Meandering

 I don't really know what to write about. I've been feeling a little out of sorts for the past couple of days. We had a great week-end - went out for dinner with our lovely neighbours which was fantastic until Matt got most of a beer dropped on him, but we were just about to pay and leave anyway so it's not like we had to match our meal to whatever brew was wafting off of him. The poor waiter was mortified, and so grateful that we weren't assholes about it that it made me mad for all the people that are being assholish enough that it was a surprise to him that we weren't. We also went for a birthday drink for my friend Jody (HI JODY) and went to see Black Widow in the actual movie theatre. So maybe I"m just a bit funned out.

Monday I got groceries and cooked a bunch of things. Yesterday I mostly read. I'm reading three non-fiction books right now, which is two more than I'm usually reading at a time. One is about The Troubles in Ireland and it's fascinating - I always knew about the subject vaguely but in no kind of depth or detail, and the writing style in Say Nothing is pitched perfectly for me to understand and retain. It's very long and taking me longer than it usually takes to finish a book, which is fine.

I'm also reading Broken by Jenny Lawson (the Bloggess) and What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon. I will never not love anything written by the Bloggess, and I have again laughed so hard while reading it that my husband has stomped off to sleep elsewhere, but it's not quite as good as her first book (I haven't read the second yet). She's still funny and relatable and insightful, but this reads much more like a series of blog posts, often with some women's-magazine-worthy summing up points (which again, no judgment, I do this myself) like "we are all like those juiced limes - a little shriveled, sort of used up, ready for the compost bin but that's okay because we really put the snap in those mojitos first" (not an actual quote from the book). The Fat book is excellent but exhausting and enraging to read - we are just at the very beginning of what Gordon terms "Fat Justice" (my new superhero name), and just envisioning the comments that would follow if the book was an internet article makes me ragey and weepy and very tired. 

I knew that BMI was bullshit, but I didn't know the details of its racist bullshit inception, or the way that the National Institutes of Health arbitrarily lowered the threshold to be medically considered fat in 1998 (Gordon's article about BMI, substantially the same information as in the book, is here). And still, if you google BMI, the first page of results you get aren't about what a racket it is, but about how to calculate your BMI. 

To balance out the rigorous intellectual material I have been consuming in paper form, I have been watching absolute crap TV. Do not give me anything "exceptional, realistic and gritty". Any kind of "literary journey"? Nah. "Marvel of craftsmanship, sounding the depths of the human soul"? I'm good. On the other hand, any sci-fi series with an outlandish premise (the whackier the better), weak worldbuilding, melodramatic dialogue and laughable writing? Sign me the fuck up. Currently I'm watching some abomination about mermaids. Sure, there's a bit of a laudable thread about the human Fear of the Other and some surprisingly affecting non-traditional relationships (yes, I do mean a one-third mermaid threesome, shut up, it was mostly wholesome), but mainly I'm in it for the mermaids walking around on land hissing at people and being insanely hot.

Today I didn't really feel like getting outside but I forced myself to do some errands and walk on the river trail, and it was good. Sweaty, but good.

Sometimes the path seems so clear

 Collette was talking last night at bar night about how she always sees plants and berries on her walks and wonders what they are so I kept sending her pictures and making her look them up on our group Whats App.

Apparently this is chicory

Usually I would ask "should I eat this?" and she would advise me accordingly. Then I said I walked too far and my foot hurt and asked if somebody could come pick me up, thinking everyone would know that I was joking (I mean, my foot really did hurt, but I was asking if I should eat random orange berries and texting pictures of water and asking what this weird moving stuff was, so there was a theme) but three people offered to come get me and one actually called to ask where I was.

 Just when you think your friends are assholes, man. Well, they are, we are all assholes, but not the kind of assholes who are assholy to waiters or believe in BMI or leave their friends lost on the river trail or advise them to eat Tatarian Honeysuckle which causes stomach upset and diarrhea.