Good morning good morning. Sorry I am late. Sleeping in, a bit hung over, but mostly because daughter Jane is requiring extra attention. She is walking around talking like a Chicken this morning, a chicken who loves daddy and says “hugs of the cluck cluck.” It is adorable and wonderful but not conducive to writing. Yesterday she told me that she missed school, so I concocted an hour-ish long lesson about the different methods of food preservation: pickling, canning and drying. Then we made a graph of a bunch of different fruits and vegetables, and rated the assorted preservation methods by number of stars. Then we picked which crops we would grow on our farm so that we would have food all through the winter.

Then freezers were invented and then we could add additional crops. It was awesome. Might have been the happiest I’ve been all year, not gonna lie.

We also did a lesson on how to make microwave nachos. Went surprisingly deep into ethnicity and technology, actually.

Been socializing an absurd amount here in Somerville, MA and its surrounding environs. Medford is real nice. Did you know that Medford is real nice now? I myself did not know. Went to a great new bar/restaurant/local-neighborhood-hanging last night called The Hollows. Loved it. It was Meghan’s birthday. Saw lots of people, reconnected with people I haven’t seen in ages. Saw people for dinner before that, saw people yesterday. People come over, I go out to see other people. It is a lot of people.

A thing I realized is that I spend all of my vacation time in Massachusetts now, and when I am here, I am pretty much constantly catching up with friends. And that is all amazing and I don’t wanna complain because, you know, people die and we gotta seize the moment and suddenly in your 50’s every time you see a person might be the last time you ever see them, not to sound morbid. So I always choose socialization.

But sometimes you could really use some downtime.

Babysitters are hard to come by, Emma’s going out tonight, so once Jane goes to sleep, I might get a few hours alone. Assuming Emma stays out late. That will be nice.

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Also this trip is really making me miss my friend Annie. Every trip to MA has historically contained an elaborate sub-routine where I coordinate with Annie to take a trip up to Salem, or she comes down here. We missed a few because of her chemo, but I am so glad I pulled off the trip to Salem last time I was here. I had no idea, not even an inkling, it would be the last time I saw her. I am glad I did it. But it is definitely fucking with me, being here, not seeing her, making me slightly neurotic about socializing.

So, Saturday, I was very excited because my friend Tom was in town with his daughter. I really wanted to see them, but they were going to Man Ray and my god I am just so tired of going out and drinking I am not cut out for this life anymore and sure normal humans can go to bars and not drink but I have never been very good at that okay? I do my temperance through avoidance. But then I luck out because Tom’s gonna come by the house first before he goes to Man Ray and I am golden now I get to socialize in an environment much more conducive to my advanced years and it’s just great, great catch-ups all around and I don’t have to go to Man Ray again. I mean I love Man Ray but I'm just pickled at the moment, and not in a good food preservation way.

So all is well but then Tom says Alan is there so fuck, man. Alan lives in the midwest now and I’ve only seen him twice in the last seven or eight years so now I gotta go to Man Ray because what if Alan dies in the next year or something. And you know, it’s great. Tom is a normal human who can go to a goth night club and dance without drinking. His daughter is only 20 so she’s not drinking. So by consequence… well, I still drink but not as much. And it’s super fun and Tom and I dance lots and Alan dances lots and Alan brought it wife and Tom’s daughter, it’s her first time to Man Ray and she is so into dancing and we dance sort of near her but she’s also a kid and doesn’t really want to dance with those old people so we give her space but also we’re sorta protecting her from any creeps and stuff but not in any way any one will notice, mostly with goth flails and whatnot. Great night all around.

And I think to myself: when you’re this old, every trip to Man Ray might be your last trip to Man Ray.

Maybe I need some therapy or something.

Or to get back to studio building.

I Uber home and Virginia picks me up and she is in this suuuper nice Audi just the nicest Audi I have ever seen and she is on the phone the whole time, and she is listening to hardcore breakbeat-infused-gabber techno from the 90’s and she looks kinda like the Oracle in the first Matrix movie and nothing makes much sense but it was pretty great.

My wife has awoken. Time to jet.

I don’t have any playlists for you because in my free time I have almost completed my transition away from Spotify but I’m in the middle of it. But I did watch this great KEXP live performance by one of my favorite new discoveries, Den Der Hale. And it was awesome. Enjoy.