Lunar Obverse

I spent most of the weekend fighting off some kind of illness. I don’t know exactly what I had, but it made me tired, dizzy, and short of breath. Not a head cold, that’s for sure. I’m pretty sure it’s mostly gone, just in time for me to return to work Monday morning, yay.

I don’t have a topic for tonight, so I will just talk about things as they come to mind.

NaNoWriMo approaches quickly! By the end of the week, actually. Just a reminder for any and all of my readers, I won’t likely be posting as much on the blog during the month of November; gotta use all my writing brain for NaNoWriMo. I will post here, but it will likely be quick links and updates on my writing progress, as well as any cute stories or pithy comments I can think of. Basically, I’ll post here the things I tended to post on Facebook.

Because, oh, yeah, I’m leaving Facebook forever as of the end of the month, too. That’s a thing that’s happening. Facebook is apparently dead-set on collecting money and eyeballs from right-wing extremists, to the detriment of democracy and United States government. And in response, I’m leaving and I encourage anyone else who can, to leave as well. There are other communities in which you can find your friends and family, I promise you. For a small instance, I offer you this one.

I watched a Vlogbrother video today, from Hank, and he repeated something that I had heard him say before but haven’t really internalized. He said that we now live in corporate spaces. What does that mean? To me, it means that while we may connect, and have fun, and have interesting discussions in them, we are subject to corporate rules—not government rules, not ethical rules, but the rules of the corporations that run the space. We don’t have voting rights. We don’t even have human rights that digital people may have.

Extending that analogy, then, the only impact we can have on corporate spaces are leveraging the things that corporations care about, and Facebook cares about only one thing. Well, it cares about money, because it’s owned by a billionaire, and billionaires are dragons who sit atop a mountain of pilfered wealth, but Facebook also cares about reach and engagement. OK, OK, that’s three things, bear with me here, I’m improvising this.

Bottom line, if we want to change Facebook, it’s unlikely our government (or any government) will ever have the will or power to regulate social media. In the meantime, we can bend it by denying it our attention or engagement. I know many of you can’t leave, because of communities or people you have to stay in contact with and can only do so through Facebook. I am potentially losing track of important people to me, but I am committing to finding other methods to do that. Because leaving Facebook is a moral imperative for me.

Monopolies always seem unbeatable, until they are finally beaten. Just like bullies, or tyrants. But we have to do it together. In some kind of… united… state. I think you see what I’m saying. Right?

I crashed into bed about 23 minutes after I posted yesterday’s post, and there I remained, feverish and hazy, in and out (but mostly out) of consciousness. I was better but not 100% and the morning was mostly a blur of sitting on the couch watching videos. After Noon, I was tired again so I napped. Woke up hungry, as I knew I would be, so went out to get some food.

When I came home, I dived into playing The Outer Worlds, Obsidian’s new action RPG.

I’m only an hour or two into it but I already love it. Wandering around on a colony world with the design aesthetic of Firefly (with a tiny bit of Fallout mixed in), the game itself is gorgeous and rich in those small details that really bring a place to life. The brand names, the way NPCs speak and dress, and the background philosophies are all working together to paint a particular picture.

Some small spoilers for early game lore ahead. I’ll hide them below the cut.

Tonight I am feeling mellow and nostalgic. As much practice as I’ve taken over the years with reading and writing and re-writing and trying to tell stories, I don’t know that I have the ability or skill with which to convey the feeling I’m feeling right now, to anyone willing to listen. Despite that, I have to write tonight, and this is the topic.

Went out for Taco Tuesday with my friend Terry and he was in a good mood. After we had our fill of tacos, I let him talk me into driving to a dessert place, Lauretta Jean’s, over on SE Division, for pie. I know that too much sugar lately will literally make my body ache in various ways, but I still can’t resist. That’s what addiction is, I guess. 

On the drive over there (we took Terry’s car), he was playing, of all things, some of the musical hits of Earth, Wind, & Fire. Some funk/disco. Normally I get a bit grumpy, but the whiskey warmed my belly and my soul just a tiny bit, and I fell into the melodies and danced in my seat. We sang along—me, as best I could; Terry easily hitting the higher notes—as we drove through the sodium-lit streets of inner Southeast Portland. My favorite neighborhoods.

It was just what I needed. At the pie place, I ordered a slice of bourbon pecan (with whipped cream); Terry got a pear streusel and mocha. 

Earlier today, I had been listening to an episode of the podcast You Are Not So Smart, this one titled “The Friendship Cure,” in which the host interviews a scientist who has studied the effects of friendship on human lives. The conversation ranged over a wide variety of topics, but one, in particular, held my attention: the relative distance and emptiness of most male friendships. Men in our culture are never encouraged towards intimacy, for various social reasons. However, the scientist and the host did mention one of the best fictional male friendships ever (and I could not agree more): JD and Turk, on the TV show “Scrubs.” 

JD and Turk shared a warm, close, and, most importantly, funny friendship, the likes of which are rarely seen in fiction or in life. Sure, they caught some shit for it from other men on the show; but it never stopped them from being the best of friends to and with each other. 

Terry and I are like that. We are not romantic partners. Both of us are not inclined that way at all, not towards each other. But we have known each other for a very long time, through good times and bad, and we are comfortable being our truest, most authentic selves with each other. 

Neither of us is perfect, but, to paraphrase the words of the scientist on the podcast whose name I can’t recall right now, we allow space for our flaws, as well as our strengths. 

After he drove me back to my car and we goofed around and then said our goodnights, I got in my car for the drive back to my personal Tatooine (which is, in itself, a reference to both nostalgia and a shared experience with Terry, that of seeing Star Wars together when we were kids.) Instead of more podcasts, I opened up Spotify and found a playlist of hits from 1983, the year we graduated from high school, and then I let those songs stoke my feelings and memories of being young and dumb. 

In my head, as I sometimes do, I imagined meeting younger me and asking him how he was doing, and try to let him know how life was going to turn out for him. I don’t think he could possibly have foreseen the paths life would take him, but I do firmly believe he would still recognize himself in the 54-year-old Brian who stood before him. I still have his sardonic but somehow sincere humor. We share a curiosity about lives and people who are not ourselves. And inside both of us hides a deep sadness about the limitations imposed on us by living in the physical world.  

Dancing and singing to songs from my youth as I navigated the streets to my apartment, on a dark autumn night, I felt the pull of all three of those emotions, overlaid with the joy of having made it this far, and knowing that there is a least a bit more story left to tell.

I’ll leave you with this last tidbit, a message from 18-year-old and 54-year-old me:

Mama say, mama saw, mama koo saw.

Goodnight, dear reader. 

Just a quick post tonight because it’s late and I don’t have it in me to write something more in-depth. I’ve gotten good at making tacos for dinner. Turns out it’s super easy to do! Just one main ingredient, plus some condiments, and it’s filling and delicious. And I can make the perfect servings for eating solo.

Tonight it was steak tacos. I’m starting at an advantage because I keep a bunch of stuff on hand: I always have corn tortillas, for example. I buy a lot, and they keep forever.

I have a bunch of spices: coriander (in Spanish it’s cumin), chili powder, hot chili powder, oregano. Sea salt and black pepper.

I always have some fresh garlic and white onion in my drawer (they keep better if you keep them in a dark, cool place.)

Another helpful ingredient is a 2 lb bag of shredded cheese. Again, it doesn’t go bad very fast at all, and it’s excellent for garnishing just about anything I cook. Like, say, tacos!

When I go grocery shopping, I always buy some thin-cut steak for carnitas and a bag of frozen chicken breasts. The chicken comes in a zipper bag; I can pull out one or two breasts at a time; I can even cook them from frozen, if I have forgotten to thaw some out, and I haven’t been able to tell the difference.

The steak I package up into 3-4 slices per bag and toss them all in the freezer. This morning, before I left for work, I took one bag of the steak out of the freezer and let it thaw out in the fridge while I was at work.

On the way home, I stopped to get some sour cream, a bunch of fresh cilantro, and an orange bell pepper. When I got home, I realized I had a Roma tomato that was still good. I pulled the steak out of the fridge to warm up (beef cooks better when it’s at room temperature) and then spent the first hour washing, chopping, and slicing all the vegetables and getting them ready.

When the vegetables were ready, I used my cleaver to cut the steak into strips, against the grain (makes the bites easier to chew). Next, I heated my wok very hot (on the 1–8 scale, I turned my electric stove up to 6 1/2—you want the wok hot) with two tablespoons of olive oil (non-virgin, since I was going to be stir-frying.) As soon as the oil started to smoke a little, I dropped in the chopped white onion and some chopped garlic cloves and stirred until they were beginning to turn translucent. Then I added in the steak strips.

I cooked that whole mixture until the steak was starting to brown, then pulled out the steak and let it rest on a plate. While it was resting, I added in the bell pepper and some spices (cumin, chili powder, oregano, salt, and pepper) with the remaining oil, garlic, onions, tossed in some fresh chopped cilantro and mixed it all up on medium heat.

That’s when I added the steak back to the wok, and mixed it all around to let the flavors soak in.

I turned the heat down to low, then put a bunch of tortillas in the warmer with some damp paper towels, and heated them in the microwave, 30 seconds at a time until they were warm and pliable.

At that point, it was just a matter of assembling the tacos. Tortillas, some meat, then add on some chopped tomato, some chopped onion, shredded cheese, sour cream, and a sprinkling of chopped cilantro, and settled down to watch some TV with delicious tacos!