a meteor shower

The Perseids are for seeing shooting stars.

They peak in early August. If the sky is dark, you could see 90 meteors an hour.

We spent the first few years teaching S and J to sleep, and now we’re waking them up at 1 a.m. Noodles puts coats over their pajamas and loads the boot of the car up with blankets.

The second we step outside the house, blinking, we expect to see fireworks, but the sky is filled with the glow you see at bedtime when you first shut your eyes. It’s useless, we need to go much further away. Where are the shooting stars? S and J want to know.

Buckling a child into a carseat in the middle of the night feels like rehearsal for the End Times. Are we really doing this? you think to yourself. Why would you wake them up. Also: They trust you too much.

A car window is to mush your face against as you try to see a cluster of glittery tails. The universe doesn’t care that you are watching, though. It doesn’t show you anything.

Tamarack was supposed to be good for seeing the meteor shower, but when we drive through it’s too bright, the elementary school flashing its messages into the long recess of the night. We keep going. The car trundles on up into the hills.

A red light flashes at the turnoff for the state park. We pull in next to the boom gate with a bunch of other cars. The voices are up the road—young people. Maybe the party boys. A small stereo. Us and some drunk college kids—we’ve woken the children to attend a goon party.

The blankets are to stay warm in the middle of the night lying on a bitumen road.

Noodles spreads them on the ground, then places a faux fur throw over S and J as they lie on their backs. They’re tucked in, flying through the dark of space on a tiny rectangle.

We lie four-across, looking at the great screen strung between the black pines on either side of the world. Now we start to see meteors! A blaze crosses the left side. A couple of minutes later, I see one on the other side. You have to wait, though. It’s not 90 an hour.

S sees one. Noodles sees another. We never catch the same one. I hear snuffles—J has floated away.

🌠

(closing music)

ass shit fuck

f-word

how it’s going at my day job

actually I thought I seemed good?

extra extra

If I was allowed to editorialize this story about kids who are obsessed with the Titanic (which you aren’t, really; newspaper reporting is like trying to write poetry after you’ve had all the metaphors and ornaments frisked from your pockets), I’d say that part of it is that adults built this big, fancy ship and told everyone it was unsinkable, and not three days later, it sank, proving to kids that the growns are full of shit, or, to use a beautiful term that Professor Ana Sofia Ribeiro gave me, that the world is a paper castle.

The New York Times podcast department had me record a “commentary” of the story, which is great because you can hear Ozzy (5) tell me he was on the Titanic in a past life, however I need to warn that my accent is very very off, not sure what happened to me. (Audio link is at top of article - gift link)

goodies

why I spring for paid

The Real Sarah Miller

- here she is on Botox/entropy:

Does Botox make you look younger to the average viewer, who sees you from all angles? Possibly not. But, to the viewer in the mirror (you) who looks mostly at your eyes, Botox seems like a miracle. We walk around with an image of our faces in our minds. As we get older, the mental image grows further apart from the reality. Botox brings the two slightly closer together again.

hate read:

I am talking about poreless skin and perfect haircuts, maintained by those who fear that without their look, they aren’t shit. I am talking about how nobody seems to know how to tell a story, only a beginning with an endless middle and no ending.

this is my song everyday:

With regards to beauty, I’d bargain that everyone knows someone who shouldn’t, by all superficial accounts, be attractive, and yet they are.

love to see

Josh Gondelman

expounding on the state of the world even when it’s sad:

“Since Trump’s run for the presidency, there has been a rapidly accelerating not-getting-jokes on the internet”

what I’ve been saying, bruh:

Today it is slop, almost totally. Why? To understand it, we must consider the right’s hatred of working people, its (more than) mutual embrace of the tech industry and, primarily, its profound rejection of Enlightenment humanism.

The New York Review of Cooks

seems brave here (I worked a bajillion years ago at a publisher and they took recipe testing extremely seriously, which is why Maggie Beard and Belinda Jeffery will never let you down)

excellent interviewing:

Would you rather get a lower-back tattoo that says “I’m Elon’s little cyber truck” and have a photo of it leaked and not be able to say it was for a dare, or drink a whole pitcher of water from the Gowanus Canal the night before a debate?

Just got my copy of The Float Test by

Lynn Steger Strong

and I am amped

you better believe I’m seeing Minecraft this weekend

found again: this Dream Academy cover

source callout!!! I want to hear about your precious mother’s day cards!

If you've ever had a mother's day (or parent or father's day) craft, gift, or card from a kid that you took *personally* (like "so THIS is what they think of me"), I would love to chat for a story: janetamanley@gmail.com - pls share with your friend who has the kid who drew that bonkers picture for their parent last whatever day!

it’s you and me