The Coming Olive Oil Shortage
Aug. 6th, 2022 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_camera1970 and 2022 are as far apart as 1970 and 1918.
And 1952 and 2022 are as far apart as 1952 and 1882.
###
This is the most staggering part of growing old for me: That events that are vibrant and clear and detailed in my mind are actually part of a dim receding past.
The way it seems to work is that chronological pulse points have a mini-renaissance of nostalgic relevance around the 40-year mark but after that get consigned to a grey amorphous ash heap labeled “The Past” that absolutely nobody gives a shit about.
Every point in the past is equivalent. There really is no difference between 1970 and 1918.
They’re both… The Past.
Except there is a difference because I remember 1970 oh-so-vividly.
What’s relevant to me, therefore, is increasingly irrelevant to the world around me.
This makes it easier to let go of the world around me, I suppose.
###
Ben used to be very proud of the fact that he listened to a lot of music of recent provenance.
He’d play it for me. Sometimes give me flash drives filled with new artists.
“So what did you think?” he’d ask.
And I would smile vaguely, shake my head in amazement. “So good,” I’d say.
But I never listened to it. I mean, why would I? There are just so many slots in my brain reserved for music, and they’ve been filled up already, and if I wanted to put more music into my brain, I’d have to empty out some of what’s already there. And I don’t want to do that.
Plus music is kind of like people. I’ve horrified any number of people over the years by confiding to them that, at some very basic level, all people—save fewer than I can count on my fingers—are interchangeable to me. That I have slots in my brain—Wise Friend, Snarky Friend, Friend With Whom I Can Discuss Keynesian Economics—and that at any given moment, I will find someone to conscript into each of those slots. And it’s not the person who’s important to me. It’s the slot.
“But that’s so cold,” my confidante might exclaim.
Is it cold?
I think it’s just candid.
I don’t know if it’s like that for everyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah—everybody’s base religion is faith in their own exceptionalism. But even making allowances for that, I kinda know I think differently from most other people. Maybe for other people, social relationships aren’t that transactional.
But they are for me.
Of course, candor rarely pays off in human conversation. So these days, I only confide such transgressive thoughts to yew-w-w-w-w-w-w, Dear Diary!
###
What else?
Most interesting thing that happened yesterday was a peal of thunder so enormous that it shook the house.
But it wasn’t followed by rain.
The drought in the Hudson Valley isn’t anywhere as significant as it is in many other parts of the country—or the world for that matter. But after 10 straight days of 90°+ heat, it’s definitely having an effect.
Lawns are brown.
Leaves on shrubs are yellowing.
My tomatoes have developed Septoria.
“The next big shortage will be olive oil,” Claude told me yesterday. “The olive groves in Italy and Spain and Greece? They are dying.”
And 1952 and 2022 are as far apart as 1952 and 1882.
###
This is the most staggering part of growing old for me: That events that are vibrant and clear and detailed in my mind are actually part of a dim receding past.
The way it seems to work is that chronological pulse points have a mini-renaissance of nostalgic relevance around the 40-year mark but after that get consigned to a grey amorphous ash heap labeled “The Past” that absolutely nobody gives a shit about.
Every point in the past is equivalent. There really is no difference between 1970 and 1918.
They’re both… The Past.
Except there is a difference because I remember 1970 oh-so-vividly.
What’s relevant to me, therefore, is increasingly irrelevant to the world around me.
This makes it easier to let go of the world around me, I suppose.
###
Ben used to be very proud of the fact that he listened to a lot of music of recent provenance.
He’d play it for me. Sometimes give me flash drives filled with new artists.
“So what did you think?” he’d ask.
And I would smile vaguely, shake my head in amazement. “So good,” I’d say.
But I never listened to it. I mean, why would I? There are just so many slots in my brain reserved for music, and they’ve been filled up already, and if I wanted to put more music into my brain, I’d have to empty out some of what’s already there. And I don’t want to do that.
Plus music is kind of like people. I’ve horrified any number of people over the years by confiding to them that, at some very basic level, all people—save fewer than I can count on my fingers—are interchangeable to me. That I have slots in my brain—Wise Friend, Snarky Friend, Friend With Whom I Can Discuss Keynesian Economics—and that at any given moment, I will find someone to conscript into each of those slots. And it’s not the person who’s important to me. It’s the slot.
“But that’s so cold,” my confidante might exclaim.
Is it cold?
I think it’s just candid.
I don’t know if it’s like that for everyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah—everybody’s base religion is faith in their own exceptionalism. But even making allowances for that, I kinda know I think differently from most other people. Maybe for other people, social relationships aren’t that transactional.
But they are for me.
Of course, candor rarely pays off in human conversation. So these days, I only confide such transgressive thoughts to yew-w-w-w-w-w-w, Dear Diary!
###
What else?
Most interesting thing that happened yesterday was a peal of thunder so enormous that it shook the house.
But it wasn’t followed by rain.
The drought in the Hudson Valley isn’t anywhere as significant as it is in many other parts of the country—or the world for that matter. But after 10 straight days of 90°+ heat, it’s definitely having an effect.
Lawns are brown.
Leaves on shrubs are yellowing.
My tomatoes have developed Septoria.
“The next big shortage will be olive oil,” Claude told me yesterday. “The olive groves in Italy and Spain and Greece? They are dying.”
