In addition to my Family Feud habit (I’m trying to get my DVR source to record Jeopardy, which I used to play against my dad when I was in high school, both of us sitting on our couch with calculators and arguing about when it was legal to start speaking the answer), I’ve been watching:

Westworld

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

*These are two shows that have zero in common, except for the extremely important quality of knowing exactly what they’re doing and doing it brilliantly.

The Americans – practicing my Russian, and I’m a sucker for anything with spies, unless it’s fallen as far as Homeland.

The Killing – I’m finding this sort of relentlessly bad but I’m still watching it. I guess it’s worth it for Joel Kinnaman saying things like “Why’d your moms kick you outta her canoe?”

The Walking Dead’s dialogue has gotten so terrible that even its best actors are having a hard time saving it.

And for movies:

Passengers, which was a vat of steaming garbage soup.

The Arrival, which was more than solid in its scope and questions–as an alien movie it was average but as a discussion of language and time it was above–but definitely gets a boost when it’s being directly compared to Passengers. Or even just juxtaposed in a list.

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I’m the seven dwarves of mild sickness today: sneezy, sniffly, sleepy, hazy, dopey, snotty, and…okay, even with redundancy (I guess I could get really redundant and add snuffly or snoozy) I can’t come up with seven truly legitimate offerings. Should have gone with “The four horsemen of mild illness.”

I don’t think I’ve ever had the flu. This year and last year I got the flu shot, but I don’t think I’ve ever had it regardless, even as a child. Now, the *stomach* flu used to be a Christmas tradition of sorts. One that I don’t miss. Not having had the flu-flu makes me unwarrantedly proud, like I’m immune-superior, but then I remind myself that I’ve had both mono and bedbugs (yeah yeah–bed bugs aren’t a communicable disease in technical terms, but they follow the same type of epidemiological pattern…) and probably shouldn’t count on my luck.

Because I’m going on a trip in March, I may be getting a typhoid vaccination. I’ve had it before, when I was about to move to Thailand for a year, although when I went back to Thailand a few years ago I forgot about typhoid entirely until the night before I left. No harm done, but no harm done in getting it this time.

Maybe my interest (obsession? You be the judge) in vaccination and immunity is related to my interest in epidemiology (or it’s related to OCD…or column a, column b, etc etc). I’m always surprised by how rarely doctors–at least in my experience–ever bring it up. I’m sure that if I had been with my current health center for 10 years, they would have had my booster shots in their system and would have flagged me for needing current ones, but who goes to the same doctor for 10 years? That sounds divine. I didn’t even do that as a child, and there were paper records then, which always seemed to disappear. I knew I hadn’t had any vaccines in recent memory (well, I remembered getting Hepatitis A/B vaccine when it first came out; I was 16 or 17), but my doctor’s office had no way to confirm that, so they tested my immunity titers (a word I love) and it turned out I had no antibodies agains: measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, diptheria, polio, pertussis, hepatitis A and hepatitis B.

I can’t recall a doctor ever asking me when I had last been immunized (except that they all mention flu shots). Obviously there were no ill effects even though I ride around on the subway all the time where there’s every form of virus and bacteria (did they not find plague on the F train or something?) But I would think that would be a standard question…so public service announcement: TITERS.

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Our stove had a gas leak and has to be replaced. Many things in our apartment seem to be going, whether they’re taking their cues from the atmosphere of the times and deciding enough’s enough or if they were just, you know, all purchased around the same year and are running out of, um…GAS.

Our landlord texted me the phone number for a plumber, which initially baffled me. Wisdom from Dad: “Plumbers also do gas.” This fascinates me. It would not surprise me that someone might go to school for both plumbing and gas, but the fact that they are apparently often twined, and that this is something people know–well, I was not one of those people.

I feel like I’ve written this exact statement before but I’m always fascinated by the varied things that people reach adulthood without knowing. For me, growing up with a gas stove but one with an electric ignitor, the first time I saw pilot lights was cause to call my parents and say “Uh…is there supposed to be a flame that lives under the stove?” (Don’t judge). In my early twenties I once caught a roommate poking around in the toaster–the PLUGGED IN toaster–with a fork, and she was surprised to learn that that was probably a bad idea. That one seemed extreme–“Don’t put metal things in the toaster” seems like it should be taught around the same time as “Don’t touch fire”–but we all have our blind spots.

So, public service announcement: never leave the dryer on when no one is home. Don’t slide down slides with a child on your lap — broken femur! Broken femur! — and definitely don’t swing small children around by their arms (dislocated shoulder! dislocated shoulder!). Using too much Ben-gay can be hazardous (this I learned after posting on Facebook, in jest, that I was marinating my limbs in it).

And this one is an opinion that contradicts official labels but GOOD GOD, man, don’t put anything plastic or partly composed of plastic in the microwave.

*I am excellent fun at parties!

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I’ve read many bizarre things over the past few weeks–it’s hard not to–but this explanation (a loose term) of what’s included and excluded in trip insurance might be the weirdest.

Some choice bits:

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I don’t have anything original to say, just to note that it’s a dark, apocalyptic-feeling time.

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January always feels very bright, pale blue to me. Almost white. I wouldn’t call that unusual, though I do wonder if people in the southern hemisphere have different color associations for our winter months. When I lived in Bangkok I still thought of January as pale blue and February as darker blue, even though seasons were much less dramatic (and never anything other than hot)…but I think that’s a product of having those associations deepened over 20 years and fixed permanently onto the way I view the calendar in my head.

January makes me feel unproductive, even when I’m not. So do to-do lists, though I can’t give them up. I know that I get anxious if I have tasks unmet, and also get anxious if I’ve crossed everything off–as if there’s nothing in the world to do if it isn’t on my six by four inch sheet for the week. But I like the confines of lined paper and I love crossing things out (January makes me very Heidegger, apparently) so I haven’t stopped.

I’ve been comfort-watching Family Feud on DVR probably every third night and if Steve Harvey asked 100 people what their least favorite month was, February would probably be the number one answer (Family Feud: it’s like a proto- Apples to Apples/Cards Against Humanity; if you want to win (A BRAND NEW FORD FUSION) you shouldn’t think of the best answer, but the one that most people were likely to say; for advanced players, the answer people in Georgia were most likely to say during whatever year the show was filmed (watching reruns from 2010 is DIFFICULT)). I don’t mind February. It’s cozy. Maybe that’s a product of it being “small,” but when we get to February, we’ve almost made it.

November has always been my least favorite month. It’s a dark, dismal gray-brown.

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Overheard…

In the post office:

Elderly woman, complaining to post officer: “You cant just shove things that say “don’t bend” into a mailbox. I practically broke my fingers.”

Post officer: <mumble mumble, unintelligible behind glass>

Elderly woman: “Stop spouting your bubbaloo to my face. You’re a professional worker. That’s the problem with this post office–everyone just does whatever they want.”

Post officer: “I wasn’t the person who put that mail in your mailbox, ma’am.”

Elderly woman: “I’m not complaining about you. I’m complaining AT you. I’ve had it. Period. Amen.”

At a “gentle” yoga class:

60-something woman 1: “He’s not really that handsome, though, Ryan Gosling. He’s just cute.”

60-something woman 2: “They’re all puffy now. I don’t know if it’s fillers or what.”

Woman 1: “And they’re all tiny.”

Woman 2: “You know who I saw the other day? Who’s the guy…who’s the guy who goes around tasting food?”

Woman 1: “I saw Wolfgang Puck at a sample sale.”

Woman 2:  “What were they selling?”

Woman 1: “You know, those placemats.”

Woman 2: “Food is one of my least interests.”

Woman 1: “I hate going downtown to restaurants. It’s all about the PR, you know. And I don’t mean the prime rib.”

In an elevator:

One guy talking to two other guys: “My New Year’s Resolution was to not drink…heavily…for a week.”

In the presence of children:

Ten-ish-year-old boy to his mom: “You know what’s so unfair? Dad says I can’t have media this weekend.”

Dad to child waiting for the F train: “Matthew. We do NOT chase pigeons on the platform.”

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White Nights in Split Town City, by Annie Dewitt: By a friend and former classmate–this is brief, horrifying, mesmerizing, and wonderfully written.

The Assistants, by Camille Perri: I am not sure I understand the fervor over this. Actually, I’m sure I do not.

The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware: This is really cleverly plotted, a fast read, and completely enjoyable.

A Child Called It, by Dave Pelzer: When I finished this (it’s very short), having had it sort of lodged in the back of my mind as a cultural touchstone type of thing…my only thought was what the $&#& did I just read?

You Will Know Me, by Megan Abbott: I absolutely loved The Fever, also really liked The End of Everything, did not like Dare Me at all, and felt pretty eh about this one (which was disappointing because I also love gymnastics…)

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, by Bryan Lee O’Malley: My roommate lent me this. How do people tell characters apart in comics?? They all looked so alike!

The Gene: An Intimate History, by Siddhartha Mukherjee: This is excellent. It’s not quite Emperor of All Maladies, but a gene is much less reaching than cancer. My only caveat is that there are some terrible dad jokes throughout the text. Editor!

The Poisoner’s Handbook, by Deborah Blum: Extremely interesting, entertaining, morbid.

Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart: Believe it or not, this was the first Shteyngart I’ve ever read. He’s fantastic; the writing has masses and masses of energy. Also, I understand that these things are all in the zeitgeist, but I was impressed by the fact that this is from 2010 and predicts a fair number of things that come up in Black Mirror.

Juniper: The Girl Who Was Born Too Soon, by Kelley and Thomas French: Knowing that both of the authors are journalists, I was hoping this would be–not less memoir, but more research and exploration of the development of our abilities to keep very premature babies alive via dramatic intervention, what it means that we’re now able to do this for babies born sooner and sooner, when life begins–all of the big questions. There’s a little bit of that, but I wanted more history.

Mischling, by Affinity Konar:

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I am lazy with my annotations, or I have less to say about these…but comments on a few of them:

The Argonauts, by Maggie Nelson

Virus Hunter, by CJ Peters

The Lightkeepers, by Abby Geni

Hunting the 1918 Flu, by Kirsty Duncan

The City of Mirrors, by Justin Cronin: This was a behemoth but went very fast, as you might imagine.

Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health, by Laurie Jarrett: This was also a behemoth and went extremely slowly (not in a bad way, but I think I renewed it 9 times). The only disappointing element was that it’s from 2000 and in 16 years, so much changes in epidemiology and public health.

Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens, by Steve Olson

Last Last Chance, by Fiona Maazel: Love this. It’s from I think 2008 and thus precedes the wave of epidemic/apocalypse books. And while many current books of the genre use the epidemic as a lens for viewing humanity, this one does more so than most–the disease is primarily the backdrop, not the plot. It’s also incredibly written and really intensely smart, but the fact that the author is clearly brilliant doesn’t take away from the writing at all (the way I felt it did in Gold Fame Citrus).

Yellow Dirt, by Judy Pasternak

The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins

Land of Enchantment, by Leigh Stein: Leigh is my dear friend and this is a beautiful book. I read it far too late into the night after I started it.

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Books Read in 2016 – Part 1

Infested, by Brooke Borel: I put this on hold at the library after seeing it in the Morbid Anatomy Museum gift shop. Having had bed bugs, it was hard to see the book’s jacket (which is very…realistic, and almost trompe l’oeil with its critters) on top of my covers.

The Only Ones, by Carola Dibbell: One of my favorites of the year and of the literary-post-apocalypse genre (and I’ve read pretty much ALL of those). The voice is amazing.

In a Dark, Dark Wood, by Ruth Ware: I like the cover of this. Very fractal. She’s very good at plotting, but the other Ruth Ware I read this year was much more interesting, and both made me long for the new Tana French (I am on hold! So many people, so few copies).

Voices From Chernobyl, by Svetlana Alexievich: I wanted to include the most affecting statement from this oral history, but then I didn’t want to ruin it. One of the best books I read this year.

The Folded Clock, by Heidi Julavits: I really enjoyed this. Somewhat reminiscent of one of my favorite books from last year (The Department of Speculation), though that is purportedly fiction and this is nonfiction. Sometimes juxtaposition as a narrative strategy is lazy, but not here.

Gold Fame Citrus, by Claire Vaye Watkins: She’s a brilliant writer and extremely smart, but somehow those got in the way of both the writing and the narrative for me. (This is also literary post-apocalypic in genre, though without the disease component that most of the others share.)

The Country of Ice Cream Star, by Sandra Newman: Hm. There are a number of ways in which this was extremely gripping and epic, others in which it was ultimately disappointing (though it’s 700 pages long and I read all of it, so that says something, I suppose). There are also the problematic elements of the way race and language are used/appropriated.

In a Different Key: The Story of Autism, by Caren Zucker and John Donvan: I wish this had been more in depth–something like The Emperor of all Maladies.

Looking for Alaska, by John Greene: What did I learn about John Greene recently? I think that someone I know writes for his history podcast? Not sure.

Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel: I’ll stick with The Only Ones as my favorite but this is also a fantastic entry to post-apocalyptic literature. The weaving together of stories is very deft but the amazing grimness of the titular image is what pierced me the most.

Code Orange, by Caroline B. Cooney: This was…odd. I kept wondering if the main character’s name was an allusion to Walter Mitty.

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