Hello hello hello. Good morning. Late again. Sleep rules. I didn’t drink, went to bed early, before midnight, still slept till 9:30. The crazy thing is when you catch up on sleep you just want more sleep. This is amazing, I love my daughter but she can grow up and start driving herself to school. No no no I take it back. Stay eight forever. Cats with financial problems.

My blood pressure is fucked. For the second time in a decade, it has inexplicably shot up to a new, much higher level, and stayed there. Last time we compensated for this by upping the dosage on my blood pressure medication, and it got it back down, but we are at the max dosage for this medication, so this time we’ll have to try something else. I had a feeling this whole thing was dietary, from my love of asian stir fries and soy sauce and whatnot, but I haven’t had any in days and days and nothing has improved. I’ve tried dietary solutions before and they haven’t worked, but man, I feel like I gotta do something. This sucks. Even when I was my lowest weight in my adult life, I still had high blood pressure. And high cholesterol. I am cursed.

Lovely day yesterday, didn’t go out. Went on two nice walks, one to Davis, one to Porter. Bought groceries. Chatted with Sean on a walk. Worked all day, got a lot done. Watched Throw Momma from the Train with Sean and Jussi last night. It was funny but not that funny. The “The night was sultry” gag is the best in the film. It is amazing how long in the film there is between the set up and the punchline. Just excellent. 80’s films, man. Shit was dark. I have blocked out the use of “slut” as a general perjorative. I do not understand how Billy Crystal could ever play a person people are romantically attracted to.

I am feeling immense guilt about synthetic fabrics. I used to be such a good boy and I would only wear cotton and such but over the years I have been seduced by assorted clothing with plastics in it: cheap jogging shorts from Walmart that I buy in bulk and ruin in construction. Expensive posh windbreakers (my god I love that windbreaker thank you, Nick). TrueWork construction shirts. Posh boxers with just a little plastic and crude oil in them to keep your junk a little cooler and drier. It is insane. So much fossil fules in my clothing. Humans were not meant to live this way. Do they make linen boxers? Do I need to make my own clothes or something? Modern life is rubbish.

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Listening to… umm his name is Gregory Uhlmann. It is a quirky ambient jazz thingy, a little perky and bloopy, entitled Extra Stars. No idea how it got into my queue. But it is nice. Reminds me of the beatless Mouse on Mars stuff from the mid-90’s. Apple Music has it labelled as Jazz so I guess I am a sophisticate now. Let’s Google Kagi this guy. He is from Chicasgo, lives in LA. Seems ageless, according to Wikipedia. Looks young. Has played on maya Folick and Perfume Genius records. I like those artists. Did not go to Berklee good for him. Well he’s all right in my book.

Fascinating article in the New York Times about the two brothers who owne(d) the Aicon Gallery in New York and all of their feuding. This is of intense interest to me because my dearly departed friend Andy Shea, who passed during the pandemic, was a gallerist for the Aicon gallery brothers, and for years he would regale us with absurdist stories about the emnity these two brothers had for each other. Feels like things got a lot worse between them around the time Andy left us, so I can chalk that up to him no longer being around to chill them out. I love it when your friends for years tell you some work thing and it feel fantastical and why isn’t this in the news and then one day, years later, it is in the news. Huh that sounds very specific. But I feel like this has happened a few times in my life.

Anyway, Miss you Andy.

Let us all give a tip of the hat to Mike Johnson who seems to be properly fucking up four different bills we’d all love to see fail, but he could theoretically at least pass: the nation’s bullshit domestic wiretap law will be expiring tomorrow if all goes well. And Republicans have had no luck getting it extended. There are 40 Dems in the house who would vote with them on a clean extension, those traitors, but it looks pretty unlikely a bill will get out of the house, and it would probably fail in the senate without amendments anyway. So, great.

Then there is the farm bill, which, you know, is slowly becoming a bloat of massive subsidies to corporate agriculture and a health nightmare. This one looks doomed to fail mainly around the year-round use of a specific flavor of ethanol gas and I am a little confused on this one. Of course the corn growing states want it, but there are a ton of republics who don’t, and I can’t quite grasp why, other than a blind allegiance to the oil industry, which… is doing okay for money these days? I, personally, don’t want E15 year-round because it contributes to monoculture corn growing and keeps us addicted to gas, but I suspect that’s not what, like, Texas Republicans like about that position. All very mysterious.

Then we have their unilateral, through reconciliation, funding of DHS and ICE, because the Dems have admirably been blocking it forever. They have the votes, but they can’t even get this one done. Which is just great. I think when Dems started their block on ICE funding it would last maybe a week but here we are months later and the Republicans still can’t counter it. It’s a symbolic battle, given how much money ICE already has, but it is still worthwhile, mainly because it takes time and effort for Johnson away from the biggest threat of all….

… The SAVE Act, which is basically the end of American Democracy, he says with only 1-2% hyperbole. Just a monstrous, anti-democratic, horrible bill. But luckily, at the moment at least, Mikey J has his plate full with the other three problems that there seems to be no movement on this, for now. We gotta slow roll this thing through the mid-terms.

But they will try again before then.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE.

Jane called last night to inform me she was pooping, then I would hear the toilet flusing. It was a good talk.

She arranged a bunch of her stuffies on the couch and took a picture of them and sent it to me and I sent a picture to her of her stuffies here in the apartment. I’m surprised she left Garfield here.

She and Emma went to the Mexican restaurant for taco Tuesday without me I am very jealous. And the special crayon color was pink. I was unaware there was a special crayon color at the Mexican restaurant not sure what is up with that.

I love the way she just talks to me like I’m in the room, no real change in behavior because it’s on the phone. I love how abrupt her goodbyes are, just hangs up.

Bye.

Post Rock playlist today. Gonna try and go see Circus Trees after the Hold Steady on Friday night but that might be ambitious. Very psyched about the Macha/Bedhead re-issue been listening to it constantly.

Okay have a lovely day you are all bright and special shining stars and I hope you have more happiness in your life today.