Au Courant Cultural Imperatives

[mallorys_camera]

Baaaaad time of year. At this point in my life, I'd rather be savoring the moments, sprinkling them with imagination, stretching them out. But instead, all I can do is hunker down, stare out a window at the pitiless winter landscape, reassure myself, This, too, shall pass.

I'll want those moments back when I'm dying, that's for sure.

###

Meanwhile, it didn't snow all day yesterday, but it might as well have because the part of the day it didn't snow was spent reading the sky, testing the wind, waiting for it to snow.

I did a bit of Useful Work and a useless tax class on Zoom—hey! they're paying me. Played around some with the Work in Progress and unwittingly solved a transition problem before it could turn into awkward prose. Did not exercise, which is possibly why I could not break the gloomy mood.

###

Finished I Have Some Questions for You. Boarding school books must be an actual literary genre! This one is not near the top of the list. The protagonist is a celebrity because she helms a successful podcast. And I'm thinking, Really??? I mean, there are celebrity podcasters, but mostly they were celebrities before they became podcasters; they are leveraging their celebrity to carry the podcast, right?

The protagonist has this gurgley, chick-lit voice, which is wrong, wrong, wrong for a murder mystery. The basic conceit of the book (actually kinda interesting) is that the real murderer, the figure emerging from the shadows, is the teacher who had an affair with the murder victim, the same sympathetic teacher who devoted energy to bringing the protagonist out of her adolescent shell. Except this proves to be a misfire! So, what we're left with at the end of the book is that the titular You behaved... inappropriately. And those kinds of transgressions are less moral absolutes than violations of au courant cultural imperatives.

###

Speaking of au courant cultural imperatives...

In the evening, I watched multiple episodes of the real estate bling show, Owning Manhattan.

And fell into despair!

How do people end up spending $250 million on an apartment?

The $300 heating oil bill for me this month is gonna be tough to pay!

What kind of an abysmal, absolute failure am I that I can't spend $250 million on an apartment? That I can't even spend 50¢ on an apartment?

Why does money have so many zeroes in it now?

Plus, the Upper West Side that I grew up in is practically unrecognizable now. What did they have to tear down to build the great glass tower at 200 Amsterdam? I was scouring my memory. What used to be there? And suddenly this visual sense memory just rushed in: Annie's old apartment on W. 68th and the little diner next door to it, I could see the breakfast plates now, practically smell them: the sunny-side up eggs floating in a little pool of grease, the crunchy hashbrowns, the thick white china plates...

What will happen to that $250 million apartment in 100 years? Will it still be the apex of luxury living? It can't possibly be, right? The cycle is the Ozymandias Factor, boom then bust, palaces dissolving into tenaments.

But I can't even wrap my head around what comes next.

Comments

[puddleshark]

Why does money have so many zeroes in it now?

Ha! That really does sum it up.

Here too, property has become a game of mad speculation. The days of ordinary people having a long-term stable home, no matter how humble - those days have ended, thanks to the political choices made by my generation.

Gorgeous pictures. I know you hate the snow, but your pictures of it are just so beautiful!

[mallorys_camera]

The housing crisis in the States is huge. Private equity is buying up all the rental stock.

[michaelboy]

It will pass and that in itself is what I love in all seasons. It reminds me why I am alive. I'm strange, I know.

[mallorys_camera]

Not so strange. 😀

I think I'm probably stranger because I simply loathe every aspect of winter and would cheerfully hibernate through it if I could.

[fuzzilla]

Since I have to have dental work done I called about ACA insurance. They were like, “yeah, that’ll be $1200 a month.” How the fuck is that affordable?? I went with just dental and vision for $60 a month, which will get me a 30% discount. Not shocking that health care sux but I didn’t realize how much. I remember that shit used to be like $40 a month. But now America is Great Again. 🙄. (Sorry I relate so well to the bad moods instead of being the, “but look to the sunshine” gal).

[mallorys_camera]

Dental insurance generally covers preventative treatments (checkups, teeth cleaning, etc) rather than treatment procedures. And yeah—it isn't cheap.

[fauxklore]

Even when it does cover treatment, their definition of usual and customary fees is less than half what any dentist actually charges. I opted not to get dental insurance when I retired because it just didn't make financial sense.

[smokingboot]

I never understood money, but now nobody else understands it either so at least I'm not alone. Houses are easier to understand. But the property market in the UK is the nearest thing I've ever seen to a mass hallucination.

I hope the weather is better by now, and you can get out XXX

[mallorys_camera]

What I'd say is that I don't understand the karma around money, and I've never been able to motivate myself to make going after it a priority—which now that I am in impecunious old age I see was immensely short-sighted. Sigh...

The karma of money

[smokingboot]

I don't get it either. North Node in second house means I should be better with money than I am (another reason to mistrust astrology! :-D ) but lack of mathematical ability always made money really daunting for me, and it bored me too. I've been fortunate in the company of those with a firmer grasp on the subject.