March 19-23, 2018
Sarah knows so many lovely words, and on Monday, writes about learning even more. When they talked among themselves, they spoke exclusively in Chilean Spanish, which, one of them—Fernando—gravely informed me, is even worse for outsiders than Argentine Spanish. I was awash in a sea of musical sounds whose meanings I could only grasp at based on context and hand gesture.
A crackdown on homeopathy in the UK spurs Sally to redux a post about the subject. The idea appears to be “hair of the dog”. So for example, if you’re an insomniac, get a little tiny bit of insomnia, mix it with some water, dilute it to nothing, and take your potion. What the hell is a “a little bit of insomnia”? Oh, of course – owl.
Erik is thinking about how he likes mysteries, especially the unsolved ones. The point is that mysteries and candy are both more about the process than the resolution. Rock climbing too, I guess. Baseball, Sudoku, Wes Anderson movies – man, I guess everything in my life could boil down to activities that have amazing journeys and disappointing payoffs.
Two of Jessa’s college friends died have died in the last three years, and she describes how those friendships were different than any other. We had yet to learn the language of emotion that later relationships would teach us, so we couldn’t articulate much of what we felt. In fact, without that intimacy, we didn’t yet know the extent to which others even experienced the world as we did.
Earlier this month, Ann was in the dark. Maybe a squirrel did it. The shutters rattled, the birdfeeder went sideways, trees across the street bent by 45 degrees, from 12:00 over to 2:00. Sure enough, 5:19 p.m., came the BANG with which I am well-acquainted, the BANG of the transformer at the top of the alley blowing up.
See you next week.
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Drawing of the Atacama by Sarah Gilman