It’s too easy to slip into EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE mode. Always trying to find that balance between being informed (and perpetually horrified) and ducking my head in the sand. As if the “news” at large isn’t bad enough we’ve had a rough week at home, with a side of relief. The good? In July we grabbed the first available appointment with a specialist at Gillette Children’s Hospital. And after two months of waiting and hand-wringing it turns out my son’s scoliosis is minor. The lab tech who took the initial x-ray royally effed it up. They failed to ensure my son was standing straight. He has a teenage-y tendency to slouch and he had asked me to wait in the hall that day instead of joining him in the imaging room. They also failed to get a full x-ray of the spine. The partial x-ray from the neck to the waist that was sent over to the hospital baffled the spine surgeon. He ordered a new x-ray to get to the bottom of it. After examining my son he declared there is some slight sway in his spine. But nothing that should give him trouble in the long run. Particularly since he’s already had his major growth spurts and is nearly done growing. So there’s the good. The same day we received that news we found out something awful. Someone close to us has had their cancer return, and it is worse than before. And she is the mother of a young child. As a mother I can’t really wrap my head around this. And I can’t stop thinking about it. But when my brain gets stuck on the sad stuff, what do I do? I turn to the internet for distraction of course.
Five goofy distractions:
- I’ve seen some portraits in this fascinating series before but some new ones have been added. Creative Costumes of Still-Practiced Pagan Rituals of Europe
- “I’ll never forget the day I got stuck on Lisa Frank!” Lisa Frank Is Real: The reclusive artist behind the iconic brand gives a tour of her kaleidoscopic headquarters. Grade school Sharyn is totally geeking out over that vault. Also, who knew a young Mila Kunis starred in Lisa Frank commercials?
- Rarely do I like any Buzzfeed biznass, but this one. Oof. Teenage Sharyn would be really really sad to see it. “23 Pieces Of Evidence That Punk Is Dead” And another list of awful…but on the more amusing end of bad. The 25 Worst Movie Covers on Netflix
- “Want cookie! Amazing picture of underwater animal that looks like it should be in Sesame Street. The stove pipe sponge is more likely to be found in warm Carribean[sic] waters.” You’ve got to click on this.
- Best Google Street View photos - “artist Jon Rafman’s Google Street View site. He finds interesting Google Street View photos and posts them to his site, 9-Eyes (the Google cars have a 9-lensed camera on them). The photos are incredible. I don’t know how he does it.” Agreed.
Yesterday was a particularly sad one. It marked one year since the horrible workplace shooting in North Minneapolis. My friend, and former brother-in-law, was fatally shot that day. And in the year since this happened there have been many other tragic shootings around the country. And not one bit of change to this nation’s gun violence laws. It’s such a highly polarized issue no progress is being made. If it’s all or nothing for both sides of course we’re going to be stuck. Oddly enough the most realistic take I’ve read on the situation was written by Anthony Bourdain:
There are a lot of nice people in this country. A whole helluva lot of them, like it or not, own AR-15s. If we can’t have at least, a conversation with them, sit down, break bread— about where we are going and how we are going to get there, there is no hope at all.
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