Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1033
Buncha needles into my neck, Naomi Klein on Judaism and Palestine, school tech, Jane and Taiwan and onomatopoeia.
Good morning. Hello. How are you? Sorry I’m late. I mistakenly told my daughter I needed to be somewhere this morning, asking her if we could be a few minutes early, so she promptly started stalling and even though we go to school dropoff 7 minutes early, I ended up leaving there about 20 minutes late. She wouldn’t get out of the truck when it was time to drop her off, so I had to park and walk her up, and then we just stood there in front of the school, with her saying she didn’t want to go in, that she wanted to go to the doctor with me, while all the other students went in around me and I listened to the PTA moms comment on people’s cars. Eventually she just… it was like a robot with a switch flipped. She stopped saying no, grabbed her backpack and walked in. Really was something.
So then I drove the 20 minute drive, cursing and screaming and complaining the whole time, hating everything, knowing this would be fine, knowing I am being petty, thinking of the Gaza bombings, thinking of the state of the world, trying to calm down, looking at the clock implacably telling me I was going to be 20 minutes late, cursing how this doctor insists you get to your appointment 30 minutes early and I always forget it so I made an appointment for 8:30 thinking I’d have time, forgetting that really means 8. Also the sun is blinding me the whole time and my music is playing Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs so I am feeling pretty aggro.
And I get to the clinic, calm myself, walk in twenty minutes late and say “I am so sorry I’m late,” and crack a joke about my daughter…
… and they say “oh you’re right on time.”
Grrrrr.
Also after all of that they take my blood pressure and it’s the lowest its been in months so go figure.
(One moment please Apple Notes crashed because a company worth more than all but seven countries on the planet can’t make an app that doesn’t crack on its top-of-the-line, brand new hardware).
Right yes anyway after that I got all my dozens of shots into my shoulder, neck and skull and it ruled. It is the single greatest thing the medical world has done for me in my entire life and I love it so much. I love those stinging little needles shooting steroids into my head and neck and shoulders I love the whole thing it is just the best. The nurses are kind, the doctor rules, and she’s best friends with my primary care physician and I’m telling you man, Triangle medicine is the best. You guys are missing out.
I’m so pumped full of drugs right now, being old rules. I got steroids in me, allergy drops, two allergy sprays, aspirin, a weight drug (more on that in a week or so), blood pressure drugs, cholesterol drugs, fish oil drugs, Claratin, a pain drug that’s also an anti-depressant. Drugs! Pills pills pills.
I finished the Naomi Klein book yesterday. Last few chapters had been a bit blah — chapters on vaccines and chapters on capitalism blah blah heard that stuff before. I was starting to think the book was going to end on a weak note but my god, I was wrong. It ended with an in-depth look at antisemitism and her own Jewishness and how it relates to Israel and Palestine and Gaza and she talked about the history and breadth of Jewish philosophical debate in the 20’s and 30’s and 40’s and the Bund and Abram Leon’s The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation and fortress Israel and the death of all of this debate that happened along with the death of the actual debators — Leon’s death in the gas chambers, Walter Benjamin’s suicide of despair, stuck unable to escape the Nazis, the death of most of the advocates of Bund. And how Zionism became the only answer, the only remaining debating partner, really. And how since then theres been a dearth of debate amongst Judaism about Zionism.
She talked about Fortress Israel and the scars of the holocaust and the blindness that can cause, and her own trips to Gaza and the differences between her experiences there and what the Israeli government interpreted her visit as. She talked, horrifyingly, about how some Gaza residents morbidly preferred when they were under attack by Israel because at least the world is watching then, and it was so obvious how that logic has influenced Hamas.
And she couldn’t have known when she was writing these words a year or two ago how relevant they’d be by the time the book came out, but also of course she knew, because it is always relevant.
Damn. Naomi Klein is a phenomenal writer. I mean, I’ve known this forever. Read all her books. I can quibble a bit with No Logo and she does some real self-examination in this book about the conspiratorial qualities of The Shock Doctrine, but… she is a writer getting better and smarter as she ages it’s just humbling and phenomenal.
It will be in the 80’s here this weekend but nonetheless cold feet season in my office has begun. Time to break out the warm socks, space heater, heating mat. I am not excited about this. Also I bought a new black cardigan with pockets since my lovely Care Bear cardigan — Emma’s joke Christmas present from last year — has none, though it is still getting heavy use.
Speaking of fall, we bought some pies from a fundraiser at Jane’s school, so many fundraisers, and every single one uses a different obscure, oblique, made-just-for-schools tech company tool site thingy and they’re all so bad and there are so many of them, a whole parallel mini Silicon Valley of products just made for PTA moms, almost none of which have decent UX, all of which have arbitrary password requirements and other absurdities. It’s too much, too much.
Emma and I were talking about it — she says there were this many fundraisers when she was in school, but I don’t remember there being so many. There were Church fundraisers, and I volunteered in Key Club so we did lots of helping other orgs with their fundraising, but, like, when we had to take a trip in Debate Club and Academic Decathalon, I don’t remember ever having to, like, have a bake sale? I feel like this really shifted sometime in the late 80’s, early 90’s.
Last night Jane made me keep pausing my video about the Taiwan situation (fun fact! World War III is imminent and it’s not in Ukraine or the Middle East!) so she could examine the maps. She made me explain the Spratleys and Exclusive Economic Zones and the Nine Dash Line and boy that girl really loves maps. She did not seem overly concerned at the injustice of China plotting to invade Taiwan, nor did she seem unduly disturbed about the phenomenal arms buildup, the reopening of Subic Bay or what, exactly, all those missiles were for. She just loved the maps. And her weird obsession with northern Manchuria is unabated. Really is confusing.
Eventually I sort of realized this was not a great idea and maybe we should do something else so we went to her bedroom and read a book about a boy who collects words and she read all the words in the book. She had some trouble with the “sy-” sound of “symphony” and “synchronicity” but she crazily nailed onomatopoeia, and then I explained to her what it was and now she loves it so much and keeps shouting out onomatopoeiac (onomatopoeian? spell check likes neither) words like “ribbit” and “buzz.”
Her cough feels like it’s getting worse. Emma’s cough is getting worse. School is making us all sick. I’m in the least bad shape (pumped full of drugs!) but, man.
When will it end.
Justa mix for you today and it’s so good so many great oldies, I was in a mood the other day, plus a lotta great new songs. That’s right, I start it with a depressing Michael Gira song but I swear it’s a fun mix it’s great you’ll love it A+++
Talk tomorrow. I have another doctor’s appointment so it’s unclear I will get this out before or after that so, you know, maybe late again tomorrow. Apologies in advance. Feel better talk soon.