This post is part of my 2022 Word Project. You can read what that’s about here.
Monday, July 3, 2023
8:45pm
There is a Supermoon today. In other news, a Supermoon is a thing.
I pondered writing about that but it’s not as interesting as I had hoped. It’s just a fact. And I’m not feeling very poetic about the moon at the moment.
In case you’re wondering and too lazy to google it, it happens when there is a full moon at the same time that the moon is closest to earth. So it looks larger and brighter, but probably not enough that you’d notice it unless you had a good view on a clear night and you were in the habit of paying attention to the size and brightness of the moon.
This is one of four Supermoons happening this year, with two more in August and one in September. So it’s not the rarest of events, either.
It did, however, get me thinking about superlatives. In part because I was looking for the Most Interesting thing to write about and in part because my brother Kevin just wrote about superlatives on his blog.
So I decided to pilfer his idea and pontificate a bit.
Insofar as the Supermoon, it is neither the Rarest nor the Most Interesting. It’s just a Kind Of Neat thing to know, and now you know it. I think that’s Good Enough.
Not too long ago I made a list of some superlatives as potential fodder for this blog, none of which I can think of anything for. A best of/worst of sort of thing.
But to Kevin’s point, it’s impossible to pick just one because there are so many things to enjoy and appreciate. Picking a best of something implies everything else pales in comparison.
Which is true. For me it also means narrowing my options. It means I will ignore all these other fantastically fantastic things and pick just one.
Why limit yourself?
It’s why the TV show The Best Thing I Ever Ate has more than one episode.
Maybe I will just pilfer his ideas from now on.
The other thing is you don’t always need the best of something. It’s why we still eat Burger King, because sometimes a Fine Burger is good enough.
Sometimes you just want to see a pretty good movie or read a halfway entertaining book.
Especially when the bar has been lowered after experiencing something bad. I mean, after reading Naked Lunch, I’ll take A Book That Is Merely Coherent.
This is sort of an anti-superlative blog, I guess.
Right now I’m drinking a Fairly Delicious cup of tea that I discovered recently. It was Stupid Expensive compared to other teas so of course I bought it. I wanted to know what stupid expensive tea tastes like. It was about $14 an ounce, compared to the two bucks per ounce I usually spend on tea. It makes about eight cups. Math-wise, that’s not a lot per cup if you think about spending three or four dollars on bagged tea in a paper cup in a coffee shop.
But compared to other teas, while not the Most Expensive, it is one of the More Costly.
Anyway, it’s worth a now-and-then treat. It’s not the BEST tea I have ever had, but it’s A Very Good Above Average Tea That I Would Drink Often.
The nice thing about that is I still enjoy two-dollar-an-ounce tea and don’t need to pine longingly for this one.
Yesterday I saw a Pretty Great lightning storm. It was after the actual storm had passed and there were puffy white clouds just above the horizon, glowing pink from the sunset. And the lightning was happening in the clouds so instead of bolts all you saw were these intermittent pink flashes like a very slow strobe light.
It was not the MOST interesting storm I’ve ever seen but it was Pretty Cool and I enjoyed it.
Hm… what else… I’m not really reading anything right now and most of the movies I’ve seen are Fine, but nothing I’d bother sharing.
Oh, I know.
I just finished a cocktail course that I bought some months ago when there was a deal and I decided to give it a try.
It’s from a company called A Bar Above, which is fitting in its modesty.
They have a series of courses and a number of them sounded interesting, but I started with the beginners course, because I’m a little OCD like that. When presented with options I feel like I need to start at the beginning.
I wouldn’t say it was the WORST course I ever took but it was Below My Expectations.
After the course they asked for a review so I sent them an essay. I told them the truth, which is that I probably picked the wrong course because my cocktail knowledge surpassed the banal genericisms that they taught, but even so I felt they missed the mark on a large portion of the content. I made suggestions for improving it.
So either they are all sitting around the dinner table right now talking about how I’m That Person, or they are considering my creative criticism and making their content better.
Either way, it was a Disappointing Course That I Wish I Had Not Spent Money On, but I’m not mad about it. And maybe their advanced courses will be – not the best, but better.
I’m sure that is More Than Enough words on the subject, but you know me. I am Remarkably Verbose if nothing else. And as this is not the Most Exciting evening I’ve ever spent, I may as well entertain myself with this a bit longer. It is, to be honest, Almost Fun.
I’m sitting on the beanbag as I write and it keeps sinking and I am getting slowly tipped over onto the floor. I’m going to need to get up and adjust which may actually be the Most Annoying Thing happening to me right now. Not ever, to be sure. In the grand scheme of things it is merely A Moderate Inconvenience.
A few minute ago I ate a Particularly Delectable dinner of chipotle chicken tacos. Minus the taco part because I’m being More Healthy Than Usual.
I could never ever ever think of a Best Thing I Ever Ate. I like food way too much for that.
There’s the Pretty Spectacular pizza with the hot honey and arugula from the food truck. There’s the Rather Excellent chili cheese dog I had, also off a food truck. There are Pretty Good pancakes in town and Perplexingly Uninteresting ones at a pancake place in Nashville that nonetheless has a line around the block every Saturday morning. It seems that the bar has been lowered on pancakes around here so most people are happy with pancakes that are Passably Edible.
Look at how much more interesting things become when we kick superlatives to the side.
To be fair, though, the best mojito is still at Cuba in New York.
Anyway, I did get off the beanbag and walk outside to see if I could catch a glimpse of the Supermoon. Alas.
I will have to live with being Marginally Disappointed and see if I fare better in August.
Photo: tonight’s sky, nary a Supermoon in sight. Mostly Boring but Good Enough For This Picture.