probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
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last night i went to a really fun and informal fundraiser evening with jesse and lucy at westminster school, where they were interviewing each other. i got to ask a question which i’ve mused upon for some time about tom, shiv and greg. enjoy! full transcript under cut
Transcript
me: so i’m gonna have to look at what i wrote down.
jesse: that’s alright, you’re highly in credit since you know more about the show than us. more about john berryman.
(laughter)
lucy: tell us what we’ve done wrong so far!
me: god, no. i wouldn’t! so my question, this is a character based question, and one thing that probably got a bit subsumed in the fourth season just because everything was happening. but i’d like to know more about tom and shiv, and also greg. because my read on the situation between the three of them is that greg is a source of marital strife (laughter) that shiv never noticed, and what would it have taken for shiv to notice the depth of greg’s presence in their marriage.
jesse: uh huh.
me: and tom’s attachment to him.
jesse: uh huh. sometimes you get little bits in life or you see something and you’re like, i wish we were making the show, because i suddenly do want to hear shiv say ‘greg you’re a source of marital strife’.
(laughter)
jesse: that’s like, when you’re like, that’s gonna be in, we’re not gonna cut that.
lucy: absolutely.
jesse: (doing greg voice) wh-wh-what?!
(laughter)
lucy: yeah. well we enjoyed that, didn’t we. we had a scene in america decides, which was the only scene between shiv and greg.
jesse: oh yeah.
lucy: the election episode in the final season where she takes him into a little room and threatens him.
me: ah, but it’s jealousy over lukas, over the greg and lukas thing, and it’s like, have you forgotten your husband, who is also very attached to this limpet?
lucy: yeah. i would also say that there are marriages in which a third party is not an unuseful thing, as well. not in a forgiving way about infidelity, but i would say that there are things that tom can express with and at and on greg (laughter) as it were, to greg, that are useful because he’s both a - you know the great, the interesting thing about tom is that he’s both a courtier and a bully. he’s that rare combination of someone who you totally believe as being almost like (mimes bowing and doffing cap) ‘oh yes sorry thank you yes ma’am’ and also like, ‘i’m gonna kill you’ and that juxtaposition is what makes him so interesting.
but in his marriage to shiv he has no real way, until quite late i guess in the final season, where we explore it, to hold power over her and to use that part of himself. so he’s accepted the acquiescing, he’s accepted the role of courtier in that marriage, and greg is quite a useful place where he gets to express all of that, the bully in him so that maybe it doesn’t have to come out in the marriage. which might be bad, because perhaps it should do and then the marriage would’ve ended much earlier, yknow, when shiv would just be like ‘i’m not dealing with you challenging me in any way’. so it’s not until that balcony scene i think where he really challengers her much at all. possibly the beach scene, where he sort of says that he’s considered leaving her, and how that would feel. but with aggressive challenge? it’s all directed at greg, and greg is allowed to be the place where all those feelings go.
me: but the affection - there’s also affection between them.
jesse: YEAH. and i think that’s the other thing maybe you’re alluding to is like, she… i think, some things you know you’re putting in the show because you talk about them and other things just naturally occur, and audiences and people tell you what the show is and what you put in there and you didn’t even realise, but i think we were aware of this - she’s oblivious. her obliviousness is a big part of her wealth and her upbringing and… so there’s something homoerotic going on between greg and tom.
me: i mean it’s not for me to say.
(laughter)
jesse: and does she… i think there’s two ways of reading that, either she’s oblivious, and that’s intriguing and possible. the other is that she sort of - there’s a scene in, you know that one, in the sun valley media conference in argestes, where we wrote a bit where shiv shows up unexpected and tom’s sort of flirting with someone, and it never really landed that much. i think we were like, oh this really gonna, shiv’s gonna spark up when she sees him flirting with someone. and it’s one of those things where you were like, you know what? i don’t think she gives a hoot, really, does she.
(laughter)
jesse: it’s like, she hasn’t got that, that’s not in her belly, that fear of loss.
lucy: no.
jesse: so i think that goes, that probably goes for a same-sex relationship or flirtation as much as it does for with a woman.
lucy: i think that’s true.
jesse: like she really… even if he was like - and this is not the way that tom would be like - ‘i think i’d like to sleep with greg’, i think she’d be like (mimes looking at watch) ‘when?’.
(laughter)
jesse: (as shiv) ‘not when i’m in the city, that’s weird, tom’.
(laughter)
jesse: i don’t think she’d have any fundamental objection to that.
lucy: that’s true. i think jealousy is quite a low status emotion.
jesse: yes.
lucy: and i think that she would struggle to feel it.
(jesse laughs)
lucy: even if it was present in some way, she would never be able to access it because it would put her too much at a disadvantage. so i think yeah exactly that, it would be like, ‘oh i guess you’re going to fuck that boring woman now are you, tom’ or do that, like… she has to be here (mimes one hand above another hand) so jealousy can’t really be accessed by her. so she might be irritated by greg, but in the way you would be by a mosquito.
me: to her detriment.
lucy: to her detriment, sure, ultimately yeah.
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