For me, Halloween has always been the most charming holiday. I can’t say that it’s my favorite holiday, since there are no presents and I don’t like candy, but I like that it offers so much delight without strings. It has costumes, games, binge drinking, and (critically) no family obligations. It is also the holiday that best suits my idiom—weird and maybe a little dark—plus there’s the attendant awesomeness of Dia de Los Muertos, Halloween’s cooler cousin.
In honor of the most charming holiday, this year I wanted to post something delightful in its honor. I squandered this gem on Facebook, but the pumpkin head dancer reminded me how great (and rare) it is to love anything with sincerity these days.
I mean, obviously, I love irony. I love clever irony (Morrissey, McSweeney’s). I love nostalgic irony (90210, Journey). I love peculiar irony (Wes Anderson), pretentious irony (Pitchfork), wholesome irony (Gilmore Girls), and magical irony (Gob Bluth). But occasionally I tire of viewing all my generation's shared cultural references through jaundiced eyes. I don’t know if it’s a product of growing up in the 80s, when most things were ridiculous, or what, but sometimes I worry there’s something deficient and uncharitable about my age group’s relationship with irony.
So the task I set for myself was to write something sincere that not only captures the simple sense of delight that Halloween inspires in me, but also stirs up that same fuzzy feeling in you, my readers. Upon reflection, I realized there is at least one topical shared cultural reference for which I suspect we share a deep and pure love: Michael Jackson’s music video for “Thriller.”
Back when I wrote my MJ eugoogly, I talked a little about what it meant to be obsessed with “Thriller” at a time when the Internet did not yet exist. I think that anyone who was alive in 1983 can recall the exact circumstances under which we had ready access to “Thriller.” For me, it was when my family made the trek to Uncle G’s. That Betamax video was the highlight of our frequent visits to his house in Florida. This was way back in the days when families traveled around in loaded-down cars like a slightly more modern version of Oregon Trail, and the only thing that made those interminable rides bearable was the prospect of “Thriller” on-demand. I have very fond memories of sitting on the floor about two inches from the TV with Pinball, my uncle’s glorious Irish Setter (RIP), shifting only every so often when it was time to reach up and press rewind.
My favorite part of the video then, as it is now, is the zombie line dance. I am not sure if there’s anything that unites my generation more than our love of dancing that dance. (Nothing demonstrates this universal truth more powerfully than those Filipino prisoners in that viral video.) For me, “Thriller” mania peaked a little too early to be performed on my slumber party circuit (which was in full swing around the advent of “Smooth Criminal”), but I do remember recreating the choreography in a dance class I took at summer camp. Basically, our version involved staggering around with what I can only call jazz claws. In retrospect, we looked rather more palsied and terrifying than the lithe undead in the music video, but I’m not sure I’ve ever had more fun before or since. It was grand.
Some years later, the “Thriller” aesthetic inspired the dead prostitute costume of my middle school years. I can’t even fathom what my parents made of that one. Nothing makes you worry there’s something wrong with Esther quite like watching your pre-teen undead slut trot around the Bible Belt collecting candy. That year must been an interesting transitional time for me, because the Halloween before that I went as Madonna. On the other hand, I wonder if that was really such a big leap?
Anyway, I would love nothing more than for you to leave your own memories of “Thriller” for me here in the comments.
Happy Halloween with love, like, or kind regards,
KO
30 October 2009
28 October 2009
learning the computer
On this day in the year 2009, I finally mustered the will to back up my data like a responsible adult. This led to a two-hour odyssey in Office Depot trying to choose a unit that can accommodate both my macs. As an Apple enthusiast, I spend most of my time feeling superior to the PC plebeians, but I'm still made to feel like a fucking deviant whenever I need software or a peripheral device. Steve Jobs needs to get a team together and build a better geek because I'm sick and tired of shopping in the back room, you know?
Of course, I still haven't managed to back anything up since this stupid device is inscrutable. In lieu of software or instructions, it came with a diagram of how to plug it into the USB port. That much I could manage without a diagram, but now what? Do I have to drag all of my stuff piece by piece onto this thing? I thought maybe I could just click on some kind of "Back It Up!" icon and get 'er done. Looks like I need more lessons on The Computer.
Where's the Video Professor when you need him?
The best part was when I went to the manufacturer's support site, which has all manner of PDFs purporting to be manuals. I downloaded three titles and every fucking one was the same diagram that shows how to plug it into the USB port. You know, I used to work as a technical writer for a software company, and even though I knew BLOOSEY-SQUAT about technology, I managed to bang out user manuals that reached past the plugging-it-in phase. Plus, that's when I lived in England, so I was drunk.
For shame, Seagate Tech Comms people. For shame.
Fortunately, I also bought a new shredder during today's excursion, and nothing soothes my troubled soul quite like destroying junk mail.
Of course, I still haven't managed to back anything up since this stupid device is inscrutable. In lieu of software or instructions, it came with a diagram of how to plug it into the USB port. That much I could manage without a diagram, but now what? Do I have to drag all of my stuff piece by piece onto this thing? I thought maybe I could just click on some kind of "Back It Up!" icon and get 'er done. Looks like I need more lessons on The Computer.
The best part was when I went to the manufacturer's support site, which has all manner of PDFs purporting to be manuals. I downloaded three titles and every fucking one was the same diagram that shows how to plug it into the USB port. You know, I used to work as a technical writer for a software company, and even though I knew BLOOSEY-SQUAT about technology, I managed to bang out user manuals that reached past the plugging-it-in phase. Plus, that's when I lived in England, so I was drunk.
For shame, Seagate Tech Comms people. For shame.
Fortunately, I also bought a new shredder during today's excursion, and nothing soothes my troubled soul quite like destroying junk mail.
26 October 2009
embrace the mystery
Yesterday was so strange. I went to see A Serious Man, the new movie from the Brothers Coen. I’m not sure how to describe it, exactly. Maybe it was a Jewish parable about boredom? That seems about right.
Or maybe it was a series of really boring parables that happened to be about Jews? That seems right, too.
This much I know: it was really fucking boring.
A number of reviewers have called A Serious Man the Coen brothers’ most personal film. I gather they say this because it’s a quiet sort of movie centered on a Jewish family in a Midwestern suburb—a milieu that is certainly familiar to the filmmakers, who grew up in Minnesota. But can a “personal” movie be populated with so many caricatures? Misguided critics have criticized the Coens by more or less calling them self-loathing anti-Semites. Obviously, that is stupid, but I can tell you that the film regards the human body with a very strange gaze, finding its subjects somewhat sinister (the shiny Kubrickesque full frontal nudity of a sunbathing neighbor) to totally grody (a backwards brother who is forever draining his neck cyst.) Make of that what you will, but "personal" it is not.
Moreover, parables are exactly the opposite of personal; it’s a form that focuses on the universal by way of signs and symbols. See, I wasn’t kidding about the movie being a series of parables. In fact, the opening scene, which unfolds entirely in Yiddish, is what I can only describe as a folksy ghost story set in a grim shtetl. (This is exactly when I knew I was in trouble, by the bye.) Its deliberate Henry James-style ambiguity sets the tone for the rest of the movie, which is filled with little mysteries that feel like they should mean something. The film’s central trick, of course, is that none of it means anything at all.
Soon thereafter, the movie shifts from old school Eastern Europe to 1960s suburbia, where we are introduced to the blighted main character, Larry, a cuckolded mathematician who searches for the underlying equation behind all his (considerable) troubles through a series of increasingly desperate meetings with lawyers and rabbis.
Notice this theme of secular (lawyers) versus spiritual (rabbis)—the film breaks down into a neat series of similar dichotomies. I was impressed by the Coens’ thoroughness, actually: they managed to probe religion’s most essential mysteries and the world’s more mundane puzzles (chaste romantic affairs and impotence) with a distressing symmetry.
The Coens carefully confront every question—from the spiritual (the ghost story, or a weird little anecdotal parable about a dentist haunted by the Hebrew inscriptions on his patient’s teeth) to the secular (a dispute over a midterm grade) with at least two entirely plausible yet contradicting perspectives. The real answer, they suggest, is beside the point. This is never more clear than the widely praised bar mitzvah scene (TOLD you this movie was boring), which contrasts the points of view of a stoned 13-year-old and his very proud parents. Whether you’re a blasphemous pot smoker or getting by on blind faith, everyone is headed down the same bleak path.
The central message of A Serious Man, I think, is that the world’s most essential mysteries are both ineffable and meaningless—sort of a soulless and deeply bored (and boring) brand of agnosticism. It’s so puzzling to me when people with interesting faiths see their own traditions as boring. I say this as someone who was raised as a Presbyterian even though my father was Catholic, so I always felt cheated that I didn’t get to experience the theater, spectacle, intrigue, and the culture of molestation surrounding my father’s more glamorous faith.
Had there been any Jews in Johnson City apart from my pediatrician, maybe I would have aspired to Judaism instead. Jews have a similar sense of drama and theater, plus really good deli food. Perhaps then I also would have more of a comfort level with parables. As things stand, having been raised a Gentile, I am extremely mistrustful of the parable form. My people tend to take them literally, which is sort of missing the whole point. Folks from my part of the world read parables and their takeaway is that Jesus is magic. And then there are the Freudian rednecks whose exegeses always somehow suggest that gay marriage is wrong.
So it was an interesting inversion to watch the Coen brothers offer the exact opposite take on the parable form—i.e., that any given story is multivalent. It’s like they have invented a new form: the anti-morality tale. They go to all this trouble to wring different levels of meaning from any given scene, then suggest that the very act of doing so is foolish and pointless. The Coens’ parables all sort of end with a shrug. And, DUDE, guess what? Their suggestion that the ultimate bankrupt parable is our meaningless existence in this totally bleak worthless world is a conclusion I don’t find very interesting at all.
* * *
My day leading up to the movie was a similarly meaningless parable, like the universe was sending me an urgent message composed entirely of gibberish. I met a friend for brunch at a restaurant in the South Loop. When our food was served, I noticed that our next-door diners were two fellows I had met at my neighborhood bar a week ago.
Rewind to last Friday night, when I was stuck in one of those situations where I was obliged to entertain the companions of some guy who was hitting on the friend I was with. There were two of them. One was a bald banker with earrings (dream job: “autocrat of a small country”—mordant fucking wit, this guy) who, at the end of the evening, shook my hand and leaned in close to tell me how much he liked my boots in a really unsettling way. The other was a ponytailed writer (work in progress: “pretentious literary novel”) who is unemployed and living with his parents. “Shivering Jemmy is also a writer!” my friend said. “You guys will have so much to talk about!”
She was partly right: he really did have a lot to talk about. (Me, not so much.) We sat at that table for three hours while Ponytail held forth on his novel, his writing habits, the sushi dinners he has with his (potential) publisher (who “fucking loved” his manuscript, even though she has asked him to rewrite it), and how much he misses living in the glorious squalor of New York, the Chosen City of True Writers.
I was so impressed, you guys.
My favorite part of the evening was when Autocrat asked what we were talking about. “I’m trying to give advice,” Ponytail said, “without sounding condescending.” To which I replied, “Advice is sort of inherently condescending, don’t you think?” (As it turns out, one type of advice I find especially condescending is the unsolicited kind, particularly when it’s about, you know, the word-count spreadsheets you use for your imaginary novel-writing job.) Unfortunately, I don’t think either fellow picked up on my own mordant wit, and from there the night continued to unfold like an extra-long episode of Sex and the City, with me trying to mask my grimace long enough for my friend to get drunk enough to find the third guy attractive.
Back to brunch. Let me pause here to say that Chicago is like a small town in so many weird ways. I always expect to run into some high school classmate when I’m out in JC, but here it always catches me off guard. On a fairly regular basis, I run into childhood friends and college classmates that I didn’t even realize were in the area. And so I was surprised, but also not surprised, when I found Autocrat and Ponytail dining so close I could reach out and tap them on the shoulders, even though I was eating in a very large, somewhat obscure restaurant in the middle of the damn day.
I kind of waved to get their attention even though I sensed they already knew I was there. “Hi guys,” I said. Autocrat sort of squinted at me and said, “Have we met?” I looked over at Ponytail for, I don’t know, identity verification, and for the first time in our short association, he sat silent and still. Then they both gave me withering looks! The whole exchange was really rude and honestly pretty creepy not only because am I dead certain they were lying, but also because—as crazy and paranoid as I know it sounds—I’m not entirely sure it was a coincidence that we ended up in the same corner of that restaurant, Chicago small town-phenomena notwithstanding.
I just have a weird feeling about it.
I have no idea what that was all about, but I’m going to embrace the mystery. Much like the Coen brothers’ god, d-bags are often inscrutable. I only wish they had forsaken me a little sooner.
Or maybe it was a series of really boring parables that happened to be about Jews? That seems right, too.
This much I know: it was really fucking boring.
A number of reviewers have called A Serious Man the Coen brothers’ most personal film. I gather they say this because it’s a quiet sort of movie centered on a Jewish family in a Midwestern suburb—a milieu that is certainly familiar to the filmmakers, who grew up in Minnesota. But can a “personal” movie be populated with so many caricatures? Misguided critics have criticized the Coens by more or less calling them self-loathing anti-Semites. Obviously, that is stupid, but I can tell you that the film regards the human body with a very strange gaze, finding its subjects somewhat sinister (the shiny Kubrickesque full frontal nudity of a sunbathing neighbor) to totally grody (a backwards brother who is forever draining his neck cyst.) Make of that what you will, but "personal" it is not.
Moreover, parables are exactly the opposite of personal; it’s a form that focuses on the universal by way of signs and symbols. See, I wasn’t kidding about the movie being a series of parables. In fact, the opening scene, which unfolds entirely in Yiddish, is what I can only describe as a folksy ghost story set in a grim shtetl. (This is exactly when I knew I was in trouble, by the bye.) Its deliberate Henry James-style ambiguity sets the tone for the rest of the movie, which is filled with little mysteries that feel like they should mean something. The film’s central trick, of course, is that none of it means anything at all.
Soon thereafter, the movie shifts from old school Eastern Europe to 1960s suburbia, where we are introduced to the blighted main character, Larry, a cuckolded mathematician who searches for the underlying equation behind all his (considerable) troubles through a series of increasingly desperate meetings with lawyers and rabbis.
Notice this theme of secular (lawyers) versus spiritual (rabbis)—the film breaks down into a neat series of similar dichotomies. I was impressed by the Coens’ thoroughness, actually: they managed to probe religion’s most essential mysteries and the world’s more mundane puzzles (chaste romantic affairs and impotence) with a distressing symmetry.
The Coens carefully confront every question—from the spiritual (the ghost story, or a weird little anecdotal parable about a dentist haunted by the Hebrew inscriptions on his patient’s teeth) to the secular (a dispute over a midterm grade) with at least two entirely plausible yet contradicting perspectives. The real answer, they suggest, is beside the point. This is never more clear than the widely praised bar mitzvah scene (TOLD you this movie was boring), which contrasts the points of view of a stoned 13-year-old and his very proud parents. Whether you’re a blasphemous pot smoker or getting by on blind faith, everyone is headed down the same bleak path.
The central message of A Serious Man, I think, is that the world’s most essential mysteries are both ineffable and meaningless—sort of a soulless and deeply bored (and boring) brand of agnosticism. It’s so puzzling to me when people with interesting faiths see their own traditions as boring. I say this as someone who was raised as a Presbyterian even though my father was Catholic, so I always felt cheated that I didn’t get to experience the theater, spectacle, intrigue, and the culture of molestation surrounding my father’s more glamorous faith.
Had there been any Jews in Johnson City apart from my pediatrician, maybe I would have aspired to Judaism instead. Jews have a similar sense of drama and theater, plus really good deli food. Perhaps then I also would have more of a comfort level with parables. As things stand, having been raised a Gentile, I am extremely mistrustful of the parable form. My people tend to take them literally, which is sort of missing the whole point. Folks from my part of the world read parables and their takeaway is that Jesus is magic. And then there are the Freudian rednecks whose exegeses always somehow suggest that gay marriage is wrong.
So it was an interesting inversion to watch the Coen brothers offer the exact opposite take on the parable form—i.e., that any given story is multivalent. It’s like they have invented a new form: the anti-morality tale. They go to all this trouble to wring different levels of meaning from any given scene, then suggest that the very act of doing so is foolish and pointless. The Coens’ parables all sort of end with a shrug. And, DUDE, guess what? Their suggestion that the ultimate bankrupt parable is our meaningless existence in this totally bleak worthless world is a conclusion I don’t find very interesting at all.
My day leading up to the movie was a similarly meaningless parable, like the universe was sending me an urgent message composed entirely of gibberish. I met a friend for brunch at a restaurant in the South Loop. When our food was served, I noticed that our next-door diners were two fellows I had met at my neighborhood bar a week ago.
Rewind to last Friday night, when I was stuck in one of those situations where I was obliged to entertain the companions of some guy who was hitting on the friend I was with. There were two of them. One was a bald banker with earrings (dream job: “autocrat of a small country”—mordant fucking wit, this guy) who, at the end of the evening, shook my hand and leaned in close to tell me how much he liked my boots in a really unsettling way. The other was a ponytailed writer (work in progress: “pretentious literary novel”) who is unemployed and living with his parents. “Shivering Jemmy is also a writer!” my friend said. “You guys will have so much to talk about!”
She was partly right: he really did have a lot to talk about. (Me, not so much.) We sat at that table for three hours while Ponytail held forth on his novel, his writing habits, the sushi dinners he has with his (potential) publisher (who “fucking loved” his manuscript, even though she has asked him to rewrite it), and how much he misses living in the glorious squalor of New York, the Chosen City of True Writers.
I was so impressed, you guys.
My favorite part of the evening was when Autocrat asked what we were talking about. “I’m trying to give advice,” Ponytail said, “without sounding condescending.” To which I replied, “Advice is sort of inherently condescending, don’t you think?” (As it turns out, one type of advice I find especially condescending is the unsolicited kind, particularly when it’s about, you know, the word-count spreadsheets you use for your imaginary novel-writing job.) Unfortunately, I don’t think either fellow picked up on my own mordant wit, and from there the night continued to unfold like an extra-long episode of Sex and the City, with me trying to mask my grimace long enough for my friend to get drunk enough to find the third guy attractive.
Back to brunch. Let me pause here to say that Chicago is like a small town in so many weird ways. I always expect to run into some high school classmate when I’m out in JC, but here it always catches me off guard. On a fairly regular basis, I run into childhood friends and college classmates that I didn’t even realize were in the area. And so I was surprised, but also not surprised, when I found Autocrat and Ponytail dining so close I could reach out and tap them on the shoulders, even though I was eating in a very large, somewhat obscure restaurant in the middle of the damn day.
I kind of waved to get their attention even though I sensed they already knew I was there. “Hi guys,” I said. Autocrat sort of squinted at me and said, “Have we met?” I looked over at Ponytail for, I don’t know, identity verification, and for the first time in our short association, he sat silent and still. Then they both gave me withering looks! The whole exchange was really rude and honestly pretty creepy not only because am I dead certain they were lying, but also because—as crazy and paranoid as I know it sounds—I’m not entirely sure it was a coincidence that we ended up in the same corner of that restaurant, Chicago small town-phenomena notwithstanding.
I just have a weird feeling about it.
I have no idea what that was all about, but I’m going to embrace the mystery. Much like the Coen brothers’ god, d-bags are often inscrutable. I only wish they had forsaken me a little sooner.
13 October 2009
xoxo
In the words of my friend Z, lately it seems as though the world has conspiring to delight me. At long last, the frozen yogurt trend has made its way to the bloated city of Chicago. Shambo and her mullet are pushing the boundaries of awesomeness on my favorite television program, Survivor. Yesterday, I bought a very pretty blue dress. Two good friends are stopping through Chicago this week. And finally, finally, in the year 2009, there is an abundance of readily available feather accessories that toe the line between tasteful and tranny in just the way I like.
I think my age group is finally rising to power, as it seems like some of the best things from my youth are cropping up in unexpected places. On one hand, it’s sort of depressing because it makes me feel old and maybe a little square; on the other, I get to hear Pavement playing while I shop at J Crew and watch Kim Gordon marry Lily and Rufus on Gossip Girl. Probably, if these things had happened before I turned 30, I would have been like, “Ew, gross.” As things stand, I’m totally rocking out.
But the way I really know the world is conspiring to delight me is because of something that happened last Friday. It wasn’t the road trip to IKEA, where we spent hours browsing cheap furniture and eating Swedish meatballs. It wasn’t playing Boggle with D. It wasn’t even winning that game, an exceptionally rare occurrence since D is savant-levels of ace at Bog.
No, it was watching Conan O’Brien and Jeff Garlin eviscerate my d-bag college classmate on national television.
Allow me to set up the clip.
This fellow, Zack, lived on my dorm floor when I was a freshman in college. I think he had some form of low-grade OCD that caused him to suck the fun out of everything. For instance, he went around the dorm with this weird music game he invented, basically a mixed tape with three seconds of popular songs from the 60s, 70s, and 80s where you had to guess what the songs were. (Let me tell you, three seconds is just long enough to be infuriating instead of fun.) He also founded the Scrabble Club, only to memorize every fucking word in the Official Scrabble Dictionary so that no one else ever had a chance of winning.
Evidently, since college the low-grade OCD has evolved into a faux career and (from what I can tell) a rather real cocaine addiction. My understanding is that his father is some sort of media mogul who has facilitated his “job,” which is basically catching a million baseballs, which is more than anyone has ever caught before or something.
Since college, this guy has been on TV a few times…I’m not even sure how I was aware he was doing the baseball-catching stuff; it seems like maybe I saw him on David Letterman a few years after graduation. So I was flipping through the channel guide on Friday, where the Conan description read something to the effect of: “Tonight’s guest: baseball catching d-bag college classmate.” And I was like, no way. This guy is still catching baseballs? And now he’s on Conan? Ugh. It was even worse than seeing my nemesis published in The New Yorker.
But then something special happened: Conan and Jeff Garlin were really, really mean. Like, really mean. Which is weird because I can’t remember ever seeing Conan be a bully; his humor is generally sort of self-deprecating instead of mean. All I can figure is that Conan sensed this guy sucked and just went for it.
If you don’t feel like watching the entire clip, I recommend you start at 5:00. But truly, the whole thing is wizard magic.
Y’all, it was like god was talking to me through the television, letting me know he’s on my side.
I think my age group is finally rising to power, as it seems like some of the best things from my youth are cropping up in unexpected places. On one hand, it’s sort of depressing because it makes me feel old and maybe a little square; on the other, I get to hear Pavement playing while I shop at J Crew and watch Kim Gordon marry Lily and Rufus on Gossip Girl. Probably, if these things had happened before I turned 30, I would have been like, “Ew, gross.” As things stand, I’m totally rocking out.
But the way I really know the world is conspiring to delight me is because of something that happened last Friday. It wasn’t the road trip to IKEA, where we spent hours browsing cheap furniture and eating Swedish meatballs. It wasn’t playing Boggle with D. It wasn’t even winning that game, an exceptionally rare occurrence since D is savant-levels of ace at Bog.
No, it was watching Conan O’Brien and Jeff Garlin eviscerate my d-bag college classmate on national television.
Allow me to set up the clip.
This fellow, Zack, lived on my dorm floor when I was a freshman in college. I think he had some form of low-grade OCD that caused him to suck the fun out of everything. For instance, he went around the dorm with this weird music game he invented, basically a mixed tape with three seconds of popular songs from the 60s, 70s, and 80s where you had to guess what the songs were. (Let me tell you, three seconds is just long enough to be infuriating instead of fun.) He also founded the Scrabble Club, only to memorize every fucking word in the Official Scrabble Dictionary so that no one else ever had a chance of winning.
Evidently, since college the low-grade OCD has evolved into a faux career and (from what I can tell) a rather real cocaine addiction. My understanding is that his father is some sort of media mogul who has facilitated his “job,” which is basically catching a million baseballs, which is more than anyone has ever caught before or something.
Since college, this guy has been on TV a few times…I’m not even sure how I was aware he was doing the baseball-catching stuff; it seems like maybe I saw him on David Letterman a few years after graduation. So I was flipping through the channel guide on Friday, where the Conan description read something to the effect of: “Tonight’s guest: baseball catching d-bag college classmate.” And I was like, no way. This guy is still catching baseballs? And now he’s on Conan? Ugh. It was even worse than seeing my nemesis published in The New Yorker.
But then something special happened: Conan and Jeff Garlin were really, really mean. Like, really mean. Which is weird because I can’t remember ever seeing Conan be a bully; his humor is generally sort of self-deprecating instead of mean. All I can figure is that Conan sensed this guy sucked and just went for it.
Y’all, it was like god was talking to me through the television, letting me know he’s on my side.
03 October 2009
falling
I’ve told you before that talking about the weather becomes your second job when you live in Chicago. Famously, we don’t have much of a spring or a fall. Twice a year, when the season changes, it’s this fraught two-week period that marks the transition from summer to winter (or vice versa)—a weird window between two extremes that always feels a little like getting ready to go to war.
Like any good warrior, I am sitting wrapped in a blanket on-demanding all the episodes of Project Runway, etc. that I missed as I’ve toiled in the gift shop, which I will no doubt write about here soon and at length. (Gird your loins.) All I know is there is some lady called “Shambo” on this season of Survivor who is making the Isle of Samoa more awesome by the second. She makes me want to quit my life to wear tie-dyed t-shirts, grow a mullet, and join the armed forces.
But also I’m making the necessary mental adjustments that are required before the real preparations for winter begin (laying in all sorts of distressing supplies—venison jerky, hobo sweaters, etc.). I always feel this same sense of dread, this worry that I’m just not ready.
In general, I try to see change as a positive force, but it’s so hard to resist the impulse to buck and bray.
Like any good warrior, I am sitting wrapped in a blanket on-demanding all the episodes of Project Runway, etc. that I missed as I’ve toiled in the gift shop, which I will no doubt write about here soon and at length. (Gird your loins.) All I know is there is some lady called “Shambo” on this season of Survivor who is making the Isle of Samoa more awesome by the second. She makes me want to quit my life to wear tie-dyed t-shirts, grow a mullet, and join the armed forces.
But also I’m making the necessary mental adjustments that are required before the real preparations for winter begin (laying in all sorts of distressing supplies—venison jerky, hobo sweaters, etc.). I always feel this same sense of dread, this worry that I’m just not ready.
In general, I try to see change as a positive force, but it’s so hard to resist the impulse to buck and bray.
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