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Of the Gaza Strip and Auxilliary Jacks
Oct. 9th, 2023 11:29 amSo, the Forever War is straining its bubble in a second spot.
This spot, I’m thinking, the fresh one in the Gaza Strip, is far more likely to go nuclear than that other one, the one in Ukraine, which at this point—at least, at this remove from the front lines—seems to have devolved into a waiting game: When Putin finally drops dead, all will be well.
It was a sad, sad day for Israel when Rabin was assassinated. And they keep installing fuckin’ Netanyahu as prime minister.
Woke up in the middle of the night just seized with anxiety over the situation.
Although, in the interests of full disclosure, yesterday kinda primed me for anxiety.
###
Like most women my age, I have Fear of the Black Box—which is my code phrase for any problem involving machines and equipment.
The way I listen to music in my car is by plugging my phone into an auxiliary jack.
And yesterday, the module the auxiliary jack plugs into somehow wiggled loose from the spot it was supposed to be in.
So, I took a deep breath. Worked the plastic top sheltering the actual module off—obvious to you, maybe; difficult for me—shined my flashlight down on the thing. Spied the green top of the module. Okay! So, it just needs to kinda be lifted.
Took another deep breath.
Even you can do this, girlfriend! reassured myself.
Grabbed my needle-nosed pliers and attempted to lift the damn thing.
And succeeded in knocking it on its side.
Ensued frantic hours of Googling. There’s remarkably little out there on solving this particular challenge, though if I wanted—say—to find out why Taylor Swift is the ultimate pop phenomenon (fuck you, Beyonce), I would have been rewarded with 1.3 billion websites.
I don’t want to take the whole center console apart is the thing. Even assuming that I could.
Because even if I could take the whole thing apart, I would never be able to put it back together.
###
What an absolutely pedestrian, boring problem, right?
But driving without something to listen to is no fun at all.
Plus it kinda underlined how absolutely alone I am in the world. And therefore vulnerable.
Women with male partners can just shunt this kind of thing on the resident male. It’s the tacit division of labor in most male/female relationships.
###
I can’t even know if I have to replace the damn unit until I can actually see the damn unit!
But anyway.
Buff Ken said he would look at it after pickleball. So, maybe he has the right tool (and manual dexterity) to fish it out.
And somewhere in the midst of my Googling, I discovered Best Buy’s Geek Squad, which maybe can deal with stuff like this—my Biggest Dilemma having been, If I can’t do it myself, who do I take it to? An auto body shop (because they would know about dismantling the console if that’s what has to be done) or an audio sound shop (because they would know about auxiliary jack modules.)
I’m sure there is a solution, and the solution is not as hard as my frantic imagination makes it out to be.
But such attempts by the more rational parts of my brain to calm the lizard brain’s clicking and squeaking don’t really work well. I feel helpless. Vulnerable. Superfluous.
Primed for anxiety in the middle of the night.
###
Back to geopolitics:
Seems pretty obvious that the two-state solution is the only one that works. At least temporarily.
But we are living in an increasingly accelerated world. If “temporarily” only extends for the next 25 years, that’s a win.
Not the Netanyahu version of the two-state solution, of course.
Though it should be obvious to everyone that the misery of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip is equaled if not surpassed by the misery of Yemen’s inhabitants (perpetuated by Saudi Arabia.)
That you hear so much squawking from the American progressive left about Palestine but hardly a squeak about Yemen is evidence of antisemitism in my mind.
War means failure to me.
Failure of anything that makes humans worthy of admiration—ethics, compassion, intelligence, imagination.
What does the sacrifice of lives ever accomplish?
Not a fucking thing.
Though part of me—it’s true—totally supports Israel in slaughtering every last man, woman, and child in the Gaza Strip and nuking Tehran.
That part of me is the same lizard brain that gets hysterical and goes to pieces when the auxiliary jack in my car goes on the fritz.
This spot, I’m thinking, the fresh one in the Gaza Strip, is far more likely to go nuclear than that other one, the one in Ukraine, which at this point—at least, at this remove from the front lines—seems to have devolved into a waiting game: When Putin finally drops dead, all will be well.
It was a sad, sad day for Israel when Rabin was assassinated. And they keep installing fuckin’ Netanyahu as prime minister.
Woke up in the middle of the night just seized with anxiety over the situation.
Although, in the interests of full disclosure, yesterday kinda primed me for anxiety.
###
Like most women my age, I have Fear of the Black Box—which is my code phrase for any problem involving machines and equipment.
The way I listen to music in my car is by plugging my phone into an auxiliary jack.
And yesterday, the module the auxiliary jack plugs into somehow wiggled loose from the spot it was supposed to be in.
So, I took a deep breath. Worked the plastic top sheltering the actual module off—obvious to you, maybe; difficult for me—shined my flashlight down on the thing. Spied the green top of the module. Okay! So, it just needs to kinda be lifted.
Took another deep breath.
Even you can do this, girlfriend! reassured myself.
Grabbed my needle-nosed pliers and attempted to lift the damn thing.
And succeeded in knocking it on its side.
Ensued frantic hours of Googling. There’s remarkably little out there on solving this particular challenge, though if I wanted—say—to find out why Taylor Swift is the ultimate pop phenomenon (fuck you, Beyonce), I would have been rewarded with 1.3 billion websites.
I don’t want to take the whole center console apart is the thing. Even assuming that I could.
Because even if I could take the whole thing apart, I would never be able to put it back together.
###
What an absolutely pedestrian, boring problem, right?
But driving without something to listen to is no fun at all.
Plus it kinda underlined how absolutely alone I am in the world. And therefore vulnerable.
Women with male partners can just shunt this kind of thing on the resident male. It’s the tacit division of labor in most male/female relationships.
###
I can’t even know if I have to replace the damn unit until I can actually see the damn unit!
But anyway.
Buff Ken said he would look at it after pickleball. So, maybe he has the right tool (and manual dexterity) to fish it out.
And somewhere in the midst of my Googling, I discovered Best Buy’s Geek Squad, which maybe can deal with stuff like this—my Biggest Dilemma having been, If I can’t do it myself, who do I take it to? An auto body shop (because they would know about dismantling the console if that’s what has to be done) or an audio sound shop (because they would know about auxiliary jack modules.)
I’m sure there is a solution, and the solution is not as hard as my frantic imagination makes it out to be.
But such attempts by the more rational parts of my brain to calm the lizard brain’s clicking and squeaking don’t really work well. I feel helpless. Vulnerable. Superfluous.
Primed for anxiety in the middle of the night.
###
Back to geopolitics:
Seems pretty obvious that the two-state solution is the only one that works. At least temporarily.
But we are living in an increasingly accelerated world. If “temporarily” only extends for the next 25 years, that’s a win.
Not the Netanyahu version of the two-state solution, of course.
Though it should be obvious to everyone that the misery of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip is equaled if not surpassed by the misery of Yemen’s inhabitants (perpetuated by Saudi Arabia.)
That you hear so much squawking from the American progressive left about Palestine but hardly a squeak about Yemen is evidence of antisemitism in my mind.
War means failure to me.
Failure of anything that makes humans worthy of admiration—ethics, compassion, intelligence, imagination.
What does the sacrifice of lives ever accomplish?
Not a fucking thing.
Though part of me—it’s true—totally supports Israel in slaughtering every last man, woman, and child in the Gaza Strip and nuking Tehran.
That part of me is the same lizard brain that gets hysterical and goes to pieces when the auxiliary jack in my car goes on the fritz.
