Good morning. Hello. How are you #1067
Questions in a world of rambling. Special Jane appearance. Literal cold feet. Political swirl.
Good morning! Hello. How are you? Tuesday. It’s cold. Suppose I better get used to it since we’re going up to Boston this weekend. Man I used to be so good at cold. It’s relative, though. There have been times I’ve left New England or North Carolina to head back home to Alaska and it’s been in the 40’s from whence I’ve departed, and when I’ve gotten to Fairbanks it’s been well below zero. And I have been more cold at the departure than the arrival. It’s a mystery.
I would like to apologize for missing a chance to make a 1066 joke yesterday. William the Conqueror whaaaaaat. That is a shame. Also I lived at 1066 Commonwealth Avenue for a year in 1991 and it was a great location, right across from Star Market, just down the street from the Paradise. Had to walk by every day to get to school. Great apartment.
Jane woke me up at 6:30 today. That was rough. We are going through a phase. It seems like I may not get much of a vacation in that regard. She’s swell, though. She is sitting next to me drawing a picture of a girl. We do not know what the girl will be doing yet, but, as she reminds me, “girls can do anything.”
Got all my camera roll photos sorted yesterday – I did a decent job this year keeping them sorted as the year went on so there were “only” 1,000 or so to go through. I once again made use of Rick’s patented photo sorting system, the only good photo sorting system out there. I’m realizing this article is on Medium, and Medium is now registration-walled, which is super fucking annoying because that is not what I signed up for when I put that article up there. Maybe I will post it somewhere else. Gah. Enshittification.
I am looking through my year-end tasks and trying to figure out which ones I need to do here, at home, or I can do while I am in Boston, with a laptop. I’m looking through it right now. I do not especially want to do any of them today. Update when I die doc, parse captios, journals to Scrivener, Gigs to the Google Sheet, check Jane’s 529 plan, reconcile my Discogs library and iTunes, oh, god, these are all so tedious. Ugh.
Much more exciting is my actual real-world to do list. Keeping working on the compost bins. I made good progress on them yesterday, but then my PT’s office called and said that my PT was gonna be gone for my appointment Friday, and could I come in today (as in yesterday) at 2PM. So I sucked it up and did it. And after a lengthy inspection of my arm and elbow, she informed me that all the muscles were horribly inflamed, and I should… do nothing. No more hand exercises. Just let it rest. Wear my wrist band. My grip in my right hand is currently half the strength of my left. It’s been nine months. I am sick of this. I demand a refund.
The PTs office is by the hardware store, though, so I did get to stop by and buy the last of the wood I needed to finish the compost bins. Today is the day I can feel it. Even if it is 20° out.
Riddle me this: what is up with cold feet? Emma pointed out that cold feet are actually two different things. You can have cold feet like you have a cold butt: you put your hand on them, and they are cold. This does not particularly bother you, it is not particularly uncomfortable. But you can also have cold feet in the sense that they are cold to the bone, deeply uncomfortable and distracting. I have this latter type of cold feet constantly these days. Maddening.
Riddle me this: Why does everyone make their year-end lists before the year is over and why am I the only one who thinks this is immoral? I mean, normally I am watching a ton of movies the last week of December — I hope to manage this this year but I am dubious and not off to a great start. But I am also still watching new TV shows and listening to new music right up till the end of the year. How am I supposed to make a list before the end? False advertising!
Riddle me this: Why am I sad about Jonathan Majors? I mean it is the right thing to do to fire this guy but also he was a really good actor and I am sad. Why do people have to be awful.
Riddle me this: Why are my feet so cold.
Got a lot of “world issues” swirling around in my head but nothing concrete to say about them. Biden is frustrating and it is scary and I am so sick of hearing about RFK the world has lost its goddamned mind do you know that dude has six children? I wonder if he took the time to make every one of them breakfast every day or drove them to school or tucked them in at night for all eleven of them I’m sure he totally did that. I wonder what it takes to have 37 different sexual partners at the age of 47, as Wikipedia tells me RFK did. That seems.. maybe a tad much for my tastes. I wonder what Biden plans to do about Nalvany, I mean, I wouldn’t expect him to do much about a Russian dissident disappearing into the Siberian prison system but Biden was all like “yo you better find that guy or there will be serious consequences.” Seems a weird thing to say unless you plan on, you know, backing it up. Poor Nalvany. Dude really expected the world to rally more than it did, I fear. Did Israel find that Hamas base underneath that hospital yet? I feel like we would have heard about that. I wonder how good old capitalism-is-great America ran out of chemo drugs. Are we the only ones who ran out of them? What are the chemo drug supply levels of any socialist countries out there? Does Cuba have enough Chemo drugs? Congrats to the new Boston University RA union. There was an earthquake in China. The New York Times should just stop doing editorials it is helping no one.
Just the normal background radiation political horror swirling around in one recipe or another in every modern human’s head. Awesome.
Jane is sitting next to me reading along. She just brought me a red tissue paper star from my workbench, that Taylor Swift sent to us when we bought a copy of Red (Taylor’s Version). God there’s going to be a Reputation (Taylor’s Version) isn’t there. I’m not sure I can handle that. Did you know James Plotkin was in Khanate? How is it I heard of James Plotkin decades ago but never heard of Khanate until this year? How is there so much music to listen to. So much music.
Jane do you have anything you would like to add to tell my friends today?
“There’s a lot of colorful tissue paper shapes at Daddy’s workbench, so I went over there to ask him what he wanted.
“He wanted a red star, so I gave him one.
“I’m working on a picture, but I’m not done yet.”
Daddy says: “Do you have anything else you want to say to my friends?”
“There are Christmas cards on my desk but I don’t know why they are there :/”
Daddy said: “Those were the proofs mommy made to show daddy. A proof is an early sample to let someone see if they like it.”
“Bye, fri-ends!”
“Bye, Jane!”
Moody and quiet mix today. Just made it. Lots of songs that have been rattling around in my head for the last few days, plus a couple new ones. Man this Anohni album did not get enough attention. This might be my favorite Adrianne Lenker song. And that Giant Sand album evokes a very specific time in my life when I was working with Jill and always IM’d with Vicky in Memphis, who also got me into Giant Sand, who had a song about Memphis, so that is a thing. Nostalgia! Woo!
Until tomorrow, friend. Hopefully. Pending the mood of a six year-old.
I learned this week that James O'Malley of Khanate and Sunn O has collaborated with Julian Cope. Which sent me down the rabbit hole of realizing how many Julian Cope albums there are that I have never heard and do not seem to be available for streaming.