Good morning. Hello. How are you? #656
Good morning. Hello. How are you? Happy Memorial Day. Not many military deaths in the Webb family, not in the last century. My father lost a cousin in Vietnam. I found his name on the Wall on a trip in 1992.
All the other soldiers in my family returned home: both my uncles, both my grandfathers, my aunt.
Greetings from Somerville. Wow it’s been a bit since I’ve written, huh? And I am late today, this is a sort-of weekend edition. Where did I last leave off? Thursday morning. Gosh. Well, Thursday I worked and then it was Emma’s bedtime night so I went out on a nice long evening constitutional around Salem with Annie, and visited her house, which is lovely, and spent lots of time chatting with her and Bill and looking at all of Annie’s amazing craft projects.
She also has an old Victrola and we listened to old acetate records on the thing, and it was loud. It’d been recently restored and, man, I didn’t realize what kind of volume those completely analog things could throw off. Could definitely have a bunch of couples dancing around a small domestic ballroom with one of them, no problem.
Early to bed Thursday cuz I had to get up very early to go to Portland the next day. On Thursday night, Jane said she wanted to come to Portland with me, and that was going to be great, so Emma could have a lazy day and catch up on some sleep. So I woke Jane up at, gosh, like 7:30 or something, and then she was absolutely insistent she did not want to come to Portland with me, and I had to get going, so it was the absolute worst possible outcome in the end for Emma, who now had to watch Jane even longer while I was gone, because life is pain and you can never do anything good for anyone, etc. etc.
The drive to Portland was lovely except for the part where I saw an entire 18-wheeler in flames, four-foot flames lapping over the gas tank, maybe 15 feet away from me, it was terrifying. Then I met Shelby at the Press Hotel and Shelby is awesome and she is still exactly Shelby which I suppose is not weird but after something like four years without seeing someone you really start to wonder. Who knows maybe now they believe vaccines have microchips in them or something. Modern life is toxic and contagious, etc. etc. But nope not Shelby she rules, it was so good to see her and made me very happy. Then she and I went to go see our old friend and coworker Nick, who now owns a brewery in Portland called Belleflower. Nick was awesome and has also not suddenly turned into someone who believes vaccines had microchips, but I had a better idea this was the case because I’ve been in more touch with Nick through the years, doing a little help for him to get Belleflower started a year or so ago. But I’d never seen any of it, or been, so that was super exciting. I love a good “factory” tour. Is a brewery a factory?
Then I went to Biddeford, Maine, which is apparently a place, and I visited my friends Briana and Jon who own a coffee roasting company and wholesale business and cafe called Time and Tide Coffee, and that was fun because I got to see their roaster, which Briana bought new and you can get a powder coat in any color when you buy them new so she has a pink coffee roasting machine and that’s a thing you don’t see every day.
(I am trying to do this without including photos of actual friends, all of whom I took photos of but forgot to ask if I could put them in GMHHAY because I’m not used to seeing human beings anymore and I usually write this thing alone in a basement without having seen friends. But I have nice photos of all of them and they are all great. Friends are great. So are pink coffee roasters.)
Then back to Portland, daddy bedtime, and we watched the first two episodes of Obi Wan Kenobi, about which I have only minor quibbles and was generally relieved and happy with. A solid start.
And then up at an ungodly hour on Saturday because we had to be out of the house by 10 AM and there as a just absurd, insane amount of shit to stuff into the car.
(Whoops I lied I was supposed to do bedtime, but I was packing up the kitchen, so Emma just took over for me, she really is amazing).
I got everthing packed by… 9 AM? It was really impressive. In hindsight, I probably didn’t need to get up at 6, but you never know. We had a lot more stuff than we did when we drove to Salem. Nick gave me a case of beer, we had a lot of groceries. But we also did not need to make it so the passenger seat could go all the way back and lean all the way back, because no one was going to be sleeping in it on this day, so that extra room made up the difference. You just never know.
So then we had six hours to kill until we could check into our Somerville Airbnb. But it was pretty eaten up by Jane and playgrounds, that girl can spend a whole day on a playground no problem. I was sad because I wanted to go see my friend Danny and his daughter and have Jane have a playdate, but between Jane’s intransigence and randomly running into Annie and Bill at the Salem Willows Park, it just didn’t work out. I hate that. I am trying to see every friend always these days and I failed twice in Salem, bah. Bah!
It started pouring right as we got to Somerville and I had to unload the entire car in the rain, which was actually kinda fun except for hitting my head very hard on the liftgate when I forgot to raise it tall enough for tall people one time. Now I have a large lump on my head. But eventually we got unpacked, and the rain stopped, and we went to the Albion St playground, near our Airbnb and next door to Sean and Jussi’s, and Jane played while we saw friends.
Our Airbnb is much better than the last one, or at least better suited to our needs. Aside from the fact that there was a leak happening on the third floor in one of the bedrooms, and then another leak in the basement. And the back yard is filled with trash bags and every surface yields black stuff when you wipe it down because every Airbnb is managed by some “professional” management company and none of them clean anything ever. It really must be one giant racket. Coincidentally, I watched a Youtube video by Shelby Church about the economics of her new Airbnb unit and it was just hilarious because she’s going on about how she bought really nice furniture and redid the kitchen, because she has exactly one rental house and she also wants to stay there occasionally and I’m just thinking “yeah, no, this is not the norm.” This place is something like $600 a night, and it’s… dirty. I mean, it’s not any dirtier than any other Airbnb. They’re ALL dirty. They come in, maybe clean the toilets, wipe down the kitchen, but that’s it. It is tedious.
Saturday night Sean hosted a small gathering in the park next to his house and that was awesome, I had a nice long chat with my old friend Matty, and met some new people and watched a lot of bunny rabbits run around the park. Man you guys have a lot more bunnies in Somerville than I do at home in the actual wilderness.
I was very hung over Sunday from Saturday drinking because I am a lightweight and I had some Fernet and some of Nick’s fancy beers, so I spent a good chunk of the day recovering, laying on the couch moaning and drinking fluids and watching Youtube (new Contrapoints!) But eventually around five I rallied, and walked with Sean to our friend Erin’s house for a Memorial Day weekend barbecue like a proper American and someone made me a hamburger and I saw lots of friends and it was just amazing and I sat there thinking that this is how other people get to live, seeing friends all the time and it made me sad and miss living near friends but also everything is very expensive here but also friends are so great and man you just can’t win. But it’s best not to think about that right now and just enjoy the friends, friends are great. We talked a little bit about, well, lots of friend things. Evil grandmothers and trips and Metallica documentaries and some people said they read GMHHAY every day and others said they just dip in once in a while and some said they skip the Elon Musk rants and other said they skipped the gardening, and others said the gardening is their favorite part and that’s really the joy of GMHHAY.
GMHHAY is like a burrito shop. Your vegan friends and meat loving friends and all your friends can go to a burrito shop together and everyone can enjoy “a burrito” and bond in shared experience, but inside that burrito, each and every one of you have some different combination of ingredients, but you’re all enjoying burritos so you have that in common.
I do miss my house and especially my garden. I take a peek at it every day on the security cams. Things seem to be going well. The tomatoes look huge and desperately need trellissing and trimming. But all in all, the whole system of drip irrigation is working, everything is growing. It is VERY EXCITING. Janet’s been enjoying the lettuce and spinach and radishes as she watches the house, so it is not going to waste. Hopefully when I get home, the potatoes and carrots will be ready too!
How ‘bout a W Hotel Lobby in a Better, Alternate Universe playlist on this fine day? Really one of the best GMHHAY playlist series, if you ask me. Mostly new-ish stuff, except for Chris Connelly, cu I had that song in my head the other day, and Suzanne Vega, because 99.9F is a fantastic album that does not get enough credit and still sounds very fresh two-plus decades later. New Liz Fraser, too, very excited about this Sun’s Signature project. Oh that Francis and the Lights/Bon Iver track is old (ish) too, it’s been in my head because friends are awesome.
Okay Substack is telling me this email is getting too big so I will go now. Talk tomorrow!