Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1548
Return to Chore House, warped OSB, Reconciling James Dobson's adolescence book.
Good morning good morning. Busy morning. Rising to the occasion. Much action on all work fronts.
I think I am rested up, so that is nice. Able to face all this pre-GMHHAY morning work.
Wondering about “elide.” I think I got “belie” and “elicit” and “illicit” and “elude” down. Is “elide” even a word? That is a thing I need to check out today. Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell me. By the time you read this I will already have googled it.
Elide means “struck out” or “eliminated.” Hrm. Well, that should be easy to remember. Not what I was thinking, not what I was thinking.
Took a delivery this morning for more OSB for the studio floor and it is warped again and I am at wit’s end. This shit has to be flat. It will be laying on the floor, not nailed down, as a subfloor. I am worried I am going to have to abandon the two layers of 1/4” OSB and go with the 1/2” or 3/4” instead, to prevent warping. But the 1/2 and 3/4 are both too heavy for me to carry upstairs solo. It is very frustrating.
But it was good to be back over at Chore House. The sunflowers have gone to seed, the cucumbers are done, but the tomatoes still bring forth, the sage is the size of a hedge, the chili peppers are killing it. Didn’t have time to go in the greenhouse. But I did go in the garage and there were spider webs everywhere from my month or so as an absentee owner (people still used Chore House when I’m away, but only the driveway and basement office). On top of spider webs, the garage is packed to the gills with rigid foam and sheetrock that make the first two layers of the floor.
So I guess there’s enough work this weekend without the OSB. I can clean up the garage, get it back in usable shape, I can plant the fall garden, I can start laying the first two layers of the subfloor. It’ll be fine.
But I really need to figure out how to purchase thin flat OSB.
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We are listening this morning to a sorta synth punky shoegazey band called Cutouts? I don’t know them. Album is called Snakeskin. I kinda like it. We also listened to an awesome synthpop album by a lady (I assume) named Sally Shapiro this morning, Ready to Live a Lie, and an EP by a band called TOPS that I have absolutely no recollection of. The Sally Shapiro album has a killer cover of Pet Shop Boy’s “Rent,” though.
No Walmart this morning, I am sorry to tell you. I know you were all eager and missing it. I am too. But I only had like two things on my list that I needed to buy there and neither is pressing. And I needed a ton of niche Zevia flavors, so I went to the Teet. And I lucked out because the Zevia was on sale, $4.49 a six-pack. Bought a ton, saved $40 on my receipt love it when that happens. We will return to Walmart next week I promise.
James Dobson died, evil right-wing preacher and founder of Focus on the Family, just the worst. But I have a personal history with James Dobson. Well, no, not the human, but his words.
When I was thirteen years old, my mother and father decided I needed to know the birds and the bees, and rather than, you know, explain it to me themselves, since I was a bookworm, they handed me a book: James Dobson’s Preparing for Adolescence. It’s still in print. Wonder if the contents have changed. This is my version, says a publication date of 1989, and that may be true, but that is the same cover, I think, of the version I read in, oh, 1985 or so.
This book was crazy. It totally went into the actual mechanics of sex and pregnancy, didn’t couch it in terms of god or anything. It talked honestly about masturbation. I remember getting vaguely aroused reading the book. I remember showing it to all of my friends: have you seen this shit?
But the thing I remember most was a parable:
A bunch of people are sitting in a circle. Support group or something. There is a box of donuts. One by one, the host asked each person if they wanted a donut. One by one, each person said no. Finally, someone said “why yes, I would love a donut,” got up and walked over and got a donut. And as soon as that happened, floodgates opened, every other person got up and got a donut too.
I mean, maybe it was apocryphal. Maybe it was a parable. But I cannot convey how profoundly that parable impacted my thirteen year-old mind. It’s been forty years this story is still an absolutely cornerstone lesson in my life. I still use it, think about it, live it all the time. And I still see the fundamental truth of it every day.
Somewhere in my 30’s and I started hearing about James Dobson the conservative monster, I just kind of assumed there were two James Dobsons — that the dude who wrote this straightforward manual to prepare for adolescence couldn’t possibly be the same god-freak-Reagan-worshiping devil.
But nope. Same guy.
So when eBay and Amazon and the Internet was happening, I bought a new copy of the book back then, off of eBay I think, tried to find an old version matching mine. It’s on my shelves somewhere I should dig it out. I re-read it. It had, you know, a little “America, god, money” vibe to it, bit o’ good-old-fashioned Christianity. But nothing too crazy. Normal American propaganda not freak propaganda. Back when they was at least nominal separation between the two.
I wonder about the later versions, though. The latest version is on amazon, and its description says:
Topics include avoiding feelings of inferiority, handling peer pressure, drug abuse, puberty, sexual development, menstruation, masturbation, romantic love, overcoming discouragement, sound decision-making, and handling independence.
Sounds pretty similar! But maybe he snuck a little Republican MAGA god in there, a little funding of the contras and El Salvadoran death camps for good measure. Who knows.
I don’t think I could bear to re-read my 80’s version and the new version and compare and contrast. But I sure would love to know how different it is.
It is now just before lunchtime, owing to all this morning work stuff. I can hear Jane’s dulcet tones screaming from upstairs. I wonder what she is upset about this fine morning.
Tough life, being a kid.
No playlists are done today, but the vinyl pile is worked through and I am back on my streaming shit, so it shouldn’t be too many more days. Here have an awesome Blondshell live video in the meantime:
Have a lovely weekend!
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.