Angelenos Keep Asking My Baby's Star Sign

and they're scandalized when I don't know the details! Plus recommendations for Courtney Martin on fine print justice, and Clare Fieseler's deep sea secrets.

There are so many ways that Los Angeles has defied the stereotypes I had about it before moving here. There are also many ways it has 100%, fully, and unabashedly lived up to them. A prime example of the latter category is people’s interest in astrological signs, tarot, and supernatural vibes of all shapes and sizes.

To be clear, I’m not opposed to astrology! If it works for you, helps you understand yourself better, or just feels like fun, then go for it. I’m simply noting that it comes up in conversation A LOT.¹

I made it through decades on the East Coast without it being a huge social stumbling block that I didn’t know the time of my birth. But I didn’t last 6 months in Los Angeles before I needed to have the details saved in my phone’s notes app so that I wouldn’t enrage another acquaintance with my ignorance.

When Mollie and I took a birth class at the hospital last year, the nurses walked us all through the reasons why an induction might be medically necessary. Then they asked us if we could name the most common reasons for elective inductions. The nurse said the first most common reason for an elective induction is to make sure that the OB/GYN who you’ve been working with and are comfortable with is the doctor delivering your baby. Totally makes sense! But according to the nurse, the second most common reason for an elective induction is to pick your child’s birth sign.

When she said that, I laughed, because I was positive that she was joking. But none of the other parents laughed. They were nodding their heads as though it made complete sense. I mean, who would willingly give birth to a Scorpio? I could see them thinking. I’m glad we can make a serious medical decision based on this information.

The closest I’ve come to diving in the deep end with my fellow Californians was during the first pandemic lockdowns. My hair had grown to an untenable length and Mollie obliged me by cutting it. We sat outside to minimize the mess, but once we were done, I realized there was a lot of my hair on the ground. I got a broom and started sweeping it up. But then, inexplicably, I didn’t just pick it up in a dustbin and throw it out. I think we’d been inside away from other people for so long that I had lost all sense of human norms and social conduct. So rather than throwing my hair out in the trash, I swept into a disgusting pile in a corner of the yard and left it there.

Why did I think this was a good idea? I honestly cannot say. At the time, it seemed like the only logical choice.

There was a loose notion that I was composting maybe?

There was a sense that maybe this was the environmentally friendly option?

The next day, Mollie came outside and saw the giant hair pile and was, understandably, both disgusted and concerned. “Why did you put all of your hair into a pile in the yard???” She asked me.

I explained that I was composting it, letting my hair turn into fresh, healthy soil to nurture our plants and Mother Earth.

Mollie explained that that was not how composting worked.

The roots of any lasting relationship are communication and compromise so I took Mollie’s perspective into account, walked into the yard, dug a hole, and buried my hair.

That was, to her mind, not a solution. To my mind, I would dig up the hole in a few days and reveal that, of course, the hair had already fully reintegrated into the plants and the dirt.

When I did dig it up after a week, the hair was still there, completely unchanged. It was just now a lot of dirty hair. I swept it into a dustbin and threw it away. Later, when we told our friend Louisa this story, she said, “Chris! Burying your hair in the ground is where witches come from! You planted a witch.”

So there you go. I moved to LA, thought I was resisting the woo-woo stuff, but then inadvertently grew a witch.

Classic Aquarius Sun / Libra Rising!

My projects and upcoming events:

PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX) - This week, we’re re-running a conversation with Dr. Orna Guralnik of Couples Therapy on Showtime. We talked about why, despite all the relationship conflict she has seen in her work, she still believes in love, when it makes sense to change a relationship (and when it doesn’t), and the power of therapy. Listen here (or wherever you get podcasts)

This week’s list

GREAT:

Courtney Martin is one of the co-founders of the Solutions Journalism Network, author of Learning in Public, and co-host of Slate’s How To! podcast. I’ve been a big fan of Courtney’s writing for years and I’ve had the good fortune to get to know her recently. I’m always inspired by the way she tackles hard issues while focusing on practical, actionable, ways to improve the world. She’s also just a fantastic writer, on a sentence level, so her stories are always a joy to read. Her most recent piece is a nationwide movement that’s flown largely under the media radar, but that is transforming the lives of millions of people, while also saving the government money. Fine Print Justice

FUNNY:

Julia Bensfield Luce is a comedian, writer, and parent living in Nashville, TN. This piece she wrote for McSweeney’s is perfect and made me laugh from the title all the way through to the final line. In the spirit of the piece, let me just say, at full volume: THIS PIECE IS VERY FUNNY. Julia Bensfield Luce: I Am a Boomer’s iPhone and I Will Not Be Silenced

INTERESTING:

Clare Fieseler is a scientist and a journalist. This story she reported about a lost deep-sea mining site off the coast of South Carolina is a wild ride that involves the CIA, Soviet nuclear submarines, extremely rare and valuable metal blobs, and the looming threat of environmental destruction. It’s also the kind of story that I can’t imagine someone without a scientific background being able to write. Pulled from the Deep

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That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

Still confused about how composting works,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

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…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.

1. Would I have put this kind of disclaimer that I’m not anti-astrology or anti-tarot in a newsletter before I moved to LA? Probably not! But I’m putting it here now because I don’t want to lose every single friend I have made since moving to California. I love and respect your interest in the signs and I have personally had a revelatory tarot session in the Joshua Tree desert. Don’t shun me! Please keep inviting me to dinners and to the pop-up sound bath you heard about in the mountains!!