#now I don’t wanna be bullshitted that these countries have top level universities

[snowedinpodcast]

Transcript and content warning below the cut!

Let’s Walk: Kind of Stillness [Transcript]

[Content Warning: in-depth descriptions of bodily coldness]

There’s something about being physically cold that’s so upsetting. Like, there’s kind of a sweet spot to it, I think. Right now, my right hand is half-numb—like, the ring finger and the pinky finger? If I move them, I can just about feel them, but that's it, and then the rest of my hand—the middle finger, pointer finger, thumb—are, like, burning? Like, they’re so cold they’re hot, y’know? So they are not numb, they are having a bad time, and I feel like the numbness is that kind of sweet spot. It’s like oh, my hands are so cold that they don’t even register how cold they are, so I am not in discomfort. This is fine. 

But it takes … an hour? Maybe 30 minutes? To get there, to that numbness sweet spot. And then, like, moving your whole hand feels really strange ‘cause you can barely—your hand barely registers that muscles are moving ‘cause they’re numb. So … it’s like, it’s comforting in that it’s not physically uncomfortable but it’s upsetting in that you’re watching your hand move but you’re not feeling your hand move … and then it’s like an alien creature has inhabited your arm or something. [Laughs]. It’s bad! It’s bad, don’t love it. Um, but also do love it, weirdly. I prefer the numb feeling to the burning. My left hand is entirely burning, so that’s great. 

Um … there is something a bit settling about being cold, though. Like, physically cold, once you hit the numb point. Because it sort of feels like a kind of stillness. When you’re hot, there is also a kind of stillness, but you’re, like, sweating, y’know? You’re, like, laying on your bed … just … pouring liquid out of your pores [laughs] and it’s sticky, and it’s uncomfortable, and where, like, your arm lays close to your body, there is more heat ‘cause both your chest and your upper arm are in close contact with each other. And so that—like, the heat enveloping both of them overlaps, so there’s points of heat where your limbs connect that you just can never do anything about ‘cause you can’t disconnect them. Whereas when you’re all-over numb and cold, you’re all-over numb and cold. It’s not more cold or less cold in any one specific place. When your whole body gets to that stage … your whole body gets to that stage. Or, more specifically, ‘cause, like, you tend to keep your core and your neck and your head warm—or else you’ll die—but, like, when your extremities all reach the same level of numb-cold, that is the best. That is the best. That is the kind of stillness that I go for. And it’s settling. But I hate the process of getting there.

I also hate the process of getting out of that kind of stillness … because when your hands are numb to the point where they’ve registered that the coldness surrounding you is like room-temperature-level or is acceptable hand temperature, bringing your hands back up to room temperature is upsetting to them! Your fingers swell up, they don’t know what they’re doing! They’re like, why have you done this? I thought we just re-established a new normal room temperature! And I’m like, well, we’re inside now, and I want to draw. Like, that’s the thing, when my fingers are, like, numb-burning—either going through the process of becoming fully numb or coming out of that process and readjusting to room temperature—your fingers puff up, they burn a little bit, and, like, their movements are not as precise. So I can’t draw. You don’t know how many times I have come home from school—high school—and just wanted to freaking draw. But I can’t. And I have to sit abjectly by the fireplace, sticking my hands out, until my hands are done warming up to the point where I can hold a pencil and make confident strokes. [Laughs]. It’s upsetting! Oh my gosh. But anyway, yeah. 

And I also haven’t felt numb-cold in a while because I spend most of the year in Washington state … going to university. Which I won’t be doing after this semester and then the one after it. Terrifying. We’re not gonna think about that right now. Being a senior is such a liminal experience. It’s a whole year of, just, being in-between places. If you think senior year of high school is weird—which it is, it’s very weird—ah, try senior year of college. Yeah. I’ll bet you, like, the last year before retirement is also weird—although I don’t know if you know that as certainly as you know it with high school and college. ‘Cause you gotta go somewhere after senior year but people can technically retire whenever they want to as long as they’re financially able to do so. I guess if you were keeping really strong track of your finances and you were like, yes, by the end of the next five years I will be able to have enough money to retire at this facility that I’ve researched intensely or on this island that I bought, whatever it is, whatever … [laughs] whatever percent … whatever tax bracket you’re in … 

If you earn over $100,000 a year, you should just be eaten—[laughs], no. You should have whatever other income you get on top of that skimmed off and donated. Maybe you can pick the charity you want to donate it to, how ‘bout that. That’ll make it feel a bit less like the government is strangling you but … like, as suspicious [as] I am of governmental structures and as frustrating I find it that bureaucracy slows everything down … millionaires cannot be trusted. Capitalism and its free-for-all, laissez-faire bullshit is going to favor … corner-cutting, rich, trust-fund baby types who have not read enough intersectional feminist theory to make informed decisions with their money. If you’re a shrewd businessperson who doesn’t have an ethical bone in your body, who chooses to ignore ethical considerations, you are going to trash this planet [and exploit workers]. That is how we got here. So I need there to be something that holds the millionaires accountable for themselves. If I have to side with the US government to fight the millionaires … I guess I just have to do it, man. I guess I just have to do it. 

‘Cause at least with the government, to some degree, you can vote people in. Not trying to say that there aren’t biases there that shut out people of color—women of color—and favor, y’know, the third Kennedy kid, whatever his name was. Like yeah, yeah—voting people in, having democratic representatives still isn’t perfect. But at least the people have some kind of say, unlike with millionaires. Like, you just become a millionaire or you don’t, like, you have that million dollar idea and it takes off but you haven’t been vetted—like, you haven’t … you, you don’t have to qualify to be an ethical human in order to reach millionaire status. Whereas if you’re going to be representing your, your district, your state, the country at large as one of the Supreme Court Justices, you need to do a lot of proving yourself worthy of that title to the people you represent before you get there. And I think that is better than nothing. [Sigh]. It’s definitely better than just millionairehood and the wacky ways in which that sorts itself out. God, I’m cold. 

How did we get here, how did we start talking about millionaires? God, I’m cold. Oh yeah, it’s retirement and the last year of retirement and how that must feel weird. I’m sure it does … “but not as good as me!” “Left, left, left my wife and 49 children without any gingerbread. Think I did right. Right? Right, by my—” 

I love that I can just quote … random passages from my favorite books that I read as a kid. It doesn’t even necessarily have to fit whatever I’m thinking, I can just call up exactly how the actor hired to read the audiobook read those lines and just play them in my head and then imitate them to the best of my ability with my own voice and it’s just instantly funny? I don’t know why it’s funny. Maybe it’s not so much that it’s funny but it’s comforting? And it’s a little silly ‘cause it obviously sounds different in my head than how I’m able to replicate it ‘cause my voice is not the same voice as the people who read the audiobooks for these stories, but … and then there’s also a bit of humor in, like, just randomly spouting a phrase that has no connection to what I was just thinking ... but that still feels right somehow. Like, the reason that “left, left, left my wife and 49 children” fit that moment was because it is comforting to me as a human, it did not fit with the subject matter of what I was talking about. So it fit for a different reason, and these incongruent contexts in which the conversation I was just having and this quote still somehow fit with, like, me as a human … that’s just weird! The contrast is weird! And weird things make ya laugh. [Laughs]. I don’t know, dude, trying to explain humor is like, … god … if you ever wanna watch an English major—er, a Lit major—froth at the mouth, ask them to explain a joke … and they will fall over themselves. 

Ok, great. Thanks for that, thanks for that. I love you. [Tongue click].