WRITE SECTION
The secretly difficult part of moving isn’t the location change or physical labor required; it’s about re-establishing normalcy.
The timeline from upheaval to normalcy is always much longer than you think and it’s never a direct line, but eventually, you reach a minor tier of normalcy and then you start to stack up those tiers until you have an established sense of normalcy that approximates what you used to have.
We’re not there yet mostly because we’re still in the middle of a master bedroom and bathroom renovation, we have no stove-top in our kitchen and our fridge is from another century. That doesn’t really have anything to do with upheaval but I hate the fridge and I just wanted that on the record.
It’s the kind of fridge that is perfect if you are the size of Ewok. I am not, ergo, whenever I would like to elicit something delicious from the fridge, I have to ascend into the bowels of this ancient appliance as though I were coaxing out a precious element from the center of this godforsaken planet.
Insert caveats GALORE etc etc etc, but THIS is the thing that breaks me every day. And take note of this for yourselves, because it’s never the existentially bulbous things that break you. Climate change, evangelicalism prostituting itself with capitalism and nationalism, Notre Dame always making the college football playoff; these things don’t unmoor me personally.
It’s when I can’t find my keys. Or when I can’t find a complete pair of socks. Or when you have to look like you are trying to artificially inseminate a cow to retrieve a snack from your fridge. THESE ARE THE THINGS that take the paint off the walls of my soul.
To make matters worse, another week, another kid exposed to COVID. It’s weird how casual it’s all become. A year ago, Ashley and I would take turns pacing the backyard worrying about the pandemic and what the future held.
Now, my son has been home all week because of someone else exposing him to COVID and our living room doesn’t even look a little like The Andromeda Strain even though we may have a kid with COVID in the building.
It’s not that it’s not serious and it’s not that we’re not taking it serious; we are! And I understand it’s an extraordinary privilege that our lives and those of our loved ones haven’t been markedly upended by COVID.
It’s more just about how we’re all always unconsciously aspiring to inertia as a lifestyle. And in the pursuit of this, almost everything gets rolled up and recodified into acceptable.
Not having a closet.
COVID.
Having a fridge that feels like it would be more appropriate housing a middle-earthed hobbit instead of your food.
It makes me think that the balancing act required for life right now is about knowing what to reasonably concede and knowing what should always remain unacceptable.
PICTURE SECTION
READS / WATCH / LISTEN SECTION
Why You Need To Protect Your Sense of Wonder…
LANGUAGE ALERT
CONSPIRACY ALERT
SPORTS SECTION
Brought to you by…
Over Under Achievers #25: The GLORIOUS RETURN of College Football
Picks For This Weekend
Ohio State -13.51
Notre Dame -7.5
Lane Kiffin and the Over
PARLAY: Ohio State, UNC, Bama, Cincy, USC all moneylines +114
Picks from Last Weekend:
Illinois +7 over Nebraska $$$
Hawaii and UCLA Under 68 total points $$$
Please God Tyron Woodley over Jake Paul X
GOOD DOG SECTION
MUSIC SECTION
Honor code, I placed this last night before the game PROMISE
Sorry not sure where to get help on this. I can’t get your survivor recap podcast to work. Can someone help me? I joined the sub stack newsletter but can’t figure it out
But what IS the kind of shit Chet and Tom talk about?