Content Nausea No. 88: Black Widow Spider
But peace comes in pieces of pea-sized bits. Will I get enough in time?
Welcome to the 88th edition of Content Nausea. You can read No. 87 right here. Please let me know what you think. This is the last one that will have a Parquet Courts song of the title. What did you think about that bit? I picked what’s going to come next, and it’s a little overwrought. Fair warning. Thank you for being here. Here is the welcome blog.
I started laughing to myself as I poured my wild berry Truly into a plastic cup with ice and walked out of the Goose Island Brewpub at O’Hare and over to my gate. A couple days earlier, I had been joking with people about avoiding insane travel itineraries after my solo 15-hour drive from the Great Lakes to the Catskills last summer. And yet here I was, waiting out a delay for my flight to Traverse City, Mich., from Chicago after I had already flown from State College to Philadelphia and from Philadelphia to Chicago. And this was one day after driving 9 hours from Vermont back to State College. But car problems are the bane of a suburban existence, so I was forced to confront the befuddled ticket agent at University Park who was baffled as to why I was trying to book a trip to Traverse City on a flight that left in 90 minutes. I’m not sure it was a coincidence I got pulled out for extra screening both coming and going.
I had been to the Traverse City airport once before, in 2005. I don’t remember much about it, other than we were getting in late. The same was true this time, as I landed close to midnight. I didn’t remember it being called “Cherry Capital Airport” the first time I was there, but once again, I was landing late at night ahead of a two-hour drive to the top of the lower peninsula. Cherry Capital Airport is kind of a quaint name. Also, it was on “Fly Don’t Drive,” which is clever. On the way back, I went through security with a bunch of kids coming home from Interlochen.
Anyway, as I sat sipping my Truly at the gate at O’Hare, I started going through airports I’ve been to in my head, along with little details I remembered about each (this isn’t a comprehensive list, as I don’t really have anything of note to say about Hartsfield-Jackson or LAX or whatever):
BWI: Always the most depressing airport to land at, though it’s been a while since I’ve flown in or out. The lighting is bad. Stepping into the mid-Atlantic soup after being out West was always brutal.
BHM: I felt like “Shuttlesworth” was always an appropriate name to have attached to an airport. Shout out to my weekend in Hoover, Ala.
BOS: The only thing I remember about Logan is getting Dunkin’ there, but I did see Coma Cinema/elvis depressedly for the first time in College Park the night I got back from Boston in 2013.
CID: Bless the 5:05 a.m. flight to Chicago in 2015 and the direct flights between Cedar Rapids and State College last fall. I have never experienced anything like it.
CLT: Connecting through here during its renovations in 2018 and 2019 was wild with the amount of exposed wiring and just lack of infrastructure (there were no floors).
MDW/ORD: All things go, all things go.
CVG: Cincinnati was a hub for Delta or Northwest in the 1990s, and it was always our stop on the way to Portland.
CMH: Much respect to the bloody Marys served at the Chili’s To Go. The ones at Eddie George’s Grill were not was good.
DEN: I’ll bow at the altar of Blucifer.
EUG: The destination for the legendary PHL-MCO-PHX-FAT-LAX-EUG gauntlet of 2018.
FLL: I read all of A Visit from the Goon Squad here.
RSW: Thank you to Anna for coming to get me here when I couldn’t get to FLL or MIA.
FAT: The airport code is FAT.
IAH: The only time I ever flew as an unaccompanied minor was through here on Continental. They showed us Kicking and Screaming in the little lounge.
MKE: Great carpet.
MSP: Most jarring memory here is being overcome with the urge to listen to “Survivor’s Guilt” by Coma Cinema here on my way to my grandparents’ funeral in 2012 (yikes!), but I was also here when I found out the Eagles hired Chip Kelly in 2013.
BNA: The live music outside security was a nice touch.
SNA: John Wayne Airport was right behind the complex I lived in during summer 2014, so I grew very familiar with the comings and goings. The one time I flew out was to go to San Francisco at the end of the summer. A couple years after, someone I went to college with but didn’t know too well but well enough to follow on Instagram who went to grad school out there posted a photo after takeoff from SNA and my old apartment was in the photo. Uncanny.
MCO: No comment on my most recent experience here.
PHL: I’m a fan.
PDX: No. 1 on the list. I assume this is the airport I have been to the second-most times behind BWI (with PHL in third). An all-time fav, even if I haven’t been here since I fell down on a moving walkway that wasn’t moving.
SAN: I got pulled out for extra screening because I had cuffed my jeans.
SCE: The got real bathrooms for the gate area recently, which was a nice surprise last week.
TPA: Multiple people told me this was their favorite airport and that it was really nice, and I agree with them.
TVC: Shout out to Cherry Capital Airport.
DCA: I picked Benn up from here in November 2010 when he flew down from Syracuse to visit me. We went to see Twin Sister at Black Cat and Medeski, Martin and Wood at 9:30 Club back-to-back. I wish I could ask him what we were thinking about this itinerary.
IAD: I respect the Dulles aesthetic.
Three lakes I went in over the past 10 days or so:
Some content I listened to this week
I had “This Is Me Trying” stuck in my head for a good portion of vacation. I won’t read anything into that.
Anna showed me “Speeding 72” by Momma while we were in Michigan, which led me into the rest of Household Name. It’s really good, really solid. Momma should be getting some of the attention that other bands are getting… Also, one of the singers has to be the same one from Fawning, right?
I listened to the Soccer Mommy episode of How Long Gone, which was good as expected. The song about the truck was already one of my favorites off Sometimes, Forever.
I have been tentatively dipping my toe into the Frightened Rabbit pool — I’m not quite sure where the themes will take me — and I opened my drive to Vermont by listening to The Midnight Organ Fight. I liked it. I’ll probably revisit it when I’ve got time again to sit with it.
Some content I read this week
I finished reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath at an airport bar in Terminal F in Philadelphia while drinking a watermelon lemonade Truly and using a 1989 Topps Darren Daulton baseball card as a bookmark. No one tells you how funny of a writer Plath is!
Other vacation reads: The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (loved it), Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi (enjoyable), South and West by Joan Didion (appropriate on the road) and The Odyssey by Lara Williams (didn’t ‘get’ it, but a smooth read). I’ve read a lot of things about being young in New York City recently, which has been interesting.
Matthew Futterman on Galen Rupp in The New York Times.
Lauren Theisen on Ray Oyler in Defector.
Scott Cacciola on Jakob Ingebritsen in The New York Times.
Drew Magary on abortion in SFGate.
Helena Fitzgerald on summer in the city in Griefbacon.
Dan McQuade on fentanyl and the fainting cops in Defector.
Jacob Silverman on the fireworks during summer 2020 in Hell Gate (I’m guilty in thinking this was something more, I’m sorry).
Zach Berman on Rodney McLeod, one of my favorite Eagles, in The Athletic.
Emilie Friedlander on John Hinckley Jr. in Dirt.
Howard Bryant on the Fourth of July for ESPN.
Gloria Liu on One Woman’s Wholesome Mission to Get Naked Outside in Outside.
Will Leitch on how the perceptions of things change on his Substack.
Some other content I saw or thought about this week
I had to take my car into the shop earlier this month, and in order to deal with shelling out $[redacted], I treated myself to Lupita’s and a strawberry Frosty. Lupita’s is Mexican food located in a gas station that also has a Dunkin’, slot machines and a normal convenience store. The tacos were really, really good. I agreed with Jeremy’s review of the strawberry Frosty. I would eat it again.
Terminal F gave me a nice little reality check Saturday when the gate across from mine was boarding to Fort Wayne, Ind. It could always be worse.
Thank you for reading the 88th edition of Content Nausea. It will get better. Thank you, and see you soon.
I never wanted nothing from no one
No, I never asked for anything more
But lies are to be suffered and never told
The way I did before
I'm trying to forget about someone I love
I'm trying to leave the person behind
I'm trying not to think about someone dear
But trying don't work sometimes
—D.G.