I learned more about the craft of comedy from this NYTimes interactive piece about Taylor Tomlinson shaping her closing joke than I have from probably anything else I've ever read.  

Analog Reading:

I have about 20 pages left of The Unsettled by Ayana Mathis.  It's v good.  I like the pacing and the various perspectives.  The perspective of the main protagonist, an 11-year-old boy, is particularly moving, because he's wise for his age given all that he's seen and experienced, but there's still so much he doesn't know about what the adults in his life are really doing.  Seeing through his eyes as an adult reader, it's clear that he's being buffeted by the whims of people who are either mentally ill, on drugs, or blinded by magical thinking, but he doesn't have the context for that yet.

Up next, I'm going to switch gears entirely and read Die with Zero.  It promises to be more financial philosophy than specific financial advice, but I'm curious about the concept of spending down your money in meaningful ways before you die, or get too old to enjoy it.  I took a life expectancy quiz and based on my lifestyle and demographic info, I might live to 96, which sounds horrendous and I honestly don't expect the world as we know it to exist by then, so we might as well fiddle while Rome burns make hay while the sun is shining carpe the diem, I guess.

Syllabus #239

It's like the universe knew we had too much downtime in January, and to punish us, they made the last two full weeks of school as arduous as possible.  Also, I sometimes feel that I  get punished for being healthy and responsible, when I am forced to do other people's jobs just because I showed up for work and they didn't.  

My favorite thing is when I'm pulled to sub, and I'm like, hey kids, I'll be your teacher today, and they're like, yay.  But then they ask to go to the library.  And I'm like, WHO DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO BE IN THERE?  I'M STUCK IN HERE WITH YOU!  And then not twenty minutes later, another kid will be like, hey I forgot my laptop at home, can I go to the library and get a loaner?  Again.  WHO EXACTLY DO YOU EXPECT TO FIND IN THE LIBRARY??

Outwardly, I'm calm.  I'm practically dissociating from my body.  Inwardly, I'm SCREAMING.

My copy editor doesn't know how to spell.  This might be a little rough.

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You can probably infer why I was drawn to this article about edibles this week.  Are they safer than smoking?  Probably, which is the answer that I was rooting for.  Honestly, I got a whole tray of brownies in the freezer that I wouldn't let go to waste even if this article told me that edibles would make me grow a third nipple in the middle of my forehead.   

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Analog Reading:

Finished American Girls by Jessica Roy.  It was intense.  I very much identified with the sister who was back in the States trying to rescue ISIS-wife sister.  She had big "kid who does all the work in the group project" energy and I feel that to this day.

Just started The Unsettled by Ayana Mathis.  The writing is beautiful and the plot is unfolding slowly to reveal a story full of intrigue and intergenerational trauma.

Syllabus #238

When I open up this blog editor on a Sunday, usually I find a mostly formed draft that I've dropped little bits into throughout the week.  Today I found a blank page.  I was not Very Online this week.  It was a very analog week, stuffed uncomfortably full with after-hours work obligations.  

We did manage to venture out of the house on a Saturday evening, for the first time since probably December.  We went to Parnassus Books to see Kiley Reid speak about her new book, Come & Get It.  We both thoroughly enjoyed her first novel, Such a Fun Age, and it turns out she's hilarious and brilliant.  The amount of research and scholarship that went into a book that, on the surface, promises to be a very fun read, is remarkable.  We bought a signed copy of the new book, adding a couple of highly anticipated inches to my TBR tower.

Turkey and the Wolf collard melt.  I ate this over two months ago and I'm still thinking about it.

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I'm not going to pretend here.  I have no links this week.  Some days I didn't even open my laptop.  

Analog Reading:

I finally finished Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.  It was stellar.  A highly engaging narrative about a deeply upsetting topic.

Speaking of deeply upsetting topics, then I moved on to the sunshine and roses of American Girls by Jessica Roy.  No, not the dolls.  The subtitle of this journalistic non-fiction is One woman's journey into the Islamic State and her sister's fight to bring her home.  It's about these two American women, about my age, who were raised by strict Jehovah's witnesses, and rebelled in their early adulthood.  One ends up married to a dude who eventually is like, sike, I'm not a regular guy, I'm actually gonna move us and our kids overseas and become an ISIS fighter.  And so she goes along with it at first, and then decides, mmm, not for me?  I assume that's where this is going, anyway.

Syllabus #237

 I can see walk clearly now, the rain snow is gone...

It's been a dreary, rainy, gross week since Tuesday, but at least I don't have to shuffle across outdoor surfaces like octogenarian penguin.  Naturally, all the children at work were like dogs at the end of  an extended car ride.  So much pent up energy after a week stuck inside at home, and then another week stuck inside for indoor recess.  

Clean boi

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The Stanley cup has been living rent free in my brain for a couple weeks, apparently.  I should charge it rent, because it's apparently huge.  This "I lived it" takedown of the cult-favorite Stanley cup is hilarious.  Not gonna lie, when references to this cup first started crossing the threshold of my internet, I could not understand why TikTok influencers were obsessed with hockey all of a sudden?  This honestly makes the vessel sound like a real albatross.

The other day, one of the kids I tutor after school showed up wearing a Mean Girls sweatshirt that said "On Wednesdays We Wear Pink" (it was, to her credit, actually Wednesday) and holding one of the above-mentioned 40 oz Stanley tumblers.  I wasn't sure if she was there to bully me* or learn from me.

*Fortunately, it was the latter.  I really didn't want to have to bust out the "I am lovable and capable" [IALAC] or "Cancel Cancel" anti-bullying jargon they taught us in middle school, that we promptly turned around and used to...bully the teachers?  

Analog Reading:

Finished Billy Summers by Stephen King.  He's at his best when he's not bringing in the supernatural, I think.  Human psychology and the capacity for evil provides for more than enough horror.

Now reading Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.  It's been a slow week for reading, what with actually having to leave the house for work like a functional adult human.  This book is shaping up to be incredible if I can just dedicate a decent stretch of time to immersing myself in the story.  I would describe it as a dystopian sci-fi about the prison industrial complex, because that's the mood it's giving.  However, save for some slightly futuristic technology, it's not even far-fetched and honestly/sadly just seems like the next logical step in a society where capitalism trumps human dignity every step of the way.

Syllabus #236

Greetings from the Arctic Circle.  Wish you were here.

Late last week, teachers were like, "Do your snow dance, kids!" and the children might have served it up a little too hard, because we were out of school the entire week, and could possibly be tomorrow, still (Monday).  And this snow-week didn't even draw out in a way that made me think, bless their sweet Southern hearts.  We're talking, any street that wasn't treated and plowed was just waiting for Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan to lace up their skates and party like it's 1994.  I just walked Charlie down the street and around the corner for a previously scheduled grooming appointment and almost fell and broke my cervix* several times.

When I wasn't using a broom to remove snow, or checking on dripping faucets, I lived under this cat and this blanket all week

*A couple winters ago, we had an accumulation of ice and snow and the school district hadn't made the call to cancel school yet.  Parents, students, and even teachers were going absolutely wild on the platform formerly known as Twitter, commenting the rudest things on the district's posts about other topics, lobbying for a snow day.  One high school student said something so unintentionally hilarious that I still think of it often:  "Come on big dawg, it's so icy out there my gramma went outside and she slipped and broke her cervix!"  I'm sure he meant coccyx, but the error is so much better.

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Unstoppable food cravings be gone!  I dunno, man, the only snack that has ever sent me on a truly unstoppable feeding frenzy was a family size bag of Utz Crab Chips, and that was after consuming enough chardonnay to make a pilates studio full of white ladies cry.  And nobody advertised them to me!  Except my mom.  And by advertise I mean she just casually served them with tuna sandwiches like a Pfizer rep just palming you a sample baggie of oxies along with his business card.  That was my first exposure.  The next time, with the chardonnay, I was just chasing the dragon of that delicious, salty, Old Bay experience.

Back in my day, nobody went around obsessing over hydration.  You lined up for your after-recess slurp at the water fountain and had your glass of milk with dinner, and you were good to go.  But now?  I drank the kool-aid electrolyte water, and I have a hydration routine!  I mostly rely on, you know, a regular degular drinking glass or a small, beat-up old Nalgene from REI.  But I'll be so dysregulated if I don't get my 64 ounces a day, y'all.

They had me at 'male cats with barbed penises.'  I guess Hadley and Lola aren't missing out on anything by being spayed.  

Analog Reading:

I've been BUSY.

Finished Finder's Keepers by Stephen King.  I can't wait to read the last book in the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, and all the rest of the Holly stories.  

Read White Cat Black Dog by Kelly Link.  A story collection of modern fairy tales.  Bizarre and inventive.  There was one story that didn't really draw me in, but the rest were top-notch.

Read Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter.  We've all had that weird dream where you find a hidden room in your house that has always been there but you never knew it existed.  This book is that and so much more.

Read Pet by Catherine Chidgey.  Daaaaark.  Coincidentally, the second novel I've read this year that is set in New Zealand and comes to a very violent and brutal ending (also Birnam Wood) but this ending felt like it was earned, whereas the other came out of nowhere.

Reading Billy Summers by Stephen King.  It's great.  I'll finish it today.  Feels appropriate to bookend my week of The Shining cosplay with books by our old pal, Steve.  Also, in this book, he has not (yet) used the n-word even once!  Good on you, Stevie boy.  The protagonist did don brown-face, but at least he and his co-conspirator were self-aware about it being problematic?

Syllabus #235

 Winter has come.  The mercury dipped below freezing overnight, and won't pass the 32 degree mark again until probably Thursday.  We're talking single-digit temps, chance of snow, panic-buying of bread, milk, and shovels.  Until then, I'll be eating all the carbs in the house, dripping our faucets, and promising my first-born* to the devil to get a coupla snow days out of this mess.

On the internet, nobody knows you're a cat

*Nobody tell the Prince of Darkness, but joke's on him if he thinks I'm keeping up my end of the bargain

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Have you peeped the Calvin Klein ad featuring Jeremy Allen (Tighty) White(y)?  Not gonna lie, I thought this dude was hot back when he played Lip on Shameless, except he was a teenager and I was a full-on adult, so I felt gross about it.  Also, I had to stop watching that show because I was like, wait, the whole show revolves around the ways these kids cope with having an alcoholic fuck-up for a dad, who continually lets them down, embarrasses them, and disappoints them?  Sounds neat!  But I've already seen that documentary.

Federal researchers recommend easing marijuana restrictions?  I'll drink toke consume an edible to that!

Lol at this quote:

"In 38 states, marijuana is legal for medical use; it’s legal for recreational use in two dozen states and territories. Its pungent scent has become common in many communities, wafting from car windows at intersections in California and hanging over the crowds in Times Square."

Every spring, it occurs to me to wonder whether children growing up in East Nashville will reach adulthood with a sensory memory that associates flowering trees with the smell of marijuana.  Because as soon as the weather turns and the dogwoods and cherries and Bradford pears start to bloom, it's also Bring Your Bong Out on the Porch season (BYBOP, for those who observe the custom) and you can't walk your dog without practically picking up a lil' contact high.  I picture a particularly sheltered child rolling into their freshman dorm in college in late August, smelling weed, and asking their roommate why it smells like dogwood trees out of season.  Try living that one down.  It won't be easy, nerd.

Analog Reading:

OMG the ending of Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton.  I need to talk about it with someone who has read it.  All I could do was sit back and think, "Well, that escalated quickly."  And also, "Wow, didn't see that coming."  I'm not sure if it was purely entertaining and sensational, or if it was kind of un-earned.

Now I'm nearly finished reading Stephen King's Finder's Keepers, the 2nd book in the Mr. Mercedes series.  Damn, does that guy spin a yarn.  Does he still, for reasons I cannot fathom, insist on slipping the n-word into every book he writes?  Ugh, yeah.  Does he sometimes use schlocky, stilted dialogue?  Affirmative.  But overall, does the prose flow such that a 500+ page book pulls you along like a raft on rushing river, where the water is running high and you scarcely notice the rapids?  Hell yes.

Syllabus #234

First post of the new year.  Please stand by for my tedious list of grand proclamations about the New Me that I expect this New Year to bring.

Actually, I didn't make a single dang resolution, because I'm already perfect realistic.  

You know what, though?  That's not entirely true.  The other day at work, a bunch of us were kvetching in the copy room about how the building's HVAC system has been on its last legs for as long as most of us can remember, and there's almost always at least one wing of the building that has no heat on the coldest days.  I declared to all within earshot, "Hey, I made a New Year's Resolution...just now...that whenever my heat isn't working, I'm just gonna go home."  I'd rather burn a sick day than lose a digit to Reynaud's-related lack of circulation.  New Year, Warm Me.

According to my media consumption, we are doing Dry January along with most of the rest of the adult populace of the country.  It has been my custom for the past 6 or 7 years, and lately, Andy has been joining me.  We usually let it ride for several additional months.  Last year I think I abstained through at least the end of April, and then I went on another sober-bender from August through mid-October.  If you see me wearing a lampshade at a party, I'm almost certainly not drunk, I just have social anxiety, okay?

I'll tell ya though, nothing makes you feel more smug about your drinking choices than going for a jog in bracing 38-degree weather on New Year's Day and hopping over puddles of vomit and soda bottles full of peepees as you trot past your favorite bar.

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Naturally, all of these offerings this week are on the theme of wringing out your liver, or maybe just re-evaluating your habits, after the inevitable holiday binging.

To detox or not to detox?  That is the question, that is apparently answered in this article.  

Do you call it Dry January, or Drynuary, or something else entirely.  Drynuary sounds like an STI.  

Do you need to meticulously prepare for your dry spell and trick yourself with NA replacements, etc., or do you just rip the bandaid off and raw dog the experience?  

Amanda Knox bringing more wisdom hard-earned in an Italian prison cell.  This time, it's about cutting alcohol, cold-turkey (except for toilet hooch, once).

Analog Reading:

Finished Lauren Groff's The Vaster Wilds in the wee hours of January 1st.  Great story.  The visceral details really helped me identify with the protagonist.  Every time she had diarrhea in the woods, I was like, It. Me.

Read all of Lore Segal's short story collection, Ladies' Lunch, in one day.  It was short, but not sweet.  Bittersweet, maybe.  I didn't love it, but maybe I just wasn't in the right headspace for it.

Now I'm about 2/3 through Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton.  It started out slow for me, and the prose felt a little stilted somehow, but now that the element of intrigue and scandal in the plot is really picking up, I'm here for it.