Good morning! Hello! How’s it going? What day is it what is happening. Oh right it’s Thursday okay I can deal with that. No meetings today. If everything holds. That is nice. I am listening to this dark electronica cover of The Chameleon’s Second Skin that I discovered a month or two ago while reading the Wikipedia page for 80’s dance band Celebrate The Nun, who were never that big but then turned into this German electronica band Scooter, who got very, very big. I don’t know why, but this cover keeps sticking with me. Like I said, really been on a Chameleons kick lately.
Speaking of the Chameleons, my friend Gerard just alerted me to this kind of creepy lamp made after the illustration on their second album. It is kind of amazing but also kind of creepy and I am kind of tempted to buy it but also what the hell would I do with it.
It January 6th, so we are one year out from that super-depressing assault on our Capitol, armed insurrection, whatever you want to call it. Trump is still a messianic lunatic, the Republicans are still mostly a death cult, things are better but not better enough. I recently re-read my memories from that day… at first I didn’t want to pay attention to it, just thought it was grandstanding from idiots at that dumb-ass rally. I was working. But Emma was like “you’re going to want to watch this,” and so I left my desk and went to her and sat and watched that insanity, that violence, that terror, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I think, somehow, through the whole day, I still had hope that things would be okay. It seems unfathomable now that I had any hope that day, I had more while it was going on that I do now. Like maybe I thought it would burn itself out. It would embarrass moderate Republicans into action. It would show people the true face of this movement and bring some sense into them. But LOL, nope. They’re martyrs and heroes now. They just say things out loud, every day now, that would have gotten them banished from politics even a decade ago, and things were not super congenial a decade ago.
If they couldn’t stand up and say “this was unacceptable and needs to be stopped” after a failed coup, pretty sure they’re not gonna get their gumption up after a successful one.
Anyway. Let’s see. I am okay. Jane had, like, an hour-long tantrum at dinner yesterday. Okay, maybe like 45 mintues. And maybe tantrum isn’t the right word, maybe it was more of a breakdown. She dropped her plate as she was bringing it to the table and was upset by that, and felt bad, and maybe convinced herself it was unkind to do that, and then just fell into a sort of screaming fit, not rage, but, like, frustration, sadness, maybe a little anger. It would ebb and flow. She wanted it to stop, but couldn’t. Emma and I both took passes at trying to get her to calm down, and she would for a while, she’d come back to the table, but then immediately go into a fit again because, like, I ate a cucumber or something. And we know she has controlling tendencies like that, like everything has to go exactly her way, and she’ll boss you around and yell at you, and we are always trying to temper those, but sometimes, after an hour, you’re just like “yes, fine, whatever, I will stand over here what next,” but then sometimes she doesn’t actually know what she wants next, so she’ll slip back into the fit anyway, even if you’re trying to be accommodating. And it is so exhausting and all of us ate our dinner cold and we didn’t get to do our walk.
Some days I think they’re getting less frequent, these fits. Some days I think they’re getting less frequent but deeper. Some days I see her master her emotions and avoid having one where she would have had one previously. And some days I think they’re getting more frequent. When she’s not having a fit, she understands and remembers Emma’s steps of stopping and breathing, but when she’s in the middle of one, she doesn’t want to hear it, she just says no no no and if you try and remind her to stop and breathe she pushes you away or grabs your lips to shut you up.
It is.. exhausting.
I only recently learned about the anihillation of the East River Park in NYC and I was… stunned? How had I not heard about this? Well, until Nicky told me. It is absolutely horrifying looking at these photos. I don’t understand how this will help climate mitigtion, tearing down all of those trees. It feels like it was done in secret. And in violation of a court restraining order. So, so sad. Five years without a park it will be. And they made no effort to save the historic amphitheater. Just heartbreaking. I loved that park.
Diet is going well, I’m still reducing my portion sizes and trying to find a level where I don’t feel sick after eating a meal. I bought a smaller frying pan so Jane and I could make less eggs in the morning, but god knows how she will accept that. 50-50 it doesn’t matter at all, 50-50 that she gets very upset about it. That arrives tomorrow. Lost a more reasonable 1.4 pounds yesterday, so we’re a little over 8 for three days. I always lose a lot the first week and then it slows down, so this isn’t that abnormal. Still, though, all in all things are going well. Aside from getting sick after lunch. But I will get there. The best is not being hungry across the sixteen hours between meals in the evening and morning. That used to be so hard.
Also I am so cold. I mean, we are in the middle of a cold spell, it is winter, but. Yeah. Every time I lose weight, I freeze. I’ve been spending a lot of time under three layers of covers.
Watched the Book of Boba Fett last night and it was good but I’m not sure I am going to love the frame story device if it continues for the entire season. Is that a spoiler? Is a story structure element a spoiler? I don’t even know anymore.
Finished book three of the Red Rising series, Morning Son, and I am going to take a break for a while. There are five books, but apparently they are written as two trilogies, so I am at a good stopping point. I need to stop for my own health, so I remember to go to sleep at night. It really is absurd how much those books were consuming me. Gonna pick up some dry non-fiction book that I love but that puts me to sleep. Problem is, I don’t seem to have any in the queue. I have two Patrick Radden Keefe books but his books are so gripping, I’m not sure they’ll do the trick. We shall see, we shall see. Anyway, if you have any absurdly pedantic non-fiction recommendations, let me know!
I want you to know I just spent a little time rearranging the paragraphs in this so it woudl end on a more pleasant note. You are welcome. I wish I had a funny joke here so that you could giggle as you finished this up. Like watching a half-hour comedy before bed after an hour or two of Game of Thrones or something.
Here’s today’s mix. I just made it. Mostly. I do not have a lot of mixes prepared. This one was about half done. Man, the Stereolab album and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack both need a remaster something fierce. This mix gets a lot quieter after the Mercury Rev song, so, you know, is that freedom rock? Turn it up. Thank you to Jeff Sullivan for teaching me about Jungle, they are fun, even if their name is not especiallygreat. And thank you Conrad for Pete and the Pirates I can see how their shows were probably always super fun sad I never got to see them.
Okay well have a lovely Thursday talk to you tomorrow! BYEEEEEEEE.