notbecauseofvictories

[notbecauseofvictories]

there's a sort of fun, I-can-do-it! spirit to navigating a new place with a cell phone that has turned into a very expensive brick, and will not get wifi except on top of a mountain. (Source: I went to the top of a mountain. It's the first time I've had service in two days.) Any time I venture out, I basically have to plan out an entire route ahead of time and download the map on the wifi weakly available in the cabin; from there, I must rely on memory, or hope that someone, somewhere, has posted a sign that I can decipher and I won't be going too fast to read it.

nevertheless, there was a kind of unexpected joy in nabbing a table at the nicest restaurant in this tiny town---just one table away from an older woman with short-cropped silver hair, also by herself. She asked me where I was from, and let me know she was from Seattle. "You're so far from home!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, I love a road trip---I'm meeting my friend in Detroit, but she didn't want to come this far north with me," the woman said airily. We compared maps, and were both pleased that we'd been to The Jampot, specifically for their thimbleberry jam. The whole time she was cheerful---with me, with her server, giving off the aura of someone profoundly in love with her life, from the fish she ordered to the view of the harbor.

if that was a glimpse of my future? Well. One can only hope.

[notbecauseofvictories]

witches !!

[notbecauseofvictories]

I have no clever or insightful observations today, because it's rainy and cold and I've done nothing but drive around to get a couple of aesthetic pictures of the storm-lashed lake and old mining ruins. That said, honestly this trip has underscored how different 'alone' can feel between the city and the country. It's different aloneness. No, I don't quite know how to explain it.

[notbecauseofvictories]

[notbecauseofvictories]

Talked to the president of a local historical society today, though he kept vanishing into the basement to help his intern change out a broken toilet. ("We're all finished up, make sure you mark down your hours!" he said in cheerfully after the kid was finished. I kept on studying the historical switchboard with its brittle, typewritten sign PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE WIRES.) Was mostly pleased that we could connect about how desperately weird Train People are---not like us, the super normal folks who then proceeded to spend 2 hours happily about the museum itself, Michigan history, jobs, family and friends, and whether we'd visited various notable historical sites throughout the east and midwestern USA.

[notbecauseofvictories]

Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

[notbecauseofvictories]

hi sarah, what do you think it is that superpower that makes people want to talk to you? like what do you do? i feel im supremely awkward and it just makes people want to run away

I don't have a definite answer, but if I had to guess? I am youngish, plump, and often move through the world solo, which means that strangers don't have to fight through a larger group to talk to me. I smile a lot, and I've gotten very good at saying warm yet non-committal things that indicate you could talk to me, if you wanted to. I think I look like everyone's favorite kindergarten teacher, the kind that wore dresses patterned with dinosaurs and never yelled, and the memory sort of does people's heads in.

(I own zero dresses patterned with dinosaurs, to be clear.)

For whatever reason, people have been reacting to me this way for as long as I have been an adult in the world. And I like talking to people! People are interesting, I like their stories and opinions, catching little glimpses into how others move through the world.

If you too want to talk to random people, you have to understand that the first step is: don't want it too much. It's not something you can force; if you mosey up to someone at a museum and make aggressive eye contact, asking them pointed questions, they're going to leave. Quickly. Instead, the move has to be to say those polite yet non-committal things that indicate a person could talk to you, if they wanted to.

Sometimes it's easy---weather, traffic, slightly banal observations of whatever you're both looking at or engaged with. Questions are good! (I got a whole rundown on a fella's favorite strain of weed when I stopped by the dispensary and asked him what the pin on his lanyard meant.) Compliments, like pointing out something you notice or admire in another person's mode of dress, is another great way to open the door. And hey, sometimes the other person will do it for you, which is even better. But the key is to be generically chatty until you've established that you are safe, reasonable, and open to conversation.

At this point it doesn't hurt to start asking open-ended questions. People love to talk about themselves, their lives, what they're passionate about. As long as your responses are affirmative---you're so right, that sounds so interesting, I'll bet!, etc.---they often will go on talking. In my experience, the key is to sort of let yourself fade, listening to the other person's responses in full, letting them steer the conversation in the ways they want.

And the truth is it might not happen. For every interesting conversation I've had with a cab driver, there are a hundred rides where the driver spoke to someone on their phone the whole time. I've been to restaurants, quietly sat eating my sandwich or drinking my beer, and no one spoke to me at all except the bartender asking if I wanted another. But if you try and force it, you'll fail the 'safe and reasonable' check and the person simply won't talk to you.

So really, that's my advice---be open, keep things light, and understand that it might not happen. But man, is it a gift when it does.

[notbecauseofvictories]

oh, I forgot the other thing, which was learning that the Maribel Caves---which terrified me, I went about 4 feet into one cave and immediately decided that it wasn't for me---were in part excavated by the inmates at Wisconsin State Reformatory / Green Bay Correctional Institution. (Exact same building, the population just shifted by governmental fiat in the 70s.) A sheriff who helped oversee the work before he retired told me this, and I had to keep my expression very still because he was so excited to share this knowledge. "We used to send the greenest new guys over to supervise," he said, somehow swaggering while standing perfectly still. "Hazing, you know?"

(Not for the gentlemen sent into the earth, though; that was just a non-negotiable requirement. For the young men watching them, though, it was hazing.)

only a couple hours left in USian Labor Day (which is very unfair, because we invented May Day, that should be ours!) but nonetheless I really do think that the USA's deliberate forgetting of its labor history and the intense battles involved is a profound disservice to our nation. Just yesterday I learned about Obreros Unidos, which was driven by Wisconsin's Latino migrant workforce in the 60s; today I learned about the Copper County strike in the early 20th century, which breathed and then died with the mines in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

As I was driving through Iron County/Crystal Falls, I passed a group of folks protesting as so many Americans did today. I had pulled over to take pictures of the courthouse, but asked one of the organizers---or at least, the woman tasked with sitting next to the van with the water and the first aid kit---what brought her out.

"Have you listened to that musical, Hamilton?" she asked, and I tried desperately to keep my expression neutral as I admitted, yes, I had.

"'If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for?'" she quoted, and then grinned. "We're not falling for it."

[notbecauseofvictories]

only a couple hours left in USian Labor Day (which is very unfair, because we invented May Day, that should be ours!) but nonetheless I really do think that the USA's deliberate forgetting of its labor history and the intense battles involved is a profound disservice to our nation. Just yesterday I learned about Obreros Unidos, which was driven by Wisconsin's Latino migrant workforce in the 60s; today I learned about the Copper County strike in the early 20th century, which breathed and then died with the mines in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

As I was driving through Iron County/Crystal Falls, I passed a group of folks protesting as so many Americans did today. I had pulled over to take pictures of the courthouse, but asked one of the organizers---or at least, the woman tasked with sitting next to the van with the water and the first aid kit---what brought her out.

"Have you listened to that musical, Hamilton?" she asked, and I tried desperately to keep my expression neutral as I admitted, yes, I had.

"'If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for?'" she quoted, and then grinned. "We're not falling for it."

[notbecauseofvictories]

well hm. when you put it that way....

today I learned that I Absolutely Do Not like caves; someone else can crawl into that narrow and confined space that makes one inevitably think about death and the vast unmemory of the earth.

[notbecauseofvictories]

I arrived at my B&B only for the owner to tell me that I'm the only one staying here for the next few days (what will I do with a full Victorian mansion and three floors of bedrooms? not a clue.) and then I went on a sunset photography walk through the town. Happened across a small gender-ambiguous Child pushing a stuffed animal in a small car, who very proudly led me to the Calumet Italian Hall Disaster memorial and gave me a breathless rendition of the story, mentioning that there used to be a bakery next door but now it's a house.

"It's my house! And that's my dad's car," the Child said, after finally pausing for breath. The Child shrugged. "You can take a picture of it, if you want to."

[notbecauseofvictories]

nice pair of characters who trust each other more than anyone else in the whole entire world it would sure be a shame if one of them betrayed that trust for the sake of trying to keep the other alive. it would sure be a shame to love someone so much you destroy them

[notbecauseofvictories]

today I learned that I Absolutely Do Not like caves; someone else can crawl into that narrow and confined space that makes one inevitably think about death and the vast unmemory of the earth.

[notbecauseofvictories]

overhearing my neighbor rant on the phone top of his lungs and his friend is saying something in calm voice and he goes NO. NO NUANCE. STOP SAYING NUANCE. MY BOSS NEEDS TO DIE

[notbecauseofvictories]

Deeply, deeply smug that I made my own sauerkraut pierogis from scratch---and by that I mean I grew the cabbage, fermented it, made the dough, stuffed the pierogis with the homemade sauerkraut, and fried them, all by myself. They're delicious.

[notbecauseofvictories]

one thing about me is that I'm looking stuff up. you mentioned something and I don't know it? I am pulling out my phone and googling that shit. an actor? theoretical physics? a world leader? a vocabulary word? I am on the wikipedia page as we speak

[notbecauseofvictories]

Vanesa R. Del Rey - Labyrinth