totally underground zero
WHO KNEW? NOT YOU
Epistemologically speaking, “I never knew that,” is the weirdest sentence that people say on a regular basis. The other night Nora was in bed, lights out, and I was reading in my bed, and we were occasionally talking across the hall as usual. We both have a bad case of Slumber Party Syndrome. I sneezed. She said my sneeze sounds like a baby mouse (excuse me: RUDE). We both wondered if snakes can sneeze (I bet they can’t, which is too bad because it would probably be hilarious). I told her that horses can’t barf. She said, “Interesting, I never knew that” and drifted off to sleep while I was left to ponder the utter strangeness of “I never knew that.” There’s a time component to it, somehow. You did not just Not Know. You Never Knew.
I think I’ve complained about this before, but I have a similar problem with that whole military cadence that starts with, “I don’t know but I’ve been told.” How do you not know? You were told! Maybe the teller is unreliable and you don’t yet believe. Maybe it takes a while to sink in. Maybe you wonder if we can ever really “know,” no matter how often we are told.
Side note: as a little kid, I remember hearing the “Left. Left. Left Right Left” marching thing and wondering how the hell that worked. Put your left foot forward; put it a little more forward; put it even MORE forward; and then walk normally? I clearly remember it dawning on me MUCH later that the “right” was just being rhythmically omitted in the first part. I was a very smart child but not a clever one.
NEW ENGLAND
My work trip to Boston was pretty good. I went here and here and here (where I had one of the best cheese + meat boards of my life) and a few other places, got a manicure (rare) on a slow-to-start conference day, and learned some shit and saw some cool software demos and flopped around in my giant hotel king bed every night. My only snag was on the way home, when the TSA guy checked my traveling papers and said, “Have a safe journey,” and I reflexively said, “You too.” Two steps away I realized the error so I had to turn around and yell, “I mean, in LIFE!”
WHY MUST YOU BE WRONG ALL THE TIME
I am on a new program of ignoring Facebook as much as possible. There are too many infuriating bits of it, and I can either spend the energy to unfollow and curate or I can just try to rarely go there. It’s weird, FB is mostly “I know you all in real life and YOU DRIVE ME BANANAS,”* whereas Twitter is, “1200 people I have never met and I LOVE YOU ALL WITH MY WHOLE HEART.”
*If you know me on Facebook, I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about the other people. You know, the annoying people.
I’m just sick of the echo-chamber virtue signaling (Look! I care about the poor! I hate Trump! Wow, JOIN THE CLUB OF HUMANITY), the #blessed #gratitude, the ads. It’s a good spot to share photos but that is about it. My disgust has been deepening for a while, but got worse recently when I got sucked into responding to a dumbshit comment about Chicago marijuana being laced with heroin in order to get kids hooked.
Now, normally I am wicked good at letting dumbshit stuff flow by, but some dumbshit is just too dumbshit. If you’re going to bust out with a defense of homeopathy or how the moon is actually a giant baked potato, I am going to have to say something. And if you’re going to claim that “a cop” told you that drug dealers—who are known more for their desire to make the most money in the shortest time than for their complex, diabolical plots—are taking one of the cheapest drugs out there and somehow adulterating it with something more expensive, and then selling the result at the cheap-thing price? I’m going to say no. That is not true.
This one was especially perplexing, not just because it doesn’t make economic sense, but because it doesn’t even make physical sense. Have you ever purchased marijuana? It is a plant. It arrives fresh from the dealer in tight embryonic shoots that are often referred to as “buds,” because that is what they are. Have you seen or purchased heroin? It can look many different ways, but one thing it does not look like is marijuana. What, you get your quarter-ounce of leaves and buds and there’s a weird white powder in the bag too? There’s a chunky brownish-black rock just sort of hanging out in there? Or are you suggesting that the dealer cooks up the heroin into a liquid and sprays it on the marijuana somehow? No, because (a) that would be a pain in the ass and (b) it would make more sense just to sell the heroin at heroin prices and sell the weed at weed prices and not mix them up. Some people like Pepsi Max (heroin), some people like Coke Zero (weed). IT’S A SEGMENTED MARKETPLACE, YO.
The person I was arguing with was smarter than me (well, not about the microeconomics of dealing drugs, but about arguing on the internet), because they sensibly dropped the matter after a few attempts to defend this ridiculous claim, whereas I should have never even responded to that nonsense in the first place. I guess we know now what makes me mad! People getting their drug facts wrong!
POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE
N graduates 8th grade next week, and I have been warned that the ceremony will take about 2 hours—whaaaaaaaaat? Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of my little potato, but it’s not like I was expecting her to drop out and go work in the coal mine or go be a performance artist in New York. Completing 8th grade was not really up for negotiation.
Over text:
Nora: We need to pick a class song.
Me: I choose “Siamese Twins” by The Cure!
N: What even is that.
Me: Here are some lyrics
Dancing in my pocket
Worms eat my skin
She glows and grows
With arms outstretched
Her legs around me
N: It has to be appropriate
N: And like, uplifting, or something
Me: “Black and Yellow”! Wiz Khalifa!
N: …
Me: It’s about a man who is very successful!
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—mimi smartypants, trainspotter.