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  • Aging is for the weak, and everyone else
  • More short cuts
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  • What’s the opposite of green juice and deep breathing
  • Living through it all online
  • The Change
  • 18
  • Ok but ALSO:
  • Midlife POV
  • Influence and Dooce
  • Horse therapy
  • You can’t go home again
  • Obsolescence
  • Before and after
  • A cringe confession on friendship

Archives from 2002-2006

Well, I had meant to write something vaguely meaningful about the school year finally winding to an end, but I suppose my main feeling is one of relief. I’m sorry for the things my kids missed, I’m glad they made it through and seem okay, I hope we all never have to do that again.

I’m pleased that summer is officially in full swing, although as you may have seen in the news the Pacific Northwest set a bunch of all-time heat records over the last weekend. We were camping near the Rogue River and thankfully had A/C in the trailer and good access to the water, but we did end up unloading the trailer in the heat of the day on Sunday when it was around 110° and HOOBOY.

(Yes, Riley towers over both of us now, which frankly seems pretty rude.)

In other temperature-related news, Dylan and I scored tickets to the Olympic Trials earlier last week when a generous neighbor gifted us their spots that they couldn’t use. It was super exciting to see the new Hayward Field facility, and of course being able to see the events up close was amazing, but holy shit it was so so so SO hot. Our seats were facing the afternoon sun and the heat seemed to reflect off all the concrete and plastic, it honestly felt like a major endurance event just to sit there in the stands — I cannot imagine what the athletes were going through. Apparently the Trials got delayed for several hours this past Sunday when the track itself was 150°.

We have a road trip to Utah coming up which I assume will also be oppressively hot, and so I continue in my endless quest for a bra that somehow does all the things I need a bra to do without being constructed from the kind of heavy sweaty-ass materials that typically accompany any boulder-holster worth its salt. Two sturdy helium balloons and some nice soft string, perhaps.

Riley and I were talking about gaming and I was trying to describe what I dislike about first-person shooters (or shooters in general) (or any game where you can die, really). For me it comes down to what the gaming experience feels like, and I don’t like anxiety in a game. Particularly when you have to repeat a series of difficult things leading up to the actual big boss moment and you know that every time you die you have to start over and do all the things again, and that’s before you have to battle something crazy impossible like a horde of armored zombies that shoot lasers out of their eyesockets and the laser de-activates all your weapons plus you have to simultaneously solve a ninety-layer maze and ALSO there’s a timer.

In comparison, Beat Saber is delightfully low stakes. Its default setup involves a health meter situation where if you screw up enough, the song ends and you have to try again, but the first thing I did was set that shit to NOFAIL. No pressure, no consequences, no checkpoints, just straight-up fun plus a great workout that doesn’t feel like a workout. Bam!

:::

I was at a light the other day and looking at this woman waiting to cross, drawn to her because of her outfit. Individually and collectively, it should have been hideous: shapeless crop top, paperbag-waist pants that were both 1) UPS-brown, 2) wide leg, and 3) cropped (!!), topped by clunky black boots. Yet somehow she was making it WORK, like there were these … I don’t know, invisible wavy cartoon lines of confidence and style surrounding her, which seemed related to her impeccable posture. It occurs to me that maybe that’s the whole trick with fashion and probably with a lot of life, too: straighten up your spine and untuck your chin, that little switch in the body makes a startling difference in the head.

(Not such a difference for me personally that I would try to pull off a similar outfit, mind you. Today’s clothing trends are mostly baffling and wildly unattractive to me and I don’t understand any of them, particularly those giant dumpy lampshade-looking prairie/babydoll dress hybrids that cannot possibly be flattering on any human.)

:::

I am so incredibly dismayed by the politicization and distrust and outright refusal (But Mah Immune System) of these life-saving vaccines that we should ALL be celebrating, I feel like this particular moment in time is even more depressing than it was a year ago, because we have a path OUT of this bullshit yet SO MANY PEOPLE refuse to do their part.

To me it comes down to a choice: do you choose to make things better for all of us, perhaps incrementally and perhaps significantly, or do you choose to make things NO better and possibly worse?

I truly don’t know how anyone can call themselves a patriot if they make the second choice.

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