Suitedjustice's Ongoing Mid-life Crisis

Nicely done again, REDeYeS00. I like it.

SJ and Helen's Day Out: Part II

A quick recap:

Helen is from Taiwan and has made plain her romantic interest in me over the last 10 years. I do not reciprocate that interest in the least, and I've concluded that we are opposites in many ways, and that the attraction part of that proverbial bromide is one-way; however, I feel an obligation to be friendly with her for reasons that I touched upon in Part I of this post. In addition to that, I have a sense of empathy towards her, having found myself in her spot a time or two.

Helen flew to Chicago for a trade show, and then she scheduled a trip to Massachusetts to visit with me. For her day trip itinerary, she chose Providence over Boston. I went along with it because I'd never been to Providence before, and because Helen had already chosen a list of sites that she wanted to visit, which took the onus of finding places away from me.

Helen's first choice in Providence was an old library that was hot as hell from no air conditioning. I paid a $10 donation and then we spent less than a minute inside before Helen wanted to leave.

Helen's other two choices were Brown University (in general, apparently), and the Rhode Island State House. Having been warned of those choices beforehand, I had begrudgingly done some homework and had come up with the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum as a well-reviewed alternative that was only a block away from the abortive library. I suggested the museum and off we trotted.

We had the museum mostly to ourselves, as the place charges $26 per person, but is free—and likely mobbed—on Sundays. It was not a Sunday.

I calculated that if we could stay at the museum for more than 5.2 minutes, we would beat our library per minute rate, and I would feel a sense of accomplishment just from that.

Was the museum worth it?

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Disclaimer: I didn't take any of these pics; I stole them all from the Internet.

Hell yes. I would highly recommend this place if you ever find yourself stuck in Providence, or anywhere in Rhode Island for that matter, as anywhere in the state is within 30 miles (48 km) of Providence.

"I don't like modern art."

I cannot understand a slim majority of the things that Helen says to me, but that one statement came through loud and clear, and less than five minutes after we'd arrived. We had started off in the modern art wing, and for all I knew at that point, it was all modern art throughout the museum.

When I was young I read Tom Wolfe's book The Painted Word, which he packed with withering criticisms of Abstract Expressionists and other mid-20th century innovators like Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollack, and Willem de Kooning, and I'd agreed with Wolfe at the time.

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But that was many years ago, and art has undergone significant changes since then, and besides that, I've actually grown to like some of the old modern art in my middle age.

"Let's see what else they have." I suggested, even though I was thoroughly enjoying myself in the modern wing.

What else they have is a lot else, ranging from the ancient Egyptians, through the Greeks and Romans, into the old masters, the Renaissance, and so forth through all of the major historical genres until the present day.

So Helen and I spent a good 52 minutes, at least, at the museum, and therefore we got 10 times the per minute value that we'd gotten from the library. We would have likely spent a lot more time there, I believe, if we hadn't spent the entire time disliking what the other person was loving, with one person wanting to leave the section where the other one wanted to stay, section after section until the end.

Helen loved the Impressionists: Monet and company, while I've always found them boring and insipid. I see an Impressionistic world every time I take off my thick spectacles, and I've never been at all impressed by it.

Helen loved the 19th Century pastoral oil paintings, the blooey farms and fields and fences and baby lambs and whatnot, while I rate them as that particular century's version of dogs playing poker and velvet Elvises.

When I saw the museum's extensive Greek and Roman statuary rooms, I almost cried out for joy. Helen refused to even set foot in those rooms...showed every sign of visceral disgust, and she wouldn't even tell me why she hated Greek and Roman stuff so much.

So that's how it went at the museum. I had one of the best times and one of the worst times, all at the same time.

Let me apologize here, because it's getting late, so I'm going to have to make a Part III. I'll be back with that.

Art is like politics, or like you and Helen experienced, everyone has a different opinion and thinks it's the only valid one.

BTW he was called (Paul) Jackson Pollock with o, I'm a big fan, I had his paintings all over my old German condo. Thanks for reminding me to put them up when I move to my new home. He was a madman obviously but he was way ahead of his time. He was copied countless times which is the most sincere form of endorsement. He struggled with alcoholism most of his life and died age 44 under the influence of alcohol in a car accident.

Dogs playing poker rules, and Elvis is the King! 😉

The Pollock misspelling was an editorial failure on my part, and not up to my usual standards. I apologize for that.

I have grown to like Pollock more as I've gotten older, especially after I watched that Who The **** is Jackson Pollock documentary nearly 20 years back.

That was an excellent movie about a lady who bought a Pollock at a yard sale for $5, and then spent the next few years trying to prove that it was the real deal. A drunken Pollock purportedly signed that painting with his penis.

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In any case, I'll propose that art, from an individual standpoint, is something that has been deliberately made by a human (or possibly a higher animal), with the intention of it being art, that makes you as the observer feel something other than boredom or mild disdain (outraged disdain might qualify the object or performance as art; it's murky territory). Joy and wonder are each sufficient reactions to art, but neither is necessary.

A disclaimer: just because I don't love Monet's work doesn't mean that it's not art to me. If I gawp at his Water Lilies for long enough, I see a few water effects that I like, and some bold outlines up on the top right that are interesting, so it's definitely art from my standpoint. I just don't love it.

only a suggestion, but when it comes to statuary rating it might be best to not reference the greek and roman stuff

helen sounds awful, the handjob better have been worth it

Great job! I’ve been sober since April 3rd.

I tried a few times with Infinite Jest and it just wasn’t going to happen though I did like the long footnote about the guy’s filmography.

I think one of the main problems with Doctor Sleep was after a while he realized the bad guys were more interesting than the good guys. He did do a good job with the recovery stuff, which could’ve been overbearing.

The movie was imperfect too but had a GOAT level performance from Rebecca Ferguson.

I canÂ’t recommend the Matthew Scudder series by Lawrence Block highly enough. Great recovery stuff mixed into alltime great crime fiction.

God Bless.

I promise I’m not going to comment on every post, but I have to mention that in six months I seem to have forgotten my daily involuntary gagging retching dry heaving routine, though that wasn’t why I quit

I was aware of the statuary/statutory similarities, but I went with it anyways. It was the right word for the job, despite its having that similar-sounding word tarnishing its reputation. Also, I don't think that I've ever used statuary in a sentence before, so there's that.

Our day out was a no-fault accident, unlike the one that I got into later on that day.

Hi BullyEyelash! Great job yourself on the 6 months! Thank you for reading so much of this blog; post as much as you want.

Are you going to meetings or going solo? I've been toying with the idea of meetings, but I'm living in a small town where people know your business, so I'd have to drive a fair distance if I wanted to avoid that and .

I like your observation on Dr. Sleep. Thinking back, it does seem that King fell in love with the villains, and it might be due to those villains being flashy and exciting, versus recovery often being boring and uneventful for long stretches.

That's the idea of recovery, really: no more of the excitement that will kill you and put your friends and loved ones through hell. The length and boredom are parts that people don't see much of in the movie-of-the-week recovery montages.

I added Lawrence Block to my list. I sold books for a living from 1994 to 2006, when I wasn't counting cards, and Block was always a solid seller, but I never checked him out.

SJ and Helen's Day Out: Part III

I needed a coffee after being slingshot tethered to Helen through the many rooms of the RISD Museum, with one of us always rushing forward to the next room while the other one planted his or herself in the former one.

Fortunately, there was a coffee shop attached to the museum. We arrived there just before 4pm. Helen and I stood at the counter for a few minutes, looking at their menu board. None of the 3 baristas bothered to volunteer that they were just then closing up, instead they opted to wait for me to ask, when by then it was too late, and to affirm to me that unfortunate fact in sullen monosyllables. Obviously, I should have known that they were closing; after all, it was nearly 4 in the afternoon. Who the hell stays open after 4pm?

I could tell that Helen was getting antsy about her purse, as she didn't remember where she'd left it. I pointed out that I'd seen her with her purse open in the hotel lobby, while she was disputing the hotel's $20 refundable deposit, but I could still empathize with her for missing it, so we decided to cut the Providence visit short and to head back. After that, the plan was to have dinner together, and then I'd take her to a shopping outlet in Taunton, as that was one of her itinerary items.

I found my way back on to route 95 North, which for you overseas folks is an aging superhighway that runs 1924 miles (3096 km) up the Eastern Seaboard from Miami, FL to the Canadian border in northeastern Maine, hitting all the major cities in between.

We were still in Providence and I was glancing at my left mirror, trying to change lanes when Helen's shout alerted me that I was about to plow into stopped traffic in our lane. I slammed on my brakes, but alas too late. I rear-ended a stopped late-model Nissan Altima. I was going around 15 mph (24 kph) when I hit the car.

Helen and I were both wearing our seatbelts, and we were okay. When I first got my Jeep, I had noticed a warning light telling me that the airbags weren't working. Thank goodness for that, as I do not have collision on my insurance, and I've heard that airbags are expensive to replace.

My Jeep's hood was a bit bent up, but I'd done an absolute number on the Nissan's rear bumper and trunk, stove them in pretty good.

And here we were now, stopped in the right lane of a huge city interchange on one of the most heavily travelled highways in the nation, with no breakdown lane in sight. I could see traffic already starting to pile up behind us.

I felt very unsafe where we were, and that feeling overrode my vague doubts around leaving the scene of an accident, so I grabbed my insurance paperwork and shimmied out of the Jeep, hoping that no car or truck flying by in the next lane would take me or my door out. I ran around to the passenger's side of the Nissan, and the driver, a kid maybe 19 or 20 years old, opened the window for me.

He had his 9 month old daughter in a car seat in the back. The two of them seemed okay, and the kid verified that they were all right, thank goodness, but I felt like an absolute heel, just the excrement of excrement.

"Look, we have to get out of here." I told him. "This isn't safe. I'm leaving you with my insurance papers so you'll know that I won't run," I tossed them onto his passenger seat. "Get off at the exit ahead of us. I'll be right behind you."

The kid agreed and I followed him along the path that I've traced out here in blue (except that we didn't hop over the Orms Street overpass, as it appears from the diagram that we might have).

The kid was really nice; his baby was cute, and I was mortified. I was also unclear on the concept of not having the collision option on my insurance. Did that mean that I was personally on the hook for the thousands of dollars of damage that I'd just done to the Nissan?

I panic-scrolled through the Internet on my phone for long enough to verify that my liability insurance would cover the Nissan's repairs. My lack of collision meant that I'd have to pay for what I'd done to my Jeep.

Initially, I believed that the hood of the Jeep was so damaged that I couldn't unhook the latch to lift it, but it turned out that I was so discombobulated from the accident that I'd forgotten that the latch needed to be unhooked by pulling a handle inside of the cab.

So the latch works and the hood is somewhat okay, but it's separated from the car enough that the wind gets under it, and I'm afraid that it might go flying up some day at 80 mph (129 kph), but I don't think that I have the money right now to fix it.

Rhode Island police state troopers have a reputation for being hardasses. It might be small state envy, for all that I know, but it's just what I've heard over the years. The trooper who showed up for my accident seemed nice and chill, though. He told us that we'd done the right thing by moving off of Route 95 and to safety.

The cop was reassuring, prepared and efficient, until he ran into Helen. She did not want to tell him her full name, address, or date of birth. I was again mortified, in a new way, and I feared that this simple accident report might turn very bad very quickly.

I stepped in and told the cop that Helen had left her purse back at her hotel, and that she didn't have her passport on her. And I asked Helen to please tell the cop everything he wanted to know, and I tried to reassure her that this was just a routine accident report, and there was no need to take issue with it. And she started to argue with me. And I was very aware at this point that the two of us were looking very sketchy in the eyes of the law, for no good goddamn reason other than Helen's obstinacy.

The cop stepped back into the fray, reasonable, calm, and patient. And he managed to wheedle Helen's passport from her, making me look like a liar, when I had merely been ignorant. Like a boss, the cop ignored all that and just got on with the report.

So, we got out of that potential pitfall safely. After the cop left, I asked the kid if he needed a ride, or needed anything at all from me, and he declined, as his girlfriend was coming to pick them up, and he'd have the car towed. We exchanged numbers and Helen and I left.

Now, scroll up to the map and try to get yourself back onto 95 North easily, being mindful of the one-way arrows, and the fact that you cannot take a right turn from Orms onto that northern on-ramp without dropping 25 feet (8 meters) down.

So I quickly got us lost in the middle of a city I'd never visited before, an old New England city where the (frequently one-way) streets are often 300-year-old paved-over cow paths.

Helen admonished me for not owning a GPS, and for refusing to stop at the shady neighborhood bars, bail bondsman and pawn shops in the neighborhood I was lost in to ask for directions, and she was right. I should own a GPS, and I was being the obstinate one this time for not asking for directions. I'm not the hero of this story. The kid and the cop were much better candidates for that designation.

Eventually, I got us back on 95 and out of Rhode Island. We stopped at Helen's hotel and she found her purse. Now, for dinner and for the shopping outlet, Helen wanted us to take an Uber, implying fairly obviously that she didn't trust my driving.

Not being the hero, I of course took umbrage at this idea. I pointed out that it had been 33 years since I'd last been in an accident (another, milder rear-end collision that was also my fault, but I didn't mention that), and I'd be damned if we were going to take an Uber.

So, I picked the first restaurant that we drove by. From the outside, it looked like a family-style fast casual place, like Cracker Barrel, but on the inside it turned out to be a very loud sports bar. They had a large dining room, so I thought that it would be quieter if we were seated in there, but the damn place had speakers everywhere. As a consequence of this, I could understand almost nothing that Helen said at dinner, and this was when she decided to become very chatty and to ask me a lot of questions.

Helen wasn't familiar with the restaurant's TGIF-style menu, so she asked me to pick out something for her. After confirming with some difficulty that she wasn't a vegetarian, I picked out the most benign offering I could find: steak tips and chicken tenders—practically a meal for a fussy kid—just to be safe. Helen ate one steak tip and one chicken tender and she was done. She wouldn't tell me that she didn't like it, and she wouldn't let me order something else for her. Again, I think that's how it happened, as I couldn't understand her.

I finished my meal as quickly as I could, given that Helen was shoveling her steak tips and tenders onto my plate. When the check came, Helen insisted on paying, then I insisted, then she insisted more, so **** it, I let her pay.

Now, it was half an hour before the shopping outlet closed, and a 20 minute drive to get there. I spent the next 10 minutes explaining that we were going to be too late for the outlet, and Helen was disappointed, again.

I drove Helen back to her hotel room. I'd had it with her, and I figured that she'd had it with me. I certainly would have been fed up with me by that point.

But no, Helen told me that she'd gotten me a room at the hotel as well, so that I could stay over. ****, ****, ****!

It turns out that Helen had rented a single suite with two bedrooms in it. I sat and talked with her in the suite for 30 minutes or so, but then I really wanted to leave, so badly. I did not want to sleep there.

If I had still been a drinking man, I might have elected to head down to the hotel bar and have a few with Helen and see where the night took us, but I was dead sober and dead tired of our outing, so I made up a lame excuse about wanting to get my Jeep fixed as early as possible (I did not get it fixed) and I left.

Over the last few weeks, Helen has texted me nearly every day, taking my curt, brusque responses as encouragement. She wants to move to Massachusetts. She loves the trees, and the countryside, and the architecture. She wants to buy a house here.

😀

Part III was by far the best one so far.
So much drama!
And a nice cliffhanger at the end!

She bought you dinner and you didn't at least give her a handy?

Holy crap! That's quite an adventure SJ.

agreed, poor form not giving her a handy before leaving

My complaint is even more nittier 😮🙄

kph is common enough to be included in the dictionary but doesn't pass the scrutiny for a scientific journal
which are we reading at the moment?

I agree with Dubnjoy000, km/h for the winner!
kph is for noobs! 😃

Thanks fellas!

And here's the Google AI explanation for the song. Good jorb, AI.

AI Overview
Learn more
…
The Who's song "Squeeze Box" is about the discomfort and unease of being in a social setting, and uses the term "squeezebox" as a metaphor to describe this feeling:
Meaning
The song's lyrics use the term "squeezebox" as a metaphor for the discomfort of being in a social setting.

Kph is easier to type, but I'll switch over to km/h, because k could really be a number of things. Km narrows it down better.

I'm back in Springfield, playing poker. So that's a start.

I won around $350 in a 4 hour session, with the help of $150 from the football promo, all blessings be upon it. I might return to the yearly cumulative tally and I'll just own the fact that I haven't made much money playing poker this year.

There's no real shame in it; I just need play better and run better.

Here's the progress on my media consumption plan. The ones marked with asterisks are in the current rotation.

Yes, Clerks III, Hot Tub Time Machine and Sausage Party are on the movie list. They don't all have to be highbrow masterpieces.

TV Shows
***30 Rock (7) 5,1
Alice in Borderland
American Horror Story
Arrested Development
Babylon 5
Baby Reindeer
Band of Brothers
Barry
The Beatles: Get Back
Bottom
Chernobyl
The Civil War
Cobra Kai
Cosmos
Community
Dark
Dark Winds
Devs
The Dirt
Doctor Who
Euphoria
Evil
Extras
Falling Skies
***Fargo 2,5
Farscape
Flashforward
Freaks and Geeks
Fringe
From
Hacks
Hit Monkey
Holey Moley
The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret
In The Know
Invincible
The John Larroquette Show
Justified
Killing Eve
Killjoys
Kingdom
The Larry Sanders Show
Lazarus Project
***Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power 2,3
Louie
Mad Men
Maniac
The Man in the High Castle
Mr. McMahon
NOS4A2
Orange Is the New Black
Only Murders in the Building
Our Flag Means Death
Ozark
Planet Earth
***Red Dwarf (12) 1,3
Ren Faire
Reservation Dogs
Rome
Russian Doll
The Sarah Silverman Program
Santa Clarita Diet
Schitt's Creek
Seinfeld
Severance
Shogun
Slow Horses
Sons of Anarchy
***The Sopranos (6) 4,11
Star Trek: Lower Decks
Sweet Home
Stargate: SG-1
Time Bandits
The Twilight Zone
***Twin Peaks 1,7
Under the Dome
The Vietnam War
X-Files
Watchmen
Westworld
The Wire
The Witcher

Caught Up or Finished TV
11.22.63 (Fin)
3 Body Problem (1,8)
American Gods (Fin)
Archer (Fin)
Better Call Saul (Fin)
Blackadder (Fin)
Bojack Horseman (Fin)
The Boys (4,8)
Bupkis (Fin)
Castle Rock (Fin)
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (Fin)
Conan O'Brien Must Go (1,4)
Delicious in Dungeon (1,24)
Disenchantment (Fin)
The Expanse (3,13) - reading the books first, vol 4 is next.
Fallout (1,8)
Fleabag (Fin)
Foundation (2,10)
Game of Thrones (Fin)
Good Omens (2,6)
The Good Place (Fin)
The Handmaid's Tale (5,10)
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law (Fin)
History of the World Part II (Fin)
I, Claudius (Fin)
The Last of Us (1,9)
Letterkenny (Fin)
Mike Judge Presents: Tales From the Tour Bus (Fin)
M.O.D.O.K. (Fin)
Mr. Robot (Fin)
The Orville (Fin)
The Queen's Gambit (Fin)
Rick and Morty (6,10)
Shoresy (3,6)
Squid Game (1,9)
Star Trek Picard (Fin)
Ted (1,7)
Ted Lasso (Fin)
w/Bob and David (Fin)
Wandavision (Fin)
Wednesday (1,8)
What We Do in the Shadows (5,10)
The Wheel of Time (2,8)

Shelved: Will Watch Occasionally
Andor (1,4)
Black Mirror (2,2)
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2,4)
My Next Guest Needs No Introduction (1,7)
The Office (1,4)
Parks & Recreation (2,7)
Stranger Things (3,5)
The Sandman (1,4)
Solar Opposites (1,4)
Trailer Park Boys (1,6)
Veep (1,5)

Movies
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
American Movie
Barton Fink
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Breathless
The Brothers Grimm
Casablanca
Casa Bonita Mi Amor
Clerks III
Deadpool & Wolverine
Dr. Sleep
The Hateful Eight
Hot Tub Time Machine
***It's A Wonderful Life
Jim Gaffigan: Dark Pale
Kingsman: The Secret Service
The Life of Chuck
The Magnificent Ambersons
Paths of Glory
The People vs. Larry Flynt
Rebel Ridge
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Sausage Party
The Searchers
The Sound of Music
Spaceballs
Sunset Boulevard
The Third Man
The Tin Drum
Trainspotting

Books
Hothouse, Brian Aldiss
Tiger Tiger, Alfred Bester
***Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Alfred Scudder Series, Lawrence Block
Cibola Burn, (The Expanse #4), James S.A. Corey
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin
The Mote in God's Eye, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge
Blindsight, Peter Watts

I just finished Game of Thrones and I have some quick thoughts on the widely-despised Season 8. I'll put them in a spoiler for anyone who hasn't seen the show but still wants to watch it someday.

Aside from that, I thought it was an okay season, and it didn't ruin the series for me. Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit.