“Don’t have much to buy today,” I thought, as I pushed my cart down the easternmost side aisle of the Walmart, the aisle with the meat and the baked goods.

I passed a buxom woman, late-50’s/early 60’s, in a very tight white t-shirt. On its left breast a black R was printed in an ornate script.

“Hrm that logo looks familiar,” I thought, not even thinking of the woman’s giant breasts. “Kinda like the Double R Diner logo from Twin Peaks. Oh wait, only one R. So not that. Maybe a baseball team or something. Be cool if someone made Double R diner shirts. I bet they’re out there. Redbubble or something.” I asked myself if I needed a Double-R diner shirt and decided only if they made those cute blue button-down diner shirts and I was as attractive as Mädchen Amick. Pass. Still. Good idea for a shirt.

I moved on, checked the granola aisle for the granola bars I thought I had newly settled upon, manufactured by a corporation a smidge less evil than other corporations. Unfortunately they were out. No one seems to sell them anymore. Now I gotta fuckin choose another brand.

I popped in to the popcorn aisle to see if they had BOM CHICKA POP in “Natural Butter” flavor, my current settled-upon bagged popcorn variant, since corporate America let me down, as they always do, and discontinued my brand.

No luck.

To the dudebro meats aisle for my turkey sticks that are so filled with sodium they are probably redlining my blood pressure. Along with too much soy sauce and indolence.

Moved on to the soda aisle, bought my Zevia. They had the new design for all flavors except for Strawberry Lemon Burst.

“Jane will be sad,” I thought. “She just told me how excited she was that the next pack of Strawberry Lemon Burst was going to have the new design.” Parenting thoughts spun through my mind. Pride in her care about good design. Distress at her love of a corporate product. I did that. I put those thoughts, good and bad, into her little brain. A fierce internal debate about whether or not I would go to the other grocery store and pick up a slightly-more-expensive six pack of Strawberry Lemon Burst with the new design. Is that good parenting or bad. Who knows.

Done with the grocery section, I steered my cart toward the western side of the store where I would buy my housegoods.

Making a left transitioning from the booze section to the pet food section, I almost ran into a gentleman coming round the corner. My fault. I was trying to take a left into the left side of the aisle. Not the right.

“Sorry,” I said as I backed up.

Then I noticed his shirt.

Reader, I shit you not, the was wearing a Double R Diner shirt.

He scooted by my cart and continued on his way.

I did not really know what to do with this information. A fun coincidence? A mystical experience? Were the man and the woman together? Was that buxom elderly woman actually wearing a Double R diner shirt? How would I include this story in today’s Walmart report?

I was alone with this knowledge, this experience. Stunned into inaction for a good five minutes, thoughtlessly pushing my cart away from the man toward the bins section.

When I finally came to my senses, it was clear I had to go back and track this man down and a) find out if he was with that woman, and b) tell him of my experience. I hastily finished the rest of my shopping — bins, wipes, squirt bottles — and headed my cart back toward the side of store where I last saw him.

He was nowhere to be found.

I did find the woman checking out. She was alone. Not with the man with the Double R diner shirt.

But the man? Gone.

Was he real?

Was he real?

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We are listening to a drone metal band called Fórn and they rule. Album is called Rites of Despair. Fits my mood. Not this shit again. Here. Listen to the track I am listening to right now. As the metal label The Flenser label says, thank you for suffering with us.

(Fórn are not on The Flenser, though. This album seems to be on Gilead Media. Good name. Album is from 2018.)

So if you are a common man who wants to be in a position of authority and have a slight flair for the dramatic or a violent streak, you may consider becoming a cop. But if you are a common man who wants to be in a position of authority and are somewhat more meek and bureaucratic, you may become a building inspector.

Right now our building inspector is insisting we print all the plans in 24×36” blueprint size, because a) 11×17 is too small, and b) the dude won’t use a computer or an iPad. There are 23 sets of these blueprints.

The shortest is 16 pages. The longest is 44. They average around 24 pages. So we are looking at 552 pages. My blueprint printer takes about a minute a page.

Now, we could send these out to a printer, but it would be, mmm, well, we sent out one set once and it was… $150 ish? So, maybe three grand. To please guy who can’t bother to use an iPad. Would be cheaper to buy a projector and project the plans, but I suspect he’d not allow that either.

Luckily, I guess, our company owns a blueprint printer. It lives in my basement.

And so, it falls to me to print these 552 pages.

I have set up a temporary workspace in the box room. Because the blueprint printer, you see, does not have a collator or sheet organizer or anything. It just dumps them out. Which means you have to manually pick them up and put them into a neat pile to bind, as they come out, otherwise you get a total mess. It’s the roll paper, you see. As you progress through the roll of paper, the prints come out of the printer increasingly curled, so that they spit out into a paper tube. It would be lovely if they came out flat, but there is no reasonably priced blueprint printer that uses sheets and not rolls. You have to attend to the thing constantly.

So that is what I am doing today. Like I did yesterday. A second full day of sitting there, being interrupted from whatever work I am doing – because I have a day job for christ’s sake — every sixty seconds to grab the page out of the printer once the cutter cuts it off the role, and place it onto the pile of blueprints.

I ran out of ink yesterday afternoon so I only got seven sets done. Got more ink today, have plenty of paper. God willing, I will get the other 16 sets done today.

Because it occurs to me I am leaving town on Monday.

And I absolutely do not want to do this stupid task over the weekend.

So it needs to get done today.

Now, it’s possible we won’t need these till I am back — we don’t know when this fuhrerinspektor will approve our current changes (which is another maddening whole bullshit story in and of itself) and come back out on site. Could be three weeks. Could be tuesday. So I should get them done before I leave.

And you know, you know, somehow, in the end, these 552 pages of blueprints, that will have cost me about $400 in materials and at least two full days of my life, you know that in the end they will not be used at all. I guarantee it.

Last night at bedtime Jane was punchy AF, literally. Emma told her it was time for bed and she hit her, so Emma bailed for a bit and turned bedtime over to me. Jane’s been staying up insanely late again, but she doesn’t seem tired the next day. It was a mellowly monstrous effort to get her to calm down, do her teeth, her drops, change clothes, take her medicine. But we did it, man. We did it. Excellent evening parenting. Old me woulda been so angry with her. But I calmed her down, got her brain thinking about other things. Once Emma had her break she came back and we tag teamed it.

Give us the parent-of-the-night award please.

This morning the teachers were out with protest signs: “KIDS OVER CORPORATIONS,” that sort of thing. handed out fliers with QR codes about the upcoming May 1 strike. Personally I feel that after the Stalinist purges the left should really let May 1 go. I know, I know, not all socialists, but, you know. We have abandoned things for less.

I will not be here for the strike, I’ll be in Boston. All the local schools voted to close for that day. I am sympathetic. It’s hard to be in management in support of labor strikes. You help em out, it sort of feels like you’re stealing their thunder? But also you are making it all a lot easier. And it’s not like the school board doesn’t wish the state gave em more money.

Anyway, the teacher who came to our car was a man, one of the third grade teachers. And Jane told me that he was nice but she wanted the other man who taught third grade for her teacher next year, Mr. Clark, because he teaches at Camp Invention. Jane’s not yet had a male teacher yet. We talked about how that might be nice. But it also might be different.

The first male teacher I can think of that I had was a gymnasium teacher in middle school. Other than that I don’t think I had a male teacher till high school.

Never really thought about that before. Was that good? Was it bad? Shit did my mother do this? Was she secretly orchestrating all my teachers the whole time? I don’t think so. But you never know! Inside baseball. Teachers helping teachers.

Also most of the men in my school system in the 70’s were sex pests, so that’s just good parenting, I suppose.

Happy Birthday to my old friend Aug, who is turning 50 today. I have not yet read his latest email newsletter (every friend should have a newsletter) but I saw the headline and I know he is in London for his birthday, which is as it should be. Aug belongs in London.

Justa mix for you today. Starts off with the new Afghan Whigs, which is a great tune, lot better than the first pre-release track. VERY EXCITED to see them Monday with Mercury Rev omg omg that is going to rule. If you’re in Boston perhaps I’ll see you there. Everything else is new hear — so into the fact that there is new Calla in 2026 I hope they tour. Love the new Twilight Sad. Very into the new Dream Nails and this Anjimile fellow who used to live in Boston. Oh I guess this Strand of Oaks is old-ish. Used love them/him, lost track, checked in and the dude had made a super-synthy album while I wasn’t paying attention. It’s weird but I like it.

Okay I will see you Monday. I get a whole weekend of Chores I am VERY EXCITED. Floor work yay. I will be heading to Boston Monday but I’ll have time for you before I go, I promise.