A couple of years ago when we were back in the office but still wearing masks, I was in the kitchen at work talking to the minister about Animal Crossing, which both her daughter and I had been playing since Covid lockdown began. In case you’re not familiar, Animal Crossing is a video game where you start off with a small, rustic tropical island with a trading outpost run by the local authority, a genial raccoon who looks tired and likes rules. Your other companions are three bipedal, language-competent, clothes-wearing animal villagers (there are six types of villagers — lazy, peppy, snooty, cranky, jock, and boring — I mean normal — and I’m not sure it even needs saying that my favorites are the lazy ones) who arrived on the island in the same airplane as you, at the invitation of the outpost raccoon. The way to play the game of Animal Crossing is to "civilize” your island and earn money to improve your slice of paradise by building houses, a shop, and a museum, and then filling the museum with fossils, fish, bugs, and Asian and European art. Other sophisticated activities include buying new clothes, hats, shoes, and accessories at the shop and dressing yourself (if you’re me) in alarming outfits; planting and breeding flowers; sowing, reaping, and landscaping; decorating your home; and taking short jaunts to other islands to pillage them for resources. It’s hard to really call it a game, it’s kind of just an activity, which made it perfect for those of us stuck at home in those early days of Covid.
Anyway, the minister and I were standing in the kitchen at work waiting for coffee to brew and I was telling her how I didn’t understand why Animal Crossing insists that you build a museum and drag an old, outside culture to an island where most people would prefer to leave that culture behind and lie on the beach with cute villagers and drink out of coconuts. Interestingly, the minister replied that she didn’t have a problem with the museum part of the game, though she couldn’t help but notice that traveling to an “uncivilized” land to “improve” it had a lot in common with settler colonialism.
I don’t think that Animal Crossing is trying to indoctrinate children into thinking colonialism is normal and good and the will of God; I think the developers probably didn’t even question it. I think they got around the question of who might have been displaced to make room for my lazy ass by filling the soil of my island with dinosaurs bones and fruit trees that I hope were cultivated by the tired raccoon before I even got there. Anyway, like a good American, I eventually got bored and tore everything down to start over, and my island is now flatter than a Walmart parking lot. It’s comforting, it’s familiar, and it reminds me a simpler time, when all I had to do was learn how to unmute myself for Zoom meetings and wait in line at the grocery store for the opportunity to buy one package of toilet paper.
What else?
Our little dog Penny had a bad hip and got a femoral head ostectomy, which is the same operation Richard the cat had after he got hit by a car. Richard recovered so well that I’m not too worried about Penny. It made me deeply regret not buying pet insurance, but with two cats and two dogs I reasoned that it would be cheaper just to pay the occasional vet bill and have everyone listen to Andre 3000’s new flute album, which I read is tuned to a special healing frequency. I’ve only listened to it once but it’s nice to see flute get some headlines. Right now my flute is broken and the case is dusty and holding several fancy candles, like a sort of Dais of Scented Importance. The weight of all those candles is enough to keep me from taking my flute to the shop to get fixed for at least another couple of years, so I’m currently no threat to Mr. 3000.
It being Christmastime, I have recently baked a not-good batch of spritz cookies (I should not have used this recipe). I learned to bake spritz as a kid using Fleischmann’s margarine, which at the time was marketed as being healthier than butter. We now know that it 100% most definitely was not healthy at all, but it was always soft so you could spread it on your Saltines without breaking them. Intact, camera-ready Saltines are no longer a global obsession, but I do now own one of these gorgeous beasts in Caribbean blue, giving me 24/7 access to spreadable butter.
And then there’s this other thing
I’m making myself learn to do handstands, which at my advanced age is kind of a weird trick to want to learn, but here I am, kicking my legs up and balancing against a wall at the gym (I joined a gym). It’s also part of my yoga practice (adho mukha vrksasana) but I wanted to make better progress so I’m doing some extra work. My upper body strength is decent enough that I can hold myself up for a respectable interval, maybe 10-20 seconds before I slowly crumple to the floor. My wrists have always been my weak point and they were very unhappy about this new hobby at first, but I made some adjustments to my form and am working on strengthening them, and it’s been amazing to watch them get so much better. My hope is that, along with upping my intake of essential fatty acids, eating more butter cookies will lubricate my joints from within. I mean, look at Julia Child. She’s dead, but look at her!
