One Art (BY ELIZABETH BISHOP)

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

2021 ear worm.

“You do care a little for me, I know... but nothing to speak of, and you don't love me. I was yours once till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now... and he's mine in a way that shocks you, but why don't you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness.” 
― E.M. Forster, Maurice

Lately I've been...

Reading: Tana French's new novel, The Trespasser, which is the best kind of crime novel in that it's pacey without sacrificing lovely prose. I'm *loving* it. I've also just finished Louise's Penny's Still Life, which was very good, and re-reading Rainbow Rowell's excellent novel Carry On, which is a book that still feels like it's been made just for me.

Listening to: Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs. Also just a whole lot of podcasts that are probably too numerous (and in some cases embarassing) to list here.

Watching: Not a hell of a lot, given the lack of both TV and internet at home. But I've been enjoying a bit of Key and Peele and revisiting some old movies. Once I can access Netflix again I'm 100 per cent down with catching up on some Luke Cage action.

Spending my money: Paying down credit card debt before I become underemployed in a matter of days (yikes), buying very boring baby stuff, acquiring half of Bunnings for house reno madness. Breakfasts out and movies continue to be my indulgences but you've got to have *something* to look forward to.

Spending my time: Reading (a tonne), writing (a bit), stressing (a lot), painting (not well) and walking (frequently).

Looking forward to: Maternity leave (without the whole baby bit). A birthday dinner this weekend with buttery pasta. Birthday presents (I know, that sounds gross but I've been so good about not buying myself Fun Stuff lately that I'm just excited by the prospect of New Things). Having house renovations finished (one day).

Wishing: I was sleeping better. Waking up 5+ times a night is not cool unless you're a baby.

Feeling: Happy.

Missing: My books, most of which are packed up in my parents' house. I realise this is a First World Problem but being separated from them and unable to (re)read whatever I want to read when I want to read it is bumming me out. I've resorted to borrowing some old favourites from the library for now.

Vale Tombili

I like this story so much I feel like I maybe couldn't be friends with someone who didn't.

“What ho!" I said.

"What ho!" said Motty.

"What ho! What ho!"

"What ho! What ho! What ho!"

After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.” 

― P.G. Wodehouse, My Man Jeeves

That *shirt*

For some reason, possibly because I'm quite stupid, I've never managed to really get into Michael Chabon's fiction. Much as I want to love it and much as I love his ideas the style of writing and the way he tells the stories has never clicked into place for me.

On the other hand this article he's written for GQ on taking his young son to Fashion Week is just... sublime.

"You are born into a family and those are your people, and they know you and they love you and if you are lucky they even, on occasion, manage to understand you. And that ought to be enough. But it is never enough. Abe had not been dressing up, styling himself, for all these years because he was trying to prove how different he was from everyone else. He did it in the hope of attracting the attention of somebody else—somewhere, someday—who was thesame. He was not flying his freak flag; he was sending up a flare, hoping for rescue, for company in the solitude of his passion."

Stranger Things

Obviously I've been slacker than slack on the blog front for a whole bunch of reasons but I couldn't walk past this gif, via Rainbow Rowell.

Like everyone else in the world I really got into Netflix's Stranger Things series. I particularly enjoyed what they did with the douchey boyfriend stereotype, as brilliantly articulated in this article. I hate movies where The Girl has a douchey boyfriend and yet it still supposed to be the object of desire for The Boy Hero. If someone is stupid enough to go out with a grade A dickhead does that really make them someone you'd want to date?

For some reason I'm tumbling back into an old obsession today

If you wanna try, If you wanna try

there's no worse you could do (oh oh oh)

I know you lie (I know you lie)

I'm still in love with you (oh oh oh)

"I didn't tell you to put the balm on"

As someone who has definitely sniffed a bit about the famous hot coffee case (and snorted at the Seinfeld parody) I found this bit of background, via Rainbow Rowell, eye-opening and appropriately guilt-inducing.

A few things you need to know about this hot coffee case:

1. It wasn’t an issue of the coffee being because no fucking shit coffee is hot, but McDonald’s had over heated their water to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s 121C. Not just hot, but really FUCKING hot. Your fancy Starbucks lattes are brewed to 150 degrees.
2. The 79 year old woman had this cup of 250F (121C) coffee between her legs when it spilled so 250F (121C) coffee spilled on her genitals
3. She got third degree burns…on her genitals. THIRD DEGREE.
4. She had to have skin grafts to repair the damage
5. When she sued McDonald’s, it wasn’t for millions of dollars, it was for $20,000 to cover hospital costs and court fees. 20-fucking-thousand.
6. It was the courts that awarded her the amount of money she got. Again, she only wanted hospital bills and court costs
7. McDonald’s changed their heating policy, but not beforemaking her sign a gag order keeping her from talking about this case
8. So she had to live on hearing little shits like you call her stupid and money-grubbing, and other horrendous stuff because she dared ask the company in the wrong to fix what they fucked up.

MORE FUN FACTS:

9. The woman who was burned was not driving the car, she was a passenger.

10. The car was not in motion when she was burned. The car was parked so she could add cream and sugar.

The coffee case is one of the biggest examples of a carefully-crafted smear campaign by a company that is in the wrong trying to hide that.

Additionally, several people had been badly burned by McDonald’s coffee prior to that case, both employees and customers, and McDonald’s had been fined and told to lower the heat of their coffee. They refused to lower the coffee’s heat, continuing to serve a product they KNEW from EXPERIENCE was dangerous, because they could.

When she was burned, she reached out to McDonald’s for them to cover her medical expenses. They sent her a coupon booklet as a big eff yuu.

She required skin grafts not just on her genitals but on her thighs, buttocks, and I think stomach. Like, it was a lot of skin grafts! And did you know that skin grafts don’t always take? She was very severely hurt by a product that McDonald’s knew for a FACT was dangerous.

But nah, go on talking about how she was just foolish and greedy, that’s obviously the case, big corporations have all of our best interest in heart, really they do.

Her name was Stella Liebeck. She has since passed away but I think it’s important to name the victim in this story. Her name was Stella Liebeck and the coffee was so hot that it fused her labia together. It melted her genitals closed. But it’s all just a giant joke, huh?

By the way?

Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused. 

At that point, she had medical bills of over $11,000. She was anticipating more. She didn’t have much money.She just wanted McDonald’s to pay for the damage their coffee had done so that she could get medical treatment. Seems reasonable, right?

McDonald’s countered with an offer of $800, then turned down repeated requests to settle.  

And there weren’t several people who were burned before Liebeck. It was a LOT worse than that.

During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebeck[’]s. This history documented McDonalds’ knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard. 

So McDonald’s knew that their coffee was burning people–in some cases, causing third-degree burns. They knew it for TEN YEARS. And they did nothing about it.

Oh, and the jury award?

The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. This amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20 percent at fault in the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonalds’ coffee sales. 

:::

The trial court subsequently reduced the punitive award to $480,000 – or three times compensatory damages – even though the judge called McDonalds’ conduct reckless, callous and willful. 

So all of the jokes about how rich Liebeck got off the settlement? Nope. McDonald’s ended up not even having to pay most of it.

Nancy Tiano says her mother was “never happy about the incident” and that “the burns and court proceedings took their toll.” During her final years, Tiano says, her mother had no quality of life. The good news is that the settlement helped to ease the end of her life by paying for a live-in nurse. 

That’s where the money went. For medical care. 

Don’t forget that the REASON that they serve their coffee at DANGEROUSLY high temperatures (Injuring literally thousands of customers) is because coffee brewed and kept at those DANGEROUSLY HIGH temperatures tastes fresher longer, so less undrunk coffee has to be thrown out throughout the day, so McDonalds can MAKE MORE PROFIT on their damn coffee sales.