Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1001
Jane's first day, second day cancelled, Threads misinformation goof, health stuff
All right all right all right. Good morning. Hello. How are you? I have decided to go without a comma for the next nine thousand editions. We will revisit the topic for issue # 10,000, which will be in about 34 years. Never say never. I also think that on the rare occasion I refer to a specific >1,000 edition in the text, I will use a comma, i.e. GMHHAY #1,001. Thank you for all of your opinions on this topic. I know it is a divisive one. I hope we can heal and move on from this.
And thank you for your well-wishing on the topic. I’m pretty proud of it. Pretty proud of GMHHAY in general. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could make a living off of it. Same problem Anaïs Nin had. Worse things in the world, I suppose. Unfortunately I never met Henry Miller. Or the modern equivalent. Does Pitchfork Reviews Reviews count? That guy was awesome I miss him.
Also I don’t post on Twitter anymore, though I confess to occasionally lurking and also forgetting to turn off my notificiations, so I will say it here, thank you, Taylor. That was very kind of you.
I saw my first disinformation warning on Threads today. It was on a post by my old coworker Keenen. It was… well, it did not inspire a lot of confidence in the AI skillz of the tech behemoth formerly known as Facebook:
Jane’s first day of school went well. Thank you to all who texted and inquired how it went. It went great. She loved it. Or liked it anyway. Her favorite part of the day was playing “follow the leader,” I think when they went to the gym? Unclear. Her least favorite part was when they “stopped playing follow the leader.” Man. Fascinating. She also enjoyed the times they all gathered on the carpet — she likes sitting on the left corner of the carpet. She said carpet time made her feel “a mixture of nervous and curious” which sounds pretty great. I think a thing that might save her is that she loves learning and practicing and she loves knowing things so I don’t think she’ll get too too bored while re-learning how to count, which seems to be a thing they did yesterday. There was a book that had English and Spanish in it — I think Ms. Frew must have been on it enough to give it to her, which is pretty great.
There is a girl in her class she likes named Caroline. She couldn’t remember anyone else’s name but there is a boy she thought was okay. Of course only 1/3 of her class was there, so it won’t be until tomorrow that she’ll meet everyone.
But honestly, she wouldn’t tell us too much about the day. And thus begins twelve years of me being intensely curious about what happened in my daughter’s day, to be answered with very short sentences telling me only fragments. This will be followed by a lifetime of even less. Swell.
One thing I like about her school is that they have separate playgrounds for different age groups. Or at least they have one for kindergarteners and first graders. The school map they gave us is a little hard to read but I think there might be two more playgrounds, thus dividing the kids further. This was not a thing in my school, I don’t think. I switched after Kindergarten from U-Park to Joy but I don’t remember being segregated as a kindergartener at U-Park and I definitely wasn’t as a first grader at Joy. So. I am into this. This seems… safer. Also I’m psyched there are no sixth graders in her school. Hoodlums.
And now school is cancelled today because of the hurricane, which seems like it was really awful for a lot of people but was not awful here but it’s worst was supposed to be exactly at school drop-off time and while in hindsight they totally could have managed it there was basically no wind or rain at 7, they couldn’t have known that yesterday. It is annoying for me, because I don’t want to mess up her schedule, so I still got her up at seven, but now I gotta keep an eye on her for four hours, which is not super hard but precludes a lot of the things I needed to do this morning like my walk and drill holes in the attic at the new house and get eggs. I’m just really eager to get my new routine in place. I feel somewhat unmoored without my routines. But I will manage because I am a strong and confident adult and gosh darn it people like me.
I can’t remember exactly how cold it had to be for them to cancel recess at Joy Elementary in Fairbanks Alaska but if I recall correctly it was a) well below zero (ten? twenty?) before we had recess inside and b) it had to be below 40 below to actually cancel school. I strongly suspect that I am exaggerating these numbers, but only a bit, and I also suspect they are nowhere near those levels now. Anyone with current knowledge (or, say, within the last decade) of the Fairbanks North Star Borough School System want to update me on the current numbers?
Also all this kid tracking really is something. Someone yesterday in FB comments said “yeah and now kids don’t get kidnapped so much” and man, that is so true, isn’t it? I mean, really, since Jane’s birth, every interaction with the public is an exercise in them keeping very close track of our kid and taking immense care to not accidentally give the kid to the wrong person. This can seem horrible but I think the opposite, and someone else said the same thing yesterday: it makes me sad how little they took care of us when we were kids. I mean, sure there were great things: riding our bikes all over creation and whatnot, but kids got kidnapped all the time, and I strongly suspect (though this can never really be measured) that overall abuse numbers are way down, at least non-parental abuse. We can take it too far sometimes but I for one am pretty jazzed they won’t let my daughter get into a random car at school and will check IDs. That seems… wise.
Forgive me. I stress. This girl’s been hiding in this house for her entire life.
Also I remember when she was born I was still commuting to New York once a week, which meant that even though I was home full time, I was gone about 48 hours a week, which was even longer than your average commuting-to-work parent. And I vowed that I would be here for her her entire childhood. And I fixed that. And I was. Jane will always have memories of a childhood where her parents were around all the time. Ten points for Rick.
But now that she’s in school I’m gonna go to Boston and see Peter Gabriel.
And probably get Covid.
Though I did manage to go see LCD, Wet Leg, Genesis and Yo La Tengo in one week at the height of another Covid peak and I didn’t get it because I was a neurotic masker and germophobe.
Though I don’t know that I have those skillz anymore. This country is doing its best to sap me of them.
The things I will do for any and all former members of Genesis.
Speaking of former members of Genesis I cannot believe how quickly these Lana Del Rey shows sold out I am super bummed. She’s playing Charlotte, sold out. She’s playing Merriweather Post, our new favorite, the night before the Slowdive show in DC for which I have tickets. Sold out. People freakin love Lana Del Rey. That is good. Except I cannot see her live and I am bummed.
Got a new blood pressure medication coming, doctor is not overly worried about my skyrocketing blood pressure but we’re gonna tweak things. I’m also strongly considering Mounjaro, because it’s 1/3 the cost of Wegovy, maybe won’t make me as ill, and the shortages seem to have abated somewhat. Sure would be nice to, you know, weigh what I used to back in the 90s.
I would… like to not die any time soon. I would like to live to be eighty, ninety, even a hundred. Sign me the hell up. If someone told me today I am only at the halfway point of my life I would be psyched. I’m getting healthier all the time but it doesn’t feel like enough. I feel like I gotta get neurotic about it.
And, god help me, I am probably gonna try and quit caffeine.
That’s gonna suck, isn’t it.
Moody and quiet for today. Old and new. I didn’t know about all these Charlie Parr and Alan Sparhawk collaborations. Apparently there’s a whole album, too. I gotta get that. And there is a new Crime and the City Solution. Exciting. And Bonnie Prince Billy. Ditto. And more Cutting Crew because they really don’t get enough love from First Wave c’mon man Cutting Crew ruled.
Talk tomorrow, where I guess I will drop Jane off at school and then go to Walmart so I guess you will get some thrilling Walmart tales tomorrow. Ciao.
1. Hi!
2. As a career public school educator without kids, it’s idk, helpful? For me to read about how you’re processing Jane’s first week. I think that the transition for kids AND PARENTS from elementary to middle school is probably also pretty terrifying, which is something I forget. Of course parents are constantly pulling up memories of what their schools were like—what other context do they have? So, thanks.
3. Speaking of middle school and Lana del Rey—I am in charge of the music that plays through the school’s PA system during the passing period when there’s one minute until class is going to start. This gaggle of 8th graders started hounding me, like getting passes out of class to come to the library multiple times per day, to play some super depressing Lana song during passing period. I milked it for weeeeeks, and got them to run errands, clean up, peer pressure each other into being nicer, etc. They were bugging me during a passing period when it finally started playing, and the ringleader stopped talking mid-sentence and got the wildest look in her eyes. Then they all just turned around and went to class. No thank yous. Just obedience. It was amazing.
jane’s first day sounds like it was a success! i’m thrilled (and relieved).
re:masking, cedars-sinai sent out an email saying that they will be requiring masks again starting 9/1. i went to my dentist yesterday and his office is in a giant several stories high office building (it’s across the street from the OG SoHo House in West Hollywood for reference). anyways, i consider it a medical building (it’s mostly doctors and dentists per the directory, and as such i wore a mask. the only other person i encountered from the parking garage to the dental chair was my hygienist. sigh.