The Little Red Candy That Could
In the end, I never knew its name.
It was round and red, with a hard shell. Almost a Skittle, but not quite. Likewise, not an M&M.
What it lacked in branding, though, it made up in speed. And while I sat on the N train, headed for home, it was rolling all the way through the car.
This was brilliant. Spectacular, even, in the pantheon of interesting but not dangerous things that can happen on the subway.
As the candy rolled relentlessly toward me in a perfect, straight line, I realized there were two pieces of tissue paper about five feet in front of me, slightly staggered. It was a natural chicane, and I saddened thinking that the brave little candy was heading right for those impossible curves.
Still, it had been a good run. A great run.
Three feet in front of the tissues, the subway car shifted, and the little red candy that could proceeded to curve perfectly through the chicane. It was both impossible, yet it happened, and I had a front row seat.
The candy rolled to the very back of the car until it hit the wall.
"Did you see that?" I asked C. She did not, so I breathlessly filled her in on the details. She started laughing because it was so stupid.
It was. Stupidly brilliant, that is.
I took out my phone, hoping to get a video of the champion candy as it rolled back through the car. Through two more stops, though, it hadn't.
Oh, well. Lightning only strikes once, after all. Or something.
I sat there, idly watching the floor, when suddenly the candy rolled right past. me. "There it goes!" I shouted, both of us laughing at the same. It bypassed the chicane it had already conquered. Soon after, it reversed course and rolled past us for the last time, settling in for good against the wall.
What a grand, grand moment.
What if?
I've realized I have a what if problem.
It's not something I do on purpose, but my brain will drift to past moments in my life and wonder what would have happened if I'd made a different decision or made a little more effort or been more patient or or or or...
Not kidding, I can go all the way back to grade school doing this. I think it's a form of fretting, actually, and I've done it for years.
The funny thing is sometimes I do it thinking about Eli 24.8, too, which is utterly goofy, because he has the best and most satisfying life anyone could imagine.
I'm trying to stay conscious of this and stop myself when it starts, which is a challenge. But I'm trying.
Comparisons
I went to a cardiologist in Manhattan today, my first visit to one since I left Grand Rapids.
My previous cardiologist was excellent. I thought so, anyway.
This cardiologist, though, is 100% on point. She is so clearly far superior to my previous cardiologist that I questioned why I ever thought he was good.
The thing is, if someone knows much more about something than you do, they seem like an expert. Why would you doubt them? It's kind of a three-tier system:
1. They know much more than I do.
2. They know about as much as I do.
3. They know less than I do.
I realized, though, that this is a bad system. Knowing more than I do isn't enough. They need to know more than their peers. Otherwise, it's easy to assume someone is an expert when they're not. For many things, it doesn't matter, but it does matter when dealing with physicians.
With this new cardiologist, I have another point of comparison, and she knows far, far more--and is far more precise--than the fellow I was seeing before. So inside tier one, she's on another, far superior, level.
It's reminded me that I need to make sure I have more than a single point of comparison when it comes to medical professionals. If not, it can be extremely misleading, and could significantly compromise care.
Eight Feet To Eternity
I look at myself closely twice during the day. Once after I get up, and once after I shower (additional showers, if necessary, raise the total). Both for grooming purposes.
It's always discouraging, to a degree, like it always has been. Getting older, though, makes that discouragement more pronounced.
Today I looked at myself, as always, then happened to turn and look back from a distance. Much to my surprise, I looked pretty good! Almost like my old self when I was in my early 50s.
I stepped off the distance and it was roughly eight feet.
New policy: only look closely once, right after I get up. For the rest of the day, any looks must be from a minimum of eight feet.
New product idea: a mirror that makes it look like you're already eight feet away. Genius.
Samson
Samson came out today.
It's an open-world brawler from a studio founded by Christofer Sundberg, the creator of Just Cause. The second and third entries in that series are legendary open-world games and incredibly fun to play.
There are currently ten reviews on Metacritic. One is above 60. The overall score is 53.
It's impossible to understand how someone who was so intimately involved with Just Cause could screw up this badly. All you had to do was make Just Cause 2 or 3 again! Just put it in a different setting and make minor changes and the review scores would have been 30 points higher.
Of course, Just Cause 4 was a complete cluster and genuinely unfun (Sundberg left a year after its release), so maybe the magic was already gone.
It's just a long, long fall for someone who has such a strong pedigree. Knowing what is fun and then making something that isn't is such a waste.
NYC Transit Museum
Friday was my birthday, so on Saturday we took a field trip to Brooklyn and Manhattan.
In downtown Brooklyn, we went to see the transit museum, which--appropriately--is located underground.
I didn't know this, but the first leg of the subway (beneath Manhattan) was built in 1904. Over 7,000 workers for a 1.5 mile length of track.
Given working conditions back then, I don't know how anyone survived.
You can click on this (and any of these photographs) for a larger image:
Here's a selection of employee badges from many different eras (as the subway has been expanded almost continuously for the last century):
When I first saw this next exhibit, it seemed wild. Why would your employee badge have a designated hospital on it in case of compression sickness? Then I remembered--from an earlier exhibit--that Irish, Italians, and blacks were the primary frontline workers. Because of segregation and ethnic discrimination, I'm almost certain there would have been different hospitals for each group.
Here's a beautiful poem:
I don't remember who did this lithograph (I think it's a lithograph), but it's spectacular:
This is one of those underrated museums that seems to be around every corner here.
Memories of a Death
Mom 96.0 told me a poignant story on Sunday.
Her dad died when she was about four of a sudden heart attack. I'm not sure how old he was, but I'm guessing he was very young, probably still in his thirties.
Mom was so young that she doesn't remember much, but two details still stand out.
The first was chocolate cake. Everyone in the neighborhood brought food over, and one of the items was a chocolate cake. Mom had never had it before (she grew up in the Depression, when desert wasn't exactly a priority), and she said it was the most delicious thing she'd ever eaten.
The second detail was that in those days, the body was embalmed and then returned to the house for a few days. I know this is still done, at times, but it seems so chilling to me. You're four years old, your father died suddenly, and now he's in the living room for a few days? It sounds emotionally devastating.
This Doesn't Feel Like the Future
I worked with a developmental editor and she gave so much excellent feedback that the book will be much, much better after the next draft.
It's also going to be a ton of work.
The best part of working with her is that she understood the book. She knew exactly what it was trying to do, she was fully invested in the narrative, and she gave me enough praise to soften the critical blows.
I still think I'm looking at completion by the end of the year, but I now have a rare opportunity to improve the manuscript beyond what I thought was possible. Both her comments and my reflection on her comments have generated a ton of new ideas and connections.
I still have one thing in particular left to solve. I finally had an idea today that should move me in the right direction.
This shit is hard.
Queens
When I was in Austin, I only heard English (mostly) and Spanish (occasionally).
I'd walk down streets and hear person after person speaking English, and it felt strange. This is what happens when you live in the enormous melting pot that is Queens.
I missed hearing five languages a block. Not just a little, either.
I was walking back from somewhere on Saturday (after I'd gotten home) and saw a little strip center that is the epitome of this borough:
If you can't quite make it out, here are the stores (in order from left to right):
--laundromat (everywhere here)
--Irish tavern
--Chinese halal restaurant
--pharmacy
--Thai restaurant
--French cafe
--Moroccan restaurant
That's totally on-brand for what it's like here. If it was closer to where I live there would be at least one Greek restaurant, too.
Airports and Casinos
I bet I've written about this before.
I was struck by how there was no concept of time in the Austin airport. No concept, that is, except in relation to when one's plane leaves. It was before 9 a.m. and bars were packed. People were eating barbecue and burgers and fried chicken and pizza and it didn't matter that it wasn't breakfast time.
That's when it hit me: I was inside a casino, basically, where time doesn't exist. Want a hamburger at 6 a.m.? No problem. Want to drink before breakfast? Also no problem. Airports are on a near-24 hour schedule, just like casinos.
The logical step here is to start putting casinos inside airports. Surely that can't be far away.
