#60: Two-sided coin

Actual Updates

How are we doing so far? Bad? Me too. I hope you’ve found something you can do to help yourself, your family, your community; I had a moment the other day where I realized I had been too busy taking care of things to experience misery, and obviously that isn’t a viable long-term solution (wrap yourself up in tasks to avoid feeling a feeling! i too have boomer parents!) but when you have non-negotiable needs to attend to, like a sick kid or a complex work problem or doing something for a community group, you can’t wallow. Underneath it all? Still feeling real bad! But the things have to be thung.

But as to the specifics of the things I personally am thinging, I’ll likely say little about them in here. What is normal and legal now possibly won’t be within the next few years, and you have to be sensible about how you behave on the public internet. So, just to say that if you don’t see me talking about very serious things in here, that doesn’t mean they aren’t on my mind or my schedule. Also, you never want to get surprised by finding out someone you know is cop-brained.

Speaking of sick kids! Mine was! He has had two different bugs in the space of two weeks, and I’m writing this ¾ of the way through the month so who knows what else he’ll come down with. It is simultaneously very normal and very scary (especially since whenever he gets a fever, which is whenever he can, it jumps up to alarming heights when the medicine wears off). It is hard to work with a sick kid at home in the next room, especially when he is the kind of sick where he feels fine for most of the time and is full of energy and needs attention, but it does also take up most of my mental wherewithal - in between illnesses, I would realize that I was in a bad way emotionally (you’re thinking “ah, the election” but this is actually my own handcrafted artisanal depression, plus what I suspect is a little added perimenopausal mood sharpening). I’m not enjoying it! I’m not enjoying my kid being sick either, to be clear, that is simply another type of bad!

What am I getting at. I’m getting at: I’m struggling! I’m having a bad time! I can’t stop failing at everything and I’m getting external validation on that feeling, so I can’t just write it off as my own brain trying to fuck with me. More things than usual feel like a grain of sand in the eye of my soul. I want to take a day off to just lie on the floor and cry¹ but it’s hard to take time off in this part of the year, and also whenever I do that, I find I’m not in the mood to lie around and cry anymore. Can’t imagine why. But also, this part of the year is the part of the year where I feel the worst! It’s seasonal but not in the “it’s cold and the sun sets early” way - the rest of winter is fine. It’s specifically The Holidays and the fact that this makes me a thief of joy for other people makes it even worse. At least it will be over in a few weeks.

What else, what else. The cat’s still alive. What, that seemed dubious the last time I was writing an issue!

Oh… and… it’s been a big month for exciting things I can’t talk about yet. At current count, I’m at two. Depending on what I hear and when, I might be able to announce some interesting upcoming stuff. And yes I’m saying this right on the back of bemoaning my various miseries! I have the skills and talents to be both hopeful and wretched at the same time!

What am I reading

Ok so once again I am well behind on reading; entire days go by when I don’t get a chance to open a book at all, and it bothers me - I had a day off recently and got caught up, only to immediately fall behind again the next day. So while I don’t think I would still be reading this book anymore if I had gotten a chance to open it as much as I should have, here’s where I am.

So I’m rereading this book, I, Che Guevara, by “John Blackthorn” (a pseudonym, on which more in a moment), and I think back when I bought it, I didn’t think too deeply about it other than its premise of “What if Che Guevara didn’t actually die, and in 1999/2000 returned to Cuba as an old man under an assumed name, as their first free (or ‘free’) elections were about to take place?”

As a premise, it’s interesting! You could take that somewhere cool, surely! But unfortunately, he doesn’t. Instead, he’s got Che older, wiser, mellowed, and some kind of… libertarian, I guess? He goes from town to town telling the people that they actually have a third choice beyond just voting for the renamed Communist Party who’ve been in power most of their lives, or the pro-America, pro-capitalism Free Cuba party, and maybe that’s believable, but instead he’s going “you can govern your own towns and villages, you don’t need these politicians telling you what to do!” and brandishing Thomas Jefferson’s writings. I don’t know, maybe politically this is likely, maybe it’s not - who can say how a guy’s politics would change after hiding out pretending to be dead for 30 years - but it just feels like politics fanfiction.

And who is writing such fanfiction? Let me read you what he says about himself:

His name is “known in international capitals,” okay?? I think I’m going to sprain my eyes from rolling them so hard.

Also, my dude here CANNOT write women. Every female character must first be introduced by way of her looks, her clothing, her hairdo, and her jewelry (if applicable). Their value is generally tied to their sexual availability and desirability, and any in the same field as each other are catty and back-biting when it comes to one another. Oh, he mentions the occasional capable woman (“[So-and-so]’s daughter will run it”] but none of them have any further fleshing-out, that being reserved for the ones he can focus on the actual flesh of.

I think once I’m finished, it’s going in the give-away pile. I’ll give it away to you if you feel like giving it a chance! But after this incredible sales job I’ve just done on it, I understand if you do not want it.

Some links

Be warned - it’s going to be a big one. I had some left over last month that I couldn’t squeeze in in time, so you’re getting them all. Gives you something to read while you avoid talking to a relative, or while you’re mailing it in at the end of the year at work (this is not a criticism on anyone, people taking it easy at their jobs during this period makes MY job easier, so please keep doing it). Enjoy.

Or maybe: don’t enjoy. And consider that if it’s too hot to do sports in, it’s too hot to do a lot of regular everyday things in, and the Olympics are optional. These Cities Will Be Too Hot for the Olympics by 2050

Bad! Don’t enjoy! The Climate Crisis in Charts: How 2024 Has Set Unwanted New Records

I don’t enjoy this, either!! 44 Scientists Just Warned Us About a Catastrophic Ocean Current Collapse

However, this is cool and good ocean news. And I like the description of it as looking like it was thrown together from the leftover parts after assembling other animals. Same, Bathydevius caudactylus, same. Astounding New Marine Species Found Off the California Coast

A former newspaper reporter becomes disabled and unable to work, and from there, homeless. As you might imagine, he does an incredible job of painting a picture of how it goes, how it perpetuates itself, and how close people - who look down at him for being Officially Homeless - are to the same struggle. The Invisible Man

I’ve got a soft spot for articles designed to start fights. And while I don’t agree with everything on here, I do think that most of these are “important,” in the sense of having had some kind of impact, even if they aren’t the best recipes of the past 100 years. The 25 Most Important Recipes of the Past 100 Years

Don’t sage your house, for goodness sake. They’re right when they say that it’s appropriative of Indigenous practices, and also hippy dippy white people doing it has contributed to deforestation (well, de-shrubberization?) of native sage plants. But do buddy up with your local ghost. A Guide to Ghostbusting Your Haunted House

I sobbed reading this. It’s horrible and evocative and hopeless and hopeful. What Do You Do After You Accidentally Kill a Child?

I was never much of a Nancy Drew kid - I read just about all of the Bobbsey Twins books, but I don’t think I was the right age for Nancy Drew when I first encountered her, so she never truly landed for me. But it surprises me not at all that there are people who are part of a deep fandom of the character. Among the Sleuths: Looking for Answers at the Nancy Drew Convention

You ever hear a recording, or maybe you’re present for a rendition, of a song, and then you can never find it again? It’s not on any album², it’s not on a streaming service, it just doesn’t exist? Lost Ones

The sewer cleanliness is stored in the balls: The 19th-Century Iron Balls Still Cleaning the Paris Sewers

Speaking of Paris, I did not know that it was illegal for regular people to take photos outside in public in occupied Paris, but it was, and for years, a bundle of such photos had been saved. Once they turned up again, the search for the photographer was on. How France Uncovered the Mystery of the Forbidden Photos of Nazi-Occupied Paris

Alright, so, normally I’m not dropping obituaries in here, but this guy seems really cool. He was the Clocks Guy for a whole city! He built one of the main tourist attractions (if you’re not familiar with the Gastown Steam Clock, here’s the goods; also, if you’re not familiar, Gastown is the Ye Olde Historical Districte of town and it’s named after a real piece of shit guy! I’m not proud of this!!). Anyway THIS guy seems cool: Obituary: Roy Saunders Was the Keeper of Vancouver’s Clocks and the Builder of the Gastown Steam Clock

I think my favorite part of this is that the base didn’t used to be that far buried in the snow, but over the course of a few decades of winters, it is now deeply buried. Anyway: COOL. NASA Radar Reveals Cold War “City Under the Ice”

All about the real-life houses used in your favorite shows and movies! I think if I was one of the homeowners involved, I’d be more along the lines of the Goonies House people and want everyone to go away and leave my house alone, but not everyone feels that way. This House Looks Familiar

Kinda neat. Basically the New Look premiered on wiremothers³. The 27-Inch Dolls that Saved Fashion in Post-War Paris

I feel like they’re KIND OF overselling the “monster” aspect here, but the sculptures are cool, and the story behind it is also pretty intriguing! Discover the Mysteries of Italy’s Park of Monsters, a 16th-Century Garden Filled With Strange, Colossal Stone Creatures

Ok, yes, art thievery and solving the mysteries thereof are both interesting, but I think the most interesting little nugget of information in this article is that the man who invented the John Birch Society is a little baby who has to have milk and cookies before bed every night. Works by Pissarro, Renoir, and Avercamp Vanished. Here’s How an Amateur Art Sleuth Cracked the Case

I’m going to let the headline clickbait you about who the uncle is, but suffice it to say, when Boeing’s screaming incompetence causes a fatal crash, he’s not who you’d want to be the uncle of one of the victims. A Grieving Mother. A Famous Uncle. An Unlikely Crusade

After I send you this email, I’m going to spend a day watching the read and clickthrough numbers tick up, so it’s pretty rich for me to present this like some kind of a revelation. The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

Some people apparently find it mysterious that someone could have something just because they want it, not because they could make money off of it. The Million Dollar Mystery of milk.com

Well, you had to know I would share an article about a lost cave (and it maybe being found?). What Is the “Cyclopean Cave” - And Why Are These Guys Hauling Buckets of Colorado Mud to Find It?

I would not enjoy it! What It’s Like to Work on a Megayacht

To quote the version of Mick Jagger that existed in the short-lived tv show Knights of Prosperity, and also to quote me ever since watching that show, “You’re never alone… with hat.” The Hat that Purchased a Kingdom

Speaking of the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Watch as a normal person - well, a normal person who is a great writer - hosts a cocktail party a la Martha in her New York apartment… stay for the indictment of Martha Stewart as a specifically Reagan-era artifact. Martha Stewart’s “Entertaining” Let Me Party Like It Was 1982

The book being reviewed here cautions against ascribing sentimentality to the animals whose behavior is described herein, but you’re going to experience emotions nonetheless. What Do Animals Understand About Death

I think about this kind of thing a lot, especially as someone who can very literally leave - the country, not even just a state. Not everyone can, and the people who can’t are the people who were always at greater risk. So how can we best stand up for the people who are stuck in an oppressive situation? Well, we can start by listening to what they themselves say they need. Not Everyone Can Leave: Survival Advice from Trans Teens in Texas

Speaking of escapes. The situation of the Uyghurs in China is dire, and it turns out that leaving the country is not an instant improvement - other countries are eager to stay on China’s good side, and that means locking up migrant Uyghurs on China’s behalf. He Made a Daring Escape from China. Then His Real Troubles Began.

Heh heh, fruit detective. No, but in seriousness, this is amazing: there used to be many, many more varieties of fruit (thanks, agribusiness!!), and looking at the fruit depicted in art can actually show what those varieties were. What a cool job to have! Meet the Italian “Fruit Detective” Who Investigates Centuries-Old Paintings for Clues About Produce That Has Disappeared from the Kitchen Table

I don’t think fancy estate auctioneers do the fast-talking thing like cattle auctioneers⁴, but that would be the one way to improve this guy. He sounds like a character. An Auctioneer As Rare As Any Antique

I don’t agree with prison as an institution. The fact that that’s where this author saw his way to becoming a person who would not make the same choices as he used to, which brought pain and suffering to many and brought himself to jail - he’s clear about what it was that actually helped. That could have been provided anywhere else. The problem is that it wasn’t. Letter to My Teenage Self: An Incarcerated Man Interrogates the Person He Once Was

As a non-Tiktok user, I have not been served up “aspirational grocery shopping” content, but I get it: imagine being able to buy whatever you wanted, without checking to see if another brand is 20 cents cheaper! Imagine what kind of crazy stuff they have in the fancy grocery stores! I do like going to a new grocery store and seeing what they have there (because I’m normal) so I can see how this is like a turbocharged version of that. The Influencers Going Viral in Aisle 8

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

A friend got recommended some other band with “Zeke” in the name and they weren’t any good, so I half-jokingly pointed him towards original-recipe Zeke. And then, naturally, wound up having to listen to their whole discography (which took about an hour and a half in total, they are a fast band).

I have a box full of tapes, either made by me to listen to things I owned on cd when I was out and about and didn’t want to carry a whole ass Discman, or made by my friends and given to me in a now-extinct class of affection token, and most of them are still functional despite the fact that it’s 2024, but one, from an internet friend who went by Nessa, was starting to slow down. So I recreated it as a Spotify playlist (here, if you’re interested; the side break is after Count 5 or 6) and that means this song has been in my ears a lot lately.

Once a week I usually go into my office. A recent week, it was raining on that day, and one of the train lines I use to get there was doing bus replacement for most of its length, including the part I use. Boston has a special relationship with rain and driving. It can snow a foot here and people still drive as normally as they ever do⁵, but if it rains, everyone loses their damn mind. This was particularly evident on my trip home, where it took the bus AN HOUR to travel ONE STOP and ultimately made a normally just-over-an-hour commute into a 3-hour one for me. The last leg of it was me walking up the hill I live on, in the rain, in the dark, hood up, headphones in, no one around, kind of cold, kind of tired, and this song came on and that solo at the end just fit perfectly:

And, as it’s the end of the year, that means it’s time for this year’s playlist! You can find it here, or, if you prefer, right here. It’s a lot more representative than my Spotify Wrapped, that’s for sure!

This month’s top 5: Things I’ve been screamed at for in the past 5 days

We’re in a big feelings era, I think.

1. Playing basketball wrong

2. Opening an advent calendar box wrong

3. Offering breakfast at an inopportune time

4. Not wearing a sweater when he was wearing one

5. Being able to see him

I went into writing this without a plan or a big topic; I figured that was fine because there were going to be a lot of links. Naturally, a couple days before the end of the month, after I had written the largest part of it, I read some posts online that I started formulating responses to, and then they got too big to be replies under someone else’s post without making me a total weirdo, and I started instead building them into something that could fit here. But it’ll have to wait until next time. And so will you!

_{1 every time i think about this, i remember that there existed a country song called “I’ve Got Tears in My Ears From Lyin’ on My Back in My Bed While I Cry Over You”}

_{2 for me, the problem is always “that song is on the one album that is not online due to rights issues”}

_{3 “i am going to} write a sentence _{that is so} online_”

_{4 fun fact: i have actually been to a cattle auction, with my grandma (i think she was selling a bull calf, since you don’t have a lot of need for bulls on a dairy farm)}

_{5 it’s because the streets get plowed, obviously. no one is out here driving through 10 foot drifts like it’s the prairies or something}