I Must be Dreaming, Song of Achilles, Fallout, and other consumptions

I Must Be Dreaming, Roz Chast

I read I Must Be Dreaming primarily because I wanted a break between reading longer stuff and I’ve read one of her previous books, Can’t We Talk About Something Pleasent.  

She’s got a sort of art style that I really enjoy, the type of sketchy/shaky lines that make everything seem a bit more personal—at least to me. I Must Be Dreaming is a less serious entry from her, focusing on the imaginative and mystical world of dreaming and its importance to Chast.

There are some good panels and good bits of information scattered throughout. It’s personal, but not as personal as Can’t We Talk About Something Pleasent, which I loved precisely for Chast’s deep thoughts on death, dying1, and the push and pull that comes with caring for someone at the end of their life.

Some good panels:

Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

I avoided reading this for a while simply because I’m the type of person who tries too hard to like things other people don’t. That’s to say it was recommended to me numerous times but I could never get into it. But, I made it a personal goal of mine to read more books centering queer people and queer love stories, which Achilles is.

It was an enjoyable read, Miller has a good sense of style that can at times feel a bit too poetic but then you remember this is a retelling of a Greek epic so you kinda let that criticism go. What I love about this is that Achilles is not a fully good person. He’s manipulative and pushy and prioritizes his own hubris over the lives of everyone else. But, I guess that’s just what you get when you fall in love with a child of a god.2

One thing I always admire is writers who can write about sex in a way that doesn’t feel cringy. I think Miller captures it pretty well here, though I could see some people thinking it does feel a little too…flowery. Ultimately I wish I could write about love in that captivating way. I admire the way she’s able to capture the sort of obsessive quality that comes from love, especially when you love someone you’re convinced is better than you. It’s easy to get lost in that type of love or to want it to drown you completely.

Some good quotes:

Fallout

I’m not going to write much about this other than to say I really enjoyed this first season. I think it’s a masterclass of how you can accurately replicate the feel of a video game without compromising on plot, style, or substance. Ultimately this story feels much better than any of the games without changing so much of the canon that you’re essentially telling the fans to fuck off.

You can also see some of the stuff that made the first couple of seasons of Westworld embedded in this series. I’m just hoping that, if Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are continuing to be executive producers for Fallout, they learn some lessons on what not to do from Westworld too4.

The continuing decline of the Supreme Court

In 2024 it’s pointless to argue endlessly about the hypocrisy of the conservative class in this country. especially those on the Supreme Court. They don’t care, they don’t pretend to care, and they will never actually care. Still, it’s exhausting to watch as more and more of our political possibilities and daily realities are obliterated by the Supreme Court.

Years ago, I probably would have espoused some bullshit about the Supreme Court being a necessary check on the institutional powers of our country. Now my real thoughts are that if nine people really want to play historical dress up I know a few pretty fun renaissance fares they can attend. Ultimately it’s ridiculous that we should even have to entertain the notion that the only way we can justify the rights we want in a modern society is to tie them to some historical pretext crafted by a bunch of dudes who had slaves and beat the shit out of their wives.

The rapid way that every major political decision in America is being outsourced to some of the worst losers in the political system is just exhausting. Having to read how some conservative justices think it’s okay to make being homeless illegal while also making it legal for states to place limits on lifesaving emergency care if it relates at all to abortion is enough to make you want to jump from the highest building you can find.

A year at my job

Two weeks ago marked the one-year point at my job. It’s been strange at times and a pretty big life shift overall. I’ve been trying to figure out where I stand on it. On one hand, from a professional level, it seems like I should be at the point in my career (based on my age at least) where I’m starting to get into more mid-senior roles, and realistically I’m not there at this particular job.

There’s a lot I really like about this job, mainly that it has a great work-life balance. But, with summer approaching fast I know the remoteness of it is going to kick back in and fuck with my depression more than usual. The saving grace is that at least Zach gets summers off now, so he’ll be around more to help with Cookie.

I also have to regularly remind myself that I really don’t want to climb the corporate ladder up to an executive role. I like strategy and I’d love to be more involved with that, but not at the expense of my work-life balance. Additionally, I have to remind myself that I’m the sole person producing content for a product that like actually has a lot of big profile companies using it. Like 8/10 of the largest U.S banks and 4/5 of the biggest asset management firms use us, we have a big audience!5

Additionally, what I often forget about is just how public my work is. I’ve been doing this for years now so it’s a lot easier to handle suggestions for changes, edits, etc. But the type of work I do usually involves like 4-5 people at least looking over it. My boss has to review it, the senior marketing manager reviews it. Then once it’s published the sales team members and customer success team members view it. I’ve got a lot of eyes on everything that gets published. For someone who has low self-esteem like I do, it can really start feeling personal even when it’s not. It makes the work feel more exhausting, at least it has lately.

Body image stuff

Like always I’m being consumed by the constant internal nagging of my negative body image. Before, when I still posted on Twitter, I could at least temporarily boost my confidence and serotonin by posting a photo and getting a few dozen chubby-chaser fetish accounts to like it. But Bluesky lacks that same sort of coordinated effort to simultaneously uplift and shame medium-ugly gay men like me.