Good morning good morning. Greetings from Somerville, MA, “the greatest city in the world,” says a guy on Bluesky. How are you? All well? Good weekend? I do hope so.

My god, issue #1,700 that is crazy.

I had an action-packed weekend and am now back at work and… well I guess this is just gonna be a straight-up diary-style entry because I did so much, man. It was… a lot.

Friday night, Emma and Jussi and the girls went to ManRay and I stayed home watching Leftovers again. That is, until 11:30, when they got home and Sean and I then went out to Highland Kitchen and then to ManRay. It was so great! Richard was there, and Athena and Ronen and Yale and Colin and Danny and tons of people I knew, and Lindsay was bartending and we all danced to The Beloved and there was some young girl I didn’t know who was going on about her relationship dramas to me and another woman who was a counsellor at a university telling me (in aggregate, anonymously, of course) about her students’ problems. Place was packed, and I continue to marvel at the success and rebirth of one of America’s best night clubs. The relationship-problems girl I was talking to wasn’t even born yet the first time I went to that club. Absurd.

A lot of the kids where AirPods in the club, tempers the sound, reduces the stimulus maybe. It’s a great idea. I do think more goths need to be aware of Colorware, though. You guys need black AirPods Pros to be real goths.

I do also gotta say that I must protest this migration from Fernet to Montenegro amongst the bartending cognoscenti. I mean, yes, Monty tastes better. That is the point of Fernet, man. You gotta feel the pain.

Got home around 3AM after the “outside the club” socializing and long Uber waits.

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Listening to the new Courtney Barnett this morning. I like it to far. It is very weird to me that a month or two ago I was like “where did Courtney Barnett go” and now here she is. She is everywhere.

Given the state of our social calendar Saturday, Emma was not too pleased I decided to leave the house at 11:30 PM Friday. So I decided the wisest course was to wake up and do everything with the family on Saturday, and dad gummit, that’s what I did. 9:30 AM birthday party in Malden for my friends’ three-year old? No problem. That was great. Great to see my friends, great to be around little toddlers I forgot how cute they are what with all their wobbling and mumbling. There was pizza cut to kid sizes, bagels, DIET COKE THANK GOD I ONLY GOT SIX HOURS SLEEP AND I AM HUNG OVER. There was a toy Unicorn that Jane rode around on, there was this amazing Japanese fake wooden play sand that was super cool. Also, Medford rules. I would live in Medford.

Then back to the house for a quick break and then out to the No Kings protest on the Boston Common. Jane was NOT happy about this, actually from this point forward in our story for most of the day she threw a fit and had to be carried everywhere. If I put her down she would lay flat on the ground in protest, even while on the Common, amongst a giant crowd of, like, 100,000 people. This meant I had to carry her for, like, an hour, and she weighs frikken fitty pounds now. Got her on my shoulders, but still. I am probably an inch shorter for all this. We wandered through the crowds, we heard a little bit of the speaking, we tried to get her to play at the playground but she wouldn’t. She really is marvelously stubborn it really is something. I don’t want to take that away from her. I just wish she used it on the rest of the world, not me.

Thusly we sadly did not get to stay to hear the Dropkick Murphys, a band I never much cared for in my goth years here in Boston but now I deeply respect and also I like their music more now because I am on an antidepressant and they are not evil.

Oh the train ride to the protest I heard an elderly lady quote the Alt National Parks Bluesky account and espouse the 3% theory I had mentioned after the last No Kings, only it seems like it’s up to 11% now. Isn’t that the way. Always moving the goalposts on the left. But it got me thinking that there are a lotta nice old ladies out there starting to fall for a Blue version of Fox News and.. I guess I’m okay with that.

There was a normcore mom explaining to another normcore mom how her protest sign art almost inadvertently showed a bullet hole through a certain person’s face and didn’t express horror or embarrassment or regret. She merely said “it seemed like that might be a bit much for this crowd.”

My god, people are pissed.

There was a lady in full victorian garb at the playground who dissed Ed Markey and man, Boston is just great. Ed Markey. Not liberal enough.

There was a comically french lady in a black dress and Beret, pale skin, blonde, in her 50’s ish, walking around with a small black boy toddler. Trans kids with blue hair playing cozy games on their phones. Dyed hair and assistive devices and woobies everywhere. I love this state. It rules. Multiculturalism rules. Kindness rules.

But even if Jane wasn’t being a pill we woulda had to leave, because we had another birthday party, for Jane’s cousin, turning three, up in… I don’t know, starts with an A, is up by the Merrimack River and my old favorite state park Maudslay State Park. And oh my god her cousin’s house is so great. Right on the river, view of the park, they have a DOCK DELIVERY SERVICE, man, that brings them a dock in the spring and takes it away at the onset of winter. They’re not rich, he’s a public school teacher, it’s just in the middle of nowhere lol, but it really was just gorgeous. Lordy. And it was actually great to see all of Emma’s relatives, I’d seen ‘em all at this cousin’s wedding in Gloucester two years ago but really don’t seem em much.

(If any of you were at Emma’s and my wedding at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, this is that grown-ass man that was our flower girl).

Also Emma’s aunt is into genealogy and this is the branch of her family that was born in Canada a few generations back, so THAT is of intense interest to me. IYKYK. She’s gonna hook me up with her (very analog, on a big piece of paper) genealogy work.

Also there was a dude there in a Great Scott shirt who complimented me on my band t-shirt who is the… I think… husband of the wife of Emma’s cousin? Anyway, he was cool. Had a newborn. Very cute. PARENTS.

After all of that, around 8PM, we headed home. And Sean and I were JUST about to rally to go to one more event before we were let off the hook by the event being cancelled, so I actually got to go to bed at 9PM and that was the best. Slept 11 hours.

Sunday spent the entire day with friends: Craig and Jane came over and their daughter played with Jane. Seth and Monica came over and their kids tried to play with the bigger kids. Sean started setting up his Star Wars figures and Abby and Emily came over after returning from Mexico and Ivelisse came over and it was just a lovely day of hanging with friends and eating and chilling in the park and man I love friends, friends rule.

Jane only threw one fit yesterday, that was nice. She and her friend got in some fight, a fight of love, Jane wanted to play in one place, the other girl wanted to play somewhere else. They are both a lot alike, both expect to get their way. After… eh, three hours it was bound to explode. I had to take Jane away and calm her down and she did a pretty good job of it. Only took… eh, 30 minutes? It was fun, though, because a bunch of friends got to see the mean things Jane says to me and complimented me on my patience so, you know, best dad ever, amirite?

No playlist is done today, alas. And the only thing I’ve had in my head all weekend is “Fly” by Sugar Ray, which is a vastly underrated song, I have suddenly decided in the year 2026 at the age of 53. But I will spare you. Will I? Yes. yes I will. Oh but Nick has a new song. here. Enjoy Nick’s new song:

Talk to you tomorrow.