#64: Crossing the mood board-er

Actual updates

The biggest update is that I bit the bullet and made two phone calls and two emails to the driving school, fielded one slightly sassy response from the owner, paid an extra $60, and booked all my remaining lessons! Double whammy achievement: booking the lessons AND breaking out of stagnation! I haven’t done them yet - they start in a couple weeks - but hopefully I’ll be able to remember the right order of operations for all the manoevres and it’ll go off fine. Then, I’ll have about a month before my permit expires to take and pass my test. Good thing I’m good at tests, I guess? Hopefully I’m also good at driving.

I’ve been good lately at being all right with myself. “Loving” myself sounds a bit too much, but I can get away with being okay with myself. The stumbling block has always been body rather than face, and I always thought my face was adequate - nothing special! But I’m not out here stopping clocks and shattering mirrors. So I’ve spent my time working on my acceptance of the rest of my physical form, and that has been a lot of work but it’s been mostly successful. The occasional full body photo (especially in context with other people) will still throw me for a loop, but it isn’t something that occupies my mind all the time, and I don’t scheme constantly on ways to alter my body to fit it into someone else’s concept of how it should appear.

However. Then I got my picture taken.

I got my picture taken by someone with real artistic talent, using a good camera - in fact she was testing out her nice new camera in doing this. And the result was horrifying. Not only did I look ugly in it, it didn’t look like I thought I looked. But of the handful of photos she took, this is the one she picked to share, so it must be the best one, and it must in fact show how I really do look. That’s the worst part: no one else seemed too shocked by this (I was! I cried in my kitchen about it!) because that’s what they already see when they look at me.

And it’s vain to think about it so much and it’s vain to care, and I’m ashamed of myself for that, but here we are.

So now I’m buckling down for another round of hard work to teach myself that first of all, my face looks worse than I think it does, but second of all, that doesn’t matter and I still have friends and people who love me, but third of all, not to be deluded about my appearance because it only leads to disaster. It took most of my life with my body! I don’t know how long it will take with my face.

And I’m not trying to fish for compliments here, I don’t need to be reassured that I’m actually not a bridge troll, because first of all the point is that it should not matter to me if I am, and second of all it also should not matter to me whether other people think I am or not. So. A learning experience. Growth is painful and all that.

This is shaping up to be a really disjointed issue, I can already tell, because I have no segue into my next thing, and I know there was another thing that I meant to write about but I can’t even remember what it was. Anyway: something a group I’m in at work did recently was to create vision boards, which I’ve never done before and have effectively still not done. I wasn’t able to stay at the office long enough that afternoon to cut up magazines and glue them to literal actual boards with the rest of the gang (I often have to leave early to make it home in time for Parenthood Activities, like “dinner”), but I spent a little while on my own time collecting pictures I’ve taken and pictures other people have taken, and screenshots of art and of a Google Maps picture of a house I’m going to live in, and a ski map, and an image of the color scheme of the computers in Star Trek: The Next Generation. I haven’t really done anything with them other than organize them by topic, but the general idea is: Vancouver. That’s the vision. The vision is “be there.” The vision is “buy a new couch for the house because our couches are shredded to hell, and maybe the new couch could look a little something like this.” The vision is “go skiing again with some regularity.”¹ The vision is “go stand in the woods every morning after dropping the kid off at school and people will find that annoying about me but I don’t care.” The vision is “we’re going to hang up art on the walls this time I swear to god.” The vision is “be there.”

I was kind of hoping I’d be able to arrange these better but that’s not what this tool is made for, I guess. Oh well. You get the gist.

What am I reading

Like everyone at my work, apparently, I’m reading Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe. I’m serious, I got into it on a recommendation from one friend, and it turns out a bunch of other people either have read it or also decided to read it. I am not a book club participant (I’m always either too fast or too slow and I don’t like how it turns into homework) but I suppose you could say we’re having a little asynchronous book club about the Troubles.

It follows three main threads: one of Jean McConville, a mother of 10, some of whom were still very young at the time, who was disappeared from her apartment and never seen alive again; one of Dolours Price, famous for being involved in the car bombings in London but also active in the IRA in other ways; and one of the secret archive at Boston College where people told their stories on the assurance that nothing would be released before their deaths. It is gripping.

One thing that this book does a particularly good job of is making it clear that there were very few people involved in any way who didn’t have blood on their hands. Now, yes, there’s one side that’s clear villainy: if you colonize a country and keep them down in the mud (sometimes literally, some people in this book did not have indoor toilets in a city in the 70s), if your officials in charge of the occupation force are veterans of tons of other colonialist activities like brutally putting down liberation movements (and, of course, massive racists), if you’ve got Margaret Fucking Thatcher on your side, you are the bad guys. But the IRA was also quick to kill not only their oppressors or people who informed to them (or people they thought informed to them), but also their ideological opponents in terms of how best to defeat the English, as well as regular people going about their lives, and their political arm denied any association with the people who fought and killed and died for them, so as to wipe the blood off their own reputations. So: not a book full of heroes to cheer for as they pluckily fight back (I mean, sometimes… you know what, I’ll stop there). Not a cheery book in any regard, in fact. But an absolutely engrossing one, and a necessary one.

I’m not trying to draw any too-close parallels, but it is not a completely outlandish idea that it would be useful to study the way that life is when there’s an atmosphere of heavy surveillance, people are encouraged to inform on each other to the police or military, and anyone suspected of harboring anti-colonizer sentiment are killed or locked up or tortured, or all three. But it’s also useful to study what people do when the entirety of society is put into a situation like that. And to see how that affects people down the line, when their lives are no longer in daily danger, because it’s not something you can just breeze past.

Some links

Naturally, this originated in France. But I feel like something was missing from the story here - were the male soldiers expected to behave themselves around these women? I can’t imagine the only dangers to them were from the enemy. The Women Warriors Who Served Wine on the Battlefield

This one is wild. It’s got electric-vehicle batteries, grousing against EV schoolbuses, the governments of both China and the US, and a guy eating a battery. I know what side I’m NOT on, here, but I don’t know if I’m on the other side, either. How a Chinese Battery Factory Sparked a Political Meltdown in a Small Michigan Town

If I tell you this is about a sweet, tragic gay love story between two members of the Scott expedition to the South Pole I already know that specific people are going to click on it so fast that their computer explodes BUT the rest of you should too. It’s even got a kind of trans moment in it (maybe? who can say what this individual meant but that’s how it sounds to me) and it’s full of adventure and disaster and penguins and love and resignation. I cried! From Antarctica With Love

Identifying art fakes! Rembrandt to Vermeer: Five Ways to Spot a Fake Masterpiece

Aside from one totally uncritical remark on RFK Jr., which is to be expected from the New York Times and its big normalization project for the oligarchy, this is a moving portrait of the struggles some parts of the country have with health. Everything is stacked against the peope portrayed herein; their region was hollowed out for someone else’s profit, and the people are scraping by on what’s left. Unsurprisingly, that isn’t something that leads to salutary health outcomes. She’s a Foot Soldier in America’s Losing War with Chronic Disease

Other than “a book that sits upstairs on my shelf, unread by me these past many years, that I should probably read again”? A game-changer, apparently. What Was A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius?

First of all, I had no idea Muhammad Ali had a burger chain (or that so many other stars of the 70s did), but moreover, the story of franchising and race in America makes this story more interesting than just “hey, did you know?” The Tale of the Early-Round KO of Muhammad Ali’s Champburger

Horrifying - sometimes literally, cw for description of a gory burn right at the beginning - and as ever, environmental injustice happens to the people with the least power. The Rainham Volcano: A Waste Dump is Constantly on Fire in East London. Why Will No One Stop It?

I never turned into a sourdough baker - although I am forever a sourdough eater and am actually shocked and appalled at how long it’s been since I’ve had some - but this is a moving, if slightly disgusting, look at keeping a friend’s memory alive via his sourdough starter. Life, Death, and Sourdough

A deep dive on the difficult case against phone scammers in Canada. Great to see I won’t stop getting pointless spam calls trying to separate me from my money if and when I move. The Diabolical World of Phone Scams

Relatedly, on the methods by which these scammers operate: Elon Musk’s Starlink is Keeping Modern Slavery Compounds Alive

This is so appalling. I also must admit to feeling a little smug for not using it - I don’t use anything, if I look old it’s because I am - but that is not the point. Retinol: The Skin-Care Ingredient with a Horrifying History

Personally I think the cool part about this story is that a guy just found it lying around in a field, not that it’s going to auction, but I am not a headline writer at NPR, I guess! A Medieval Bishop’s Ring from More Than 800 Years Ago Goes to Auction

Ok so let’s just be clear that if you used to be a judge, you have the money to busk even if you don’t make a living from it - but aside from that, what an interesting life’s trajectory. On Canada’s Streets, a Former Nelson Judge Embraces the Busker Life

Who does not love cutaway house illustrations? I hadn’t even thought about them as a genre but it clearly is one. I’ve only encountered 4 of these in real life (Barbapapa, Richard Scarry, and both of the movie examples). Cutaway House Illustrations Appreciation Post & Fan Club

This article is about… toilets! Specifically low-flow toilets. I had no idea that all toilets now use even less water, because it’s true: they DON’T suck anymore. We recently replaced a toilet and another model in the store - not even a super pricey model - claimed it could flush a bucket full of golf balls without clogging. Also in this article: what do toilet scientists use for fake poop, and, of course, Donald Trump. In the 1990s, They Were So Bad People Didn’t Want Them For Free. Now They’re a Miracle. Can America Catch Up?

Horrifying idea. Not something that really happens anymore since there aren’t big maternity wards full of bassinets anymore, thank god, but the people involved in this story are elderly so it was still a factor at that time. “I Think We Brought the Wrong One Home”: One Mother’s Search to Find Her Lost Son

Man, Sara Benincasa is great. And the illustrations and presentation of this essay are terrific. Agoraphobia is not a problem I’ve personally experienced (and I actually love going to the grocery store, at least by myself) but this really brings it home to the non-sufferer. An Agoraphobe Goes to the Grocery Store

The Westing Game!!! I’m pretty sure my click analytics for this issue will reveal exactly who took that book out of the school library in 5th grade and latched onto it forever. Sale of Ellen Raskin Estate Reveals Unpublished Westing Game Sequel

Someone online shared this with the caption “Werner Herzog, NYT headline writer.” In Japan, an Iceless Lake and an Absent God Sound an Ancient Alarm

You can always trace it back to either “rich guy wanted to get richer” or “rich guy was worried he wouldn’t be able to keep exploiting people.” The Oscars Were Invented to Break Up Hollywood Unions: The True, Surprising History of the Academy Awards

Want to read about a made-up cryptid from Vancouver Island? Of course you do. And if you’re about to say, as Matt did, “Aren’t all cryptids made up?”, I see your point, but this one’s really made up. Ogopogo, by contrast, has deep roots in Secwepemc and Salish tradition; the name “Ogopogo” is made up by white people more recently but the idea that there’s a big creature in that particular lake goes back a long time. This one, on the other hand, appears to be just an idea some guy had. One of the drawings in here is particularly hilarious, and it’s just a generally fascinating case study of mythmaking. The Case of the Cadborosaurus Carcass: A Review

Ok, everyone, in unison: “When you’re a spy…”² Anyway! I feel like the writer’s personal history and family life colored her travel experience moreso than her job as a spy, but maybe she’s just not able to talk about how the spy stuff REALLY impacted her. I’m a Former US Secret Service Agent - Here’s How It Changed the Way I Travel

I barely understood any of this (I mean, I got the objective of the challenge, and that the proof was in terms of determining whether the answer they already had was, in fact, the best one, but how they did the proving is something my brain is clinging to by its fingernails³) but perhaps you will. I know some big brains read this. Mathematicians Find Proof to 122-Year-Old Triangle-to-Square Puzzle

When I refer to “the upscale downtown Irish pub,” I’m not just quoting a Larkin Brigade Song,⁴ but apparently I’m also referencing a calculated, created Experience: How the Irish Pub Became One of the Emerald Isle’s Greatest Exports

Racism of yore - but once again, the people who really wronged these miners was not the Chinese workers who were brought in to break their strike (they weren’t really in any position to refuse) but rather their bosses who put them in a position in the first place. So, of course, who do they go after? Not the rich men who own the mine and decided what to pay everyone! Of course, of course it’s “someone with even less power than they have.” When an American Town Massacred Its Chinese Immigrants

I bet you were not expecting the disease in question to be ALS. And the suspected source is a real stunner. An “Impossible” Disease Outbreak in the Alps

This is a gnarly one. First, a guy nearly gets murdered while being mistaken for another guy, then that other man did actually get murdered. Why? At whose behest? The one who was nearly killed had to find out. A Case of Mistaken Identity, a Murder in Cairo, and a Decades-Long Investigation Into the Death of a Journalist

Imagine doing an endurance race where the objective is to collect checkpoints but not to go via a certain path, so you’re out in the wilderness. Okay, that sounds rough (possibly fun, but definitely hard). Now imagine Hurricane Helene is happening to you at the time. 30 Hours in a Hurricane, on a Race With No Course

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

I have no idea why this crossed my path but I’m glad it did, and now I get to keep chanting the chorus over and over because it’s true: oh, my god, what have I done, now I look dumb in front of everyone.

Someone made a reference to this song online and all of a sudden I was bouncing up and down in my kitchen yelling SIX, SIX, SIX FOR MY SORROW AND SEVEN, SEVEN, FOR N-N-NO TOMORROW AND EIGHT, EIGHT I FORGET WHAT EIGHT WAS FOR and so on and now so can you.

Alright, so this one leapt to my mind, after not thinking about it for at least 2 decades, because I read an issue of Nichole Perkins’ newsletter about the phrase “Good girl.” And the song popped right back up, nearly fully formed, in my brain. I looked up the lyrics to figure out how to get from the point A in the song I remembered to the point B I remembered, but I didn’t play the song; it was late. I sang it out loud or in my head over the next few days a bunch of times, but, believe it or not, I didn’t actually play the real song itself until just now, right before pasting the video into this draft. The video, by the way, is one of those super-earnest 90s ones, but the song is honestly kind of… gender? The expectations people put on you from birth to be a certain way and that they’ll throttle the life out of you? I mean!

This month’s top 5: Things I’ve had small to medium mental breakdowns over lately

1. Oh, you know, everything

2. People being blithely cheery about generative AI even as it devalues and insults their own actual talents and even jobs and also outputs stuff that is dreadful

3. People handwaving the very real risks people are facing These Days because they don’t face those same risks (or think they never will)

4. Knowing that I had a driving lesson the next day while watching a movie about CAR MURDER

5. And, my most insane one, Dishwasher Problems⁵. No, I don’t mean the machine is broken. I mean my brain is broken and I both enjoy doing the dishes and feel that there are correct and incorrect ways of doing them, and if it’s either egregious enough or I’m mentally fragile enough, I don’t handle it well when they’re done wrong (per me). I’m on top of it enough to not let people see that, but when I’m alone I might have a little scream about it

Ok - farewell from where I sit in this fake country, for now; for now in every sense of the word, thank you, and also the “for now” applies to “country.” Tariff whiplash, kidnapping people for any or no pretext, arresting tourists at the border. I just told my dad he shouldn’t come visit us, for safety, and he agreed; he’s been in enough countries that were dictatorships in all but name to know when he’s looking at one.

_{1 just kidding, i’m not made of money}

_{2 no? nobody? was i the only one who watched Burn Notice}

_{3 of course my brain has fingernails. does yours not?}

_{4 WE’RE ALL WICKED LIQUORED UP AT THE UPSCALE DOWNTOWN IRISH PUB!}

_{5 i am not going to go into it because it makes me look like a total lunatic but there’s a right way and a wrong way and that’s all i’m going to say on that}