Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1069
Greenhouse work, Somerville work, year-end work, we bought a farm, band poster returning, tiny house guilt
Well hello hello hello. How are you? Like seven editions before the end of the playlists in GMHHAY, and I have just had the bold innovation to make the playlist before the day’s edition of GMHHAY, and listen to it while writing. Brilliant. Shoulda done this years ago. Let’s regale you with tales of our nobly pedestrian adventures today, shall we? Grammy has Jane this morning. Which meant I got to sleep in for the first time in several weeks. All the way to 7:45, because the HVAC people were showing up. But that was still glorious – an hour-plus longer than usual these days.
As promised, here is a photo of the new compost bins for you:
Can barely see them? Well that is the point, dear reader. You can barely see it behind the greenhouse, but there is a walkway behind it, to the speech clinic, and so things need to look nice from both sides. So they are painted to match the stone.
You will also notice that I have hung the first set of shade curtains. That was an adventure. I made the cardinal sin of not looking in the box immediately to make sure all the parts were there. I mean, come on, it is a box of two curtains how could they not have all the parts? Well, they use specialized, spiralesque bits of plastic to attach them to the runners. Which they did not include. They did grudgingly agree to send them for free, that took some doing, but I needed to hang at least one now, so the electrician could understand how they work and hang the conduits appropriately. (Side note: My electrician, man. Showed up a day late. Texted. I immediately texted with something he could get started on and told him I’d be there before that task was done to get him going on the greenhouse. He ghosted. I don’t mind being this dude’s backup job when he has no work, but a bit more texting would be nice). So I had to go to Walmart and the hardware store to get a single curtain hung, attaching it with a combination of every 1” S-Hook within a mile’s radius and, well, Christmas bulb hangers. Worked great in the end. But you could not pay me to do a second one that way.
In the year-end organizing projects I didn’t get much done. I checked all my domains to make sure everything was on auto-renew and private. Really don’t own many domains anymore. That is a habit of which I have cured myself (no dangling participles here). Down to ten or so. Yay me.
Measured all the art that is going to Somerville into the apartment up there for cheap Amazon frames. Very excited about it. Several concert posters from gigs at TT The Bears are returning to Boston — Turkish Delight, Damon & Naomi, Pale Saints, Bardo Pond. Also a poster for local heroes Future Bible Heroes and a great Laibach poster I picked up at Man Ray in ‘92 and a Sisters of Mercy poster from ‘91. All very exciting.
Spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the TV situation in the Somerville apartment. There is a big wall, but it’s right on a main walkway, so I can’t put any furniture there. Which means a wall-mount TV and Soundbar, which is a pain in the ass, or a projector, which are still kinda expensive for good ones. Real first world problem, that one. Anyone know of a good, not-too-expensive home video projector? Anyone own these Benq things?
Important Kit Kat news: while the Churro flavor seems to be on the outs, which is such BS, there is a new flavor in America: the chocolate frosted donut Kit Kat, and it is muy delicioso. I am a fan. This will tide me over. Not available in minis yet, at least not here in NC. But I wait with bated breath.
Complaining-about-Taylor update: the new Hunger Games film is out and it is also a $20 rental, but: 1) it is a 30-day rental, not three, and 2) You can also buy the film for $25, an option that was available on the sane day as the rental. Still an absurdly expensive rental, but even that one is a better deal than the Eras rental.
Also the 1989 Red Scarf Christmas ornament is plastic and not knit, c’mon.
So we bought a farm. Or we will have, by the end of the day. It is hilarious. Me and the dudes bought a farm that we are turning into an RV and boat storage facility. It is like 60 acres, it is on Fearrington Road, not far from Jordan Lake, close to Governor’s Club. We have finished (well, Rocky has, I just paid the bills as finance guy) the environmental impact statement, the local feedback period and session, the first two of three appearances on the county commissioner meeting agenda, and will (hopefully, fingers crossed) get final approval on our building plans next month at the next commissioners meeting. Then we are going to buy a ton of steel and make a ton of storage unit bays, and one of those turning lanes. It is all absurd and glorious. Oh and because of environmental laws and wetland laws and zoning and all that shit something like 75% of the land will not only be preserved, it will be returned to a more pristine state. The whole thing will have less of an environmental impact than all the dodgy-ass chemical stuff being stored there.
What does owning an RV storage facility have to do with building swimming pools you ask? Well, 1) the infrastructure is mostly landscaping and concrete pads, just like pools, and we are very good at landscaping and concrete, 2) we need a place to put all of our equipment anyway because it is piling up in our various driveways and it is getting absurd, 3) that’s it I guess but cmon still we are gonna own a farm this is gonna be hilarious. Longtime readers know of my obsession with storage wars and storage units and this isn’t quite there but it is close. I cannot wait for someone to not pay so we can auction off the contents of their unit. I called dibbs on getting my auctioneer’s license.
(Wait a minute, does “dibs” only have one B? Well I’ll be.)
To those of you asking how these mofos bought a farm, the answer is, 1) it is North Carolina in the country shit is cheap, and 2) loans from normal, local banks are a lot easier to get when things don’t involve computers! It’s a real It’s a Wonderful Life situation going on here, already made friends and am texting with two of the bankers at are new local bank, which I just love. Have I tried the online banking yet? No, I am a bit scared about that. But so what when you can just text them? The best.
Turns out an acquaintance of mine from a Slack group is the brother of a dude that was in a band I loved in the 90’s, called Crescent. Part of the Bristol shoegaze-meets-electronica scene, along with Movietone, Flying Saucer Attack, Third Eye Foundation. You know the scene, I know you do. Anyway, I was going through the art a week or two back, for the Somerville apartment, picking stuff to put on the walls, like I just said, and I found an old, mint, Crescent poster from their first album on (in the US) Atavistic. Been carrying the thing around with me since 1995. Anyway I texted a photo of it to my friend and he sent it to his brother and his brother did not have a copy of this poster and was jealous, so of course I offered to send it to him. What’s it gonna do, spend amother two decades in my flat file until my wife throws it out after I’m dead? He offered to pay but I said nah, he said “charity, then,” and I said yah, and the poster just arrived at his house and he made a nice donation to Doctors Without Borders in my name and boy I feel pretty great about the whole thing, really a great mix of things. I am well-chuffed, as the Scottish say.
Read a long thing in Business Insider, lord help me, about some dude who’s been living in tiny houses and outside of society, as Patti says, for years. No bank account no taxes, etc. I would track it down and link it for you but I cant bother because, you know, it made me, as it was designed to do, feel terrible about myself. But also the dude owns a laptop? I just don’t see how you can be outside of a society and own a laptop. Also he doesn’t own the land his houses live on, he has to convince friends to let him build there because he can’t own land because he has no credit or bank account. He says he doesn’t pay taxes cuz he makes less than $11k a year, which is fine, except he says when he does make more than that he donates it to charity, which is great, but also you’d still have to file, right? And I am not a tax expert but doesn’t that math not quite work out? Like if I make $50k, donate $31k to only have $11k left, that $31k doesn’t come right off my income, does it? Man I do not know how taxes work it’s real blindspot. I used to literally read the entire EY Tax Guide cover-to-cover but now? NOPE.
Anyway semi-relatedly yesterday a mom walked her kid up the walkway to the speech therapist’s door at the guest house and I could immediately see myself in 20 years, finally grey, working in that garden house watching neurodivergent kids come and go to their speech appointments and man, it filled me with a great sense of happiness. Maybe I’ll be in a cyber-wheelchair like Professor Xavier and I’ll have switched to orchids instead of vegetables cuz old man gardeners in movies never seem to grow vegetables. I hope by then I’m in a position to charge that woman (soon to be two!) even less in rent.
So, you know, I can justify my big houses to that bastard tiny house guy.
All right well today’s mix is justa mix again but I like it I am on track 10 right now and it’s great the Let’s Eat Grandma track is so good and… wow yeah they all are. And I hope Social D is acceptable as the cheesy oldie today. Oh and Simon and Harry and Dolly and wow yeah lotta cheesy oldies on this one it is just great. Hell yeah that Love Spit Love song. Hell yeah. I dig music.
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