putting the j in jjosh » meme

putting the j in jjosh

putting the j in jjosh

hi from Wales!

October 2nd, 2019

Just wanted to send out a big hello to Sue Hancock in Wales who might be checking in on the blog. In other news, I’ve been clicking on the antique blogroll on the side just to see which links are still working, and it’s somewhat interesting that a lot of them go to blogs that haven’t been updated since 2008, which is also right about when Facebook really took off. Was Twitter around then? Instagram? Let’s see…ok, looks like Twitter was 2006, so was still pretty early, and Instagram not until 2010.

I remember reading an article on Twitter relatively early on, in Wired I think, where the writer started off as very skeptical that he would connect with it. But by the end of the article, he’s waxing about how Twitter is a river and you basically just dip your toe in whenever you want. It never connected with me I gotta say, but I can see how people would be into it. Same with Insta — there was a long time where I was posting the pics from my phone to this blog (via the now-defunct pixelpipe) and feeling really good about it. But there’s something about that infinite scroll on Insta that does seem to mess with my head. I find myself looking through it without really meaning to, you know? Nothing new there, same thing we talk about with our friends, or read articles about.

Although, there’s been a slight difference recently as my 14 year-old daughter is now on Instagram, so it’s been fascinating to see her pictures (what is life like for a 14 year-old in Norway!!!) and her adopting the tropes of social media personas (“love my life”, etc). I wonder when the kids will discover this blog, if ever?

internet meme: wound

June 3rd, 2008

My favorite wound:

I was 16, working as a prep cook at The Rustic Inn and one night I had to train a new cook. I can’t remember the woman’s name, but she was nice enough, I guess. One of the things we prep cooks were responsible for was to slice a load of ham and swiss for the evening’s Chicken Cordon Bleus. I was showing her how to work the slicer, which was one of those classic, giant deli slicers with the rotating blade and metal handle to hold whatever you’re slicing.

It wasn’t going very well. I was trying to demonstrate to her exactly how to slice it, what thickness to set the blade to and so on, but the cheese kept kind of sliding out of the handle mechanism. So I, playing it cool, was all like "Of course, sometimes the handle won’t hold it, so you just sort of use your hand to keep it steady." And I reached up and held it with my left hand. 

On the next slice, my hand went too far and the outside of my left pinky finger slid into the slicer. It was so quick, sharp, and smooth that I didn’t even notice what was happening for a second. I think I only realized what was happening when I saw the blood spin around the rotating blade and splatter the cheese. Ick. I pulled my hand back quickly, and saw that it hadn’t gone all the way through, that the skin was still attached.

"Umm, no problem, you know, no big deal…"

"Are you sure? It kind of looks pretty bad…"

And I grabbed some paper towel and wrapped it around my finger, where it quickly became blood-soaked. My finger didn’t hurt at all, but my humiliation at looking like an idiot was acute.

When it healed it scarred over very strangely.

Many years later, when I learned what the word hubris meant, I was able to retroactively categorize many incidents in my life as pertaining to hubris. This was one of them.