11/6/17

last night i was watching the sixth episode of ken burns's 'the vietnam war." there was footage of the tet offensive. journalists in that war seem like they worked harder than any war journalists before them. i feel nonjudgemental about those war journalists. i was by that time, in watching it, very stoned. i sort of lost track of where i was (my studio apartment). i felt increasingly invested in what was happening on-screen and eventually sort of felt like i was going to have a heart attack. i stopped watching a few minutes after that

one of my windows, there's been water somehow between, or within, two(?) of the panes since i moved here over a year ago. it's always, like, cloudy with condensation, no matter the weather or temperature. i hope this isn't a problem

currently, my apartment is filling with smoke because i'm seasoning my cast iron skillet, yet again. the smoke alarm keeps going off

some of the people interviewed in the 'the vietnam war' seem very relaxed and resigned to what happened. mostly these are vietnamese people who fought against americans. a few americans interviewed seem reasonably okay, others seem not well in a way that makes it kind of weird they agreed to do the interviews. i feel like, had there been a draft, i would've probably avoided the war in iraq by being in college

oh, also, the other day i was passively watching the breeder's cup. a horse named "gunrunner" won. it was somewhat unsettling how much happier the owner of the horse was than the horse or the jockey. jockeys almost don't seem to care if they lose. i guess sometimes they show robert kraft being happy when the patriots win, for instance, but never as happy as horse owners. feels stupid. it's like they're cashing out on an investment, which is different from winning a sporting event. maybe it's not

anyway, after coverage of the breeder's cup ended, 'dateline' came on, and a voiceover mentioned something about "the first iraq war." i think she was referencing the gulf war, which has maintained, i feel, a pretty consistent history with that being its name. like for a long time we called the war in iraq "the war in iraq," but maybe now that it's sort of over(?) it's easier to call it "the iraq war." but i don't know if it's appropriate to then call the gulf war "the first iraq war." it does occur to me that they used to call the first world war "the great war." stuff changes with context and time. okay. i haven't really looked into it, but i've never heard of anyone calling what i referred to as "the war in iraq" "the second iraq war"

that is all. thanks for tuning in