Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1564
There was a guy repairing shopping carts. A sad return to ICE vehicles. I will miss my truck for a month. Planes are trying to kill us. You really don't get assaulted with too-much-perfume very often in the country.
Good morning, hello. Hi. Boy howdy. Tuesday. Made it through Monday. In the immortal words of Verve, “hey my friend you know we’re gonna make it through till Monday,” oh wait that was till Monday, not through. I remember that feeling, doing too much E, too much partying on the weekend, would you ever make it back to your job life. One could argue Richard Ashcroft never made it.
One of their best songs, “Make it till Monday,” my god early Verve were so good.
Programming note: I made a typo in the issue number yesterday, it was not issue #1663, it was issue #1563. GMHHAY regrets the error.
Anyway I got through Monday just great. It was kind of comical, really. By, like, 10:30 AM, far, far fewer fire alarms and street hassles had accosted me than weeks previous, that I was already feeling optimistic about getting through it. A friend texted me a nice message thinking of me and my Monday travails. The positive things became self-fulfilling. I snapped out of my funk, I had a positively good day. Was I working at my best level? No. Was I functional and not miserable? yes, yes I was.
Just back from the grocery store and as I entered, there was a dude there with a cart full of tools and spare cart wheels and he was repairing the carts. I have never seen such a thing before and I am stunned. Now that I am thinking about it, the carts at that particular grocery store are usually in a better state of repair than Walmart. And now I know why. Man. I am… I kinda wanna be a cart repairman. Travel from store to store, repairing carts all day. Fuck yeah, I could get into that. Immediate, tangible benefit both for your clients and the end-users of your handiwork. Pay that man $150k a year.
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We are going through some recently (ish) purchased records, the last year or so, I keep the good’uns in a separate record bin right by the turntable, for easy re-listens. I am working through the whole bin of 50 or so, deciding if they need another re-listen or not. I am currently listening to my “best album of 2024,” by Cassandra Jenkins, My lift, My Destroyer. It is still really good. She is really good. I regret not going to see her at the back room of Cat’s Cradle, though I think I had an excuse.
PSA: Planes are flying death traps and suddenly fill up with toxic fumes for no reason out of the blue and give people head trauma injuries on par with the brain damage received by NFL players. No big deal. Flying is fine. Travel is fine. Everything is cool. Super cool safe world we life in. Who needs government regulation.
Yesterday I picked up my rental car for the month and, man. I dunno, reader. I dunno. Have I gotten soft in my old age? Have I gotten soft in my wealth? Or does this car just suck? I mean, this car does not suck when compared, to like, my 1974 Dart. Well, it does in terms of styling but not in terms of get-up-and-go, safety, throttle response, handling, etc. But I just… I just fucking hate ICE cars now. I hate them so much. I hate how slow they accelerate. I hate how much they pollute. I hate that I have to go to the fucking gas station for the next month god gas stations suck you really do not miss them when you stop going to them. Unless you’re a smoker, I suppose. I am not a smoker. Anymore.
Also the UX is garbage and it has no music controls on the steering wheel, and whenever you touch the volume knob, CarPlay disappears and you have to manually navigate back to it.
And there is no way to change what is displayed on the all digital display wtf.
I reserved a “small electric” and when I got there, the man at the counter made no pretense of even caring that he had no electric cars for me. What was I going to do. It was $500 for a month. The next cheapest place in the region was $1,300.
It is, in case you are wondering, a Chevy Trailblazer. It was a choice between this and a Camry, and obviously the Camry is the better car but a) it was not black, and b) I do actually use my truck for truck things, and while an SUV is a poor replacement, at least it endeavors to be a replacement.
This rental place is in a strip mall on Franklin street not far from UNC and boy howdy is it obvious it caters to college students. It’s a Budget/Avis, but that seems a mere formality. The place was a grey plain box of a room, nothing on the walls. A pile of unpopened car seats in the corner. The guy’s own phone charging by one of the two seats in the place. Seriously looked like an 80’s joke of what a Russian Communist restaurant looked like.
There were signs all over the place saying “if you don’t clean out your beach sand we will charge you at least $250.” Damn kids.
The car itself has a sticker on it that says “return the car messy, cleaning fee, $450.” Pretty sure this guys’ running a racket. Gonna have to take a bunch of photos of the car before I return it. Be ready to reverse charges if he pulls any shenanigans.
Oh and the car is so overly perfumed it is giving me massive headaches. Right now I have it sitting in the driveway with all the doors and the hatchback open, trying to get the stink out. I also sprayed it with Ozium, which I still keep in my car from back in my smoking days. Fingers crossed.
It is interesting, though, driving an ICE vehicle after an electric car. Your brain and foot pick the habit right back up, remembering how to use a brake pedal, getting used to coasting. As much as I love the regen auto-slowdown one-pedal action of EVs, I also love coasting in ICE vehicles.
Taking your foot off the gas and just coasting. Love that feeling.
So today, in 2 hours or so, I drop my beloved truck off at the body shop and I don’t see it for almost a month. I am somewhat stunned at how emotionally attached I am to this truck. I am constantly thinking about what vehicle I will get next, when Ford or Slate or anyone, really, finally offers me a small electric truck at a reasonable price in two more years. And its turn radius is just garbage, just absolute garbage.
But you know what? There is a lot to love about it. And I will miss it.
I will not miss that it has games in the center console and Jane has discovered them and now our time together in the school drop-off line is just another exercise in her being a petty tyrant about whether or not she gets screens. I am so done with that. Hopefully three weeks with no on-board games will make her forget about it.
Justa mix for you today. Made the bulk of this mix just now, right now, just for you. Been a while since I did that. Mix of new and old. I am saddened, though not surprised, that “Friday I’m in Love” is the A-Side of the new Olivia/Robert Smith single, I personally feel “Just Like Heaven” is the stronger track but, you know. Will of the people. This Lucius song came on in the car the other day and oh my god I forgot what a great song it was. I am re-entering an “American Dreaming” phase again after reading about my last American Dreaming phase in my 2021 GMHHAY edits.
Okay well you have a great day and I hope no one assaults you with overly strong perfume. That is one benefit of living in the country I don’t think about, actually. Jesus, living in New York you get assaulted with too-much-perfume a lot.
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.