Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1126
Greenhouse chair, Driving with headphones laws, the highs and lows of brilliant backup plans, Real Wild Child planning, SXSW no fomo
Good morning. Hello. How are you? Hi. Howdy. Hi. It’s me. I’m the problem it’s me. Is that retro yet? Is our Taylor phase waning again for a bit before the Brokenhearted Poets or whatever it’s called? My head hurts. Jane is sick. So am I. We have the same thing. In a fun twist of fate, I probably gave it to her this time. My revenge for all of the times she has given it to me.
Not a lotta strong opinions about Kacey Musgraves up in this joint. That’s okay. I am okay with that. “This Town” is a great song, though. My Kacey album shipped, should be here by Friday so the vinyl officially arrives on release day. That is a rare accomplishment for an artist, Taylor never manages it, so more props are due to Kacey about that.
And sad that no one had a story about actually redeeming their insurance on a concert ticket. Sad but not surprising. I suspect it’s impossible. Still, I will put out the call for another couple days, because it is of interest to me: anyone ever use their ticket purchase insurance successfully?
I learned yesterday that it is, in fact, legal to drive with headphones on in North Carolina. That is very exciting. I am going to do that ALL THE TIME. I hate car speakerphones. Headphones are so much better. Also long drives with a sleeping wife and kid? Headphones. Though I guess I need to map the drive to Boston and which states have which laws. All right let’s do it. A drive up from NC to Boston:
North Carolina: Legal
Virginia : Illegal
District of Columbia: Legal
Maryland: Illegal
Delaware: Legal
New Jersey: Legal
New York: Legal in one ear. Huh.
Connecticut: Legal
Massachusetts: “Legal to use headphones while driving if the driver is only listening to a GPS.” All about the placement of that “only” there. If it were “only while listening to GPS” I would just put the GPS and the music on, but this verbiage makes me think it is illegal. Might need to go to the source law.
Still. Pretty good. From Delaware to MA, the bulk of the “sleepy driving,” I could have headphones on.
Yesterday, in all the madness, I had about 30 minutes to myself and I had a batch of new bins for greenhouse organization so I went over and did some greenhouse organizing, but that only took about 5 minutes, so I then went to the patio of Chore House and grabbed a deck chair and brought the deck chair into the Greenhouse so I now have a place to sit in there and my god it was so awesome, just sitting in there. I was warm, it was great. It is going to be even more awesome once the plants start sprouting (they have not started sprouting yet hurry up plants I am impatient).
Have you ever noticed how spruce trees kind of grow into their space? Like half the tree might have no branches at all and half the tree might have a ton of branches because that’s where the space is? I have been noticing it a lot lately. I don’t know why. I have been around spruce trees for most of my life. But in the last few weeks, I’ve become really interested in this strange phenomenon. It’s like they’re being polite. Making space for other trees.
What a day, what a day. Man. Yesterday was a lot. But I got through it. And like Pangloss says, everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. I should re-read that. Does Pangloss seem funny today or just dumb I wonder. Does he make me laugh or get butthurt. Do they still make kids read Candide? Is it funny? Was it ever funny? Boy the teachers sure thought it was funny and didn’t understand why we didn’t. I wonder how that goes now.
It is a strange thing when you have planned successfully for something bad, and you have mitigated the bad thing. Like you’re so proud of yourself, and you really have done brilliantly, and you want to feel well-chuffed about it, but also, a bad thing happened! And that should be acknowledged! Like you dodged the bullet, but also someone is shooting! That’s not good! Your house is still standing after the hurricane, but there was a hurricane and it fucked up a lot of people’s houses and your favorite bar and your kid’s school. Not good! But boy are you also proud of yourself. Do the Germans have a word for this? Is there a word for the Germans having a word for something? Is there a word for wondering if there is a word for the Germans having a word for something? How many levels deep do I have to go on this gag before we enter the realm of an original thought? Why did my brain suddenly get locked in this groove? What if I just typed “is there a word for…” before each proceeding sentence until this essay was complete? Is that experimental or certifiable?
But yes, yesterday was a day for nominal setbacks that had been planned for and mitigated and are probably for the best and you want to thank your hyperactive mind for nonstop scenario planning but also why can’t anything ever just be easy? Why can’t anything go according to Plan A? Or even B or C? I mean, I got planz up to Plan Z, yo, and we’re only on D and D is a hella good plan but so were A and B and why do people have to be so human.
Business is hard. Money is hard. Computers are hard. I need a vacation.
I am speaking in mysteries because I’m searching for The Universal here. Also because these are projects about which I have not yet spoken to GMHHAY.
But a project I have spoken about is going 100% according to plan and it is going to be Just Great. Real Wild Child planning has begun in earnest, the thing is going to be so fun. DJ Arcanus is joining us. We got some great activities planned. We have specialty non-alcoholic drinks. We figured out how to get a parent in when their kid is already inside. It is going to be so great. A few of you have asked for paper fliers I will get you those soon. If you want to promote the event with us or a be a cohost, let me know.
Kids dancing to goth music! It is going to be SO CUTE.
SXSW is happening and so far I do not miss it at all? Which is a little surprising, but more surprising is that I have not actually heard about it all that much. I’ve heard from a couple friends who are there, I’ve seen a few news stories pop up about the keynotes, and I have one friend who is Tweeting about the bands they’ve seen like it’s 2014. This is all fine. Even a few years ago, when SXSW was happening it absolutely dominated my social feeds. That does not happen now. I suspect this is a confluence of several things: social is dying, my friend group is changing, and SXSW is not dying or anything but it is shifting with the times.
I do wish I could go again. I do kind of miss it. I’m not sure if I have that kind of staying power anymore. But that’s kind of cool too cuz SXSW is definitely a dip-in-dip-out kind of thing where there’s something to do whatever hours you can manage to rally.
Right well, jolly good, off we go, pop pop. Kenneth Anger didn’t get his face in the Oscars In Memorium segment but Dumbledore did. I guess that’s fine.
Looks like we got a playlist done for our Media of the Day. A synthpop playlist. Mostly new stuff, but not all. Actually I guess the only old (to me) song was that Electric Youth song. Man I love that song. Came on randomly in December, added it to this playlist. Came on randomly again this last Monday. I don’t know what it is, but it gets me every time.
Love you guys. Talk tomorrow,
i follow an account on instagram simply to learn super specific german compound nouns. the guy (or Typ i should say) who runs it is both creepy and sweet. if you’re curious: https://www.instagram.com/germanonliners?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
thinking of all the kids lining up at the manray DJ booth to request T-swift is really giving me a giggle