#67: The bone zone

Actual updates

Last month I was regaling you all with a story of how I hurt my hand. I allowed no more than two weeks to go by before I hurt the same hand again.

This time, the culprit was basketball.

We were out at a school playground, just taking turns shooting, nothing too real or serious, and I caught the ball at one point and jammed my left index finger really badly (it felt like it was both that finger and the one beside it, initially, but the middle finger was fine soon afterwards). Well, who amongst us hasn’t done that, I figured, and anyway it was just about time to go home, so I threw in the towel and just figured I’d need to baby my hand a bit for a little while.

Five hours later when it was just as bad, I started to have my doubts.

At first, I was adamant that it wasn’t broken; I’ve broken a finger before for sure and another time for pretty-sure, and while this hurt a lot, it wasn’t the same. I can’t believe I’m sitting here typing that the feeling of a broken bone has a specific character and that furthermore I am a good source as to what that character is. I went until the age of 30 without any broken bones, except I didn’t really; what is true is that I went until the age of 30 without a medical doctor diagnosing me with any broken bones. And now suddenly I’m an expert. A laugh.

But it’s true that a broken finger feels a specific way, and this didn’t. I’ve broken a finger in this exact way before, in fact, basketball, and that time it immediately turned purple and swelled up, and there was no confusion about it (this was when I was 12, and we didn’t go to the doctor because we lived out here that year and it wasn’t worth the expense and hassle, but we were all pretty certain). This one was a bit swollen, and there was a little bruising, but it just… wasn’t the same. So I mostly just avoided using it, iced it, took an ibuprofen, fashioned a splint out of half an emory board and a bandage.

I’ve gone back and forth on whether it was maybe broken just a little bit or just really banged up. I spent a full week taking an ibuprofen before starting work, so that it wouldn’t hurt typing, and another in the evening, and splinting it whenever I was done with my little tasks. It stopped ambiently hurting after a couple days, but there were plenty of movements I could do that would remind me it wasn’t healed yet, and the fingertip would sometimes be numb. It’s basically over that now, a week and a half later as of this writing, and it hurts if I do something stupid like “hang an entire roasting pan from it” or whatever, but regular life usage is mostly ok. Sometimes I have to remember to use it. The swelling’s gone down, the bruises have faded.

Did I break it? Who knows. Who cares! And I don’t mean that in the usual old “oh, my physical form does not matter, and injuries to it don’t matter, and pain is temporary and unimportant, and nothing of value was damaged” kind of way, or at least not only in that way. I mean: what would I have done differently? There’s no real reason to go to the doctor about it, other than to get a better splint, but it seems like the one I had did the job anyway. It didn’t hurt that bad, other than when it had JUST happened, and if it wasn’t broken after all, I would have wasted everyone’s time¹. This is what I mean by “who cares.” Besides, I have a lot more to care about.

One thing, maybe, is turning my eye back to the book again. I know, I know. I say it all the time. But I’m giving the manuscript²-so-far a full read-through, which has turned into a sort of editing pass, by which I mean I’m leaving notes for myself that say useful things like “eeeehhhh” and “make this better,” with the idea of knowing where I stand when I get to the end of what I’ve written so far, so I can go on from there. I know where I’m going. I know how I’m getting there, basically. But I might have taken some wrongheaded detours that I need to straighten out³, and I don’t want to risk those messing with how I reach my destination. Also, I need to remember where I was when I left off.

I’m actually right now doing this kind of stupid “get to know my character” questionnaire that asks things like “what’s their favorite food?”, “are they a heavy or light sleeper?”, and stuff like that, and most of it isn’t super relevant, or is different in the context of the story vs regular life (for instance, during most of the narrative the answer to the question about how he smells is, probably, “bad” - but in his normal life he’s not a stinky or unhygenic guy! he’s just in a situation!!), but it’s fun and interesting to consider these things about my Little Idiots. For instance, it’s told me that I know this stuff more about one of the two companions of my main character. The main character isn’t busy going into the specifics of his own life so much, but this guy has been his best friend since they were teenagers, and he knows him better than he knows himself (mostly), and that comes out. Anyway. Fun to think about.

Speaking of things I’m revisiting, I spent an HOUR AND 15 MINUTES the other day waiting at the big downtown RMV for my turn to reapply for my learner’s permit (I can take the test at home, which I haven’t done yet at the time of this writing because I can’t be interrupted during it, so it has to be a workday). Would you like to know how long the whole appointment took, once my turn was called? About 4 minutes.

Anyway, stay tuned, watch this space, I’m hoping I’ll bag my license this go-round. Why shouldn’t I, right? We’re going to leave that question as a rhetorical.

Also, let me just say that putting-in-the-ACs-day is the worst day of the year.

What am I reading

I need you all to go pick up The Spear Cuts Through Water now. It’s by Simon Jiminez, you’ll know it by its beautiful cover.

“Epic fantasy” as a genre never sounds like it’s going to be this good, this strange, this bloody, this gay. Or, if we’re being transparent, this sexy. It’s also richly Southeast Asian - the country is unnamed and not obviously any one place, but the grandmother of the focus character in the “modern” parts of the story is called lola and that makes me feel like it’s a stylized, heightened, magically altered version of the Philippines (the author is Filipino-American so this isn’t a wild speculation). There’s also a scene that I’ll be thinking of for, oh, years maybe, which I’ll just characterize as “spooky action at a distance.” It’s not spooky. It’s something else.

Oh, you want to know what it’s about? It’s about two young men, one a scion of royalty and one Just Some Guy, on the lam across the country with an escaped deity and a malfunctioning communications turtle (go with it) hidden in the back of their cart. It’s about power and horror and torture. It’s about what holds family together and what doesn’t. It’s about the moon and the water. It’s not about explaining itself. It’s gorgeous and gory and vibrates with feeling. I’m not kidding when I say: right now, at once, immediately.

Some links

I can’t explain why I’m so in the tank for Amelia Earhart. By all accounts she sounds like she was kind of a pain in the ass, and it’s increasingly clear that her ultimate disappearance could maybe have been avoided, or at least rendered unmysterious, by better preparation and planning (touched upon in this piece). And the rumors are totally spurious and unsubstantiated. But I don’t know. I love her anyway⁴. Amelia Earhart’s Reckless Final Flights

Some people in this story are really obnoxious (my favorite is the one who said it was actually more classist to suggest that her multi-thousand-dollar price point was prohibitive for some people) but it’s interesting on the whole. And I mean, look, I had my Mushrooms Era for a brief stretch in college and it always went fine for me but it didn’t cure my depression or anything! I just Had a Nice Time on Drugs! I Tried Magic Mushrooms for My Mental Health. Here’s What Happened

This is a nightmarish story, made worse by being about kids - and then at one point I realized that it’s highly likely my dad knows one of these guys. Dude became an economist and kept climbing mountains recreationally; both of those communities are small enough that overlap like this would be noticeable to someone else who shares it. I wonder. Horror on the Mountain

It doesn’t really seem like this is a trend so much as a thing this specific author did, but anyway, landlines do have their upsides I suppose. It was pretty nice to be unreachable when out. Word to the wise: this site is a MESS. Ads all over the place with no design rhyme or reason. If you can get past that, it’s interesting, though. Millenial Parents Are Reclaiming the Landline: Yes, the One With the Cord

Sending in my application TODAY. Meet the Members of the Dull Men’s Club: “Some of Them Would Bore the Ears Off You”

Shipwrecks!! Why More and More Shipwrecks Are Being Discovered

Okay, I knew about the Tylenol poisonings in the sense that I was aware they had happened, and they’re why medicine comes in tamper-proof packaging now, but that’s it. It was more horrible than I had imagined, and, AND, the person most suspected of being the poisoner - who is still out there today - very probably also committed an unrelated and very gruesome murder some years before. Poison Pill

I had never heard of bin stores before this and they sound CHAOTIC. I’m well familiar with the “gets cheaper as time goes on” model, playing that particular gamble was how I got all my ski gear before I stopped growing and it became finally economical to spend new-purchase money on me. Shoutout to Cheapskates for keeping me in gear! Anyway, this is way worse. Seven Days at the Bin Store

This hotel does admittedly seem very nice! But the part about the entire town sounds like the setup for an eerie book. Or have I read too many eerie books? 3 Friends Found a Crumbling Resort and Brought It (and an Entire Town) Back to Life

The title put me off. It gives off the idea of those anti-medicine types who think you’re poisoning yourself by taking medicine and should instead just go outside and get some sunlight and fresh air, and I don’t want to give them any credit at all. But it turns out this is based on years of scientific study, for particular types of disease specifically, and of course considers the fact that sunlight can also cause skin cancer. So… it’s interesting. Can Sunlight Cure Disease?

Speaking of sunlight and its benefits, it likely doesn’t surprise you that incarcerated people are denied it, even in contravention of regulations for prisons. The Unbearable Darkness of Jail

Ancient wine scam!! How I Uncovered a Potential Ancient Roman Wine Scam

IT WAS A COMEDY CALLED JAWS 3 PEOPLE 0 AND I’M SCREAMING AND YELLING When John Hughes Wrote an Unmade “Jaws” Movie

Apparently this insight has been making the rounds and I just heard about it. Anyway, I have a theory, and it’s the same one as why my grandmother always ate dinner sitting half out of her seat, ready to jump up and hustle off into the kitchen to get something. They don’t want to commit to sitting down and watching the thing (even if it’s something they actually do admit to liking), and want to maintain the image that they’re in the middle of doing something else. Also, I’m a dad. Why Do Dads Watch TV Standing Up?

Finally, vindication in not liking cheesecake!! The Case of the Poisoned Cheesecake

Ok, so this might be disinformation in and of itself, but if it’s true, this is honestly very funny. The Pentagon Disinformation that Fuelled America’s UFO Mythology

Throwing garbage all over people’s yards and savaging their cats wasn’t enough? Now they have to be out there sabotaging airplanes? Do airplanes not have enough problems?? Rampaging Raccoons Add to Airbus Factory Headaches

I’m not sure how anyone could still think they don’t have intelligence after all the yacht stuff. But now they also have skincare regimens. Drone Footage Reveals Orcas Using Tools in a Stunning First

Increasingly I see climbing these super-high, super-dangerous, and somehow still assembly-lined mountains as unethical. It’s a machine and like the rest it grinds people up. “Brother, It’s Just Me and You”

Okay. First of all, this is several essays in one. Philosophers cannot be let to run loose on a word count without the firm hand of an editor. But it makes several very good points around how the world has become unreal, and ourselves, disconnected from it, because it’s all mediated through images of itself and we experience it at a remove, while simultaneously having more knowledge about the world than any prior time in history. And what do you do about it? That’s what he’s purporting to determine. The Reenchanted World

Solar flares - solar weather in general, actually - are so fascinating. And while “fascinating” might not be the right word to use to describe the way a really big one could affect the Earth, it’s definitely very compelling reading. And the last line is a real killer. The Unseen Fury of Solar Storms

This is a very bizarre case. There’s also a link to Vancouver, in the person of a criminology professor who had formerly been a Vancouver cop, and specifically one who was instrumental in uncovering the Pickton murders. But that’s not the end of it. There are obsessives over this case, Facebook groups, DIY investigators… it’s a lot. It Was Already One of Texas’s Strangest Cold Cases. Then a Secretive Figure Appeared

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

We watched the dvd that came with a 20th anniversary rerelease of the album this song is from, and it contained 3 shows where they basically played the album in its entirety (including the show this video is from), so I’ve heard this song a bunch in the last couple days. And the day we started watching was a very bad day for me, and when Scott Lucas said “remember when you wanted it all to end?” I had to struggle to keep my composure. Did I win that struggle? Who can say!!!

Hap has gotten huge into Bad Romance and walks around singing bits of it all the time so it is never not in my head. How did this happen? I think it might be my fault. He likes this schoolyard game called gagaball, which apparently exists (people sell special enclosures to play it in!), and when you start the game you have to say “Ga… ga… go.” Naturally, because I cannot help but be annoying, I have said “Ga… ga… ooh la la” etc and done the whole little thing, and at first he thought I was being stupid (correctly) and then he decided he was super into it. And that’s how my child became a Little Monster.

We saw some friends we haven’t seen in a while this month, and, as things usually do, they spiraled into talking about music and cueing up songs for each other, and instead of focusing in on the Possum Kingdom sing-along that broke out, I’m going to do what we did there and what another friend has done for us in turn⁵ and that’s play you Hobosexual’s Traffic Jam.

This month’s top 5: Movies that didn’t make the cut for my top 10 since 2000

Oh, come on, I’m not posting that list here, either you’ve already seen it or you’ve already moved on from that discussion; that said, it was a tough, tough thing for me to do, because I hate ranking preferences (these top 5 lists are rarely really ranked per se and mostly they’re just for laffs) and I also have a nonzero amount of fear in my heart that I’ll get roundly mocked for having incorrect taste. But I’m being very brave about it! Learning, healing, personal growth! Anyway, here are some movies that landed just outside of the winner’s circle - in no order.

1. Winter’s Bone

2. Anvil: The Story of Anvil (it seems like it’s going to be a dopey story of a failed band but it’s really heartfelt!)

3. Maelström, which I would like to rewatch because it’s been many years, but I seem to remember it being really good. And anyway the delivery of “Est-ce que… vous voulez… un sac?” by the funeral-home attendant right at the beginning makes it worth this best-of-the-rest list alone.

4. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

5. I was obsessed with a movie called waydowntown and I can’t rewatch it because it isn’t somewhere I can get hold of it, but I can’t be sure if it’s because it was really good or if the lead was just really good-looking. But at least someone unexpected agreed with me on that point, and getting straight guys to admit to other dudes being hot is pretty much my life’s project⁶, so… on the list!

Ok, time to keep just trying to make it through successive heatwaves, including a record-breaker last week and then just a regular normal one coming up next week. I’m going to be soooooooo fine and completely okay.

_{1 i do not think i’m so special that a bunch of strangers should drop what they’re doing just to pay attention to my finger! like can you imagine if it was just kinda… hurt? the way they’d roll their eyes at me later, in the breakroom, in their groupchats, at home. the way i would have wasted my family’s afternoon. who do i think i am!}

_{2 feels veeeeery pretentious to call it that, but that’s what it is}

_{3 haha! hahahaha! like anyone in this story is straight}

_{4 but not everybody does - every time i think of her, i’m reminded of a twitter thread i read once that was about the celebrity your mother hates. someone’s grandmother had it OUT for earhart and wouldn’t say why, and i LOVE that.}

_{5 hello, friend, if you’re reading this, you have tremendous taste}

_{6 if you’re a straight guy reading this (there are a couple of you, i think!) and you’d like to tell me about some guy you think is so gorgeous you’d rewatch his movie just to look at him some more, or whatever the equivalent is for your hottie of choice, my door is always open. if you’re not a straight guy and you still want to tell me about it, that is of course also good!!}