My addled mind

& notes app

Jun 02, 2023

Greetings! It is Friday.

I have a note on my phone in which I try to jot down ideas for things that I will include in this wee update and this week I wrote “addled.” What did I mean by addled? An excellent question. It’s been gnawing at me since last night when I checked my notes app and saw that lonely word (partial word?) staring back at me. What’s worse is that I rarely remember to keep track of things to include in this newsletter but, this week, when I wrote myself this note, I recall thinking, “ooh, what a great idea for the newsletter! I am glad I remembered to record it!”

Alas, I have not a single clue what I meant by “addled.” The irony is that I just looked up the definition of “addle” and was reminded that it means thrown into confusion—a definition that is vaguely familiar but does not enlighten me as to the note’s purpose.

Addled and onward!

LOCAL NEWS

I am home in Durham now but, last Friday, my sister and I had a play-date at the ancient amusement park from our youth. For $5, we were able to walk around the amusement park and embrace a little nostalgia and childishness—that price did not include any rides but we were very uninterested in getting on most of those rides, which are infamously not the most safe. I have always been drawn to the timeless aesthetic of carnivals and small amusement parks but Lakeside felt uniquely cinematic because it’s so run-down and quiet. I only wish I’d gotten footage of the middle-aged man riding the carousel all alone at dusk. It was poetry in motion.
We were inspired to make this little TikTok in the style of Wes Anderson. Do we have futures as film directors?
@dustbunnythecat No Dust Bunny, but there were a couple of geese and raccoons. #wesanderson #wesandersontrend #wesandersonaesthetic #fyp #viral #lakeside #colorado
Tiktok failed to load.

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CULTURE & ENTERTAINMENT

I finally got around to reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers, which has been on my list for years. Written by Katherine Boo, a Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur “genius” award recipient, the book is a nonfiction work that reads like a novel, set in a slum in Mumbai, India. The book is eye-opening and heartbreaking but I found myself most interested in understanding how Boo wrote it. I wanted to know about her methodology and her life in India while she was learning about the slum and writing the book. I skipped to the afterword and, although it answered some of my questions, my thirst was unquenched. I then transitioned to YouTube, where I listened to nearly 4 hours of interviews with the author while making my way through my post-travel email inbox. Did I learn new information in the fourth hour of interviews? Absolutely not. Did watching these interviews speed up the process of getting through my emails? Regrettably, no. Was this a good use of my time? I cannot say.
Neal and I finished the final season of the Danish thriller, Borgen—although, to our disappointment, this is a fact we learned only halfway through watching the season. We somehow managed to start with the last season instead of starting with the first. Even though we’ve spoiled the ultimate ending for ourselves, we are eager to go back and watch the earlier seasons. Finally a show that is neither too depressing nor too gimmicky! You just have to be willing to put your phone away for real because you’ll be reading subtitles the whole time. Apparently Bill Gates likes this show, too, but don’t let that dissuade you.
The Nuggets easily won the first game of the NBA finals last night. Because this is the first time the Nuggets have made the finals in league history, that necessarily means it is also the first time the mascot, Rocky, has had to work this late into the season. This fact, along with the fact that Rocky receives almost no airtime on the tv, is important to consider before reading the following piece of information:
I shared this salary with my friends in Durham who were rightfully stunned but also extremely disappointed to find out that the mascot is a mountain lion and not, in fact, a nugget. Can you imagine a nugget just bouncing around and doing flips? Sounds iconic.

BIRTH NOTICES

Welcome, June! Upon my return to North Carolina, I noticed a subtle but distinct shift. Summer is around the corner, waiting with bated breath. The greenery is thicker and the post-rain sunshine steamier. Our tiny garden is producing its first bounty of the year—several tiny tomatoes and far too much basil. Last night, we noticed the first lightning bug of the season. My friends who grew up in the south taught me a critical and delightful distinction: a “lightning bug” is singular, used when you see one on its own; “fireflies” is plural, referring to groups of hundreds or thousands. A solitary lightning bug is just a bug. Fireflies are a magical lightshow.
On the walk from our house to downtown, we pass a small house that consistently surprises us with its extensive livestock collection. Before I left for Colorado, they had chickens (extremely free range—they literally cross the road, though the reason for this is yet unknown), a goat, sheep, cats, a few scrappy dogs, one large but friendly pit bull, and several bunnies bopping around a play pen in the front yard. Upon my return from Colorado, I walked by the house while they were blasting ranchera music and could distinctly hear the sounds of at least three roosters over the tunes. Moreover, as of this week, the place is now home to many baby chicks which, as far as we can tell, are being babysat by the cats.
I’ve been drooling over these large ice-cream cone-like flowers, which are truly the stuff of fairy tales.
Thumb for scale; blisters from a single Orange Theory class

IN MEMORIAM

During my run today, I realized that today’s mid-day run may be the last of the season. My body was not built for heat, but especially not humid heat. I may just quit running until summer’s end.
For anyone who isn’t bored to tears with the Matty Healy discussion already, I enjoyed this profile by Jia Tolentino. And with that one final update, I have now sworn off any further discussion of Matty for the foreseeable future.