#72: All flips, no flops

Actual Updates

Reminder: You can now read my short story The Cordon in NECKSNAP magazine’s most recent issue… right here! (And if you’re so inclined, you can listen to the companion playlist I made for it… right here!)

Now that that’s out of the way, what else do we have going on?

I kicked off last month doing something I do so rarely now as to be basically an annual event¹ : I went out to TWO parties. On the same day!

They were different in character; the crowds were different, the atmospheres were different, the primary activities were different, one was a lot gayer than the other, and the friend groups had zero overlap. But both were, essentially, about celebrating people we loved. And the combination of the both filled my heart for, I’m hoping, the whole year to come.

I did cause one crisis at the first party, though. Well, hopefully just one.

So we were all there with the express purpose of drinking beer, and we were in a basement that had been converted to a bar, taps and everything, very very cool and hangoutable (the owners of this basement don’t read this, I don’t think, unless they do, in which case: your place is so cool, and again, I’m so sorry). When we first poured our beers, it was not our best work, and we were advised that we just needed to pull the handle a little harder. I did a great pour with that advice in mind, and felt pret-ty pleased with myself. Then, a little later, it was time for another. Now my pour was terrible again, and again, I was told I just had to pull harder. I had two glasses to fill, though, so I readied the second glass and … pulled harder.

I felt a click, and then the handle felt a lot looser. That’s not normal, I thought, as I registered that beer was starting to spray out at the joint, as the shouting and yelling started behind me. The owner of the basement, who was also the owner of some of the shouting, sprang into action quickly and turned off the keg (I know people who know what they’re talking about are reading this and I’m embarrassing myself using the wrong terminology; to you I can only say, not as much as I embarrassed myself by doing it!). Anyway, the disaster was mitigated as much as possible, and I apologized three or four times and then disappeared outside in shame.

Allegedly it was okay. Allegedly it was easily fixable with a $20 part (which I naturally offered to pay for). Allegedly I hadn’t ruined the whole night. I have doubts.

But I got to see² some of my favorite people, and meet some new friends³ , and I got to do it looking real cool. Listen, I’m trying to stop avoiding honking my own horn, but even the most self-praise-averse among us would have to agree that when one of the coolest people you know wants to grab your jacket and run (or, you know, consensually trade jackets, either way), that means you look good.

So, naturally, I left that party and went to another. At the second party, I didn’t cause any property damage but I did once again get to spend time with a bunch of my favorites and meet some new pals as well, AND get introduced to a cinematic classic that I had previously been woefully uneducated on.

I know I’m not a young person anymore and I can’t be doing this every night; I can’t be doing it even a few nights here and there. But it replenishes me so much to be with the people who are important to my heart, and there are really so many more of that category of people than I ever get to see regularly. The once in a while that I get to do this means so much.

In other news, I’ve been walking one of the classic parental tightropes: how to encourage my kid to do something he’s got some trepidation about, while still avoiding being a pushy stage parent type.

He’s been doing gymnastics for the better part of a year (sort of - he didn’t do it over the summer, more on this in a sec), and he’s pretty good, as well as, crucially, pretty keen on it. He doesn’t need pushing to keep doing the thing as a sport. But his current level is the highest of the rec levels that gym offers. He and his classmates are doing well enough, according to their coach and to the entertainingly-titled “Head of the Boys,” that they are ready to move up to the team level, which means more and longer practices, including over the summer. It also means competitions.

He’s said he doesn’t want to join the team (assuming we can even swing all the different practice times, which…), and when we’ve asked why, he has said he doesn’t want to compete and be judged. I get that! I feel the same way, although I feel like in my case it’s warranted because I am very bad at sports and would always be judged harshly. But he wants to do all the more advanced and cool stuff that the older boys do, and there isn’t a way to do that but still skip out on competing.

But: this gym hosts a boys’ meet every year, and his class is operating at the level of the first competition-eligible tier, and so they’ve learned basic routines on all the apparatuses (apparati?) that the boys compete on, and they’re aiming to participate in this little meet. And I have no doubt he’ll do fine and get a lot out of it, but depending on the day, he’s either a flat no, or announcing that he’ll win a lot of medals. Gradually, gradually, he’s coming around on the idea; he has watched a LOT of videos of both people at his level and a bit above, and also Olympics content⁴ and he’s thinking about inviting his bestie to watch.

Sometimes he talks about the meet with “if,” sometimes with “when,” and I’m trying not to push towards “when” TOO much - but friends who used to do a sport and gave it up overwhelmingly say they wish they hadn’t quit, so I feel like it’s ok to push a LITTLE bit but to know where the line is. I’m feeling my way to the line; the thing is, I’m not one of those people who wishes they didn’t quit their sport. The only organized sport I ever did was a summer of “house league” (community center based) soccer between grades 3 and 4. I was not good, and I knew it. I couldn’t quit fast enough, and I don’t miss it at all. Likewise I chucked piano lessons the second my teacher tried to get me into more advanced levels, but I wasn’t exactly lighting the world on fire musically, and it didn’t mean much to me. If I had been legitimately good at something, that might have been another story. I was a decent skier, but I never did it competitively, and I suspect I didn’t have the chops for that anyway. I wish I got to ski more now, but I never gave it up per se - it’s just pricey and requires travel and time.

So - I don’t know. Hopefully I’m meeting him where he is, with encouragement and support, and the willingness to push him just a little bit and believe in him more than he believes in himself, but not taking it far enough that I’m trying to get him to live a dream he doesn’t have.

He has also informed me that he does not want to be in the Olympics. Ok. Heard, chef. You’re 8 and everything, but I will turn away the Olympic Committee if they come calling.

(Late update: he’s in - for the meet, not the Olympics, I mean. Fingers crossed it goes well!)

What am I reading right now

Currently in the back stretch of the second book in Stephen Graham Jones’s Indian Lake Trilogy: Don’t Fear the Reaper. This is the kind of a trilogy where you do actually need to read the first book first, so if you haven’t: that’s My Heart is a Chainsaw, and it’s very good - but I might even be liking this one better.

The first book followed Jade Daniels, a high school senior who was obsessed with slasher movies and viewed everything through that lens, as the bodies piled up in her small high-altitude Idaho town. This book returns to her and to the town, four years later, with an escaped murderer on the loose.

This time, it’s different: she’s grown up a lot and doesn’t approach every situation as if it’s guaranteed to adhere to the rules of her favorite movies, but she can recognize it when it does; when she sees other people acting the way she used to, it gets on her nerves. It’s also winter, rather than summer, and there’s a major blizzard wallopping the town. The cold and snow are a character, and I think that really builds the sense of place even moreso than the original did. Also, there’s a baby, and you know how I am about babies and tiny tots in danger.

Some links

First of all, I’m not crazy about this⁵ !!! Second of all, the signs in question are really surprising. Shorter snouts? White patches on their fur?? Raccoons Are Showing Early Signs of Domestication

There is not a lot I wish I had been around for in the 30s and 40s, but Automats are one thing on that very short list. I didn’t realize they tried to open them in more locations and, inexplicably, didn’t run them the same way. Coin-Op Cuisine: When the Future Tasted Like a Five-Cent Slice of Pie

This whole thing is a massive hell yeah. Although the funny thing to me is how friendly and welcoming and embracing the metal scene is in a larger sense - as the article points out, all you have to do is like metal - when at every one of our friends’ metal band’s shows we went to at Sammy’s Patio, the metal bar down on Revere Beach, every band was a world unto itself. No one talked to each other, no one made friends and started planning a show together in two months. Everyone kept to themselves and it was honestly not very fun! Maybe that attitude dissipates once you get to the level of playing incredible festivals in the teeth of nature for huge crowds who love you. Heavy Metal is Healing Teens on the Blackfeet Nation

I had no idea this happened. I guess I’m not keeping up on the murder beat for rich guys who live on boats. The Crypto Con Woman and the Charlestown Houseboat Murder

Speaking of boats! This was tremendously interesting, particularly in terms of the science of handling things that have been underwater for a long time. Why Are There So Many Shipwrecks in the Great Lakes?

I don’t know if I agree with even most of this, but then again I’m not a connaisseur of lost albums. Maybe you are! The Best “Lost” Albums, Ranked

Speaking of music. This is written by someone who obviously feels really strongly about the implied meaning (or what they personally took as the implied meaning) of different button shapes, but it’s definitely true that Spotify is not in the business of being the place you keep the online versions of all the mixtapes close to your heart. And I do wish it would show you who was listening to playlists you made (mainly to see if people ever listened to the ones you make for them, you know?) A Brief History of Spotify’s UI and Why the Removal of the Heart Icon Was Their Ultimate Downfall

For once, it’s not millenials! Well, it kind of is, but it’s also everybody. The Innovation That’s Killing Restaurant Culture

This one’s just in here because it’s funny. Of COURSE they can’t. Cryptographers Held an Election. They Can’t Decrypt the Results

This is also funny, and it starts out by saying that every city has its weird shady fast-food location and for Boston that’s got to be the Burger King that used to be in Central Square, right? The stories I’ve heard about their bathrooms, specifically, seem to agree. But if you know a better one, tell me. The Story of the Rogue Burger King in Pittsburgh

Heartwarming, and also incomprehensible in one specific regard: they bought a house and it CAME WITH a whole SECOND HOUSE??? A Beloved Clothing Store Closed. A Customer Bought All 4500 Items

Okay!! The Mild Mannered Englishman Who Was the World’s Most Prolific Ghost Hunter

I don’t hold with this guy’s tone throughout this and I think there’s some stuff he mega handwaves, but he does give you the goods: the poverty line is based on outdated calculations, and if you updated them to match today’s costs, WAY MORE people (in the US) would be below that line. This is how you might have a comfortable laptop job and still have to skip meals to save money. Also, the correct conclusion is not “pay people more.” Well, that wouldn’t hurt, but really, it’s “create the conditions in society such that the money we already make would be enough, since we wouldn’t have to spend it all on x, y, and z.” Part 1: My Life is a Lie

I need to stress that the son was an adult; this is still awful (and sounds like it would have been edited out of a fictional story for being too unbelievable) but the “treehouse” of it all might make you think it’s even more horrifying. Skeletal Remains of Missing Son Found in Backyard Tree House Days After Father Dies in Scuba Accident

Both a harrowing account of a bear attack and a reflection on how humans will need to learn to coexist with different types of wildlife as the climate changes, this piece is particularly interesting to me as someone who doesn’t think of bears as “back.” You can’t be back when you were never gone! But in a lot of places, they were gone, and people do not always know how to act around them anymore. When the Bears Come Back

Old people repairing analog things! Yes!! How to Fix a Typewriter and Your Life

If you’re rich and you sign up to be in a book of rich people detailing how rich you are and where you and all your stuff can be found, I don’t have a huge amount of sympathy when someone reads that book, goes to where you live, and breaks in and takes your stuff! Anyway the people taking the stuff appear to have been really, really good at it, so at least: respect for the craft! The Blue Book Burglar

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

This song is here because I embarrassed myself with it. Ok, so first of all, listen to it. The title and chorus are “When I said there was an end to love I was lying.” But the way it sounds, it’s an awfully close match to “When I said there was an ANTELOPE I was lying.” And I made a little post online saying basically that, and tagged Rae Spoon in it. And then I watched this video, because the song was firmly stuck in my head by then, and as you now know if you’ve watched it, at the end, THEY SAY the antelope joke. This video is 13 years old!! I just confidently told someone a joke THEY THEMSELVES MADE over a decade ago!! I’m going to walk into the sea!

I can’t say I want to stare at this guy’s face particularly - I think he’s reading my thoughts - but the song’s not bad. Thanks, Some Party newsletter, source of all my Can-Con these days!

Whom amongst us has not had a ska listening era. Whom amongst us, indeed, has not had a ska songs about public urination era (also in this category: The Malchiks’ “I Got So Drunk I Peed Myself”). This song contains the possibly ill-advised abbreviation of “elevator” to just “‘vator,” and it always makes me think of Singapore with their pee sensors in the elevators that will stop the elevator if they detect a molecule of urine. So, you know, don’t. If you’re there.

And as it’s December, that means it’s time for the annual playlist of all the songs I’ve shared in this newsletter all year! Here it is:

Or if you prefer your playlists in link format, voila. It’s one of my better ones, I think, but of course I would think that.

This month’s top 5: Dishes I wish I had gotten my grandma’s recipes for

I don’t know why it’s been on my mind lately but I’ve been thinking about the recipes I never got from my grandma. She was a great cook in the vein of “make two options for every component of the meal in case someone doesn’t like the first one,” although everyone always liked both anyway. She had a flour drawer in her kitchen (the drawer was filled with flour and a scooper lived in it) because at the scale she baked, that was more sensible than using flour from the sack. I remember her pulling dishes out of the oven bare-handed, although it’s possible they were just in there to keep warm and she wasn’t grabbing something that had been baking at 350 for half an hour. No way to know now, but that’s not important; these recipes were, though.

1. There was a sheet-pan style birthday cake she always made for birthdays (oh, a birthday cake?? for birthdays??? groundbreaking) and I don’t know if it was the cake or the icing or the combination of the both but it elevated it to something special. Maybe it was that she made it; it wasn’t the most impressive or elaborate cake, just a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Still, that specific taste would unlock something in me⁶ .

2. Her stuffing. Hey, it’s stuffing season⁷ , of course it’s on my mind.

3. Her pancakes, which for many years were the only pancakes I would eat (I’m still not a big pancake guy)

4. This white-bean-and-noodle soup that she would make the day after making a ham; the ham bone went into the broth, and the whole thing was so velvety despite not being blended at all - and the flavors - this one’s really my Niche Favorite, I think, the one I don’t feel like other people took much notice of and it wasn’t a big star of the table, but I think about it so often. I never have a ham bone lying around either. I would have to concoct circumstances to make this. But I still wish I had the recipe.

5. Her bread, man. I know it had molasses in it, but that’s all I really know. I could eat that stuff all day. Even better when it was fresh out of the oven, or toasted just a little, but still superlative even when it wasn’t. This is the one I really kick myself for not getting.

Guess what! I wrote this right before lunchtime, and now I’m famished.

Ok! One last reminder that you can go read my story The Cordon in NECKSNAP Mag right here; and outside of that, let’s all get past the ass end of the year together, shall we? If you would like to help some other folks with that, there’s an initiative put together by Moms United Against Violence and Incarceration (a group helping mothers who are incarcerated) - it’s a toy drive for the kids of incarcerated mothers. You can find more info here.

1  maybe less

2  see, be lightly bitten by, et cetera, the usual

3  do i remember the new friend’s name? no. can i friends her up online and continue getting along like a house on fire? also no. but we had a nice time talking

4  during which he confidently says “i can do that” sometimes, and maybe he can!! when it’s the simpler stuff they use to connect their more difficult moves

5  i almost said “i’m not WILD about this” but that was too on-the-nose

6  tears

7  not a real thing. also: that sounds gross