Around a week and a half ago, me, my siblings, my dad, and his girlfriend went to Colorado Springs to celebrate and mourn the death of my grandpa. The flight was from HOU to DEN, it was at around 3:00pm when we got to our gate, and it took about 2 hours(?) to fly. This time, I didn't sleep on the flight--instead, I read through about fifty pages of The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy by Stephanie Kelton, a 'pop economy' book about Modern Monetary Theory. It's a "modern" theory on money, particularly money in the US, and how we should flip our perceptions of it completely. The thesis, or, main point of the theory, is that because of the transition from US currency being backed by gold to fiat currency--money that is issued by the state--the government doesn't need to manage its budget in a way that a typical household would. Every year there is talk about The Deficit, and that it keeps getting way too big. However, because we issue our own currency, it doesn't necessarily matter how much we spend--as long as we have counteractive measures to handle inflationary pressures: taxes, issuing federal jobs, etc. It's a lot, and I'm definitely not doing justice in explaining it and I certainly haven't finished the book. No matter.

We landed in Denver close to midnight and waited for our bus to come pick us up from the airport. Denver is probably the coolest airport I've been to. The terminal we walked through was very large and vast, and you make your way to the different pick-up spots through underground train. Above the onboarding doors are these Mesoamerican-esque structures: stone (at least made too look like it) levels dashed with ferns and foliage, all supported by tunnels that run throughout the airport.

Fedor Vasilyev -- Sea with ships (1873)

After our bus picked us up and drove us to their rental car area, we sat for about maybe 1-2 hours waiting for my dad to incrementally make his way up the line to rent a car. It was a nice van, I don't remember the brand or model, but it looked and smelled good--however we would have troubles with later throughout the weekend. From there on, we drove and I slept and so did the others. We arrived at my grandpa's old house, now empty. I slept in one of the guest rooms on a floral-decorated set of bedsheets and pillows. The next day, I woke up and rotted for 3 hours. Our cousins were going to arrive a couple hours after lunch time, so I waited until lunch to walk over to my uncle's house just a street down. We ate these ribs, which were middling to say the least, and talked about stuff and whatnot. I noticed my dad's girlfriend staying a bit quiet, which I understand, since she's very new to the family. I did hear from my uncles though that they liked how my dad finally found someone he could laugh with.

I wrapped up lunch and walked back to grandpa's house, in which I rotted for a couple more hours until I got a call from my dad that my cousins had made it to my uncle's house. For further clarification, because there's quite a few uncles, I'll refer to this uncle as Uncle 'D'--the other uncles will be referred to as Uncle 'N' and 'S'. I was excited to see my cousins since I hadn't seen them in about 2-3 years. A bit of history with them: I had been quite a depressing cousin to be around for them. Whenever we would have a family reunion, I would resort to siphoning myself off from them when they hung out, sitting by myself, whether it be in their camper or church-house, on my phone or reading a book. I was a little anti-social and anti-family at the time, but since then I've matured and gained the ability to talk to them without reserve. They've grown up significantly since the last time I saw them. When I entered Uncle 'D's house, they were all having boy talk, particularly cousin 'A', who had recently broken up with her ex-boyfriend. It was fun to talk about relationship stuff with them, since I'd never done so before. We talked all night, and 'P' flew in and joined us as well.

'P's story was interesting in particular. Apparently, he was notified of grandpa's death in the middle of his training camp for The Army, meaning he had to wrestle with the emotions while trekking through some of the worst weather conditions and with the heaviest load he bore on his back. When he was given the funeral date, he immediately booked a flight without permission from his commanding officers, which 'P' says: You are not supposed to do things like that. Nonetheless, he was determined to make it to Colorado, permission or not. However, doing so, would result in him considered as going AWOL (absent without official leave), which has serious ramifications when you're trying to get into the military. He had to fight a serious and arduous battle:

But that's what he did--he fought up the chain of command until they approved it. He called it a 'miracle'. By that point, he was already two hours behind and almost didn't make it to his flight, but I'm glad that he did because he is by far my funniest cousin.

Frederic Edwin Church -- Aurora Borealis (1865)

The next day was the day of the funeral service. We had a nice little breakfast in the morning, and then we hung out and talked at grandpa's house. We got dressed: I wore the same suit I wore for my other grandpa's funeral, this time with 'P's tie. He tied it for me because I don't know how to. On our drive to the funeral service, the rental car suddenly displayed an ERROR status on the dashboard, and then stopped at the intersection. For 10-15 minutes, we scrambled to Google to find out what happened and how to fix it and found that this particular model had to be recalled two years ago for this exact issue. Then, it suddenly started working again and we drove to the church where the service was being held.

The moment I walked in, I immediately wanted to cry. Grandpa's picture was propped up and staring at me. It was the first time that someone I was close to, someone I genuinely felt connected to, passed. I kept the tears in though--for some strange reason, perhaps to keep up decorum, I felt it was immature to cry before anything had even started. When the service started though, I was a wreck. It was a particular section of the reading of his obituary: they accompanied it with a slideshow of pictures of Grandpa throughout his life, and a picture of me & my family showed up, back when I was maybe 8 or 9. I just let it all out and 'P' comforted me while I sobbed and sobbed. I had never cried that hard before.

Some more stuff happened, but that info's between us cousins *wink emoji*.

world happenings

An IDF airstrike near the Lebanese border in Syria killed four people on Wednesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. In a departure from its usual radio silence, the IDF did claim responsibility for this attack and said that it took out a “significant” member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group. PIJ said that three of its fighters had been killed while Hezbollah said that one of its fighters was killed, which would account for the fourth casualty. -- Foreign Exchanges

Over last weekend, my Grandpa was lying in a hospital bed, and then eventually died. I felt grief; but however sad, it wasn't extreme. I just want to document things.

We left on Wednesday and drove to Hobby airport. And I like the airport: it's an atmosphere or vibe that only exists within its confines; there are lines and machines and it's really, really big. On our way to our gate, I passed by a coffee shop and on the menu there was a sparkling passion fruit black tea that I desperately wanted to try, but the line was so long and my Grandpa was sick, so I decided to quench myself with will. I brought with me Wuthering Heights, the Gothic novel by Emily Brontë, which is a difficult read, to me, a 20-year-old with, at most, a high-school reading level; so far I've only read to Chapter V.

After a while we make it onto the plane. I slept for most of the flight--it was a layover flight, but we didn't need to leave the plane: both flights continued with the same pilot. When we landed in Colorado Springs, my uncle was there, and he had a smile (toothy!) and he hugged me, my siblings, and my dad; and when we got in the car (an early Tesla model T or whatever), he did not hesitate to give us updates on Grandpa's condition. I'm not sure if he's autistic, but his way of speaking inclines me to believe he is--his matter-of-factness about the situation, his placid tone when discussing the potential death of Grandpa, etc. We went to his house to eat and we ate spring rolls and I drank this tasty drink from the Philippines, Calamensi, a lime-flavored juice drink.

Thomas Eakins -- The Agnew Clinic (1889)

Grandma was there. She had a scary incident of a stroke a couple of years ago, which resulted in her being a bit delirious and forgetful. Sometimes she forgets who I am, which is okay, because she still carries with her the usual jubilant friendliness. She only remembers how to speak in Vietnamese, so my uncles translate for her. When me and my siblings arrived, we introduced ourselves one by one, and she (according to the mouth of my uncles) complimented our looks, which my uncle explained: In her current state, all she cares about is looks. She complimented my hair, and my face, for my sister her nose.

'P' came down from the Air Force Academy to meet us, cause we haven't seen him in a while (I think about 2-3 years). We talked about a lot of things: his girlfriend, marriage, death, other stuff. Something I like about 'P' is his overwhelming joyousness. The guy likes to smile, and laugh, and he certainly doesn't like it when things get sad. It makes him a bit non-confrontational sometimes. We went on a hike with 'P', somewhere near Garden of the Gods, and we discussed the possibility of a Japan trip with the rest of the cousins on my father's side. The financial planning is that we all save around $1500 (relative to inflation--2024 to whenever we decide to go) and when the exchange rates are good again we book a flight and explore Tokyo for a couple days. On route back, we split into two camps: Me, 'P' and 'R', and the rest, Dad, my two uncles, and the kids (aged below 18). He asked me about my dad's conservative leanings, to which I broke his disillusionment by reiterating some of the wack-o beliefs he holds, such as the fact that the Covid vaccines would result in an End-of-Evangelion-style Event, and that The Holocaust was not actually the bureaucratic genocide of 6 million Jews, but a minor Covid-like event in which 180,000 died from the flu.

Cy Twombly -- [Untitled] (No.6) (1971)

Friday afternoon we went to go see Grandpa, and he was doing well considering the circumstances. His heart rate was high, but his oxygen levels only deviated between 90-97%, which was not the case the morning of. We spent a couple hours in the hospital room, just looking at the numbers change on the screen next to him, accompanied by his exasperated breaths that didn't make it past his respirator. For being in his 80's, he was strong man.

My uncles stood around him and cried, and I cried too. There was a point during our visit in which they discussed the possibility of feeding him, because he was not given any nutrition in the past 3 days due to the risk of him choking or not breathing when off his respirator. Uncle 'D' consulted with one of the nurse practitioners to run an experiment they previously had run a couple days ago: see how long he can breathe without the aid of the respirator. His record was about 10 minutes, and the leading physician "promised" that if he ever beat that record significantly, they would attempt to give him food. So we ran the experiment, and he exceeded 10 minutes by miles. In fact, we left before the experiment was done to get ice cream (around the 30 minute mark). It was funny, and a bit wholesome to see my uncle 'N' keep repeating how impressed he was. He kept saying things like, 'His numbers were never this good before,' and other things along those lines.

Well, we went home, and went to sleep, and the next morning Grandpa passed. I got the text an hour before I woke up, which was around 10:30am. That night we had dinner at a sushi restaurant, and we reminisced, as grieving families do, with pictures and stories and such. It was strange, because there was an air that this sort of thing was inevitable, even with the optimistic results of Grandpa's 'experiment', but I think deep down we all knew this would eventually happen. He lived a full life, and may he rest in peace.

I'm going to see him again this weekend. I leave Thursday, and am sort of dreading the experience. He wanted to be cremated and spread amongst the ocean or mountains, so we chose the mountains (because there are no oceans in Colorado Springs).

Edgar Degas -- Horse Tied to a Tree (1873–1880)

Now we're here today. My dad's new girlfriend got me a car, and I don't really know how to feel about it. It's a Nissan Maxima (I think the year is around 2008?) and it's a major, major improvement over my 2001 Toyota Camry--with 300,000 miles on it--but I'm at the point in my life where I feel like I've gotten plenty that I don't deserve, so this gift doesn't really fall sweet on my tongue, no matter how grateful I am for it. The reason she gave it to me, she told me, was because of a talk I had with my dad about how 'the world is fucked' (basically) and that with that the future is uncertain for me and Bree. I was being a nihilistic prick, countering my dad's arguments to be optimistic with mentions of rising interest rates, economic turmoil, stuff going on in Gaza, etc. In retrospect, I was being perverse about it, and that perverseness seems stronger with a new car attached to its hip.

Anyways: Bree, forgive me for not sleeping.

world happenings

Palestinian officials are reporting that an early morning Israeli airstrike on another school-turned-shelter in Gaza killed some 100 or more people on Saturday. The Israeli military (IDF) has acknowledged the strike but claims the school was being used as a Hamas headquarters—there are apparently an infinite number of these—and is rejecting the Palestinian casualty count. Israeli officials insist they used (US-made, of course) “precision munitions,” which is sort of beside the point as the Palestinians are saying the strike precisely targeted a large crowd of civilians at morning prayer. The strike drew widespread international condemnation and even a bit of mild scolding from the Biden administration, though US officials were careful to include the usual bromides about Israel’s right to defend itself and Hamas’s alleged use of civilian shields. Israeli officials were so cowed by the US blowback that they announced an expansion of their latest ground operation in Khan Younis, which has already displaced somewhere around 75,000 people. -- Foreign Exchanges

Some catchup on events long gone--there was a tropical storm that hit the heart (and electric grid) of Texas, so much so that around 2 million Texans were without power. Unfortunately, I was one of those 2 million, which meant that for a week-ish, I had to deal with batteries and flashlights and restless siblings and no A/C. L was constantly berating me with his expressed boredom, interjecting my reading time, and honestly just being a nuisance in general.

It went down as so: a board of scientists (probably those that specialize in Weather; weather-people as a friend would call them) had determined that Texas, our coastal sisters, et. al. were to bear the brunt of a Category One Hurricane, which is, according to said weather-people, the weakest type of hurricane. However, there was a miscalculation made on their part: a miscalculation that it would make itself onto land, and through Science and Such become a Tropical Storm, which is bad and, as proven through how I lived, much too powerful for the infrastructure of Texas. It slayed thousands of power-lines as well as trees, backyard fences, roofing, big trees, and small trees, and whatnot.

Felix Vallotton -- The Wind (1910)

Post-Tropical Storm life was pretty grim. With no electricity due to the strange idea of Texan urban planners to have an electric grid entirely separate from the one that every other American has, 2 million Texans, as mentioned before, were without power and Internet, which meant there was no way to text or call or be online. This was an especially costly blow to my siblings, who spend most of their time texting or calling or being online.

So, thanks to my Dad's girlfriend, 'A' (Let's veer off here, actually. For a while now, I had suspected that my lonely Dad had gotten a girlfriend since the divorce three years ago--it feels like it was just yesterday!--through his church network; my suspicions were a new character that would hang around a lot: 'S'. They would call all the time and were the responsible party for our turtles if we were ever out the house. But now, there's 'A', a character that had just been introduced not even a week ago, that seems to be a loiterer whenever my Dad is home. My suspicions of this new character being the new girlfriend were proven correct when 'L', last week, just flat out asked me if I knew.) allowed my Dad and my two younger siblings to stay at her house because power had come back on two days post-disaster.

I had to stay back at the powerless house, just to be there if it ever decided to resuscitate. 'R' was here too, my other brother. A major 'thorn' though, was that my Mom had left to go to Vietnam for a month (To branch off again, there was an incident at Dad's pre-disaster that led to me having to leave Bree's birthday celebration with her family. I had gotten a phone call mid-candle-blow from Mom, who sounded distraught when I picked up, crying and sputtering about how 'Dad had pulled a camera out when [she] came to pick up 'L' and 'V', and that [she] didn't know what was going on.' So, through my clenched teeth, I opted to drive 40 minutes back to where I had just come from and talk to my Dad about this incident. In short, 'L' was feeling down after some, I'm assuming, harsh banter with his online friends, souring his mood. Because of this, he no longer wanted to see Mom, but she was not made aware of why he didn't. So stuff happens and Dad pulls out his phone camera--he justifies doing so because, in his mind, it would act as a buffer to keep Mom from escalating knowing she was being recorded--and then Mom barges in 'L's bedroom, raises her voice a little, and then leaves after fifteen minutes of not being able to break through to him. Then that's it, she's off to Vietnam.). Conveniently, her vacation in Vietnam started before the storm hit, which meant that because her power went out, I was responsible for its maintenance, which inclines me to certain 'chores': clean out the fridges and freezers of spoiled food, come by every day to see if power ever comes back, and water the plants.

Paul Cox -- Flâneries (2013)

Okay, to be honest, I am getting bored of talking about the tropical storm. In frankness, not much changed in my lifestyle other than charging my phone in the car and finishing off Franny and Zooey by Salinger, which, if you haven't heard, is a delight. It might have impacted how I write a little too much, which almost certainly will stabilize back to normal after a couple weeks of abstinence.

I think I say this every post, but I am so excited for the future of The Rockets. We drafted Sheppard at the third, and he's been paying dividends in the Summer League, dropping 21 points, I believe, whilst displaying sparks of sharp play-making and impressive basketball IQ. Him and Whitmore are going to be cold-blooded killers when the season starts.

world happenings

This past Sunday was the hottest day ever recorded, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. The average planetary temperature that day topped out at 17.09 degrees Celsius (62.76 degrees Fahrenheit), breaking a record set—you guessed it—last year. Prior to last year the previous record average temperature high for a single day was 16.8 degrees Celsius, set in 2016. According to Copernicus, the planet has surpassed that temperature 57 times over the past year. -- Foreign Exchanges

This happened a while ago, but I hate the Boston Celtics. With them winning the championship, the next decade of annoying ad nauseam gloating will bellow from the underbelly of the city of Boston, spreading and emanating basketball fascism across this God forsaken country. Fuck you Jayson Tatum I hate you so much and Payton Pritchard please leave and join the Spurs I beg of you.

I hung out with friends today: P, M, and B. Every once a month we decide to gather for dinner, which is nice, because it's once a month. Today, we hung out at JINYA, a ramen chain restaurant located in The Heights. It sits right next to a Hopdoddy's and a bakery. I ordered the Tonkotsu BLACK and--after some serious pondering--a strawberry lemonade.

We discussed some stuff, relating to love and life and all that, P is moving out to Chicago and will be missed. I often times feel like I'm aware of things, but then things change and I feel like I'm off-pace. Things are constantly shifting around me but me, I am stagnant.

Georgia O'Keeffe -- Special (1916-1917)

The vibes at Agora were okay. It's a coffee place sitting on the corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy. It's got this hard brick exterior with 'Agora' written in a Greek Dafont font on the front, the interior is completely wooden and latticed. Beams everywhere, probably mahogany or something. On the walls are all these different kinds of Greek and Roman paraphanelia: statues, pictures of statues, artifacts (mostly fake), pictures of artifacts (mostly real). It's completely off-putting compared to the music that plays there. . .by God. . .what awful music. Late 2000's to Early 2010's indie uke music, stuff that only rears its head when in the recommended videos of a freshly made YouTube account in 2014. Seriously awful. The only real redeeming and charming quality of the place is the fact that there are people that go there, and those people are real people. Chess players, college students, couples who just want to be somewhere. The heat is real. It's also well air-conditioned.

We hung out with two of M's friends/family, a very brutish and humorous lesbian, and a woman with a nose job--it looked really good, very straight slope down. We talked about stuff with M, stuff I can't share, but it was an overall funny and happy experience! Whenever her friends/family were around when we were around, whether it be dinner parties or birthdays, there was always a distance held between the two groups (M's friends and M's family). The distance is closing.

James Ensor -- Cranes Fleuris (1909)

I'm desparate for the NBA Draft. It should come sooner, should come now. I want to see who we pick, it doesn't matter who I just want to see. A lot hay has been made for both Clingan and Sheppard, two guys that I'm not really familiar with, but out of the two, I think Sheppard might be a good pick for us. L thinks he's too short and a defensive liability, I say fuck the offense and pick a shooter. He's got a pristine jumper, and it'd be nice to have more than one guy on our team that can shoot.

Big hopes of Tari Eason and Sengun to be ultra-healthy next year. We could be real chip contenders within the next 5 years if nothing goes wrong!

world happenings

"The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least 39 Palestinians in airstrikes across northern Gaza on Saturday, one day after it killed at least 25 Palestinians in the supposed “safe zone” of al-Mawasi in southern Gaza. Saturday’s death toll appears to have resulted from the IDF’s attempt to kill Hamas’s Gaza City commander, Raed Saad. There’s no indication as to whether Saad was among the dead. The IDF killed at least eight Palestinians on Sunday in a strike on a United Nations Relief and Works Agency facility in Gaza City." -- Foreign Exchanges