Dear New Plant,
Welcome to your new home.
I'll be honest. Living here isn't easy for a plant. Life won't be a bed of roses. Obviously, you're a zinnia, but I'm sure you're familiar with the metaphor.
Still, though, it has to be better than being with a thousand other plants, hoping you catch someone's eye. Even if they watered you more regularly.
As a plant parent, my past is full of grisly incidents I'd rather forget. But this is a chance for a fresh start for both of us, right?
I hope you make it, kid. I'm rooting for you.
Dad
Leading off, a fascinating article: How do dolphins name themselves? A study on signature whistles offers clues.
Well, this is awkward: Woman who wrote essay on 'How to Murder Your Husband' convicted of murdering her husband.
From PA Incorrect, and I prefer neither: Why you love coffee and beer.
From Wally, and these images are absolutely amazing (and terrifying): Stunning vintage photos of car wrecks from the days before seat belts and airbags, 1930s.
From C. Lee, and the Supreme Court will be coming for this, too: The Revolutionary 1965 Supreme Court Decision That Declared Sex a Private Affair. Next, and this is highly concerning: The Global Safety Net Against Hunger Is Frailer Than You Think. This is ridiculous: Report says Microsoft is censoring politically sensitive Chinese names in the US, Canada. It makes sense: Tested: Multi-gig fiber internet is too fast for your PC. I feel like this isn't something that people should need to be reminded of: Tender Hooks, Expresso, and Other Malapropisms That Will Make People Laugh at You. I would have preferred a section from Blade Runner, but this is quite poignant: R.I.P. Vanglis. An excellent read: The Korean Immigrant and Michigan Farm Boy Who Taught Americans How to Cook Chow Mein.
Lots of stuff getting moved around here.
Me, for one, from the apartment back to the house.
Everything in the apartment (there's not much, really. I'm reasonably minimalist).
A few things in the final edit of The Man You Trust.
In about a month, Eli 20.10 to Bogota.
I'm a certainty person. I like it. I like having my person, and having that person with me, and I like knowing that the people who aren't with me are safe. I like knowing where I belong. I like knowing that tomorrow will be similar to today.
That's probably true of most people as they get older.
With Eli, though, I've learned that the uncertainty in his life is important. He's constantly trying for almost unreachable goals, and this level of achievement carries with it an intrinsic degree of uncertainty. In a terrible metaphor, you can't climb a mountain at sea level. You have to go up into thin air.
Without his acceptance of uncertainty, his life wouldn't be possible.
So I'm trying to embrace a degree of uncertainty that I've never been able to before. Watching Eli, and seeing what he's done, helps me understand why it's necessary.
Leading off this week, an absolutely phenomenal piece of writing: David Sedaris on the death of his father: ‘I don’t think the coffin could have been any uglier’.
Here's a great story about one of the funniest films ever made ("The Producers"), and how Peter Sellers was critical to its success: Seller's Choice.
This is an excellent read: An Anonymous TV Writer Offers An Inside Look At Why Special Effects Seem So Bad Right Now.
From Chris P., for all of us word nerds: A Way With Words.
From Wally, and it's absolutely beautiful: a stunning oarfish. This is coming very quickly: These Robots Have One Special Skill That Could Make Human Chefs Obsolete.
From C. Lee, and boy, is it revealing: How Do Big Tech Giants Make Their Billions? Very competent: Russia Pretends It Didn’t Accidentally Show Bonnie and Clyde During Victory Day Parade. This seems very contemporary: 'The New York Times' can't shake the cloud over a 90-year-old Pulitzer Prize. Well, damn it: The gene-edited pig heart given to a dying patient was infected with a pig virus. Squats for life! A simple exercise that gives your brain an unexpected boost. Punctuation nerd alert: 8 Punctuation Marks That Are No Longer Used. It certainly left an impression: ‘What Is a Yute?’: An Oral History of ‘My Cousin Vinny’.
I told Eli 20.10 he could help me find one item of adult clothing. I mentioned this before, and that we failed, but I forgot this snippet (that I wrote down and forgot to use).
"Dad, when you get nice clothing, you take care of it and it lasts a long time."
"So what you're telling me is if I buy cheap clothing, I don't have to make that effort?" I asked.
"Not the message I was trying to send there," he said.
We were in a pub one night (six hundred years old or something like that. We all stooped because the beams were put up to accommodate 15th century Englishmen).
"You know, I've never really liked beer," I said.
"Why not?" Eli asked.
"Because it tastes like beer," I said. "I feel like that makes perfect sense."
"It doesn't," he said.
Eli also told me that he has a very good French accent, and I asked him how. He said he just lowers his voice an octave and speaks faster.
Voila.
"Replacement theory" is a foundational belief of white supremacists. Full stop.
If you amplify vile, reprehensible beliefs, some of your followers will do vile, reprehensible things.
Certain news networks and political parties will now clutch their pearls and retire to their fainting couches because they are shocked (shocked!) that someone would do something like this. Why, it's awful.
Condemn it? You helped create it.
Leading off this week, would you like to hear a black hole? Data Sonification: Black Hole at the Center of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster (X-ray)
This is fascinating (it'll be renamed Elon Musk disease in twenty years): Nobel disease.
From C. Lee, and it's terrific: Kurosawa Akira: Films of Love and Justice. Another creative giant: Dostoevsky’s 200th Birthday and His Living Legacy. This is phenomenal: From seawater to drinking water, with the push of a button. This is fascinating in every way: A Brief Compendium of Modernist Homes for Movie Villains with Flawless Taste. This is delightful: An Ode to what they call “Duck Architecture”. This is a terrific idea: How Public Libraries Are Seeding America’s Gardens.
From Ken Piper, and this is amazing: Hubble Finds a Massive Planet – 9 Times the Size of Jupiter – Forming Through a Violent Process. This is my surprised face: Owners left with worthless NFTs after F1 Delta Time racing game shuts down. I mean, it is distinct: Razer's Headquarters Looks Like One Of Its Gaming Peripherals. This is promising: What Is a Graphene Battery, and How Will It Transform Tech?
From Tim C., and it's fascinating: mechanical watch.
From Wally, and it isn't creepy at all: Creepy dolls covered in barnacles or missing their limbs keep washing up on Texas beaches. This was a hell of a ride, one of the greatest I've ever seen: This angle of Rich Strike winning the KentuckyDerby is nuts. This is some of the best tornado footage I've ever seen (and there are some f-bombs, for obvious reasons, so maybe NSFW): EF-3 Tornado Hits Andover, Kansas - Apr. 29, 2022. Just great: An Autonomous Drone Swarm Can Now Chase You Through a Forest Without Crashing. Next-level commentary: The Platypus Conspiracy.
A reader from Finland (who's been around for a long, long time) sent this to me in response to yesterday's post. It's definitely not just English.
Let me show you two words in Finnish:
"kuusi alusta"
Let's look at the first word, "kuusi." This could mean a spruce ("kuusi"), six ("kuusi"), or your moon ("kuu" + possessive suffix "si").
The second word, "alusta."
Foundation/basis/... ("alusta"), from the beginning ("alku" + "sta"), imperative 2nd person singular form of verb "alustaa" (to format a diskette/prepare a foundation/...), the partitive singular form of a ship/vessel ("alus" + "ta"). (Because Finnish uses singular forms of nouns after numerals, "kuusi alusta" is how "six ships" is written in Finnish).
Not all combinations are grammatically correct (such as "spruce ships"), but "six from the beginning", "the basis your moon lies on", "the spruce from the beginning" all sound correct to me.
I'm not very surprised natural language processing for Finnish isn't very easy.
This is from Merriam-Webster's online dictionary. It's the thesaurus entry for "sound."
sound (verb,1)
1 to continue or be repeated in a series of reflected sound waves
//the stranded hiker's cries for help sounded throughout the canyon
2 to give the impression of being
//the idea at least sounds plausible
3 to make known (as an idea, emotion, or opinion)
//a person who certainly isn't shy about sounding her opinions
4 to make known openly or publicly
//the grand opening of the region's newest and largest mall has been loudly sounded for months
sound (verb,2)
1 to measure the depth of (as a body of water) typically with a weighted line
//the pilot sounded the river to make sure we weren't in any danger of runnin
2 to cast oneself head first into deep water
//a whale suddenly surfaced and then, just as suddenly, sounded
sound (noun,1)
1 range of hearing
//wandered off, out of her parents' sight and sound
sound (noun,2)
1 a narrow body of water between two land masses
//Long Island Sound is between Connecticut and Long Island, New York
sound (adjective)
1 according to the rules of logic
//sound reasoning alone should tell you that the result is invalid
2 enjoying health and vigor
//the horse is getting along in years, but still perfectly sound
3 marked by the ability to withstand stress without structural damage or distortion
//the shed looks flimsy, but it's actually surprisingly sound
Eli 20.10 was in Paris on Mother's Day.
He called me from the airport and we talked about many things. We had a gentle laugh about how Gloria would always be disgruntled on Mother's Day, no matter what we did for her.
She planted tulip bulbs in the garden last fall, before her passing, and when I drove by the house a few days ago, they'd come up. That made both of us happy.
I've come to realize something important about Eli in the last week or so, and it's a quality I should foster in myself, too. Since his mom died, he's fought for his happiness. He's grieved, and is still grieving, but he never let his grieving define him. Instead, he actively seeks out happiness, and leaves room for it in his life.
That might sound odd. After a tragedy, though, many people are unable to leave any room in their life for happiness. I don't mean it as an indictment. It's just that tragedy has a kind of gravity that always presses down on you. It lowers you to the ground.
Eli feels that gravity, and he just stands up even straighter to compensate. I have so much respect for him.
This is still going to be a big Eli week, but I'm going to give an update today on the sleep post I wrote a while back.
Of the suggestions, quitting drinking (I have about a drink every two weeks, so not useful in my case) and using CBD gummies were the two things most commonly suggested.
I kept trying nothing, which worked surprisingly well.
What I've realized is that I was ignoring all the signals my body was giving me because I thought I could override it all with Melatonin and Trazadone.
As it turns out, not really.
Instead, I've just started paying attention, and I can feel when my brain starts to get wound up. Almost always, it's from getting too much information too quickly, which makes my brain speed up. When it gets past a certain threshold, I'm not going to be able to go to sleep.
I've started prioritizing single-focus activities when I wake up and before I go to bed. Instead of looking at a bunch of websites in the morning, I read with breakfast before I start working. It's a slower pace, with better concentration.
At night, if I'm watching television, I try to not look at my phone and multi-task.
My default had become multi-tasking to such a degree that I was becoming overloaded.
Now, if I feel I'm overloaded, I stop multi-tasking (if I am) and I focus on my breathing for a minute or two. It's a small thing, but it seems to be very effective.
How do I sleep now? Maybe not quite as well, but close, and when I wake up, I'm not sluggish at all. I'm ready to start the day.
All in all, I think it's a win.
