#2: Appliances, colonialism, the deep sea

The actual updates

Well, I didn’t get bitten by any dogs this month, so that’s a 100% decrease! I did get bitten by a cat, though, but that was just Marty and he isn’t out there in the world giving strangers permanent scars. He’s still a dickhead, though.

Also, I think we’ve angered the appliance gods in some way. We just got the fridge situation resolved - we only have one fridge in our house and it is functional! hooray! - and our dishwasher’s soap container decides to stop opening. But not in a “can’t open it as a human” way - using the little latch, it opens normally. It just doesn’t open during the course of a dishwashing cycle, so our dishes weren’t getting washed so much as aggressively rinsed. We’ve bought a replacement part and we’re going to try and swap it in this weekend, with the help of YouTube. Imagine how people used to have to pay for a professional to fix things that a reasonably capable amateur could do! Also, the replacement part has made clear why it opens for us, but not during the cycle: there’s a motor in there! The automatic open must be done by the motor, and it must be what’s gone on the fritz. That’s us… dishwasher detectives. AHAHA LATE UPDATE: we replaced the part, which was clearly burnt out (like, a hole was melted in the casing), and the dishwasher still didn't work. We're on our way to get a new dishwasher now, which shall no doubt spiral out into a month-long saga of its own.

I also just wrote and deleted a huge long rant about a book I’m still in the middle of reading - as in, I haven’t chucked it across the room yet - because it betrays the author’s colonialist attitudes and also because his writing style when he’s trying to write in the voice of a character’s journal is annoying (look, people in the old days did used to capitalize more words than we do now, but he overdoes it, and capitalizes the wrong words too). But the thing is this. The book is a fictionalized version of real events, and at the time of writing, those real events were a lot more mysterious than they are now (to some people). Seven years after the book came out, the research community on this topic had the outrageous brainwave of asking the First Nations people in the area what they knew about it, and of course they had tons of information and nobody had asked or listened before, and the mysteries went a long way to being solved. So while yes, this guy didn’t talk to or read a single person from an indigenous group of the region (if his acknowledgements and bibliography are complete), he wasn’t alone; I can’t condemn him where I don’t condemn literally everyone else too. Which is to say, I do. The writing’s still annoying, though (and he wrote another book where a character was full of colonial attitudes towards a fictional people, but that was “just a character,” so.). I don’t need him or his fans finding this page, so we’re dancing around naming names, but you’re all knowledgeable people, I bet you can piece it together from context.

Time for some articles

America is overrun with bathrooms - tell me your weirdest toilet story. This isn’t even close to my weirdest but the house I grew up in had 2 bathrooms right next to each other and one had a bidet in it.

Why Calendars Are So Weird, and What Might Be Done About It

A scandal in Oxford: the curious case of the stolen gospel - hey, remember when there was a to-do about Hobby Lobby and some stolen antiquities? I do! The whole story is even more interesting than “religious craft store is smuggling ancient artifacts,” if you can imagine that.

Losing My Mind in Tom Steyer's Merch Shop - why is Tom Steyer in this election??? Who is buying this merch? Also you should subscribe to ¡Hola Papi! and read everything John Paul Brammer writes

Lord Byron used to call William Wordsworth “Turdsworth,” and yes, this is a real historical fact. - You pretty much just need the headline to get the whole picture here, but don’t let it be said that this newsletter is not full of the most compelling and in-depth content for grownups!!!

https://neal.fun/deep-sea/ - if you click only one link in this month’s newsletter, make it this one. This is so cool.

Here’s a recipe I made this month

Pork Salsa Verde Macaroni & Cheese

Hap ate some of it! Well, just the mac & cheese part, which is the main component of his diet.

Ingredients

1 lb pork shoulder, cut into chunks1 16-oz jar salsa verde (if you've got a good recipe for it, make your own, I don't care)1 jalapeno, seeded and minced1/2 cup and 1/4 cup (separated) chicken stock, or if you're really feeling feisty you can use tequila for the second 1/4 cup2 cloves garlic, minced2 tbsp olive oil10 oz penne3 tbsp flour3 tbsp butter1 tsp ground mustard2 1/2 cups milk1/4 tsp pepper8 oz shredded sharp cheddar 4 oz shredded Havarti

Instructions

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.Brown the pork on all sides.Deglaze the pot with the 1/4 cup chicken stock (or tequila!)Stir in the salsa verde, garlic, jalapeno, and the (rest of the) chicken broth.Simmer on low for 90 minutes.🤘Shred🤘 the pork with two forks.Towards the end of the pork cooking, put the penne on to cook.In a separate pot, make the roux - melt the butter and whisk in the flour, allowing it to get slightly browned.Whisk in milk, a little at a time, and bring to a boil.Whisk in the mustard, pepper, and cheeses until everything is smoothly blended.Return just to a boil to thicken.Stir the cheese sauce into the pasta, once it's cooked and drained, and then stir in the pork as well. Voila!

Tunes on my mind lately

My brain literally runs on Gasoline (well, ok, only some of the time, but the line was too good to pass up)

Just a legitimately good song. People don’t think of Caviar enough.

Bandcamp doesn't embed into Substack, so here’s a link instead: Old Hat - Unto You. When they existed, I used to say they were the best band in Boston.

This month's top five: Talents I do not have, but wish I did

1. Wearing clothes adequately

2. Practicing what I preach with regard to rejecting bullshit ideas about bodies - great at it in terms of other people, terrible in terms of myself

3. Knife skills (in the kitchen but also, sure, generally)

4. Giving off a “don't talk to me" vibe to strangers with boundary issues

5. Shutting up literally ever

Ok! Well, that's it for January. Tune in next month to see whether we have our new dishwasher yet! Just kidding, that's very unlikely.