Yesterday, a colleague teased me about not hole punching his name badge at a recent event. I explained I have a policy of having wine work with me if I’m still working after 7 pm. He pointed out that, in that situation, the wine was working against me. This was true. The same colleague pointed out that all of my stories include books, booze, and food other people make for me. I wonder if that’s a subplot of this blog? I think all three of those things are useful distractions from grief.
I have long held an interest in reality TV shows about normal people where nothing happens. It’s nice. Now I’m watching the stupidest show. It’s called The Curse of Oak Island. It’s a reality TV show where people waste their retirement savings looking for treasure in Nova Scotia. They are looking there because 200 years ago a freed slave found a fortune there. It is the same logic that makes people buy lottery tickets at gas stations that have had a big winner buy there before. It makes no sense and nothing happens but I find the kind way these men treat each other comforting, as well as their persistence in the face of millions of dollars in losses in search costs. I don’t know why shows where nothing happens seem so compelling.
I just saw an episode where the youngest member of their search team, a teenage boy, died. He had epilepsy and died because of a seizure and a hemorrhage. His father cried, his step-brother cried, the team cried, and then I cried. Grief is like getting the city in a town that isn’t worth locking; there’s something there whether anyone wants it or not.
They used to have this sentence in an intro that said, “Six men have died in search of the treasure and legend has it that one more must die in search of treasure before the mystery of Oak Island will be solved.” It was tacky, but I guess it’s down to anything you can do to make a group of friends digging in dirt seem interesting. I wonder if they are going to keep running that line of the promo. He wasn’t a man—just a teenage boy with his entire life ahead of him. Tomorrow, I will find something else to watch.
Day 242 is at https://www.wantmybabyback.com/blog/day-242.