Intimate Stranger

oh to be in a quaint bookstore in london right now

“Adults guess and assume that I’m not going to understand things just because I’m a little kid.  And it can be frustrating.  Cause, like, I really want to know stuff.  Or even when they do talk to me about things, they’ll always try to ‘tone it down to my level.’  They especially avoid the heavy themes like sex and death and cannibalism and stuff.  But that’s stuff I want to talk about.  I’m really fascinated by the Donner Party.  The entire expedition, really.  What did it feel like to eat people that you knew?  I’m also fascinated by how the human mind deals with death.  It’s like people shut down the idea of death completely, and insist that heaven and hell are places after death.  But death is death.  And everyone after death is dead, because consciousness is just your brain.  And even if there is evidence of life after death, it’s difficult to assess.  We’re going to be incredibly biased toward any information that suggests there’s something more.  Because we are so desperate to believe it.”

The World of Infrastructure.

— Abraham Verghese, Cutting of the Stone  (via puddii)

“My parents were shot when I was ten years old.  My mother was a lawyer and my dad was an engineer.  They’d been working in South Africa, and they resisted a robbery attempt.  At least that’s what my grandfather told me.  I thought everyone was fooling me until their bodies came home to Zimbabwe.  Thankfully my aunt and uncle raised me and I kept going.  But I was never able to graduate from school.  I have dyslexia.  I’m not good at reading or writing.  The teachers couldn’t understand my problem, and I was expected to keep up with the rest of the class.  Other students would laugh at me.  And I just couldn’t do it.  Now I feel lost.  I keep to myself.  I have nothing to do and I’m just sitting on my talent.  I have a mechanical mind.  I can understand any machine.  But no engineering program will consider you unless you’re good with books.  And there are no facilities for dyslexia in our country.  I see dyslexic people from other countries who have achieved their dreams.  And it’s painful to see.  Because there is no path for me.  I’m thankful for Special Olympics.  They keep me from being idle, but I can’t spend all day on a golf course.  I need a job.  A few years ago I discovered my father’s diary.  There was a section where he wrote a page about each of his children.  He wrote that I was the smart one.  I was the one who could fix anything.  I was the future engineer.”   (Special Olympics World Games, Abu Dhabi, UAE)

Tracker was set up in Russia. The eagle died in Saudi Arabia.

Water level rise of 125 meters or about 401 feet.

BEACON

“My father was a different person when he came home from Vietnam.  He drank a lot.  He was never around.  So everything I learned about being a man, I learned from my grandfather, Daniel O’Connell Renehan.  He also grew up without parents.  When he was two years old, his mother died while cooking soup.  The cauldron fell on her.  So my grandfather spent his childhood in an orphanage.  He never went to school, but he educated himself.  He was a voracious reader.  Eventually he became the treasurer of a bank on Park Avenue.  He was in his late fifties when I was born.  But he treated me like his son.  We’d watch Notre Dame Football together.  We’d go on long walks.  We’d sit on an old covered swing for hours and he’d tell me stories about Irish kings.  I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.  My mother did her best, but she was always at work, and there were too many wrong roads to take.  So I’ve lived my life by his example.  Being a father has always been the most important thing to me.  I’ve got four kids of my own now.  All of them turned out great, and one of them is named Daniel.”

Winter on Fifth Avenue, New York City, 1892. Follow our Instagram page for more: instagram.com/vintage__everyday

“My dad brought me here at the age of seven. My mom stayed back in Jamaica, so it was just me and him. He was very strict. It was cultural, mostly. He’d served in the military back home.  So he controlled all areas of my life, school, sports, socializing. Nothing was ever enough for him: not the first place medals, not the honor roll, nothing.  He tried hard to break me down. He’d wake me up at 3 AM to go running. He’d make me kneel on the floor all night. And he’d never let me speak back. He intimidated me into silence. I left the house when I turned eighteen. I got a job as a pharmacy tech.  I got my own apartment, but I still lived nearby. One day I was driving to work, and I saw him walking to the bus stop.  So I pulled over and picked him up. The ride was only ten minutes. But there was a different energy. He actually talked to me. And he let me talk back. He told me things about his life. He talked about how stressed he felt.  Things got better after that day. I’d occasionally drop by the house. I introduced him to my girlfriend. He’d tell jokes and laugh. We were beginning to form a relationship. On the morning he died, I actually drove past the crime scene without realizing it.  My phone was turned off because it’s not allowed at work. When I finally turned it on, I had several missed calls from him. Each time he left a voicemail: ‘Alex, pick up,’ ‘Alex, please come get me,’ ‘Alex, I need a ride.’ The only time he didn’t leave a voicemail was the very last call. He’d been shot in the neck while walking to the bus stop. I always wonder if the last call was while he was bleeding out. The next few months were surreal. I felt like I was sleepwalking. And I felt responsible. He’d called me for a ride and I’d been right around the corner. I ended up quitting my job.  I went to a recruiter’s office. And I punished myself the same way he’d have done it: I joined the Marines.”

The eccentric Regius professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford in 1934 was Claude Jenkyns. He had 30,000 books, above is his hallway

“Ten years ago I started a company.  It wasn’t a unicorn or anything, but after a few years it was worth a couple million dollars.  And that was enough for me.  I never wanted to be Bill Gates.  All I wanted was financial security.  And I thought I had achieved it.  We had a deal on the table.  It seemed like a sure thing.  It got so far along that I was sketching out my retirement.  But at the last moment it blew apart, and we never recovered.  Last Friday I called a personal bankruptcy attorney.  I haven’t even told my wife yet.  I want her to know the truth, but I don’t want to freak her out.  The stress is fucking killing me.  And I just turned sixty, so I’m grappling with the notion that I might not be employable.  After being successful for my whole life, suddenly I’m a failure.  But I’m trying not to let the dark side take over.  I’m fighting off suicidal thoughts.  I’m measuring my success by how well I can keep my humanity in the midst of this trauma.  If I can maintain respect for other people, it helps me feel better about myself.  So I’m trying not to snap at anyone.  I’m trying not to be vicious with my wife.  If I can’t be a successful person right now, at least I can be a good person.  And that’s a form of success.”

— Judy Reeves, A Writer’s Book of Days