Various and Sundry Things
Separate and Separable Ideas from the Past Few Months
1. looking
“Various and sundry things” is something Greg says sometimes. He is more American than me so I take his diction seriously, and I don’t know what’s real and what’s fake. I don’t know what’s a reference and what’s not. I joke that English is my second language. We listen to the Beatles for “album club” — a club comprised of just us two.
One of the things I liked about him early on: He knew all the different kinds of fish in the pond. He knew the types of spiders and the kinds of birds. He spotted them so quickly— a talent! When we go out now we take binoculars and he points out everything for me. I ask “where?” and he tries to show me. Even with his guidance it’s hard. I can’t do it half the time. I squint and scan and follow the branches of the trees and I still can’t find it.
I wondered for a while if it was because of his superior vision or his polarized sunglasses. But then even with the pair of binoculars he got me, he spots the Baltimore oriole with ease and aplomb and I worry I will leave the park that evening without having caught sight of an orange wing. Eventually on our walk back I stare up and see a quick flush of orange. Finally! I found it.
How utterly boring but still soft, warm, and delightful. I thought that falling in love would be much grander and more literary than this. Explosive, unmissable. But there was no thesis or narrative to it; it is instead so slight. I think if I wasn’t trying to find it, I wouldn’t have.
2. I literally got hand, foot, and mouth disease as an adult
(1) What a ridiculous name for a disease. Disease names should not prompt you to think about the Oxford comma. Hand, foot, and mouth?! Sometimes the butt and the genitals are involved, too, by the way. Not for me, thank god. But important to know — the branding doesn’t tell you everything.
(2) For me, anyways, mouth came first, then hand, then foot.
(3) I had just been joking about HFMD because of a restaurant in Corning, NY called “Hand + Foot.” The whole time I was incubating the fucking virus.
(4) On Saturday I had one of the most agonizing nights of pain I’ve ever experienced. Pain so bad I told my mom, through sobs, that I thought God was punishing me for something. (This is a suspicion I have also had for a while after what seems to be an unbelievable bout of bad luck.) She laughed while petting me calm and said — Yeah, God is punishing you for volunteering at TJ Techstravaganza.
(5) Day 7 since my first tingling sore throat and I am on the mend! Based on my calculations I will be safe to kiss on the lips on June 9, 2026. Pucker up everyone :*
(6) Palpable and indelible joy today when I felt well enough to answer emails on my laptop.
3. Whose cult would you be most likely to join?
I am too smart to join a cult, I like to think. For instance, lately when I read something and I don’t understand what it means, I decide that it’s not my fault anymore. You guys are the ones not making any sense.
But when I saw Waxahatchee live in Richmond last month I thought: If she started a cult I would probably join it. When I tell Greg this he points out that the reason I like her is also because she wouldn’t start a cult in the first place. The whole thing about hypotheticals is that things are also, usually, the way that they are. That’s true, but she sometimes wears a big puffy floral dress and I think I could die listening to these songs. She is pregnant at the show and I cry thinking about the passage of time.
4. Things I do while waiting for Claude [code] to finish: A live document
go on Instagram
go to the bathroom
look out the window
send text messages
send text messages
check my email
play Crossplay
put my plate away
pick my wedgie
read an article on agentic AI in retail
go to the bathroom
read an article on how winged eyeliner is millennial
look up how endodontists fix a microfracture in a tooth
look up when my Old Navy order is coming in
play Crossplay
put on chapstick
debate whether or not to respond to an email right now or later
update my grocery list on my Claude-created grocery tracker
search kohlrabi recipes
decide to make pickled kohlrabi, kohlrabi salad, or kohlrabi fries
check claude. check again
talk to Jayne about her job
talk to Jayne and Kiana about AI
email Nell, finally
check Partiful
check Instagram, but I’ve installed it on my phone again with “one sec”
pick my nose
go to the bathroom again
play on crossplay, then while I wait for a 15 second ad to pass by, I open up this document to write more
I played ‘bedraped’ and scored 109 points, an all-time high for me. B landed on a triple letter, R was on triple word. 4*3 is 12, times 3 is 36, just for the letter B. And it was a ‘sweep,’ which gives me even more points though I can’t remember how much. I had just guessed the word. Be-draped.
cheers,
PM