The Observer.

"Silo" S2 becomes our next Box Set; a short ode to dumb fun; a great song about pollen; what it means to really have a plan.

That was unexpected.

Not unlikely or unimaginable, but certainly unexpected. Readers were pretty decisively on board for the AppleTV+ series “Silo,” which will start its second season on Nov. 15, and said so in this post, which I honestly didn’t think would get a ton of reaction:

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I’m excited about it.

I went into “Silo” S1 without much expectation and ended up writing a lot about it, starting with this all-in, very excitable Two Episode Test:

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Not long after, I wrote more, ratcheting things up lovingly and forcefully with this piece:

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If you haven’t watched “Silo” ever, I think you can safely read the first post, the Two Episode Test, just to get a sense of things. After you dive into S1 and start to get into that world, you could safely read the second one above. And yes I wrote briefly about the ending but I think we’ve got enough “Silo” love here to make it clear it should be exciting going back into that world.

A note on that — “Silo” rolls out one episode per week, without even one of those cutesy two-episode drops to start the season. It’s a throwback and some of you indicated it’s not your favorite way to watch. You’d rather binge. But many of you also said you’d play along with the Box Set just for the fun and fellowship of it all. Awwww. You guys.

I am grateful for the once a week pattern, because it’s quite possible I’ll need something to anchor me and focus me on getting through the weeks ahead one at a time. I mean, who knows what kinds of weirdness and possible madness are in our near future. So I’m looking to “Silo” for some solace and One Good Thing to keep me going, if needed.

It’s been a very strange week, which is why this is coming to you late on a Friday. I won’t get into all of it but I did have one small win that, I believe, said a LOT about my mental state: On Wednesday evening, the brake lights in my car went out. The same car that, just under two weeks prior needed two new headlights and a new battery, plus a tow to the mechanic from the driveway of the Suburban Bauhaus.

It cost a lot of money. Everything seems to cost a lot of money, I know. But I was very focused on that Wednesday night, wondering A) If I would be randomly hit from behind and B) how both lights could go out at the same time and not be an electrical problem rather than a more simple and affordable bulb problem?

On Thursday, under the dumbstruck realization that, uh, driving in the daytime without brake lights is actually worse than at night (my tail lights were working at night, so there was at least two beams of red to alert someone that a tiny Fiat was in front of them), I realized I’d have to do a deep-dive on how to fix whatever problem it was myself and walk to the auto parts store in the process. Anyway, fast-forward through much agitation and worry, and I managed to fix it by myself (it was, indeed, just both brake lights dying at the same time, as weird as that seems to me).

That’s not the point here. This is:

My resulting exuberance was, noticeable to me in its latter stages, truly out of proportion with the actual depth of the problem. It was like I had won the lottery. I was ECSTATIC. I realized then, that — much like many of you I’m guessing — I just needed something to fucking go right. I needed a win.

The little wins, people. They keep ups going.

I wrote a very small bit about suffering annoyingly from allergies and promised I would post this song, because it’s spot on to the issue but also just a lovely gem. It’s called “Pollen,” from the band Tennis, which I listen to a lot, especially when I need to adjust my vibes:

Here’s a short thought that continues a theme in my life: You know, we all talk about change. Habits. Goals. Our whole selves. Whatever it is, as humans (most of us anyway) we’re always hoping to achieve some kind of change. From New Year’s resolutions to spring cleaning to quitting our jobs or changing the world or doing something personally profound, for ourselves, whatever secret that might be that we’re not telling anyone.

We are constantly seeking change. Change needs a plan.

It always involves a plan. And then follow through and perseverance and all of that, but let me cut all of that off and circle back to the plan notion. This is nothing profound, but a plan confirms something is wrong and needs to be fixed and, duh, in that plan you will outline your options. But what if you can’t make a plan because there is no plan to make? Meaning, there is no quality level option. There’s no out.

I’ve been thinking about this since so many of my people have been joking about making a plan about what we may or may not do after the election. (I mean, you knew I was getting there eventually.) From a joke — vocalized or written worry masquerading as comic trial balloon — to, no, I actually think we need a plan.

Unfortunately, lots of plans fail because of what I mentioned above — there’s no plan to hatch. People can’t just move out of the country (most of them). Or maybe whatever urge you have to, you know, just do something other than deal with the fallout in your favorite chair, is also not an option for anyone else you love. As in, “well, I have a job and it’s not a remote friendly job.” Or, “I’m in school, remember?” Or, “Hi, small baby over here, waving a hand because I can’t speak; remember me?”

Hatching a (good) plan is harder than you think.

Every part of me wants a plan. I want to back slowly into an old phone booth or escape pod and land somewhere else — I’ve recently thought about a remote Scottish island with cabin and a fireplace, for instance, where a person could just slowly fall into madness, but the good kind of madness, by the water, in nature, dissolving into entropy.

But unfortunately, I think the plan is there isn’t a plan. It’s a little upsetting.

Photo by Stormseeker on Unsplash

On a more upbeat note, I’ll leave you with this: One of the side gigs that keeps things going required I watch a series that is not, in almost any way, aimed at me. But that’s fine — I’m a professional, I contain multitudes, I can do what’s needed. I watched this series through the lens of the intended audience, noting the (famous) source material, and enjoyed it, “flaws” and all, as a thing put into the world for someone else. It’s kind of freeing to watch something from another realm; a dog catcher watching two cats clean themselves.

I enjoyed what was presented. Every time there was a critical flare up from inside, it was always misguided to the project at hand and thus irrelevant. Shhhhh, I told myself. Just watch.

Yeah, pretty good, I thought, looking at birds as if I was a bird watcher. Nice, actually.

There’s your weekend moment of zen, people.