Good morning! Hello there, how are you? I am alive. Sorry I’m late. I slept in because Jane is at Janet’s and I am still feeling sick and I didn’t have to wake up because today is a “recharge day” at Timehop, Inc. and bed is awesome and why wouldn’t I stay in it? So I got up at 7:36 and had a spot of bother with my Wordle and then got irate about various news items then came down here to my office and sat at the computer to write GMHHAY and I really just couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to be sitting here at all, so I decided I wasn’t going to, it was my day off, and I was gonna go to Walmart and search for non-white buckets because I have a bucket system, dammit, and that is my idea of a good time these days.
Also I got an Egg McMuffin on the way and felt really smug because the guy in front of me in line picked the wrong line and I bypassed him and it made me feel superior and smart.
Then I got to Walmart and basically acted like a subhuman troll, searching every single cashier lane for completely unnatural chemical products in very specific, unpopular flavors, with a running dialog in my head, berating the non-existent Walmart employee who comes and questions me for my highly suspicious behavior of checking out every cashier lane. “Look, buddy I wouldn’t have to do this if you guys didn’t deem it necessary to place different random assortments of Icebreakers and Kit Kat flavors in each aisle just to fuck with me is it too much to ask to have a centralized location of Icebreakers and Kit Kats. And why haven’t you even gotten the blueberry muffin flavored Kit Kats yet anyway what kind of mom and pop shop is this? And while I’m at it when is your next sale on non-white buckets please?”
Then on the last cashier lane — the one that, until last week, was my secret bastian of Peach Ice Tead flavored Icebreakers but has started failing me of late — there was a masked woman doing the exact same thing as me. I mean, I don’t know if she was looking for Icebreakers of Kit Kat or what, maybe she was looking for Big Red gum (also very hard to find at Walmart). So we both enter the closed cashier lane at the same time.
Now, you know, were I the debonair, friendly gentleman of my past, this would be an opportunity to be friendly, say something snappy to make light of an awkward situation, maybe even — gasp — make a friend. But I don’t do any of that. I’m not a complete troll, I do manage to (mutter, probably inaudibly) “excuse me” and “sorry,” but I just follow this woman into a closed cashier lane and… hover. Like a creepy dude. And of course, eventually, she’s like “Oh I’m sorry am I in your way?” And moves aside, and thank god at that point I snap back to humanity and say many profuse sorries, but the damage is done.
So I flee the scene and then spend a good minute hoarding every jar of organic peanut butter because six jars at home isnt enough and god help me if the supply chain collapses again I might have to feed my daughter non-organic peanut butter or, even worse, go to Whole Foods and we can not have that.
Then I spend a good ten minutes staring at the 4k UHD blu ray of Spiderman No Way Home thinking about whether I should buy this solidified fossil fuel environmental catastrophe manifestation of a film I didn’t even enjoy that much because Spiderman is kind of dumb these days even though Tom Holland is very good at playing him but jesus christ I am a grown man and this thing is on ten different friends’ Plex and I do not need this but also I do own that UHD-ripping-capable Blu Ray drive attached to my old computer in the library and its no good just sitting there doing nothing now, is it? And what if there is a very specific type of catastrophe soon where we are all stuck in our houses without internet but otherwise life goes on exactly the same, so that the primary concern is where our filmed entertainment comes from because, you know, so many people have outsourced this to the cloud and man aren’t they going to be sorry and what if that happens and the (checks NAS) one thousand two hundred and six films I already have ripped and stored on my home network just arent enough and I just really need to scratch that itch of watching a grown man — several grown men, really — fuck around with a kid’s life.
And they didn’t even have any non-white buckets. I’m in one of those psychoses American Humans get into where suddenly it is imperative that everything you own go into some sort of heavy duty storage container. Most Americans scratch this itch with Steralite bins and buckets, some Americans of the, shall we say, “tactical” bent go with the Pelican cases, and the most neurotic go full metal jacket. I fall on the Steralite/lean Pelican end of the spectrum, and that also means every powder I have that is currently in a plastic bag needs to be in a bucket or bin right now omg this is so important and I got a new 3-gallon batch of Neptune’s Harvest Crab and Lobster Shell that just needs a bucket so bad.
I should also say that while I am staring at this Spiderman Far From Home 4K UHD Blu Ray disc having an existential crisis I just think to myself “I just want to be home in front of my computer writing my GMHHAY instead of doing this,” which I was just trying to do twenty minutes ago and if that is not a parable for humanity well… it’s at least a parable for me.
Then I started talking to Nick about cars and idly mused that maybe I should buy that Rivian truck on Bring a Trailer and cover it in KC lights, like those jocks in the 80’s who used to bully me, except ironically. Then I started thinking about that Dead Kennedys song, “Night of the Living Rednecks”:
KC lights, tractor tires, everything but the CB.
I am still not convinced this is a bad idea.
The State of North Carolina finally updated their COVID dashboard yesterday. They only do it every week now, and when they do update it, the data is already several days out of date. So when they updated it yesterday, the test positivity rate literally tripled from their last update. How the fuck is this suppoed to be useful? Right now the most up-to-date data on the site is six days old, they will not update for another six days. It is ridiculous. I Tweet at them every say strongly worded Tweets and I am sure it is having the intended effect and people are running around the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services having very concerned conversations about their COVID dashboard situation. The best part is when they first changed to a weekly cadence, about a month ago, they said “as we enter into the next phase of COVID” as part of the justification. As far as I can tell, that verbiage is gone from the site now, which is just hilarious and perfect. Perfect.
Speaking of COVID assuming this test here goes well, our family seems to have escaped Emma’s COVID exposure unscathed, which is just swell, even though I feel like ass and feel like I have COVID. I am glad the quarantine is over solo parenting is… a lot. We have these colored plastic bowls and plates and cups for Jane, and there is a whole routine to it. Every morning I take the day before’s bowl, cup and plate out of the dishwasher and put it away on the top of the pile in the drawer. We do not use them at Breakfast. Then, later in the day, Emma starts prepping lunch and she takes the bowl, plate and cup from the bottom of the pile in the drawer, so that every day Jane gets a different colored bowl, plate and cup. Just a little bit ‘o fun in the day, you know? Except during Emma’s quarantine, when I am making lunch, I forgot this completely. Like, I was still doing my part correctly every morning, putting them on the top of the pile, but at lunch time I forgot to do Emma’s part, and take the ones from the bottom of the pile. So every day Emma was in quarantine, the bowl, plate and cup were green. Jane did not seem to mind, but I still think it is kind of fitting. A little mini metaphor for the sheer repetition of those three days.
Also I am going crazy about Elon Musk and Twitter, at first I figured Elon was joking, because it is so obvious that China will kick Tesla out if Elon owns a “free speech Twitter.” But now he seems serious. Which is just crazy to me, because I am the only one saying this? But it is obviously true? They kick companies out all the time for much less! And they punish companies and even individuals for things that different divisions or branches or holdings do they do not care about limited liability and I know I’ve written this before but why am I the only one saying it and am I wrong and dumb or is everyone else and it is just making me nuts, on top of the deep anxiety I feel for what will happen in the world to marginalized people if the world’s richest dipshit decided to burn down everything we’ve learned about trust and safety just so he can learn it all over again all by himself he’s a big boy now look at me. The whole thing is rage inducing and I need to stop thinking about it.
So I am going to go into the garden now.
Here’s a mix of mostly new shit — man this new Florence and the Machine is her best since Ceremonials I am excited for this record — plus four songs that were me trying to make an Earth Day mix but honestly I couldn’t pull it off there really aren’t that many Earth Day songs, are there? So I am just tacking them on the end here because I’m lazy today. As evidenced by this being ninety minutes late to arrive in your inbox don’t hate me.
Have a lovely weekend. Spend some time outside!
i find trollish rick exceedingly entertaining.