#28: Highs and lows

Actual updates

We’re so close, you guys. So close. So close to what? Well, for the big move - no, oh, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make it seem like we were in any way close to leaving. We are close to being able to send in the big packet of forms and so on. Everything’s filled out and signed! But I’ve got to make copies of a bunch of other stuff to send along, and I’ve got to write a statement about how I can support Matt financially if it comes to it (when you sponsor someone for Permanent Resident status, you, as the sponsor, are responsible for their living expenses if they can’t make ends meet, for a specified period of time). And then the FBI has to say that Matt isn’t a crime lord1.

The other week, when we finished signing everything, I was so full of hope and excitement! Now, writing it out and realizing how much is still left to do… less so. If this was my full-time job, we’d be ready. Even, I think, if this was not my full-time job but if I didn’t also have the part-time job of parenthood (don’t flip out, it’s part-time because he’s at school during the day, so I’m not literally and actually taking care of him all day long, I don’t mean I’m not committed to parenthood or whatever). But it’s effectively my third job, and honestly? That’s kind of a struggle. I am trying to remind myself of this whenever I feel like I’m taking too long, or whenever someone reminds me I’m taking too long, in the tone that says “you aren’t really going to do it.”2 I know it’s been a year already. I know.

Hey, but there’s SOME good news - the band’s getting back together! Kind of! It’s minus one member who sparked our… hiatus, let’s say, and plus one member who is impossibly cool and will realize immediately that she’s way out of our league. Either that or she’ll roll her eyes so hard at our constant dopey queer meme vibe3 in the band chat that she’ll injure herself and have to bow out. Have we practiced yet? No. I am simultaneously nervous and excited for the day we do. I’ve already written a new song. It’s very stupid but it also is very careful to correctly identify sheep as ruminants. Did you even put an effort into your song if you didn’t have at least one Wikipedia page open? I hope that gives you all an idea of what to expect from us musically.

And… what else is even going on? This is going to be a short one, I think, because I’m low on updates (I wish I wasn’t!) and I don’t even have a lot of links! Oh. Well, there was the thing I did for the mid-month post; I read a poem, and that seems to have worked out ok; if you have a favorite, let me know and I’ll read that, too. I might branch out into prose, too. We’ll see what I have going on the day.

What I have going on on this day? Finishing some D&D planning, baking cookies, making chili, and doing taxes4. I live an exciting life, I’ll have you know. Maybe I’ll get crazy and photocopy some forms. Well, not every issue can be chockablock with huge news and deep philosophical dives. Next month probably will be! It’ll be the May issue, so I’ll get to talk about my impending birthday and what that will mean to me. So don’t unsubscribe on the strength, or I guess weakness, of this one issue, okay?

Some links

Not a ton of links this month but we’re starting off super strong with this one. The 1970s Political Activist who Invented Penis Pants

Speaking of people’s bits and pieces. Evidently porn in a hedge in England is the same as porn in the woods in North America: people found it there for some reason all the time. So doing research around it is actually fascinating. For instance, you can now learn how it got there. I’ve Collected the First Set of Data on “Hedge Porn” - There’s a Lot We Can Learn from People’s Experiences5

And now, bodies of a different kind. This is nutty as hell and of course cops are throwing money at it. He Teaches Police “Witching” to Find Corpses. Experts are Alarmed.

From dead bodies to dead bodies! We just finished watching The Sopranos6 (yes, for the first time, calm down!) and I feel like some of these stories were in the plot? The credit card fraud at the restaurant particularly. But this is quite a ride! “I’ll Let the Chips Fall Where They May”: the Life and Confessions of Mob Chef David Ruggiero

I don’t know what the segue is here, violence to violence? But anyway, Nicolas Cage, Action Star! The 90s were a weird time! But this actually goes into more interesting depth than that, about trends in action movie filmmaking style and so on. It’s worth a read even if you aren’t a Nic Cage aficionado. When Nicolas Cage Became the Biggest Action Star of the ‘90s

And this is just a nice story! A couple of young women are snowboarding together in traditional outfits to raise awareness and show that skiing isn’t just a white people sport. Plus they look rad as hell. Friends Hit the Slopes in Ribbon Skirt and Saree to Inspire BIPOC Youth in Sport

What am I reading

I’m juuuuust about done with volume one of Phonogram! Yes, I know, finally! And, okay, what can I say about a comic that’s been out for 14 years, but no one’s really coming here for cutting-edge literary criticism, are they?

Kieron Gillen referred to it as his “first real comic,” and it holds the seeds of some themes he returns to a lot, I think: the intersection of divinity or magic and modern life, in particular.

It’s interesting to me personally because - while I was too young and too Canadian to partake fully in the movement, the Britpop era, which this comic literally idolizes, was something that occurred while I was alive and paying attention. A lot of the key songs made it to the radio station I was listening to, as a teenager, and then when the story takes place, about 10 years later, I was a young adult who could also remember the heyday of those tunes and remembering how they sort of disappeared into the mists of time. If I had been a few years older in the 90s, I would have been exactly in the target demo for this story. Well, except for not being from the UK; obviously that was a huge part of the appeal of that musical movement.

Also, one of the moments in the Oasis/Blur rivalry that everyone remembers occurred in Vancouver, if you’d like to know: the show where Oasis was pelted with pennies and … I think shoes? by the crowd, chanting “WE WANT BLUR!” (for, I think, purely troll reasons? I mean, the people doing this would have already had to have paid to get in), and then Noel Gallagher yelled “We’re not a bunch of fucking monkeys up here! We’re the best rock band in the world!” and they walked offstage and didn’t play the show. That was at the good old Pacific Coliseum in, according to the internet, 1996.

I also have a Pacific Coliseum show story, but I was moving mountains to get in, not to get out, and it involved my mom lead-footing me and a couple of friends across town to get there so we could get floor tickets for Radiohead that had just gone on sale at the last minute, and at one point I boot-skied down a muddy hill and amazingly did not fall over. We got the tickets, we saw the show, and we heard some woman call “Thom! Thom!” half the show, pronouncing the T-H. Think of that when anyone tries to tell you that no one will notice or remember if you do something embarrassing in public.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, read it if you remember this era; read it if you remember any musical era that ended and having nostalgia for it even though you know it wouldn’t have been good if it continued and that it was a perfect self-contained little capsule moment as it was.

Also, it comes with a glossary/musical reading list at the back and I’m about to really confuse my Spotify algorithm.

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

So there was this International Women’s Month initiative at work and one thing that came of it was a collaborative playlist of all women artists that all the women-identifying folks at work got to contribute to, which was then played on our internal radio station (but hosted by a man, for some reason???). We were each supposed to choose one song, so that everyone would have room, but of course plenty of people didn’t hew to that. I was keeping a list of “maybes” that got so large that I wound up doing my own set a couple days later; I was actually stunned that no one else had picked this song, so I had to do it. Had to! A classic!!

For some reason the first couple of lines of this song have been on repeat in my skull for the past few days. Granted I did listen to this album twice inside the same month, but why this song? I cannot say. It wasn’t like it was a radio hit that I absorbed all of simply by being alive when the album came out (see: Intergalactic). The brain meats want what they want! And lately, they want to enjoy the Beastie Boys saying “beatsie boys.”

Okay. So, as a North American person, my main interaction with Eurovision is reading the GFY recaps (which are great, please slake your thirst for dramatic staging and on-the-nose costumes here). If you clicked that link, you’ll notice that the title refers to Italy winning, and also possibly not being coked to the gills, which seems dubious. This is that Italian band and the song they won with, and look: I know it is not exactly groundbreaking to be into a band that won a popular-vote contest, but I am here for their glam rock vibes and androgynous fashion, I like seeing a full on rock act win the thing, and also I am 150% certain that they have hot and cold running cocaine in every room of their house, come on, are you kidding me?

This month’s top 5: Reasons to watch Our Flag Means Death

You know I’ll watch anything Taika Waititi makes7, and so this list should not surprise you; in fact, if you’re familiar with his oeuvre, none of the reasons here will surprise you either. But anyway, watch this pirate show, please, I beg of you, and then come talk to me about the penultimate episode of Season 1.

1. It’s hilarious

2. But it’s also really sweet and tender and heartfelt

3. Also it is dumbass representation, everyone in it is basically stupid in an endearing way

4. Plus it is SUPER GAY

5. Furthermore, several people in it are extremely good-looking, which may be relevant if you’re a hot people enjoyer

I can’t believe I took this long to get out this issue which doesn’t even have that much content in it. Thinking about it, though, I can’t believe a lot of things that are, nonetheless, true; I can’t believe that I have to do work instead of sitting on a rock and looking at the ocean; I can’t believe that the coolest person I know is in my band. I can’t believe I’m ever going to move, but that doesn’t really fit under the “nonetheless true” umbrella until I’m there.