Good morning. Hello. How are you? #344
Good morning. Hello. How are you? Things going okay? Holding up over there? I am doing okay, but… it’s a lot. I am pretty tired. My back hurts. My neck is acting up again. I haven’t had a free moment in days and it’s starting to get to me. I would like some of this to be over now. I am usually very good at hard times when I have a firm date in the future when things will be better again, or just get incrementally better. I would like a date. Someone give me a date to hold on to.
An old high school friend got into a bad accident and was in the ICU, and of course we had the horrific Atlanta shootings yesterday. These are terrible things. My high school friend is recovering, thankfully. The victims of the Atlanta shootings will not. Will reserve judgement on motivations for now but it should go without saying that violence against Asian Americans is bad, violence against sex workers is bad, violence bad, etc. etc. We had a year off from mass shootings. Having another one is disorienting and heartbreaking. We accomplished nothing in that yearlong time-out to reduce these tragedies. We’re such winners.
Anyway. Gonna try the bolding thing again. Still not sure it’s a good idea. I know we all skim these days and these things are stupid long but… that’s the paradox I’m trying to ride here. Or something something.
Big news in the Fabergé Egg world. Longtime readers will recall the controversey over the Hermitage’s current Fabergé exhibit, and how the respected London-based dealer in all things Fabergé Andre Ruzhnikov has said that a good chunk of the items in the exhibit are fakes. Most of them are owned by the Russian Oligarch Alexander Ivanov. It appears now that the Hermitage will conduct a review of the authenticity of the items in the exhibit. Also I was just looking at the Wikipedia article listing the location of all known Fabergé eggs and it appears that Ivanov only owns one (Another Russian Oligarch, with close ties to Putin, owns like 10). Or maybe two. It appears he owned the Rothschild Egg at one time, which he purchased at auction for £8.9 million. However, a few years later it appears that Putin basically made him give it away, unilaterally announcing that the egg was a gift to the Hermitage. This was after the UK raided his museum in Germany, somehow, looking for the egg. Awesome. Such is the price of buttering up the kleptocracy, it seems. The reporting on all of this is sketchy AF. Can’t help but feel like there’s a deeper Fabergé egg story here.
Yesterday my mom and I went back to the techno-futuristic new UNC Clinic. I gotta say, the lobby of that building looks great but is terribly designed from an aural perspective. It is so loud. I had to shout — literally shout — to check my mom in. It’s insane, I’ve never heard any lobby like it. Also this giant clinic only has seven handicap-reserved parking spaces, which is maddening. It’s a fucking clinic. Sick people com here. Maybe a few more handicap spaces? And they didn’t let me go with my mom into the test, they were very brusque about it. I thought about insisting, since I have POA and Health Care Authority, but I figured she could handle it. Nonetheless the bloom is off the rose of ole 100 Eastowne. The ornamental “e” on the end of “Eastowne” should have been a red flag. I do feel bad for the workers, though. That lobby is louder than when I worked at the airport under the nose of large jets, I swear to god.
I blocked the word “normalize” on Twitter and so far it has been very rewarding. I had previously done this with the phrase “while you were,” when that construction was the internet-shaming bon mot du jour and it felt really good. It’s really weird how these little turns of phrase become so ubiquitous on the internet for a spell, and how often they are used in a hectoring or preachy sort of way. I confess I used normalize just a few days ago in my report on OnlyFans stock tips, but it was a) sort of a joke and b) a horrible mistake nonetheless. Twitter blocked words really is one of its best features. And blocked accounts. Clubhouse is so popular that Twitter’s blocking functionality can’t block every single instance of it, even though I have it blocked as a word, as an account, and with various capitalizations. It’ll get better, though. I had this problem last year with The Bachelor and this year it did fantastically well I was barely even aware that whole thing was going on. I recently let my Kanye block lapse and it’s been okay. The flood has receded there.
Sold three Jesus and Mary Chain CDs yesterday - the dual layer re-issues of Darklands, Automatic and Stoned and Dethroned. The buyer had previously bought the Psychocandy dual layer re-issue from me and found it to his satisfactions so he bought the rest. So I spent the day re-listening to Stoned and Dethroned and it’s a great album. The Hope Sandoval song is awesome. Ben and I saw Hope do a special appearance with the Chain in like 2007 or so. Everyone was so excited about their appearance at Coachella the next week with Scarlett Johansen, and that was cool (saw that too) but the great thing about Hope showing up to do “Just Like Honey” is that they could also do “Sometimes Always” together for the first time in, like, 12 years, and that was fantastic. The Stoned and Dethroned tour was so great, You could see Hope and Jim’s relationship deteriorating with each show (I think I saw four?). Huh, god, actually, that sounds awful. Let me clarify: a) the shows were great, b) it was weird and awkward and confusing for little young Rick to watch their relationship deteriorate over the course of the tour.
Also the Shane MacGowan track is fantastic. It could be a hymn. Universal. The new hymn of AA supplanting “One Day At A Time,” even though “One Day at a Time” is eternal.
Yesterday I wore my All Tomorrow’s Parties shirt, which I haven’t worn for Jane in a month or two and she saw it and calmly read the words across the bottom, pointing as she went: “All Tomorrow’s Parties.” Her memory is prodigious it really is impressive. Like yes she has learned to sound out letters and try and figure out words but that’s not what was going on here, she just did this from memory from a shirt on which we worked through all the letters a month or so earlier. We had a good bedtime. Played Under the Covers and she did a lot of coloring. Emma has taught her to feed the cats, her first regular, official chore. She had a night-time poop. Lotta poop. Lot. of. poop. Really exhibits no interest in potty training. Not sure how we can get her into it. Not terribly concerned. If she wants to stay in diapers for another year, whatever. Fine by me. Changing diapers is hardly the worst thing about raising a kid. I was changing one last night and thought to myself, while looking at the poop: “remember when you were young and you thought poop was so gross. God. Whatever.” Poop. Just more organic matter.
Boy this is really a great edition of GMHHAY I am sorry.
While Jane was coloring, I watched part 5 of The Game Mechanic’s “Build all the wonders” Civ VI challenge, where he plays on Emperor and tries to build every world wonder in the game. He’s doing a good job! Hasn’t gotten them all but has gotten the vast majority. It is some compelling content, even if he inexplicably uploaded the vod to YouTube at 720p and from a screen recording, rather than his usual 1080p source recording. I suspect there was a technical glitch and he had to get a copy from one of his followers or something (it was originally streamed on Twitch). I kept thinking it was my settings in the newly designed YouTube app for AppleTV but nope. The source is pixellated.
I was so excited to see Google finally gave the AppleTV version of YouTube some love but… they didn’t actually fix any of the things wrong with it? It’s a purely cosmetic redesign, and one that needlessly introduced a few extra clicks for no reason. I swear, Google and Apple need to knock it off. There are a thousand little pissing matches going on and it’s driving users insane. Hangouts doesn’t work as well in Safari as it does in Chrome. Who knows why. Can’t blur the backgrounds and, since the last Safari update, occasionally one lucky participant in any video hangout call is inaudible to Safari users, and they need to go log out and log back in (preferably on Chrome). Safari these days is a better browser than Chrome, hands down, but there are still plenty of apps that won’t work in Safari. I know not all of this is Google’s fault. But a lot of it is.
My mom had her PT over and my mom asked her about a cane with a spike on the end. The PT looked at her with abject horror. My mom tried to explain the snowy, icy ground in Fairbanks, Alaska and how useful a cane with a spike would be. If you ask me, it’s actually a pretty brilliant idea. I would consider using one up there. But it was a leap of the imagination too far for the PT who just firmly said no. You can have a HurryCane instead. What a great name for a cane. I picked one up for her at Walmart yesterday. Along with the aforementioned clock from the old people’s electronics section. Unsurprisingly, the clock has GIANT digits on it, because of course it does, because the only people who would buy a digital clock radio are old people.
I am becoming increasingly obsessed with the ONN brand - it seems to be a Walmart house brand? Or just the new version of Realistic or something? They are so great. I have the ONN VCR and DVD player and Cassette deck and several other items. Love the old people electronics section of Walmart so much. So much that it gets a second day’s mention.
Read a long piece in the Atlantic last night about Joe Manchin, which I found by Googling “what’s Joe Manchin’s deal.” Good job, Google. The article decently explains Joe Manchin’s deal. Basically he likes shit that is popular, seems to be one of the last remaining politicians that looks at polls and votes for things that are popular. That is the thesis of this article, though I call BS since, well, news flash, $15 minimum wage is very popular. But if it’s true, that combined with his statements supporting filibuster reform, well, there might be some hope. He has explicitly said he wants Biden to be successful, and he is here to pass legislation. The author, who has known him a long time, said he expects Manchin to just carve out exceptions to the filibuster (think the Byrd rule) for anything he wants to pass. Makes sense. I just wish these people would hurry. The snail’s pace is so, so painful.
Related, if you haven’t watched Rapheal Warnock’s first Senate speech from yesterday, it is recommended:
Let’s see. A mix for the day. Oh look at that. One of the live mixes is ready to roll. Love shit vol 2. I suspect a few of these were on vol 1 because I am a creature of habit. Still obsessed with Robert Levon been from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club getting together with his dad’s old band and putting out a live album. I wish I saw that show so much. Yeah, this mix is packed with hits. Tough call on whether to go with the St Pancras or Music Hall of Williamsburg version of Song for Zula, especially since, you know, got married at MHOW and whatnot. And young Kacey Musgraves, before the international pop stardom and duets with Miguel and Willie Nelson and whatnot. She is so great. I bought her candle. And her velvet portrait. Not ashamed to admit it.
Have a meeting every hour today. Tomorrow mom and I go get another test. Tomorrow’s a recharge day at work, but the test is right in the middle of the day, making it roughly impossible to get too much important gardening done, but we will try. WE WILL TRY. That’s all anyone can do. Emma has one of those “mama tried” shirts and… yeah. I empathize.
Hugs.