so pine fresh
DRIED
The double-edged sword: but aren’t all swords double-edged? It is possible I don’t know a lot about swords. It seems reasonable that you would want a sword to cut both ways, swish swish slice slice slice, otherwise there is a lot of wasted motion because I have to “reset” in order to continue chopping at you. No?
Anyway, the double-edged sword of over-the-counter cold medicine. It certainly has drained the fluid from my nose, but it also seems to have drained the fluid from my whole head, and I needed some of that to lubricate thoughts, have saliva, and keep my joints moving without creaky noises. Instead I am a dusty paper-mache heap, a sentient piñata, and every time I turn my head there’s a nearly audible click as my eyeballs roll and slide to catch up. Breathe from both nostrils? Or lose your humanity? The Tylenol Severe Cold + Sinus devil’s bargain.
OKAY I GUESS
I am subscribed to so many of your newsletters. The free versions, that is. I suppose I understand where you are coming from, you produce amazing content that I love and if anyone out there wants to pay for it, they should certainly be welcome to do so. Pro: It is nice to get mail, and to have a nice blog post to read right there in the old in-box. Con: There are an awful lot of these nice blog posts, and while lots of them might be worth $50/year for special subscriber-only content, one can not reasonably subscribe to a whole bunch of $50/year newsletters. Why do you want to make me choose? Hey I have an idea: you put this amazing content in an INTERNET LOCATION, where I can go read it. I just invented blogs! What a great idea, damn.
Deja vu, incoming: there will be a ton of anger about my very mild criticism of newsletters, just as there was when, long ago in the “blogosphere,” I dared to opine that sponsored posts dilute a writer’s voice and make me uninterested in and suspicious of the other things they have to say, and that sidebar ads on a personal blog are ugly and lame and do you really want to talk about your personal precious life right next to a Duncan Hines cake mix video. I still have emails saved in a folder called SELLOUTS GET SENSITIVE: people who got really mad at that and wrote me full of righteous indignation and I HAVE A RIGHT TO MAKE A LIVING. Of course you do! Never said otherwise!
As for the newsletter thing, I don’t necessarily hate it. It is just strange, that’s all—when I have always conceived of my online diary as a sort of letter to whoever reads it—that the “new” model of writing online is literally writing a letter to subscribers. With (presumably?) slightly better letters going to those who choose to pay.
Whatever. It has officially, as I pompously announced on Twitter, been 20 years since I started putting my diary (this one right here!) online, and it is not moving to newsletter format. There won’t be ads, there won’t be sponsored posts, you don’t have to pay to read it. That is not because I am so fucking punk rock by any means (remember, I was an early sellout to the blog-into-(terrible)-book gold rush!) It is just because I don’t know any other way, and I like to type about what I am doing, and I don’t need your money because I do other stuff for money. Keep your money! Use it to pay your bills and buy candy and drugs.
AP LANGUAGE
Seeing this year’s English homework is giving me bad flashbacks to a kind of writing that I never have to do again—that sort of “essay question” response writing that calls out its tricks in order to be successfully graded. Parallel sentence structure? Check. Introductions, conclusions, transitions? Check. Narrative strategies? Check. These things (which are woefully lacking here!) are definitely part of “good writing,” but it sort of grinds my gears to see it all deconstructed and naked like that. Some people like deep dives—they like to note-by-note analyze a Bach Mass or a Prince guitar solo and see “why” it is so perfect and great—but it’s a bit of a bait-and-switch, no? Like if you know how it works you will automatically be able to do it. Maybe (hopefully) you can learn enough to get a good AP exam score, or to faithfully play the notes of the Prince guitar solo, but by no means have you mastered the craft. Oh listen to me, “the craft.” I’m such an asshole. A Tylenol Severe Cold + Sinus asshole.
MEDICATED SELF
Here is an article that I think did a decent job of detailing the tension between the obvious need for psychiatric drugs and the blunt-force-instrument nature of their effects. Everyone is trying to figure themselves out and figure out how to live. Medication can be necessary to let people get on with the business of that (instead of, you know, spending all day hyperventilating in bed), but it does nothing to show you HOW to do it.
Speaking of figuring out how to live, how about we watch the video for “Just” again? This video may be where I really fell in love with Thom Yorke (long-time David Byrne fangirl; you know I love me a twitchy dancing man).
Also, recently unearthed: my little first-grade dude climbing the bus stop sign. He still has forearms of steel.
—mimi smartypants, while symptoms last.