#//context that i keep forgetting to provide / provide too much of. i forgot school existed so im just assuming cady let him sleep in while

[a-a-ron-samuels]

I should sleep for 14 hours more often. Huh.

[jodywegner]

A bad day. (I just need to rant into the abyss of the internet)

I’ve never actually left work early for a bad day before. But I felt that today if I didn’t, I’d end up embarrassing myself and ruining all of my relationships with my coworkers or better yet end up in the HR office. It was just an accumulation of a few too many small things that have been building up for months while I’m emotionally vulnerable.

I also know that none of my coworkers will ever see this post. But even if they do, I doubt they were aware of my feelings. The worst part is that nothing is really anyone’s fault. There’s no bad guy, and that makes it all the more frustrating, and that finally came to a head today. Because I can’t chew people out for doing nothing wrong. Sorry for the long post. Lotta resentments getting bottled up.

So context. 1. My grandfather has been in declining health for a while now. This isn’t very upsetting for me. He’s in his mid 90s and lived a full life. We were all provided for and everything is taken care of. For me, it feels more like a natural thing that is now finally happening. My aunt and my father have been fighting for years over different things, but my grandfather’s declining health has definitely rekindled the flames of war. 2. I work in TV animation production, and my goal is to become a storyboard artist. I’ve made that goal clear. I’ve asked for tests but I can never get any. I’ve asked for feedback and no one has given me any. The shining star of this was my boss giving me 5 long minutes of not quite saying “it’s not good enough.” I figured he was busy and didn’t want to hurt my feelings. He did say that if he hadn’t hired our then current revisionist, he’d love to have me start as one. Since then, he’s hired 4 more revisionists who have come and gone for different reasons. 3. I don’t think I draw that fucking bad. I’ve been told my artists I work with “why don’t you have an art job yet?” which the answer is “because no one will fucking give me one when I ask and you guys aren’t in a position to.” (they mean it as a compliment but it just really keeps bringing me down whenever I fail) And there are a lot of people my age getting art jobs while I’m not and yah I’m not that old but it’s very stressful and discouraging regardless of logic and optimism. 4. My intern this last semester showed my boss a sample board and got extensive notes and feedback and was offered freelance revision work even though she’s still a junior in college. She’s 3 years younger than me and was here for 2 months. My boss literally walked into my office then started talking to her in the adjacent cube over the wall about how good she is and the upcoming freelance revisionist work. And I have to sit there quietly and pretend it’s not killing me. 5. I’m lactose intolerant. 6. I guess I’ve been suffering from job related depression for the above reasons. Nothing major, I’m not suicidal, but I’m definitely very unhappy and going to work is definitely not a fun or even neutral experience anymore. It’s hard because the correct answer to my problem is “git gud’ and we all know how NOT FUCKING HELPFUL that is. Today 1. I get a text from my parents at 6 am telling me that my grandfather has passed away. We went over yesterday to say our goodbyes expecting him to pass either today or tomorrow. We left at around 8pm and asked my aunt to call us when he passed and that we’d come over. So my parents find out that he passed away at 6 am today. From a third party that isn’t even FUCKING RELATED TO US. Apparently my grandfather had passed away 10 minutes after we left yesterday, and she decided not to let us know. We had to find out through some other person offering my father his condolences. 2. Well the two coworkers I am closest with were late for miscellaneous reasons so I kinda had to keep #1 bottled up for 2 hours. 3. When things happen, I bluster and storm for the first hour before calming down and becoming rational. So I’m sitting at my desk all morning trying my best to keep my shit together because I’m absolutely fuming and was (forbid) by my mother to retaliate. She’s not wrong but there’s a lotta stress and emotions here. (3.5. Although I was directly forbid retaliation, I still went ahead and planned it anyways because it was a mildly constructive use of my stress. DM me if you want to know how to ruin someone’s entire week and never get caught.) 4. I took some Lactaid 30 minutes before I decided to finish my leftover mac n cheese from the fancy food truck yesterday as breakfast. Yah the Lactaid didn’t work at all for some ungodly reason... It’s 9am and I’m in a lot of pain both physically and emotionally now.... 5. So one of my favored coworkers finally beats traffic and gets in so I go to talk to her about all of this. I immediately get cry-y. Which blah blah blah crying is part of grieving but I can do that later. It’s not great when I’m at work because crying opens up the floodgate of emotions and the near impossible task of re-wrangling them under control is now daunting. Emotional fortitude -50. And people just kinda didn’t notice that I was crying and upset and not very quietly recounting this horrible morning story. They kinda walked right by. Not a single person other than that one coworker (and my other favored one who came in a bit later) offered me any condolences or asked about how I was doing of if I was ok. It’d be one thing if that happened and no one was around and I regained my composure. BUT I DIDN’T. 6. That fucking intern (who’s a nice person but god I wish they’d stop existing in my life. It’s fucking petty but today is really the worst day for it so fuck it I’m saying it.) is coming in for a big storyboard meeting between all the board artists, revisionists, and supervisors. So I had to see her and pretend to smile and be pleasant and supportive while I’m emotionally compromised, grieving, pissed, and now petty and jealous all over again. So I get that out of the way and I sit back down and get to work. 7. The other coworker I like to talk to comes in. She was a former intern who also wants to be a board artist so we try to help each other in our endeavors together. She’s an optimist. She says that she’s going to ask if she can sit in on the meeting and asks if I’d like to come along. Bless her outgoing-ness that I struggle with. But as much as I’d like to... that’s a room full of people who either forgot that I want to be a board artist, don’t care, or are straight up ignoring me about it and keep doing and saying all of these unintentionally hurtful things to and near me. Also that fucking intern is there. Also I’m pissed. Also I’m emotionally distraught. So I declined her offer. Even if I could get something good out of that meeting, I’m pretty sure I would have just had a breakdown in the corner. So I didn’t want to embarrass myself like that or make people feel uncomfortable for doing their normal business. 8. So by this point I’m sure I’m going to be snippy or mean or start crying in front of people, so my goal was to finish my most important task and leave at noon. I finish, I grab my bag to leave. As I do, they all get out of their storyboard meeting and bluster past me because they are now late for seeing the storyboard trainee program final presentations. GREAT. 9. Another production coworker of mine comments on how its important for them to go in case they see anyone they’d like to hire as a revisionist. I fianlly hit FUCKIT and say “IM GOING HOME.” And so I go to walk to the elevators. 10. I chose the wrong time to walk to the elevators because everyone in that meeting is waiting at the elevators to go look at the storyboard trainee presentations and scope out the new talent. They’re in too much of a busy mind to notice that I’m about to cry and am probably glaring with white knuckles as I clutch my bag. Luckily for me the elevator is full and I have an excuse to take the next one and not theirs. A part of me wished that they would say “come on in! i’m sure you can fit!” But... stuff like that never happens with them. No one goes out of their way to include me in things. So... whatever. Maybe I’m just being negative trying to find the bad in every little thing, but this is a rant so I’m going to do just that because fuck the consequences of people liking me and thinking I know how to adult properly. 11. I’m driving home and get a message from my coworker (glanced at a long red dont arrest me pls wait till tomorrow) saying that the intern asked if I had sent her intern evaluation to her school yet. I did. A few weeks ago. This isn’t really a bad thing it’s just that I was finally fucking free and just about to not have any reason to keep it together but then BAM. Intern shows up in my life again. Right after I though it was all over. A little god damn poke. Now So I managed to drive home without crashing into buildings or furiously honking and I am now just holding my cat and typing this. I’m pretty sure none of my coworkers will ever see this. A part of me wishes they would and that maybe they’d care, because I really don’t want to have to start a conversation specifically about all of this with them.    Who the hell starts a conversation with: “By the way boss, can you please stop discussing giving the intern freelance work when I’m within earshot let alone in my god damn 6′x8′ cube?” “Hey boss, remember when I asked you for feedback and got none? Why does the intern get your full attention when you are even busier?” “Hey boss, why have you hired 4 more revisionists when you said that’d you’d love to have me as one? Did you forget? Were you just lying to me because you didn’t know how to give me feedback? Did you even care about what you say to me?” “Hey intern, I understand you are excited and this is a great opportunity for you, but can you please read the room at least a little because I want to cry every single time?” “Hey everyone, I want to be a board artist remember? REMEMBER?” ”Hey everyone... I’m an artist too.” “Hey everyone, can anyone just give me a little help?” ”Hey everyone, if I keep my purse stocked with your allergy medications, pain killers, band aids, digestive relief, girly goods and keep good snacks around and remember your schedules and try to make your jobs easier and serve as your primary IT person...will you remember that I’m here?” “Hey everyone, do you all dislike me or do you all just not care enough to notice me?” They’re all good people, but it’s not stuff that I really know how to say just out of the blue. So today... I just couldn’t stand being even in my own cube anymore. I’m not an outgoing entrepreneurial person who bugs people everyday trying to sell themselves as an artist. I’m someone who tells you my intentions, and asks for help, and then believes people when they tell me sorry they’re busy, that they wish they could help, that they’d love to have me if only not for “x”. No one is entitled to give me a job or help me. But... I don’t get why I’m the only one who gets nothing for a response when I do ask. If they were busy, that’d be fine. But since then things have gotten busier, and my boss personally worked through multiple iterations of my intern’s practice board with her. A good piece of advice I got was that your first 5 tests are awful...but I can’t even get anyone to give me my first one. I’m told to work hard and “git gud”. But it feels like I’m just bashing my head against a brick wall, and no one even acknowledges the effort. It feels like if I decide to stop doing that because I’m about to have a breakdown, I’ll be looked down on as a quitter and not passionate enough. I have passion, but all of this is 100% killing it, and I don’t want to hate art. I really don’t. But I’m starting to. It’s hard for me to enjoy it when now it’s only done to seek attention and approval that I’ll never get from these people. Today would have been difficult still, but not unbearable if not for that. My grandfather’s death isn’t a tragedy for me. He was in pain for a long time and he definitely made the most of his life. The tragedy is that despite all of this, my aunt decided that my family didn’t deserve to know that our grandfather, my father’s father (who lives literally 5 minutes away by car), had passed. I’m definitely not looking forward to the memorial service for my grandfather. Not because the death is hard to deal with but because all of the family there is. Would love to make life terrible for my aunt. Would love to be just as petty. I have so many colorful things to say and do. But ultimately none of that matters. It’s just death. Nothing changes it or adds a new flavor to it. So all of that anger and hurt just kinda snowballed today. And to top it all off as I’m typing this some asshole is beating a dog somewhere in the neighborhood and the dog is screaming and yelping. (called the police so hopefully they find them) Thanks for reading this long negative rant. I hope it helps anyone who is feeling similarly frustrated, because I dont have someone around who’s breaking down quite like I am so this is all I have. Shooting it into the internet in a passive aggressive attempt and chance that maybe someone who needs to read it will. Positive news: I watered my plants with the extra time. I hugged my cat. I will be returning with art for Mermay.

[rotten-zucchinis]

some reflections on making sense, apparently only to myself

This post was written for the July 2018 Carnival of Aces on the topic “Now and Then” [call for submissions] [roundup of posts].

I’ve been out as asexual for so long that I forget sometimes that people don’t know what that means. I don’t mean strangers, because I’m still constantly having to explain things to people in all sorts of contexts that there’s no way that I could forget that. But I’ve had these conversations for many years with people in my life who apparently still don’t get it. And I’m also increasingly aware that people in various radical communities can’t be assumed to have had any exposure to ace anything. 

I’ve been at this so long, making sense of my own life, experiences, and all sorts of ideas and concepts, that I forgot sometimes that other people aren’t on the same page with me-- that they wouldn’t even be able to locate the page, let alone read it if they could. I’m very much not new at this anymore. But that means, I’m not speaking the same language as most people I interact with. And too often, I forget that.

Having the discursive tools of the ace community has been really powerful and has helped me make sense of myself and much of my experience. But a big part of that power for me comes from the way these things can integrate into and/or reshape other discursive contexts I occupy-- contexts that are already geared toward fundamentally changing the society in which I exist and dismantling the power structures that sustain it. The flip side of that, though, is alienation from a lot of people. There aren’t a lot of other people who can share in that.

For the most part, I’m kind of only making sense to myself.

moments of context

Recently, after my sister came with me to participate in a Pride march, it came out that she had no idea that I was aromantic [like this], despite basically my entire life of not dating anyone, and my doing significant non-romantic (non-sexual) relationships. And perhaps more importantly, despite the many conversations I’ve had with her about QP stuff and about family members not taking my relationships seriously because they’re not romantic... That’s not exactly what I’d call “easy to miss”.

And my mother apparently didn’t know that I was sex-averse, which led to some interesting dinner-table conversation with questions that I think other people were not comfortable hearing being put to me or with me having to answer. My mother has attended workshops (plural) that I’ve facilitated and panels I’ve been on where I’ve discussed these things. I don’t understand how she didn’t know. So I have to wonder what it is that people actually take from my explanations.

The other day, someone I know in person who’d recently got a copy of my relationship anarchy / shiva zine [here] mentioned looking forward to reading it, but phrased that in such a way as to suggest they thought there was a lot of substantive content to grapple with. As this is someone I know through anarchist spaces and who’s very well-versed in all sorts of radical political theory, my first thought was that they must not have looked over the zine because I doubt there’s all that much content that would be new, other than perhaps details about Jewish stuff (and my family). But on second thought, I realised that they might not have more than a passing familiarity of the concept of asexuality and had probably never encountered words like amatonormativity. And I was left to wonder, how would a text like that read to someone who hasn’t been steeped in ace community discourse?

When I table at zine faires, that zine doesn’t tend to get picked up by people who aren’t already familiar with ace things... I always have other educational materials... and on the occasion the title strikes someone’s fancy who’s new to asexuality, we have a conversation about it first, and I make sure they have other reading materials. And yet, I sill don’t know what people are going to make of that. I really have no idea what people will take from my words.

some reflections

Back when I first came out as asexual so many years ago now, my aromanticism was just part of my asexuality in such a way that it didn’t immediately need to be articulated. 

It took me a while to claim “aromantic” or (very dark) “grey romantic” (and not just because this was before we had the language of “grey”-- and before AVEN’s triangle had a gradient). These things are complicated [like I’ve discussed before]. But I knew right off-the-bat that I wasn’t interested in dating and also that I was interested in (and had been doing) significant non-romantic (and non-sexual) relationships. And these were asexual things for me. As I’ve discussed before [e.g., here in response to someone], aromanticism has always been part of asexuality for many aces, in a way that asexuality is not part of aromanticism. So I came out as asexual, and had a lot of people not believe me for a long time [e.g., as I’ve discussed before here]. But I never felt the need to come out as aromantic in the same way, because people already knew how I was doing significant relationships and were already giving me a hard time for it-- it’s not like they didn’t know. I’d assumed it was obvious, and ground I thought we’d covered.

My earlier years within asexual/ace community were a time before there even was a non-ace arospec community-- our ace language was necessary for that to come into existence later on. And while the ace community was quite deliberately set up to fit neatly into contemporary sexual orientation politics, it was still a time before “attractions” were mapped onto compulsory “orientations” and “identities” as a matter of course [as I’ve discussed here], which are constructed as independent of each other [as I’ve discussed here] in the neoliberal nightmare appropriation version of the split attraction model. (It's not that people didn't call themselves romantic and aromantic-- ace of hearts and ace of spades are old-school community symbols-- because they did, and people used terms like gay-A, bi-A, straight-A. But a lot of us didn't use such labels and there wasn't an expectation that they're somehow necessary in the way there is today... albeit with somewhat different sets of labels.)

We’ve now moved into a context where it’s socially relevant to create hyper-specific identity labels [as I’ve discussed here], where something effectively becomes sacrosanct through articulation as an identity [as I’ve discussed here], and where it’s horribly taboo to recognise how systems of marginalisation act much more broadly than just on internal “identities” [as I’ve discussed here] or “internal experiences of attraction” [as I’ve discussed here]. (These are very anti-materialist times...)1

And we’ve now had time to see things like the assimilationist clawing back of things like QP relationships into “romance light” [e.g., as I’ve discussed here] or meagre attempts to side-step the issue of resisting the assimilationism via troubled concepts like “aplatonic” [as I’ve discussed here].

And these are things I’ve had to resist, both in my own life and as I interface with ace discourse in various places. These are things that not everyone wants to resist. And that means, I’m often very much not on the same page as many fellow aces around me-- especially as those who tend to regularly participate in ace-specific things. (There are of course aces next to whom I don’t seem so “out there radical” but I mostly encounter them in other spaces, spaces more explicitly about changing the world, spaces that don’t view liberal ideals as avenues for liberation. And it’s far too infrequent we have the opportunity to speak about our liberationist ace agendas.)

Because I’ve been involved in ace community for so long, it’s hard to keep track of how things shift-- (of the many a’s relevant to my life,) when did the A that defined my existence shift from “asexual” to “aroace”? And what was that change? It wasn’t *me* changing-- it’s not like I ever changed how I do intimacy and relationships-- it was the discursive landscape that changed.

But I am cognisant that the discursive landscape I reference is the discursive landscape specifically of the ace community. To the outside world-- to people who didn’t understand the diversity of what asexuality could mean-- the only changes were in opening up orders of possibilities: the change of it becoming possible to be so many more things. I guess despite my efforts to provide adequate explanations to people in my life, I was never able to make people understand more than the reductive definitional shell of asexuality. We were never speaking the same language.

And I am reminded of years ago when I first had conversations with family members about being neither a woman nor a man-- before I had the language of non-binariness. I had to use a metaphor with shiny and fuzzy cows, in which I am tree. I would have thought those would have been memorable conversations. Apparently not. People can forget what they can’t assimilate, what doesn’t make sense. But eventually, when the language caught up and became something they could access, they were able to remember, even if they still deadname and mispronoun me. Even if they don’t really understand what it means.

At this point, I’ve spent so much time thinking through ideas that it’s almost hard to have a conversation-- something comes up, and then I have to do so much explaining. Heck, when I wanted to explain textual intimacy to someone, I ended up having to write more than ten thousand words *before* I could even start [e.g., here].

Having the discursive tools of the ace community has been really powerful and has helped me make sense of myself and much of my experience. But a big part of that power for me comes from the way these things can integrate into and/or reshape other discursive contexts I occupy-- contexts that are already geared toward fundamentally changing the society in which I exist and dismantling the power structures that sustain it. The flip side of that, though, is alienation from a lot of people. There aren’t a lot of other people who can share in that. 

For the most part, I’m kind of only making sense to myself.

I don’t know how much of that is new, and how much is just a new recognition of the degree to which I always was only ever making sense to myself.

Footnote:

1  cw for anti-ace hostility

This anti-materialist framing is what makes it possible for The Discourse TM to even make sense. I’m not interested in talking about that specifically-- I’ve written before [here] about how things like people’s experiences with homophobia and heterosexism don’t divide up neatly according to identity let alone by “experiences of attraction”-- but there’s a change in the shape of some of the general anti-ace hostility that I think is worth mentioning.

We’ve seen a radical shift since I was a teen: When I was in high school, people gave me death threats and told me to kill myself at least partly because they could tell that I was asexual and none of us knew that was a thing [e.g., as I’ve written about before]. Now, people are harassing high school students, giving them death threats and telling them to kill themselves (online) at least partly because they’re asexual and everyone involved knows that’s a thing. Fortunately, that kind of harassment tends to be largely online, but there’s a parallel here that is striking.

[dipulb3]

2021 Lexus NX 300h isn't new, but it's still good

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/2021-lexus-nx-300h-isnt-new-but-its-still-good/

2021 Lexus NX 300h isn't new, but it's still good

The current-generation NX might not be long for this world, but it’s still uniquely positioned as is.

Andrew Krok/Roadshow

For 2021, Lexus hosted a key party of sorts for its 6-year-old NX compact crossover. Previously, you could get an NX hybrid and an NX F Sport, but you couldn’t combine the two. That makes the arrival of this NX 300h F Sport Black Line about as much of a surprise as Monday following Sunday, though it’s a special-edition model limited to 1,000 units. Even so, at its heart, the latest NX mashup is plenty comfortable and competent.

Like

Sharper looks than standard hybrid

Darn decent efficiency

Comfortable in daily use

Don’t Like

Expensive for an aging vehicle

Cursed infotainment

Why can’t they all look like this?

Honestly, the F Sport should be the NX’s de facto face. Not only is this mesh-style grille far more appealing than the standard one, the F Sport body kit adds some weight to the lower front bumper, which has a pretty aggressive upward angle on the regular NX 300h and looks like somebody forgot to draw in a chin. Throw in some F Sport-specific 18-inch alloy wheels and you’ve got a solid looker, even though the NX has been around for a bit now.

It might not carry the flashy looks of its newer, harder-edged Teutonic competition, but the 2021 Lexus NX 300h F Sport’s interior is still a damn fine place to spend time. Unique touches inside are limited to contrasting blue stitching, a heated steering wheel and aluminum pedals, but there’s no sense messing with success. The seats have superb cushioning and support, and the center console’s raised setup means glances take less time away from the road ahead. It’s a little old-school in that physical switchgear absolutely dominates the NX’s interior, but the controls have good tactility and are dead simple to use with very little distraction. Cubbies and stash spots abound, including my favorite one, nestled just ahead of the center armrest and covered by a small removable vanity mirror. The automotive world needs more weird little touches like that, where nobody’s really quite sure why it’s there. I mean, there’s still a mirror in the sun visor, so who’s it for? The back row?

Speaking of, some compact crossovers choose to sacrifice interior space in the name of aesthetics, but not the Lexus NX. It doesn’t have the flat, wagon-ish roof of, say, a BMW X1, but my 6-foot frame doesn’t have any issues in the back seats, and with almost 43 inches of legroom, I definitely have room to stretch the ol’ gams. If you’re just one person or have a small family, the NX’s 16.8 cubic feet of cargo space should be plenty, although the hybrid system takes up a bit of space, shrinking the total capacity down from 17.7 cubic feet in gas-only variants. While that’s more storage than the Mercedes-Benz GLA-Class can muster up, it falls well behind competitors like the Audi Q3 (23.7 cubic feet) and BMW X1 (27.1 cubic feet).

Smoothness over sport

Lexus creates some of the quietest, smoothest-driving vehicles in the luxury segment, and even its second-littlest crossover really swings for the fences in this regard. While F Sport models do gain a sharper suspension, the NX Black Line is still among the most comfortable vehicles in the segment. Whatever bumps aren’t dispatched by the dampers transmit little movement to the cabin, and in traditional Lexus fashion, there’s a decent amount of sound-deadening material throughout the body, keeping most unwanted road noises at bay. Gobs of pedal modulation make limo stops a breeze, and the steering turns the car, which I imagine is the extent to which its future owners care about that.

It’s good that the brevity-averse 2021 Lexus NX 300h F Sport Black Line is a smooth operator, because it sure ain’t a quick one. Like all other NX hybrids, the Black Line gets its forward motion from a 2.5-liter inline-four mated to Lexus’ hybrid hardware for a net 194 horsepower. It’s a regular old hybrid, not a plug-in, so its battery is limited to a couple miles of electric-only operation at sub-highway speeds, but leaving the NX in Eco mode really puts that nickel-metal hydride to work. On one suburban jaunt, with speed limits never eclipsing 40 mph, I ran largely on electricity for a few dozen miles, resulting in an impressive 45 mpg. That’s an edge case, though — the EPA rates this NX variant at 33 mpg city and 30 mpg highway, which is OK for an electrified all-wheel-drive SUV, but I was able to beat both figures with little more than a light foot. The continuously variable transmission is so well tuned that I basically forget it exists, which is about all you can ask for.

There are driving modes beyond Eco, even though that is my clear favorite. Eco is all about efficiency, so throttle inputs are dulled and the powertrain does its best to be in its most economical range at all times. Normal, the default mode, has a firmer throttle response that does a better job of providing post-stoplight acceleration, but it eats into efficiency a bit. There’s a Sport mode, too, but why bother? Yes, the NX 300h F Sport does offer some semblance of sportiness, but it’s clear that the underlying Lexus still wants to be cool and collected as often as possible. The Black Line also includes Lexus’ fake-engine-sound synthesizer, which thankfully has a proper Off setting.

Lexus’ leather game is on point. Those seats are even more comfortable than they look.

Andrew Krok/Roadshow

Out, damned touchpad, out, I say!

One day, I won’t have to write about Lexus’ accursed infotainment system, which has been kicking around in various iterations for almost a decade now. Its current method of manipulation, a touchpad on the center console, remains as odd and unintuitive as the day it came out, as the cursor “snaps” to various parts of the screen while your finger tracks along. It’s hard to manipulate sitting still, nevertheless while driving.

An 8-inch screen, which is what my tester has, is standard and it’s fine, rocking the same old aesthetic Lexus has relied on for years. A 10.3-inch screen is available on other trims, which adds navigation, but it’s not standard on the Black Line, despite it being the most expensive NX variant available. Thankfully, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are still along for the ride no matter what. Just add touch capability, for crying out loud, it’s already available on the LS. Who cares if you have to move the screen closer so people can actually reach it? A second, smaller info display lives between the speedometer and power delivery gauge, relaying relevant information about tire pressures, fuel economy or the trip meter.

If there’s one corner of in-car tech that Lexus has down pat, it’s safety. All NX models come standard with the Lexus Safety System Plus 2.0 array of passive and active technologies. This bundle features lane-keeping assist, forward-collision warning with automatic emergency braking, pedestrian and cyclist detection, lane-departure warning and full-speed adaptive cruise control. Blind-spot monitoring and parking sensors are included in the NX Black Line, as well. Parent company Toyota has had plenty of time to refine these hands-on systems, and it shows in their operation.

I can only hope that the next generation of NX gets rid of this touchpad once and for all. 

Andrew Krok/Roadshow

Down to brass tacks

In its press materials, Lexus says the NX Black Line prioritizes its customers’ desire for “exclusive styling and value,” but the latter claim is iffy, given that it’s the most expensive variant by base price, starting at $47,835 including destination. My tester rings in at $48,745 with some fripperies like door edge guards and illuminated doorsills, which is quite the pill to swallow for a compact luxury crossover that’s due for a replacement. But in context, it’s about on par with its competitors, all of which offer similar base prices and similar chances to load the cars up to high heaven with all manner of options.

The 2021 Lexus NX 300h F Sport Black Line’s hybrid powertrain and focus on proper old-school luxury help set it apart from the crowd. If what you’re after is comfort and efficiency, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better fit in the compact SUV segment.  

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