New Year

2024: The Story So Far

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A rumor went around recently that I had died. At first I thought, “Why hadn’t anyone contacted me to ask?” but then I realized how silly it would be to call a dead person and inquire if he is dead.

* * * *
I learned yesterday that I am not dead. This was not news to me, as my Sunday morning activities carried most of the evidence of a living human life as lived by me: I was frustrated once again by one of my local coffeeshops.

A question/rant before I continue: Is the overfilling of take-out coffee orders something local to where I reside, or is this a new practice at coffeeshops everywhere?

Some months ago I noticed that at the moment the large or venti paper coffee cup is placed gently in my hand by a genial server and I turn around to leave the counter area, this minimal movement of my body converts the venti into a grande as the scalding hot coffee douses my hand through the hole in the plastic lid—even with a plastic stopper installed by the genial server. This started to happen to me (or for me, to make something positive out of it) at multiple coffeeshops here and in other local cities last autumn. Coffeeshops have started to fill cups close to the top and then add cream to bring the whole thing to the top. Last week, I inaugurated a new practice: I would ask with my out-loud voice if the server would please not overfill or would please dump out some of the coffee rather than fill it to the rim. For non-scientific purposes, I report to you that this has worked one out of two times so far, and yesterday was not that time.

I knew I was alive because my hand was scalded and smelled like a medium roast, but I did not know that I am not dead until I was told.
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Four Homes, One Beard: 2022

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Oh, and I grew a beard this past month for the first time in my life. I should have led all this with THAT news.

* * * *
Last month I posted my annual birthday essay in which I searched for a possible correspondence between my age and the equivalent element on the periodic table; this year I am 54, and xenon is the 54th element.

As I explained, it is an idea that I credit to the late Dr. Oliver Sacks from one of the last essays, “My Periodic Table,” (here’s the link; subscription required) that he published before his death.

Some friends took me out to dinner the night before my birthday, which was very kind, and one of them asked me whether I had written anything recently. Whenever I live a year like 2022, the one we are about to see off, a year in which I wrote little and published less, I will admit to you that my replies to this friendly question can sometimes make me sound like a job applicant who knows there is nothing he can say to win the job: for several months in 2022 my answer has been, “No, I haven’t written much, but I’ve been learning how to edit video …” and my voice would trail off in the direction that I perceived my questioner’s attention had drifted off toward.

But on my birthday, I had indeed written something, and I explained the age=element concept to my friends, several of whom are between the ages of 24-30, and told them that this is a series that I have undertaken for several years. It elicited the unmistakable sounds of their approval for my clever brain: an “ooooohhhh” seemed to come from each one of them.

And then one of them asked, “How many more elements are there? Are there enough?”
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A Year Concludes

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

When HBO’s John Oliver “blew up” 2020 for viewers of his comedy commentary show Last Week Tonight last year, I actually grew teary-eyed, which is perhaps not the reaction he and his staff might have wanted from the average viewer, but it is understandable, I think: 2020 was difficult for each one of us in ways unique to each one of us.

That endless year had featured several deaths of family, friends, acquaintances, and my father’s death of COVID in the first wave of the pandemic, as well as the first of many responses to the pandemic: lockdowns, local businesses shuttered, friends and family on video calls, recovery meetings on video, funerals on video, the first tentative steps out of lockdown (a cosmetologist friend came here to cut my hair a few times), experimentation with mask styles, and the wait for a conclusion that we would all know was a conclusion and/or new start whenever we might see it. Oh! and there was an national election campaign followed by a constitutional nightmare.

The year before this one also saw the start of a creative collaboration that continues to this day (new video up this evening!), which is probably only just beginning even after almost two years.

So when Mr. Oliver blew up 2020, I grew teary-eyed. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I get choked-up quite easily, and the signs of an imminent cry are obvious: my voice cracks, sniffles start, my eyes darken. And then nothing happens. The emotional explosion never comes, unlike the John Oliver’s farewell to 2020 (Last Week Tonight had run the same joke before, but 2020’s goodbye was a bit bigger):
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