I had a little scare, folks.

As I've complained recently, I'm down in my back. I went to the doctor to get checked out. On the way home, my eye began to itch and water; something was clearly in there, wreaking all kinds of havoc to my contact.

I roll up to a red light. I'm relieved I have a minute to try to solve the issue without also being required to, you know, drive safely. Then it happens: bloop.

I don't know if it actually made that sound, but that's how I heard it as I remember it. My contact was no longer in my eye. Welp, home wasn't that far away; I just needed to keep it between the lines, navigate four turns, and I'd be home. No biggie; I got this, I thought.

I tried various methods to make things easier on myself. Should I just keep both eyes open as normal and actually give my brain a chance to adapt to the rush of incomplete information, half crisp and half blurry? Should I try to just drive in a steady wink, left eye closed to just allow in the clear half of the data stream? Or maybe I should do a makeshift pirate-style eye patch, just covering the eye with my hand to remove the effort of keeping it closed (it goes without saying that your brain wants both your eyes open while you're driving, expects it, defaults to it).

Honestly, it's wild you clear-eyed, all-seeing people allow us fuzzy-visioned contacts-and-glasses-wearers share the road with you. A sincere thanks.

As I was sitting at Turn #3, just about home and thinking, smugly, that I'd nailed it, my phone rang and interrupted the podcast I was listening to. It was the clinic I'd just left, only 10 minutes behind me, probably only 7 since my contact blooped out of my head.

The doctor I'd just seen was already calling with the results of the X-rays he'd sent me across to hall to get: I have two small fractures in one of my vertebra.

I'm listening to this rush of information. He educates me on the whole thing, right there, amid the repetitive clicks from my blinker as I sat at the red light.

To call it "shock" is a bit too strong, because I know that word has an actual definition and I probably fell far short of it, clinically speaking. But it was this weird experience, hearing this news and this doctor rattling off the issues and potential causes and steps forward.

It was all received by me in a kind of echo-y, hazy state. I heard him (though I could hardly quote back much of it now), but I couldn't say much. Didn't feel like my brain could work my voice box, and I saved myself from spending the entire call totally mute by muttering a few "uh-huhs" in what I thought were appropriate moments.

When he noted some of the risks and the warning signs to be aware of (those that would indicate something else was happening and nerve damage was likely), I felt a tinge of fear, of worry.

That said, the overall vibe of the call was that perfect doctorly balance of factual and hopeful without trying too hard.

But that shock-like feeling I felt, that tinge of fear, all of it combined and more still that I can't fully articulate, merged in my head and put me on edge as I thought about my parents.

I remembered the calls and delivery of news that they had cancer. The shock of it all, the fear, the panic — the dozens of very human emotions that can blend together and define a moment. It brought tears, immediately. Thinking about my health is now so closely linked to their conditions and outcomes, and it never fails that I end up time-traveling to those moments around my dad's death, the aftermath that led to my mom's diagnosis, and how profoundly unsettled and uncertain everything felt in those wobbly moments.

I thought about what a weak version of that same experience I was having — medical news that disoriented, worried, caused me to look at the future with more questions than answers — and how scary it still feels. It filled me with sadness at the memories but also overwhelming love and respect for them and the way they handled their bad news.

For them, there were distinct moments — pin-pointable, exact — when their lives changed. Everything was different going forward. That's not to say that they didn't have their moments of fear and panic and all the above. But I think I just forget, on some level, what it must have felt like to get that news and force yourself to grapple with its reality.

For my dad, his spirits were mostly good in his final weeks. We all enjoyed our time together as much as we could in the cramped confines of a hospital room. My mom is steady as they come, so much so that I think many around her forget that she's sick.

I have newfound respect and admiration for the strength that it takes to make those sentences true. I've always admired them and how they handled themselves, but because it never occurred to me not to be proud.

This small brush with medical uncertainty made that admiration real and lived in, and I was able to see it for what it was — incredibly difficult, necessary for mental health, a kindness to loved ones, impressive as hell.

I hope I can manage my health news with a fraction as much poise.

Ten Worth Your Time

1. Now that the U.S. Open tennis tournament has concluded (and my back remains in shambles), I’m resorting to the written word for my tennis fix. This short piece in LitHub mixes two of my favorite things: tennis and writing, more alike than they might seem.
2. I loved this short little introductory piece from David Remnick in The New Yorker about whether critics have gone soft and become too nice.
3. I’ve mentioned a few times recently that I’m really excited for the fall film festivals and the corresponding releases. It only felt right to build on that last link about critics who may or may not have lost their bite with this review of a highly anticipated adaptation by an Oscar winner that is nothing but teeth as it savages everything about the film. Walter Chaw puts Chloe Zhao’s new film, Hamnet, the adaptation of the Maggie O’Farrell novel that imagines the events that led to William Shakespeare’s writing of Hamlet. I wish I could just repost the entirety of Chaw’s scathing diatribe, because 1) yes, to Remnick’s question; critics probably have gone soft and 2) I find it brave for writers of any kind to simply state their opinions when they fly in the face of popular/consensus opinion (as Chaw’s does here). I can’t wait to see the film, even after this pan (he awards it zero stars).
4. Continuing on the theme of writers being mean, I really enjoyed this essay by Freddie DeBoer about how literary feuds have largely died out but those in recent memory are overwhelming between females and the double standard that punishes them for feuds that once earned men acclaim.
5. One more mean review that doesn’t apply to me at all but I enjoyed for the schadenfreude anyway: a Motor Trend review that ran under this headline: “Our 2023 Tesla Model Y Two-Year-Long Test Is Over. I’ll Never Understand How It Became the Most Popular EV.” Here’s just a taste (from the second paragraph): “To me, our Model Y is antagonistic to enjoyable driving. I dreaded getting in it and often pushed the speed limit so I could get out of it sooner. Few things have tested my patience like this car, and I have two younger brothers. If it were a person, I'd face charges for all the times I kicked its tire or punched its steering wheel out of visceral frustration.”
6. Counterpoint: This (free gift) article from The Atlantic which, although it sings the newer Model Y’s praises, contains this paragraph about Tesla’s future: “But now it’s clearer than ever that Tesla’s future is not in selling cars. The company’s latest “Master Plan IV,” which was released earlier this week, makes no mention of any new electric cars in the works. It is instead a technocratic fever dream, predicting a future in which humanoid robots made by Tesla free us from mundane tasks and create a utopia of “sustainable abundance.” To the extent that cars are mentioned at all, it’s in the context of robotaxis, or the batteries that power them. In other words, Tesla, the biggest EV company in the country, wants out of the car business.” Do with that what you will.
7. As a proud member of Team Doesn’t-Want-Humanoid-Robots-Made-By-Tesla-To-Free-Us-From-Anything, I expected this essay from LitHub (two mentions in one newsletter — what a day!) to be simply a short tone poem about how far short A.I. voices fall compared to human narrators of audiobooks. But it’s a much deeper, more thoughtful, sadder, more poignant story than that. In fact, if you read only one thing from these offered, I’d recommend it be this one.
8. This in-depth look at what makes Wikipedia resistant to hostile takeover from one side of the political spectrum is more uplifting than it has any business being. The Verge on Wikipedia
9. Literally couldn’t stop reading this piece from MIT Technology Review at how super shoes are changing the sport of long-distance running. I don’t far enough or fast enough or, hell, even consistently enough for this tech to help me, but I was riveted.
10. Last but not least this week: A truly unputdownable account from The New York Times of a daring (crazy?) U.S. Navy SEALs raid on North Korea that didn’t go at all to plan. I’ll concede that these stories hit closer to home because of my brother’s near-success at joining the ranks of the SEALs, but this newspaper account truly reads like a spy thriller but with way more on the line.

More From Me

Over on my blog, I’ve been writing about various topics of interest to me.

Updates From Venice and Telluride Film Festivals

America’s Attic

Local Legend Was More Likely A Murderer

The World’s Healthiest Sport

Culture Diary

Here’s a collection of what I’ve been consuming in the past week.

The legend for my list was stolen from Steven Soderbergh, where ALL CAPS represents a movie, Sentence Case is a TV show, ALL CAPS ITALICS is a short film, Italics is a book, and bold is a live performance or show. A number in parentheses after a TV show highlights how many episodes I watched. An asterisk after an entry means it’s a rewatch. The source of the movie or show, whether streaming service, physical media, or in theaters, is shown in parentheses as well.

9/1: Life and Art, Richard Russo; U.S. Open (ESPN+); JAWS (theater; 50th anniversary screening)

9/2: U.S. Open (ESPN+)

9/3: U.S. Open (ESPN+)

9/4: U.S. Open (ESPN+)

9/5: U.S. Open (ESPN+)

9/6: Texas Longhorns vs. San José State (ESPN+); Missouri Tigers vs. Kansas Jayhawks (ESPN+); THE EQUALIZER (Netflix)

9/7: F1: Italian Grand Prix (ESPN+); The Paper (2)(Peacock); U.S. Open Final (ESPN+); Nate Bargatze: Hello World (Amazon Prime)