Author: Graeme McMillan

I get the idea of pop culture nostalgia overriding critical faculties, believe me; as much as I get frustrated at seeing long-running comic book series turn into a series of seemingly never-ending re-runs and repetitions of previous successes — just today, Marvel announced the new X-Men series Inferno, which just so happens to share its name with the X-Men storyline from (checks notes) thirty-two years ago — I can’t deny that there are certain things that I grew up with that I find myself drawn to, over and over, in indefinable ways that I long to return to as an adult.

In almost every example of those things, though, it’s never actually a reboot or a retelling that I find myself craving. Whether it’s G.I. Joe, Transformers, or He-Man and the Masters of the Universe — I am a child of the ’80s, and happy to be so; I feel that it’s the highpoint of a kind of toy line that crossed over into cartoons and comics in a way that was both cynical for the times and effortlessly innocent in retrospect, and endlessly charming to me as a result — I never actually want to see a recreation of whatever I loved as a kid, and it’s also not enough to re-watch old cartoons and re-read old comics even with all the nostalgia that might bring.

(The old G.I. Joe comics in particular bring a lot of the old feelings back; in contrast, I find the old cartoons so bad that I’m almost pained to know that I liked them way back when.)

Instead, what I want is for something new — whether it’s new versions of stories with those characters and concepts, or something entirely new — to make me feel the same thing as I felt back when I was a kid and discovering these thing for the very first time.  That’s an impossible ask, I know, but ultimately, that’s what I’m nostalgic for, what I’m missing: A way to feel that sense of possibility and excitement again.

The heat has arrived in Portland, and with it, the inexplicable discomfort of realizing that there is nowhere comfortable to exist once the temperature reaches a particular point.

To be clear, I’m not talking about a minor heat; because Portland weather is a wonderful cornucopia of temperature at the best of times, we’ve somehow gone from days in the high sixties and low seventies with some clouds and occasional rain to, yesterday, full sun and nearly 100 degrees, with almost no ramp-up in-between. It’s as if someone turned a dial all the way after realizing that it’s June now, and that’s basically summer.

I don’t deal well with heat. I never have; I was a kid who spent summers indoors, lying on my back reading comics, because that way I could find some shade and keep myself from turning red and sweaty. (This wasn’t a family trait; at the first rumor of sun, my dad would strip down to short shorts and pretend that he was very interested in gardening so that he could be outside, ending every day looking like a boiled lobster.) As an adult, I like to think I’ve maintained a healthy distrust of getting sunburned, to the point of knowing when to stay inside for my own good.

But the heat, though. The heat.

I do not deal well with heat. I try my hardest; I drink lots of liquids, I hang around big box fans and look for any sign of breeze whenever possible, I stick my head in the freezer at irregular intervals whenever necessary — you know, the usual stuff. None of it helps, though; no matter what I do, my body responds to high temperatures in the same way: by surrendering entirely, losing all but the barest erg of energy, and covering me with a thin film of sweat as often as possible, no matter how often I try to douse myself in cold water.

When it gets sunny and warm, there’s nowhere I can go to find relief, it feels. Everywhere is just as uncomfortable and sweaty as I fear. All I can do is hope for good AC and a swift return to sensible temperatures.

I’ve hit my two weeks post-vaccination mark, which is at once a significant milestone and enough of a meaningless moment as to make me wonder why I feel quite so accomplished to have made it this far.

After all, getting to this point really doesn’t mean anything beyond the fact that I… haven’t died in the last two weeks…? Which, sure, is not a thing that I’m not grateful for, considering the alternative, but at the same time, it was far from something that required any active movement on my part. I literally just kept going about my business, and ended up here nonetheless.

The hard part, the bit that required effort on my part — and even then, not that much effort, considering — came a fortnight ago, when I actually got my second shot. (Calling it an effort on my part feels more than a little self-serving, given that I just sat there and grimaced as the lab tech did everything, but still.) At the time, though, I felt as if any self-congratulating was premature; there was the possibility of side-effects and any other complications ahead, so I allowed myself a couple of minutes of gratitude and moved on to more important matters. What this really means, though, is that I haven’t really allowed myself to feel good about this whole vaccination experience.

Maybe that’s for the good. I mean, I’m not sure what it really means, on a practical level — I still wear a mask in public around other people, and to be honest, I don’t feel like that’s going to change anytime soon…? (Sorry, CDC guidelines; the combination of my anxiety and not wanting to make others nervous wins out, instead.)

I understand that I am, at least in theory, unlikely to contract COVID again, and that this means I’m more likely to be able to see people in person again, but beyond that vague promise, I’m left wondering quite why two weeks out feels like quite the thing that it somehow does. Congratulations to me, I guess.

There’s something to be said for the aftereffects of good news.

I got the go-ahead for a work thing last week that I… wasn’t really expecting? That might not be entirely accurate, but it was one of those things that you pitch half-convinced that it’ll never happen, and then the response was so fast and so enthusiastic that the first reaction is to think, wow, I don’t think I could have imagined that going any better.

What made this such a positive experience wasn’t just that I got a paid gig out of it — nor that it’s a paid gig at a new outlet, although that’s lovely in and of itself — but that the entire experience left me feeling as if I should try and repeat it elsewhere, and pitch to more outlets that I’ve never written for, just in case history repeats in some magical, unlikely way.

It took a day or so for that to sink in, admittedly, and it did so in a slow manner; there wasn’t an instant of clarity that I really could pitch anywhere just to see what happened. (If nothing else, if that had happened, I’m sure I would have immediately thought, well, obviously, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.) Instead, it was this deliberate, glacial reveal of, “well, if that worked even though you thought it wasn’t going to… then… what if…?”

The upshot of this is that I’ve already sent off a pitch that is almost certainly going to be either rejected or ignored — while I’m certainly feeling more confident about such things, I’m also not entirely unrealistic about them, and pessimism runs deep in my bones when it comes to this topic — while also applying to a job that a couple of people had quietly suggested I should throw my hat into the ring for.

It’s possible that none of these things will work out, but there’s a happiness in at least believing for a second that they might not be entirely outside the realm of possibility after all.

It’s been a busy week, with a lot of moving pieces — more moving pieces than I’ve had in a long time — and I’ve found myself exhausted and dizzy than usual as a result. Not necessarily in a bad way, I should add, but as it approaches the end of the week, I’m left feeling somewhat dazed by everything that’s been going on.

Some of that makes sense; I had a number of work irons in the fire this week, and I added another one because I am both stupid and need the money. (It is, however, something so surreal and unexpected and fun that I’m kind of delighted to make myself that little bit busier; when it happens, it’ll be clear what I’m talking about.) I knew, going into Monday, that I’d be especially busy this week, so it’s not as if that came as a surprise.

Instead, there’s the part that is a surprise, and perhaps a little nonsensical, as well: I felt overwhelmed by the choice of entertainment available to me when I wasn’t working. Thanks to a number of welcome coincidences, I found myself with a bunch of ARCs of things I wanted to read all at once, and the freedom to read whichever I wanted to — and I felt almost paralyzed by that fact. (So much so, in fact, that I spent an evening reading other things entirely, because it seemed easier in some inexplicable way. Alas, my poor brain.)

This is to say nothing of the number of things that I want to watch when slumped in front of the television in the evening, with Legendary and Top Chef both back, and shows like Hacks or the many movies I have cued up all waiting for my attention if and when I’m ready for them.

The problem for me, apparently, is choice — both in terms of entertainment and what I’m working on that particular day; when I have to get something done, I can just settle in and handle it. If I get to decide for myself what to focus on, that’s when the problems begin.

My laptop is dying. I know this because, roughly 18 months after my O key decided to detach itself from the keyboard on a flight to Brazil — the same flight that my phone decided to start off-gassing, as it happens, although I wouldn’t realize that was exactly what was happening for another few months — the S key has decided that it’ll only work roughly fifty percent of the time that I hit it. What’s that old saying…? “One key stops working, shame on me, two keys stop working, Apple’s keyboards are a pile of shit…?” Something like that.

The thing is, I planned on getting a new laptop for myself some time ago; I remember thinking before the end of last year that I would probably do it just after the holidays, when I (foolishly) believed that work would be settling down and I’d be building up something close to savings again. I knew it was only a matter of time before the other keys decided that they should follow the O into something approaching a state of disrepair, if not outright abandonment of the keyboard, and I wanted to get ahead of the curve. I just need to wait until I feel a little bit more solvent, I thought. We know how that worked out.

The thing is, there are so many words that require the S key, and the way I type — a way that more than a few people have pointed out is ludicrous and unnatural, like watching a particularly adept caveman at the keyboard — means that I don’t always realize what letters are missing before I’ve already moved on to the next word. The end result is that everything just takes longer to finish now, because I find myself having to go back and correct things, realizing that I didn’t really type “myhelf” in that last bit because I know there’s no such word, but who knows if and when the S key actually want to do what it’s told.

If things get much worse, maybe I can just handwrite everything and take photos. How bad could that be?

By the time you read this, I’ll have received my second shot of the COVID vaccine; I’m Team Moderna, and I love that people are so especially invested in which brand of vaccine everyone is getting, as if it’s a fandom or a sport. It’s been something that’s loomed large in my life for the last week or so, not for the obvious reasons — you know, that whole “actually being vaccinated against the virus at the heart of a terrifying global pandemic that has changed life across the globe for the last fifteen months” thing — but because I’ve been all too aware of the after effects that the second shot is meant to produce.

It’s not that I’m surprised by the idea that I’ll get a small case of COVID; I get how vaccines work, after all. No, what’s got me all anxious is the question of how small that case will be. I’ve heard enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that it’s basically a 24-hour return for your previous actual COVID experience, as mild or as strong as that was — and that’s not a particularly exciting prospect for someone who’s sure they had it pretty bad for a few days back when this all started.

The odd thing, though, is how this has weighed on me all week, the foreknowledge that I’ll probably be sick on Saturday. I’ve been consciously and subconsciously preparing for it, or at least trying to, the best I can — clearing my schedule, ensuring there are things to read and/or watch in case I’m bedbound, that kind of thing — and, all the time, thinking to myself about how strange it is to know you’re not going to be healthy for once. Short of surgery and it’s subsequent recovery, when do you get to do that, otherwise…?

I have, unintentionally, found myself unable to think past Saturday at this point, as if I’ll get sick and that’s it. I know there’s a next week that follows, and then another and another and another and so on, but right now, my internal timeline stretches as far as being in bed tomorrow and hoping I get better. See you on the other side.