#30: But actually, 40

Actual updates

Well, this edition is coming to you from the far side of 40! I’m suddenly ancient and decrepit! Just kidding, I’m exactly the same, except with a newly-minted determination never to buy (or, ideally, even use) crappy pens again. And to not care about other people’s opinions of me. So far one of those resolutions is going well.

The year I turned 30, there were the same jokes about how I was suddenly going to start falling apart, and of course that’s nonsense except that that year, I broke my hand in three places and had a cough that lasted for a month and a half. So I decided that if you made it through your 30th year, you were good from there on out.

Except… well, that might only last 10 years. Perhaps you have to renew it on the decade. I say that because this year, I had the little finger-breaking incident, and then, a couple of weeks ago, we all came down with Covid. That’s right: we dodged it for 2 years and then the Preschool Hot Zone took us down. Fortunately, none of us had a very bad time of it; Matt and I both had one rough day with some lingering cold symptoms (and a couple lingering weirdo symptoms; I lost some, but not all, of my sense of taste for about a day1, after the worst was over, and I was dizzy for a day and a half). Hap, being the under-5 kid that he is, has not been vaccinated against Covid, and he had a high fever for several straight days. It didn’t seem to bother him much, though! It bothered me; I called the doctor at one point, and they reassured me that the line for high fevers has moved, so this was just regular high and not freak-out-and-go-to-emergency high. Cool2.

But anyway, we’re all better now, and we’re taking advantage of the immunities we have, be it ever so temporary until the next variant rolls in, and have booked flights to visit my family back in Vancouver for the first time in what, 5 years? Hap has never been; we haven’t even seen my family in about 3 years for pandemic reasons (they used to come visit us here a fair bit, but of course that’s been shelved for the duration). I have a whole niece I’ve never met! So it’ll be Hap’s first plane flight and first vacation that he’s old enough to enjoy or remember, and his longest trip anywhere, and it’s very exciting! I’m in a no-holds-barred fight with my anxiety right now over whether this actually means everything’s going to go wrong. Some stuff will, I’m sure! That just happens! But we’ll probably have a decent time on the whole?

Speaking of Canadaland, the other day I got an email from Immigrations Canada telling me that the proof of citizenship I applied for for Hap had been received and was being processed. Cool! Except… I sent it in on New Year’s Day. Here’s hoping that this part, the processing, is the quick part, and the waiting to be processed is the lengthy part. I love bureaucracy! So much!

Oh, and one other thing I should note - you probably noticed that after the mid-March post, I dropped off the map again and stopped sending those. That was Covid’s fault, both times! The first time, Hap’s school had closed for a few days that week because things were getting a bit on the contagious side for awhile, and that meant that Matt and Hap were both at home, so they would have heard me recording. The second time, the problem was the same, except that that time the cause of the problem was actually personally having Covid. So, hopefully I’ll have a bit of privacy when the middle of June rolls around and I’ll get to record another one! I do have ideas!3

What am I reading

I am reading a graphic4 novel called “Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?” It is about, as you may already have guessed, Ed Gein5 - it goes into his upbringing with his extremely religious and also very unhinged mother, but I appreciate that it also talks about his brother, who did not turn into a freaky mass murderer despite having the same family situation (although who’s to say what would have happened later in his life if he had lived longer). I’m about 2/3 of the way through the book, and the bodies and parts in the house have just been discovered. I’m wondering where else they’re going to go from here to fill up so much more book. Update: I finished it as I was still working on this newsletter and where they went was the trial and later interviews with Gein.

I’m about to be topical here for a second, but I was typing the words “mass murderer” and realizing that mass murderers are no longer, in this country, all that unusual. Ok, no one’s out there making themselves a belt out of nipples, but the number of people who have killed more human beings than Ed Gein even dug up and didn’t even make the news is growing, and I’m disgusted.

Anyway, it is kind of stunning how many classic horror books and movies took at least some inspiration from this one guy; I guess Psycho (the book) came out just 2 years after Gein’s house of horrors was discovered, and - incredibly, considering the huge amount of subject matter overlap - had been written largely without any awareness of Gein’s existence, except for a line added in at the end once the author did learn about the atrocities happening just a few towns over from him6.

Should you read this book? I don’t know - how interested are you in fucked-up behavior? If you want to know more about him, the book is a better read than the Wikipedia page, and it’s more real, so to speak, because it’s well-illustrated. But if you’re just totally put off by this kind of thing (reasonably!), then this book is not for you. It doesn’t shy away from the more lurid stuff, although it didn’t show any actual murdering.

Some links

I truly can’t tell you which article in the most recent Pipe Wrench issue to read; you should read the whole thing. It’s the Fat Issue - the central story is about medical fatphobia, as are many of the side stories. They’re all about fatness in one way or another, and they’re required reading whether you are now or ever have been fat, or - and I think particularly - if you are not and have not been. Pipe Wrench: The Fat Issue

My friend posted this with the caption, which I am reproducing here in full, “There is never a bad time, especially during AAPI Heritage Month, to remind any Fil-Ams that have lineage going back to the original 1930s manongs that our ancestors caused people to start riots and violence because they… *checks notes*… dressed super fly and danced really good.” 1930s Filipinos Were Hip to American Style. There Was Backlash.

I was sure I had another “someone found some piece of old junk and it turned out to be a priceless historical relic” story to share alongside this but now I can’t find it, so you just get one! A Woman Bought a Sculpture at Goodwill for $34.99. It Actually Was a Missing Ancient Roman Bust

You might think most actors come from relatively well-off families (so that they’re free to pursue a career that often does not make any money until - if! - you’re famous), but not all of them literally grew up in a castle. The Most Ridiculously Posh British Actors and Musicians According to Their Wikipedia Entries

Listen. I am always ready to weeze the juice. The Oral History of Encino Man, Brendan Fraser’s Caveman Cult Classic

In case you need a little NOPE in your day: Why Do Creepy Dolls Keep Washing Up on Texas Beaches?

This, by contrast, is the opposite of nope - everything about it is incredibly cool. The SIZE of that sinkhole! The height of the trees! Possible new species! Dang!! In a Massive Chinese Sinkhole, Scientists Find a Secret Forest

This is basically Angela’s Airplane for adults! Okay there are major differences but let me have my Munsch moment. A Passenger with No Flying Experience Landed a Plane at a Florida Airport after the Pilot Became Incapacitated

Okay, colonialism bad, but climate change and flooding also bad, and losing historical sites also also bad. So really it’s just all bad. Read this article about things that are bad!7 Jamestown, North America’s First Permanent English Colony, Could Soon Be Underwater

This is delightfully bananas. I don’t really have an opinion on Barbra Streisand, but I do have an opinion on how completely and unabashedly nuts mcbutts she is on the topic of home design. The opinion is positive. Please, entertain yourself. Revisiting Barbra Streisand’s 300-Page Home-Design Manifesto

HahaHA! The people at credit card companies whose job it is to police scammy businesses absolutely do not do that. You’re going to be so mad after you read this. Two-Card Monte: Why Mastercard And Visa Rarely Shut Down Scammers Who Are Ripping Off Consumers

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a newsletter from me without space shit: This Is the First Picture of the Supermassive Black Hole at the Heart of the Milky Way

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

It’s been a lot of Rocket from the Crypt in here recently. Not every song has a deep and meaningful story behind it! Sometimes it’s just a jam!

This one does, though: we played it in the house a little while back and Hap heard it, and picked up the chorus nearly immediately (from “Can’t you see my world is falling apart” on), and now sings it whenever he sees anyone on a bike or motorcycle. At school, out and about, wherever. When we were walking to the Arboretum to head to my birthday picnic, we saw a lot of people out for a bike ride, so he wound up singing the chorus about 6 times in a row.

You ever listen to an album and don’t really vibe with it right away, but a couple years later a couple of the songs really start to crawl into your ears whenever you hear them? That’s happened to me with this album. Also, the cover image looks a lot like the building my band (“band”) has its practice space in.

This month’s top 5: Bad shirts of the monster truck show

So we took Hap to a Monster Jam show (technically in June, but just, and even if this issue wasn’t super super late it would have probably been within the scope) as a reward for something, and it was pretty much what you’d expect - loud and populated with people I probably disagree with politically - but most people were there with their kids and I assume it’s because their kids think monster trucks are awesome; so does mine, so I guess love of trucks unites kids everywhere. But there were a few shirts that either hinted at their wearers’ bad politics or were just plain old terrible. Herewith:

1. In the font of The Godfather movie poster, one that just said “Father” and his son in a corresponding “Son” shirt

2. A “thin blue line” flag except the line wasn’t blue, it was yellow, and it was made up of letters that spelled out BEER. With a pint glass at the end. I have no idea what they’re saying with this. Did someone just think it was a nifty design or are they trying to point out that they both love beer AND are racist?

3. Only one “Let’s Go Brandon” shirt, which was surprising on the whole! Also, sidebar, what a completely dumb slogan. What, you aren’t allowed to swear or something? Just say the thing! So what!

4. The official Gravedigger merch was a gleeful assault on the eyeballs. It’s like if Lisa Frank loved skeletons8. This one was into so-bad-it’s-good territory. UPDATE: I think it’s this one!

5. Also, there was a young woman wearing what had to have been a bodysuit (with mesh sleeves and shoulders). Are we doing bodysuits again? Please no.

I’m sorry this was late! I was busy!