LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 5
Nick’s Lifestyle Newsletter
Very excited for the 4K HDR remaster
THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION
Hello again everyone. If our measure of time since the last LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER was in hum-free water heaters, it would be less than 1 hum-free water heater time unit since my last missive.
- 70% done on our 100% run of Super Mario Galaxy 2. NO PROGRESS MADE.
- A gentle reminder. This is my secret club house of mostly solitude to invite people into. Not yours.
- I died a little under 6 hours into my game of Talisman this weekend. Some days things don’t go your way. Especially when that day is spent playing Talisman.
- NEW SECTIONS!
- I AM DISAPPOINTED BY YOU, YES YOU (insert name). I did not get any ideas on how to quantify joy.
THIS IS THE END OF THE INTRODUCTION.
THREE THINGS THIS WEEK
ITEM THE FIRST: I’ve just finished On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder and am about 50% into It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis.
On Tyranny is a very quick read, like 80 minutes tops. It just gives 20 simple rules or things to watch out when a country pivots toward authoritarianism. It uses examples and demonstrates a lot of parallels to our current times. I hate to be the whiny conspiracy theory liberal, but I don’t think this can be dismissed. He’s got a bit of a boner for print journalism, but outside of that I think it is clearly written and well contextualized.
It Can’t Happen Here PROVES TIME TRAVEL. It is terrifying how relevant a political satire novel from 1935 is and how it was used as a playbook for 2016. It is IMPOSSIBLE that Mr. Lewis was not a time traveler that traveled from the future to warn us. I remember encountering this book when I was in high school and putting it down as it just seemed too far fetched and you know, it’s fiction. FUCK I WAS WRONG. Every chapter you find a paragraph/page or two that confirms time travel. Mr. Lewis however did not realize that time will always self correct. The warning may have been heeded in the past, but eventually it catches up. At least that is what 80% of time travel related entertainment tells us.
“There were two things…that distinguished this prairie Demosthenes. He was an actor of genius. There was no more overwhelming actor on the stage, in the motion pictures, nor even in the pulpit. He would whirl arms, bang tables, glare from mad eyes, vomit Biblical wrath from a gaping mouth; but he would also coo like a nursing mother, beseech like an aching lover, and in between tricks would coldly and almost contemptuously jab his crowds with figures and facts—figures and facts that were inescapable even when, as often happened, they were entirely incorrect.”
ITEM THE SECOND: Empathy. This is perhaps the hardest of the emotions for me. Is it hard for everyone else? As you are aware, I lost my Emily last year. THE SADDEST THING EVER. (See Vol. 1, Iss. 1). During Melonie and my time together we lost her two cats, Rembrandt and Willow. They were nice and I loved them both and it was sad when they died. I know some readers of this very LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER have experienced the same, but I’ve got to say, I never understood how deep and profound of a loss that is until it happened to me. WE ARE ALL AMAZING FOR BEING ABLE TO GET THROUGH A DAY.
Most of my political reading is trying to understand the other side. I want to fit everything in my logic holes and it is impossible for me to understand the human condition that causes someone to support Trump. I can kinda understand voting Republican, I can kinda understand voting Democrat, but I cannot understand Trump.
It’s been a journey listening to podcasts, reading articles, watching media trying to understand the Trump supporter. In all my travels, I think this comment I saw on Reddit a few weeks ago sums it up, and thus has been awarded the coveted #quotes tag in my notebook. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fuckthealtright/comments/7z5py4/the_donald_and_rconspiracy_logic/
They were supposed to be the next star quarterback or start a hardware store that turns into a national franchise due to their smart business skills, and life would be easy. But they blew out a knee, or they weren’t cut out for college, or fairly, couldn’t afford to move out of their folk’s house. They grew up seeing people they know, the nerds from high school who lived at the bottom of the food chain, move away and do things with their lives, while they were still there, in their hometown, working at an oil refinery or the midnight shift at a gas station off of a barely-used highway, or a plumbing business that has a max customer capacity of 100.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re not too bad off. But you don’t understand, they’re not SUPPOSED to be here. It’s not THEIR fault they didn’t want to move from their 1000 person town to a city because that’s where the jobs are. How can you blame THEM for being underemployed because they might have to start from the bottom or go back to school or—god forbid—join a union?
No, it’s those dirty immigrants they’ve never met before, from countries they’ve never been to because they don’t leave their home town. It’s those liberals who live in the cities, like all those assholes who left town to get good jobs where they were. And since they were destined for greatness and denied it by so many exterior factors already, the news media has to be in on it too! At that point, of course they’re hiring actors to play grieving kids, this can’t possibly be reality—because if it is, all the people who have told them that guns are good, immigrants are bad, and that they’ve been robbed from the greatness they deserve are wrong. They have bought into their narrative because it feels good, it removes the responsibility of bad decisions or laziness.
And since our hypercapitalist society dictates increasing gains and steadily rising success, bad decisions have a tendency to compound, so the narrative has to change every year. It becomes more and more craven, the plot that these GLOBALIST JOB-KILLERS have enacted, because they have to try harder and harder to stop the RIGHTEOUS AMERICANS from winning. That’s why they commit false flags, hire actors, empower domestic terrorist organizations like (((ANTIFA))) and stage riots. Because they just can’t stand American greatness, or at least, that’s what these RIGHTEOUS AMERICANS tell themselves—because if that wasn’t true, the reality would break the way they see the world. This is the cult of America, where you’re either Someone™ or no one.
ITEM THE THIRD: Notes from BEING BETTER. Continuing from last issue, I’m still trying to define the outcomes of this project. I’m open to suggestions from my dear readers. One LIFESTYLE reader engaged in one of the best conversations of my life when she told me and Melonie her impression of our relationship. IT WAS AMAZING AND SO HELPFUL. Since you are in the not secret club of super friends, please send any ideas over. So far:
- I’m working on finally getting my Japanese formally to N5 level. I think I’m closer to this one than I think, just need to sharpen up my spoken grammar.
- I’m getting my running back on track so I can run a 12k. My running took a hit over the past year with taking card of Emily and then winter. I can still run 3-4 miles, but I was much better about it last year and did 8.5 miles at one point.
- Re-evaluate my wardrobe. I want to make sure Melonie is happy to be seen next to me and still finds me physically attractive.
- De-construct the Fred Rogers’ philosophy of life and implement (part of) it. Fred Rogers is the kindest person I know of and I want to better emulate behaviors that he had.
- YOUR IDEA HERE.
GRATITUDES:
Melonie. We are just two days away from our 11 year anniversary. One of the best parts of our relationship is that we keep having new experiences together and can still laugh about them, even when they are terrible. LIKE TERRIBLE.
Just this past weekend we were enjoying coitus in the shower and after the previous day of eating garbage food, my stomach was not happy. I was able to keep everything under control until that beautiful moment when the birds are chirping outside your window and you are ejaculating. The knees (and apparently sphincter) grow week and I let out a terrible bit of flatulence. LIKE TERRIBLE. I FELT SO HORRIBLE. Thankfully, I have the best wife in the world and after she was done sticking her head out of the shower to enjoy sweet, fresh air, she said she’d take a raincheck on the rest and never once made me feel terrible about it. We were able to laugh about this amazingly awkward moment and carry on with life.
I hope you all have a partner in life that is amazing as her. IT MAKES EVERYTHING OK.*
- This is NOT a permission slip to test your relationships with in-coitus flatulence.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: (please mark “ok to print”) None.
WEATHER CORNER: Spring is coming.
FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY EARHOLES THIS WEEK: Planet Money #829 - Rigging the Economy. I love it when my Socialist ideas intersect with Libertarianism and we agree on things. IT CAN BE DONE. (see also - #665 - The Free Food Market)
CLASSIFIEDS: (Submit your classified via email). iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014 - 24GB/1TB Fusion Drive, 3.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i5) - $1100 HP Laserjet 1012 - $20
WE MADE IT ANOTHER DAY.
TOGETHER.
THAT IS ALL.