Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1468
New Pynchon, Pulp, Lipsmear, doom naps, nice comments from my mom's students, my ideal stock app, strep worries, cleanout strategizing, Jane teeth and gymnastics
Good morning good morning. Hi. How are you? Holding up okay. Wow you guys shared some dark dreams yesterday, but also some slivers of hope in this world. You guys are just great. Man, GMHHAY readership, best readership on the internet.
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Took an unintentional two-hour doom nap yesterday. Had a splitting headache, felt terrible. At lunch I nuked it with a bunch of Tylenol and Advil and thought “I’ll just lay down for 30 mins until it kicks in and then I know what i need, a walk. I will take a walk after this” but nope. Stayed in bed sort of getting hotter and hotter, like in a mini sweat lodge, with all my clothes on, for two hours.
Woke up and the tariffs were “on pause.” Except, you know, the massive tariffs not on pause. But hey the stock market went up for a day. Now it’s only down 10% NBD.
Absolutely insane that this world is being held hostage by a lunatic.
I am worried I have strep again, not because of any symptom or anything. Well, because I am sleepy all the time. And I have convinced myself I got it from some thing I did not sterilize or throw away from the last time. I have a terrible habit of drinking Nyquil from the bottle. To be clear, I do not have a terrible Nyquil habit, anymore, I barely take it. But I did take it once when I had strep and once a week or so ago, and, you know, it’s my private bottle. I just swig it. And strep, you know, can linger on things for, like, a month or more. Also I did this with a canister of almonds. My own personal canister of almonds I mean look yes, now that I am telling you about this it seems kind of gross and I suddenly see the point of cups and containers but… ugh. I am sorry, future Rick, if I gave you strep.
I probably don’t, though, cuz I’m not actually sleeping all the time cuz I woke up at 5:40 this morning and could not go back to sleep. So I took the time to start plotting logistics of my mom’s apartment clean-out next week. Honestly, I should go earlier than Monday. My sister has to work all week. Might try and change my ticket today. But I did figure out who to donate stuff to. Turns out there are a few options in Fairbanks. Salvation Army, but nope. I do love Value Village and I will definitely be stopping there, but they are a for-profit. There’s an interesting org called Helping Alaska with a program called Furniture Bank, and I like that one, seems awesome, but I know nothing about them. But then I found that the FRA, Fairbanks’ premiere agency helping Alaskans with disabilities, accepts donations, and my mom had a long history with them. So I am going to call them today and see if we can’t set something up.
My sister sent me a depressing Facebook group last night, a group dedicated to notices of obituaries for people from my high school. Given my “Deathbook” angst of yesterday, I can’t say I was too keen to join. And indeed I found out about two or three more high school classmates who have passed. That sucked! But it was worth it for the things people said about my mom. I mean check this shit out:
She was a very favorite teacher at West Valley. She once told my Mom at PT conferences that I had an old soul and did not suffer fools gladly. She knew me before I knew myself. Thank you Mrs.Webb.
A sweet lady, and a patient teacher. She was my English/comp teacher... I can't remember which year, but I have nice memories of her.
I'm sad to hear of her passing.Oh man that's sad she was my English teacher at Tananna for 7th and 8th grades. I loved having her as my teacher.
Everyone gave her such a hard time.
She was actually very sweet if you got to know her.
Or does that mean I spent a lot of time in her office? May she rest in peace.She really was sweet, was a really good teacher and mentor for me in the two most difficult years of school life.
She was an amazing teacher and one of the very first female administrators. I was lucky to work with her to see just how dedicated she was.
Well now I’m crying again, reading them again. And a lot of these are from kids she disciplined! And from, like, men who had her in 7th grade and remember that. That is crazy.
Listening to the new Lipsmear this morning, the new goth project from my good friend Sean Drinkwater of Freezepop/Lifestyle and our friends Dave and Al and Eric. Dave sings. It is great. It is so goth. I am so into this.
There is also, alert, a new Pulp song this morning. It has a dumb title — “Spike Island” — but it is a grower. I have listened to it four times this morning. Taught Jane about Pulp this morning. She knew “Common People” already.
Man so much good new stuff. I also have in my possession two new advance tracks from a band I loved for a long, long time so that is a treat waiting for me as soon as this Lipsmear is done.
And there is a new Thomas Pynchon novel coming wtf that is totally crazy.
And Legendary Pink Dots are coming back to Carrboro. I still deeply regret skipping them last time. Almost makes up for this incredibly painful missing of Mercury Rev next week my god I am so sad about that.
Also this dude dug up the old unfinished Robert Caro novel and brought the box from the archive to Caro and made him talk about the novel and he got a bunch of stuff out of Caro that is, not, like, the normal stuff Caro says in every single interview ever. “Ladies in the lobby” is a great visual and pretty amazing, actually. Ladies loitering in the lobby of a newspaper because it’s their last recourse for justice. And why are they ladies? Because ladies have fewer avenues of justice.
The reporter also did a quick survey of all the fiction Caro wrote while he was still at Princeton and some of it sounds pretty amazing:
“Thirty Second Break,” from March 1954, is about a jaded trumpet player wondering whether to risk it all for a chance to play the music he wants to; the story ends with him having failed to take the leap, trapped in a life he hates. “Salt Water Baptism,” published the following month, is about a blowhard trial lawyer who shames himself in front of his son by taking on a swim he shouldn’t attempt to a platform too far from shore. That fall came “The Mile,” about a champion athlete who, after being forced into retirement by a life-threatening health problem, can’t resist a final race. Finally, a year later, “The Glitter and the Glare,” much lengthier than the others, was about a nightclub chanteuse facing middle-aged obsolescence who mentors a young Puerto Rican wunderkind grappling with racism and his own demons.
Oh shit, two block quotes one email newsletter I am getting lazy. Listicle laziness and media recommendations and no real thought no no no this is not that kind of newsletter, maaaan.
We are going to get those 100,000 pages of the Jacobs/Moses battle before I die, I can just feel it.
Hey are you an obsessive stock watcher? What site/app do you use? I am having a hard time finding an app/site that accomplishes a few things:
Clearly indicates overnight movements in the stocks, and makes it easy to see jumps between the close price and the opening price the next day. It is absolutely insane how no one does that, and you end up getting stupid shit like this:
Note how all the graphs go down all day, but the markets are UP (as shown at right). This is because there was a giant spike at opening that is not shown on the grap. I would like the data to not be delayed fifteen minutes. Which, I suspect, means I have to pay but I am not entirely opposed. My brokerage account, shown above, at least shows me indices without delay, but not individual stonks.
I would like to not be ugly, and not full of garbage. Ideally zero “articles” but so long as I can ignore them that is probably fine.
This is probably a fool’s quest, but if you have one you love, do let me know.
Don’t say Bloomberg Terminal. Though man, wouldn’t that be awesome. Except the type is ugly. But we would manage.
Hey big news Jane is brushing her teeth in the morning on her own. FINALLY. After, like, years of trying. I think something clicked over the spring break when she kept complaining about my smelly breath in the morning during our snuggles, and I kept reminding her her breath smelled too. She had been decent about brushing her teeth on the weekends for a while, but never during the week. But I guess she finally put two and two together, so that was nice.
Also Jane and I got our Wordle in two this morning. First time I think that’s ever happened in our routine morning car line Wordle. She was very excited.
We had gymnastics last night and man, little kids doing gymnastics is just the damn cutest thing it really is ridiculous. Also those teachers? Pay them more. Such patience! Insane.
Justa mix for you today, volume 276. Will be heading to Alaska Monday so I can swing by Justa Store again, this mix series’ namesake, always very exciting. I can eat at the Thai Place behind it, best Thai restaurant in America, amirite?
Look yes I just threw together this mix, it was only half done, but I wanted an excuse to give you the new Pulp this morning. Oh also I listened to Sandinista! in its entirety for the first time yesterday. It is… well, all over the place. I liked some of the dubby reggae stuff and some of the poppy stuff, and I dunno, man. I think I woulda made two different albums out of that. But then weirdly yesterday on Pitchfork Youtube Dean Wareham called Sandinista! his “perfect ten album” and man I don’t know anything anymore.
All right stay safe out there. Don’t go crazy. Don’t do anything crazy. If you’re freakin out, drop a line.
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.