Good morning good morning. Oh my god it’s so early. Well, I guess by now it’s not too bad. It is currently 6:35. I have been up for an hour and a half. Took Emma to the airport this morning. Love doing that drive when there is no one on the road. They converted the exit at the airport into one of those new-fangled ones where the road above the interstate switches sides for a bit so there are fewer cars crossing multiple lanes. Took em like three years but you know what? Worth it.

Thus begins my week with Jane solo. She is asleep. We are going to the dentist at 9AM this morning to begin the journey to get her teeth fixed. She is not jazzed about it. But she does get to sleep in. She usually wakes up around now. I suspect she won’t be up for another 30 minutes.

So we have Dentist, then I have work, management meeting, then more work, then I gotta leave at 2:30 to go pick her up, then gymnastics, then dinner, then bedtime. SOLO PARENTING. Gonna rule.

Had a dream where the camera store about the Co-Op in Fairbanks was open again. It was so awesome. Lots of film cameras, photo paper, those big things you use to print photos whatever hell they were called. Jussi was with me. There was a new line of cameras by Roland and they were fucking awesome and bright yellow, and another new line of cameras by Swiss Army, bright red. Lotta sweet used equipment. I want to start shooting with an actual camera again. Been poking around in the photo archive at all the shit I shot back in the day at f1.2 in bars and how I could only get, like, one shot in a hundred in focus, but when I got one in focus, it was just the best. I bet that would be easier these days. The cameras have higher max ISOs, I spend more time out in the daylight. I am not the vampire I once was alas.

A thing I noticed in the photo browsing this time is that the high school photos are amazing now. They have a patina of time, they are from another era, they are just marvelous. I used to kinda hate all my high school photos, since they were mostly bad photos from before I became a decent photographer (and then eventually became a bad one again). But now? Oh my god, they are so great.

This will be a big email I suppose.

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Listening to some band called Këkht Aräkh this morning. Album is called Morning Star. It is a metal thing. I think I got it free from the Flenser record club? I dunno. It is close to being my thing, but it is not quite my thing. Though props to them for having songs called “Raven King” and “Eternal martyr” they are really leaning into this. Several song titles that seem to be in Norse or something.

Oh huh. “They” (seems to be a solo project) are Ukrainian. And they’re on Sacred Bones, not Flenser. So many metal record clubs in my life.

So I watch this Youtube channel about building houses, Perkins Builder Brothers, out in Bryson City, western NC. They spent a year building this giant mansion, really an amazing house amazing views, for this couple, Brock and Amanda. You got to know them. I watched, like, 120 episodes of these people building this house for this couple. And Brock was, it seemed, in excavation, so he had all these excavators and cranes and skid steers and the like and would loan them to the Perkins Brothers and you learned a lot about, like, using cranes to place joists, or water management. Really just a fantastic series, I loved a lot. Now they’re working on another house, and it has the most insane joist system you ever saw. Just absolutely batshit. And they sometimes borrow Brock’s crane now to work on the new house. They used to do this shit by hand but Brock converted them.

Except Brock died! So sad! They swung by the old house the other day and visited with Amanda, the wife, who is finally getting to move in after getting her Certificate of Occupancy. And the Perkins Brothers didn’t say anything, but in the comments everyone was saying, like, RIP Brock, so sorry Amanda but at least you get this wonderful home and all that.

And I am very moved! I am very sad for Amanda! I feel like I knew Brock. He reminded me of my cousins.

Also I have no idea how anyone knows this? I never miss a Perkins Bros episode and I did not hear them mention this?

And I am a comment reader. I watch a lot of Youtube while reading the comments. I find it inoculates you against some of the dumber things Youtubers say. You get a lotta great insight from the comments. Plus I watch Youtube on my TV so doing it with the comments helps me stay off my phone, since you are basically getting two different screens from the TV.

And staying off your phone is important because I don’t know if you know this but the world is turning into a hellhole again.

It will get out of being a hellhole someday.

I hope I live to see that that would be sweet.

Anyway, RIP Brock. You seemed like a good dude.

Last night Jane promised me she would be super kind to mama since it was her last day with us for a week. She did this by screaming at her and telling mama she was glad she was leaving. Awesome. She was real good about it the other night, she was like “I love you and don’t take it personally but it’s always nice when one of you leave because then you don’t talk about boring adult stuff and I get more attention.”

But this time? No such kindness. I CAN’T WAIT TILL YOU LEAVE.

I am, nonetheless, looking forward to this week. I like my daughter. I like spending time with her.

I feel like eight year-olds are kinda my speed these days.

Got a playlist for you today, Justa Mix. All new stuff. Well, except for that whole Neil Young brouhaha from yesterday. And I guess this Ted Lucas album was recorded, like, 30 years ago or something but it came out this week. And the David J stuff is a re-work of old stuff. Look, man, it’s complicated.

More and more I think the new Raye is a masterpiece. Loving the new Social D and the new Twilight Sad. Gave the new Future Islands a listen yesterday it was… it was pretty good? I liked it more than most of their other albums. This new Blondshell sng is awesome. The new Bevis Frond is too long but has a lotta great songs on it. Yes yes yes yes yes. Music. I dig music. Why would you listen to a podcast when you can listen to music.

Talk tomorrow, friends.