#42: It's just one damn year after another

Actual updates

It is now officially June, and that means the sound of air guitar is in the… air. As ever, I am unprepared, but as ever, it doesn’t matter. That’s the number one thing I want to tell anyone who’s kicking around the idea of signing up1. It does not matter. If you do a great job, you might win and go to Nationals. If you don’t, you have a fun time hanging out with your friends. Losing is not a punishment and no one thinks less of you if you do2.

That’s the month to come, though, so let’s take a look back at the month that was.

Mothers’ Day, my least favorite holiday (for me! for me. I like it for my own mom and for other people who are moms and want to be celebrated about it) happened, sort of. We had plans to go out to lunch. Hap got sick instead3. He also got sick the next weekend, when we were going to make it up, so we chucked it and just ordered dinner instead. Honestly, it was for the best: the place we were planning to go is close to the Boston Garden, and that night was a Game 7 playoff basketball game. It would have been so crowded and hectic, so it’s better we all just stayed home.

May and June are one damn thing after another with us; May contains Mothers’ Day followed immediately by my birthday, and then two weeks later it’s our anniversary and then Fathers’ Day. I’m personally only interested in the latter two, but people want me to care about the first two, which I will do in the case of my birthday when it’s a milestone. It was a milestone last year, so this year we just sort of hung out on the actual day.

We did have plans for the weekend, though: my mother-in-law was coming down to take care of Hap, because Matt had a surprise planned for me. The surprise turned out to be a sushi class, which was delicious (and very sweet of Matt, since he doesn’t even like sushi or fish in general, but still bought himself a ticket), and we made some honestly passable sushi! The rice was excellent, and of course the fish and other contents were delicious, and my rolls nearly stayed shut.

I learned a couple things, too. First of all, I learned that every time my friends and I had tried, amateurishly, to make sushi in high school, we were apparently taking our lives in our hands. The chef spent a great deal of time repeating that not only should you not buy your sushi fish from a supermarket, but neither should you buy your rice there. Now, when I was a kid, we weren’t buying fish, we were just using vegetables and maybe some smoked salmon if someone’s parents had it lying around, so we weren’t really rolling the dice here - although we did just buy supermarket rice and follow a sushi rice recipe, and lived! Against all odds, apparently.

This was not the only thing he held forth on. He began the lesson by giving late arrivals a few extra minutes, he said, by talking about his background for a bit. Fine! Normal! Except then he reiterated it at least once, sometimes twice, so he made sure we knew how much sushi and restaurant experience he had had, and specifically, how much experience he had had making sushi for the rich and famous. He did that thing where you don’t quite name-drop someone, but you describe them a bit, so that the listener knows you want to tell them who it is but are bound to secrecy since you’re a professional. Then, a few more repetitions of the rules around where not to buy fish and rice from, and the handful of outlets he approves of. Finally, it was time for the actual Making of the Sushi.

We were going to be making three rolls: a shrimp tempura handroll, a California roll, and a spicy tuna roll. Chef stood up front and ran through the steps to make all three.

Once.

For about 2 minutes each.

Sushi’s fast! Even more so when you’re a pro with, as he made sure we knew, a few decades of experience. And then it was time to collect the ingredients, table by table, and make our sushi. That’s it. 25 minutes of talking about his resume, 5 or 6 about how to make the sushi, good luck to you!

We did all right, as a table - our sushi tasted delicious, of course, which was really down to the ingredients since our job was strictly assembly, and the end results didn’t look too embarrassing. But if someone forgot which sauce went in which roll, or whether this one also had cucumber, we were pretty much stuck with asking each other, peering over at other tables to see what they had done, and best guesses. It was fun! It was tasty! But all in all, I think I’ll stick to spending a few bucks at the neighborhood sushi joint for a pro to make my sushi for me.

What am I reading

I’m in the middle of Once in a Great City, by David Maraniss. A history of a 2-year period in Detroit, Matt picked it up for a dollar at a library book sale4 thinking it was fiction, which it isn’t.

It’s covering a crucial (I’m assuming) period in the car industry there, contrasted with the birth and rise of Motown. I can already tell this book is going to come with some noticeable effects on the playlist; the description of the artists and their current-at-the-time hits who were starting off on a tour at the outset of the book already had me singing5 “Do You Love Me (Now That I Can Dance)” out loud in my empty house. Tragically, it was written before the period where authors are asked to make playlists for their books as a means of publicity - I know plenty do it on their own, for fun6, I did, not that I’m at the point or level where anyone would have to make me - because this is the book whose playlist I want to listen to.

It’s also a crucial period in both the civil rights struggle and labor organizing. And apparently Detroit also had an Olympic bid at the time? Also, the mob! And it’s all happening right there in Detroit.

The author’s thesis is also that the seeds of Detroit’s eventual decline were already present, even at this very high point in its history, and may have been built in from the beginning7. I’m not sure I’ve gotten far enough into the book to see where he’s coming from on that, other than that basing the whole town’s economy off one industry was never a good idea. But I’m not quite halfway through yet (and I’m behind on where I should be, according to my very annoying and … not-un-mentally-ill internal rubric), so let’s give it time.

Some links

I can’t believe I had no idea about any of this. Not her existence, not her disappearance, not her music (which I am listening to right as I type this, and so can you). Before Dylan, There Was Connie Converse. Then She Vanished.

What happens when art is subsumed by fashion? When it’s bought and incorporated by brands? A really interesting exploration. How Merchants of Style Became the Institution of Art

I don’t suppose this is information I will personally be needing, but what if you’re going anywhere? I wouldn’t want you to get caught in flight-cancellation hell like we were, last year. Also, in my notes, I had just accompanied this link with two words, meant to be read in a particular tone: “Trrrravel tips.” Strikes, Delays, and Lost Luggage: How to Survive Air Travel this Summer

Or, A Japanese Mobster in the Chicago Mafia: The Last Gamble of Tokyo Joe

Growing up in Canada, to me “American cheese” was synonymous with “Kraft Singles,” but when I moved here, Matt let me know that it was actually a kind of cheese, not just a brand - you could buy it from the deli and people actually liked it on its merits, not just for the guilty and sort of horrible pleasure of eating it straight from the plastic wrap8 or its supreme meltability on a burger. Well. Now the fancy cheesefolk have gotten their mitts on it. Is this… good? Unclear. The Next Generation of American Cheese

It’s an alien-contact test! And it’s a question of whether we should be trying to get in touch with aliens anyway. A Message Just Arrived from Outer Space. Can You Decode It?

Of course I was going to share this one. Indonesia has decided that the solution to the problem of Jakarta being constantly menaced by the sea (parts of it are literally below sea level now, and were not, within living memory!) and of it being overcrowded and polluted and not built with an overarching plan is to build a whole new capital on an entirely different island. From scratch. It’s an ambitious plan! Clearly there needs to be some plan! But is this it? Welcome to Nusantara

Guess where they aren’t, though!! Why Suicide Rates are Dropping Around the World

Phew, this hit. I hesitate to say I was “bullied” - I suppose I was, by some definition, by some people, but primarily it was just that I was a coolness liability for my friends, and they were just trying to help themselves survive in the hostile environment of high school. But regardless of who perpetrated it, it results in exactly what JP Brammer describes here: since any trait, any utterance, any expression of a preference could be used against you, you become hyperaware of this; you can see exactly where to pull to unravel someone else. Sure, but more so with me, I’ve always preliminarily disavowed anything I’m about to express an interest in or a preference for, always put myself at a degree of ironic remove, when there’s any hint of vulnerability. Someone’s going to think it’s stupid, you know, and you have to buttress against that by making it clear that you also think it’s stupid. I don’t know. This is probably a fairly universal experience! The essay is beautiful, though, and you should read it. Angry Person

This is a full on adventure. Things are happening all the time just out of view. A Trucker’s Kidnapping, a Suspicious Ransom, and a Colorado Family’s Perilous Quest for Justice

Sing it. Well, I mean, there are arguments to be made over the specifics, which they get into in the piece, but if you’re just looking at the headline, SING IT. Land Ownership Makes No Sense

A bit embarrassing reading this, as the parent of a kid with a fairly unique name (although not in the Keighleighnn vein, and don’t worry, that famous picture of the momfluencer and her chalkboard of idiotic names is skewered herein), but at least we weren’t trying to be quirky for the sake of quirkiness - we couldn’t agree on a name for a boy, which we were both surprised to learn we were having. We were somehow convinced there was a girl on the way, and we easily agreed that she would get both of our grandmothers’ names, and even the order was easy to agree upon. And then the scan came back male, and we had to start some real discussions. Hap had a very real chance of having an “ordinary” name, there were various options put forth by both of us that the other didn’t care for, and the only winner was the unusual option. But then, I have an unusual9 name myself, and I love it, so maybe I was primed to feel positively towards giving out another one. The Baby Name Boom

I had no idea there was a Jeopardy Mystery And Scandal! But there is! Sort of! The Search for the Lost “Jeopardy” Tapes is Over. The Mystery Behind Them Endures.

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

I love a catchy song about the end of the world (as evidenced by … so much). Seriously, though, it’s actually quite sad but it gets stuck in my head anyway.

I heard this song on another book playlist - for Let This Radicalize You, which I’m excited to read even though its turn has not yet come up in the old book pile, and it’s fantastic. I’m late to this party, but I’m late to every party. Who cares.

I feel like there’s a theme in this month’s selections, although this wasn’t deliberate. But it should have been!

This month’s top 5: Why does my throat still hurt?

It’s been a week! After things improved following a couple really rough days, I thought I was on the way out of the woods, but it has plateaued at “mostly fine except in the mornings and at night and also kind of all the time but not very bad.” Which I don’t relish!

1. Secret covid??? Tests say no, but maybe I have the ultra-stealth kind! Because I’m special.

2. Went outside in the rain (a few times in one day) before being all the way better and now I have a 19th-century cold and must wrap my neck in a rag and sit by a fire

3. Regular cold that’s really committed to the sore throat portion of proceedings

4. It’s smoky out today due to fires in Quebec10 and I was outside in it for a while

5. Talking too much (likeliest scenario)

This is so late! However, since it is now June and therefore Pride month, I am within my rights to be as late as I need to be. Also I fell asleep a lot when I was supposed to be writing.