Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1526
Flooding here makes me think of the flooding in Texas. Memories of Christian summer camps. Working on the Studio. Ruminations on young parents in the suburbs. A sad dream.
Good morning, good morning. Hello. Hi. How are you? All well? Safe? We had some crazy rain and flooding yesterday and last night. Nine point something inches of rain in a 24-hour period. Apparently not the record, which was in the 90’s, but more than we’ve seen in our decade here. The property took it like a champ. Yay being on a hill that descends down to a pond with a dam and a stream that goes out the dam into a giant ravine. Basically impossible to flood.
The region, though, not so much. And several of the main roads by our house are flooded out.
Jane is in a camp this week (thank god) and Emma and I weren’t sure if the camp was going to happen, weren’t sure if the roads would be okay to get Jane to the camp. So we took my truck, and then drove around checking out the neighborhood a bit, which means I didn’t get back here to my computorial desk situation, until like 9:20, and, well. I have a 10AM meeting on Mondays. I don’t know when I am going to finish this. You might not receive it till this afternoon. Or maybe it’ll be short. We will see, we will see.
All day yesterday the emergency alerts came fast and furious: flash flooding watches, tornado watches. A tornado actually touched down not too far from here. Crazy. Actually I can never remember whether “warning” or “watch” is the bad one. Bad system. Should be “lookout” and “threat” or something. Anyway, this was the bad one. Lots of them. We even hid in the basement for a bit like you’re supposed to. Mother-in-law came over from next door since she is basement-less. Actually, most people in the Triangle are basement-less. Not a big thing around here, basements. But we really wanted one. We only looked at houses with basements, weirdly. Really cut down on the options. But this was back when there was a post-subprime-meltdown housing surplus. You couldn’t get away with that now.
As I was falling asleep around 10:45 (insomnia is gone for the moment, thankfully. But now I am… well I need to much sleep. Getting nine-plus hours these days it is crazy), I got one more emergency alert, even as the rain was dying down.
And I thought of those poor, poor girls at that Christian camp in Texas, and… I turned my alerts off anyway. I have just turned them back on.
The system seems very good, very clever, all in all. It has decent local awareness. Little wonky. When I was in Alaska it was giving me five evacuation warnings (that’s a great warning. The warning level is: GO NOW) for fires very far away. But, on the other hand, it was giving my Boston cell phone mostly-proper fire information while in Alaska. I am aware of the Texan propensity to clutter up the alerts with “blue alerts” but I think the main thing is the whole system needs better sophistication about which ones to wake you up with in the hours of, say, 10-7. Tornado Watches? Yes, I want that. Flood warnings? Can wait till morning.
But, god. Those poor girls. I spent way too much of my childhood at shoddily built Christian summer camps built on the shores of bodies of water. Just… ugh. horrific./
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We are listening to the new Haim this morning: I quit. Great name. It is not grabbing me like previous Haim albums, but it does have a couple bangers. They seem to be in that cycle where you make one album about how you’re never gonna leave someone then the next album is a lot about how you’re so done with that person, but I suppose we can excuse this from Haim more than a solo artist since, you know, presumably these three sisters are on slightly different dating cycles. Haim are on the spectrum, aren’t they? They have always struck me as on the spectrum. But I am very happy a band like Haim is big, playing festivals, kids loving them. My daughter thinks they’re great, though she has less time for the album cuts than I. She wants banging singles only. So far nothing from I quit (sic) qualifies as a bangin’ single to my seven-year-old daughter. This is not a criticism.
Anwyay, the weekend!
I had a terrifying sad dream where I Was trying to hand out with a beloved old friend I have not seen enough in the past decade, and these Tulpas of my parents kept barging in. We watched Sinners this weekend, finally — fantastic as everyone says — but this was the night before that, so… coincidence. They weren’t my parents, they weren’t my mom and dad but they were playing the role, and this was not dream funny business, this was horrific and scary to me, who has recently lost both his parents. That these… fakes were trying to parent me. And their timing was all off. I was in my 50s and they were treating me like I was sixteen. Anyway the whole thing sucked and it has stayed with me and I miss my parents.
Emma accompanied Jane and I on our morning breakfast twice this weekend and that was nice. Family times.
Jane’s playground morning got rained out by Chantal, this storm was named. But we did go to the playground the night before and that place was hoppin. So many young adults, I mean, these people can’t even be close to 30. Just hanging out in this new neighborhood, built whole-cloth from the ground-up in the last 4 years, houses starting in the high-200’s. At first it seemed incredible, and then I was convinced my oldness was just projecting and they were really probably in their 30’s, but Emma confirmed my theories.
And we started to think about it, and, you know: if you’re some person who always wanted to get married and have a family, and figured you’d do it right out of college, and you were, you know, an achiever, then the math all works, why not: find your fiance in college, graduate, get married, get some awesome job in the triangle that pays in the 60’s or 70’s, have a kid, save $40k in 2 years, and you’re in this neighborhood with a 1 year-old by 23. And also, given that most of your old friends prior to this were probably either a) like you, or b) uhh.. “normal” kids who like nightlife and partying, you are probably now psyched you live in this neighborhood with your A friends and a bunch of other youngins who are all… like you. You probably feel welcome and normal in this neighborhood.
Crazy shit.
On the 4th my pool partner neighbor had us over for some grilling and pool times in the evening and it was just lovely.
Other than that, rest of the weekend, all three days, maybe 5-6 hours day, spent on working on the studio. Working on a particularly difficult part of the floor, a part no one will ever see, a part that arguably doesn’t need to be done, a part that involves me crawling through AC ducts over and over again, laying on my belly for hours. But I got it done! I killed! Eleven boards laid down. Just fantastic. I need to do a little carving around one HVAC duct to make the whole a bit better, and the gas people are coming tomorrow to fix that gas line I nicked, and then the gas can get turned back on and I can put down that last piece of floor, but then we get to move on. SO EXCITING.
Of course we’re moving on either to the left or right, both of which… involve more floor right-up to the eaves of the house, laying on my belly. But at least they’re not behind the HVAC unit, and at least i don’t have to crawl through a thicket of ducts to get to it ow my knees.
But soon, soon. I will be done with the hardest part of the floor. Smooth sailing after this.
Famous last words.
The thing that made all of this possible was my genius idea to use ratcheting straps to lift the HVAC duct junction box off of the floor and hang it from the rafters so I could replace the floor underneath it. I am very proud of thinking of this. The thing about using clever, simple physics in construction is that even when you understand the concepts, you have to think of it and employ the clever method instead of brute force. And I am not great at this. but this time, it came to me. While laying in bed last week with insomnia.
So, you know. Not all bad.
Got a justa mix for you today. In truth I just finished it off by adding a) the pretty good Haim song I am listening to right now, and two oldies. But I like it. The TV on the Radio is on here because I am revising them and hey good news/update: got tickets to see them while we’re in Boston so that is exciting. Wish fulfilled. Love the new Doobie Brothers. Carey Seward is, as we’ve discussed, a Fairbanks friend. Big Blood we’ve talked about. Not a giant fan of the new Eno/Wolfe albums but this song stayed with me. Still giving the new Samia more shots it is growing on me.
Oh hey 10:01. Made it. No bolding today. Let’s go join our call.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.