#17: Time's swift arrow, etc

Actual Updates

Well, this one’s late. In my defense, I was going to write it over the weekend while I was going to be (I assumed) somewhat laid up with my second dose of the COVID vaccine, but instead I felt more or less fine, and it’s a good thing too, because my kid has apparently retired from taking naps. Of course, it’s impossible to know if I was tired because of the shot or because of my life; likewise did I have a headache from the shot or because I just get headaches fairly routinely? My back was bothering me for a bit, but could that be chalked up to body aches, or is it just because I’m looking down the barrel of 39 and still sit like an absolute stereotype?1

But: yes!! I have gotten my second shot! In 10 days, I’ll hit full vaccination! I am so excited and also have no idea what I’m doing anymore. I’m wildly making plans to see friends even though I still live just as far from everyone as I ever did, and still have a job and a kid and won’t be able to go out just as much as I ever couldn’t. I’m so excited to take a long walk by myself. I’m so excited to go to the grocery store. I can’t wait to take public transit. I’m going to bawl my eyes out 100 times a day.

Oh, so yeah, my birthday’s coming up this month. I’m already starting to practice for the instant cessation of all giving-a-fuck activities that will occur on my next birthday2, and part of that is that I keep thinking of things I want to get myself for it:

• Thing #1: delivery from a food truck that I miss terribly, shot down immediately on the grounds that it lives too far away and wouldn’t be available to me. That assessment turned out to be correct, though, so I guess I can’t complain about it.

• Thing #2: these shorts coveralls, which are currently out of stock in my size, but apparently will come back into stock the day after my birthday. Am I going to look good in it? Who cares! I’ll get to make Hot Mechanic jokes, and that’s what really matters.

• Thing #3: throwing an optional “they” into some pronoun fields. I’m sick of it, frankly. Like, I’m still not sure if what I object to in my alleged gender is baked into it or if it’s just societal and I could reject that portion only, but also one time someone “they”ed me (for anonymity reasons) and it felt great, and I am constantly referring to myself as a “guy” in the most genderless way it can be applied, and I have been talking about “missing that day in lady school” for approx. my entire life, and it just seems like the right move is to divest at least a bit from the whole “woman” thing. Not entirely - some aspects of this gender do resonate with me, and I’m mainly just reminding myself that that’s all right, I can feel both of those ways at the same time. So. A “she/they” situation is what I’m aiming for. No real changes need to be made on anyone else’s end, it’s mostly to make myself happy. Happy birthday to me.

Also, Matt and I “started” a new “band,” by which I mean we were going to play some covers together anyway, and I had a great band name lying around, and maybe one day other people will be in this band or we’ll start writing some originals and maybe it will just continue to be us making videos in our dining room, but anyway, Divorce Ranch exists now and we have played one (1) song. If you’re someone who reads this, you’ve probably already had the video shared at you somewhere, so I won’t belabor the point. Ask me sometime about what the name references, it’s actually kind of fascinating!

Some Links

Okay, so this is a link to a whole magazine, or rather the first issue of a whole magazine, but read it anyway. Pipe Wrench was cofounded by someone whose food blog I followed back during my half-assed foodblogging days, and then I just kept reading her writing anywhere I could find it. Now she’s started this magazine with a unique structure: a central longform story, with a constellation of reaction/spinoff pieces around it by various other contributors, in various other formats. So, you should subscribe; at the very least, you should read this issue. Pipe Wrench Issue One: Seeing in the Dark

I was going to link to some graphs that Black Girl Hockey Club put out about their Get Uncomfortable pledge and who all has taken it (spoiler: for some reason, LOTS of Leafs fans, which is embarrassing for literally everyone else), but the graphs don’t live on a linkable-to page, so instead I would encourage all of you who care about hockey and making it a better place for everyone to follow them on Twitter (and take the pledge too!): Black Girl Hockey Club

Men: wearing things! Wearing interesting things!! But guess what, dandies and the societal objections to them are not just based on fashion, but (obviously) also gender, class, and race. There is literally nothing on this earth that hasn’t been infected by racism and colonialism. Dandies Rebelled Against Social, Gender and Fashion Norms for 200 Years. Some Say Time is Ripe for a Revival

Okay, sharks are already spooky because they are, and I promise I am not making this up, older than Saturn’s rings3, but now they’re running around out here living for 600 years? Unacceptable. I’m done with sharks. The Strange and Gruesome Story of the Greenland Shark, the Longest-Living Vertebrate on Earth

This is a really compelling, sad, and beautiful essay about Beirut… and poop. Waste Away

I assume that if you, like me, played a lot of SimCity 2000 as a youth, you also used the cheat code to give you access to all the future technologies early and are therefore already familiar with fusion power plants. Look Inside this Lab where Scientists are Recreating the Energy of the Sun to Produce Nearly Unlimited Clean Energy

This is one of those “title says it all” links. Torso Murders, An Olympic Sex Scandal, And The Cleveland World’s Fair That Wasn’t

Lady crime gangs!! The Ruthless Style of London’s Forty Elephants Gang

Some tunes

This is a song that I feel like I definitely knew from hearing it on the radio, back in high school times, but I’m pretty sure I did not - I really don’t think it crossed the border. I must just know it from hearing it here, Matt’s cds and so on, but it just always feels like I’ve known it forever.

So I got introduced to this queer French artist a few months ago, by someone who might be reading this, thanks if you are! I pretty much spent a day and a half listening to their entire discography and then bought this album and danced around while cleaning my stove listening to it. This might be my favorite song off the album, and good luck not singing “I’m a man now” in a French accent. Also, it’s hilarious to me that I can say I just got introduced to someone who went diamond with this album in France the year it was released and whose latest single was named song of the year by noted underground music zine Time Magazine. I am an out-of-touch old fart and it’s a riot.

Here’s the latest song I’m murdering outright for Divorce Ranch.

This month’s top 5: Stereotypes I adhere to

1. See footnote #1

2. Apologizing too much (Canadian)

3. I mean, I did shave my head nearly immediately in the pandemic and have kept it that way, that falls into at least one category

4. Absolute horror of talking on the phone, especially to strangers (millenial)

5. Sushi is an all the time food, and should be both cheap and good (Vancouverite)

Okay, so, in summary, I’m old, I’m running out of patience for gender, and I encourage you to donate to the fundraisers on this list to help people in India impacted by the horrific and ongoing COVID disaster there.