hell list, part 2 🔥
scratch-off tickets, True Detective: Night Time, Shogun, and more
Sometime last December, I went into a gas station and came out with chips and $10 worth of scratch-off tickets, and proceeded to win $23.
I’ve been a casual participant in the scratcher economy for decades. As a kid, various adults in my life would buy me the $1 ones. As an adult, my girlfriend and I have a much-beloved tradition of purchasing butch-femme scratchers on long car trips (if you’re not familiar with scratcher graphic design, they are often themed around country music stars or such concepts as DEER HUNTING and LIPSTICK CASINO or FISHING FOR CASH and PET ADOPTION). I buy them when I need a last-minute birthday gift, or an activity to kill time in the car. I probably spend about $75 a year on scratchers, which is $50 less than I spend on CeraVe, but shocking when you consider that I am a person with so much psychic pain and scarcity around money, I feel guilty for buying pre-shredded cheese (the internet tells me the average scratch-off player loses 70% of their money lol).
In mid-January, I found myself in a MOOD at my local pharmacy. I was there to buy a thermometer for my dog—he was running a mysterious fever, and the vet instructed me to take his temp every 12 hours (yes, it was an up-the-butt situation). I ended up buying a bunch of shit: Hot Pockets, cereal bowls, the popcorn that comes in a giant bag and tastes chewy and not from nature, and $15 worth of scratchers. I only won $5. A few weeks later, I bought $20 worth of scratchers and won $20. I took that $20 plus the $5 winning card from January and put it all into more scratchers, and won $20 again. This exact same thing happened one more time and by that point, I had identified a lucky penny and was entering my losing cards in second chance drawings on VTLottery.com. In my saddest moments, I would lay in bed and try to intuit when and where to make my next move. I wondered if I should delay for maximum pleasure, or shoot my wad ASAP at the nearest Cumberland Farms.
Sometime during this lucky run, Liz was like, “$20 is kind of a lot to spend on scratch-offs.“ I was like, “I CAN STOP ANYTIME I WANT!“ But I knew Liz was right. There was a monkey on my back, I just didn’t want to admit it. When my next set of scratchers netted zero, I immediately decided to spend another $40 and then upped it to $50. I would spend one last chunk of change and never do it again, I told myself, even if I won a big prize. I was definitely about to win a big prize…like, so close. Luckily, I took a wrong turn on my way home and overshot the gas station. By the time I had eaten lunch, it didn’t feel urgent anymore (shoutout to HALT). I was, however, pretty unmoored by the intensity of those feelings. It felt like when I used to diet a lot and would spend my days obsessing over food and when I could eat again.
So I’m off scratchers now and I miss having a fun vice. I especially miss my interactions with gas station cashiers, including this one guy who handed me my Crazy Cash Bonanzas and said “good luck with those“ whilst rolling his eyes. Other cashiers would try to do me a favor and remind me how much money I was spending e.g. “These are five dollars each.“ Most did not care at all and some even wanted to chat about PowerBall and the newest scratch-off offerings. I learned that in Vermont, employees of gas stations and other establishments that sell lottery products are not allowed to play themselves. There’s just too many opportunities for shenanigans. I’m sure they see people totally losing their minds and spending hundreds of dollars every single day. Once I was attuned to the world of gambling, I noticed how many other people were also in a cycle of buying scratchers and redeeming them. Were we having fun? I was. Way too much, unfortunately.
Here’s what else I’ve been up to lately:
Toddler Food. All I want to eat these days are pizza bagels, cheese quesadillas, and bean burritos. Yesterday I went to my favorite diner and ordered chicken tenders with applesauce. I only made one recipe in recent weeks and it was Alison Roman’s chicken tikka masala. I’m in no position to judge this recipe because I used tofu instead of chicken and orange juice instead of lemon juice, but it did scratch an itch for takeout. I also started toasting my rice in olive oil and it’s really working out for me. Rice glow-up.
True Detective: Night Country. I finally finished watching True Detective: Snow Ghosts. I saw a tweet that described it as “a show about two butch women who love dick.” And it is!!
There’s been a lot of ire directed at this iteration of True Detective for plot holes and sloppy writing, and also a lot of praise for the production’s decision to hire Iñupiaq actors, artists, and writers. I watched the entire thing and was very into it, even though the horror elements are so goofy. There are just so many omens and jump scares, as well as a zombie scientist with no arms and no legs who feels straight out of Spirit Halloween. At the center of the mystery is an unnamed, all-powerful substance that has the power to save humanity. This substance seems to be connected to various supernatural happenings around town and there’s an entire team of scientists trying to mine it who are all killed in murder-accident with Dyatlov Pass overtones, but we never find out what exactly it does and whether or not it’s actually a force for good?? Ninja Turtles-ass plotline.
There’s also a character named Rose who reminds me a lot of Log Lady. Rose’s boyfriend is an ice ghost and she’s always doing something unhinged like disposing of dead bodies. The whole show you’re like, “what’s her deal?“ And it turns out she was a college professor who burnt out on academia, so now she lives in Alaska and is wizened 24/7.
Other, less enjoyable television. I started and gave up on Shōgun, a new miniseries on Hulu based on a British novel from the 1970s. Set in the year 1600, the show opens with an English pirate named John Blackthorne arriving in Japan after a harrowing journey at sea. I think the source material was very ~*let’s all admire this white man and his many talents,*~ so this reprise focuses more on cultural exchange. Hitherto, the Japanese had only encountered Europeans in the form of merchants and Catholic missionaries from Portugal, so John is only able to communicate in Portuguese via his translator and love interest, Mariko. Everyone in Japan thinks John is ugly and smells like ass, but he doesn’t realize because he has zero context and knowledge about this new world and its customs. Like, who are the leaders of Japan and how does power work? Why is everyone travelling all the time? Is that guy that guy’s son or is that that other guy?? As viewers, we’re figuring it all out alongside John. At one point, Mariko asks John if he’s ever heard of “the eightfold fence,” a metaphor for disassociating and staying outwardly calm during moments of upheaval, and my girlfriend yelled, “No, he doesn’t know what that is!! He doesn’t know what anything is!!”
(I Googled the eightfold fence because I wasn’t sure if it’s a concept I should link to, or something made up for the show and it looks like it’s a little of both, but it’s also the name of a very famous work of Shōgun slash from 1993!!)
I will say the costumes and settings in Shōgun are very beautiful, even the gore is artful and non-gratuitous. Still, the lack of exposition and character development combined with constant action makes for a dense and boring ride.
Another show I had to abandon was Manhunt, which is a new Apple+ jawn about John Wilkes Booth and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The bright spot: Lili Taylor as Mary Todd. The dark spots: Abe Lincoln talks and acts like Owen Wilson, characters are constantly explaining things through dialogue, and the whole show is shot in a cool-toned Instagram filter to show us that it’s olden times.
books/articles/essays
Some recent reads that I recommend: I Could Live Here Forever by Hanna Halperin and Easy Beauty by Chloé Cooper-Jones.
I went back and read this short article in The Guardian three to four times because I thought it was about a lesbian couple who met in the maternity ward and I was just missing the part where they fell in love, but it’s actually about two moms who are just friends??
I am not above the Kate Middleton saga and keep checking in with this interview with Ellie Hall, a journalist who covered the royal family for Buzzfeed. It explains the toxic relationship between the royal family and the media, and contains an updated timeline of all the intrigue, rumors, and baffling PR moves.
And finally, “When I Was Blind,” an essay by Emily Shetler about living alongside and through her partner’s heroin addiction, left a mark.
I do not like horror nor protracted violence against women scenes, but god damn if this True Detective It's Dark 24/7 wasn't some of the most entertaining tv I have ever seen! THE CONCLUSION WAS SO SATISFYINGGG! Of course, your assessment made me lol (Rose?!), and of course, much of the critical panning feels sexist af. But dang I could stand multiple seasons with a racist p.o.s. J Foster and a busted up Kali Reis and a truly unhinged Fiona Shaw in this creepy Bechdel satisfaction soup.
I also have a love-hate relationship with scratchers (or as I call them "scratchees"). For a long time it was a novelty for me because when I visited WI I could get them with a debit card which I couldn't do in IL. I think at some woke changed that and it can only be cash (or I was turned away once trying to use card and was too embarrassed to try again). Now I will regularly get $5 in cash back at Kwik Trip and use $1-$3 of it on scratchees. I lose a lot of money!