The Burning World
Sunday need not be scary.
[Photo by me]
It was a wild week for me. How about you? I worked. I walked through a cemetery. I thought about living in a human nest. Remember, there’s no time for the Sunday scaries. It’s all in your head. The point of life is to live in the dreaming.
This week, I visited the Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation. It is located in the Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood. When I arrived, it was morning. The landscapers were busy mowing the grass. Near the shrine, two men, one in a backhoe, were digging a grave, the white casket waiting nearby. Down the road, several dozen people were arriving for a funeral. A host of aviation heroes are buried at the shrine. Their number includes three women, among them: Hilder Florentina Smith. Per Wikipedia:
“On her second jump climbing from a Glenn Martin piloted airplane correcting for drift on a windy April 1914 day, Hilder, a non-swimmer, was startled by seeing the Los Angeles bay below. Reaching for the cockpit rail, she slipped tumbling from the airplane [and] twisting the parachute lines. Quickly untangling the chute lines, Hilder inflated her chute just in time, landing on the beach. Watching the near disaster, her spouse Floyd Smith vowed to redesign the Broadwick static line parachute to safely operate away from the airplane. Hilder's inspiration spurred Floyd to develop and patent the first freefall or modern parachute.”
For work-related reasons, I’ve been researching venture capital funds. In “Building a Career in Venture,” Samantha Wong offers up sage advice: “Say ‘Yes’ to things you’re not qualified to do.” She notes: “Research tells us that women are less likely to put themselves forward for roles they don’t believe they are fully qualified for.” She adds: “You don’t need someone to give you permission.”
Sometimes people like to assert that sex no longer sells. My response: LOL. XBIZ breaks down the traffic generating kings of adult. Take a look at this graph:
[Image via XBIZ]
Speaking of sexy, Cardi Bi debuted the video for “WAP” featuring Megan Thee Stallion with a cameo Kylie Jenner. Here’s a sampling of the lyrics:
“Swipe your nose like a credit card
Hop on top, I wanna ride
I do a kegel while it's inside”I like manneuqins. (See also: Jenna Jameson in wax.)
If you’re a man, you need this Louis Vuitton coat.
At a certain point, I got super obsessed with the idea of staying in The Human Nest. I believe I read about it in the California Sun newsletter. (If you don’t subscribe, and you live in California, you are missing out.) Here’s the testimony of a woman who stayed in The Human Nest that involves a second chance.
Girls are trouble. (Buy my photographer friend Steve Diet Goedde’s work here.)
I’m back on Bumble. I don’t know why. I mean, I’m single. So there’s that. It feels like going to Las Vegas, but not leaving the house, and instead of trying to win money, you’re trying to win a man. So you keep pulling the lever. And the little icons keep swirling by. So far you haven’t hit it big. What’s one more pull?
[Photo by me]
Read this now: “[I]s it still possible to face the gathering darkness, and say to the physical Earth, and to all its creatures, including ourselves, fiercely and without embarrassment, I love you, and to embrace fearlessly the burning world?”
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