Good morning good morning hello hi how are you? You doing okay? Spring is right around the corner ha oh wait. It is freezing here, and the northeast has been covered in a blanket of snow. Maybe spring is around the corner in LA. Do they even think about spring?

Did I have an excellent weekend? Yeah, I guess I did. Weekends forever, down with work, down with capitalism, etc. etc.

Had a dream last night where University Ave South in Fairbanks — after Sophie’s but before the Airport — was riddled with old, crumbling but beautiful mid-century modern retail architecture and… pagodas. It was like a mix of Vegas, Route 1 in Boston and Fallingwater, but all run-down and abandoned and my god, it was just so beautiful. I would move back to Fairbanks for it.

I left you guys on Friday and went to Walmart. Idly thought about fonts while shopping. Do people get obsessed with fonts anymore? Remember when we collected fonts? Fonts were like gold. I had a meticulously catalogged collection. Part of me thinks this is over now. Part of me thinks it ended when Apple and Microsoft decided to package their OSs with more than ten fonts. I can’t remember the last time I installed a font.

I pulled out my phone to write a reminder to wax rhapsodic about fonts to you. It has been hard to find a good “quick note” system since switching to Android. Apple Notes has failed me on Android, which I suppose makes sense. So now I am using the same app as I use for my grocery list. Which mostly works. Except when I want to take notes for GMHHAY while shopping. This will be a giant problem for my premium Walmart content.

But really all I have this week for you from Walmart is an epiphany that the carts that are in front of the cart rows — the ones that look like they’ve been pulled out, tested and discarded? I can’t say why, exactly, but it turns out those carts are not terrible, not all the bad carts. Some of them are perfectly usable. This revelation will safe me half a calorie or more on every Walmart trip.

Browsing Noah Kalina’s new archive this morning. Man that guy is a great photographer. He vibe coded this new archive and it is just beautiful. Big, luscious, full screen images, randomly delivered, one at a time. I’m just endlessly scrolling through it. He talked in his glorious weekly call-in Youtube Show (spiritual cousin of GMHHAY) about how moving it was for him, how some of the subjects of his photos were dead, some long lost. It’s weird but I feel a similar sentiment: I will be scrolling along and then see a photo of someone I knew from back in my New York days, or a photo that (I think?) Barbarian commissioned. It is wild. But my god. He’s just so good. And his recent landscapes? Incredible.

He needs a second backup NAS, though. Stresses me out his NAS is not getting backed up.

Been still on my anti-AI shit, and have lots to talk about. Had a serious bout of insomnia last night and spent the whole thing dreaming up a compensation scheme for creators. But I am going to put all that aside for a day or two and focus today on noble pedestrian domesticity shit.

Join the GMHHAY slack! Reply to this email and ask for an invite if you’re a human who likes chatting with other humans about topics such as these within!

We are listening this morning to Light of Field by a band called Water is the Sun. It is a two-track album, each 20-ish minutes long, ambient drone, beautiful. Oh wait I just realized this is one of my old roommate and best friend Mike Anderson’s bands. Not the new album I pre-ordered, but an older one. That I added to my queue before I realized Mike was in this band. Well gosh darn. That is awesome. Great record.

Had a whole drama with my truck Friday and I am kinda pissed and it’s a giant mess and so complicated I could spend an entire edition of GMHHAY complaining about it but I don’t think that would do either of us a lot of good. I do have it back, though, and it is fixed, except new stuff is wrong now, that was arbitrarily, intentionally made wrong by the dealership and I kinda wanna reverse the charges on my credit card until I get some clear answers. It’s a mess. AND I spent six grand with these fuckers and they didn’t even clean it. So I had to clean it this weekend. I mean, I just think when you spend a ton of money at a dealership on getting your car fixed, they should clean it is that too unreasonable? I am trying to hold this truck drama in a sequestered space in my brain and the same time be happy to have it back, because it really is a great vehicle and I sure do love hauling things. But it is hard.

Saturday Jane and I went to Bojangles and I was verklempt to discover they are no longer serving Diet Mountain Dew in the fountain. I tweetsekeeted my sadness about this and my friend Camille helpfully pointed out that I am a grown man, which is a fair point. But we all have our little joys in life, maaaaan. Anyway, if you have a Bojangles nearby (Nick?), could you pop in and find out if there is still DMD in the fountain? I need to know how widespread this catastrophe is.

Also on the fast-food breakfast front, Jane and I went to McDonald’s on Sunday morning, and my god so many people get McDonald’s delivered. The whole place is just crawling with DoorDash drivers it is nuts. How much must it cost to get McDonald’s delivered. It’s not even cheap to eat McDonald’s breakfast at McDonald’s anymore, it must coast a fortune to get it delivered. People are so weird.

I only did one day of attic studio work. I mean, it depends on how you look at it, I guess. I spent a lot of time moving materials. I am struck by what my friend Harper said when I saw him in Fairbanks last summer. Harper spent seven years building his own house by himself and he said “a lot of being a solo builder is being an ant carrying large things uphill.”

And that was a good three hours of my weekend: all this “work around the work.” Moving OSB, moving work tables, moving tools, washing work clothes and cloths. It was, technically, “working on the attic,” but I barely set foot in the attic. Still, I had been putting that stuff off for a long time. And let’s face it: that sort of pile of chores is deeply satisfying. You get in this sort of groove zone, you dive into the chores fractally, you might start one that leads to another, that leads to another, then you follow them all back to the beginning, finishing each in reverse order like a Tetris cascade collapse, then start a new dive. It really is my happy place.

On Sunday I did do actually attic work, laying two layers of sheetrock on the floor on the west side floor underneath the HVAC and where the storage will be. Got 90% of the sheetrock done, so next weekend I can finish the sheetrock and caulk, then the weekend after will be OSB layer one and if I am lucky the week after that will be OSB layer two and I will have that whole floor section done before spring break and when I get back I can build the shelves for storage and get all those books and Archenemy records out from the room next to the neurodivergent-affirming pediatric speech therapists, so they can turn that room into a little lounge. I told them, like, two months ago I’d have that stuff out “in a couple of months,” so, you know, I guess it will be May. But it is happening.

I watched a lot of dusting videos this weekend. People are obsessed with dusting. Dusting is hard. I am mentally prepping to dust the knick knack shelves in the library. I did learn that yes, housecleaning companies will bid out a giant dusting job as a one-off. That is tempting. But I am insane so I think I’m going to do it myself. Microfiber cloths, makeup brushes, no liquids, all the dust to the floor then vacuum. I can do it, I can do it.

Gonna start with my dresser in my bedroom. It’s covered with old family photos, some treasured knick knacks and a thick layer of dust. It’s getting out of hand. It does not help that I’m allergic to dust.

Courage.

Jane’s been… well, up and down this weekend. We had a good run but last night she was a holy terror for Emma. She gets so manic at bedtime, running around in circles, jumping on the bed, ignoring us. She doesn’t want us to leave but she can’t settle down, so eventually we have to leave, which sets of a tirade. It’s really weird. Clearly chemical or habitual or something, really beyond her control? She is not choosing to become insanely manic right at bedtime and we’re at a complete loss as to how to temper it. Who needs to run laps right before bed? Madness.

But we had some good times too, she has been very snuggly, telling us we’re the best parents (as opposed to frequently telling us we’re the worst parents which happens… well, you know). Those parts are great. She’s getting some conflict resolution counseling, along with three or four friends, at school and we are optimistic. No evidence of it working yet, but she loves going, so that is a win.

Moody and Quiet playlist today. It was about 2/3 done and I just filled it out with some (non) bangers. So now it’s about half new and old. Man I am obsessed with this Raffealla woman from New York I don’t know what it is, just keep listening to her. It is a thing. Oh and the Kingsbury Manx this is a whole thing a dude from that band owns a bar now next to one of our regular restaurant haunts, a BBQ place in Chapel Hill. We went there this weekend. Not the bar but the restaurant. I thought about going in and checking it out, but it seemed weird to go to a bar with my wife and kid and be like ‘hey is the owner here I like his band.” But that will probably eventually happen.

Okay well tomorrow I will rant some more about Ai and politics I guess. But until then, domesticity! Ta.