somehow am now addicted to this game

this chair

our desire may know no end

liked this bit from haley nahman’s most recent newsletter:

In his book Status Anxiety, Alain de Botton posits that Americans are more susceptible to envy because we’re obsessed with equal opportunity and are therefore less likely to accept our circumstances. I find this pretty convincing, because it doesn’t concern whether “equal opportunity” actually exists here (it obviously doesn’t), but rather our shared belief that it does, which impacts our sense of what’s possible and therefore our disappointment at not living up to all of it. That sense of what’s possible is everything, and as the realm of what we consider possible expands into absurd territory (never get old! never work! fix the “unattractive” way your eyelids move!), our desire may know no end.

NEVER GET OLD! BE BETTER IN EVERY WAY! ETC ETC

suggestions for 2025

avoiding resolutions this year in favor of…suggestions? although honestly it’s more of a more/less list:

• more fun
• fewer headaches
• stronger body
• more cooking? (enh)

best of 2024

in no particular order, with no detail:

• sister’s wedding celebration at LORO
• nyc trip with rob and susannah to see plays and friends
• SONOS!!!!! (believe it, baby)
• true detective, season 4 (!)
• best friends, canns, movies, karaoke in el paso
• john visiting marfa!!!!!
• merriman-wus visiting marfa (and alpine) and our epic dinner at Pizza Hut!!!!
• uncle dan coming to houston for mom’s shoulder surgery, unbelievable
• our king-sized bed 🫠
• salt in my water
• my old ass (and karina longworth putting it on her year-end best)
• that great christmas day dinner at leo’s
• the memorial park land bridges

worst of 2024:

• losing my mouthguard lol
• all of my mom’s hospital visits

spotted in houston

aka EDUCATION DREARY TOWN

when the person doesn’t look shocked

i do NOT NOT NOT want to read all fours, but i am finding myself charmed by miranda july. from her fresh air interview:

JULY: …if you’re hiding the place where you’re actually at, then it’s hard to get to the next place. [But still] when I say I’m 50, I AM always a little disappointed when the person doesn’t look shocked (laughter).

GROSS: Oh, like, “oh, but you look like 35!” – that kind of thing?

JULY: When they just sort of are like, “hmm, yeah.” Like, I still have that in me, despite having declared all that stuff a massive construction…

BEEN THERE, AM THERE, LIVE THIS

highs/lows of christmas

just gotta recap so that i don’t forget ! ! ! ! ! !! ! ! ! all things considered it was a pretty good christmas?

HIGHS

• my sister’s wedding reception at LORO — the best food, best staff, best dancing, best guests, just all-round best time
• spending the night at the hotel with linda and sisters — taking a bath and watching hallmark movies and going to bed at 9:45PM!!!
• falling asleep to brooklyn 99 a few nights in a row
• izzy putting on her princess dress immediately after opening it on christmas morning
• our christmas dinner at leo’s — was so perfect, cozy, fancy, delicious. drank a glass of champagne, didn’t overeat, felt delighted.
• all the wild kids
• NO HEADACHE FOR TWO WEEKS, IS IT THE SALT IN MY WATER???????
• my striped sweater going strong
• trying those two bakeries mentioned in the ny times
• walking the memorial park kinder land bridges (and prairie!), straight up PERFECT
• watching the beyonce half-time show at mom’s, such a regular kind of event that we haven’t shared in a long time

LOWS

• taking Mom to the E/R (but in a somewhat high — we were at the memorial hermann trauma ER and we saw people being lifeflighted in [gunshot wound, motorcycle accident], which was SO intense, but it also made you feel…alive, weirdly. can’t explain it. also it really did feel like the tv show ER.)
• barnaby’s, so MEH
• montrose neighborhood in general — surprisingly too edgy for me? we saw someone peeing ON a car one morning (!) (in the morning!!!), there was lots of random screaming at night, someone hit our car with a cane when ross was driving, etc.
• our airbnb in general was pretty sub par, even though grateful for beds and heat, etc. etc. have new theory: airbnbs should be nicer than your own house or at least like a top-notch anonymous box

what to do

what happens when your compassion dries up

that we are all human

feeling kind of ornery that there isn’t (hasn’t been?) (**update: it’s here now phew) a proper ny times obituary for lorraine o’grady after reading all about her here and here and here. these art is… photographs / performance are hitting me. from the ny times:

When you start a new piece, where do you begin?
Well, I’m still basically a conceptual artist, so the first thing that happens is that I get an idea, and then I figure out the best way to express it. I move from idea to idea fairly rapidly. I’d say I’m a breadth artist, not a depth artist. I never went tumbling down the rabbit hole the way most visual artists did, going deeper and deeper into their craft until they got to something bigger, some bedrock of truth. Perhaps because I’m not crafted, and because, having come to art later in life, I don’t have the time. In other words, I’m not playing in art as much as other artists would be playing — I’m out there to make the best possible work and as close to a masterpiece as I can. I think of myself as somebody who’s working on the skin of the culture and constantly making incisions and stuffing works into each incision, the way you’d season a turkey so that the flavor gets in, even if you don’t have much of the original material left.

and from the brooklyn rail:

Rail: What do you believe art is supposed to do?
O’Grady: I’m old-fashioned. I think art’s first goal is to remind us that we are human, whatever that is. I suppose the politics in my art could be to remind us that we are all human.