Good morning. Hello. How are you? #519
Entering the Keynote Zone, federal recognition for the Lumbee, seed farming, A Momentary Lapse of Reason re-mixed.
Why hello there! Good morning, friend, fair traveler. All well, I trust? Happy Virginia governor’s election day. Legit can’t tell if that’s actually a close race or the press just wants me to think it is, like the California recall election.
Things are all right over here. Let’s see, let’s see… what’s new. My night with Jane last night. We built LEGO. Not DUPLO, but actual LEGO, ages 4+. Thank you, Will, for her first grown-up set. I spent lots of time helping her analyze the little drawings and find where the new piece went from that step in the instructions. Slowly she got better. Her little fingers are still a little weak to snap some of the bricks together, it is very cute. But little by little, we built a teeny Batmobile.
Yes, she still uses a pacifier sometimes. We’re trying, we’re trying, okay? We had just gotten over a very rough teeth, diaper, jammies sesh and she was still recovering.
I spent most of workday yesterday doing one of those really complex Keynote presentations with a diagram in it. Only you need to, like, discuss the diagram. Also the diagram was originally made by Kristen in one of those newfangled illustrating apps that fancy designers use. She exported me an .EPS and I had to take it apart in illustrator and rebuild the diagram piece-by-pice in Keynote. Because this diagram wasn’t exactly the same as the original diagram, it was a specialized iteration/version of the original diagram and required some changes. So I rebuilt the original diagram in Keynote — because this presentation was going external and needed to be a PPT or Keynote or something in the end. It took like an hour but it was so emotionally soothing. I seriously live for that shit. I got my professional start in Powerpoint (well, and Quark) for audit and consulting firms and my god I live for that shit. First I spent, like, an hour just thinking about the information design, what approach in my Keynote bag-o-tricks was going to be the best approach, decided on the “fade back the diagram and then annotate over it with arrows” approach, and I don’t think I’ve used that specific approach since my early Tumblr years. Hrm actually I may have used it once for Soundcloud but it has been a while. Then I spent the rest of the day building the presentation proper, writing it as a go along.
This is another thing I think is maybe unique to me: I most effectively make a Keynote presentation by designing it while writing it. The two go hand-in-hand for me. I’m not sure why. It’s doubly weird since my writing history and my presentation software history were mostly separate before I developed this habit. Like in college and right after college, I was a furious writer, but I also went to day jobs as a contractor using Powerpoint (or Quark, really don’t want to discount the whole other world of page layout I used to do) and the two skills were very separate.
But somewhere along the lines in the Barbarian years I developed a habit of writing a Keynote presentation while designing it. It somehow works. Like if I have writer’s block, I can work on the design. Like yesterday. Didn’t know how I was going to present all the information, but I knew I needed to rebuild that flow diagram, because that was in the brief, so I figured I would work on rebuilding it while the writing percolated. Staying busy, making even a little bit of progress on the presentation’s look while you’re “stuck” keeps me in the one.
Anyway, I am very proud of the presentation. It’s been a while. Two months maybe.
The federal government is on the verge of finally recognizing the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina as a legitimate Native American tribe. Been reading about the Lumbee, sort of in parallel to the book I’m reading about UNC and racial justice, To Drink from the Well. No one knows where the Lumbee came from, but they’ve been around forever. They originally thought that they might be descendents of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, and were called the Croatans (before they were lost, the Colonists carved the word “Croatan” into a tree). Then they thought they might be Cherokee descended. Then maybe Siouan or Keyauwee. Now they think they are probably Cheraw descended. In North Carolina’s segregation years, the Lumbee were treated differently than other Native American tribes in the state, because they were “intermixed” with Black people so, you know, that made them even more inferior, and they had separate schools, etc. Basically America’s racism has kept the Lumbee from being treated like all of other America’s Native Americans for centuries, because they are “part Black.” They were forced to make a compromise with the Feds in 1956, to be able to be called “Indians” at all, they had to promise they wouldn’t, like, you know, ask the Feds for any assistance that the other Native American tribes got. Because they didn’t live on a reservation, and owned some land (and also, cough cough, because Black). If you were a Native American in North Carolina and applied to UNC, you could go right in, unless you were a Lumbee, in which case, NOPE, can’t go, because you were part Black.
There’s been widespread support from both parties for quite a while now to acknowledge the Lumbee as a full Native American tribe in the eyes of the government for about fifteen years now. Both Trump and Biden supported it. But it never got done. But it looks like it’ll finally get done this year. Fingers crossed.
It is very hard to take a picture of a black cat in a black bow tie but, in the immortal words of Taylor Swift, this is me trying:
How old are Taylor Swift fans these days? Did she successfully cross over into current pre-teens and teenagers, or are all her fans aging into their 40s like every other Millennial phenomenon?
Emma went and got her Booster shot yesterday at CVS and brought back yet another Kit Kat flavor. I swear, Kit Kat is using Halloween as a wedge issue to get Japan-style Kit Kats to America. Look at these delicious orange creme Kit Kats:
Delicious.
The other day I watched a fantastic video, like a gardening super group video, where Kevin from Epic Gardening (who also runs the Birdies Bed distributorship in America, he is quite the entrepreneur) went and visited Britney from the San Diego Seed Company, who has gotten a new 4-acre plot of urban farmland for an expansion of her seed company. I am so obsessed with the San Diego Seed Company, I can’t even tell you. First off, Britney seems amazing, but also… seed farming. What a cool career. Grow your plants to the bitter end, man. Just get the seeds. Obsessed.
And, finally, I listened to the new, re-mixed, re-mastered edition of Pink Floyd’s best record, A Momentary Lapse of Reason that came out on 2 x 45 RPM LP this week. It is great. I read a review that was like “they toned down the 80’s production” and I thought oh no they better not have, but fear not, the production does not sound de-80’s. It sounds great, the new mixes are only very subtly different and the record sounds better all around. And the new cover art looks fantastic. Beautiful release all around, A+, two thumbs up, would buy again.
I think I sorted my Wegovy problem. (Quick recap: the drug is super in-demand, I don’t have insurance coverage, it’s expensive, CVS can’t get the drug for me because they’re not sure I’ll pay, I guess. Plus I only got a 1-month prescription for a 3-month regimen, and I don’t want to start until I’m sure I can, like, obtain the medicine to continue using it.) Called a local pharmacy that everyone fuckin loves and everyone was right. That place rules. Talked to a real human being in, like, thirty seconds, and he was super into my problem and helped me work it out, unlike CVS has been able to do in the last two months. It requires I get my doctor to re-write the prescription for the new pharmacy, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I emailed him yesterday. I guess I probably won’t actually start it till the new year now? I mean, I got Christmas and Thanksgiving and I want to enjoy every bit of those meals I put all that effort into. But it’s exciting that the thing is almost sorted. It’s been a real journey.
And, finally we still don’t have a Build Back Better bill because Joe Manchin suddenly thinks people who have gone from 3.5 trillion to 1.85 trillion, while he’s barely budged, need to “learn to compromise.” Alternate theory: he likes attention and is a dick! Anyway, I read a great tweet that solved the revenue problem (not that it exists, MMT 4-life):
That is such a legit good idea I’ve been thinking about it for, like, a week since I first saw the tweet. I mean, come on. The reality show rights! It would be so fun. Repeal it after, like, two years after you get through all of America’s billionaires. Fun times.
Okay let’s do a mix. Boston rock! Volume 2! Man, these are hard to do because so much Boston rock — at least the stuff that’s most vivid in my memory — is not on Spotify. No Umpteens, no Tribe, no The Stuffings, no Green magnet School, only one Mistle Thrush album and tons of the rest of the goth stuff isn’t there — Twelve Tone Failure, Sirensong, etc. But we persevere, this is a pretty good mix. I cheated and put Don Lennon on this mix and he’s on volume 1, but that’s why the mix is three minutes longer.
Okay over and out. Talk tomorrow! Love you!
i gave up my pacifier to a store santa claus when i was about jane's age. i remember it! (though should fact check this with my mom prob'ly.) but LOOK, i am fine! and you are doing great.
Re: the pacifier, why are people so aggro about that? For pete's sake let your kid self-soothe. My grandma took my pacifier away and then "lost" my security blanket. Got another one, my mom threw it away, and convinced me that we left my nightlight in a motel room in Wisconsin. She gave it back to me when I was in my 20s. WTF?! I am clearly still traumatized by all that haha.