Good morning hello hi how are you what is UP. Happy Friday. Wait it’s Friday, right? Yes. Whew.

Just back from Walmart. Reduced stimuli hours. I am starting to think I like stimuli. I like hearing “Broken Wings” by Mr. Mister and thinking about “what has become of my life since I bought this cassingle at Fred Meyer.” I like hearing the Clash’s “Lost in the Supermarket” without a single ounce of awareness.

By the way if you were a comic book artist and you wanted to draw a caricature of a GenX person, what would you draw them with?

Probably a Black Flag tattoo and… I dunno. Glasses, definitely. What else? A book? A jean jacket?

Walmart had stick lighters in packs of two for $2 back in the grilling section. No-name brand, though, and no overwhelming selection of differentiated products. So I was wheeling past the charcoal section, which is inexplicably in a different section, and figured I’d check there for stick lighters as well. And they did have some, and it was a different brand — Big — and they were five dollars for one. My fucking god that is a 500% difference in cost. Long-time close readers of GMHHAy will recall I have experienced this @ Walmart twice before — with squeeze bottles and nail brushes. I lucked out finding the cheap ones first this time, unlike the nail brushes where I had to hunt high and low (A-Ha reference, our hearts go out to A-Ha lead singer Morten Harket who is suffering from Parkinsons).

With this sort of insane price differentiation combined with geographic distribution of the same product throughout the store, I cannot help but be unsurprised at Walmart’s continuing profits even in the face of “everyday low prices.” Five hundred percent!

But it does make me wonder, though: has this profit-making trick taken a financial hit with the implementation of the mapping functionality in the Walmart app? I mean, probably not, right? The app is for pro users. I bet, like, less than 2% of Walmart shoppers use the app.

Went to the doctor yesterday do you know I have lost seven pounds in the last month? That is nice. I was looking at my weight record and I weigh the same amount I did in 2010. I mean, that is not that long ago but still. Maybe earlier. 2010 is the oldest recorded weight I could find. Except in 2000, I weight 200 pounds but we don’t want to think about that.

Blood pressure was a bit better, but not enough so we are trying something else. We are also trying something else because <1% of patients on this new blood pressure medication I am on experience nerve pain and boy howdy do I have nerve pain. Mayhaps I am a special boy. Except I am pretty sure the burning back started before the new med. But we have to switch anyway. We will see, we will see.

She also endeavored to fix my sex worker knee. I thought she was going to extract the fluid that had been building up in there — kinda like that drunk unhoused guy in The Pitt, only like 3 ounces not 5 gallons. But no, she just pumped it full of steroids. But that is cool. I like steroids. Unfortunately this dose is not making me feel superhuman. Man I understand where steroid abusers come from that shit rules.

I love my doctor so much she is so awesome. I wish I could find a therapist as great as my doctor. Also I would like to thank my friend Rachel who, years ago, worked at a doctor’s office and told funny stories about how dudes never wanted to tell anyone what was actually wrong with them. And she made me realize I was kind of like that and now I just overshare constantly with my doctor and it is great.

Went over my doctor’s visit with my wife via text. When you are young you mention in passing to your partner that you went to the doctor and they sort of shrug and barely remember it. When you are old it is a full debrief and palpable relief that nothing new is going horribly awry. Fun times.

I’m also thinking that this time in my search for a new therapist I might try a man? I have always resisted this, but a good friend told me the other night that it was probably the best for me. I should probably listen.

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!

Listening to the new Blondshell single at this exact moment, it is called “Heart Has to Work So Hard.” Think it came out last week. Haven’t investigated if this means a new Blondshell album is imminent. It is good, though. I should really go see Blondshell while you can still see her in clubs.

Regarding yesterday’s plan to make Yiddish Blackgaze, Bill informs me there is a poet who makes Black Metal that incorporates Yiddish elements. We’re gonna check him out right now. Oh shit yeah this is awesome. His latest single is from January and it seems to be an absolutely incomprehensible cover of “Streets of Minneapolis.” Fantastic. This is not blackgaze, though. This is straight-up black metal. But me likey.

I am wearing my Bikini Kill shirt today. Sadly no one has complimented me on it yet but I did see a goth professional shopper woman at Walmart as well as a goth-ish couple. But all from afar. This is the limited edition World Central Kitchen Bikini Kill shirt. World Central Kitchen rules. One of the two best charities out there, and one of the ten or so I give to monthly.

Speaking of WCK, though, they have to pull back on their meals in Gaza because the cost of everything in the world has gone up — the food, the fuel, the staff, the shipping, everything. This is bad bad bad. Almost no other charities are operating in Gaza due to Israel’s strict licensing regime for people giving out free food in Gaza definitely a thing liberal democracies like to do, restrict free food. Among other things they are insisting all charities list all their employees. But there are other requirements as well: they can ban your charity if anyone involved has called for a boycott of Israel. Also a thing that normal democracies love to do. MSF, the UN and many others are not complying, so WCK is almost alone.

Sad sad sad.

Speaking of heartless and illegal blockades, Cuba is fucked, America is evil about it and it’s kind of crazy if you think about it that some segment of the Cuban American population is into starving the Cubans. That is weird to me. I can’t actually find any polling but it’s clearly not zero what with Rubio and all. Horrible this is being done in “our name” we really are just awful these days.

Speaking of Cuba my favorite boat-builder and sailor Leo is sailing his boat the Tally-Ho to Cuba to drop off some supplies. Will the Cubans let him in? Will the Americans let him in? He is not sure. I’ve been watching this dude for, like, five years now, watched him rebuild his whole boat. We have a mutual friend in New York who hipped me to him during the pandemic. Watching him rebuild this wooden sailing yacht by hand was incredibly therapeutic. He has scrupulously avoided politics till now, but he let us all know he’s headed there to drop off supplies. Love that guy. yay leo.

Big news, yesterday Jane and I made a Goodles bar, a Goodles taste-test shootout: four types of Goodles. It is surprisingly difficult to make four different boxes of Mac and Cheese at the same time and keep everything straight. They do not require the same amount of boil time or the same amount of butter. And you can’t mix em up. But we were very careful and at the end of prep, each had four small bows in front of us: one each of Twist My Parm, Cheddy Mac, Shella Good and Down the Hatch.

This came about because Jane is super into Goodles but would only ever eat the Shella Good flavor and I knew she would like other ones but I couldn’t get her to try them. So I realized that I could make two at once, her favorite and another one. And from there, well, things spiraled (no pun intended). There are actually three other flavors of Goodles we did not try, but we were limited by pots and burners.

In the end, her previous favorite Shella Good placed second after Twist My Parm. But it was very close, and there was a number three that was essentially tied with Twist My Parm: Cheddy Mac, the straight-up Kraft Mac and Cheese ripoff. How they made something that tasted so much like Kraft but managed to cram a ton of vegetales into it I will never know. I suspect it has something to do with the 500% price difference between the two.

The loser was still very good: it had a mild chili flavor to it and tasted like Salsa, which Jane and I both appreciated as being “unique” and “different” but you wouldn’t want it to make up your entire meal.

A fun time was had by all.

Bedtimes have been going smoothly — she has a prescription mouth rinse for pre-surgery and the first day she was terrified and refused for nearly an hour to try it but that’s normal with any new medicine. Eventually I cajoled her into it and last night she was perfectly fine to do it and teeth. She is still being a pill about her eye drops, though, which causes me particular grief. But so far, we’ve gotten em in both nights.

Two down, four to do.

Don’t have a playlist for you today but I did enjoy this recent live set from one of my favorite of the new batch of lady rockers, Lala Lala. So rocking. So catchy. A+.

Have a lovely weekend. Hope to regale you with studio work tales on Monday. Maybe even a little landscaping work. One never knows. The world is my oyster.