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Machine Things - Part 1?

My father because he had a major stroke when I was very young I suspect he feels that he missed out on teaching me a small series of things on manhood that can only be taught when they come up. This thought doesn’t feel as pronounced now that I live a thousand miles away but there were moments growing up when I would feel that intense regret coming off of him. There’d be something wrong with the car and all he could communicate was the I needed to carry the tarp out to the car and then unfurl it underneath it so he could haltingly scoot under the machine. He’d grab the tools he needed and would place them near his head so his one good arm could easily find them. He’d learned from years earlier that his pointing to the toolbox and expecting me to divine which tool he wanted was a tremendously frustrating practice for us both. And so I would just watch him as I stood near the hood waiting for his signal to help slide him back from under the car. Then the car would be fixed and I did not know that there was something wrong with it nor what he did to fix it. One afternoon I was driving back home I have no memory of where I was coming from. A block away from home I pulled over because the van felt like it had a flat tire. So I pulled over to the side and sure enough there was a quickly deflating tire on the rear. I was a block from home. I thought to myself It’s so close I can just drive over there no problem and then deal with it later. My dad because he had accepted that things under the hood or under the chassis required to much precision for him to grunt out an explanation (he’d lost the ability to speak clearly) he began to overcompensate with things he could teach. He would walk alongside me as I mowed the lawn and most relevant to this he had me change a lot of tires whether they were flat or not. If he saw me pull in with a flat tire he would have lost his shit and he would have had me changing tires every day that week. So I thought about this as I stood next to my van. I grabbed the spare from the back and went ahead changing the tire despite knowing that the tire I was taking out was only quickly deflating but the spare was in fact completely deflated. He would have something to say about my driving in with a flat but I could provide proof that I knew how to change a tire! ++++++ A few years later I’d be in Minnesota working a part-time job at a Target just outside Minneapolis. I was on the register texting the woman I was secretly seeing who happened to be in a long term relationship with one of my co-workers. She had just told me that if I met her at Dairy Queen for my lunch break then she would have for me a banana split and a *treat* I could enjoy while I ate that banana split. I was audibly frustrated when I saw a flat tire on my Ford Explorer in the giant Target parking lot. Let me say something quickly about how massive these department store parking lots are--especially in the suburbs. I hate them!!! It’s ridiculous! This is likely hyperbole but if you were to lay people down on the lot trying to cover it; lay them down tightly like in a hot dog wiener package, I’d say it would take six hundred people to completely cover the lot. I have this flat tire waiting for me at the start of my lunch break.

My father gave me the Explorer at some point in the month when I told my parents I had decided to move to Minnesota and my actual moving there. Although thinking on it now maybe he’d given it to me earlier because I kind of remember driving it to work or more accurately getting locked out of it in my work parking lot. I had been in an accident in the van and I don’t remember how drive-able it was after that. Either way I had been given the Explorer and I have no memory of that conversation.

I never changed the tire of a Ford Explorer. But it’s exactly the same. I had the SUV up, the flat taken out but was having major difficulty securing the spare tire my dad had left for me in the trunk onto the wheel hub assembly. I reasoned that I was in too much of a hurry and needed to regather myself to finish the task. So I took a deep breath and failed again to put the spare tire on.

Back inside the Target I went looking for some assistance. I found another cashier just getting ready to end her lunch break. Hey can you help me with getting my tire back on my car please? It’s gonna be like 2 minutes tops. Just need another set of hands to help force it in there.

Sure, she says. Our supervisor upon seeing me stop my coworker from clocking back in. Where are you two going?

Well, I say. I have a flat and I need help for a minute to get it back on. It should be real quick.

No. You can work on that after your shift is over we need you both to come back from your breaks now.

I’m having trouble changing the tire now in broad daylight. It’s not the sort of thing that’s going to get easier to work on at the end of my day once it’s nighttime and there’s no one around. I’ll be back as soon as it’s done but I won’t be back until it’s done. Great. See you in a minute. And I’ll send her right back.

My co-worker helps me with the tire but it’s still not wanting to fit. A white man about my dad’s age walks up to us as it’s quite obvious we’re struggling. He suggests that I try the spare that came equipped with the car that the one my dad left me that I’ve been trying to fit is the wrong size and will never fit. I had no idea it came with a spare and don’t know if it still has the spare. It’s just some random white guy annoying me after I’ve been working on the flat for now a little over a half hour. Oh I think I got really drunk and maybe threw that away in some drunken stupor I lie to him to get him to move on his way and leave me to solve it myself.

That would be pretty stupid. I hope you didn’t do that because that tire would be really helpful now. He tells me and stays with me. He bends over a little and looks under the SUV. There it is, he says. Also, he tells me that the area I’ve chosen to place the car jack is unsafe and I should lower the car. Grab the manual, he says. Let’s figure out how the tire out from under there.

It looks like you’re going to be okay, my co-worker tells me. I have to get back to work.

Yeah of course thank you for all the help. Let them know I’ll be in in a minute.

The man stays with me as we find the parts to remove the spare hidden underneath and next to the passenger seats. He stays with me until the tire is completely replaced. I thank him and we shake hands. I rush off back to work. And I quickly forget most of what he looked like so I don’t know if I ever see him again. But it’s my hope that he’d come back to that Target every now and then recognize me and remember his good deed. How he made time for a stranger.

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A Remarkable Family

After the birth of his fifth son Travis became aware that his family was exempt. Exempt from what? a trusted co-worker asked after Travis shared with them this new realization. Exempt from answering Travis simply walked away.

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Making New Friends

A few months ago one of my roommates told me that they had joined Bumble BFF with the purpose of meeting some new friends. They said it hadn’t been terribly successful yet for them but at least it gave them a chance at meeting new people something that they said they weren’t talented in. Now I have never had a problem meeting people if anything in the past it’s that I befriend people too quickly. The pandemic has changed some of that and a good deal of my friends have moved away and a big chunk of those were the ones I played board games with the most. Now that things have started to settle down and people are starting to congregate again I am tasking myself with reassembling a group of people to play board games with again. So I joined Bumble BFF and the results so far have been mixed. I think I joined a little over a month ago. And I’ve met two people from the site so far with the second being just today. And the first was actually yesterday. The first person was incredibly awkward and would make the occasional off-color joke and also kept bringing up his vasectomy. If you ever want to meet a vasectomy advocate I can pass along his information. The second person I liked a lot more and it wasn’t until I got home that I realized how well we clicked. I felt like I didn’t necessarily have to completely carry the conversation. He knew social cues well and the main reason he was looking for new friends is that he and his partner just moved to the area. With the first person after I got home I was exhausted! But the second person it felt just like spending time with a friend. I even brought a few board games with the second person but we never got around to playing them.

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Tucson in November?

Yesterday I was asking a literary translator friend of mine about a few weird things that were mentioned in the translation textbook I’m reading for my translation/interpreting class. I think it’s fair to say the she really enjoyed being a resource for my questions and this morning I woke up with a text from her letting me know about a literary translators conference coming up in November and that I might want to consider applying for a scholarship to attend. Reading works in translation has been a passion of mine from an early age. One of my favorite books as a kid was Stories that Must Not Die. The book was both in Spanish and English both languages contained in the same volume. I remember reading both parts and trying to figure out which one was the original especially since the book takes the form of a false oral history. Even now when I read books in translation if an unusual word or phrase pops up I’ll try and find the original work (if it was Spanish) and try to see how it compares to what the translator came up with. This all came up again a few years ago when I was a reading a review for a book I was filing and wanted to know more about. The review tore the translation to shreds. It was very uncompromising including several sections from the original work and then it’s translation as comparison. The reviewer even went so far as to question whether the translator who was from Australia had had any real opportunity to engage with Spanish for an extended period of time. It was my first time reading a book review that had so openly criticized the translation and I was fascinated all over again. If I’m going to apply for the scholarship I need to find Spanish literary text to translate and I need to prepare myself to read both of them aloud at the conference if I’m chosen as a winner. Things to think about for the future.

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Board Game Shifting

One of the things I’ve loved for a good long while now is board games. I played some with my sisters after they got married and they would host game nights at their respective homes and I always had a great time with them. I was only a teenager then but then I joined a gaming after school group in high school and I enjoyed that. Of course this was a while back now and a lot of the games we played weren’t actually all that fun. They were games like Monopoly, Stratego, Chess, and I guess those are the major ones that come to mind. Anyway those games aren’t fun they’re made fun by the people around the table. And I know what you’re thinking, Isn’t that true of all games?? No. It isn’t true of all games. Some games even if you’re playing with people that you don’t enjoy much are so fun and thinky in it of themselves that they produce a good amount of to play them. At some point during the pandemic as we were all being paid $600 a week USD plus some other moneys from unemployment after being let go of a job that couldn’t exist during a pandemic I decided I wanted to spend a good chunk of the money I was getting on new board games. Is that fair? Does that misrepresent how many board games I had previous to the pandemic? Previous to the pandemic my roommate (at the time) and I would host a number of game nights but a lot of the games we would play would be easy and quick party games. Certainly not very many of the longer board games that now fill my living room and are the main topic of this point and that I will eventually get to in the post. Memory is a strange thing. I walked away from the keyboard to try and better remember that time before the pandemic and what games we were playing and I can’t say I remember too well. I remember Catan because my friend Gabriel was obsessed with it and also Scythe but only because one of them mentioned it a few weeks ago. I can’t actually remember much of us playing nor did I remember it as I was playing Scythe with several new friends. I found a store that specialized in selling used board games at discounted prices and I started frequenting it a little before the pandemic but not very much. My friend Tyler and I had been given a large number of board games from our friend Gabriel after he left to go live in Korea for some time. None of the games were any good and they’d actually been given to him from one of his professors who was eager to donate them to someone with space. We traded in the games for $90 something dollars in store credit and used to that buy a couple new used games. As the months of the pandemic lingered on more people started trading in their board games as they found themselves with enough time on their hands to clean and organize their houses. Games that weren’t being played or required large numbers--something that was hard to imagine in those deep pandemic days--started to show up at the shop. Many of the games were ones I’d heard about as I started to get deeper into the hobby and so I would buy them hoping for the day to come in the future where my friends and I would finally get a chance to play them. But my friends started to move away during the pandemic. They returned home to be closer to their families as their jobs disappeared or they headed off to grad school after having the time to finally put together an application. And I collected board games. Something I still do now. I shuffle new ones I want to play right away into prominent positions on my bench in the living room while older games that aren’t being played or have never been played get shuffled to the sun room where they can wait out the winter until they are again summoned to potentially be played. The new games shine brightly as I browse through them thinking of the strategies I’ll try while I play them. The others gather dust in storage far from thought and likely to be forgotten like so many memories that run together as time moves on.

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Reading Accountability Log 10/25-10/31

Alright, I’ll get back to transcribing my Chihayafuru-NBA comparisons later this week but in the meanwhile I figured I might use this as an attempt to try and help me read close to the amount I used to. Back when I was happier and more dedicated. I’m gonna aim for 3 books a week for a while with the overall goal of getting to 5-6 books a week eventually. Can I do it??? Prolly not. Alright some of these books I was supposed to read a While ago so shhhhh about what’s on my list here. Also, if a book sucks I can stop reading it and pick something new. Maybe I also do some reviews on the books from time to time? IDK let’s just try reading the books and Finishing them for now. This Week: Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli Fat City by Leonard Gardner I’m cheating a little bit this week cause I’ve already started some of these! But I’ll take a win by cheating in my own accountability log!!

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Definitive Breakfast Food Rankings Top 8 Edition

I, like a lot of people, have a lot of time on my hands right now. 8. Frittata: ooohh the frittata the spell-check is telling me I’m spelling it wrong which makes the frittata even better somehow. This is one I think I’m sleeping on. Frittata might be the hottest climber on this list. It’s great it’s like a super-omelette. You have some people over for breakfast just make a quick frittata and you’re set. If you’re making it for yourself then you can take some of it to work as a little brunch snack. Ask me again when I have more of my life together and I’m not making these lists the frittata would probably rank higher. 7. Cereal: Boom. Bringing the heat. Controversy! I know, I know, cereal’s great, I grew up on cereal, especially the big like 3lb bag of off-brand cereal. So why is cereal so low on this list??? Simple--I want something hot for breakfast! Hot gets priority. You wake up in winter get yourself a bowl of cold cereal and it just doesn’t sit the same as in summer. I’m valuing versatility. That said, it absolutely belongs on this list for not only it’s proud tradition but also because if I start my day with a bowl of Reese’s Puffs I just know my day is going to be So Much Better. 6. Tomato Juice: I’m well aware that I’m probably all alone on this ledge but lemme tell you something you don’t know what you’re missing if you’re skipping the tomato juice. Tomato juice is fire. And it’s red. I’m giving it bonus points for that color. So much breakfast food is bleak in color that I gotta stan for something that pops like tomato juice does. And for the cult of orange out there I’ll take savory over sweet any day of the week. Also, tomato juice is a key ingredient in Bloody Mary’s which maybe has a home somewhere else on this list...

5. French Toast: Didn’t you just say you’d take savory over sweet any day??? Listen, it’s breakfast food no one knows what they’re thinking that early in the morning. If someone offers me some french toast I’m not turning it down. And I think that’s true of only this and one other food on this list. It’s so easy to make and yet it tastes soooo delicious. Easily the highest work to yum ratio out there. This is the frittata’s much cooler cousin. If you have a group of people over and you serve them some french toast, sure, they might titter a little, Hahahaha You’re serving us french toast I can’t believe it. But lemme tell you something they’re gonna eat it and be damn happy about eating it too. It’s just adult life can sometimes mean you got to make fun of something before you can enjoy it. We call those the haters. May they never run out of orange juice.

4. Oatmeal: The hot cereal. As I grow older I am coming to appreciate oatmeal more and more. Maybe that’s a sign of my taste buds dying off but whatever oatmeal is great. It’s quick or can be, it makes you feel all warm and a nice kind of full and it helps keep you regular. Oatmeal’s carrying a lot of weight and it’s often overshadowed by it’s more famous younger brother cold cereal but here on the Definitive Breakfast Food Rankings I’m finally giving oatmeal their flowers. 3. Bagels: So I grew up in a Mexican household and didn’t really start eating bagels until I lived with a Jewish guy and you already know that I came to love these bagels. I think the best breakfast foods are based on what you grew up with because it’s the first bite in the morning you don’t want something unknown that could sour your day. You want something safe that you have a history with. That I didn’t eat bagels until well into my adult life and they Still rank this high speaks highly of their greatness. Bagels are increidbly versatile too. You’re in a hurry? Just throw some cream cheese on that bitch. You got more time? Make yourself a breakfast sandwich and really unlock the potential of the bagel. 2. Bacon: You might have expected this to be #1. And you’d have good cause to believe it! If my top choice wasn’t so strong I would entertain an argument. Let’s not take anything away from bacon though. When you wake up to the smell of bacon it’s like someone tenderly brushing off the sleep from you. And that wonderful mesmerizing sound. The crunch. There’s the sharp crunch when you bite through it like toffee. There’s the spine-tingling crackle crunch as you chew through it’s magic. And then there’s the tear when you yank apart the sinews with your teeth. I LOVE bacon. No disrespect is intended by putting it at 2. Honorable mentions: Scramble, Smoothie, Omelette (I wanted to put omelette on this list but this is a fuck you to omelette for never folding over for me. I don’t want to start my morning off feeling like a failure omelette! So you’re in honorable mentions) 1. Breakfast Tacos: I tipped my hand a little earlier by saying I grew up in a Mexican household. Tacos are the most versatile food out there and their breakfast version lives up to the legacy. Any filling you want just fill it in and wrap and you’re good to go. I love corn tortillas. The feeling of the gristle on corn tortillas is one of the signs I’m becoming more awake as I progress through the meal I can feel that gristle more and more keenly. The smell of corn tortillas warming up is one of the most transportive experiences of home I have. And I’m not gonna hate if you prefer flour tortillas. I like flour too. And flour is a great choice in the morning it fills you up faster and it does much better job of soaking up any excess liquid from the filling you chose keeping your clothes for the day safe. If you live in the American Southwest or California you know that this could be the only choice for #1. And if you haven’t had an authentic breakfast taco before; don’t stop everything and go get one, they’re not that deep, and there are definitely things on this list that taste better. But for me breakfast isn’t about cranking up the taste meter all the way up to 11 with each bite. I’d much rather keep things at 7 or 8 so I can slowly become aware of the day. Where’s coffee on this list you might be asking. Well I don’t drink coffee so it’s not on here. But also I’ve lived and known plenty of people that if they don’t have their morning coffee it just fucks them for the day so I can’t put something that has that much need around it on a list of positive day starters.

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Chihayafuru as NBA Players!! Part 1

Oh Man!! Two of my great loves Chihayafuru and basketball. Finally they meet. No one asked for this. This is most likely an incredibly small venn diagram of converging interests.Nonetheless here it is which NBA player is the real world equal of which Chihayafuru character. Note: I tend to skew more current with my NBA picks mostly cause that’s what I’m most familiar with but also because it is much more difficult to know those older players’ personalities. One more note I just now decided to include runner-up choices for some people I think it will mostly be a jokey runner up. Wataya Arata: Oh boy let’s start hot! My second favorite character in the series he is the Karuta God and the True soul-mate to Chihaya. Disagree? Fite me. He is STEPHEN CURRY. Karuta is the family business. He is the legacy one born to devastate. I could see Nicki Minaj dropping Arata’s name in her songs calling out to him all at hours talking about those eyes, that accent, and that water-like play style that has her downing gallons of his essence. He’s also perfectly chill to outer appearances. Everyone thinks he’s having a good time win or lose but they don’t notice how he’s smiling at them while he is steadily inching closer to dropping 50 on them. Shinobu Wakamiya: I’m not letting up with this second name. My all time favorite characther in the series.Sharpest dresser in the hemisphere. The youngest Queen of all. You know this. She is KOBE. And not one to be fucked with. She brings that Mamba Mentality to all she does whether it’s destroying her opponents 25-0 or slinging them pastries she takes no prisoners. She’s eked out every drop of potential she possesses with constant practice and total devotion to Karuta. She’s all about that grind and sees the game in a way only she can some would even say it’s crazy??? Anyone and everyone trying to take cards from her is her enemy and she’ll cut them if given chance when they take some of her favorites. Runner-up: Michael Jordan. The GOAT. I like that the similarity that they both pushed away and oftentimes used the people around them in order to get better. But ultimately didn’t go with MJ cause he walked away from the game at his peak for a year and change and I don’t see Shinobu ever doing that. Chihaya Ayase: The protagonist. Lady Big Eyes. Mrs. Daddy Bear. President/Founder/(Only Member??) of the Chitose Appreciation Society. She’s gotta be GIANNIS. A physical freak who’s sheer athleticism catapults her puts her in the realm of Class A. Everywhere Giannis goes he draws them eyes and the same can said of this beauty who can rattle her male opponents with a smile or even just eye contact. Who else is on Giannis’ team? What? Can’t name anyone else cause you’re not a basketball fan? Well let me tell you even if you were a fan you might struggle cause he’s carrying that team on his back! And so is this young lady. They got some good players on this squad but this Ace knows well that is she don’t win and cruise through to victory it could adversely affect her team’s psyche so she is unstoppable on her own much like Giannis’ fast breaks. Runner-up: Ben Simmons was my first choice for her but ultimately I decided against him cause I think he’s not a great team player and I don’t think he’s serious enough about improving his deficiencies. I thought these runner ups were supposed to be funny??? IDK Kanade Oe: KENDRICK PERKINS. I’m kinda running out of steam here. And I got a long list to go. Kana-chan and Kendrick both top heavy. I never really noticed until they made it a topic of discussion in the mini-comic. But damn yeah definitely carrying a lot of weight on top.  She’s also the team enforcer. Hear me out on this. Sure she’s small but she’s probably the most serious of all the team. Serious about life, about how people should behave, about the beauty of Karuta. And if anyone is disrespecting the poems--You better hold her back!! She will get into the face of anyone lowkey Empress in the making. She’s also a big small voice in the locker room a different type of leader than Ayase and Taichi. She knows what poems people need to hear to click back in into the present. Perk is an old-school kind of player and Kana-chan has an old-school mentality and while both were important members of their title winning teams they weren’t close to being the focus. Midori Tamaru: I actually forgot I wrote a write-up for her! Cool I’m glad I did. She is LUKA DONCIC. She is a shit-talker supreme. She wants all the smoke and she got all the weapons. Big-time potential. Everyone saying to her Wait your turn. But Fuck It she says and is ready to shoot her shot. Drop a cold 3 at the buzzer to win a playoff game in front of a 10 year vet who’s desperate for a win. They’re both missing one critical aspect of their game. For Luka he needs to increase his stamina for Tamaru she needs to get mentally tough. Right now she can most definitely be fucked with and she may be the only one that don’t know it. But any team with her is going to be in the conversation for best in their region and they should be looking to book a hotel by the big red shrine every year. Dr. Harada: Da Big Bear. Brown Bear? Black Bear? Daddy Bear? He all da bear. A walking a build-a-bear-workshop. What’s that mean? I have no clue. This guy. There’s a reason he was Ayase’s first love. He cuddly af but he still got that tenacity and overwhelming physicality that keeps him happily married decades later and a Karuta vet to be feared. I went with a non-contemporary player for the Dr. and no not Dr.J but rather his teammate MOSES MALONE. Nicknamed the Chairman of the Board cause he throws his body into every rebound lunging wildly at each miss cause he KNOWS that every rebound is his by right. Yeah that sound our friend the bear. Moses played a looooong time longer maybe than one might think considering the era he played in and how physical his game was. But that incredible body of his allowed him to stay in the game as long as wanted throwing elbows to clear out any close competition. Alright I’m tired Part 2 to come soon. It’s already written out I just HATE transcribing. There’s another 9 characters to come! Let me know what you all think please. Am I alone in my dual NBA and Chihayafuru fandom??

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Yes

How are you not going crazy? 

Carrie Coon as Nora Durst, Regina King as Erika Murphy, The Leftovers - Don’t Be Ridiculous (S03E02)

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It was not until I became a grown-ass-man that I came to appreciate the true versatility of bagels. Thanks you bagels. Keep being you.

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Love Ben Passmore

Ben Passmore