Category — Uncategorized

ChickieNob and I have been busy rewatching the first two seasons of The Crown to prepare for the third season release on November 17th. I love rewatching shows because knowing what happens next frees me to notice the small details, such as the music running in the background of a scene or seeing an infrequent character — such as Porchey — as one of the guests at the dinner table.

At first, we were both upset with the idea of a different cast, but I think we’ve come to a place of peace with it. I think it was smart of Netflix to give us the heads up so we could go into the series knowing the actors would change overtime. Plus, it feels like Olivia Colman is channeling Claire Foy in the trailer, creating a bridge between the first actress and the actual person they’re both portraying. It doesn’t hurt that they’ve gotten an amazing second cast to replace the first one.

But it is bittersweet to spend time with these early versions of Queen Elizabeth or Princess Margaret. To know that in a few short weeks, new actors will slip into the roles and the story will continue.

How do you feel about television shows replacing actors for the same character?

I’ve decided that my dream job is to join the Digital Ludeme Project. I’m not sure what my role would be — digital cheerleader? — but there must be a need for someone who is a passionate lover of ancient games who has zero ability to contribute to the AI aspect of the project?

Oooooh, or maybe an organizer hosting ancient game clubs in various cities once the project fully releases in 2020? Help people set up face-to-face game groups, use the DLP’s work, celebrate the project, get addicted to senet.

All I know is that I wanted in as soon as I heard about it.

I can’t be the only person who is totally geeked out about this project, right?

Memory is clearly on my mind this week. Though this is a little bit of a different take on reality and memory.

I already meditate daily, but I read Dan Harris’s 10% Happier recently and ended up highlighting things out of every chapter. If you don’t meditate, it’s like reading a 300-page blog post on one person’s foray into meditation. If you do meditate, he still has a bunch of really interesting thoughts tucked into the pages.

One of them comes on page 77 when Dan is speaking with his uncle. His uncle is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and he asks him a question:

“Which is more exciting to you? Reality or memory?” I paused, considered it, and said, “I wish I could say reality, but it’s probably memory.”

Reality, as in the present moment — experiencing something the first time — or memory, as in the recollection of that moment. The winner if you’re trying to live in the present is probably reality. But, like Dan, I also find memory the more precious option. Even if it is unreliable.

If I could really love and drain every last drop out of the here and now, but have no memory of these moments in the future OR maybe not deeply experience each minute but have lovely memories of the overall day in the future, I would probably take more in the future and less in the now. Even if those memories were only partially accurate.

How would you answer?

The editor, Jason Fry, wrote a great piece on Medium about returning to a town in Greece where he spent a summer as a child. He was taking this return trip with his parents as well as his wife and teenager. That childhood summer loomed large in his brain, and he was excited to return to the place they stayed, the restaurant they ate at, the archeological sites around town.

Except the place didn’t visually match his memories. And he realized while he was there with his parents that his memories didn’t match their memories, which didn’t match reality, too.

It’s a really interesting piece, and it’s something I think most people have experienced at some point in their life. You return to a place that held so much meaning for you that you’re certain those indelible, vivid memories in your brain must be fact. But then you arrive and doors are in wrong places or buildings are on wrong roads, and things start to mentally unravel as you realize your brain is holding on to faulty information and parading it as fact-based and unchanging as a photograph.

It made me think about how I’ve marked memory as the most important thing to hold onto, yet it’s completely unreliable. It’s such a strange idea––that we only have the vaguest understanding of what actually happened because memory is such a malleable, changing, degrading concept.

Imagine if you had a computer, and sometimes it saved your files and sometimes it changed them around without your input and sometimes they lost the files altogether. We’d never put our trust in that machine. Yet without the ability to get a reliable brain, we muddle through with memories that may or may not be accurate.

Anyway, it’s an interesting piece and it makes you think about the places you’d want to return to from your childhood; the houses or towns or parks you’d like to see again to check if they match up.

It is finally dipping down into the 60s and 70s in DC, though on Wednesday — October, mind you — it was in the high 90s. It didn’t feel that hot when I walked outside in the afternoon. I mean, yes, it felt hot, but most of the time, I’m only outside for a few minutes at a time. You don’t really process heat when you’re spending most of your time in an air conditioned space.

But on Wednesday, I was volunteering at the kangaroo place. I was mucking one of the fields, being careful to drink a lot of water, but around 3/4th of the way through the job, I had to sit down. The world was spinning, and I thought I was going to vomit. I sat down for a few minutes in the shade and started to feel okay, but when I went back to mucking, I immediately felt clammy and shaky and ended up needing to take a break again. I spent 2.5 hours at the ranch, so not that long an amount of time outside, but I felt sick enough that I wondered if I should call Josh to drive me home.

I felt queasy for a chunk of the evening, even after a cool shower and time inside.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the last few days. There are people who work outside for hours a time, people who live without air conditioning, people who walk long distances because they don’t have transportation. The animals who live outside all year round and weren’t built for 98 degree temperatures in October. What will the world look like five years from now? Ten years from now?

Steve Irwin said, “If we can teach people about wildlife, they will be touched. Share my wildlife with me. Because humans want to save things that they love.” I love this world and in a general sense, the people and animals in it. I want to believe Irwin that the world is saveable, but I’m terrified for us.