7 Takes To Surviving The Cold

Update And Correction: Unchain My Heart appears not to be a terrible Christian song but something much more reasonable. I can’t remember the name of whatever Christian offering it is that’s played, but it features the word ‘heart’ being wailed at regular intervals. When I remember, I will update again.

One
Woke up in the middle of a terrible dream about how I was required to have a paper boarding pass in order to board a ramshackle airbus to Hawaii. But no such paper object actually existed, and so I wandered the great amalgamated hulk of every airport I had ever been in, begging anyone to let me have a turn with their boarding pass. Woke up panicked and tired, snow whipping past my icy window.

Two
It is very cold again today, but I guess the polar blast is moving back to the arctic because it will get all the way up to 16 degrees. Didn’t go out yesterday at all. Sat on the couch covered in books plowing (get it) through school with those particular children of this household who keep forgetting where their books even are. Felt bad for all those poor little schooled children who had to miss a whole day, because of it being so cold, who were probably forced to sit in front of a roaring fire, drinking hot cocoa and watching movies. Poor things. We, by contrast, labored intensely, too busy even to light a fire or locate a marshmallow. It was great.

Three
This is a long interesting article about how Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Cook hate each other with a deep an abiding hatred, and what that means for those who use apple and facebook at the same time. I always adore it when the cracks open up and you can see past the serene, shiny, quoth professional veneer of the cultural Greats of our age to the ordinary, dark pettiness that characterizes the rest of us. Personally, I wish someone like Mr. Zuckerberg or Mr. Cook should have to walk into a store where you buy a device. But not as CEO. Instead, provide each with some complicating factor like, wanting to remove a line from your account that you haven’t used in four years and didn’t know was there because of course they didn’t want you to notice because it’s a free ten bucks for them every month. Or, you want to keep your number. Or, you want to pay in pennies. Then see how far they get. Put on the dumpy clothes of the common person and have to stand, awkwardly, talking to someone in the middle of your open concept ‘store’ being fleeced of all your money. Gosh I miss the days of a desk or a counter and a chair with a back on it—and paper. Remember how great signing a piece of paper was?

Four
What I meant to say, before I derailed myself, is that even the mighty on their thrones are human and do foolish and small things. This is important to remember. Easier, of course, with TMZ and other important media outlets who let us know the failings of everyone all the time. But even so, there need not be any hero worship in the modern age, because everyone’s personal hatreds are there for us to examine.

Five
Truly, the most revolutionary thing anymore is the exercise of discretion. Be as discrete as possible, and full of gentle wisdom, with a little extra dose of kindness, and Literally Blow The Whole World Away.

Six
We are going, because of the cold, to toddle off to the roller skating rink this afternoon for the homeschool roller skating hour. Homeschoolers are accommodated for their masses of children with a pitcher of free water and a lot of ‘Christian’ music piped over the sound system. Unchain My Heart comes through loud and clear, along with something called Funky Jesus. You know when the hour is up because the ‘secular’ music comes back on. Then you may scurry away to your pure religion, untainted by the madnesses of the world. I like, once in the car, to turn on the Christian radio and extend the moment of joy, playing whatever modern artiste is on offer over the loud cries of my angry children who are hidebound and won’t listen to anything written after 1873.

I love roller skating—ice skating is better, of course, and easier because you can go faster—but roller skating is pretty fun. It is pleasant on an icy day to careen around at high speeds, trying not to bash into strings of little children holding hands, stretched all the way across the width of the rink, and kindly mothers pushing prams around and around, and enormous teenage boys who haven’t learned, yet, to notice other people.

What I want most when I get to heaven, besides saying hello to Jesus of course, is speed. Some kind of very fast car or bicycle or pair of skates upon which, for a thousand years or so, to fly along at an impossible velocity. If we get to have requests. But without having Unchain My Heart blasting away in the background. I hope.

Seven
Gotta run. Go check out more takes!