#43: Being in the dark

...and shedding some light? I dunno, I tried, this thing's late, let's just get it out the door

July 10, 2023

Actual updates

I am writing this in the dark.

I am writing this in the dark, because our power has gone out, and it is 9:30pm, and that means it is dark here at this time of year. By the time I publish this, the power will be back on; it’s likely to be back on even by the time I finish this paragraph. We live on top of a hill, so you’d think we’d be at more risk of losing power every time there’s a storm. but we don’t; it’s rare to happen at all, and when it does, it usually just lasts a minute or two and then comes back on. The power has been out for ten, fifteen minutes now so far.

I have a theory as to why we don’t lose power very much, despite what would appear to be our geographical disadvantage. I think it’s a survival-of-the-fittest thing: all the weak or dead or brittle trees and branches have already blown down, and all that’s left are the sturdy ones that are unfazed by a bit of wind or the extra weight of a rainstorm. It’s not a perfect theory. Trees die. That drought we had last summer killed a shrub1 in our backyard, and I’m sure it wasn’t alone.

When the power first went out, I remembered that Hap had had the flashlight upstairs in his room, for reasons I cannot recall, and I went up and got it in the pitch dark. I can walk confidently around the house without being able to see, unless someone has left their legos or toy cars or something in the middle of a travel path, which was not the case tonight, thank goodness. I like being able to move through my home by heart. It’s noticeable when something is moved just a little, because my toes will catch on it, not expecting it to be there, and it’s jarring when something is moved a lot. We have friends who rearrange their furniture frequently, and while I’m glad that brings them joy and their house always looks great, I could never do that myself. I’m awake at night too much for that to be realistic.

I guess I’ll have to memorize a new house and a new set of paths when we move. I wonder how long that takes. I’ve never paid attention before, but now I will.

Electricity segue: we’ve replaced our 12-year-old car with a new one, also a Prius - although it’s the Prius Prime now, which means it can plug in. It’s nice! I like it! But it’s also impossible to tell what is nice about it because it’s a somewhat fancier model than our old one was, and what is just nice about it because it’s been 12 years and cars are just better now. We had the same experience when we bought the previous car - the car it was replacing was about 16 years old, and car technology had come a long way. Headlights, in particular, had improved noticeably. And now we’re having that again, I think - the car is new, so of course nothing about it is run down, and some things are standard now that would have been pretty special in the era of the old car. The backup camera, in particular, is going to make me soft when it comes to parallel parking, I worry.

Speaking of. I’ve got my first few driving lessons booked, and they’re coming up in, what, a couple weeks. I’m a little nervous, mainly about what my instructor will be like (I know the answer is “weird,” but in what way?) but also about the actual thing of it. I’ve shifted into overachiever mode and now I need to come out of this as an actual Good Driver. Ideally, really good. I try to be a good parent who instils in my child the concept that everyone starts out kind of crappy at whatever new thing they try, and through the process of practice and learning, you become better at it over time, and not being a natural doesn’t mean you should give up, but my brain is very much on a “not for you, though” trip and has been since I was little. So I’ve got to battle that, too. I might suck at first! In fact, it’s very likely! And then I’ll get better, probably! But it’s a hard slog. And I really do want to be a better driver than my Car Guy brother, mainly for the bit2.

Other than cars and power outages, let’s see, what else have I got? Hap graduated from Kindergarten, or rather from this thing they do here called “K1,” which is some kind of non-preschool pre-K (which he was slotted into because he turned 5 two weeks after the cutoff date). The graduation was really sweet and also took up the whole morning. The next week, which is this week, we’ve packed him off to Matt’s mom’s place in Vermont, and are enjoying a little Parental Vacation (the kind of vacation where you still have to work and so on, but I suppose we’ve got the week off from the one job). We’re not super taking advantage of it, unless you consider getting to drink a whole cup of tea without having to get up for any reason any times in the middle “taking advantage,” which I do.

Outside of that? Well, outside: it’s summer.

Summer is a bit fraught, you know, as the owner of a body. I’m very much in my “who cares” era now that I’m old, because truly, who does care, but that only extends to going outside wearing things. It doesn’t always extend to how I feel about it. I’m trying to be less interested in how my physical form presents, since anyone who would care is a dipshit, and my value isn’t based on what other people think of me anyway - you know, all the right things to say. But every now and then I have to try on clothes, or I spend too much time looking at the little lumps and ridges of my legs in a pair of shorts, and the old poisons bubble back up.

The funny thing is that age thins out your face, even while it might thicken you up elsewhere. I wish I was someone who really became dramatic-looking in my old age; it seems to happen to AMAB people way more often, but my genes laugh at the idea. I do have cheekbones now, though, which you will never see in person. You can see them when I hold my face still, which I never do. When I’m talking and laughing and all that, they’re erased; there’s something interesting in there to think about, but I haven’t got the time.

But my face did narrow down some as I have gotten older, and now it has a less simple shape, which I think makes it more interesting; not to say that other people’s face shapes are boring, but I think mine was waiting to grow into this stage. The rest of me has gotten rounder while my face has gotten more angular; it’s a constant battle on that front to remind myself that other people’s opinions of my looks are unimportant and any friend who would think less of me for being less conventionally attractive is no friend at all. It doesn’t bother me in and of itself, but I have to keep telling myself that my worth is not predicated on other people’s assessments, because for a long time, it was. I don’t have to tell you about that - many, if not most, of you have lived it.

But, anyway, that’s what summer brings with it3, because I don’t hesitate to get my assorted parts out, all the striations and swags of flesh, and people have to see them, and that’s that.

What am I reading

On the recommendation of several of you, I’m in the middle of Jade City, by Fonda Lee. It’s the first in a trilogy, and I already know I’m going to be very eager to get to the second and third books.

It’s a mob story, but it’s also a story about magic, which is a story about drugs, by way of which it’s also a story about power.

The magic is in jade, which thereby rockets up the ranks from semi-precious to extremely fucking precious; it is earned through several years of hard study at a school devoted to harnessing and utilizing its powers, won by killing an opponent, or stolen. The powers in question enhance your abilities and grant you some new ones; it’s useful as a weapon but also as a way of moving through the world with greater awareness of your surroundings. But it can kick back on you pretty hard; it’s a tool that can easily turn on its user. It is primarily owned and used by organized crime.

That’s not quite accurate - they’re not crime, exactly, although there is certainly an aspect of the protection racket at play - but they have more Legitimate Business enterprises that are actually legitimate than your average Soprano4, and they’re uncontroversially involved in city government at some levels.

The book follows the scions of one of the mob families as they navigate increasing tensions between clans, betrayals from within, violent showdowns - you know, the good stuff. Now imagine all that mob shit… with magic. This is a story that feels big, even though it largely takes place in one city, in one family. Ooh it’s good.

Some links

This guy died - actually died - briefly, while playing hockey, and that meant that he had the fairly unique experience of being able to watch it on video later when he got better. Sudden Death

This looks at people who were around 27 in 2002, when I was 20 and still in college, so my life was a bit different than this - no one I knew had an office job yet, for instance - but other than that, it basically checks out for me too. It was perfectly normal to simply not know where someone was. It was not weirdo behavior to phone your friends and talk to them out loud on the phone for literal hours5. No one was swinging by anyone’s work to hang out, because we were in college, so if someone had a job, it probably wasn’t hangoutable (although mine was - feel free to come and sit around in the computer lab while I work the late shift, friends! We can walk each other to the train afterwards!), but outside of that: yeah! Young People Have No Idea What We Used to Do After Work. Let Me Regale You

Ok, I don’t have the memory of this book being everywhere like this article mentions, because, you know, I was negative 12 years old when it came out, but it’s interesting to see how much it got right (and, obviously, like the article title says, how much it got wrong). In 1970, Alvin Toffler Predicted the Rise of Future Shock - But the Exact Opposite Happened 

Diner history! Diner politics! Read it with a slice of pie, I guess? The Myth of the American Diner

Ok, I’ve never watched Selling Sunset and I’m in no hurry to start, but this is bonkers. Are there any rich people with taste? Why Are There So Many Bathrooms in the Houses on Selling Sunset?

I can vouch for this from personal experience - someone gave us a recipe that they had had generated by an AI and never tested, and it was a wet mess - but also, if you’re already going online and typing in the sort of recipe you want into something online, why not just use equal effort to type it into a search engine and receive a real recipe, made and tested by a human? Go Ahead and Make Your AI Recipe. It Won’t Be Good

Finally, scientific proof that I don’t exist! What a relief. Eastern Philosophy Says There Is No “Self.” Science Agrees 

I had no idea this had happened at all, let alone right here in Boston! This is a wild ride. Hey Dad, Can You Help Me Return the Picasso I Stole? 

Further in art mysteries, but this time with 100% more shady rich people! The Mystery of the Disappearing Van Gogh

You might think this is one of those headlines that says it all, but, incredibly, it is not! There’s more! In the American West, a Clown Motel and a Cemetery Tell a Tale of Kitsch and Carnage 

I enjoyed this read so much. I have never waited tables - my restaurant6 experience has only been back of house - but I really think everyone needs to spend some time in their life working in a restaurant (in some capacity) or a store, or both, in order to be a decent person who knows how to behave. You can always tell when someone has never had to work a public-facing service job in their life, and I 100% mean that derogatorily. Bad Waitress 

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

Something, I can’t remember what, reminded me about Manu Chao, and I recalled that this album - I’m pretty sure - was one of the two cds we had in the car when 3 friends and I drove around all night after graduation. Despite nothing really happening, other than my friend getting pulled over a couple blocks from his house on his way home to change immediately after the ceremony (the cops knew it was a lot of high schools’ graduation night and were convinced he must therefore have been drinking, even though he blew a breathalyzer and was clean, and they hassled him until he admitted to having a glass of champagne with his parents 4 hours before, at which point they were satisfied and let him go7), and despite not being able to remember anything we talked about all night long, this is still a core memory. That said, Gogol Bordello’s cover of “Mala Vida” is better than the original.

Another throwback! One day in college, I read a magazine article about the record label that this band, and for that matter Atari Teenage Riot8, were on, and I thought I’d better have a listen. Well, it was 2001, so I fired up Limewire or some goddamn thing like that and downloaded a couple songs, and somehow didn’t murder my computer in the process. I was into them for a bit, and then I kind of forgot about them, and now I’ve remembered that this is the internet and nothing is ever really gone, so please enjoy this extremely sophisticated and elegant song about being here for a good time, not for a long time, baby.

This one is a flat out jam, which I was introduced to by the good buddy Scherezade (whose newsletter, as always, I recommend!) via a playlist they made. Further to the tape-making footnote, playlist-making is its nearest successor, albeit not as good (there are no time constraints! there are nearly no content constraints9! you never have to tape anything off the radio!). I want to make you a tape by means of a playlist! I get very excited whenever someone makes one for me - or even not for me but for the friend group at large, of which I am a member! Curating music is a love language!

This month’s top 5: parents’ week off activities

Other than, you know, the obvious.

  1. Sitting down to drink a cup of tea and read my book and not having to get up in the middle of it even once. This is the hands down winner.

  2. Going out to see a movie10 without having to make additional plans or determine whether this is a movie Hap could watch

  3. Spending SO MUCH LESS TIME washing dishes. It’s kind of nuts how many additional dishes are generated by one person who only eats like a dozen different things.

  4. Working a full day during normal hours, without needing to take any breaks to engage in parental activities, and therefore not signing back on late at night to make up for lost time

  5. Going to air guitar (without arranging childcare etc) and staying out until 4am, a thing that really did happen AND WE LIVED

Oh: yeah, the lights came back on about 5 minutes later.

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