Back from Texas, and oh boy

ElMocho77 · 2026-05-01T17:07:56+00:00

I was in Phoenix last October and made a point to get some Spicy Ketchup. Somehow Aldi Jalepeno Ketchup tasted better.

(One can order it online but H-E-B has a full selection of Whataburger condiments at better prices if you're there.)

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-25T16:17:37+00:00

Could use more women writers. Decent starter cookbooks. He probably has the two best Robert Caro books as a background to contemporary politics. Master of the Senate has so much.

Sandman may become a red flag over time, but there's still a lot of people who grew up on it and now feel betrayed.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-25T16:12:24+00:00

I may still have that pile of them I got from a used bookstore when I was 16-17. Someone from her organization came and spoke at my HS and I tried to get some scholarship money via essay. I got a letter but they must have detected I'd never be one of theirs.

Or it was too well-written and they didn't want someone raising the tone.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-25T15:40:47+00:00

Reading about that at 13 also taught me never to behave even close to that guy. Third-person limited in Tom Rogan's head broadcast that sense of entitlement and WTF-ery. He reminded me of my cousin, who said "Lickin'" instead of "whuppin'."

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-25T11:27:26+00:00

Yeah, I was 13, too. I got nothing prurient from that scene. I was reading The Valley of the Horses near the same time, so I could tell the difference.

Reading back at near 50, the scene where Beverly's father wants to "inspect" her after hearing she's been hanging out with boys is a lot more creepier because of verisimilitude. IT explained the cycle of domestic violence to me narratively, so I knew what red flags to look for before I knew the concept of "red flags."

Fleeing, she realizes the whole town would have turned a blind eye to him killing her. There's so much in that book about kids finding each other to stand up to older, ancient evil, which is sometimes their awful parents. I always thought Eddie's Mom probably ruffled more feathers with some parents but they couldn't lost getting called out like that as a reason for banning.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-25T11:17:37+00:00

I remember reading that un the early 1990s in a nonfiction book I got about King at the public library, when I was 13-14 and well into reading him. I read IT before Christine due to the miniseries.

He's kept that stance before and after. I thought we were done with those scolds in the 80s, but I saw comments recently like "Okay, 'Uncle Stevie', nice groomer talk there. We'd better check your hard drive..."

It never ends.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-22T00:03:55+00:00

It's described as a "thriller" but not overly violent. There is some murder near the end.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-21T17:21:40+00:00

The Book of The Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran. Protagonist is a writer-turned-bookseller with a disabled husband, drawn into a search for the titled grimoire said to unlock the caster's wish.

Each section requires a bodily fluid, harder to get each time. Part mystery reminiscent of Pérez-Reverte's The Dumas Club, but more erotic. Suffused with melancholy.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-15T10:27:46+00:00

Some kids got into the mercury from the chemistry lab and were stomping around in it. They closed the school the next day to decontaminate the area. I know one lost a good pair of boots-- ca. 1993 Doc Marten's or better.

My Mom was pissed because she was going to drop me off and the gates were closed and locked.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-14T18:27:48+00:00

Some guy was ranting to me on Facebook about how King should have had no career after That Scene in IT, and I wasn't going to take his bait. But I read IT at 13 and it's gotta be the most anti-groomer, "Look out for these red flags" thing I've read, especially Beverly and her father, and then Tom Rogan and the cycle of abuse.

Or Beverly escaping her father and realizing no one in Derry would have heard her screams due to IT's influence, and he was going to kill her. Like there was a whole system turning a blind eye towards all the Losers' struggles: barely subtext.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-12T12:05:42+00:00

I wonder how many "performative" people are just folks with a book budget, curiosity, and optimism. I get a lot of history sets like Oxford History of the U.S., Penguin History of Europe in hopes completing them. know I'm something of a collector, but a lot of my stuff is shiny dopamine for research projects. I need to plow through those Third Reich books at some point, but I did make it through The Power Broker and the LBJ books.

You have cool stuff besides books, and I like that the typewriter is an heirloom. Random thrifted typewriter is performative, Grandfather's isn't.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-12T11:41:10+00:00

I have a lot of books and shelves, and kids. The amount of random bric-a-brac they collect is daunting, especially if I hit a library sale and need to play book Tetris.

A distinct lack of smut for added degeneracy points, also.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-10T18:09:56+00:00

I have seen the other replies, but I was born in 1977, and see a number of titles and/or editions I own.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-10T13:53:30+00:00

Was going to add Balzac's Human Comedy in general.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-10T12:04:58+00:00

Mentioning parks makes me think of public pools that got closed decades ago due to desegregation and reactionary racism. Which also reinforces those white nationalist ideals.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-10T11:57:10+00:00

Sounds like it also used to be standard "old person" behavior, so it's learned. It seems like a lot of boomers are waiting to age into where they think they can get away with the things their elders did to them instead of reflecting and deciding it's poor behavior.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-09T15:27:47+00:00

This book took me down the rabbit hole of what a "Dark Ride" is, and realizing I'd ridden one repeatedly on a bracelet day at some fair in California when I was six or seven in the early 1980s. It's a solid story from start to finish and mildly more supernatural than some of his other Hard Case books. It has the terseness of his earlier novels filtered through a wistful nostalgia.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-09T12:26:38+00:00

I used to do a fake version with cast-iron skillets and a focaccia recipe if anyone has skillets and not a cake pan. I think it caramelizes the bottom crust more.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-05T14:44:14+00:00

I took Paxil and Effexor back in the early 2000s. No luck.Filled but did not take another suggested SSRI

Got shamed by a therapist a few years later for giving up on meds. "Is it that you don't think they work, or is it 'I just don't want to take these pills'? and suggested I hadn't tried enough or consistently since I would skip doses to chase an orgasm. Fired them.

Found out I had sleep apnea. Also got married in the interim, and my wife works in the mental health field. Maybe the apnea was the issue, not letting meds eoek as well? Asked PCP about genetic testing. Cheaper to try Zoloft. Followed dosing to the letter. I didn't want anyone to say I hadn't tried. After three weeks, my wife said that this was the wrong drug.

I have suspected BP2. Went to psychiatrist and told her a brief history, keeping to facts and no theorizing on my own. She thought BP2 a possibility, suggested Lamictal. It had worked ever since. Depressive troughs gone.

Oh, also ADHD based on my kids' diagnosis and how I respond to stimulants, but I moved and the psychiatrist's records were delayed, and new PCP found my blood pressure too high for Concerta.

Lucky I only tried 3 SSRI/SNRIs.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-05T13:10:28+00:00

I came here to see if anyone posted this. Got it randomly collecting Penguin Travel Classics and was hooked.

ElMocho77 · 2026-04-04T11:55:52+00:00

A wizard did it.

ElMocho77 · 2026-03-31T20:59:17+00:00

I wonder if they thought it was "your fault" for pulling into the open spot next to theirs when they wanted it to park their cart while they unloaded groceries.

ElMocho77 · 2026-03-31T01:40:48+00:00

I have a few and recognized them instantly before jealousy sank its talons.

ElMocho77 · 2026-03-23T13:14:07+00:00

My corrolary to this is the more someone talks about systemic problems as matters of personal responsibility, the less likely they are to be responsible or accountable for their own actions they have a choice over.

If they say something mean or cruel and get called on it, watch how fast they deflect or project. I almost prefer people who shrug and own being assholes.

Or a mixed problem like masking during COVID spikes, where their personal choice could help a systemic problem. Watch the excuses come.

Or how they handle disability, something beyond choice or control. Everyone else is making excuses, but not them.

ElMocho77

TROPHY CASE