Good morning. Hello. How are you? #651

Greetings from Salem, Ma. I saw the Weinermobile.

Good morning! Hello! How are you? I am good. Well, I wouldn’t say that we are quite back to our normally scheduled routine here. It is 8:30, because I slept an hour later, even tough I went to bed an hour earlier. The whole family was sleep deprived from the road trip, and we are all trying to catch up on sleep. Jane is already awake, I can hear her chattering up in her bed, because this Airbnb has no doors in it at all, basically, so everyone can hear everything. Though really that’s okay if she’s already awake, she knows how to stay and bed and entertain herself until it’s time to wake up.

The house is lovely, in a New England kind of way. It’s probably 200 years old or so, it’s right on the Salem Common. Everything is very small, but it has been remodeled in what appears to be this century so, you know, actual working outlets, actual circuit breakers as opposed to fuses, the light switches are inside the bathrooms. All the floors are uneven, it’s drafty all the time, the stairs are narrow and steep: all the things you love about old New England houses when you’re vacationing in them but grow to sort of dislike when you life in one full time. It’s interesting to be in it now. When I first moved to Boston and all the houses were like this, they still felt sort of modern and interesting to me, compared to Alaskan architecture. Now, after seven years in a home built after 1990, with actual modern conveniences like HVAC ducts and Cat5 wiring and dehumififiers and, you know, level floors, it hits a little different. But it’s nice. It’s New England personified in a house and stepping outside right onto the Common, with a playground right across the street? Can’t be beat. Largest concentration of pre-1900’s American housing stock, Salem, Ma. I learned that on Wikipedia last night. There really is a ridiculous amount to do in Salem, even if you skip all the Witch stuff. I am starting to think seven days isn’t enough, and then I’m planning on running up to Portland, ME on top of that one day.

Anyway last night Emma went off to her rehearsal dinner, wearing her mask, bringing her CO2 monitor, which she peeked at all night in her purse which I think is glorious and hilarious. She was the only one of sixty or so who wore a mask, but one thing I am realizing about New England is that while most people are done wearing masks, even at indoor dinners where the CO2 meter is redzoned at 2,500+ PPM, they don’t especially care if you are wearing one. By and large, she said, it’s not a thing, and that makes me feel more comfortable just being the sole weirdo in a mask at a gathering. Which I would still prefer to be outdoors.

When it’s not cold. It was cloudy and rainy and 59 yesterday. I did a little walking around downtown Salem — and saw the Weinermobile! — but I hope to do a lot more today and the rest of the week.

Jane and I got everything unpacked, got the Apple TV set up, her little table with coloring books and pencils and things to read and draw. Got her little bedroom (it’s actually the master walk-in closet) set up with her friends and ajas and a chair for daddy in the morning.

And last night she did something unprecedented: she asked to go to sleep early. When we left Boston for the drive to our Salem house (45 minute drive, fifteen minutes, man I forgot how much Boston traffic sucks. I forgot how you could be driving into Boston on I-93 at 3AM and still encounter a traffic jam), she fell asleep in the car again. All things considered, for being so sleep deprived, she was wonderfully well behaved, we really do have a great child. So we did our normal bedtime routine, just in a different house. Figured out how to do our nightly dance (she isn’t much for lullabies, we dance instead) in a much smaller bedroom. Figured out all new light swiches to turn off. She was so into it. It was so cute. Just the best.

We have to head to this wedding around one today, because we’re dropping off Jane at our friends’ house so they can babysit and she can have a playday with her old friend Elliot which should be very nice for her. I assume the wedding will take the rest of the day. And then tomorrow begins our free week in Salem. I am very excited.

So. Let’s see. Continuing the Elon saga, he has decided he’s a Republican now, and felt compelled to tell everyone on Twitter, then used the “evidence” of the “hate” he got on Twitter as proof that liberals are mean. Of course, once again this is the abandonment of any sort of actual scientific method, which he used to claim ran his life, and if he were really using Twitter to prove which party is “mean” he would now announce the whole thing was a troll, libs rule and republicans drool, and see how well the republicans treated him on Twitter once he was a lib hahahaha yeah right. On top of that he has doubled-down on poop emojis, it’s transpired he’s settled sexual malpractice claims at work at SpaceX for asking a flight attendant on his private jet to give him a happy ending massage (it’s worse than that, since they strongly encouraged the flight attendant to go to massage school at her own expense so it also gives off real grooming vibes). Tesla has been kicked out of an ESG index, which a portfolio of stocks that pursue Environmental and Social Good. He is pissed about it because in his mind making cars that don’t emit exhaust means that the company can be bad in all sorts of other ways and it should still be considered a good company. Mayhaps if this happened to you or I when we were running a company it would cause us to look inwardly and question ourselves but big nope not Elon, it just causes Twitter tantrums.

The 3D chess interpretation of all this is Elon is tweeting stupid shit to distract from bad news. Make a big fuss about politics so people don’t notice indexes dropping your already-tanking stock (never a good thing, indexes generally cause slight bumps in stock price) and they don’t notice your sexual harassment claims. I suspect this is what is going on (reports indicate that for all his BS about the Twitter deal being on hold his team [god imagine working on Elon’s finance team what an abusive hell job] is still proceeding apace with the deal), but even if it is going on, it’s like someone forgot that iron-law of physics: live by the sword, die by the sword. This cannot go on forever.

But honestly I am starting to think if he’s not just losing it. He has routinely spoken about times in the past where things were so overwhelming he almost lost it all. He was not a Twitter shiposter edgelord when those times happened in the past. What if he were? Would he have gotten through them? Would his insane twitter habit have helped? One suspect not. And with Tesla’s plummeting stock price, god knows what is happening to his finances even without the Twitter deal. On January 1st if you had asked me for odds on a complete mental breakdown of Elon Music I would have said… three percent? Now? I’m going with 25 or so.

Oh great. Someone is hammering outside at 9AM. I’m sure Emma’s gonna love that.

I answered a call from a 617 number on my phone last night, which I would never do at home, but since I was in 617, I figured I’d answer it, since I had made an order from the Apple Store for delivery today. But nope, it was a politician. He is running for US house in Illinois. Seems all right. David Palmer. He was cool. I do not like donating in primaries, though. But I will keep an eye on the guy. Anyone know anything about him?

I finished the book on the after life of pop stars, Exit Stage Left. It was great. I realized at the end that this author, Nick Duerden, is the guy who wrote the feature about Terrence Trend D’Arby and his new identity as Sananda Francesco Maitreya that I read a few years ago that got me real into his later work. So he’s been covering this beat for a while. What a great beat. He should come to America. So many American 90’s bands could use this coverage. I would totally read a sequel.

All right, well, it’s 9, Jane has quieted down but it’s time to go get her all the same.

I just made a mix for you which stars off with a new song or two but rapidly descends into a “greatest hits” by me just scrolling through my all-time favorites playlist because it’s time for breakfast but I didn’t want to leave you hanging I know like five of you listen to these every day. Actually that’s not true I haven’t looked at the stats for years for all I know tons of people listen now but I’m not going to look because that would stress me out and make me feel like I have to put even more effort into them and make them, like, super cool, perfect playlists and I don’t have that kind of time. Especially on vacation. Because we’re Americans and Americans are much, much more busy on vacation.

Anyway! Hopefully by Monday’s edition we will actually be back on top of things. Hope all is well in your world. Talk soon!