#48: Falling apart, but in a hot way

Actual updates

Okay! It’s a time of the year that throws me into a tailspin every time, and the thing of it is, this year there are actually some real reasons to be depressed and on edge other than a) my own personal problems with Christmas specifically and the holiday season generally, and b) the state of the world, which, as you know, continues to be: bad! So get ready for a real blast of holiday cheer in here, by which I mean it’s a pile of bad news. Oh, and one other thing that isn’t “bad news” but it might be bad news, if you know what I mean1.

First up, to file under Owning Property is Not a Job2, our dear and precious friends over at Bone Up are in the thick of a truly miserable situation involving their landlord, and the long and short of it (you can read the longer short of it on their website, I think) is that they’re having to shut down at the end of this year. Obviously, I am disconsolate about this - it’s not just a great spot to hang out, or a place to see or put on cool shows, or a place to drink tasty beers, it’s our friends, and I love them and want them to be happy. My immediate reaction when someone is causing anguish to someone I care about is to leap into action in SOME way (usually by volubly cursing out whoever’s causing them hell, or making absolutely unfounded offers to fight someone in the streets, only one of which is any help in this situation), and right now the best way to do that is to help out with the not insubstantial expenses of the situation. If you’d like to join me, you can do that here. Also just go round and stop by, if you’re local, the whole point is that you should go and spend some time (and money!! obviously!!) before they gotta hang up the skates.

There’s only one silver lining here that I can see, and that’s that a shocking and dramatic event like this acts as a forcing factor for showing up, for telling people they’re important to you, for fast-tracking the level of friendship you meant to have all along. I’m glad about that bit. But I’m not glad it took this for it to happen.

Second misery, which can be filed under Holidays: Actually Not Good!, is that I made a hash of Thanksgiving (gave too many opinions on the turkey, too few opinions on the Snoop Dogg Mac & Cheese3, didn’t start the pie early enough and we wound up having to have it much later… the list goes on). And then I went and bought something for myself that Matt had been going to get me for a Christmas present, and it’s rare enough that I’ll want some kind of a physical present and not just a day off (and I mean a real day off, from both jobs, and from being woken up in the night by a cat - it’s basically impossible without getting a hotel room) so that was also a big problem. I also ordered something from another country for Matt that’s taking its sweet time getting here, so once again I came in late with the goods, story of my life. If you want my opinion as a grinch, Christmas is for the kids if you have to do it at all, but if you do have to do it, you have to put a good face on it so they don’t realize you’re miserable. It’s also hard to tell if I used to like it because I used to be a kid, or if it was just that my grandma was still alive, or if it was because the only stressful requirement I had to manage was finding my dad a present that he would actually use4.

Third up, this one’s for the Disappointing But Unsurprising file: remember that time I mentioned that I had submitted a short story to a competition? And that my pie-in-the-sky goal was to get longlisted? Well, I didn’t; at least, to my relief, the longlist included fewer people than they had originally projected, so I didn’t feel like the only one who didn’t make the cut. And I don’t know that I deserved to make it, especially; the edits I had to make to get under the word limit did some noticeable damage. The small victories of it were

1. doing it at all; I thought up an idea, wrote it, and edited it down (for all the good that part did) in 2 weeks flat, and then I sent it off to be judged like a person who thinks they have any business doing this

2. getting indignantly defended by friends who, and I can’t stress this enough, had not read a word of it. Imagine thinking I’ve done something good, sight unseen! Imagine how that would feel if someone just assumed, without any shred of proof, that what you did would have been worthy! Blew my mind wide open, I can tell you!

So. That’s that for that, although I might try to rework it a bit, add back in some of the meat I cut away with the trimmings, earn the ending a bit more, build out the characters a bit more (to where they were in my planning notebook, ha). Short stories are hard for a reason, and I’m one prolix bitch, if you couldn’t tell from reading this already. But it’s good to try the things you’re bad at, I have to keep reminding myself. I can’t get better at the form if I never practice it and fail at it. I sound like a motivational poster, and I should note that it is also very possible to practice the hell out of the thing and still be bad at it - I’m not owed talent! - just that there’s no way to get better any other way.

And finally, something totally different, except for how there’s a neat little segue from “writing and failing” to “writing something else, and possibly failing, we’ll see”: I’ve started another little short story, although this one has a different point of view than what-all I’ve written before. Specifically, it’s, well. Dirty. I am trying my hand at writing smut. Except it’s turning into more of a little vignette in these two people’s lives wherein sex is had but that’s not the whole thing of it, because once again I can’t shut myself up. I’ve invented a pizza slice shop called Pizza Boy, for goodness’ sake. Who’s writing sexy stories that have a Pizza Boy in them5? Not normal people, I can tell you! If it’s going to be more than a scene, though, it needs more - more plot, more character development, more of a theme than “you know how sometimes you used to know someone and you wish you could reconnect? What if you did… in bed?”, more more more. I’m going to fail at brevity once again - but this time, in a sexy way6!

What am I reading right now

I’m all into rereads now, because somehow, unimaginably, I have finished the to-read pile, and not added anything to it (yet. We’ll see.) - so I’m going back through my bookshelves in order. I’m currently nearly through the classic, or as the back cover copy calls it, “this miracle of autobiography and prison literature,”7 Borstal Boy, by Brendan Behan.

In case you’re unfamiliar, it’s his account of his time in prison and then borstal, which is a “reform school” but it sounds like there’s precious little school in it, it’s mostly a work farm, into which he was sent because he had come over to Liverpool with a suitcase full of explosives, ready to blow up a shipyard for the IRA. He gets arrested on the first page.

He’s “Paddy” all the way through, even to his closest friends, because he’s from Ireland; a Scottish friend is “Jock,” of course, and the odd time a Welsh kid turns up he’s “Taffy,” because the only people who get their own names are the English and everyone else gets their official stereotype designation nickname, and no one seems too bothered about it, which was something that felt interesting to me. Also, when he’s at Juvie-by-the-Sea with the other teens, no one’s on him for being in the IRA or for being ready to plant bombs about it, whereas in the prison with the adults, he got a lot of trouble from both guards and other prisoners.

The repetition of some phrases and expressions lend to the air of storytelling in the round-the-campfire vein - what’s the difference, after all, if it’s smoking like lords’ bastards or rosy-fingered dawn - and in general it’s a very companionable tale. Really makes going off to youth jail in the early 40s sound like a relatively good time. But I know what you want to know, you degenerates, because I am one too, and that’s: how gay is it?

The answer is: kind of! There’s a few references to guys hooking up, and Behan himself is every so often admiring his friend in more than a cursory way - obviously any friend of mine is a babe but I’m not out here rhapsodizing on the way someone’s hair ends on the back of their neck, and if I am, well!!! - and one of his besties inside gets into a very breakup-type flap about Behan spending more of his time with some of the other guys. It isn’t a book about a love story, but you barely have to look between the lines to see the outline of one.

And that shouldn’t surprise - my team claims Behan as one of our own, which is to say, a big bi, although one interview with his daughter makes it sound like she thinks he would just go with anyone who was alive and willing since he was an addict of everything, including sex. It’s hard to say whether this is the old stereotype - the ravenous, standardsless bisexual, the sluts of the rainbow, out to steal your sweetie whoever they may be - or whether there’s a point to it in his case, since he really did have addiction problems in terms of substances, and maybe this was just another addiction. I think it was for real, though. You don’t remember the way your friend’s limbs looked in the shower 20 years later if you haven’t been thinking about the way you felt ever since.

Also, he wrote The Auld Triangle8, did you know that?

Some links

Apparently this notion of the “crispy R” is all over linguistics TikTok, but as I’m not on TikTok, I can’t speak to that. In case you aren’t either, or if that’s not your area of the app, this is what some folks have decided to call a specific pronunciation of R (although I don’t think it sounds crispy at all, in fact quite the opposite). This article also goes into detail about how R is basically a vowel, which I think is a pretty interesting characterization! The “Crispy R” and Why R Is the Weirdest Letter

One facet of an old job I had was advising people on how to improve their SEO, and the key was always “make a good website that people will find useful and interesting.” This is an article about the people who make their living giving SEO advice but in the “here’s how to trick a search engine into ranking you more highly” vein. And the article is right, this kind of “optimization” has made the internet noticeably worse. You can always tell when someone has spent too much time listening to these guys, both in terms of how their website is9, and how they talk about SEO. The People Who Ruined the Internet

Ha ha haaaa! Shut up! But in seriousness, I know this, and it’s simply not a viable option for a career - but the fact that you can’t make money this way means that it’s increasingly something for people to do who either 1. are independently wealthy10, or 2. have both another job that provides their primary income, and the time and energy to write when they’re not doing that job. In other words, it restricts the group of people who are going to write anything you’re going to see to a very limited group, with, necessarily, a very limited group of perspectives, outside of the occasional big surprise smash hit, and no one can count on being one of those. Has It Ever Been Harder to Make a Living as an Author?

Man, people would use any damn thing to tell fortunes, huh? If I tried to tell my future with cheese, the answer would be “You’re about to eat some cheese.” And it would be right, too. Guess it does work. When Cheese Can Tell the Future

This is beautiful and moving and makes me miss going out into the woods by myself, which I never do anymore, and furthermore it has a geologically-improbable-looking photo of a cave. Don’t miss it. How to Get Lost

Heartbreaking and infuriating, this is a story of violence, power, and who is disposable vs who gets listened to. You’re not going to enjoy it, but you should read it anyway. One Woman Died on an Alaska Mayor’s Property. Then Another. No One Has Ever Been Charged

Here’s another one you’re going to hate! A fungus that can sicken, kill, or take the limbs of humans (and dogs!) thrives in a specific type of climate that is expanding due to climate change and desertification, so that’s just fucking great!! An Invisible Killer

Chop suey is practically a cliche of “Chinese food made for North American taste buds” and that has gotten it a bad rap in recent decades, but this essay aims to redeem it, and I think it succeeds. That said, I’ve never actually eaten this dish! Chasing Chop Suey: Tracing Chinese Immigration Through Food

I don’t think it’s going to be the one you think it will be. Or maybe it will! I don’t know what you know! But I do think a video we made for work once was based on it, because a whole bunch of us were posed in a way similar to the photo. I’ll have to find out!11 Is This the World’s Highest-Grossing Photograph?

I don’t know if “great” is a word I’d use for this guy, but he sure does bankroll a lot of undersea salvage operations (he isn’t going down there himself, he’s not trying to be a meme, apparently)! Shipwrecks are very cool, but as usual, this is the story of someone with a lot of money trying to ensure he can get a whole bunch more money. A Secretive Hedge-Fund Tycoon is the World’s Greatest Shipwreck Hunter

Cool bathrooms of yore! Insane bathrooms of yore!12 I scrolled through this with great interest, although I was hoping for more in the way of text to talk about why certain trends came and went at certain times. One thing you won’t be able to help but notice is that in the early 20th century, it’s rare to see a sink that isn’t either a pedestal or has those two thin metal legs holding it up at the front (which always make them look cheap and shabby to me, because nowadays I feel like you only see that in really shoddy situations). The Unsung Artistry of 20th Century American Bath Ware

It’s missile silos! Apparently this is still a thing we’re doing, in the year 2023! As if the world didn’t have enough ways to be ending! Although I have to say, I object to the insinuation that I’ve never heard of missile silos. Excuse me, I played SimCity 2000. Inside the $1.5-Trillion Nuclear Weapons Program You’ve Never Heard Of

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

Fun fact: I didn’t realize ol’ girl in the album cover image there had her actual human boob out, and I have owned this album for multiple years. Have I come down with the dreaded disease of Boob Blindness???13 Also, I was once criticized for liking this band’s first album due to it being “too produced,” which I understand - they’ve definitely known the touch of a marketer - but at the same time, no one’s bona fides are perfect on this count! Still, it goes to show that it’s not unfounded to be nervous about admitting to enjoying something, even in this day and age, even as an adult, even between people who allegedly like each other. This is the service I provide as a friend: I will never tell you your taste is bad14.

This wasn’t the song that got me in the door with Tacocat, but I decided this was the one to share because of how much fun it is, as a song about periods. It even includes my favorite international period euphemism: “there are communists in the fun house” - and this video is a kick. I especially like that they’re all wearing white in parts of it. True bravery.

Real into this as well. Pretty songs about hating someone forever are in my wheelhouse. Both this and the previous band were brought to my attention… algorithmically, via one or another of those comically-named Spotify daylists. They don’t always nail it, and sometimes they’re too samey, but I’ve found a few new-to-me bands and artists that way and also gotten the idea to do deep dives on other, more familiar bands that way. So: begrudging kudos to the machine. Sometimes it gets it right.

And as it’s the last issue of the year, that means it’s time once again for the playlist of all the songs I’ve posted in this newsletter this year! It’s a little longer this time around, aren’t you lucky. It’s not in the order they were posted, it’s in an order that sounds good to me, because I cannot let go of the tape-making mindset, nor do I wish to.

This month’s top 5: this year’s top 5

This is a silly and impossible task, and it’s going to take as long to think up as the rest of the issue took to write altogether, but it seems like I might enjoy setting myself difficult but meaningless tasks. Let’s see what I’ve got.

1. I feel like I had to deal with bees more than average?

2. The busted dishwasher saga - still busted, by the way! I have to call the repair place today to see if the part came in yet. It’s been a couple months so far.

3. Signing up to pay more money than I’ve ever paid for anything other than a whole entire house (and honestly, it’s a significant fraction of that amount) for the siding, which also hasn’t gotten going yet.

4. The whole learning-to-drive lark - I felt moderately confident in it, and then I kind of stopped going because things were happening, and now I don’t know if I remember how to do it at all. I wish there was a way for me to have been keeping up with practice outside of lessons, but there’s not. I know I have to get back into it, I know!

5. NOT BEING FUCKING MOVED YET!!!

Okay, so, top 5, bottom 5, Time Most Influential 5, who can say what the difference is. Anyway, these 5 things definitely happened this year and evinced some kind of a reaction from me. Looks like the majority of them will continue to be an issue into next year, which just… fills me with overwhelming joy, for sure.

But all is not gloom and doom. Henry Kissinger has finally died, so at least we have that to console us. It doesn’t help undo anything he did, and it’s of course incredibly frustrating that he never saw any sort of justice for his crimes, and I’m worried about it getting meme-ified and then nothing further being done to redress his wrongs or stop promulgating policies he would have loved, but it’s something, at least.

Well, see you in 2024; may it be a better one than this one. It’s a low bar to clear, but it seems like we always find a way to limbo under it.