she’s unreal
I HAVE AN ONLINE DIARY, STILL
I think I want to write more about my life when I feel less sure about it. When things are a little dim or grimy or blurry and I turn to a Google Doc like it’s a magnifying glass or a flashlight. (Or a sponge? To be perfectly parallel with the previous sentence. Details are important.)
Lately is the exact opposite of that; things are a well-lit (lovely lamps, no overheads, maybe one candle for atmosphere) room, clean, orderly, with me calm and serene and doing everything “right.” Nice and boring. And it doesn’t feel cyclical either; past-me would probably have had a strong urge to wreck the health/responsibility/mindfulness streak with dumb behavior, whether that took the form of Substances, performative/fake friendships, or even just flirting with how little I can care about work without becoming fired. But now I feel like I’M GOOD JUST THE WAY I AM what the fuck is this maturity?
Is it the fairly vigorous exercise (every day in June so far)? The fact that the no-alcohol thing continues? (Could it be that even mild-to-moderate* drinking was making me feel vaguely shitty to the point that the absence of that feeling is actually noticeable)? Is it the working from home, still? (The novelty has not worn off. Every day I marvel about how much working from home has improved EVERY SINGLE THING IN MY LIFE.) Is it the kid being home for the summer (yay!) or a “let’s try this again” trip being booked with our airline points for the fall? (Giving up on Greece; now it’s Amsterdam and the south of France in September, baby.) It could be all of the above, or something else.
Or maybe my feeling that my life is entering is a new steady state of contentedness is wrong and six months from now I will be doing lines of coke in a Logan Square bathroom with a guy named Skunk who makes “sound collages” and is 20 years younger than me.
* I adore this phrase, used in pretty much every prescription drug ad, and like to apply it inappropriately. “Would you like to join me upstairs for some mild-to-moderate sexual activity?”
WHAT THE KIDS USED TO KNOW
In this new era of covert drone wars (thanks Obama) do kids know about fighter jets like they used to? I remember grade school boys boring the crap out of grade school me by discussing different fighter jets. It was just something Dudes Knew,* along with cars and baseball and Star Wars and other things I did not care about as a child.
*Obviously some girls knew/cared about these things too, but since I did not, it was easiest in my duality-obsessed child mind to assume the difference was gender-based.
I do not recall faking an interest in fighter jets just to get along, although that is a trap kids fall into for sure as they realize they want to be liked. As an adult I think I show a reasonably polite enthusiasm for others’ passions, even if I don’t share them, but it doesn’t extend to saying I’ve seen a movie I haven’t or anything like that. Unless you are the sort of person who will tell me the plot in exhaustive detail, in which case I may lie a little! Gently! So that you do not do that!
STUFF THAT IS GOOD AND ALSO BAD
I bought this yogurt organizer for my fridge, DO NOT MAKE FUN OF ME LIKE MY FAMILY DOES. It only works with the wide-lid yogurts (like my beloved full-fat Fage), be aware.
If you live here, I recommend going to squeal at Pilipili. I started crying as we watched his first steps outdoors, not sure why except that sometimes I am fragile around baby animals.
I am a fan so that clearly affects my review, but the Bob’s Burgers movie was worth a watch. It felt like a long episode, in a good way.
Somewhat disappointing anniversary (27 years!) at Table Donkey and Stick. The food was okay (and they have this stuff on the drinks menu, which I love) but not really worth the trip and then they served me a cold cookie for dessert. COLD. COOKIE. AT A RESTAURANT. I should have flung it across the room after the first bite.
My last 10 books and what I thought of them, direct from my spreadsheet and thus poorly formatted:
| The Town of Babylon | Alejandro Varela | curiously placeless, decent characters, is this fiction? not sure what it accomplished, art-wise | |||||
| We Were Never Here | Andrea Bartz | pretty good, twisty twisty murders, a weird number of food comparisons | |||||
| The Energy Paradox | Steven Gundry | the usual “leaky gut” iffy science; don’t eat anything | |||||
| Summerwater | Sarah Moss | very good! Perfectly showcases an inner monologue, appropriately creepy/atmospheric | |||||
| Sovietstan | Erika Fatland | travelogue/history of the ‘stans by a Norwegian, depressing | |||||
| Festival Days | Jo Ann Beard | essays? creative nonfiction but kind of fiction too? very stream of consciousness, echoes of DFW. Liked. | |||||
| Bad Habits | Amy Gentry | why was the title? academic malfeasance, power/lust/murder | |||||
| Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession | Rachel Monroe | okay | |||||
| Several People Are Typing | Calvin Kalsuke | novel takes place in Slack; embodied consciousness oh no; happy ending | |||||
| Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud | Elizabeth Greenwood | faking your death |
NON-EGREGIOUS, BUT STILL ERRORS
Things I only recently found out I was wrong about:
- I never understood the point of “take a penny, leave a penny” things until it suddenly occurred to me that there’s an implied “OR.” I guess I thought we were just swapping pennies?
- Someone referenced the Muffin Man song in my house.
Me: It’s not cool that the song doxes him. The “lives on Drury Lane” part.
Aaron: True, although it’s not an exact address at least.
Me: Well how hard is it going to be to find the giant sentient muffin.
A: Wait…you think the Muffin Man IS a muffin?
Me: …yes?
He’s not? He’s just a guy who sells muffins? Boring.
—do you know the mimi smartypants?