Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1034
Jane's birthday weekend, old coughing ladies, Gaza horrors, milquetoast tech bios, chores, doctors, Facebook Insta suit, Adam Mossari business hero™, film rewatches
Good morning. Wassup. Hello Monday. Already a busy day. Jane school refused again, so we sat in front of the school again, discussing it, until some light went off in her head and she grabbed her backpack and walked in. It really is so weird. She writes things down in the evening saying “I’m glad I went to school and I will not be scared of it tomorrow” and then the same thing happens again. But whatever, I wasn’t late for the doctor this time, so I just hung out with her. It was all good. School’s dumb who can blame her. Then I drove my Lightning to the Ford dealership for, like, four “recalls” and a broken illuminator light. We’ll see how that goes. Fingers crossed.
Pleasant enough weekend. Had a doctor’s appointment on Friday, did I write about that? I can’t remember. This is different from the shots on Thursday. Anyway, doc said that my leg cramps were probably the result of one of the two different medications I’m on that have a side effect of leg cramps that can start at any time, even after years. Weird. So we chose one to stop, and I have stopped it, and now my cholesterol will go through the roof and kill me but maybe I’ll be leg cramp free. She also gave me a shingles shot which hurts like a mofo. Very unpleasant. But she is good doctor I am glad I finally have a doctor I can talk to about whatever. She has a solid morbid sense of humor. Two stars.
Then Walmart and I was late, it was like after 1 PM because of the Doctor and Jane being off school and yeah wow it is just occurring to me now that I completely forgot to write on Friday wow that is a first. Anyway there were two different old ladies in the beverage/snacks aisle at Walmart who were coughing without covering their mouth, causing me to eventually exclaim, audibly to all, “what’s up with all these old ladies coughing without covering their mouth.” This did nothing to increase their shame, they just kept coughing away, charming. The checkout guy asked where I’d been and I realized I never go in the afternoon anymore since Jane was born so I just told him I come in the morning now that I’ve had a kid and left out that it had been six years. It reminded me of that woman at Au Bon Pain who served me my breakfast sandwich every day when I worked at Arnold. Then I quit and started Barbarian and never went there anymore and like four years later I had to go to the Prudential center for a conference so I stopped in there for nostalgia and she was still there and she just made me my old breakfast sandwich without saying anything and I am still not sure if she even realized it had been years. Retail memory. Liminal. Independent from real life.
There were no new records at Walmart, and there was a highly adversarial checkout machine that did not like me.
I also went to the recycling center and as I was driving there I drove by the new crematorium they are building and outside was an old man in black priest robes and he was gesticulating wildly while talking to a contractor in a high-vis vest and eve protection and I really wish I could have gotten a photo of the two, unified in their journey of crematorium building.
Friday night was my night off from Jane so I watched youtube videos and started re-watching The Hunger Games which is a much better film than I remembered or realized. Very restrained and sparse. It’s very well done. I got to the part where, you know, the actual Hunger Games start and then thought “yeah nope, I will pass.” I had a vague idea I would eventually read and/or go see the prequel movie but yeah I don’t know I don’t think I need that kind of child torture in my life there’s enough of that in real life my god it’s all so horrible hashtag ceasefire now, etc. etc.
Across Friday and Saturday I got all the garden stuff (well, except the planters and the hoophouse — the garden accoutrements, we will say) moved over to the new house so that they werent’ besmirching the appearance of our back yard for Jane’s birthday party Sunday. It was about six trips back and forth in the truck moving it all, then I had to power wash it all and the driveway and clean and it’s actually looking okay over at the new house now. This weekend. Greenhouse completion. Mark my words.
Saturday Meghan came from Wilmington which was lovely and her and Emma went to a Halloween party in Raleigh while I did Jane bedtime, then ate a gummy and drank a glass of wine and watched Don’t Look Up which is just the most depressingly accurate movie and fun fact the difference between a Biden and Trump administration does nothing to dampen the realism of the film. The New York Times has been doing an amazing series of essays about America using up all its water, they really are going all out on this thing, and no one cares. Here, read one about Poland Spring. All our water, just being used up by the stupidest shit, it’s all out in the open, anyone can tell, the paper of record shouting about it from the rooftops, and… crickets.
I also texted with my high school friend Pam about an incident we’ve never discussed, where I almost killed us by losing control of the car on the edge of a cliff, then spinning 360 degrees, then just continuing down the road. She reassured me that it did indeed happen, and I complimented her on her stunning calm, cool, collectedness at the moment. Good to put that specific past trauma on ice, thank you Pam, miss you.
Decided texting was a bad idea at this hour, so I went to bed and finished the Facebook suit document and I think I pretty much wrote everything there was to write about it. It does not say much. I am tired of reading redacted suits, like, wtf., if you can’t say it in public why are you bringing it up in court I just do not understand this whole situation.
Also our hero Adam Mossari who is making Threads the Twitter killer is quoted in there as saying “I don’t want to hear it” when people point out to him that millions of kids are illegally on Instagram, and that some of their most popular accounts are minors on there without parental permission.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Business hero,” as Erin Griffith would say. Man I miss her newsletter.
Then I started reading the book about Glossier but it looks like it’s going to be a puff piece? I dunno, it is mysterious. *I* know about some good salacious glossier gossip, but the book seems to imply there is none? I’m not sure I can continue on with the book. It is… somewhat hyperbolic and also I don’t need more stories in my life about the children of corporate executives accomplishing great things.
Feels like it’s somewhat impossible to live like this, having a normal time, even feeling moments of happiness, while the Gaza horrors are unfolding. It makes you paralyzed and hate everything about your life and wish you could do something and it’s all too much. This may be controversial but I would prefer it if children of all faiths lived and did not die. I would prefer the world to have less military action. I would prefer the good people on any given side to win and the bad people on that side to be rendered unable to hurt others. I would prefer whataboutism to go away. I don’t even know what to say here, I think about it constantly and the online discourse is bonkers and completely normal sentiments are portrayed as evil and then people I thought were completely normal are saying the most horrific things it is completely topsy turvy and absolutely the best thing to do to get along is to say nothing but how to so you say nothing and live with yourself. Jesus.
And then with those thoughts in my head we had a birthday party for Jane on Sunday and kids did crafting and parents drank seltzers hard and soft and I chatted with some old friends I hadn’t seen in a while and ate too much and felt sick and Jane and the kids made little halloween dioramas and it was a lovely sunny day and our brains were not built to know everything that is happening in the world at once and there is no easy answer to how to navigate it. But man those kids were cute. Then they had a dance party where they listened to the Lego Movie 2 soundtrack and danced to the songs for, like, two hours. That really was something.
Then I drove over to a friend’s house to pick up a walker and bath bench cuz her husband had died and she didn’t need em anymore and my mom is coming and could use them and you don’t want to let a good medial device to go to waste do you?
Maybe I can send them to Gaza when mom’s done with them.
Shoegaze playlist for you today. Sail on, star sailer.
Please lets make sure everyone gets enough sleep.