All Thoughts Being Equal

I. Roz was already in the office. Of course; he'd barely sleep if there was still a case to solve. Bastard. I shuffled in and left the door to clatter shut behind me. He didn't look up before stating, simply: "You're a wreck." Bastard. I half-mumbled, half-rasped something at him. To my pounding ears it sounded vaguely like "fuckyouneedashower." "Water shut off today. Pipe rusted through or something. Apparently the basement's flooded." "fuckthatimgoingbed" "You have a client." I stopped. Blinked. The greasy fog in my field of vision swirled and resolved into my partner, Roz, and a woman. I glared blearily at Roz. He shrugged with the minutest of movement, but his face remained infuriatingly nonchalant, eyes casually running over some of his case files in one hand, a mug of coffee steaming in the other. He was sitting on the desk. On the desk. When we had a client. We had a client! My gaze lur...

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing My rating: 5 of 5 stars Shackleton's doomed voyage―an attempt to cross the Antarctic continent―pretty much can't be described in any other way than "incredible." The preface to the book tells us two remarkable facts: first, that what Shackleton and his expedition were attempting to do would not actually be accomplished until the 1950s, with the full gauntlet of modern machines and electric heat; and second, that no human being died or even suffered grievous physical injury over the course of the entire ordeal. Then we dive in to the narrative itself, and as soon as the Endurance becomes ironically trapped and crushed by ice floes, it's just one damn thing after another. Even having been assured by the preface that everyone survives, you swear up and down, even shout aloud, "No! Someone's going to die! Nobody can survive that!" Reading what the expeditionary force end...

This post is third in the Summer camp for "adults" series: See part 1 and part 2 . How long can I go in critiquing another, more transparently corporate-retreat-aspiring "summer camp for grown-ups" before giving up and yelling "fuck off"? Read and see! I. At the end of last summer I wrote two posts about Camp RAHH, "Seattle's summer camp for adults." And my feeling by the end of it was less rage than bleakness and despair, except for the one hopeful fact that they were paying money to their host camp, Camp Kirby, and that Kirby is a lovely place that deserves all the money it can get. Now I've come to learn about the broader trend of adult summer camps, and I'm angry again. I think I have a Facebook sponsored ad to thank for this, but first, here's a TIME article from 2013: Like cartoons and cupcakes, summer camp is becoming one of those things adults just won’t leave to the kids anymore. “Glamping” — that is, stay...