Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1437
Weekend chores, selling girl scout cookies, attic work, this is a house of strep
Good morning, heroes. How are you? Nice weekend? Get anything done? Or get some relaxing in? Or both? I do hope so. Weekends are swell. Let the life be forever weekend. “I wish parents never had to work,” Jane just told me this morning. Me too, Jane. Me too. Let me tell you about Keynes’ prophecies about his grandchildren, child. He wasn’t wrong, just mayhaps overly optimistic about humanity’s proclivity for turning into thieves and forcing upon people continued work so they can fund the decadence of late-period capitalism. Also didn’t quite grasp the Veblenian instincts in us all for luxury goods.
Speaking of which I just read a WITI newsletter with a woman who gave up her Smart Phone for February and I am quaking, quaking. Terrified and compelled.
Some great dreams last night. I mean, most of them were dreams of this dumb fruit game I am now obsessed with, thanks to Jane’s youtube. It’s a spin on Tetris with fruit. That combine. It is absurdly addictive. I’d tell you the name but then you’d go download it and get as addicted as me. I will spare you. But the other dreams, great corporate espionage dreams, really sweet SXSW dream where I ran into Aubrey and DMD and Laura and Laura at the Hilton and now I desperately want to go to SXSW even though lord knows I do not have the energy for such things.
Jane is sick, I am sick, we both have strep wooo. Positive strep tests are sweet, though, because now there is a reason. Totally depressed? Sleeping 10+ hours a day and still feeling tired? There’s a reason! Doctor didn’t think I had strep because all it was was exhaustion and one swollen lymph node. We thought maybe I had Mono man I want Mono someday. KISSING DISEASE. Do people still think that in junior high middle school? You got mono? Ooo you been kissin?
Anyway, best guess: Jane had Strep three weeks or so ago. I think I have had it the whole time since then? I was feeling pretty run down that entire time: when I went to Alaska I was sleeping 10-11 hours straight. I slept 2 hours before my flight home, the entire 9 hours of flying home, got home and then slept nine hours. I had tried to make an appt to get a test before I left but couldn’t get an appointment. Finally got one three weeks later, and sure enough. So then Emma took her and Jane in for tests at the Minute Clinic (much easier to get an appt. I obviously should have done that) and Jane was positive.
And Emma, somehow living in a house with two strep queens for a month, negative.
So we’re both on antibiotics now, Jane will only take hers when I take mine so we make a big deal of it. She will hit 24 hours — and thus not be infectious — this afternoon. So we’re keeping her home from school today. She is sitting behind me at this moment, bulldozing an entire city block in Cities: Skylines. Version 1, no mods. She’s a kid for Pete’s sake.
It’s crazy how I instantly felt better maybe 2 hours after the antibiotics started, and by the first morning my lymph node pain was gone. I still need nine hours, but it makes me well-rested now, which is a nice change. Commensurately, I managed to get some shit done:
I did not go to Walmart, sorry to disappoint you Walmart stock analysts out there but I do think I might go tomorrow, got a real list piled up over the weekend.
I did take the recycling to the collection center. Went twice, actually, since I took a load of construction debris: three tubtrugs full of OSB, and a stove vent.
I went to the bank and met our pool/storage banker and went over the construction loan revisions — we swapped out our excavation vendor and saved $400k, so banker was well-chuffed, as they say in Scotland.
I listened to five Jackson Browne albums at the urging of 2-3 members of the GMHHAY slack. They are right. He is great. He has A+ stage banter, too. I would place him way up there in the pantheon of talented stage banterers. He is no Tom Waits, but he is a master of the craft.
I sold Girl Scout cookies! In front of the Lowe’s Hardware! With Jane and two other girls and their parents. It was awesome. We sold a ton of cookies, made bank. Hardware stores are rad places to sell cookies. People are mentally ready to drop some coin, and they did not just buy a bunch of food like at the grocery store. Jane is stunningly good at math and making change. The other girls did not seem particularly interested in this crucial part of selling things. Met a cool, nerdy dad. Super fun, would do again.
I did attic work! I worked on a floorplan, but then realized the next day it wouldn’t work because it hinges (pun intended) upon doors existing where the attic walls are slanted and they wouldn’t open or close. Also I realized that the master bedroom intake register is exactly where I want the drum booth to be. I am, luckily, talking to the HVAC people friday but I don’t have high hops of moving it: it’s placed really well in the bedroom and would be weird to move. But I think I can work around it. Also I think I need to push the wall out 10 inches to make the bathroom and drum booth work, even ignoring the interior doors. It will require thought.
I did work out my under-floor conduit situation, though. Thought I’m not sure I can have in-floor electrical. but i bought a low-profile outlet box so I can measure and work on that today. It is sitting right next to me.
I was gonna pull up this one piece of flooring to see if I could definitely route a vent under it and I thought it was going to be a big hassle because I assumed it was sealed down with Avantech floor sealant and a ton of screws but nope just plopped into place with one screw, because three our four weeks ago, I foresaw this need and my god I am so proud of past self.
And I got five more panels of new flooring down, having demo’d the old floor, pulled up the old insulation, replaced it with Safe N Sound and put the new floor down. Very proud of me for that.
Watched a lot of videos about temporary load bearing walls and bathroom construction.
I had a bit of an existential panic about the studio, the rate of work I am doing. It is a bit of a paradox. I love working on it, and I am happy when I’m working on it, so on the one hand, it doesn’t really matter. But on the other hand, I desperately miss making music and I want to make music and I can’t really make music, except in a computer which I do not enjoy, until the attic is done? There are some absurdly complex parts coming up. BUT I realized I don’t definitely need the bathroom done to make music, and, theoretically, I don’t even need all the doors in: I could still make music when the pediatric neuroaffirming speech therapists aren’t in the office. So I need to sort of re-work my work order, I think: try and get it usable, even before it is completely soundproof. There’s only so much I can do toward this goal, of course I can’t have sawdust inside my Super Six Reverb or something. But I can, maybe, speed it up… six months? Maybe even a year? Fingers crossed.
But god I miss making music.
All very productive. And I did all that attic work in a single day, Sunday, since Saturday was cookie day.
And I only got into existential panics about our country… mmm four, five times? Not too bad for these days!
Emma has (Grand) Jury Duty today. Jane is sick and home with me. And I have work and… mmm… five meetings today? I’m sure it’s gonna work out just fine. Wish me luck.
Justa mix today. Lotta usual suspects from the last few months: Til We’re Blue or Destroy (SXSW dreams whaaat), Milla, hrm maybe that’s it. Saw a KEXP with Cloud Cult and they opened with this song and it kinda wrecked me. Only ever saw them once (at SXSW, at Emo’s) and kinda wrote them off cuz of the painting thing oh wait I saw them again at the Middle East. Anyway, this song. Damn. It hits. Like a lotta new cuts on the new Bartees Strange, love the new Sharon Van Etten, not too impressed with the new Squid, love the new Suki EP and I liked the new Youth Lagoon a lot. Thank you Laura for introducing me to the Veils.
Until tomorrow. I might get some time alone. But, then, if I do, that means I had to get up at 6:30 for the first time in five days or so. Hrm. Tough bargain. Might take the sleep.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.