This morning when I was biking home (on my wife's bike because mine got stolen, probably because my younger son left it out in front of the house, unlocked) I saw my younger son working for our neighbor Gwen, doing some digging; he was wearing his brand new tennis shoes, so I told him to go home and put on his boots, as his tennis shoes were for tennis only and he was ruining the soles-- plus it's much better to have hard soles when you kick a shovel into the dirt; he took the bike home, I chatted with Gwen for a bit, and then he came running back and I was like "where's the bike?" but he had left it in the backyard, so I walked home and when I entered the house, it was full of shit-- Ian had tracked a bunch of dog shit into the house on his tennis shoe-- so I had to clean all that up, he ruined a carpet and scattered shit on the various floors, and he had left out the taco meat, the cheese, and the salsa-- total mess; so I cleaned the carpet and his tennis shoe and did my best to find all the shit and wipe that up as well; then I noticed there were several large flies in the house, and when I went upstairs I noticed (after chastising Ian for have three-- three!-- wet towels on his bedroom floor) that my older son not only had his window open but the screen as well-- I think this was so he could see the bird nest more clearly below his window, but he never closed it . . . there's no moral to this sentence, nor a resolution or ending, because this shit is just going to keep on happening, over and over and over.
Dave Has Some Reading to Do . . .
All the books in my queue appeared at the library today-- so I've got some serious reading to do . . . feel free to join my book club-- I'm hoping to finish four of the six before they need to be returned.
Hybrid . . . Ugh
I'm having a tough time selecting a hybrid bike (my bike got stolen) as I have to sift through a myriad of models and features and price points, and I'm also having a tough time with hybrid teaching-- I've gotten to the point (as have most teachers) where I genuinely loathe the virtual kids-- for various reasons, some founded and some unfounded: they don't turn their cameras on, they ghost, they lag, they restart their computers, it takes a million clicks to interact with them, there's no reason for them to be home anymore, they take forever to answer questions, they disappear, they don't give off any energy or body language . . . it's nice to have some kids in person, they're usually fun and energetic-- or at least annoying in the normal teenage ways-- but having kids in class makes it that much harder to care at all about the little student icons on the tiny laptop screen . . . it's time for this year (and hybrid instruction) to end.
I Get It, I'd Jump Too
We had some coastal flooding in Donaldson Park this weekend, and the surging brackish tide left some fish in the park, which expired and baked in the sun yesterday-- my dog and I stumbled on one of these gape-jawed horrific dried fish today on our walk and Lola, who was blithely sniffing along, nearly jumped out of her skin when she was suddenly confronted with a dead-fish face . . . which I totally understand.
Heart Attacks and Stolen Bikes
Over the course of this rainy Memorial Day Weekend, the boys and I watched the weirdest Seinfeld episode ever-- "The Heart Attack"-- I truly do not remember having seen it . . . Larry David makes a cameo in a B-movie, wearing a spacesuit and screaming the line "flaming globes of Sigmund!" and George turns eggplant purple after drinking some herbal tea, and-- much more unfortunate-- my venerable Cannondale mountain bike was stolen out of my backyard, from the bike shed . . . or that's what we think-- unless Ian left it in front of the house . . . but he's 110% sure that he put it back in the shed-- and we were home all weekend (except yesterday we went to a bbq) so it must have been stolen yesterday when we were out-- but we left the back door open so Lola could go in and out . . . it's truly weird, I can't imagine someone coming all the way into the backyard and finding the bike shed unless they knew about it-- totally weird-- but the police are on the case, so if you've got any leads, let me know.
Do You Live in Fantasyland?
The Shape of Water
Watching Grass Grow is Like Watching Paint Dry
The Dreaded Pusher . . . or Seven of Them?
Disaster in the state tennis tournament yesterday, my kids' team got ousted in the first round by Florence, the seven seed (Highland Park was the two seed in Group 1 Central Jersey) and the entire team played the moonball/pusher style of tennis, which works pretty well on a hot day when you're under pressure; our doubles teams figured it out and won, but Alex and Ian lost and it all came down to Boyang in the third set-- he played valiantly (especially since Alex and Boyang rushed over from the AP Lang test and started playing without warming up. . . they both lost their first sets) but he lost in the final windy moments before the thunderstorm; the kid Ian played never hit a passing shot or an overhead-- all lobs and dinks, and while he had a decent first serve if he missed then he quickly did an underhanded drop serve-- as did the rest of the team; they all played this up-the-middle lob style-- it's a strategy like parking the bus in soccer, it works but it's ugly-- and they also made some questionable calls (another advantage of this style, as you don't play any shots near the lines and you wait for your opponent to either hit it out, or nearly out and then you call it out) so I have to play Ian and Alex all summer using this totally annoying tactic so they learn to disrupt it-- it's not easy, you can't hit side to side as you finally go insane and hit balls out, you have to hit drop shots and dinks, draw the person to the net and lob them, or go halfway to the net and take weak shots out of the air . . . this was a sad end to a good season and certainly a frustrating learning experience-- this moonball tactic exists and needs to be reckoned with (but wow is it borning and ugly).
You'll Never Leave the Woods
In the Woods, Irish mystery author Tana French's first novel is one you will never forget-- it revolves around two separate mysteries regarding dead children, a deeply dysfunctional and traumatized detective, and a number of fascinating relationships . . . and while it can be bleak and dark and frustrating, the writing and the memories of childhood are beautiful-- it's a dense book, in that way it reminds me of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but the narrator's absolute mental disintegration and his candid description of exactly that make this book something special: nine trowels out of ten.
Duh
My son Alex solved an easy version of this famous riddle today: Alex wanted to go to tennis practice early to practice his kick serve with his friend, but he usually drives his brother Ian-- but Ian wasn't home from school yet (Ian goes in-person, Alex is still remote) so Alex was going to ride his bike to the park but bring his set of keys to the van and I was going to drive Ian to the park and put MY bike in the back of the van-- so then when I got to the park, I could bike home and then Alex could throw his bike in the back of the van and drive himself, his bike and Ian home . . . but then Alex thought of an easier way; Alex rode MY bike to the park, then I drove Ian to the park, then I got on my bike and rode it home.
Stacey Turns Forty
Getting old is knowing when to drink five beers instead of ten (and the ladies at the engagement party we saw at The Homestead in Morristown had NOT learned this lesson yet).
Spring Means Extra Samaras
Kids Think of the Best Shit
My wife teaches fifth-grade math and she takes lots of outdoor mask breaks with her in-person students and one of them noticed that the purple ball with little spikes that she brought to school resembles the novel coronavirus and so now during mask breaks the kids play a dodgeball gamed called "covid," and if you get pegged with the purple spiky ball, then you've got covid and need to be vaccinated.
You Might Want to Read the Latter . . .
Klara and the Sun, by the masterful Kazuo Ishiguro, is a profound (and profoundly melancholy) take on obsolescence and AI . . . if you want a funny, poignant and upbeat version of this story, try Set My Heart to Five by Simon Stephenson.
Stop Badgering Badgers
"Badgering" someone isn't behaving like a badger-- it's behaving like a dog during the sport of "badger-baiting," when the dog badgers the badger to death . . . according to this episode of Short Wave, badgers aren't particularly tenacious or annoying, in fact, they live together in communal warrens for generations-- badger "setts" have many rooms and dozens of entrances and denizens that live there . . . the sett can take up hundreds of meters; there's also a segment in the podcast about "badger butter" which I will not detail, too gross.
Dave and Cat Reopen NYC!
Catherine and I went to the city for a couple of nights to celebrate 21 years of marriage-- we didn't do much for our 20th Anniversary because of the pandemic-- but (thanks to the vaccine) NYC is open for business and now is a great time to visit:
1) hotels are cheap, we stayed at the Arlo Soho-- great location and a hip rooftop bar;
2) we hiked the entire lower Hudson River Westside Pier and park system down to the Battery and Stone Street . . . this is NOT the NYC of my youth-- they are gentrifying and constructing one pier after another, shade and courts and fields and chairs and trees and a little island! . . . you could walk the High Line across to the water and then make your way down along the river for a great day;
3) NYC is the right amount of crowded right now . . . not too many tourists, but lots of rich and beautiful people running and walking and hanging out . . . people that just did not look like normal people, no wrinkles, very skinny, very good looking, fashionable dressed . . . everyone looks sort of famous in this section of the city;
4) we went to two Greenwich Village comedy shows-- the upstairs of the very famous Comedy Cellar and the Comedy Store . . . both were fairly intimate because they're not packing people in and both shows were great, five or six comics getting up and doing ten to fifteen minutes each . . . superfun;
5) we ate outside and inside and drank at bars both outside and inside . . .
6) hiked around the perimeter and then cut through the city to get back to SoHo;
7) we ate a cronut . . . it was kind of gross;
8) and ate some vegetarian buffalo wings made of cauliflower at The Underdog, which-- surprisingly-- were not gross;
9) and lucked out with the weather . . .
10) the kids didn't destroy the house while we were gone, so that was a win;
11) we saw an actor we knew but we couldn't identify him, nor can we remember what show he is from . . . so we'll never know who he is . . . I thought he was Steve from Coupling;
12) the only odd moment of our trip was when a dude was grifting on the train headed back to Jersey and the door's closed before he could get off and he had a meltdown next to us . . . I was about to tell him to just go see the conductor but decided he wasn't really rational when he started yelling "MOTHERFUCKER!" and punching the seat, so I just continued to read my book and he got up and I think he got off in Seacaucus.
Tennis Notes/Sibling Notes
My boys had a tough match today-- they were playing Wardlaw Hartridge, an undefeated private school with a very good team, but it was a match that they had an outside shot of winning-- very outside-- and Alex (at second singles) was up 5-2 in the first set against a kid who was a better player than him and Ian (at first singles) was playing one of the better players in the county . . . and Ian was down 3-1 but hanging in and Alex took a look at the other matches and told Ian that he "had to win"-- because they play next to each other-- and Ian and Alex started bickering and there may have been some profanity . . . which the kid Ian was playing thought was directed at him . . . but it was directed Alex-- so then there was an awkward stoppage while all this was sorted out and it did not help Alex or Ian-- Alex ended up squandering his lead and losing his set in a tiebreaker . . . Ian lost the first set but then came around and led most of the second set before losing 7-5-- I was really proud of him for making it a match, and both my kids learned a valuable lesson; tennis is an individual sport and you can't be concerned about what's going on next to you . . . you've just got to focus on your match and see how it all turns out once you're done (they get another shot at this team on Monday, it would take a miracle, but maybe they'll figure it out and win).
The Wind Got in My Eyes
I'd love to write a sentence but I can't concentrate because my dishwasher is too loud.
Everyone Should Be Talking About This Book!
Patricia Lockwood's new novel No One Is Talking About This is fragmented and poetic, it's hard to describe but easy to read; I would call it a more lyrical, more poignant Mark Leyner-like stream-of-internet data dump . . . the portal has taken over the narrator's mind-- the narrator who wrote the perfect tweet "can a dog be twins" and who makes her way in and out of meatspace and digital space with anxious disturbed ease . . . and then-- in the second half of the story-- reality intrudes-- the event is based on something that happened to Patricia Lockwood and her family-- and I won't spoil the way reality intrudes, but it rips her from the absurdity and obsession of the internet into a beautiful, profound, tragic everpresent now . . . but more important than the theme is the writing, it's wild, profane, funny and mesmerizing:
The things she wanted the baby to know seemed small, so small . . . How it felt to go to a grocery store on vacation; to wake up at three a.m. and run your whole life through your fingertips; first library card; new lipstick; a toe getting numb for two months because you borrowed shoes to a friend's wedding; Thursday; October; "She's Like the Wind" in a dentist's office; driver's license picture where you look like a killer; getting your bathing suit back on after you go to the bathroom, touching a cymbal for sound and then touching it again for silence . . .
so check it out-- I read it in a weekend-- it's certainly something different, and pretty much the opposite of the last book I read, Tana French's The Searcher, which is grounded in a rural setting, the internet mainly absent except as a villain to corrupt the youth . . . Lockwood's book is something completely different.
I Kept My Mouth Shut
Yesterday, at the pool clean-up day, there were a number of people who wore masks-- though we were outside and certainly crowded in any way-- but they gathered hedge-clippings and disposed of them with bare-hands, though I warned them of the poison-ivy; this was a contradictory and ironic mistake in risk-assessment . . . they should have uncovered their face and covered their hands (I wore gloves of course) but I wisely kept my mouth shut on this issue . . . I didn't want to jeopardize my guest passes and free sandwich.
The Mean Streets of Rural Ireland?
Five pints out of five for Tana French's new novel The Searcher . . . it's a bit like The Searchers in that it has the vibe of a Western-- a stranger enters an unfamiliar land and attempts to bring some order to a situation-- but it's Western Ireland . . . way out in the sticks, in beautiful mountainous country; Cal, a newly divorced and newly retired Chicago cop, buys a fixer-upper in a desolate small town-- much of the book takes place amidst his labors over this little decrepit farmhouse on the peat bog . . . but though he is seeking good fishing and quiet times, he becomes inextricably connected with the town (a more somber version of Schitt's Creek) and some of the more nefarious, surprisingly nefarious because of the scenery-- but really not so much when you think of the direction that small, dying rural towns are heading-- and he has to exert what knowledge and power he has as an ex-cop in a new country-- a difficult problem when you no longer have the badge, the gun, and connections (although there is a gun, of course) and while I loved the plot, characters, setting, and relationships within this book, my favorite scene is more of a set-piece-- a particularly rowdy night at the local pub, Sean Og's, on a night where some moonshine is procured-- but the banter and antics belie a deeper "don't mess with the locals" type of warning, which takes a while to surface . . . reminds me a bit of the tavern scene in American Werewolf in London-- and there's also a theme I can identify with- especially recently, since I've just build a shed and almost finished a concrete bar/planter-- the idea that once upon a time, the goal was to build something tangible: a house, a flock, a family, a working piece of land . . . but now the young folks want so many intangibles and tangibles all at once-- views on YouTube, cred, money, sexual conquests, fashion, style, etcetera-- and this is laid bare in stark contrast the most rural and out-of-the-way areas.
No Time For Sentences!
No time to write sentences, as I'm working on my next project: a cinderblock bar/planter next to the newly built shed . . . I'm trying to finish it and fill it with succulents and such by Mother's Day (but it's pub night, so the workday is done).
My Neck Has a Weird Itch . . . Is It Just Sweat From Running?
When I looked in the mirror a moment ago, I saw a decent sized spider on my neck . . . and I wish I could say I reacted calmly (but no worse than my son's reaction this afternoon, after he went to the DMV to finally convert his temporary license into the real laminated McCoy-- only to find that they changed the rule last week and you MUST bring your physical Social Security card-- on top of a passport-- and we have no clue where that item is . . . going to the DMV is like being covered from head-to-toe with spiders).
If It Rained When I Was Sleeping, Then I Might Not Eat out of Boredom
It's May, so enough of the April showers, Weather Gods . . . I want to go out and watch my kids play tennis (not inhale an entire bag of BBQ potato chips while playing online chess while "attending" a Zoom faculty meeting).
Even More Shed (and Tennis Notes)
Caulking, hook-hanging, organizing . . . a shed-builder's work is never done-- even if the shed-builder is tired because he subbed in at the racquet club and played a strong player who also happened to be 27 years young-- the aforementioned shed-builder played well but still lost 6-3 and 5-4 . . . the 27-year-old-- who had a wicked forehand and great touch at the net, seemed to be one shot better in most rallies . . especially one drop shot better because when you build a shed all week, your ability to spring for a drop shot is severely impaired.
Left is Right?
We were doing ethical relativism and ethical universalism in Philosophy class today and I had a thought that merits further development-- by someone other than me, a simple shed-builder:
W.T. Stace claims that ethical absolutism is the province of the right, of conservatism and religious folk, but that may not be the truth any longer . . . the right seems more concerned with general libertarianism-- if you want to wear a mask, do so, but don't make me wear one; if you want to be green, great, but don't regulate pollution, etc.-- while the new "woke" movement on the left seems to believe it has the right ideas on race, climate, gender, etcetera . . . of course, there are exceptions and anomalies-- abortion comes to mind-- but perhaps this reversal in tone and attitude has also caused and confused all the polarization and animosity (and the important thing to remember is that nobody knows the best way to do anything, one society's outcast is another society's hero, and there's usually-- but not always-- a range of solutions to ethical problems, and complete faith in ethical relativism is an absolute and thus a paradox).
This New Shed
For your reading pleasure, here is the (mostly) complete saga of the shed . . . I'm sure there will be a couple more posts about organization and caulking, but for the most part, this motherfucker is shingled and done:
1) nearly a month ago, I cleaned out my old plastic disaster of a shed;
2) a week later, I knocked down the old shed and began constructing a proper foundation for a new shed;
3) two weeks ago, I swore I was going to hire someone to build the shed kit I ordered from Lowes-- I built the foundation and the floor but there was no way I could manage the rest-- especially since I wanted it built in a corner;
4) twelve days ago I read the instructions on how to build the shed and did not understand them;
5) eleven days ago, I carried all the lumber and shed parts into the backyard, took a serious look at them, and then went and played some tennis;
6) ten days ago, I got motivated, impressed my wife into service, and started building;
7) throughout this courtship with my shed, I occasionally texted Mike the shed builder-- but he was moderately busy and I didn't really pursue him or any other shed-building contacts to the fullest;
8) I took a (much deserved) shed break;
9) the past week, I really buckled down and worked my ass off;
10) today was the hardest day of all-- I had to finish shingling the roof and-- as I've mentioned, I built this shed in a corner (which is totally illegal-- this is a rogue shed) with very little space between the shed and the two fences . . . so I had to put the step-ladder in my neighbor's yard to get at some portions of the roof and then I had to climb up and perch on the peak for much of the shingling-- it was hot and the giant bees were my only company-- but I muscled through and now my shed is shingled . . . I have to trim out the window and hang some hooks and organize the crap and put it back inside the new shed (and, if I follow my friend Alec's advice, I need to add a weathervane) but it seems the saga of the shed is coming to an inspirational conclusion . . . if I can build a shed, so can you!
Tip Top Tuesday
Tuesday is generally the worst day of the week- neither here nor there-- but despite this, I manned up and shingled half a shed and then brought the dog to my kids' tennis match, a tough one versus Bound Brook; Ian suffered his first loss but he played great against an excellent player (who was also a grown man-- and very intense) but Alex stepped up and came from behind to beat his kid in a tiebreaker in the first set and then win the second set-- very exciting-- and then first doubles came up big and the team won the match . . . so they remain undefeated; tennis is exciting to watch but it's not like soccer-- you can't scream and yell-- and having the dog at the match is another problem entirely, but still, for a Tuesday, this was tops as far as action and entertainment.
That's What She Shed
My shed now has doors-- which were a pain in the ass to hang-- a clasp, some custom-built shelves (I didn't screw up the measuring, not even once!) and a roof . . . all it needs are shingles-- and there were some roofers next door today but I didn't ask them to do it so it looks like I'll be shingling tomorrow-- and some shed-hooks (which are coming from Amazon)
Jokes: How to Tell Them?
Thursday night, Rob the Plumber told an excellent joke and I liked that he told it as an exercise in minimalism . . . the joke got funnier on reflection:
this penguin is driving across the desert and his car breaks down in this little town and he finds the one mechanic and the mechanic says he can take a look at his car-- but it's going to take a few minutes-- so the penguin goes and gets a vanilla ice cream cone and he walks back to the mechanic's place and the mechanic says "It looks like you blew a seal" and the penguin wipes his face and says, "no, it's just some ice cream"
and while I got the punch-line of course-- gross-- I also liked thinking about the plot of the joke: the fact that the penguin was driving a car . . . in the desert-- that's funny in itself . . . and of course he's a messy eater-- he's got a beak!-- but I realized all this little by little, after the fact; at happy hour on Friday, I told the joke to the teachers and my friend Liz said, "That's my husband's favorite joke! But he tells it so much better-- he goes on and on about how messy the penguin is, how he's so hot and dying for ice cream and just pigging out and how he's getting ice cream all over his face and he's a total mess-- he build it up and builds it up-- and then does the punch line" and then we had a meta-discussion on how to tell the joke-- we are all English teachers-- and it made me think of the "Willie Nelson" joke and the many discussions we've had on how to tell it . . . in the end it's a matter of preference . . . The Aristocrats is an exercise in this.
Murder in the Snow
Ruth Ware's new mystery thriller One by One is totally entertaining, especially if you love skiing and snowboarding; it's set in the French Alps, there's lots of murder and mayhem, there's a tech element-- and while it's a bit longer then it needs to be (a lot of wrapping up) I found it far more fun than building a shed.
Dave Makes an Inspirational Poster!
This morning during my first period College Writing class, I scrawled a brilliant and inspirational epigram on an 8.5 by 11 piece of printer paper . . . these are seniors and we have one more essay to go before the year is finished-- all we want to do is get this last Rutgers essay complete and on the books, so the successful students can purchase the credits, I can teach some Hamlet, and we can end this shitshow of a year; here is my pearl of wisdom . . . designed to curtail procrastination and inspire action:
You can't stop writing until you start writing.
Note to Pollen
When everything blooms, sleep with the windows in your bedroom closed (what a difference).
Adventure on the Clock
Terry, Mike, and I took a walk on our free period yesterday and when we got to the back of the building we saw the back "smokers" gate was open-- it's been open through the pandemic but normally it's locked-- so we headed out onto the tree-lined suburban streets to do a couple laps, but when we got back to the gate it was locked-- and this is a tall chainlink fence-- 20 feet high?-- and after some thoughts about calling the main office, we decided we could find a way back-- so we headed down the street to where the road intersected with the stadium fence; we could see the gym classes walking around the track, but no teachers within shouting distance-- and I gave climbing the tall chainlink fence a shot but when I got to the top I realized it was going to be quite difficult to get over the chain-link without tearing my pants and Terry wisely pointed out that if I fell and hurt myself we might get fired, so we double-timed it out to Summerhill Road, entered the property where the cars come in, took the hypotenuse of the soccer fields, waded through some wet grass, and made it back to the building just in time for class (but sweaty).
Shed Break
I took a break from shed building today (and wow was I sore from shed building) to host the First Day of School in April . . . it's the start of the new quarter and we've combined cohorts so that in-person kids are going five days a week; quite a few of my students opted in for the fourth quarter, so I had a dozen kids in Creative Writing-- the first time I've had an actual class since last March-- we made groups, had a dead metaphor contest, shamed the seniors for losing, etc.-- it was kind of like school, despite the masks . . . but it was hard to remember about the virtual kids on the computer, who were getting a very limited perspective of class . . . I don't know what they saw or heard; same thing second period, I had a bunch of kids in Philosophy class and we were discussing some moral choices post they wrote but when the kids talk in class, I don't know what the computer kids hear-- it's surreal; my last class was in four groups and there were kids from all four groups present so they could report on what was going on in the virtual groups-- but it was easier to have kids at home present because then you don't have to do all the muting and unmuting-- anyway, it was an odd day, I saw a bunch of my students in person for the first time-- you never know how tall kids are until you meet them in person-- but I didn't see them all that clearly because if I put my glasses on they fog up (and my throat hurts from allergies and yelling through a mask all day).
Nobody Put a Shed in the Corner (Except Dave)
I started banging nails at 8 AM this morning-- my wife thought I was pushing it and might upset the neighbors-- but I knew I had a long day ahead of me and needed to get started; eight-and-a-half-hours later, there's definitely something shed-like growing in the corner of my yard-- here are some highlights and lowlights of the shed building process:
Shed Shed Shed
My life has become very orderly: I'm either building the shed or taking breaks from building the shed (otherwise known as living your life) and so this morning I started to move the shed parts from the driveway to the backyard but then my friends needed a fourth for doubles so I took a break and then I finished carrying the parts and then I took a long nap and then I took a look at the parts (with a contractor friend) and then it started to drizzle so I covered the parts with a tarp.
The Shed Saga Continues
I built the base for my shed and read the instructions to build the actual shed and I am afraid to open the shed package (although the deers beat me to it) because I do not think I am competent enough to build the shed (instead, I will go for a run with the dog . . . something I understand).
Man Tantrum
Tuesday afternoon, my wife started preparing two elaborate recipes (Crispy Sour Cream and Onion Chicken and some Ethiopian lentil dish) and then she left to go do some gardening at her elementary school-- she runs the gardening club there and she's always planting stuff on the school grounds-- and then the kids came home from tennis practice (Ian defeated Alex 6-1, 6-3 and so the younger brother is officially first singles) and they were hungry and I was getting hungry as well (and inebriated-- I've been avoiding grains and bread and sugar, for the most part-- so the two beers I had while making salad really went to my head) but my wife lost track of time while she was planting things and I don't think she had her phone on her (or she was ignoring my frantic texts) and so I made an attempt at these recipes but I was quickly overwhelmed by all the ingredients and steps and methods and such so I pretty much gave up and sulked and drank wine on an empty stomach and by the time she arived home I was a frustrated disaster and while I tried not to blame her, she definitely caught my tone and got pissed at the fact that if she's MIA for forty minutes the entire house falla apart and I told her that if it was some simple recipe-- like grill some meat and steam some broccoli, then I'm fine-- but this was advanced culinary arts and she said we should have eaten something else-- and I agreed and apologized and said it was my fault and it definitely made me think of the passage I've included below from Joseph Campbell's Myths to Love By that we are annotating in College Writing-- when Alex and I were alone on our snowboarding trip, away from "completely efficient females," we just ate beans and meat and things were easy . . . and the only thing of value I can offer is the fact that I am slowly but surely constructing a new shed . . . but even that is slow going and harder than it looks.
So much, then, for the mythic world of the primitive hunters. Dwelling mainly on great grazing lands, where the spectacle of nature is of a broadly spreading earth covered over by an azure dome touching down on distant horizons and the dominant image of life is of animal societies moving about in that spacious room, those nomadic tribes, living by killing, have been generally of a warlike character. Supported and protected by the hunting skills and battle courage of their males, they are dominated necessarily by a masculine psychology, male-oriented mythology, and appreciation of individual valor.
In tropical jungles, on the other hand, an altogether different order of nature prevails, and, accordingly, of psychology and mythology as well. For the dominant spectacle there is of teeming vegetable life with all else more hidden than seen. Above is a leafy upper world inhabited by winged screeching birds; below, a heavy cover of leaves, beneath which serpents, scorpions, and many other mortal dangers lurk. There is no distant clean horizon, but an evercontinuing tangle of trunks and leafage in all directions wherein solitary adventure is perilous. The village compound is relatively stable, earthbound, nourished on plant food gathered or cultivated mainly by the women; and the male psyche is consequently in bad case. For even the primary psychological task for the young male of achieving separation from dependency on the mother is hardly possible in a world where all the essential work is being attended to, on every hand, by completely efficient females. It is therefore among tropical tribes that the wonderful institution originated of the men's secret society, where no women are allowed, and where curious symbolic games flattering the masculine zeal for achievement can be enjoyed in security, safe away from Mother's governing eye. In those zones, furthermore, the common sight of rotting vegetation giving rise to new green shoots seems to have inspired a mythology of death as the giver of life; whence the hideous idea followed that the way to increase life is to increase death. The result has been, for millenniums, a general rage of sacrifice through the whole tropical belt of our planet, quite in contrast to the comparatively childish ceremonies of animal-worship and -appeasement of the hunters of the great plains: brutal human as well as animal sacrifices, highly symbolic in detail; sacrifices also of fruits of the field, of the firstborn, of widows on their husbands' graves, and finally of entire courts together with their kings. The mythic theme of the Willing Victim has become associated here with the image of a primordial being that in the beginning offered itself to be slain, dismembered, and buried; and from whose buried parts then arose the food plants by which the lives of the people are sustained.
Joseph Campbell
The Deers Hate My Shed
The shed project continues: I've leveled out the base, bordered it with bricks, put down plastic pavers, added the pea gravel, hauled the lumber for the joists and floor, and now perhaps I'll hire a professional to do the rest . . . especially since some stupid deer rubbed their paws or their hooves or their stupid fuzzy antlers on the shed package in my driveway, ripping open the plastic and damaging (slightly) the shed lumber . . . these deer have no respect for property or propriety.
Sci Fi Sunday (Profound and Absurd)
It was a rainy Sunday yesterday, so . . .
1) I read over a hundred pages of Chen Qiufan's futuristic vision Waste Tide . . . it's translated from Chinese by Ken Liu (the same guy who translated Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem) and it's excellent-- the story of an e-waste worker on Silicon Island-- where electronics from cell phones to laptops to cybernetic limbs-- come to be recycled who gets involved with labor disputes, an American company that ostensibly wants to make the island more environmentally healthy but actually has more nefarious goals, and the future of intelligence-- artificial and otherwise; the book is dark and violent and precise and surreal and touching all at once, and apparently-- according to this Wired article-- the author is regarded as a prophetic rock star in China;
2) my family went to the movies-- the first time since the pandemic started-- and we saw Godzilla vs. Kong . . . which had HIGHLY entertaining battle scenes-- you should see this film in the theater . . . it's fantastic how often these two punch and kick each other, though they have so many other ways to attack, and the undersea battle amidst the naval vessels is stupendous and literally breathtaking, BUT-- and this is a major but-- the plot of the movie seems to have been written by a bunch of drunk twelve-year-old boys . . . maybe Hollywood was able to grab them since they aren't attending school-- they take Kong to Antarctica so that he can go through a tunnel toward the center of the earth and lead a bunch of levitating ships to an incredible power source (which the levitating ships seem to already possess) and in the center of the earth there is a weird hollow jungle environment with giant creatures and clouds and Kong plays with some inverted gravitational rocks that are floating and then he grabs a giant tomohawk and sits on a throne-- it's very surreal-- and Godzilla gains access to this world by shooting his nuclear breath straight down into the earth and then the thing ends with a battle to end all battles (and a plot twist that I predicted) and I should also point out that there are a lot of movie stars in this film-- Millie Bobby Brown, Bryan Tyree Henry, Kyle Chandler, etc-- and they all seem to find each other wherever they happen to be . . . including Hong Kong, though most people get stomped (or fall off bridges . . . Godzilla loves to stand up right when he's under a bridge) but the stars all seem to be standing close to the action but not in th epath of Kong and Godzilla . . . and the great Lawrence Reddick is in the movie for like two seconds- they must have left his role on the cutting room floor . . . my favorite moment is when Kong pops his dislocated shoulder back into place on a skyscraper and then gets back to battling--epic-- anyway, quite of continuum of skilled and ridiculous sci-fi for one Sunday.
Even More Tennis Notes
Yesterday, after purchasing, loading, and unloading a dozen bags of pea gravel (for the shed base) I substituted again in the tennis league and eked out a tie-breaker victory over a big-serving, hard hitter-- some call him Ken-- and while I didn't hit the ball very well, as I was sore from tamping and digging and carrying bags of rock, I remembered to back way up when Ken was serving-- a simple tip that is easy to forget-- and while he certainly hammered some of my weaker returns, I occasionally hit drop shots and more often got it deep enough to stay in the point . . . and while his serve was brutal, he was also prone to double-faulting and being too aggressive, so I just hung in and hung in and eventually tied it up 5-5 so we played a ten-point tiebreaker to finish our time and I beat him 10-2.
We've Been at the Mercy of Evil Geniuses
It's not a fun read, but it's compelling; Kurt Andersen's new book Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America is a comprehensive history of all that went wrong since America took a sharp right turn in 1980-- and while we all know Ronald Reagan was famously at the wheel when the country steered away from progress, the ramp-up to this new path was the dynamic and radical change happening in America in the late 60s and early 70s . . . Vietnam and Civil Rights and the Weathermen and acid rock and mini-skirts and women in the workplace and the oil crisis was too much change all at once and so while culture lapsed into nostalgia, the conservatives launched a concerted and organized attack on all the "progress" that was made; greed became good and the bottom line was God; Milton Friedman was a prophet; unions were attacked and dismantled; laws were written in favor of large corporations; regulations were eased (which reminds me of this repugnant Reagan deregulation . . . what a douche); dark money proliferated; conservative think tanks and advisory boards gained power; conservatives made inroads on talk radio and economic departments; the country became finacialized; Wall Street and banking went from boring to a casino; stocks became sexy; we had various economic meltdowns because of these right-wing deregulation experiments; the liberals became neo-liberals and shifted rightward; income inequality grew and grew . . . and while Scandinavian countries figured out a kinder version of capitalism, with a social safety net, but often made slight conservative alterations to their course-- we went whole hog, convinced by the right-wing pundits that this was the only way to make America great again-- that the free market was sanctity and anything that impeded it-- from pollution to income inequality to lackof social programs to a pandemic-- was an obstacle to raze over or ignore; so we erased the progress that happened after WWII and retreat into the robber baron age from before WWI . . . the conservatives had their forty-years in the wilderness from 1940 to 1980 and they've had their time in the sun, and it's been disastrous, and now-- perhaps because of Trump (who received no more votes from white people than any other Republican president) and the pandemic, progressives will have a chance to change things, and to help usher in this weird new age . . . the book is a monster and this sentence hardly does it justice, but it does end with some hope and a call to the future-- so let's go already.
Let the Taunting Begin?
I didn't want to ask for too many details, but they are doing "challenge matches" now at tennis practice to determine the positional order of the players and it seems my older son Alex and my younger son Ian were at the top of the ladder and had to play each other for the number one spot-- Alex was ahead in the set 5-1 but Ian came back and beat him 7-5 . . . so for the time being-- for a change-- the younger brother is number one and the older brother is number two . . . I haven't heard any taunting or trash-talking, so I think they are both handling the situation with aplomb, but we'll see how long that lasts (this coming from kids whose dad takes great pride in trash-talking about the NYT mini . . . so I'm certainly going to come off like a hypocrite at some point).
Some Simple Advice, Since the Marketplace is Broken
The new episode of Radiolab, "What's Up Holmes," is required listening for anyone interested in the great American experiment with freedom of speech; Oliver Wendell Holmes eventually comes to the conclusion that there is "a marketplace of ideas" and that nearly all speech should be allowed-- good ideas will rise to the top of the marketplace, win the competition, and the truth will prevail . . . and while this has become an American ideal, the metaphor may need some revision-- marketplaces need rules, regulations, and referees because while marketplaces can occasionally work, they can also produce pollution and uncontrolled externalities; they can create monopolies and arbitrage and collusion and unfair trade practices and great inequality; they can poison the water supply (or factual information) and-- when deregulated enough, they can lead to Enron or the mortgage crisis or any of the other stupid crashes created by our idiotic and evil hardline right-wing voodoo economists/politicians that have been having their way with this country, it's laws and marketplaces and its unions since 1980 or so . . . anyway, the takeaway is that if you are stupid enough to get your news on Twitter or Facebook or any other social media, you need to realize that marketplace is broken and lies, propoganda, and misinformation compound and spread much fast than logic, reason, and the truth . . . my advice would be to AVOID TWITTER AND FACEBOOK . . . because if you go there, you give those platforms power to pollute the information-sphere and the marketplace of ideas, but-- despite the fact that I crushed at tennis AND the NYT mini today-- who's going to listen to me?
Shed Stuff
Cleaning out the shed, in preparation to knock down the shed, so that we can build a new shed-- it's not for the weak of heart (but I certainly don't want to end up like Arthur "2 Sheds" Jackson . . . although since I own a shed and a mini-shed, I might already be him).
All the Weather
Alex and I just got back from a father/son snowboarding trip where we experienced all of the weather-- terrible wind (enough wind to blow my ski hat off) and fog and sleet (which stuck to our goggles, impeding vision) and lovely balmy sunshine and finally, clouds-- we got a couple of decent days of riding in but that's about it for the season here in the Northeast; on the trip, I finished Sara Paretsky's incredibly complicated mystery novel Dead Land . . . Paretsky's irate and persistent detective V.I. Warshsawki tackles crime and corruption in Chicago, but this case spans the globe-- coincidentally, there's some Pinochet Chilean death squad stuff and I just quit reading Hades, Argentina because the Argentinian death squad stuff was too disturbing-- I guess you can't avoid death squads-- and while the wind was blowing on our trip and the lifts were on hold, Alex and I watched a lot of basketball (he's leading his pool) and Tropic Thunder, Dazed and Confused, and a fair amount of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly . . . but we may never finish because Amazon Prime just took it down . . . and we were mid-movie, so I guess if you start something out West, you'd better finish it.
Yesterday vs Today . . . Teenwolf vs Pfizer
Yesterday began with such promise: I defeated my nemeses in the NYT Mini Crossword (Stacey, Whitney, and Zman) which is a rarity and cause for celebration; then Catherine and I drove the Meadowlands and we each got our second Pfizer vaccine shot and we flew right on through without much waiting; a guy in line informed me that Houston's best player was sitting out with a hip pointer, giving Rutgers a fighting chance; and then I settled in the watch basketball-- my brackets were thriving, as was the pool where select eight teams and get points for their seed number (so you've got to select upsets) and in between basketball I played ping-pong with my sons, and despite my sore arm, I defeated them handily (which did not happen the day before) and then things started going downhill: Illinois lost, Syracuse won, Texas Tech lost and nail-biter, and then Rutgers squandered away a ten-point lead in the final minutes-- they stalled the ball too much, missed a couple gimmes, and Geo Baker slipped . . . it was awful and Alex and I were very sad . . . I was also sad because, over the course of the day, I was getting more and more sore and fatigued and by the end of the Rutgers game my throat hurt and I had a headache . . . it was the same for Cat and she even had a low-grade fever-- our immune systems were responding to the vaccine and it wasn't fun . . . we had chills all night and couldn't sleep and I was having weird racing thoughts, such as who scored the most points in a basketball game IN A MOVIE . . . Teenwolf? . . . which led me to this amazing video . . . the internet isn't for politics, it's for THAT VIDEO . . . anyway, I know there are silver linings to all this: getting a vaccine is better than getting COVID, a robust immune system response means that your immune system is generating antibodies (old people have little response to the vaccine) and Rutgers had to break the ice with the new program and they've done it (and VCU didn't get to play at all!) and-- despite the side effects-- I've heard that the Pfizer vaccine is far superior to all other vaccines . . . 75% of people who receive it improve their NTY mini score, 67% select better brackets, and 11% develop ESP.
College Admissions: More Than You Need To Know . . .
Jeffrey Selingo's Who Gets in and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions is a great book-- well-written, compelling, and chock full of telling anecdotes and vital information; here are a few things I learned:
1) ignore the mail . . . it's random-- you are NOT being recruited by Princeton if you have 1350 on your SAT and a 3.7 GPA and happen to get sent a brochure;
2) there are hidden agendas-- more men, more English majors, more people from five states away, more people that pay;
3) elite colleges are more difficult to get acceptance now but the rest are not;
4) you need a cohesive story of why you actually want to go to a particular college . . . colleges track website visits, they pay attention to who visits and attends admission presentation, they like legacies, they know who opens emails, etc . . . colleges are trying to figure out who will go to the college-- not give an award of acceptance;
5) Early Decision serves the needs of the college "a hell of a lot more" than the needs of the student-- again, colleges are trying to lock-in people who will pay full tuition or play football or boost SAT scores or increase diversity . . . so you're probably not going to get into your reach school just because you apply ED . . . and you won't be able to shop around and negotiate;
6) Selingo breaks colleges into "buyers" and "sellers" . . . sellers are well-known schools with low admission rates and a brand name-- buyers are schools that need to purchase a class of incoming students-- and they need to offer more discounts to excellent students to lure them in . . . there are some excellent schools in both categories-- and many state schools are "buyer" schools that should be considered . . . but it's best to apply to some of each and then weigh the finances and merits of the schools;
7) rich white people take advantage of using sports to get into school more than people of color . . . while basketball and football may admit a number of black students, most of the other sports-- lacrosse, gymnastics, sailing, soccer, rowing-- have mainly white participants, often rich white kids who played elite, club versions of these sports for their entire childhood;
8) college essays could be helpful, but most are "mind-numbingly boring" and deal with several topics: overcoming an athletic injury; dealing with depression, anxiety, or sexuality; or discovering themselves on a trip . . . honest slice-of-life essays have the best chance of capturing admissions' officers severely depleted attention;
9) it's very difficult to determine the cost of a college-- the sticker price is often not indicative-- and the maze of subsidized and unsubsidized loans, financial aid, grants and scholarships is difficult to navigate, even for guidance counselors-- it sounds worse than buying a used car;
10) don't get sold on the tour . . . a tour is just a tour and it's easier to improve the quality of the tour than it is to improve the quality of an undergraduate engineering program;
11) slow down and don't get caught up in Early Decision . . . Selingo hope the COVID might turn some of this process on its ear: less reliance on test scores, college recruiting students the way they recruit athletes, students searching for what they want to do at school-- not for a particular brand name, government subsidies and encouragement so selective schools can take more middle and lower-income kids, he also hopes that some of these brand name universities enlarge their classes; the actual price of college could become more transparent and that students and parents expand the field beyond just certain selective colleges . . . there's no perfect fit and no perfect college-- you need to be very flexible in your shopping;
12) most importantly, everyone involved agrees that college admissions is a short-sighted, out-of-your-control process and you can't get too caught up in it;
13) here are some random bits of advice from the appendix:
--worry about what you do in high school, and less about standardized tests;
--use freshman year to explore your academic and extra-curricular interests;--take the hardest courses available, but also what interests you;
--keep your grades consistent and don't blow off senior year;
--don't ask for recommendations from the usual suspects;
--make your initial college list about your needs and fuss with names later on;
--visit any campus, not just schools you want to go to;
--connect with colleges;
--think about the money;
--think about each application individually, not collectively;
--be sure those who recommend you know you;
--figure out the narrative you want to tell;
--it doesn't really matter what college you go to-- people with the same grades and SATs make the same amount of money whether they go to Harvard or Penn State;
--mindsets and skills matter more than colleges and majors;
--the majors you think are a guarantee to make money aren't necessarily that. . . the top quarter of earners who majored in English make more over their lifetime than the bottom quarter of chemical engineers . . . even history graduates who make just above the median income for that major do pretty well compared to STEM . . .
and most importantly, don't get too wound up about this because college admission is not the end-all-be-all:
"one cannot tell by looking at a toad how far he will jump"
for more on this topic, check out This American Life: The Campus Tour Has Been Cancelled . . . the pros and cons of college admissions in a post-standardized test, pandemic universe.
Rambling Saturday Morning Thoughts and Warnings
I'm a little logy from staying up late last night but it was worth it-- Rutgers beat Clemson for their first NCAA tourney win in 38 years-- and I am wondering if all the college towns with teams in the tournament are going to experience a spike in COVID cases in a week or two . . . especially teams that win a game or two . . . I was in a crowded bar last week when Rutgers beat Indiana and I was probably lucky to not get corona, especially since cases are still really high here in Jersey-- the virus is being weirdly stubborn, despite vaccinations and I'm assuming it's college kids passing it around . . . so I decided to stay in last night and avoid the pandemic, since Catherine and I are getting our second shot tomorrow and spring break is on the horizon-- we'll see how this strategy plays out; in other rambling news, while I was returning home from my morning ramble to the dog park, a sketchy looking guy seemed to emerge from the woods on the hill that leads back to my street-- which may mean he was wandering through someone's property and not the park per se; he was a youngish white dude with longish hair-- kind of nondescript but looked a little unkempt-- and he stomped his boots on the street to get the mud off them and this spooked Lola and she started growling at him, so I turned her and continued up the hill but this guy followed us and he wanted to chat and pet Lola, but she was having none of it-- it's weird how a dog can get a sketchy vibe from someone-- and then he kind of walked beside us, asking me about Lola's breed and complimenting her paws and wrists-- weird-- and then he said he'd like to have a dog but his rental doesn't allow it . . . and then I said, "Take it easy" turned toward my house but I didn't go straight into the driveway-- I did the old walk-by-your-own-house-so-the-sketchy-guy-doesn't-know-where-you-live trick, which may have worked-- but anyway, if you live near Donaldson Park, lock your car doors and keep an eye out for this guy, he may have been wandering through backyards and he's certainly worth avoiding if you don't want to end up in an awkward conversation.
The Specter of Walt Disney Raises Awkward Dave from the Grave
In the past decade, I've tamed Awkward Dave to some degree, but he still occasionally rears his ugly, awkward head; one of these times is when adults-- grown-ass adults-- proclaim their love of Disney World; this boggles my mind and-- unfortunately for my awkwardness-- we've got a bunch of these people in our school (and there are several in the English department!) and some of them visit Disney every year-- it's like a religious pilgrimage-- and some of them visit Disney World and they don't have children . . . and while I understand taking your kids there once so they don't feel alienated and neglected-- although my wife and I refused to go and swore we would never take our kids until finally my parents actually dragged us all there and footed the entire bill . . . I had a lot of problems with the experience, but I'm an extra-high-maintenance pain-in-the-ass . . . but that's not what this sentence is about, it's about the awkward fugue-like state I enter when adults mention their love of Disney World . . . I start saying crazy, insulting, and awful things right to their faces, and these are people I work with and see every day; here are some examples of things I start spouting to perfectly nice co-workers:
-- I rant and rave about how lame it is to share a bunch of antiseptic engineered memories with the rest of the Philistines in the park;
-- I explain how happy I was when an alligator ate a small child at the Disney Grand Floridian Resort and Spa because it injected some reality into the fantasy;
-- I told someone they were totally fucked in the head because she was touting the merits of the Epcot food and wine festival . . . I told her for that amount of money you could go to Italy and have real food and wine!
-- I like to call out people who claim they are feminists yet worship the princess culture;
so I've decided this can't go on . . . if people want to spend their hard-earned money on Disney vacations, so be it . . . I need to be more tolerant; also, I don't think they can help it-- I wish I could claim to have noticed this myself, but it was Chantal who pointed out that all the devout Disney worshippers are practicing Catholics . . . so maybe there's some tie-in between actually practicing religion and loving Disney-- and we all know you can't control whether you have that "belief" character trait . . . I don't have a lick of it and I think it saves me a lot of trouble (in fact, I just read a great little piece in The Atlantic about how politics has replaced religion in America . . . and Disney is better than politics, I suppose).
Thick Masks and Liquid Skin: More New Shit
Daylight Saving Time: Catastrophe and Miracle
Note to Self (in March)
This is what I learned yesterday: don't install a screen door on a windy day.
Game, Set, Match (Dave Beats the Drowned Man)
Yesterday was the last day of the winter men's league-- and while most of the guys are signing up for the spring session, I will be playing outside with my kids in the coming weeks, in preparation for the high school season; I finished strong, beating Barry in my last match-- though I won handily, Barry is troublesome (especially for a 65-year-old!) as he gets to everything and has a decent serve; while I started this league hustling and fit, I ended it wearing a brace on each knee, basketball shoes (more support than my tennis shoes) and tape on my two sprained toes; this winter I certainly improved my game . . . to some degree, I learned to stop chasing drop shots (for fear of injury) and stop diving at the net, I learned to serve to the backhand side, I learned to hit forehand winners and a hard cross-court two-handed backhand, I learned to hit my slice backhand deep, and-- just in the last match!-- I learned the proper ready position grip (from my wife, of all people) and this enabled me to wallop some forehand service returns . . . and if I can keep this up for fourteen more years, I will be quite happy-- I aspire to be like Barry, who went skiing last weekend in Beaver Creek and was back on the court a week later (although his neck was hurting him from the accident . . . what accident? . . . the drowning . . . you rescued someone? . . . no, I drowned this summer, I was painting my garage and it was 97 degrees and I forgot to drink water all day so I was completely dehydrated and then I dove into my pool to impress my grandkids and I never surfaced . . . my wife had to pull me out and I was blue and close to death. . . four days in the hospital . . . Barry is the bomb).
It's About Time . . .
Lydia Millet's novel A Children's Bible is a modern, environmental take on the classic-- finally!-- and while Biblical elements abound . . . a flood, a plague, a surprise birth a crucifixion, an exodus, some kind of weird rapture, an angry force from above, a bunch of wild animals living together, innocence, corruption, revelations, etc . . . there are also plenty of modern references: cell phones, Amazon Prime, MDMA, and Fendi; the adults have given up even attempting to worship creation and have instead turned hedonistically inward, while the children who have inherited the earth need to deal with all the problems . . . and one of the youngsters-- Jack-- actually reads a children's Bible and tries to connect the old narrative to the new issues that arise (my family--a bunch of Philistines-- struggled with this . . . they really hated the title of the book and thought I was actually reading a children's version of the Bible and no amount of explanation could convince them that the book IS a new bible . . . allegories aren't for everyone, this book is surreal and symbolic and reference-laden, but it's also a beautifully written dramatic page-turner . . . give it a shot).
This Land is Your Land, This Land is Nomadland
Jessica Bruder's book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century is an eye-opener to another America, an America of a wandering people, who-- usually due to some setback-- are houseless (but not homeless) and move through our nation "like blood cells through the veins of our country" in tricked out camper-vans, small RVs, handmade trailers, and converted house-cars . . . these people-- who are mainly white . . . perhaps because it's hard to "boondock" as a person of color-- meet at desert rallies like the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous and move from one grueling temporary job to the next-- the sugar beet harvest, shelving and scanning items at the Amazon warehouse, cleaning the toilets at campgrounds, short order cook at Wall Drug . . . the work is hard and you are reliant on your tribe of van dwellers, your own resilience, Advil, and the ability of ride to endure wind and weather; the financial crash of 2008 sent many of these people on the road, but so did lack of pensions and unions and healthcare, lack of decent lower-middle class jobs and lack of a safety net to care for these folks-- and these are spirited people, many of whom are over sixty, and couldn't bear to live without freedom; Linda May has dreams greater than living in a van, she purchases some desert land in Arizona to build an Earthship homestead-- a self-sufficient, off-the-grid house; she's a grandmother of 64 and wants some place to call her own, but she struggles with how to go about it . . . these are her words:
Someone asked why do you want a homestead? To be independent, get out of the rat race, support local businesses, buy only American made. Stop buying stuff to impress people I don't like. Right now I am working in a big warehouse for an online supplier. The stuff is all crap made somewhere else in the world where they don't have child labor laws, where the workers labor fourteen to sixteen hour days without meals or bathroom breaks. There is one million square feet in this warehouse packed with stuff that won't last a month. It is all goin to a landfill. Our economy is built on the backs of slaves we keep in other countries, like China, India, Mexico, any third world country where we don't have to see them but where we can enjoy the fruits of their labor. The American Corp. is probably the biggest slave owner in the world . . . there is nothing in that warehouse of substance. It enslaved the buyers who use their credit to purchase that shit. Keeps them in jobs they hate to pay their debts.
despite the tone of this section, there is also a pioneering spirit in the book-- there is a shared tone with the favorite pieces of literature of the Rubber Tramp crew; I was proud to say I've read ever book they mentioned as a favorite: Travels with Charley, Blue Highways, Desert Solitaire, Into the Wild, Walden, and Wild; if you don't want to read about all this, definitely watch the movie-- it's a masterful amalgam of the real stories in the book (and the real people) and some quality acting by Frances McDormand . . . and if you don't want to deal with any of this but still want to get the idea, listen to a recent episode of The Indicator wherein they explain that the Simpsons-- once representative of the lower middle class in America-- now live a lifestyle unattainable by that demographic.
Birthday Shots, Cold Showers, Long Lines and a Perfect Score.
Quite a pair of birthdays for Alex and me: on Alex's birthday had a 1:30 PM appointment at the DMV for his road test with a borrowed car (thanks Johanna!) that had an accessible parking brake-- a requirement-- but the photocopy of the insurance card wasn't enough proof for the DMV dude-- and after much searching and fumbling, and we found an old card in the glovebox-- no good-- and got a rejection form with an allowance to come back at 2:30 . . . but at this point, my wife was driving over with ANOTHER borrowed car (thanks Ann!) and Alex had also called his buddy to borrow his car but then Johanna found her current insurance card and sent a photo of that-- also no good . . . we would have needed her passwords and access to her insurance website-- so Alex got in Ann's car-- which he had never driven-- and the other DMV guy with the Irish accent barely looked at this stuff and Alex took his test and passed (and did an A plus job parallel parking . . . which he's been practicing, which has been torture) and then we went over to the main building to get his real license (he has a 60 day temporary license) and the DMV security guy laughed at us and said there were no more appointments and to come back at 5 AM and maybe you might be able to get a ticket and then wait four or five more hours to get in-- so he's got that to look forward to . . . my students have many epic stories about this-- and then yesterday, my birthday-- Catherine and I drove to the Meadowlands to receive our first Pfizer vaccine shots-- and while it took a decent amount of time, everything moved quickly and was very well run-- you DO NOT need to arrive early, you get in line ten minutes before your appointment and it takes about ninety-minutes of various lines and check-ins-- like a Disney ride about pandemics . . . and everyone is very nice-- we were impressed (and I got every fuckign word on the NYT Spelling Bee!) and then my birthday dinner was a Tastee sub I ate on the way home and then I tried to shave and there was no hot water so we had to take the tankless hot water heater apart and clean the airfilter and reset the pilot light and then I was able to take a shower and go to bed . . . but some good news along the way, my cousin Geoff had a bad case of covid and ended up in the hospital but he's out now and feeling better.
If I'm Lucky, I'll Have Another Thing in Common With Theodore Geisel (Thanks Pfizer)
I share my birthday with a cat named Seuss
a man I respect for his creative juice
his rhymes were tight, his mind was loose--
and while the good Doctor liked to imbibe
Prohibition didn't feel his vibe--
I also like the occasional shot,
but on this birthday, alcohol is a NOT--
the shot I partake will go in my arm--
a present from Pfizer that might make me feel warm,
Seuss survived a pandemic: the Spanish flu--
Soon enough I might say: I survived too!
Dog Jenga? Dog Tetris?
The mud season is here (and the rain along with it) and the dog park has quickly transformed from a winter wonderland into a swamp-- but the larger snowbanks remain-- so in my small, densely populated town, when the rain lets up and everyone takes their dog for a walk at once, there's quite a bit of strategizing and maneuvering on the streets and sidewalks-- no one wants to walk their dog head-on into another dog on a strip of sidewalk surrounded by snow; there are starts and stops, sallying forward and turning tail, heeling and pulling, hopping from the sidewalk to the street and back again and I'm not sure what this is like . . . Frogger? Jenga? Tetris? . . . I don't know-- but it's like something other than walking the dog.