Good morning good morning. Isn’t it crazy that Barnie, Hooky and Stephen named the New Order singles collection and the Joy Division singles collection Substance? Did this confuse you in 1987/1988? Very innovative little culture hack there, not many bands get to do it. The Jazz Butcher’s name is Pat Fish, except it’s not Pat Fish, it’s Pat Huntrods. The Jazz Butcher and Pat Fish have separate wikipedia entries I do not know what to make of that. He played flute on Spacemen 3’s “I love you.” Imagine living in a world where as many people thought about this as thought about Taylor and Travis. Would I still care about the Jazz Butcher?

Went to the grocery store this morning, there was a woman stocking the shelves singing along to Natalie Imbruglia with gusto and man, I was very happy with that. Though I had to skedaddle out of the aisle before she sang the “naked on the floor” line. Felt too personal.

Excellent holiday weekend just what the doctor ordered every minute of it was splendiferous. Excellent meal, excellent friends, excellent family time, excellent chores. Would be amazing if it were, you know, infinite.

Wednesday Jane was off from school and we went to the bike-themed restaurant for Breakfast I think I mentioned that. I spent the inordinate amount of time required to get Steam’s family plan stuff working so Jane and I could play video games at the same time then we sat next to each other playing video games for an hour or so the family that games together stays together. It was a pain but worth it.

But we spent most of our time Wednesday doing prep cooking. Jane cut all the carrots and celery for the stuffing (I spared her the onions), she helped me make the stuffing, the corn bread, the roux, the herb butter. I spared her turkey brining. It was so fun. She has a cute little apron she made in sewing class and she’s actually helpful. Just the best. We listened to my indie rock Christmas playlist all day. It was just great. Man, Billy Idol’s “Yellin’ at the Xmas Tree” is lyrically dark.

Thursday I got up early and got the turkey in the oven by 9, and Jane got up to help but there was nothing to do till the turkey was out, since we had done all our prep the day before. But eventually it came out and we made the mashed potatoes and beets and corn and gravy. Janet came over with her amazing apple pie and we had a lovely thanksgiving, just the four of us. Decorated the tree after dinner, and then Janet took Jane for a sleepover and our neighbor friends came over and it was just lovely. Human adults! With no kids around! Awesome. Just awesome.

At the end of the night as Emma and I were habitually sneaking upstairs for bed, we realized Jane was gone and we got to be loud and yell and it was… transgressive. Man. My life is thrilling you don’t even know.

Stayed up way too late Thursday morning waiting in an online queue to buy the Lego TNG Enterprise so I could get the limited edition bonus Space Shuttle. That sucked, but I got it, and also Jane was at Grammy’s so I got to sleep in and it was amazing.

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We are listening this morning to Massive Attack & The Mad Professor’s No Protection, the dub remix album of Protection. Had it on CD yonks ago, as the brits say, but I have long since sold it.

But this is a good tie-in because on Friday we went to Cary to see some friends. This is a thing Emma and Jane do once in a while: they go to Cary, Jane plays with the kids, Emma hangs out with her college friend and they do chores and they do this shit for eight hours. Emma’s always telling me to come but I do not have eight hours of stuff to talk about to anyone, really. Except my wife.

But we figured out a compromise and I realized there were a lot of shops in Cary I wanted to hit — they have very good retail in Cary. So I would drop them off at our friends’ house, go shopping for a while and come back and socialize for a much more reasonable four hours.

But of course I forgot it was Black Friday and, you know what? Man people still care about that. Everywhere was packed. Just the thing to lessen your social overload: spend four hours in packed stores.

In planning my shopping day I checked Maps and it turned out there was a record store not far from our friends’ house so I figured I’d stop in, see if it was any good or not.

It was very good. They had a “new arrivals” section and I kid you not I already owned the first twenty records in the section. And not, like, popular stuff. They had Virginia Astley’s From Gardens Where We Feel Secure. First pressing. First pressing of Terra Firma by Test Dept. Crazy shit. The whole store wasn’t like that — it was clear they had recently acquired a collection very aligned with my tastes. I spent way too much money. Bought this Massive Attack/Mad Professor album, a Depeche Mode On-U Soundsystem remix, an autographed first pressing of Sharon Van Etton’s Ten, a first pressing of the 4AD version of Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares, mint, 40 years old. First pressings of Chris & Cosey’s October (Love Song), Strawberry Switchblade’s Jolene, and for just eight dollars, Kiss The Lips Of Life, the debut album from the absolutely terrible but historically important Brilliant. And L7’s Bricks are Heavy for good measure.

Man what a great store. Asked them if they bought collections from a Discogs link, they said yes, but consignment. But I will add them to my When I die doc for my wife nonetheless.

Also hit up Harbor Freight, Rockler, and the wonderful giant Global Food Mart Asian grocery, which didn’t have my brand of bamboo strips and weirdly carried no KitKats but was great nonetheless. Oh right and I went to Old Navy to get Jane a Hello Kitty DJ shirt and that place was… my god. There was barely room to move. It was insane. Maybe 100 people in the checkout line. All pro, though. That line moved. No self-checkout. Interesting.

Oh and I had to stop at Micheal’s to pick something up Emma and Christine needed for their home organization project and that place was nuts too. Lots of families buying craft supplies to make presents. It was super cute, I have to say. Good for them.

Cary has so many goths and weirdos compared to Chatham. I often can’t tell exactly what white print is on their black shirt underneath their black trenchcoats or Robert Smith cardigans, might be goth, might be metal, might be obscure anime. Also can’t tell if they are 17 or 30, but I like their style nonetheless.

Back to the friends’ house and we went to dinner at this amazing ramen place, really just so good. Had a lot of anime statues for sale. Very surreal. But delicious.

Saturday and Sunday where, blessed be, mostly studio remodel. And guess what? I got the entire subfloor assembly done in the vocal booth/server room area. I taped out the floors, and I am ready for the HVAC people to come and start re-routing ducts. I am so excited. Been working on that area for months.

Then I moved on to the southwest corner of the house, back to working on the first two layers of subfloor: pull up the old subfloor, add the Safe N Sound, add a new subfloor. It is going fast, but I ran out of OSB. But I think I can get that area done wick. Way fewer penetraions (gas lines, plumbing, etc.) on the floor to cut around, which really slows you down. Still gotta crawl between HVAC ducts, but I am optimistic I can get this area done in a month or two. Except it will slow down when I route all the CAT6 and speaker cable. But it… well it is a different task, and I am excited for the variety. Progress!

No playgrounds for Jane this holiday, too cold, but she had two different playdates and she ran into her Bojangles friend, so she had a great time this weekend. She’s been mostly great. A little tooth brushing obstinacy creeping back up but nothing too bad. She was a legitimate help cooking that was awesome. Three years ago I was trying to cook thanksgiving while babysitting, and now she’s additive to the task at hand. Time is amazing.

Got a playlist from da club for you. Cuz I have been ravin’, man. All over da club. But also I thought you deserved a Massive Attack v Mad Professor track to go with my commentary about it today.

The entire leadership team of my company is coming to my house for the next three days. I think I can write tomorrow, but maybe not? And then I do not think I am definitely able until Friday. I will try. But don’t freak out if I miss a day. I AM ALL RIGHT.