#75: Sports is gossip with a physical component

Actual updates

As with every time, I am in the tank for the Olympics. As with every time, I acknowledge that not only is the IOC a wretched organization, but also many, if not most, of the sports are fucked up in a variety of ways. But, as with every time, I still can’t restrain myself from watching as much of it as I possibly can.

But, even if you’re not much of a sports fan, this Olympics has been a big one for scandals and eyepopping stories; I have long stressed that sports is just gossip with a physical component, and this particular Olympics has confirmed that in spades. Let’s see. We’ve got:

• The Norwegian biathlete (not like that) who used his bronze medal victory to announce that he had cheated on his girlfriend and wanted her back. As you can probably imagine, she was deeply disinterested in this. Bonus dipshit points for how one of the athlete’s teammates had recently died, and the gold medal winner - a fellow Norwegian - classily dedicated his race to the memory of that teammate. Not this guy!

• The French biathlete (again, not like that… as far as we know) who was kicked off the team for stealing her teammate’s credit card(!!!) and then… subsequently let back on the team because she’s just that good at the biathlon.

• The judging scandal in the ice dancing (there’s always a judging scandal in the ice dancing)

• The ice in the arena where both figure skating and short-track speed skating are held possibly being haunted

• A hockey player possibly being haunted

• Another hockey player and her speed skater girlfriend getting engaged, after getting together the previous Olympics

• Two other hockey players - one on Team USA, one on Team Canada - breaking up the day before the gold medal game between them

• And, of course, the Canadian curling cheating allegations.

I’m writing this a little over halfway through the games! Who even knows what further lunacy will transpire!²

Oh! Speaking of things to do with people’s country of origin - how’s that for a ham-handed segue - guess what. YOU may already be Canadian!

Okay, not you, Canadian readers. I mean, yes you, but you already knew you were. No: I’m talking about Americans, and specifically (although not exclusively) all you New Englanders with French last names. Canada recently passed a change to their citizenship requirements. It used to be that you were a citizen if you were born outside of Canada but at least one of your parents was a citizen, but not further back than that. Now, that has been changed to make anyone with ANY Canadian-citizen ancestor - however far back that ancestor may be - as long as you can prove it.

The proving it is the key; if your great-great-grandcestor crossed the border according to family lore, but you don’t have any access to documents proving they were born in Canada or what have you, then never mind. But if you do have that documentation, you are already a citizen - you don’t even need to apply! You can get a Certificate of Citizenship, which you can then use to get a passport, and of course this process is mega backed up and will have a long wait, but… you’re in! What’s up, fellow Canadians!

Naturally, seeing this as I watch the Olympics, I’m thinking “wow, their teams next time are going to be STACKED³ .” I’m normal and I think about things in a normal way.

OH, and guess WHAT. Right in time for the blizzard this month, the truck came BACK. This time, they parked across the street instead of right in front of our house, but I’m sure that’s only because the girls who live next door (fully adult women, but one is the daughter of the women who formerly lived there, so I first met her when she was a kid) were out doing some pre-storm snow reorganization in that parking spot. If they hadn’t happened to be there at that moment, I’m sure the truck would have snagged the spot.

Our assumption at the time was that this truck resides on a street that gets parking bans during snow emergencies, and they’ve picked our street as their snow-home, because apparently no one will mind, or we don’t exist, or something like that. Also we know they don’t live in our micro-neighborhood because we’ve absolutely been doing reconnaissance as we’ve gone about our lives (and so have our neighbors), looking out to see if it’s parked somewhere else right around here. It’s not. So it’s definitely from slightly further afield.

Let’s see if they dig themselves out this time (I bet they don’t!), and for that matter, let’s see if everyone keeps from dumping snow in their bed, or having them declared abandoned and then towed. Let’s just… see.

Truck Update!

We did see - and now we have a new running theory. So, while we were out shoveling, a guy came out of the house next door on the other side, which is a two-family that is rented out. The guy who had come around last time asking if we knew whose truck it was lives in one of the units, so we figured the truck had nothing to do with them. But now our theory is that Truck Guy is the boyfriend of someone who lives in the other unit.

The premise of this theory is that the guy not only came out of that house and went to the truck, but he also shoveled out the car that he was parked behind. We’re pretty sure that car belongs to someone in that house. By the way, he shoveled out that car, but didn’t do much with his own truck, just enough to, again, drive away and leave a bunch of detruitus behind. But, anyway, that’s our theory: last storm, he was staying over for a while, so he didn’t have to do anything about the truck, but this time he had to go home.

I’ve mentioned this latest to the neighbors; we all agree that whoever is dating him in that house should dump him.

What am I reading

I’ve been reading Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, by Caitlin Doughty, which is about her experience working in a crematory (not crematorium, apparently? I’ve been wrong all my life?) and it is FASCINATING. I’ve learned so much! What’s easy! What’s hard! What I want when I’m dead (probably this, because being buried seems like such a hassle and involves so much needless goop and also cement⁴ , but I would also be down for a green burial). I’ve learned that donating your body to science doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be used to cure diseases - you might be used for facelift practice, or as a teaching tool - and that the order of operations on who gets cremated first in the day is based on body size, because you don’t want someone to be incompletely cremated due to the machine’s temperature being too high (that sounds wrong but think about cooking, where if it’s too high the food can be burnt on the outside but raw on the inside)(I’m sorry to do a cooking comparison here but fire works the same no matter what you’re using it for!!).

It’s made me think a lot about an internet friend of mine from 25 years ago - which is wild to think you can have internet friends from that long ago - we’ve lost touch but she once wrote that she told her sweetie that when she died, she wanted her body to be chucked out in the woods so the animals could eat it, and of course he was like, you know, that tends to wind up with the police getting involved, I love you but I’m not going to do this. I don’t know what she changed her mind to prefer, instead, or if she’s convinced him, but she did convince me. That’s what I’ve wanted ever since, even though I know how unreasonable and unrealistic it is. Let me be food. Let me be mulch. Let me be a home. I dream of a tree growing through my ribcage. I can’t, of course. I know. The green burial is the next best thing, I guess, but thanks, redacted friend, for showing me what I wanted, all these years ago.

Oh - I should note, aside from the subject matter of the book being necessarily about corpses and death and what happens to our bodies after we’re done using them, there is one quite horrifying death that is recounted in the book. It isn’t detailed, but it may affect you rather badly, so even if you’re generally fine with bodies and guts and bones and stuff, go in careful if hearing about incredibly tragic and preventable deaths messes with you. But do read it if you can! I think everyone should think about their own relationship with death! We’re all going to have one!

Some links

Funny name aside, you’re about to get furious at how a whole section was cut out of medical textbooks and now doctors don’t even know about this condition. Back Mice? What Fresh (Female-Associated) Hell Is This?

This dude straight up made shit up, and a whole branch of medicine exists as a result. He also started a “mothers, are you going to inadvertently kill your baby???” program, which honestly should have been a bit of a tipoff. Did a Celebrated Researcher Obscure a Baby’s Poisoning?

This fully FREAKS me out. It’s 2026 and people are still doing this stuff, still buying into the idea that a woman’s value is solely and fully based on how closely she hews to a very specific beauty standard, still saying “MRS degree” (that was embarrassingly outdated when I was in college! 25 years ago!!!), still doing this whole sorority THING and doing it this way - but now it’s worse because it’s got a social media component. ⁵  How to Build a Girl in Modern America

If you’re guessing anything other than an improvement in conditions ensued, then you’re not paying attention. Also, this was right here. We’ve driven past it. It Was the Most Violent Prison in America. Then the Guards Went on Strike

There’s only one thing in here that I don’t really follow. Is it actually true that people expect stain-resistance in their carpets? I am not a carpet enjoyer, so maybe I’m not the right person to ask, but do most people think it’s unacceptable for carpet to be stained when you spill something on it? Well, maybe rethink that if you do feel that way, because the cost of it is the health of everyone downstream of these factories. Inside America’s Carpet Capital: An Empire and Its Toxic Legacy

I didn’t realize that vendors had to specialize in one thing, by law. This is a pretty neat little collection of photos. Parisian Street Sellers of Yore

More old-timey France content: some people think this woman was not actually 122 years old but rather replaced by her daughter back in the 1930s. I’m not too sure about that - how would they have known she was going to live a long life herself (if the daughter was impersonating her, that would mean the daughter lived to 99)? Jeanne Calment wouldn’t have been particularly old at the time she would have “died” if the hoax was real, so what would the point even have been? The Real Story of Jeanne Calment, the French Woman Controversially Recognized as the Oldest Person to Ever Live

Would you expect someone to have been murdered over bird feathers? Well: Plume: A Tale of Murder and Martyrdom in the Everglades

We called it “freezer juice” and it was a staple in our house when I was growing up. A staple!! Lemonade freezer juice in particular. I got here and Matt was like… what? So I figured it wasn’t a thing for him and his family, but it turns out it wasn’t a thing for a LOT of people and their families. RIP to freezer juice. So Long, Frozen Juice from Concentrate. The Once-Popular Canned Drink Leaves Shelves This Year

You have my attention! Earth-Size Planet Spotted With Yearlong Orbit

I had no idea about this, but it sounds about right. How Denmark and Canada “Fought” the Whiskey War

Hey, you wanna see a lot of batshit outfits? And a lot - like a LOT lot - of velour? Also, you’re going to learn something you never knew about the Lithuanian basketball team at the 1992 Olympics. I own one piece of legit Olympicwear, not counting the retro style ski sweater I bought at the Vancouver games (that wasn’t what the actual athletes wore or anything), namely: the denim jacket covered in Canada-themed patches that Team Canada wore at the closing ceremonies of the London Olympics. They walked in there looking like a dirtbag army and I needed that jacket IMMEDIATELY. This year, their team gear was by Lululemon, a brand I disdain for well-documented reasons, but a couple of those pieces are, admittedly, really nice⁶ . A Brief History of Olympic Fashion

More Olympics: you probably already knew about the stones all having to be quarried on this one island, but this gives you more detail on exactly how they’re made into the 38-lb rocks that Canadian curlers then touch after letting go of the handle and claim they didn’t. All Olympic Curling Stones Come From This Scottish Island. Here’s How They’re Made

This sounds woo-woo but there are studied medical effects from spending time in nature, and anecdotally I can say it’s true for me, at least! Go look at a tree!! Society Needs a Doctor’s Prescription for Nature

Speaking as someone who has recently eaten a Reeses product, I’m not sure it tasted noticeably different, although maybe I’m not sufficiently attuned to the nuances of flavor. I think I am, though. Has Reese’s Actually Changed Its Recipe? 

Not now, creepily smiling fossil!! “Smiling” Fossil Discovered in Northumberland

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

I’m doing great, guys.

I’m fine! I’m soooo good.

Everything’s okay!!! No further questions your honor!!!

This month’s top 5: Things I think you should need a license to do

1. Drive. I’m not stupid.

2. Practice medicine. Ditto.

3. Teaching kids. Just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you’re a good teacher!

4. Wear cologne or perfume. The classes include things like “how much should you put on?” and “Do you spend all day in an enclosed space with people?”

5. And this is the one I feel most strongly about, start a podcast.

Well! Now there is a war on (there’s always a war on, but there’s a new one). I am trying not to throw up most days, and I imagine you’re the same. I know a lot of you are coping by watching an idealized version of the NHL with a lot more kissing - I’ll get around to it - I’m coping by looking up pictures of the Inside Passage (no, that’s not the same thing, you perverts!!!) and watching the old Universal monster movies in order. Well, I don’t know if I’m coping by doing these things, exactly, but I’m doing them. I hope you’re doing something that helps you remember that you exist and aren’t just a worker unit in the imperial core; with something like this it’s a bit tougher to find actions you can take to fight it, the way you can with things happening in your immediate area. But you can’t do anything at all if you give up, so do what you have to to keep yourself from giving up.

1  and she won a gold medal, so i guess they had a point

2  unfortunately: the bad sort, to do with the behavior of the US men’s hockey team after they won gold

3  obviously this is not a sports thing, this is a “response to the state of the world” thing

4  which is a kind of goop, temporarily, if you think about it

5  also, you should read Pledged by Alexandra Robbins!

6  call me, inexplicably sage-green jacket!