Good morning! Hello! How are you? I am well, sorry about yesterday, thank you to those expressing concern. I was driving back from Columbia, MD. Didn’t feel like typing in the car. Well, I was a rider. Emma did all the driving.
It is good being home. Even if the main HVAC unit is broken and a repair person can’t come until Wednesday. I’m sleeping upstairs in the guest bedroom since, thankfully, the upstairs unit is still working. I have a weird new ache in my right calf, and my fingers are still arthritic and it hurts walking down stairs for some weird reason, but the happens a lot in the morning. Home ownership is a hassle. Aging is stupid. This paragraph is mixing two subjects into one but that is the whole emotional point of the paragraph, editor please do not edit. Stet.
We narrowly missed a giant storm last night, car-denting hail and everything. All we got was some light rain and a lot of very dramatic lightning. But it did cool things off, that was nice. I was briefly sad about missing all the meteorological drama, but then I realized it probably would have killed my crops, so I’m choosing to be thankful instead.
The Cure were great. Everything went swimmingly. No problems with the drive up at all. Disconcertingly, when we arrived at the hotel there were a bunch of fire engines out front with a ladder going up to the ninth floor for some reason, but the firefighters were like ‘oh yeah, hotel’s open, everything’s fine, go on in,” so we did. And thirty minutes later when we left for dinner, they were gone. Mysterious.
Weather was lovely, just perfect. Jane handled the whole thing great, only a couple freakouts related to a game she was playing on her iPad where the adult reviewers said that level 50 was really hard and she solved that one in 15 seconds but started get really frustrated in the sixties. One freakout at the show, and one freakout in the morning, where her screams caused Emma to abandon any hopes of sleeping late. Poor Emma. No sleep for her.
At one point Jane went over to talk to the people on the blanket next to us and they asked her if she liked the Cure and she said “Yeah I like them. My daddy likes them too. We both like them because they have happy songs and sad songs. I like the happy ones they play on First Wave. I don’t understand why they’re so popular right now, though.” Proper.
We did not get any surprise new songs at the Cure show, but that’s okay it was awesome anyway. Was I hoping for “Like Cockatoos” or “All Cats are Grey” or “Funeral Party?” Yes, but I’ll take what I got hells yeah. I joked to Emma that they only played 12 of my top-ten favorite Cure songs and they should have played the other four.
Jane and Emma lasted through the main set and then left, and then I wandered up front and found a nice standing spot front and center with great sound and an awesome view for the two encores, including five songs in a row from Disintegration after I was thinking “weird they’ve only played two songs from Disintegration.” Of all Cure songs, the only song I would have been genuinely sad had they not played was “Plainsong,” and play it they did, followed by “Prayers for Rain,” “Disintegration,” “Fascination Street” and “Lullaby.” Would I have swapped out “Untitled” for “Lullaby?” Well, sure, but we can’t have everything, can we? But for most of the first encore I just stood there alone amongst the vast, enthralled crowd, swaying to the music, happy and sad and confused at the same time. Beautiful.
Watched “the hits” second encore and beat the crowd out by leaving during “Boys Don’t Cry.” Man it really is nuts that that early lightweight pop single spawned a 50-year monumental achievement of an artistic career.
Really glad I got to go. Why are The Cure so popular right now? I have no idea. Seven, eight years ago they came to New York and played the Beacon. It was fucking awesome. This time they did multiple nights at Madison Square Garden. The Cure are a band that seem to have universally redeemed their reputation. I skipped the Bloodflowers and 4:13 tours because I thought — and I was not alone in thinking this — that they Cure weren’t good anymore. But no one thinks that now. Everyone loves them again, the new songs sound sound amazing, their critical reputation has never been higher, they seem to be outstripping many of their peers of the era like New Order. Depeche Mode are still a touring machine but it feels… different? I can’t explain it.
I wonder if Taylor Swift is going to go see the Cure or if the Cure is going to go see Taylor Swift. The two hot tours of the summer, both clocking in around three hours on their sets.
Rest of the weekend was lovely. Walmart run. They had muriatic acid but no grout cleaner. We will pick up the tile drama and research this week. A smell hit me as I walked through the dish detergent aisle that was so painfully nostalgic I was bowled over, though I couldn’t catch it a second time or long enough to place it, but it still freaked me out. I tried to buy Slowdive tickets while standing in Walmart. I already have tickets but I wanted a balcony seat but no such luck. It was sold out instantly, but even before it was sold out, no balcony seats at 9:30 club. Mysterious. That was fun to do at Walmart. I bought two more mineral sunscreens and texted my friend Meghan to remind me of the brands she likes, but neither of these turned out to be a brand she liked. Alas. My sunscreens are still imperfect. It is a journey. We continue to work on it. As I left, they played “Joyride” by Roxette on Walmart radio and I’m thinking I may have written that band off and… what if Roxette is actually good?
Oh, I went to the DMV to finally turn in my plates for the old Mazda I donated to charity back in September and didn’t turn in the plates so I got a tax bill lol oops. Who doesn’t love a DMV run.
Did a bunch of chores in the garden: trellised the tomatoes, planted new cucumbers. I think my pelleted beet seed from Johnny’s are bum seeds, that or I am losing my gardening competency. All the stuff Jane and I planted two weeks ago, very little of it has sprouted. Might be planting things too deeply with her. Harvested a bunch of cucumbers. I need to plant some summer lettuce. This weekend.
Did some chores over at the new house, got all the old shelving from the storage unit all set up in the garage, moved the tools and gardening supplies onto it, disassembled Emma’s old desk that was serving as a makeshift tool storage area. Got that desk moved down the basement acupuncture office. Replaced the casters on the workbench since one of them inexplicably got half its wheel shaved off. Set up the pressure washer with a 50’ hose and a splitter and whatnot so it’s always plugged in and ready to go and I don’t have to futz about whenever I need to use it. Very satisfying bout of chores. Moved the chest freezer to the basement of the new house, got it out of the garage, lots of room in the garage now very exciting.
Thursday night we watched the Russian coup unfold on the news, or tried to. The news networks were utterly useless. Actual, real, verifiable Ukraine experts like Alexander Vindeman were on Twitter saying “yes, this is happening, yes, those are Wagner forces in front of the Russian defense HQ in Rostov” and MSNBC and CNN were saying “lol who knows!” I mean, I guess I can’t blame them, a little battle going on between two masters of online disinformation, best to be careful. But it also really drove home how none of our news networks have any assets in place in Russia at all anymore. American news networks used to have foreign bureaus everywhere but now they’re like “whatever, we’ll just use Twitter as a foreign bureau” except whoops, now they don’t trust Twitter either. Really is a mess.
Anyway, kind of an unpleasant feeling to be very excited and happy that Putin is probably freaking out and that Russia is distracted by its own internal shit maybe they’ll pull out of Ukraine (a girl can dream) but at the same time being like “oh yeah also they have nukes and maybe none of this is any good at all.”
Also just an insane amount of Francis Fukuyama memes on the internet Thursday night. Dude wrote End of History and everyone likes to make fun of him when history happens but that was, like, thirty years ago, and the dude has moved on since then and there has been plenty of history since then and I’m not sure why this particular time all of the sudden there were lots of Fukuyama memes it is really weird. I’d dig into it if I were Garbage Day or something but I got other things to do with my time, I’ve come to realize the meme makers don’t deserve an extra second of my life hours. Also they all seem to have missed the part in End of History where he explains that postmodernism has made the truth a much more fungible and unknowable thing and that is going to prove to be somewhat problematic which is not a terrible encapsulation of the world we live in, so, you know, score one for Francis I guess.
Jane is using and mastering all sorts of funny words and phrases like “Interestingly” and “paradox,” and “don’t you worry,” and “at any rate,” and it is just the best I love it so much. We had a long discussion between “property” and “the property” as in “a piece of property.”
Dance Party was good last night and on Saturday night. She’s very into “Tummy Ache” by Diet Cig now which is great because it’s one of my favorite songs of the last decade or so so we can really bond over that. We also have both been discovering Ethel Cain whom I’ve not heard and are not bad. And she’s into Muna, which is nice. And she really liked the new Lovesick video with the mermaid which was fun cuz I could tell her she was at one of their first shows. She still absolutely cannot stand Matt Johnson from The The’s bald head. We watch the P!NK aerobics video and we both loved it. Last night was probably the funnest Jane bedtime ever. Lots of new dance moves and complex, pointless games and utterly absurd jokes and she’s really getting good at buttering me up trying to convince me to stay with her longer at bedtime. Just fantastic. That girl is all right.
Got a smoooooth playlist for you today. So smooth. Why don’t you lay down by the fire. Let me pour you some wine. It’s cold outside. You’ve had a rough day. Let me take care of you.
Talk tomorrow! And sorry once again for the absence Monday I know how disconcerting this can be for you.
"Of all Cure songs, the only song I would have been genuinely sad had they not played was “Plainsong,” and play it they did" --- THIS WAS PRECISELY MY THINKING (and thankfully they played it)
i am so jealous you got so much Disintegration. I got Pictures of You and Lovesong and Lullaby but that’s it. All I wanted was Plainsong. I’m not even going to check to see if Plainsong was on the setlist for the other LA dates.