Live & Duh & Delicious Mistakes

What do you want first, the happy story or the sad story? I'll decide: the happy story goes first. If the happy story goes second, it will sound disrepectful to the sad one.

Live

Claire-Adele, Pedro and I have begun to embrace the very simple pleasure of live entertainment again. Pedro has walked by the Moore Theater a few times and looked at the marquee to see who is playing. He drops a name, and I say "Hey let's go," and he says "Sure." (My god I am the coolest mother in the world.) In the past few weeks, Pedro and I saw the comedians Mike Birbiglia and Fortune Feimster. Since the Moore Theater is a few blocks from the condo, it is an easy venue to hit. It is relatively small--like three thousand seats and the ticket prices are reasonable to see comedians who have specials on Netflix. The place is small enough that I don't feel like I need to buck up for good seats because even the cheap seats have a good view. Pedro's girlfriend recommended I watch Feimster's "Sweet and Salty" on Netflix and it was fine. It was funny. I laughed, but seeing her live was waaaay better. She can rock a crowd that wasn't evident when I was streaming her show while I was riding the elliptical at the gym.

Claire-Adele has been to two NHL games in the past week in her new hometown, even though for one of the games she rooted for the Kraken instead of the Capitals. Live sports is her new thing, which is super cool.

It is awesome to be in a room crammed with people who are all laughing or cheering at the same thing. I felt alive. Pedro and I even had a local celebrity sighting at the Feimster show, which was extra fun. (Well, a celebrity in Seattle, at least.) Last year, Adam Grant wrote an article in the New York Times about collective effervescence:

"Peak happiness lies mostly in collective activity. We find our greatest bliss in moments of collective effervescence. It’s a concept coined in the early 20th century by the pioneering sociologist Émile Durkheim to describe the sense of energy and harmony people feel when they come together in a group around a shared purpose. Collective effervescence is the synchrony you feel when you slide into rhythm with strangers on a dance floor, colleagues in a brainstorming session, cousins at a religious service or teammates on a soccer field. And during this pandemic, it’s been largely absent from our lives.

Collective effervescence happens when joie de vivre spreads through a group. Before Covid, research showed that more than three-quarters of people found collective effervescence at least once a week and almost a third experienced it at least once a day. They felt it when they sang in choruses and ran in races, and in quieter moments of connection at coffee shops and in yoga classes."

Duh

Now for the depressing news. I had lots of time this afternoon to myself so I hunkered down with the Sunday New York Times. I have to admit that I typically hit the puzzles in the Sunday Magazine and Style sections first, checking out Modern Love, which is a brilliant column that everyone should read.

But then I saw a different, more depressing story that I didn't finish because after reading the first third, I knew the plot and didn't see a happy ending coming or any major plot twists. This article was Hidden Epidemic of Brain Injuries from Domestic Violence. The short version is "Research shows that survivors of abuse can sustain head trauma more often than football players. But they are almost never diagnosed."

Wow. I never thought about that, but of course! Women who get beat up by their partners on a regular basic for years have head injuries. How come no one figured this out until now? This is a big fat case of "duh." And that was super depressing, but sometimes super depressing things can drive us to take action! Like get those women in shelters examined for neurological problems. Some bruises don't show. 

Delicious Mistakes

I feel like I need to end on a happier note than battered women. Americans have this idea of sandwiching criticism between two positives. Like if you are late for work every day, your boss might say "I really love having you on the team and I value your contributions, but we miss your contributions when you are fifteen minutes late to the stand-up meeting. It would be great if you could get here on time so we can benefit from your ideas." In the same spirit, I am going to sandwich domestic violence news between two things of joy: live entertainment and chocolate cookies.

Here is a chocolate thumbprint cookie recipe from the Sunday magazine. The author was following the directions for a different recipe and messed up. The mistake ended up being delicious, worthy of its own recipe. I love the idea too that sometimes our mistakes lead us to something better than we could have imagined.

I can't wait to try this mistake out.