Nick's LIFESTYLE Newsletter

My two favorite authors together.

THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION

Hello again everyone. It's been a few weeks. An icy, cold few weeks. Weeks full of year end retrospectives. Weeks of 100%-ing Luigi's Mansion 3.

• I hope everyone had a happy and safe new years. Normally I send out texts with well wishes, but I just wasn't feeling it this year. My apologies.
• If you haven't found this yet, check out YearCompass. It's a great way to close out the year and think about the upcoming one.
• Met my hero, Dr. Chuck Tingle and it was pleasant. Of course, I didn't say too much because it is better that way.
• PREORDER ALERT: Minnesota's greatest author and big time 20XX LIFESTYLE newsletter award winning author, Mindy Mejia's new book is available for presale. Support the LIFESTYLE not via commission links, but by supporting the Friends of the LIFESTYLE whom are all amazing.

THIS IS THE END OF THE INTRODUCTION.

3 THINGS THIS WEEK:

ITEM THE FIRST:

THE YEAR OF FAILURE: The end of this year is hitting me particularly hard. While 2018 was the year of THE TERRIBLE THING, 2019 is the year it was really felt. I've just had to keep my head down and push through it and now that I'm taking a moment to breathe, I feel surprised that I survived it.

If there was one theme for 2019 in my life it was FAILURE. What was yours? I'm not a fatalist about failure and I hope this LIFESTYLE newsletter isn't consumed by my SADNESS TUNNEL. It was the year that my failings were very visible and impacted myself and others.

FAILURE 01: As a husband. Perhaps my hardest failure was as a husband to my lovely wife. I have put her through so much this year after THE TERRIBLE THING and I've still not recovered. I'm not back to my usual self and there are probably more bad days than good, even now. My fear is that every day we are further from that time before THE TERRIBLE THING, we feel nostalgia for an idealized version of how things were and we all know nostalgia is a toxic impulse. I never thought THE TERRIBLE THING would be the hardship, it is the years of recovery where we both have make a conscious effort to love and understand each other that would be hard. AND IT IS. Every day is a fresh game of trying to figure out how to communicate and avoid this HEDGEHOG'S DILEMMA.

FAILURE 02: As a cat dad. I know this is isn't a failure by my own actions, but losing Johnny this year and the whole Piper ordeal makes me feel terrible, especially with the knowledge that it can never happen again.

FAILURE 03: Self. I really, really had a down year as far as accomplishing things. I made much smaller gains in Japanese (I honestly haven't worked on it in about 5 weeks now) and played bass much less this year. There have been too many days and nights when I have time set aside for these things, but just can't focus. This is a new thing post-THE TERRIBLE THING that I'm still not sure how to deal with.

However, failures are not permanent (MOSTLY) and it is my job to get myself back to a place of healing and achievement and find ways to PROVE LOVE to myself and others. AND WHAT A BIG YEAR THIS ONE IS. How was your year?

ITEM THE SECOND:

AMAZING INTERNET THINGS THAT ARE NOT PORNOGRAPHY:

• McDonald's Japan introduces the adult cream pie.
• Cats is getting patched like a video game.
• A new to me great podcast: "You're Wrong About..." It delves into the statistics and facts about the moral panics our stupid society goes through. This episode about sex trafficking, in particular, was amazing.
• This must read article from The Root - How to Be a Better White Person in 2020. This is not a time to be silent.

ITEM THE THIRD:

THE SQL OF LIFE: As part of being more of a listener than a talker, I've really been honing on a particular speech pattern in the past few months. It seems like a lot of people use a lot of OR statements. "They either don't like this OR they are a terrible person" or "This is because something OR another thing." Being both a good Boolean searcher and competent SQL query writer reminds me that if you are not happy with a result set, you need to expand it. Change that OR to an AND, because both things are possible. I think we need to be better about not assuming what people feel/know and making it into a simple binary dichotomy. I don't accept a binary view of gender, sexuality or other things, so why would I impose it into speech? We don't know the struggles the people around us are going through and it is reductionist to put it into a opposing binary framework. I think a good part of the NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS is to use less OR and more AND statements in life. DROP TABLE ors_in_speech;

GRATITUDES: To my friends, the Nelsons. This year for New Years, they had an Olympic themed party, complete with opening ceremony, events, medal ceremonies and everything. It was amazing and so much fun to be a part of someone's wacky idea. Melonie won a bunch of medals and has quite the display of them setup in her art room. It was a brief SADNESS REPRIEVE from my new years malaise.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (please mark "ok to print"):

none this issue.

THE HOPE SPOT:

Look at this website for Finland. I WILL WAIT. The Prime Minister is 34 and 12/17th of the ministers are female and several younger than 40. Finland recognizes the future and represents it in their current government. Their Minister of Education is 33 and "...before politics and civil sector organisations, she has worked in Moominworld, as hotel receptionists, waitress, kitchen worker and face-to-face fundraiser for Greenpeace, at a fruit processing plant in France, and as translator." DRAIN ME INTO THIS SWAMP PLEASE.

FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY EARHOLES THIS WEEK: All of Apple Music. I have resisted streaming for a LONG LONG time as I'm old and am more of an ownership guy. I have given in. TBH, I REALLY enjoyed Tidal more than Apple Music since it was made for music nerds like me. Who produced this track? Here are the liner notes and credits and everything is linked together. However, as I type this on my MacBook Air, listening to my AirPods and looking at a notification on my iPhone and Apple Watch...I have to realize that Apple Music just integrates with my lifestyle better being obviously wealthy and white. Anyway, after just a few days it is really getting to know me and is offering me up some AMAZING PLAYLISTS. Super cool. Now, as a bit of a metadata nerd, I definitely have some irritants with it, but I just have to let go and realize no solution is perfect. THIS IS HARD.

WE ARE ALL FAILURES.

WE ARE NOT DEFINED BY THEM.

IT IS UP TO US TO OVERCOME THEM.

THAT IS ALL.