Have you had a zoom reality glitch?

By: | June 10, 2022
Earliest recorded zoom meeting, circa 1906*

People who compulsively play video games sometimes get strange little twitches and glitches in their reality. Out of the game, back in real life, they are seized by brief snatches of hallucinatory game crosstalk. For example, people who spend hours playing Tetris might see bathroom tiles trembling, or bookshelves lurching rhythmically downward in steady chunks. Others may be haunted by echoes of in-game music. Possibly the most relatable is the guy who mentally reached for the ‘retrieve’ button on his game controller after he dropped his real-world sandwich on his real-world floor. This one stings a little, probably because I too have felt the brief, irrational pull to Control-Z my way out of an IRL fail.

Though these little reality hiccups have undoubtedly existed for as long as there have been video games, they only got a name in 2011, when Nottingham Trent University researchers Angelica Ortiz de Gortari and Mark Griffiths christened them Game Transfer Phenomena. It was controversial at the time, but they have spent the past 10 years verifying their findings in ever-larger populations of gamers.

When I reported on their work in 2011, I made a point of saying “many of us are gamers now”, so this could affect more than just a stereotypical guy in a gamer chair. But in the past ten years I’d argue we have all become gamers, some of us more wittingly than others. It’s been endlessly litigated how social media, smart phone apps and well, just smart phones in general have adopted the tips and tricks of casinos to get us addicted to their devices.

Indeed, in a couple of weeks Gortari will present more of her findings at the 7th International Conference on Behavioral Addictions. She’ll be discussing the relevance of GTP in gaming addiction, but I have been wondering if it goes beyond gaming.

Continue reading →

The Pleasure of Finding a Word for It

By: | June 8, 2022

I recently picked up a copy of John Koenig’s beautiful little book, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and was pleasantly reminded of how satisfying it is to find a word for that thing that you’re feeling. Koenig’s book features dictionary entries of words he’s created to name human emotions, punctuated with short, thoughtful essays about the human condition. 

For instance:

idlewild
adj; feeling grateful to be stranded in a place where you can’t do much of anything — sitting for hours at an airport gate, the sleeper car of a train, or the backseat of a van on a long road trip–which temporarily alleviates the burden of being able to do anything at any time and trees up your brain to do whatever it wants to do, even if it’s just to flicker your eyes across the passing landscape.
-From Idlewild, the original name of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

galagog
n. the state of being simultaneously entranced and unsettled by the vastness of the cosmos, which makes your deepest concerns feel laughably quaint, yet vanishingly rare.
-From galaxy, a gravitationally bound system of millions of stars +agog, awestruck. Pronounced “gal-uh-gawg.

pax latrina
n. the meditative atmosphere of being alone in a bathroom, sequestered inside your own little isolation booth, enjoying a moment backstage from the razzle-dazzle of public life.
-Latin pax, a period of peace + latrina, toilet. Compare Pax Romana of Pax Americana; sometimes the solace of bathroom stalls can feel just as profound as the protection of empires. Pronounced “paks luh-tree-nah

etherness
n. the wistful feeling of looking around a gathering of loved ones, all too aware that even though the room is filled with warmth and laughter now, it won’t always be this way–that the coming years will steadily break people away into their own families, or see them pass away one by one, until there comes a time when you’ll look back and try to imagine what it felt like to have everyone together in the same place.
-From ether, an intoxicating compound that evaporates very quickly + togetherness. Pronounced “eth-er-nis.”

I’ve had a difficult year, and that last one hit hard. With all the terrible things happening in the world of late, I’ve sometimes struggled to find hope, so I was buoyed by a word I discovered in Dahlia Lithwick’s recent Slate piece about the Uvalde shootings, “Why Politics Is Both the Poison and the Cure.”

Lithwick writes about “trying to reassemble” herself and find hope in the face of current events and being reminded that “In any march toward authoritarianism, fostering a broad sense of public hopelessness is very much the point.” 

Which is how she found herself searching for a way to express “the need for action and hope.” What she found was the Yiddish word tzebrokhnkayt meaning “the quality of broken-heartedness that gives strength in healing.” 

She goes on:

At its essence it means that “we each carry our shattered pieces with us.” The essential bit is that tzebrokhnkayt is not something in need of quick fixing; it is instead honored. It means that we are obligated to gather up, tend to and honor the pain, but also to take up the work of healing. …my friend Dahna turned the word into a prescription: “Let’s not be OK. Let’s find power in not being OK. Let’s honor our brokenness—and the brokenness of our country—by finding the collective strength to fight for change.”

Finding power in not being ok feels like exactly what we need in this moment. It’s a way of flipping hopelessness around, and turning despair into strength. I’m going to try it. Won’t you join me?

-Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons

Cutting Through the Mustard

By: | June 3, 2022

The fire started on the west side of Protection Island, on a spit called Kanem Point. A witness later reported seeing a boat near the shore shooting off flares, one of which landed in the driftwood on the beach. Smoke soon billowed up. It was early August so all the grass that covers the island was dead, and the fire reached the steep bluffs. Flames licked up their sides to the island’s flat top and spread from there.

Dozens of acres burned before crews were able to contain the fire, but it could have been a lot worse. The wind was from the east that day and held the fire at bay; had the wind been from the west, the whole island would likely have burned. Also, almost all of the tens of thousands of rhinoceros auklets and pigeon guillemots and glaucous-winged gulls and savannah sparrows that breed on the island had finished, so it is thought that only a few chicks died.

So much—too much—can depend on luck.  

The fire, its consequences, its implications—these were all on my mind as I stood in the stern of the R/V Puffin when it motored out last Tuesday from the small town of Sequim, on the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. I help monitor the large rhinoceros auklet colony at Protection and this was the first visit of the field season. I’ve been going to Protection for five years, and the first visit for me has always been a deeply satisfying joy: the chance to see the auklets again and be immersed in their world for a time, the renewal of a cycle of renewal, and all that. But this trip had a different tenor. Finally, I thought, I would see for myself what the fire had done.

Continue reading →

All Delight We Cannot See

By: | June 1, 2022
A falling star, or perhaps an airplane, streaks across an ominously dark sky

Like just about everyone else on this planet, I’ve been having a hard time lately. The world’s on fire, and denial and cruelty seem to be the law of the land. I’m tired and angry and heartbroken.

It’s been more and more challenging to imagine a future or find pockets of joy, but I know I should still try. Late last year I saw an opportunity to do just that with Jane’s list of delights. I’ve done it before, and I wanted to do it again. It seems like such a simple and doable thing to pay attention to the surprises and strange little blessings that drop into ordinary days. So I opened a new document and titled it Today’s Delights.

I opened my eyes wider. I waited expectantly.

Continue reading →

Tender Days

By: | May 30, 2022

Facebook is a rough place to mourn. When we reached a million dead from COVID in the US this month, I put up a post saying it seems there’ll be no memorial, no park with sculptures where we can gather to share common grief and remember the dead, many of whom passed in isolation. I asked the audience at large what we do with all this loss now that we’re anxious to move ahead and put dark and confusing days behind us. 

My intention with the post was to mourn with a larger group, grief being both a private and an external, communicated activity. I wanted to engage with others who felt the same, affirming our relationship with these million dead. I responded and liked and put up heart emojis. I fielded those who wanted to know why I was grieving people who had died from COVID when there are so many teen suicides and drug overdoses. Many replies and shares brought up voting and political parties. From what I could see, we were all tender.

Grieving, for me, is remembering. In the heart of the pandemic I traveled to the Navajo Nation in Arizona and the place felt like an active war zone, one of the hardest hit regions in the country. Doctors I interviewed talked about medical staff dying in the clinics where they worked. The atmosphere was devastating and haunting, road signs along the highway telling people to turn back, a piece of fresh graffiti saying GO HOME. 

When I came home shell shocked to Colorado, I spoke with people who told me this pandemic wasn’t happening, the virus was a hoax. When I said I was writing about what I witnessed, one person asked why I was fear mongering. 

To memorialize the dead, I want to remember the context of their deaths, connecting and reconnecting to my own experiences, the sadness I felt as numbers rose from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. I want to remember storming out of a dear friend’s house shouting at him that he can live in his bubble where he keeps saying he doesn’t personally know anyone who’s died of the virus. I want to remember the difficulty we have all felt, no matter our persuasions. This makes the grief communal. 

Continue reading →

If I Were a Shar Pei, My Wrinkles Would Be Delightful

By: | May 27, 2022

This is from 2020, but who cares? The pandemic is probably still happening [Ed.: def still happening] [Ed.: how can this be] [Ed.: pls explain] so we need this perspective again. Plus, cute animal pictures. You’re welcome.

When I look in the mirror, though everything is mildly blurry, I can’t not see the signs of aging I used to think might miraculously skip me—back when I was being carded in bars (at 43!!). But there they all are, the sags and swollen bits, the divots and wrinkles, the spots and stiff (and very sudden) stray hairs. (Silver lining of the pandemic? Masks. The bigger the better.)

I know, I know…I’ve complained about these annoyances before, yadda yadda, and the denial, anger, begging, and sadness should be long over; I should just accept what can’t be changed, embrace it, even. But I’m still treading water between pissed off and pleading. Damn you, roly-poly extra-padded parts and damn you, parts that are all skin, no pad! Damn you 50+ neck, you abomination! (If you tighten up I promise to stop denying the duct tape-belly roll incident, as a public service.)

How unfortunate, too, is the fate of the nose and ears when you add time to the mix. I’d always heard they look bigger on older people because they never stop growing, but the truth is more tragic: They look supersize because gravity is a monkey that swings from every appendage, and after decades the cartilage finally breaks down and gives in to the stretch and droop. Far-reaching schnoz and earlobes like clown feet? It’s my destiny. (I’ve seen the photos of my Granny. Bless her heart.)

Meanwhile, you’d think after so many years looking at animals this would have occurred to me sooner, but here is my new revelation: The traits I hate the most in my aging self are, on other animals, friggin’ adorable. Have you seen a basset hound’s ears? A panda’s tummy? A baby elephant’s scribbly skin and a mastiff’s low-hanging jowls? Does anyone see an eagle’s beak and think “she should have gotten that done years ago”? I submit that no one has.

If I were truly brave I’d juxtapose the following images with pictures of the relevant parts on myself, but I’m choosing to leave it to your imagination. Now, try to be nice.
—

Bloodshot eyes and facial droop. Hilarious and cute! Nobody will wonder what you did last night (and then judge you harshly for mixing alcohol and Valium). No one will wonder how you’d look with a Joan Rivers skin knot at the back of your head. (Turn to tighten.) Can you believe this dog won a prize for superior ugliness. Noooo!
You are an adorable alien! The ears, the neck wrinkles–just part of your charm. You be you!
Those wiry whiskers were’t already an inch long when you first spied them jutting out from the side of your face, and look how nice and balanced they are. Plus, they actually have a function! How nice for you.
So many chins. But no need to sit lower than your camera for the Zoom call–you are a delight!
No plastic surgeon ever told you that to get rid of the eye bags he’d have to cut away a triangle of skin and then yank up your cheek skin and sew it under your lash line! Because each loop around the eye is a chapter in the tome of your amazing face! (Nice “nose,” too. Not too big. Just right.)
Your crazy brows, ear hair, and ‘stache-beard suit you, girl; don’t even think of waxing, plucking, or shaving. Nobody will point and giggle in a mean way.
What cute freckles! No need to get them checked for squamous cells!
No, those stripes don’t make your ass look big! You can get away with lines in any direction, you style maven!
Now all the other animals want ridiculously large ears, too! Because of how cute they are on you, obviously.
Those dark circles really pop! You don’t look tired and mid-life weary at all. That’s definitely not smeared mascara or last night’s smoky eye.
Fab faces, glorious fat rolls, noses like big (cute) buttons. Even the farting is adorable.
Wisdom lines. Beautiful! No need to moisturize, and no dermatologist will tell you the treatment involves a neurotoxin and a needle.
Puffy, hairy cheeks are precious! It wouldn’t occur to anyone that you are on Prednisone for some kind of weird rash!

I guess I’ll end it there.

[Thanks to UNSPLASH for the delightful photos.]

Guest post: Writing types as the Bristol stool scale

By: | May 25, 2022

Are you suffering from writer’s block? Or do your words flow a little too freely? The color, frequency and density of your writing can tell you a lot about your health! Luckily, doctors have developed a useful chart to aid in diagnosis of all writing complaints: The Bristol Writing Scale.

7. Liquid consistency with no solid pieces: Severe logorrhea. Write drunk, edit that way, too. A monograph about theoretical physics has morphed into a polemic about your ex, with a large set of quoted lyrics from The Phantom of the Opera. You have never seen The Phantom of the Opera. You, and everyone who sees your document, and in fact your entire office, will wonder what terrible crimes were committed therein. 

A stick figure sits at a merrily-burning laptop. Its thought bubble is an uninterrupted stream of nonsense. "whendealingwithNEUTRONSathigherenergySTATESmyedleftmeandallIgotWASthisCOFFEETABLEinsleepheSANGtomeindreamshecamethatVOICE...vorpisawordnowfortheflamesonthesidesofmyface..."
(Talk to your editor immediately when consciousness returns.)

6. Mushy consistency with ragged edges: The words are uncontrollable once they start. Your rant unspools with too many semicolons. Narrative structure is lost, but you do find that at some point you ate corn. 

A stick figure sits at a long-suffering laptop. The figure's glasses are upside-down. Long, ragged thought bubbles read "It is a truth universally acknowledged; That all men are created equal. Why men tho!? We are all born free; Free to eat corn and taste the sky..."
(Probably burns.)

5. Soft blobs with clear cut edges: The kind of writing done after several pots of coffee. Mildly unhinged. Potentially brilliant. Also potentially gibberish.

A stick figure twitches at a laptop with a spilling mug of coffee. The figure talks to itself of its brilliance as it writes, "O! For a muse of fire that would ascent the brightest heaven of invention! A kingdom for a stage, Princes to act!" It doesn't mean much but it sounds awfully impressive.
(Maybe light a candle if someone else needs to write.)

4. Like a smooth, soft sausage or snake: The perfect writing session. Words slip out with ease, but with just enough effort to give you a sense of accomplishment. You only have to wipe once and head off to humblebrag your word count on Twitter with a spring in your step.

A stick figure reclines, wearing sunglasses, in front of a laptop. The writer wonders if they should tweet their wordcount with #humbled? Or #blessed? They're both so, so true. They write, "it is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing..."
(Add “Alert agent to await the Pulitzer nom…” to your to-do list.)

3. A sausage shape with cracks in the surface: The kind of writing of which most writing yeoman would be proud. Slightly stilted in places, and undeniably boring. But you hit your deadline. 

A stick figure sits hard at work on their laptop. No nonsense here. It writes "okay, okay. In Smith et al, 2016...sigh...the scientists collected fecal samples...(shoot)...Fecal samples...*deletes*"

(But you hit your deadline.)

2. Lumpy and sausage-like: Every sentence is an effort. Your deadline is breathing down your neck. Those outside the office may hear soft whimpering. If the writing gods smile upon you, after a few sentences, the dam will break and you will proceed to Bristol writing scale 5. 

A stick figure hunches over a laptop, perspiration beading its furrowed brow. "30 min to deadline," it huffs. "Augh. Smith et al. No. *Delete* Yeast. Does anything rhyme with. Yeast." Their feet slowly grow numb.
(Save your energy for the first edit.)

1. Separate hard lumps: Extreme word constipation. Must. Write. Word. A vein throbs in your forehead. This is the kind of writing that might have killed Elvis. 

A stick figure curls over a sobbing laptop. Sweat pours from the figure's face. Their eyes are squeezed shut, afraid to behold the page. "Bread. Bread. Bread. Bread. WHY. is. BREAD. Spelled. so. funny. ?
(Bread.)

0. The white glare of the page. The empty glare of the porcelain bowl. They are one and the same. 

A stick figure sits collapsed over a dead laptop. All is silence.
(Abandon hope, all ye who open this document.)

*Keep in mind that the Bristol Writing Scale is only a diagnostic tool, and should not be taken as a recommendation that only types four through five are indications of a future writing career. It is possible that your editor may recommend more fiber, at which point it is best to buy a subscription to the New Yorker.