Jes and I are finishing this blog post on the road. July 2022 marked our seven-year wedding anniversary, and to celebrate we decided to make a week-long road trip to the East Coast. Overall the trip has been a major success. It’s been full of exactly the sort of things we’d hoped would happen: romantic dinners, day trips to beaches and national parks, photos in front of scenic this-and-thats. It’s also, by a similar token, been a week full of exactly the sort of things we’d expected would happen—a word whose distance from hoped for, in this context, I really cannot emphasize enough.
To state the matter directly: the two of us have had a lot—a lot—of unstructured time in the car together. And while I defy the cynic who would describe that time in terms of being trapped in the car with one another, I will concede that Jes may, at times, have found herself trapped in the car with me. I am not proud of this fact. I do, however, find it a teensy bit amusing. So in the spirit of what, in retrospect, might be justifiably framed as an impish social experiment at my wife’s expense, I’ve endeavored here to compile a list of just some of the conversations that, in our roughly thirty hours on the road together, have succeeded in sending Jes up the wall. After each—because it’s only fair—I’ve given Jes space to elaborate.
1. Big Stupid Abstractions
Ben: I’ve suspected this one was true for a while. Still, there’s nothing like sustained quality time in a four-door sedan to confirm a hunch. Any topic whose relevance or application is not immediately clear—phenomenologies of time, the ontology of language, etc., etc.—rates about one minute of good-faith discussion. After that: huffy irritation.
Jes: No dispute here. Why anyone would have patience with questions like—I don’t know, like “how do you know this chair is a chair, huh?”—is beyond me. Hard pass.
2. The “Quiz Game”
B: I like knowing stuff. Sometimes I like to see whether other people know the same stuff that I know. So I ask. I don’t see what the big deal is.
J: First off: he’s a trivia junkie—and likes to assume everybody else is too. Second: his dad also plays the quiz game, and it drives his mom bonkers. So I know for a fact I’m not the only person who’d prefer to listen to a song without getting grilled about who the singer is.
3. Recent Hyperfixations
B: This category’s a bit of a revolving door, but in general, it’s distinguished by three characteristics: intensity, granularity of detail, and, most importantly, whatever has happened across my audio feeds recently. Highlights this past week include class war and nationalism in R. F. Kuang’s The Dragon Republic, the history of gynecology, and crypto-bro rug pulls.
J: OK, but he’s misrepresenting a little. It’s not that I find the connections between, say, Wicked and the War on Terror uninteresting. It’s that there’s objectively a better time to draw those connections than smack-dab in the middle of my “Defying Gravity” singalong.
4. Robert Evans
B: I included this item on Jes’s insistence. To be honest, though, I don’t really know why it’s here. Aside from the fact that he hosts Behind the Bastards, a history podcast I really like, I don’t know much about Evans himself. We listened to three or four episodes on our trip, and I guess he can get pretty crass at times. So maybe that’s why Jes wanted me to mention him here?
J: No, it’s not that he’s crass that’s the problem. (Fine: it’s not just that.) Evans is just a very negative person, and I don’t need that energy in my life. Give me a Sean Evans—or a Chris Evans, or really any other Evans—any day of the week, and you won’t hear a peep from me.
5. Last-Minute Blog Post Brainstorming
B: *tugs collar nervously*
J: *grabs Ben by lapels and shakes vigorously*
Ben DeVries (’15) graduated with degrees in literature and writing. He and his wife Jes, a fellow Calvin grad, live in Champaign, Illinois, where Ben is looking to add some letters behind his name. On the academic off-seasons, he reads fantasy and works as a glorified “go-fer” at the Champaign Park District. He’s been known to make a mean deep-dish pizza.
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Big stupid abstractions infuriated me, too, but please tell me more about Wicked and the War On Terror