the immaculate mailing list - booze, preparedness, and digital relationships
before anything else, just letting ya know that i'm gonna talk about alcohol in this edition- it'll be clearly labeled.
hi y'all
welcome back to the immaculate mailing list! hope you're enjoying your fool's spring at least as much as i am! as much as i love winter and snow, i'm eternally grateful for those first warm & sunny days. our home has a pretty decent porch, and i've been enjoying spending time sitting on the stoop. kat and i are also planning out our garden! i've got a few pallets stocked in the basement to build some raised beds out of in the next week or so. excited to see how that turns out! if you've got any solid gardening tips/trade secrets, please let me know! we're both pretty new to this.
okay, getting into this!!
preparedness
idk how much y'all have noticed, but there's some pretty bad shit going on, and people are being left to die. texas is a pretty prime example (not even taking into account their governor's decision to reopen, what the fuck!!!). the weather came, and wreaked havoc on the infrastructure, and people living their were largely abandoned (thank goodness for mutual aid, and neighbors caring for neighbors). the thing is, that type of thing could happen anywhere, with any number of causes! we don't have much large scale infrastructure we can rely on to care for masses of people in need. i mean, even without an immediate natural disaster, the usa has ~500k-600k people who don't have access to shelter at any given point. i think the last 12 months have demonstrated to a lot of people that it might not be best to place all of your eggs in hoping the government will do what must be done to keep people safe, which brings me to what most of you probably know is a favorite topic of mine, preparedness! really, things that most people participate in to some level anyways- like, do you keep an umbrella in the car? do you have a back-up mask in your bag? keep a frozen pizza just in case you don't feel like making dinner from scratch? that's the kind of stuff i'm talking about, just dialed up a little bit more on the thoughtfulness and intentional scale. i'm not trying to give a comprehensive plan, because everyone is gonna have different needs and different situations, but i'm encouraging folks to think about what kind of things you might need to ride out a set amount of time in your home, potentially without power or running water. it's even better if you've got people who live nearby that you trust and can collaborate with, but building an emergency kit for your household is a good idea anyways.
some useful things to think of:
- water - each person needs about a gallon a day. i just got three 7gl water containers from REI, so my little household has emergency water for a little more than a week. You can definitely find these things used too! i also have iodine tablets for purifying water, and a water filter (both of these come from my backpacking gear).
- gas powered cooking - either your home stove, or a grill or camp stove (don't use outdoor gas cooking stuff inside your home!).
- appropriate-for-you, non-perishable food - think bulk rice, beans, canned veggies and fruits, peanut butter, etc, etc
- backup power supply - we have a few portable chargers around, one of them capable of solar charging, and another with a hand crank. i would love to get a bigger solar powered one in the future for powering larger devices, but it's outside the budget currently
- at least half a tank of gas in your car, if you've got one - in case you've gotta go!
- if your insurance allows for it, an extra supply of any meds you (or your pet!) need.
- first aid kit (and the knowledge of how to use it)
you probably already have some of this stuff already, and a lot of the rest is pretty easily acquired. whatever you have will make it easier to get yourself and your community through whatever might happen!
another heads up- this section and the next are pretty much journal entries
alcohol consumption
this is something i've gone back and forth over for a few years- do i want to keep drinking? i've stopped for a few spells over the years, but have always ended up starting again. for at least the last 4-5 years, i haven't (often) drank in significant quantities, but i have drank in smaller amounts daily. i'm at an interesting spot now, i haven't had any alcohol in almost two months (this started when i just didn't restock after i finished the last bottle, but has continued after i had some high blood pressure concerns, and my doc advised i not partake until we had some more answers). if i were to decide to not drink anymore, it seems like now would be a good time to make that call, ya know? i've already got some momentum rolling. the thing is, i like to have a drink on the porch and watch the sun go down, or have a beer on the beach with a friend, or drink a tallboy in a stranger's basement while someone makes some weird music. i am very fond of those types of experiences! and i don't really like to be drunk! my trouble is that i can be prone to slippery slopes, and if i have a drink once a week, it's pretty easy to have a drink two, three, four, etc... times a week. having a drink also comes pretty quickly to mind when i'm feeling stressed, which, frankly, is all the time now. this is just me kinda talking things out to myself. i really don't know where i'll come down, but if you're someone who relates to any of this, i'd appreciate hearing from you! you've got my email addy.
digital relationships
most of you know this immaculate newsletter came out of a desire for me to not be using social media as much, but still wanting to maintain connections. still true! but i recently had an interesting (to me!) convo with my therapist that is leading me to try out instagram again. my relationships to social media have shifted over the years- i had a lot of fun on myspace and various message boards when i was in high school and early (first go-round of) college. most of my relationships from that time developed either online, or through people that i met online. that was how i made my social home! eventually, i had this sizeable network of people i liked, that i saw in person on a regular basis, mostly from playing and attending shows. most of my socializing was in person! my social media platforms become a home for shitposting or trying to get people to come to shows i was playing (okay, also flirting ;-) ). i stopped using those platforms to really make connections, or even actively maintain them. then, i moved to chicago, and no longer had a crowd of people i’d known for years that i socialized in-person with regularly. i didn’t really change how i used social media tho, it still remained fairly surface level silly jokes, maybe a selfie, or an article i had read. i didn’t actively use it to maintain connections though, and i slowly grew unsatisfied with the space it took up in my life. it was a pretty mindless activity for me. the thing is, my social conditions had changed, but my behaviors hadn’t. still, i socialized in chicago- i saw friends, and i worked a variety of jobs and was in school. it was enough socializing that i still didn’t feel the need to change how i used social media, it was still a place to mostly goof around. i don’t think it was until the pandemic came on, and my in-person socializing came to an abrupt halt, that it really hit. until that point, i hadn’t been actively maintaining relationships on those platforms, and it didn’t really occur to me to start? i mean, i knew this pandemic was gonna last, but i wouldn’t have predicted how long. i eventually, i just bailed on those platforms (except twitter, i have still had an active twitter account this whole time!),i never changed how i used them. it just never occurred to me that i could! i mean, i also don’t want to participate in the facebook ecosystem, but i have yet to get enough people to switch to a more decentralized, autonomous platform to make it worth the while (tho if you’re on scuttlebutt or mastadon, hmu!!). all this is to say, you can find me on instagram: @j0shdotinfo. see ya there.
some things i've read recently
- how prepared are we for the next solar flare? - ethan siegel
- the dogs that grew wool and the people that love them - virginia morell
- beaver believers: native americans promote resurgance of "nature's engineers" - lucy sherriff
- the willful misunderstanding of kink - r.o. kwon
- how sustainable is high-tech healthcare? - kris de decker
- ungovernable: an interview with lorenzo kom'boa ervin - william c. anderson
- texas's energy crisis is america's future - kate aronoff
- vertical farming does not save space - kris de decker
- john deere promised farmers it would make tractors easy to repair. it lied. - jason koebler
- the best jimmy eat world songs, ranked - ian cohen
- Chicago police showed ‘confusion and lack of coordination’ that endangered protesters, officers last May, city watchdog concludes in scathing report - dan hinkel, annie sweeney, jeremy gorner
- surving your thirties: aka the panic years - nell frizzell
- arizona man is accused of faking own kidnapping in order to evade work - johnny diaz
music i've been listening too
- coming insurrection - rampancy
- little oblivions - julien baker
- hypnic jerks - the spirit of the beehive
- the big freeze - laura stevenson
- painted shut - hop along
- because of a flower - ana roxanne
- women in music part III - haim
- different trains/electric counterpart - steve reich
- mydata - katie dey
- talking book - stevie wonder
- silent alarm - bloc party
- silent shout - the knife
- debut - björk
- vespers for a new dark age - missy mazzolli
- just married - glocca morra
- bark your head off, dog - hop along
- control - pedro the lion
- baby i'm-a want you - bread
- rocket - alex g
- house of sugar - alex g
- the language that we speak - former thieves
- home, like no place is there - the hotelier
- no era solida - lucrecia dalt
- nothing ep - loraine james
- deloused in the comatorium - the mars volta
- vox humana - kenny loggins
- 14:59 - sugar ray
- comfort eagle - cake
- hyperborea - tangerine dream
- the second time around - etta james
- the brutalist bricks - ted leo and the pharmacists
- dutty rock - sean paul
- complete piano sonatas - alexander scriabin
- swungert - collassal squid
- treatment 5 - oskerworld
- no matter where we go ...! - latterman
- chase this light - jimmy eat world
- bleed american - jimmy eat world
- futures - jimmy eat world
- clarity - jimmy eat world
- utopia teased - stephen steinbrink
- because of a flower - ana roxanne
thanks for reading !!
please reach out if anything i said resonated with you in any way! i would love to talk more about this stuff. also, if you have a favorite sauce to make, please send me a recipe! i am trying to learn my sauces.
take care,