Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1509
Sleeping in, weekend chores and chatting about Chinese Lord of the Rings
Good morning, friends. Hello. Hi. How was your weekend? Was it nice? Did you get a lot of chores done? Spend any time at a playground? Mine was lovely. And you know what? Today is not too bad! I got to sleep in! It is summer! I don’t have to wake up at 6:20 to take Jane to school anymore! It is fantastic! I woke up at 6:30 and was like “nah, I don’t want to do this” and I took some Advil and went back to sleep. Then I woke up when my alarm went off at 7:30 and I thought “nah, I don’t want to do this,” and I slept till 8! On a weekday! On a workday! Amazing! What is this life!
Good thing, too, because I couldn’t fall asleep last night. Partially because I had been getting 9+ hours of sleep for a few nights, but also because my brain was wrapped up in solving the conundrum of where to put the air register in the studio. Do I make a baffle box? Where can I put it that will not screw up my vocal booth? My brain just chews on these problems when I am falling asleep sometimes, and usually I can nod right off. But every once in a while they keep me up.
Anyway things are a liiitle screwed up today because Jane has a camp that we signed her up for just yesterday. It’s just for today. Camps are kinda hard for her this month because of the Alaska trip, so really her camps start in July. Except for today. It starts in 40 minutes. Really breaks up my GMHHAY time. No idea when I’ll get this out.
But it’s okay. It is worth it to have slept.
Reader alert, on Friday I mentioned a band called the Konstantins, thinking that they were the Constantines and reader, they are not the Constantines. They are something very different. GMHHAY regrets this error.
We are listening to the new Midwife “single,” right now. It is called “Signs.” Midwife is a the solo project of Madeline Johnston. Saw her open for Holy Fawn and Deafheaven once — my friend Bill told me to go early and catch her and he was right she was great. Sorta goth shoegaze with a peppering of metal but not really.
Constantly, shockingly prolific, she is, as well.
Join the GMHHAY slack! Reply to this email and ask for an invite if you’re a human who likes chatting with other humans about topics such as these within!
Shall I regale you with takes of weekend chores? I shall.
I got the shop fan done. It was a bit rough at the end. The thing did not fit the filters. I had to cut them down. But, you know, that is fine. Nothing special about the border of an HVAC filter. I think it is working? I am suddenly completely worried the fan is blowing the wrong direction. The plywood I used is too thin to screw casters into it, which means I’m probably gonna prop the thing on a dolly? I don’t know. Most people hang it but I want to be able to move it around.
But anyway, it is DONE. It is up in the attic, and it is… well… filtering.
I did a very minimal amount of gardening: replanted a single pepper plant that did not take from its transplant. Watered the extra seedlings, even though I.. don’t need them? I have too many extras. Anyone need any exotic basil seedlings? I need to harvest some lettuce it is growing everywhere. And I need to thin my radishes and beets and get my cucumbers more onto their trellis. I shoulda done that already they have tangled and bunched. Alas.
But mostly I worked on the recording studio. Long passages of each of Saturday and Sunday, got about six uninterrupted hours in each day. I got the whole section done by the door to the attic, which involved many complicated cuts and wiring a CAT-6 cable to deliver WiFi to the ceiling of the living room. It looks great. I am very excited.
Then I got the whole area done that will be the vocal booth and storage space. I am slowly flooring into the guitar amp booth and then on into the back eaves of the attic where the HVAC system is. I REALLY don’t want to do this part, it feels like overkill, it will almost never be seen. But the thing is, there is no subfloor in the majority of this section now, and it is directly above the neurodivergent-affirming pediatric speech therapists. It is arguably the part that most needs soundproofing. This is, of course, one of the reasons why the whole studio is oriented so that most of the moise-making is far from them. And there will be three thick, insulated walls between them and the sound, along with the entire main floor of the house and the floor of the main floor. But I still think, you know, in the immortal words of George Michael, if you’re gonna do it, do it right. So I am going to probably spend, like, three, four weekends flooring an area no one will ever see. I am not happy about this. But I am gonna do it.
Also I forgot to take any photos of my work for you this week, but I did dig out this photo of the full floor assembly I took a couple weeks ago. You can see the different layers of the floor: OSB, foam, sheetrock, more OSB. Whole floor sits on foam that dampens the vibrations. The interior walls of the studio will be built on the floor assembly, the whole room will be able to vibrate independently.
Oh wait I lied looks like I took one photo of my work in front of the door and you can see the depths of the HVAC area in the back right there, behind what will eventually be the guitar amp booth:
I got eight pieces of OSB placed, three of them with complex cuts I am very proud of myself.
Finished up the Pee Wee Herman documentary. Realized the director was Matt Wolf, who made two documentaries that I have very much enjoyed in the past: Recorder, the Marion Stokes Project and the documentary about Biosphere 2, which was just great. Apparently he also made an Arther Russell documentary so I am gonna have to track that down. Anyway the Pee Wee doc was moving and wonderful and sad and great and hilarious and informative and boy I sure did like it.
Tragic figure, Pee Wee. I suppose he’d be annoyed at people saying that: he clearly does not want to come off as a tragic figure. But, man, that obsenity charge and the raiding of his house was BS. I don’t think I ever even heard about that when it happened. Must have had my head up my butt for a decade or something.
Beyond that, took Jane to the playground Sunday morning, talked to some parents. My Chinese friend and I talked about Lord of the Rings, which he has read in Chinese and English. We talked about Chinese mythologies similar to Lord of the Rings, specifically Journey to the West, a 16th-century myth that has apparently been remade a bajillion times gonna have to check it out. He, too, has watched the Chinese Three-Body adaptation, so, you know, nice to have someone to talk to about that.
The kids climbed trees and played in the sand a lot.
That’s all I got, I gotta get Jane to this camp and then do my day job work thing. Gonna take me a few weeks to get into a summer rhythm with GMHHAY, what with Alaska trip and all. But we will figure it out. Together.
Moody and Quiet mix today. I think I have talked about most of these lately. Oh caroline. Yeah that caroline record is great. Very into it. Loved her first one too. She should capitalize her name, though. Just sayin’.
Until tomorrow, friend.
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Thanks for reading.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.