So in a moment of mental abstraction, I managed to leave my teal 16 oz Yeti tumbler behind at Union Station in Los Angeles. I’m bummed, too, because it was a limited edition color that suggested the best days of high school and was a sort of birthday present to myself. I have since replaced it with an 8 oz Yeti tumbler that has the California graphics on it, which is the perfect size for cocktails or as an overflow/keep cup and might be a better size for bedside use and portion control. Because I already had the 16 oz stackable Yeti that was actually closer to 19 ounces and is sort of an all-purpose size, which was going to just be the cocktail shaker going forward…and of course there’s all the other ones I already have, even though many of them are not going to be regularly used. (The Vanderbilt ones are going in a drawer just because the logos are no longer obtainable, the work one is in the bag, and the water bottle…we’ll see. It has not been great for travel purposes so far.)
I say all that to say this: I am starting to accumulate stuff again. A couple of American Giant resort shirts. A Yeti flask, of all things, which I definitely can’t justify (at least the California keep cup is sort of a memento of 20 years in the state). A new black and gold lightsaber, and the black and red one probably going as a present to someone before long. And I keep looking for hats from the Birmingham baseball this summer even though I need another hat like a hole in the head…
What the Hell am I doing?
I know what tomorrow is (of which more later) and I know it’s 2024, and I think that despite how much better and less anxious I feel on the Zoloft, at some subconscious level I am acutely aware that tomorrow is not promised and the end of the world rests upon the edge of the knife, and this is no moment in history to defer any joy no matter how slim or ridiculous. The sucker punches are lurking in the shadows, and you never know when something you put away months or years ago will rear up and try to whack you in the back of the head.
I think part of it also comes back to my eternal quest to find the 100% right thing. Even though it is just a hair too small, that Yeti was just right in terms of hand feel, balance, and versatility – I wouldn’t have taken it on the train if it weren’t. Problem is, the one I already have isn’t quite right in the hand or quite as easy to clean, but at just over 0.5L it splits the difference perfectly for coffee, soda, beer, what have you. (Although all the coffee goes in my mother-in-law’s old 24 oz mug now, to keep the staining confined to one thing, and I don’t brew tea concentrate any longer, and large-scale consumption of cold beverages is now in the 35 oz which is also the road trip vessel…)
Maybe this is a sign that even though I feel materially better (and people notice), there are still underlying things gnawing at me that I need to come to terms with. Which, like I said, of which and all that.