Thursday, May 31, 2018

Thursday ramble

I can't even call this a morning ramble; I may have to finish it in the afternoon. When a certain airline opens its offices, I'll have to call them to figure out why they haven't refunded me after I canceled. I just did the same with another airline before I posted the roundup. Before that, I finished marinating veggies and making a side dish for our work picnic later this morning. I did the bulk of the marinating, and made the dressing, last night. I'd meant to get an earlier start--i.e., Tuesday night--but I ended up working until 7:30 and had other things to do when I got home (including time-sensitive travel reservations to make). So I tried to get home on the earlier side yesterday to shop for the veggies and prepare them.

It was in this context that I got home just before 6pm, took care of a couple of things, and set out on my bike to get the veggies. When I opened the front door (I come in the back from metro), there was a dead bird between by step and walkway.

It reminded me of the time many years ago that I was frantically getting ready for a party. The dude I was dating had invited a bunch of his friends, and he was going to come by the night before to help prepare. I left work on the earlier side but later than I'd have liked and already had more to do than I had minutes in the day, and opened the back gate to a dead possum in the yard. It was winter; the ground was too solid to bury it. I didn't know what to do. I texted the dude to say I'd need his help with something and his response was something akin to a shrug. I mean, he would help, but what I really wanted him to say in that situation--and a similar one about a month before--was, "I'll take care of it and it'll be okay." It's the corollary of the "you should have asked" principle. It wasn't about the action itself; it was about someone else taking the wheel and letting me know that I could let go for a minute. I was never going to get that from that guy.

It was almost liberating then, last night, that there was no one to disappoint me. I quickly dug a hole and buried it, and set off to the store. I got home, got everything done, made some more travel reservations, and crashed later than I would have liked knowing that I'd have to get up and do all the crap I told you about in the previous paragraph. I still need to clean up and get ready for the picnic.

I've had a number of instances over the last few months where years ago, my mind would have instantly gone to that place of "this would be so much more manageable if I had a partner," but this time--these times--my mind didn't even go there. It didn't go there when I had plumbing issues, or other homeowner incidents. I didn't even have to talk myself down from it; it didn’t even cross my mind.

And now, I'm off to take care of more things...

Roundup: long reads

I caught up on long reads over the weekend but got distracted before I could post them. I highly recommend Lili Loofbourow's piece on the male glance, which you ought to pair with Nathan Robinson's very insightful take on Jordan Peterson.

Kori Schake has an interesting historical perspective on immigrants and foreign policy. And if you haven't seen Coates on Kanye, it's a must-read.

OMG this photo
And this video (Seth Meyer's The Story We Need Right Now).

Sunday, May 20, 2018

Quick Sunday roundup

When criticism of Israel is and isn't anti-semitic.

Tolentino on entitled men.

This thread on why JP doesn't get lobster sex.

I'm disappointed in Julia Ioffe.

Givhan on the royal wedding dress: it serves the woman wearing it.

I get that the world isn't perfect and there's racism and classicism in the UK, but take the win. The wins. Watch the racists' heads explode. Watch the royal family, which shies away from opinions, tout HRH's feminist credentials.


Saturday, May 12, 2018

Saturday roundup

How the parties swapped positions on civil rights.

Marx's home town is honoring him (but not his ideas or the tragedies that they wrought) with a massive statue.

People who create problems--not those who refuse to accommodate them--are responsible for those problems.

I enjoyed "Isle of Dogs" but also found it objectively problematic. This sums that up well, but this is also an important take.