I still really like it although I suppose a certain degree of frustration will enter the mix once I have to get serious about maintenance things. I like the design, overall, the HP (125, more than other cars i have had), the cargo space, the camera for backing up…

What I dislike about it is mainly things that are not specific to the vehicle, but rather common among vehicles in general; its vehicle-ness, such as it burns fossil fuel, parking is expensive in the city, it is loaded with computers that spy on me.

I am extremely sick of computers spying on me. Like you complain about p0litics within earshot of your telephone and before you know it you are getting advertisements for r1fl3ry lessons in your social media feeds or whatever.

I admit I had been doomscrolling.

I admit I had been doomscrolling.

Did you know that doomscrolling on the toilet causes hemorrhoids?

Boy, there is a spelling bee word for you, hemorrhoid. I had to look up the spelling.

Here is what happened: I went bouldering with Gamma yesterday. This involved a bit of planning and organization as she has been extremely busy and stressed with jobs, studies and now also writing a dissertation. I will not go into greater detail bc it would sound like bragging. But anyway we met each other at the climbing gym yesterday, her stressed as I mentioned, and me deeply stressed and anxious over the state of the world.

And we climbed and joked around and talked each other back in off the ledges upon which we had been perching and had a drink after and chatted and both felt 100x better.

Even my sore knee, if which I had not been sure it would prevent me from climbing, felt better (actually not much better yesterday, but better today, supporting my theory that exercising my legs helps with sore knees, at least the one I recently completely destroyed (or so it felt) stepping over a cat on the stairs in an unconventional and as it turns out very stupid manner).

I still feel better today.

Anyhow I quit doomscrolling. I am changing the way I use Reddit. I am reading more science-related and arts-related accounts on bluesky and fewer politics-related ones.

Did you know that doomscrolling on the toilet causes hemorrhoids? What you did?

Did you know that loss of sense of smell could mean Alzheimers? This makes me feel a lot better about my experience this morning cleaning the litterbox, especially in view of the fact that it took me 15 minutes to recall a word last night (the word in question was “Zwetschge” which is Austrian for Pflaume which is German for plum or prune).

The conclusion is, I guess, that sometimes you have to put down the doomscroller bad news paralysis machine and count your blessings. Access your internal Mary Oliver (I communed with the corvids on my way to work this morning, gave some news to the bees at the beehives in the park I pass on my walk to the office) and read a few of her poems even if they sometimes tangentially remind you of dopey old guys reading them aloud at a funeral and crying (which, guilty what can I say). Say nice things to people. Do nice things for people, including yourself, especially if they do not involve commerce.

And most importantly: fuck shit up.

I am not saying do crime, i am not saying be criminal, i am saying there is a way things are that is foreign to the way things can or could or should be, feel free to fuck that up.

Turn your imagination back on.

Be a little psychedelic. Dare to be genuine. Weird macht glücklich.

So that is what I have been up to lately with my Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0

It’s the Dunning-Kruger thing. The more you grow in wisdom and knowledge, the more you realize you are a bigger dumbfuck than you thought. Lately this has been (like everything else) accelerating with me. Like, during the course of my life, as time passed, I first thought I was invincible, then smart, then a sort of dumb smartfuck, then a dumbfuck, but now, god, a dumb dumbfuck, while yet at the same time knowing, or hoping, that this is the result of growing knowledge and wisdom enabling me to recognize and repair my dumbfuckery and not simply me growing increasingly stupid as I age.

Today, this morning, in the parking lot of my doctor, where we had just gone over the results of a blood test and I had been given the all-clear, or mostly-clear, I hit *play* on the greatest disco hits (CD 2 of 3) in my car’s CD player and bounced along to “Lady Marmalade” on my way to the train station when suddenly a wave of uncertainty washed over me.

Is it “gitchie gitchie” or “gitchy gitchy”? And,
is it really “ya ya gaga”?
Given my inability to understand the simplest lyrics I was compelled to perform an Internet search.
What a rabbit hole, is all I can say.
Turns out it’s basically like whatever schism led to the Roman Catholic Church/Orthodox Church deal.

For one thing, it is “Hey sister, go sister, hey sister soul sister” and not “Hey sister, soul sister” (x2)

For another thing, depending on who you ask it is either “gitchie gitchie” or “gitchi gitchi”. I was unable to find “gitchy gitchy” or any other alternatives.

Likewise, to my surprise there was a general consensus that it is “da da” and not “gaga”.

I am still digesting this.

On the other hand, I am an old, white man who likes to write, if not talk, although I do that sometimes, just not on the telephone, if I can avoid it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So.

I have been told amplifying non-old, white, man-type people is good. Unfortunately, my megaphone is tiny, but I will do what I can.

I have also been told, for example by my therapist, and other women I respect, to just fucking relax, so I will also be working on that.

When I was younger I read only books (and consumed only art and other cultural output) by heterosexual CIS-males, because it was more relatable for me.

Now that I try to broaden my cultural consumption, that old stuff often feels really shallow when I return to it. Maybe that is just a function of getting older, though.

There was a tweet (? i think?) where an old dude said his hardware was old, white, CIS-male dude, and he was stuck with that, but his software had been updated multiple times.

I guess that’s one thing you can do, get your head out of the seventies, or whatever.

I was talking to someone about the acceleration of time as a function of age, and how to ameliorate it. All I could come up with was mindfulness, paying attention, remaining curious, which I guess you accomplish through meditation and related practices, or doing scary things beyond your fear threshold, or things you love, or things that fascinate you, whatever gets you in the flow. (My only relative who lived to be over 100 was a curious, friendly, artistic type all her life… and an early feminist…)

Concentrate on things you love. What else?

This is good news for me, bc as a person governed by anxiety for most of my life, there are plenty of options beyond my fear threshold. Maybe this world, the old known world that just speeds by, is my safe little lobster trap, while that world, the scary, interesting one, with sharks and mermaids and things with teeth and things that glitter, where time slows or stops entirely, is unknown but has so far not killed me, either.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean, both get you eventually.

Maybe I’ll try to talk my wife into skydiving. If it works for her I can try it.

Have you tried something beyond your threshold of fear? What was it? How did it turn out for you?

There was a hat in the street. Did she drop a hat?

Some young people were talking to the lady. Then I noticed the old guy attached to the hat, the other people were helping him up. I started to get out of the car but they had it under control, it looked. He was gesturing pretty good, it looked as if he was telling them he had gone off the curb and lost his balance, and toppled right over, like a tree.

He got off his bike and the woman did and they walked off, a little dazzled.

An old guy I know had a flat in front of my house. We got home, and there his car was, with a flat. He started walking to the gas station to get a pump to fill it back up. Come on, geeze, let me drive you, I said.

It wasn’t a bad idea, the way he parks in front of our house he manages to block anyone else from parking there, so it’s totally possible someone got tired of him doing that and let the air out. Or the little boys who scribble graffitti on our mail box let the air out, or something.

When he filled the tire, he left the valve cap in the street. Then I took him home to get his other car. We had to go twice, because the first time he thought he had forgotten his house keys, discovering when looking for them that he had not, in fact.

The next day he picked up his other car, the one with the flat. The tire appeared fine, but the valve caps were missing from all four tires. He figures someone stole them, we figure he mislaid them. He gets so excited when things happen, practically anything.

The other day, I had to google free-associated phrases to find the name of a band I couldn’t remember, one of my favorite bands.

Not, you know, those other guys, from Finland.

With the cellos.

A different band.