Atom Bomb of Sadness

I’ve been trying to write this for the last few days and I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it. I just kept breaking down. There was just too much sadness. In trying to find the right words to discuss my devastation, I shed so many tears that even the Word document on my laptop somehow got soaked and I had to update my operating system.

 

You know what I’m talking about. It’s Adele’s new single.

 

I can say without exaggeration that it’s the saddest thing that ever happened in modern history. It’s as if they shot Old Yeller during the saddest part of Princess Diana’s funeral. It’s sadder than a mash-up of commercials for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and Sarah McLachlan pet adoptions. It’s like the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb of sadness on everyone in the world and that bomb was the sound of Adele’s wailing voice shattered into 8 billion pieces but each piece somehow has the same amount of sadness as the whole.

 

I mean, you thought “Someone Like You” made you collapse into a pit of despair and stalking? The new one makes that sound like “Everything Is Awesome” from the Lego Movie. You think you sighed a billion sighs over lost love when you listened to “Hello”? This new song will have you sigh so hard, your esophagus will bleed and you’ll need an oxygen tank. You think you know sadness, just from deaths and other heartbreaks in your own life? Nah. Baby, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet.

 

I had a hard time even listening to Adele’s latest. Just brushing my fingers past the play button on my phone put a lump the size of Greenland in my throat. I finally pulled myself together enough to push play and when I heard the first few notes, I was sobbing—just sobbing. Crying ugly. Big, whooping, honking, embarrassing tears. It was like being in permanent therapy and having every breakthrough at once. After a year and half of tragedy and isolation, every single person in the world needed this catharsis.

 

Anyway, it took me all weekend to listen to the song since my keening would drown out the music and I’d have to start again. This was inconvenient since I went to a remote spot in the woods to listen so I could just keep collapsing to my knees and screaming, so nobody would be around to call the cops. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to listen to it at home.

 

Man, if we’re this emotional now, can you imagine a whole album of this? A whole album of sad ballads by Adele?! We’re going to be so dehydrated from crying, we’ll need an IV. This song and album will definitely sweep the Grammys. Of course, we may have a hard time hearing the winner’s name through all that sobbing and howling by the announcers. Maybe they could hire robots to announce. But then the emotions of the music would cause the robots to have self-awareness, and then they’d cry, too.

 

There is simply no way to overstate any of this. Every chord is a family member’s funeral. I am proud to lend my voice to those on social media who are expressing the hysterical tears that come with any new Adele song. But my review is the most florid! Notice me! Pay attention to me! Push me to the top of the Google search results! SOB.

Haunted House

You walk up to the house a few hours after dark and see someone has left a light on in the bedroom. Either you’ve watched too many horror movies, or you’re too stressed out by the last few months, but you wonder if there’s somebody still in the house. They told you they were gone and the keys were in the mailbox where they promised, but you still feel uneasy.

 

In the living room you see their cracked and ruined leather couch, half-used bottles of mustard still on it. There are disassembled coffee tables, a desk with scattered papers, speakers unconnected to anything, a portable heater, and decorative mirrors on the wall. There is a clock still set to the manufacturer’s time of 10:10, as if they’d never had the heart to set it. Cleaning products are scattered around the room—though none used on the hardwood floor, which has a sticky black goop all over it.

 

The empty packing boxes give it away. The same boxes were there two months ago when you were here last. They just took off and left their stuff behind for you to clean up. It’s all abandoned furniture and plastic bags full of crap.

 

What else did they leave behind? It’s late and you’re afraid to go down the basement—too many horror movies. You calm your heartbeat and walk down the stairs, unable to see what is around the corner until you get to the bottom.

 

There’s no demon or vampire or dead body or vengeful tenant to greet you. Just the more ordinary horrors people leave behind. Ruined exercise equipment and luggage. Bags of clothes. Unwanted hardbacks, books on languages, and school materials. An overturned wooded box spills out tiny earrings and baubles. Then you spot dogshit smeared on the basement floor, and your sadness and pity begin to curdle into anger.

 

Something tells you to look in the fridge. It’s room temperature inside and who knows how long it’s been that way. Inside it’s crammed with spoiled food. It’s almost-full bottles of salad dressing, sriracha sauce, wedges of fancy cheese, whipped cream, and a tray topped with aluminum foil that you couldn’t be paid to unpeel and look at. On the counter is a carton of Ben and Jerry’s. Just left there.

 

The fridge must have died and rather than tell you, they must have closed it for all time like a tomb. Your anger rises and rises. The next morning, you will throw it all in trash bags and stomp down to the curb with them. One bag will drip something unspeakable onto the kitchen floor and another bag will break in the driveway. And you will curse these filthy, inconsiderate pigs.

 

Upstairs, you find that of course nobody is still in the house. Somebody just left a lamp on with the shade askew. The bed and furniture are all still there, sheets still on the mattress. More furniture in the other bedrooms. On the floor is more black stuff that may or may not be able to be cleaned.

 

So they’re finally gone. Nobody is still in the house but you’re still unaccountably creeped out. You almost think you hear sounds, like someone moving in another room. It’s probably just the neighbors or the house settling. It can’t be ghosts, right? That would be ridiculous.

 

But there are always ghosts in one form or another, aren’t there? The ghost of us whiling away an ordinary evening watching TV while a cat purred on one of our laps. The ghost of everyone gathered near the light of the Christmas tree while the windows fogged with the steam from a crock pot and the warmth of us all together. The ghost of sitting on the deck watching a thunderstorm roll in from the west, planning and hoping we’d someday have a better view out back than power lines and a stray shopping cart.

 

And there is always something to haunt us. If you’d done something different, would this not have ended in squalor and chaos? Should you have been more vigilant? This whole house—this septic wound—could haunt you and drag you down with it if you let it.

 

So you will not. You will take dripping bags of trash out to the curb. You will scrub the floor on hands and knees. You will make the calls and deals you need to make. You will fix what you had neglected. You will give the next person the keys and walk away with something and plan bigger and better things in the place that really matters.  

I could die without regretting that I never did the following things

Tweet

Own a gun

Listen to a Joe Rogan podcast

TikTok

Go camping

Listen to a Taylor Swift album

Engage with anyone in the Kardashian or Jenner families at any level, in any capacity, or devote more than a stray, involuntary thought to any of them

Invest in cryptocurrency

Knowingly be influenced by an influencer

Eat cauliflower cleverly disguised as or substituted for a much better food

Take Libertarian ideas seriously

Go to a Billie Eilish concert

Get baited or taunted into eating excessively hot food

Get baited or taunted into competing to win something I don’t care about

Sit through Joker

Eat a stuffed pepper

Read any more Charles Dickens

Feel actual guilt when indulging in a guilty pleasure

Eat an insect

Lead a conga line

Care what people think of my weight

Run with the bulls in Spain

Go ice fishing

Visit the reptile house

 

Excuse Me

Hey, I’m just going to push my way in here for a second while you’re busy doing something. Doesn’t matter what that “something” is. You could be making dinner or folding laundry or having your purchases rung up by a cashier or reaching for an item on a shelf or fixing something. I’m just going to insert myself between you and the thing you were already working on. Will only take a second.

 

And I’m just going to do it again a few more times while you’re busy with the same thing. I’m going to reach in front of you, walk across your path, grab something in front of your face, interrupt you when you’re doing something. Just a few more times and I’ll be out of your hair. It’s because I forgot something/dropped something/lost something/just can’t wait my turn. You can accommodate my lack of preparation/patience/consideration.

 

Not that I need to explain anything. Because I’ll just be a second. I’m just going to barge into your space and grasp and push and usurp and do whatever I need. Don’t mind me! I certainly don’t mind you.

 

Hey, just let me force my way in here again. I’m technically asking but you’ll notice the tone of my question is rhetorical, because I’m already pushing in before I finish asking. So we’ll never know whether or not you’d agree. I’m just going to use my too-big-to-fail personality to dominate your space in small but insidious ways; to steamroll people who are less assertive than me, then act like they’re “just being stubborn” when they’re only standing up for themselves like I stand up for myself. I’ll just be disruptive for a few seconds, then leave you alone until the next time I disrupt you.

 

… What do you mean, “no”? Oh, lighten up. Life’s too short for you to get all huffy about people who push themselves in front of you, and it’s certainly too short for me to pass up an opportunity to push my way in front of people without asking.

But we're in love

So, you see, it would not be fair or reasonable to ask us to stop holding hands for a few seconds and walk single file so someone approaching us can share this sidewalk and not have to step off and walk in the busy street beside it. We are in love, and we’re just going to continue in our blissful reverie, side by side and taking up the width of this sidewalk.

 

I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to step out onto the very narrow shoulder and risk getting hit by a car. There is nothing we can do for you.

 

For how could we be separated even for a moment as we walk hand in hand? We love each other. See how as we walk, we are sort of folding into one another? It’s almost as if we were one person. Asking us to break formation to walk single file—even for a moment—would be a crime against Love.

 

Maybe you don’t understand that if you’re just walking down the sidewalk alone, without anyone to share the experience with. You’ll just have to step aside when couples come along. Walk through the dirty water that runs into the gutter and let us pass. 

 

As we walk, we talk in hushed, intimate tones. I cannot miss a moment of my lover’s conversation. For we are planning a future of love together. To ask us to detach to accommodate the needs of someone who isn’t us would break the spell of love. It would risk our gossamer dream tearing in two. Even if we were to detach and reform our positions milliseconds later, it would never be the same. Something in us would have died.

 

So don’t even try to be bold enough to walk down the right side of the sidewalk without stepping completely out of our way. You will only be met with our perplexed and outraged stares as we absorb your unmitigated gall and look at you like you have three heads. Our love is big enough to take up two lanes and we cannot be expected to make the sacrifice of walking in momentary single file.

 

You’re just going to have to clear the way and take your chances in traffic. For we are in love, and all those little examples of common courtesy and consideration suddenly seem very far away, drowned out by the perfection of our reverie.  

You’re violating my HIPPA rights!

How am I? How am I?!? How dare you ask me that! You’re violating my HIPPA rights!

 

You have a lot of nerve, passing me in the hallway and saying a casual, “How are you doing.” You might think this was just some breezy greeting but it’s not. It’s actually a major violation of my right to privacy, which has been enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America for 250 years.

 

Where is HIPPA in the Constitution, you ask? I don’t know. It’s one of the amendments. I don’t have time to check which one. I do know you’re not allowed to ask me how I’m feeling today and even asking that question is a felony. This will result in major fines and jail time.

 

How I can I be sure, you ask? Um, I used to own a CrossFit gym and helped people fight obesity, so yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m an expert on federal health care laws. Plus, I’ve watched numerous YouTube videos on the subject. Last time I checked, the “P” in HIPPA stood for “Privacy,” so yeah—my privacy rights are protected. (I assume the second “P” also stands for privacy. Privacy was such an important concept to the Founding Fathers that they had to say it twice in that acronym.)

 

So you can’t ask me how I’m feeling or for any of my sacred health information. “Did you sleep OK?” Completely forbidden. “How’s your headache?” Blatantly illegal. “You doing alright?” A constitutional abomination. Every single person and private company and federal, state or local institution or official is prohibited under HIPPA for asking me anything about my health, even obliquely. I have business cards I hand out saying “Asking me my personal information is a HIPPA violation and you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law” whenever anyone invades my privacy with chit-chat. I also have a little HIPPA siren I set off to alert the authorities when people do ask because that information is between me and my doctor.

 

You’ll be hearing from my lawyer. I’m going to employ the services of the finest team of HIPPA lawyers and we’ll sue you in Federal HIPPA Court and you will be ruined for all time, as the law and the Constitution demand!

Who is Kang and what did he conquer?

Kang the Conqueror/Immortus makes his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the last episode of Loki. I didn’t care for this show. I liked the first episode but I quickly lost interest. I don’t care about Sylvie or the relationship between Loki and Luke (or is it Owen?) Wilson. The pace of the show was mired in molasses at times with a lot of Significant Looks that were held a beat too long. Plus Loki was curiously underpowered for a Norse god. I know he was powerless in the grip of the Tennessee Valley Authority but once free of the TVA, the only things he really did were throw a few energy bolts and conjure a blanket. This show just didn’t grab me. But anyway.

 

I’m in a holding pattern this week at work so I’ll briefly explain the long and twisted history of Kang. He debuted way back in Avengers #8 in 1964 and since then, he’s been the team’s foremost nemesis, even more so than Loki or Thanos. He’s a regular human with no powers but does have access to a time machine and advanced technology. Kang has taken on several different identities over the years.

 

Kang’s real name is Nathaniel Richards and he is an apparent descendant of Reed Richards’s father, also named Nathaniel. Kang was born in the 31^st century and to liven up the tedium in his life, sought out Dr. Doom’s time machine and traveled back to ancient Egypt in a ship shaped like the Sphinx. There he took on the identity of Pharaoh Rama-Tut and was defeated by the Fantastic Four, who were unstuck in time themselves. (This was about a year before Kang’s debut so his first appearance in publishing history was as Rama-Tut in Fantastic Four #19.) 

 

Kang ends up traveling into the 41^st century and conquers an already troubled Earth. He decides he wants to conquer a less war-torn planet so he travels back to the 20^th century and battles the Avengers, who defeat him. He returns to battle the team repeatedly and becomes involved in the search for the Celestial Madonna, who turned out to be the Avengers ally Mantis, who was destoned to birth a powerful child (a story that went nowhere). Kang ended up falling in love with Ravonna, a subject from one of his conquered worlds who later fell in love with him.

 

There was that time when it was revealed that Kang had been manipulating Iron Man from the beginning, and caused Iron Man to betray the Avengers and nearly kill the Wasp. This led to Iron Man being replaced by “teen Tony” from an earlier point in the timestream. Everybody hated this story and it has mercifully been forgotten.

 

Aside from Rama-Tut, Kang also assumed the identity of the Scarlet Centurion and fought the Avengers. His son Marcus later became the Scarlet Centurion. Kang’s other aspect is Immortus, basically an elderly Kang. The young Kang resents who he becomes as an old man, subservient to the Time Keepers. (Technically, the character in Loki may actually be Immortus, since it’s the end of the timestream and his costume is flowy like Immortus’ costume. However, the design of the statue at the end of the episode is pure Kang.)

 

So with all the time travel, Kang has split into many versions of himself. This tracks with Loki’s variant theory. There’s basically a whole lot to Kang’s history and I don’t even understand all of it.

 

Of course, there was that time when Kang actually conquered present-day Earth for a time. He warned the Avengers about the possible terrible futures they faced (everyone irradiated and dying, the Avengers being replaced by Ultron versions of themselves, etc.) and announced he would take control of the planet to keep it safe from those possible futures. He fought a vicious war against the Avengers with the help of the villainous tribes of the world, like the Atlanteans and the Deviant Inhumans.

 

This story started in Avengers comics in 2001 and ran for over a year, with many subplots and long-running stories getting resolved in the larger story. Usually, comics have a blurb on the cover saying “Part 1 of 6” or whatever. But the Kang story just went on and on and on, which was kind of cool since it mimicked a real war in that nobody knew when it would end. After a long battle, Kang nuked Washington, DC (which made Thor snap and leave the team since he couldn’t take the grief of surviving the attack when so many civilians died) and forced a surrender. The president of the United States went to sign the articles of surrender but Kang instead made then–Avengers chair the Wasp sign, just to stick the knife in further. Earth rebelled against their conqueror and it ended with Captain America punching out Kang in outer space.

 

The weird thing was, no other Marvel comic referenced the fact that Earth had been conquered, and nobody ever referenced this story again. You think you’d remember a thing like that.