Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1580
Noble pedestrian domesticity served hot and piping to your door every weekday morning.
Good morning good morning hi hello good to see you. Got some hot, fresh, Noble Pedestrian Domesticity coming your way. No misinformation, AI, fascism or trolling here, just good old fashioned earnestness. Welcome to your little slice of wholesome internet. Not only do we use em-dashes around here, we use en-dashes too, and even properly hyphenate words. Most of the time.
Don’t have long today, again, sorry, because I gotta head to the doctor in 34 minutes to do the two-week (see?) checkup on my hand surgeries. The trigger one on my palm is fine, but the one on my finger still hurts, the tip is still numb, the wound looks like some sort of ground-beef-derived VFX trick from an early Peter Jackson film. It is not pretty. It does not, however, stink, or hurt, or ooze green stuff, so I suspect it’s just dried blood trapped under a layer of skin and not, like, rot, but hey what do I know I am just a hapless corporate executive.
I also regret to inform you that I have scheduled another surgery. No, not the second hand surgery on my other two triggers on my left hand, though really I should get that one on the books. This one is some sort of nodules harvesting operation in my nose. I do not quite get it but my doctor said that back when I got my septoplasty oh, twenty years ago, they did two things: move the bones and cut back these nodules. But the nodules grow back. And he said the way I could tell if this surgery was going to work was that I could use Afrin and if the Afrin worked, the surgery would work. And reader, I fuckin LOVE Afrin. I mean, I stay away from it because it is addictive, but it is good shit. So, you know. Excited to have permission to use it again and yeah, it worked. I think. Somewhat. Is that enough to bank on to choose surgery? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I scheduled it for January to give myself a little time to think about it.
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We are listening this morning to the Australian shoegaze pop band Underground Lovers, whom I have loved wholeheartedly since the days of 4AD’s spinoff side label, Guernica. Ivo gave himself a little playground label when 4AD was getting too big and signed bands for individual albums and not whole label deals and he released Leaves me Blind, a masterpiece from Underground Lovers. They’ve never had a US record deal, they have eleven albums now. I’ve been tracking em all down for, oh, thirty years. I have nine of them now, recently acquired the ninth, the one I’m listening to, Cold Feeling. First one I acquired from an American in decades, usually I am paying a mint to get these things shipped from Australia. The Band has been good about re-issuing them all on vinyl, and at this point Mallboy hasn’t come out on vinyl. I also do not yet have a copy of Rushall Station. Not a single copy has come up for sale on Discogs in the three years it has been on my wantlist.
But one day.
I would like to point you this morning to a great piece of investigative writing that ex-Barbarian Cole Poelker aka Rise wrote about the first Hasselblad camera in space. It is so good. He spent four years investigating this piece. Phenomenal. A+ effort. Big fan.
I forgot to mention you that a) the signs on the Somerville bike path for the cat mayoral election are still up, even though the election has now happened. They are now becoming a bit of a tourist attraction, and signs are popping up in other places in Somerville. It is very nice. And b) Minerva won the election with her slogan DO CRIME. Part of me thinks the incumbent deserved the win but you can’t argue with Minerva’s excellent brand design and platform. DO CRIME.
I have an update on my ancestor who had the cool pilot outfit. Her name was Helen Mary Harris Dahle, she passed away at 85 in 2012. She was indeed a pilot, getting her license on a Piper J-3 in college, impressively. She went to work at United Airlines after that. Unfortunately her obituary does not talk much more about her flying career, though her husband, too, was a pilot. Says she was born in Chicago and worked for the Family Restaurant Business, so I have a pretty good idea now how she’s related, since I am aware of Fore Restaurant Supply, which is still around, celebrating 80 years, founded by a nephew of my grandmother, or maybe a brother. You get the sense Helen did not do a lot of flying later in life, but I hope she got up there every once in a while.
Hats off to you, Helen Mary.
Went to Walmart before I headed up to Somerville — they were playing Tracy Chapman on Walmart Radio it was great — and got my Semiglutide prescription sorted. My (amazing, beloved) local pharmacy cannot get Semiglutide in any form in any strength over 2.0 mg, so they told me to transfer the prescription. My MIL swears by the Walmart pharmacy and you know what? She is right, it is great, especially if you already have the app. Also I actually have an insurance approval for this particular brand and dosage, so instead of paying four figures for the stuff, I am now paying $28, so that is pretty amazing. Life can give you little bonuses once in a while. That is like $13k a year I don’t have to pay to be healthy now. That is fucking amazing.
Hey question for you: window tints. Legal in your state? Illegal? They are illegal in the front windows in this state. But everyone has them. Like seriously, more than 25% of the cars on the street have illegal tints by my count. How does this work? I mean it’s clearly one of those “do not duplicate key” Seinfeld-type situations. But do we think they all know complicit state inspectors? Or do they take the tints off and put them back on? Are they new to the state? When we first got here we had a tint that was deemed to be illegal. Got away with it for a year before we had to remove it.
Anyway, I am pissed and jealous and my law abiding nature precludes me from breaking the law like everyone else (except speeding what can I say) and I wish they would just make it legal or crack down. But I am also curious about the mechanics of this scawflawery.
Just back from taking Jane to school. It was “walk to school” day but sorry, man. It was raining. And it was the first time to school in my truck in a month and Jane wanted to play the onboard Tetris rip-off game, Tiles. Very satisfying, Tiles. She let me hug her. She tangled up her Slinky. Jane is not responsible enough to own a Slinky. She keeps getting it tangled and refuses to listen to our advice on Slinky tactics. That Slinky is not long for this world.
Moody and quiet for you today, mostly new stuff, still crankin out the moody hits from the Springsteen Tracks II box. Love the new Emma Swift. Dan Meyer is a member of Agriculture, and I am ending with tracks by each, this is a total coincidence the Dan Meyer album came out like six months ago but it’s still in my To Investigate queue because it’s so good and the Agriculture album came out this week. Nick and I are seeing them open for Boris on Halloween I am very excited.
Have a lovely Tuesday. Until tomorrow.
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Thanks for reading.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.