It’s only a few months after I decided to restart my blog and do a newsletter and write all the things in all the places, for the sake of remembering how to write, and wanting to do that publicly, I have kind of lost track of why that was a thing anyone would want to do… or read.
A long list of all the writing I failed to do
In lieu of actual writing, and to assuage the angry little man in my head who wants to yell at me at all the times and things I could have been writing but didn’t, here is a list of places I did not write in the last few weeks.
A list of things I know about raccoons
- The have cute faces that make them look a little bit like they’re wearing masks. Like bandits.
- They also have little hands with which they can grip things and open things. Like bandits.
- They also eat rubbish out of trash cans.
- But THEN they like to wash all their food in clean water before eating it. I’m not sure where bandits stand on the bin/food-washing process, but it definitely feels like this might also be quite a lot: Like bandits.
- A group of racoons is called a “gaze” or a “nursery”. My friend Lauren told me this. Those are some delightful terms for an intimidating collection of large rodents.
- They’re mainly nocturnal, except when they’re not. When they’re noct? No.
- You can put coyote pee in your garden, or wolf urine, or ammonia which smells like pee, and this is meant to deter them from wanting to hang out there. Or you can put movement-sensored lights that look like predators. Or that spray water.
- Urban raccoons are wise to ALL of these things, because urban raccoons have seen it all, and may well laugh in your face if you try any of them.
- Laughing in your face is probably something raccoons can do. And would do.
- Because they can stand on their back legs like little people. I think? I’m sure I’ve seen this. But between this and the little people-hands and the bandit-mask face thing, they’re extremely easy to mistake for small hairy bandit people who live under your deck and eat from your trash and wash their hands in your fountain.
- Sorry I kind of lost control of the factual list thing. Let me get back to it.
- Raccoons often live in human spaces, like attics, basements, or under decks in the garden, due to the closeness of food, water, and warmth. They’ll particularly seek these out during mating season and breeding season.
- Raccoons make a great deal of different noises, from chattering and cooing to screaming and… more screaming. Several of these noises are specific to mating season.
- Raccoon mating season in Northern California is from January to late March.
Ask me how I know. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.
…Three years later
In the last few weeks I’ve had more conversations about the first year of Covid than in the last three years.
It’s like we held our breath, not wanting to say “That was weird right? And hard? Not just me, right?” just in case suddenly someone jumped out from behind a tree and said “What do you mean “was” fools?! Get back in your houses, we’re going full lock-down again!”
But now we’ve reached a full three years later. Or… I mean, it’s not a precise thing. But it’s coming up on three years since San Francisco issued shelter in place orders and we locked ourselves in the house for a bunch of months, then lived cautiously and frustratedly and weirdly for a bunch of a bunch more.
And it’s only recently that people have started to talk about it. Someone asked the other day Doozer and I were walking home with his friend from school and he suddenly said
“Hey, do you remember that day when the sky was red?”
“Oh.” said his friend. “Yeah it was weird. Why?”
“Oh nothing.” said Doozer. “That’s all it was. That day that felt like we were on Mars. We called it Mars day. Just wondering if you remembered it.”
My beloved has this thing. It has a name.
Great start to a post Anna, very strong. Why don’t we look that up before we start the blog post next time?
Aphantasia! It’s called Aphantasia. Which, to be honest, I’m pretty sure is a Disney cartoon, so no wonder I couldn’t remember the name of it, but whatever.
It means you can’t see pictures in your head. Like, it’s partly not being able to picture people you know and love, which sucks. But when someone describes a picture. Or when you read a description of a scene in a novel — he just doesn’t have the ability to build that image in his head in a way that he can “see”. It’s not a visual thing.
And for a long time I couldn’t quite work out what he meant by that, and then when we discovered it was not completely unusual, I read up about it, and sort of understood it more. But what still completely confuddled me was the fact that he simply couldn’t wrap his head around what it must be like to see pictures in one’s head. Basically: He couldn’t even picture me being able to picture the things I pictured in my head when I picture things. Which makes sense, in that he couldn’t picture things but… I couldn’t step into his shoes and understand his confusion.
Until the moment he revealed that he somehow DOESN’T ever think about being attacked by a squirrel while on the toilet.
And I stopped, aghast, and tried to work out how it might be possible to not think about being attacked by a squirrel while on the toilet. Or a rat. Or a shark.
This has led me to go on a journey of self-interrogation. Like… what OTHER thoughts may not be constantly present for everyone else? What other things does my anxiety-free beloved NEVER think about?!
*Britsshhhhhhhhhhhhh*
Hello yes I’d like to report an infraction of the ex-pat code.
Ok, thank you, yes. It was this evening, around 7pm, at the corner store a couple of blocks from my house? You know, the one run by the brothers? The older one was was working tonight, he can provide a back-up account if you need one.
Anyway. I was picking up a couple of things — bottle of diet coke, some butter… not important. Though you should know that if you’re hankering after Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut, they have the big bars there. No idea why, no other British things, but those, for some reason? They have them! I know, right?!
Sorry yes. I called you, yes.
The report.
Oh yes it was extremely distressing. Apparently she was from … is this line secure?…ok.
…the Home Counties.
In which I throw half a dead sheep at the computer and see what happens
For reasons that may or may not become obvious at some point, I have been doing a lot of reading about various historical figures and events, and am trying very hard not to get lost down rabbit holes.
But to be honest, it would be really helpful if history wasn’t so interesting, because it is hard to concentrate on the important work things, when there’s all these… details that are shiny and interesting and very VERY hard to ignore.
I don’t get hot feet for capitalism
Every day Doozer and I walk together either to school, or back from school, or both.
Every day there are new questions. If I had a superpower what would it be. If I could have an intergalactic motorbike OR a teleportation device, which would it be? If I was going to be a magical creature as a pet, which? If I was going to write a musical, what would it be about? Would I rather be the goddess of fire? Or a wizard who could control water? Would I buy a set of portals that could transport me between 4 fixed points, or a teleportation machine that could send me anywhere, but only one way?
I rarely have the correct answer to these questions. I’m not sure there is a right answer, but if there is one, I apparently don’t have it as the questions keep coming back.
Yesterday, Doozer was heading toward me up the hill a couple of blocks from school with a friend. “If, right” said Doozer’s Friend, once they had acknowledged that I was now walking alongside them… “If, right, there was a bed of fire. Like, hot coals, or lava but like solid or… fire basically. But not like fiery flamey fire just really hot, like, ground, but not ground? Like, fire-ground, or…”
“Go on…” I cut in, trying to stop him going on (and on, and on)
“But, like, if you walk across it, you can have your dream job… would you do it?”
I had a very quick think.
Greetings from mucusville: population, me.
Ok probably not just me. From the looks of my social media and the reports I hear from the outside world, I am not the only resident of mucusville. I am, however, the only resident of my own personal mucusville.
Which is good, because if anyone else was living in my mucus that would be weird.
I have a cold. Or flu. Or an RSV? Or something similar with another name but NOT the Thing-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, because I have taken TTSNBN-tests daily and they all say it is not that. Whatever it is, it is a) awful, and b) nothing to complain about really because, as we have all seen, it could be so much worse, and frequently is.
And yet, complain about it I have.
Been…
Doing? Not sure how that sentence should work. But I have been complaining and still I complain. Because context is everything, and it is the worst I, personally, have felt in bloody ages. My family are all bored of me complaining to at them, so I shall complain here instead…
Important information that you need to know
It has come to my attention that in one particular airport in Wisconsin, Mitchell airport apparently, was the first airport, may still be the only airport, to use in official signage the word “recombobulation”, and this is amazing, and I want everyone to know about it.
It’s after TSA, after security point, and it’s just a name for the benched area where you can put your shoes and belts back on and shove your larger electronic items back into your overpacked hand luggage. Because you have been discombobulated, you need to be recombobulated. This is where that happens. This word, which may have made it into an official dictionary by now, was named as the most creative new word of the year in 2009 by the American Dialect Society. Which, now I’ve discovered is a prize one can win, is destined to be the cornerstone of a new personal goal.
Anyway. They call it in their signage the “Recombobulation Area”, but I think we can all agree that is a typo, because they clearly meant to call it the “Recombobulation Station”, as that is obviously the better name. Because it rhymes.
I have no other information or point to make about this. I learned about it from a lecture series on word origins and the evolution of language I’m listening to, and it came up this morning because I was at therapy and realised that I should have booked in an extra session after a recent experience that left me discombobulated, because I had been in need of this room, this process, as my recombobulation station. Or one of my recombobulation stations.
We all need recombobulation stations. They look different for different people. But they exist for all of us.
It’s just nice to discovered there’s a name for them. I thought you should know.
little.red.boat 