If you didn’t read this week’s post “The Zone of No Returns” I will read it to you, dramatically and enthusiastically, below. 👇
Reading commences as soon as you hit play. Enjoy!
Notes from the Captain
My crew, my rabble, my troupe of hold-me-closely-tiny-dancers.
I ate so much Kirkland Trail Mix yesterday—the one with the real M&Ms—that I’ve woken up today feelin’ a little wonky. A little hung askew on my wall. I just kept piling that trail mix in on top of a breakfast burrito I’d eaten earlier in the day, creating layer upon layer of dried fruit and nut fat.
I confess—it is emblematic of the internal fatberg of doubt that has taken residence inside my soul of late.
Dramatic.
I am being dramatic, don’t worry, but I do need some maintenance workers to get into my soul and remove that metaphorical blockage. It’s harshing my otherwise cheerful buzz and joyful demeanor. It’s clogging up my creativity.
It’s—to put it bluntly—making me eat too much trail mix at once.
(Which is delicious but plays havoc with my macros.)
The video.
I’m supposed to be talking about the video.
And this week’s post. About spacing out.
Let’s do it!
The Space-Out is like a crew of maintenance workers sent down the pipes of your psyche to dissolve all worry. (And now we’re back to fatbergs and trail mix, but it’s space-out adjacent, I swear!)
Costco—where Kirkland products rule with an “I’m secretly the real thing!” fist—is a magical ambulatory Semi-Space-Out zone with cheap hotdogs at the end. When I go there, I meander about aimlessly, not really thinking about anything important. They keep moving stuff around. What do the green signs mean again? If it ends in a $.49, it’s never coming back, is that right? Why are people elbowing other in the face for roast chicken? Do I really need 8 tubs of tofu?
I’ve not been spacing out with the mundanity of life much lately, so this trip to Costco was a welcome respite. I flashed my card. I went and looked at plants. I wondered if I could ever use an entire sack of rice in my lifetime? Thirty rolls of toilet paper? Sure. Holy wow wow—Topo Chico! No. Don’t get that. Great mouth feel—the best—but I read this one thing about PFAS a while back and this is why we can’t have nice things.
I say Costco is a Semi-Space-Out zone because it’s not the a true version of it. It’s more “mindless meandering.” What is a real Space-Out? I get into that in the video, but to give away the ending—if you don’t realize you were spaced-out until you’ve come back to earth, that’s the real deal. An absence of existence in a moment of your timeline.
The vacancy is thrilling.
I’m going to ride my bike after I finish writing this. Eureka Canyon, maybe? Mountain Charlie? I’ll keep my eyes peeled—get it—for banana slugs. Space-the-hell-out in the redwoods. It’s a form of therapy. And you know, calories in, calories get the eff out!
Today, she says convincingly, I will not eat Trail Mix. There’s still so much left. Ugh.
Make something glorious this week. If you need a pep talk, do what I did on Facebook and via texts and calls with friends—ask for one. It really helped, so thanks to everyone who pitched in and said stuff. The struggle, as they say, is real. See a Greg Proops pep talk at the end for your kick in the pants for today.
Make something great this week. Love fully. Space out with vigor.
Your Captain, Janeen 🫡
Thangs from this episode…
👩✈️ Space Out Competition
Official site of The Space Out Competition
Inside the Space-Out Competition Where People Do Nothing - Vice
The visual artist, Woopsyang, who came up with the idea
👩✈️ Faux U2 Flash Mob
Improv Everywhere used to do quite a lot of Flash Mob activity in NY. This was 16 years ago and it wasn’t in Brooklyn at all (I got that wrong in the video, whoops!) I was getting Flash Mobs mixed up, because did I mention this was 16 years ago? I’m getting old. Everything is merging.
The dude being The Edge cracks me up. Suspension of disbelief is everything, and you just have to SELL IT to everyone around you to get folks going.
It reminds me of that time there was a Bon Jovi cover band on top of a building on the West side. I was walking to the subway after freelancing at Ogilvy for the day over on 10th and 50-something-th, and was distracted on the street by this awful sound from above. I stopped and looked up to what was probably the top of a six floor walk up. Cameras, lights, a horrible Bon Jovi cover band. I found out later on the news that it was actually Bon Jovi.
Maybe the street acoustics were just bad?
👩✈️ The Creepy Sound of Space
That’s a big nope for me. I’ll take my Ear Loops.
NASA has captured ‘Actual Sound’ in Space and It’s Honestly Terrifying - Vice
👩✈️ Rodin’s “The Thinker”
I did a bit of a deep dive into the multiple versions of this sculpture in the Behind the Streams episode for the post: “Will my Next Thought Be My Best Thought”, which was also about thinking and the occasional lack of it.
You can watch the episode about it here, and really get to know the story behind “The Thinker.”
👩✈️ Tang
How NASA made Tang Cool - Food & Wine. A lot of details in this one about the history of Tang and astronauts.
Because of the whole no-gravity-in-space thing, pouring crystallized powder into a cup of water was going to be a problem. So, NASA engineers came up with a system that involved squirting water with a needle into a vacuum-sealed powder-containing pack. After shaking, all the astronaut had to do was stick a straw inside of the pouch of Tang and slurp away.
OK. That’s it. You can go about your day in peace. May all your Space Outs be fruitful and contain nothing.
Thanks for listening/watching and sharing this week. If you want to chat about any of the concepts in this week’s post—or just in general—feel free to leave a comment for the Captain (it me.)
Do. Make. Be. For real.
Let’s lift each other up. Pep talks for everyone!
I’ll see you out there.
🫡
Shameless Podcast Plug
Listen to audio versions of early issues of The Stream on my podcast, Field of Streams, available on 👉 all major podcasting platforms 👈
Here’s Apple
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