Good morning hello happy Monday what a joy. Super busy day, busy week. Very excited about that I sure love being busy at job(s). Just back from the grocery store where it once again accused me of shoplifting, no one can figure out why, all I am doing is entering my shopper number. I was thinking as I was walking around the grocery store that I love grocery stores, mostly untainted by the modern world — well, as far as the customer can see, and ignoring the abomination that is the food itself. But then they gotta go and put AI in the check out kiosks and profile me. Alas.

They had a BOGO on the cran-raspberry Zevia, just that one flavor, so I am concerned they’re gonna eighty-six it, which as we all know means assassinate the Zevia. That is mildly sad but it is not our favorite flavor I think we can live without it.

Oh and they had one of those stick lighters that I wrote about last week: the ones you can get two for $3 in one section of Walmart, and $4.99 for one in another section. This one was five ninety-nine. But, you know, it was a 250th American anniversary edition.

Man I hate Trump but at least I don’t have to watch some democratic president pretend this anniversary is awesome. Best to just ruin the whole thing like we’re doing. America is broken and so is its birthday. Checks out.

Had a dream last night that I was broke, that my Amex Gold Card (n.b. I have never had an Amex gold card) was cancelled and I couldn’t get into my room in the Amex Hotel, which was in a mall sorta like a cinema is in a mall. That was sad. There was also a part of the dream where I was learning 3D rendering on my M4 Macbook and that was really fun until my old coworker Jonathan broke my Macbook. Boo.

Really do need to learn 3D rendering. Again. In the modern times.

This weekend the HVAC unit at Chore House died. No power. Don’t know why. Breaker is fine. I suspect the answer is I somehow accidentally disconnected the Romex from the unit when I was getting the drip pan back in place? I hope that is the answer. Otherwise, god. It’s gonna be a nightmare. HVAC peeps are coming at 2. Do HVAC peeps deal with electrical to HVAC units? Probably, right?

So since the attic had no AC and it is spring the attic was super hot so it was not really an option work work on the studio this weekend, which is probably fine since Emma was gone and I had to do Jane parenting anyway. So instead I chose to clear the leach fields (leech? hrm. no. leach) of brush. You gotta keep your leach fields clear of brush. Grass is best so you can just mow it, but two of our leach fields are in the woods, so you gotta keep em clear of saplings. I do it every… eh, twoish years. Really should do it every year.

So I busted out my big boy 60v Dewalt batteries and my Dewalt spinning blade of death and cleared the one at chore house. Wasn’t too bad. Took about an hour. Not too strenous.

I finished up, walked into the garage and promptly puked. A ton. Just endless puke. Puked up my whole breakfast and then some. Miserable.

It was about 75 degrees out, and I was in the shade. Hot, but not hot.

I felt immediately better in minutes. Drank two bottles of gatorade, assuming it was dehydration. Had a lunch of just crackers and a little cheese. Felt fine. By dinner I was ravenous, had a burger, no problem.

Sunday I decided to do the other leach field. It was even cooler out. 65 ish. Took about an hour, no problem.

I finished up, walked into the garage and promptly puked.

WTF man.

Same thing, felt better instantly, felt fine the rest of the day.

So, we have three options:

1) my body magically loves puking at around noon now. We will see if this is the case in three and a half hours.

2) I am magically more sensitive to heat stroke now. Or… most likely…

3) it is an interaction with my new blood pressure medication.

I am still working on getting this random spike in blood pressure down. I stopped with the amlodopine because we thought it was making my back burn. Guess what. It probably was. I mean it’s still burning after three days of no amlodopine, but consierably less.

But it seems I have traded this for random, rapid bouts of intense nausea.

Oh. And leg cramps.

A (nother) thing that sucks about this is that my blood pressure has actually been really good these last few days. Also now I gotta, like, wait a week or something to see if my body adjusts, or if this wasn’t just a somnambulant, schitzoprenic flu and it really was the new medication.

Woo.

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We are listening to the 90’s 4AD shoegaze band Swallow this morning. 4AD recently reissued their single album and the remix album in a combined 3-LP set. It is beautiful, it is great. Not quite classic 4AD era but an era of 4AD I still loved. I have both Blown and Blowback on CD already but this is better. Very Slowdive in their Pygmalian era.

Was thinking about music and where people find music and how I have had this thing happen several times recently where I discover a band through my hardcore-indie-dude-discogs spelunking, get really into them, think I am their only fan. And then they come to town and the venue is packed with kids.

And I realized: It’s all TikTok now isn’t it? Literally all music discovery is on TikTok now, huh? They completely dominate. I mean, sure, occasionally a single song blows up because of a TV show or movie, or some kids still maybe read Pitchfork or some cool kid version. Except a cool kid version would almost certainly be on TikTok.

It’s all TikTok. Always has been

Someday my TikTok will cover the earth.

When I’m at the grocery store I like to check the headlines of the physical newspapers. No story in any of the four about the protests and cop violence at the ICE facility in New Jersey, Delaney Hall. Nothing on the Times front page of the app this morning either. And the Democratic governor of New Jersey is a cop, so of course she is doing that thing where she is denouncing ICE, because that’s what her constituency wants, but also beating the protestors up because a cop is always gonna cop. What is it with Democratic governors man. It’s like they issued some manual 30 years ago that said “when libs protest, beat them up. The center will like that and it will be good for your career.” The playbook maybe worked at one point but now? Well let’s just say that in a single week, this woman managed to ruin any national aspirations she had.

Cool, cool.

Had an absolutely wonderful weekend with Jane, though. Really just great. We went to the splash pad and we went to the playground and we chatted lots. I let her “stay up as long as she wants” on Friday and Saturday nights and she stayed up… seventeen minutes later than normal.

She loves to hear stories about my childhood. Just loves it. So I have been telling her lots. It’s been… well, I am not a nostalgia buff right now and I am never particularly nostalgic about my childhood, but still it’s been kinda fun. I told her about how I almost died at the age of 2 from natural gas poisoning and how my aunt Bonnie saved my life and I try and remember that every day of my life is a gift. This was also a good time to explain why stove gas smells and how it didn’t when I was a kid because the 70’s were garbage.

I have realized that I remember absolutely nothing about middle school. I racked my brain and I have maybe five memories total from middle school. I remember the name of exactly one other student, my crush Sherie. I know I had friends but I don’t remember any of them. I moved house and school zones between elementary and middle school but I still went to the middle school I would have gone to had I not moved. SO in theory my friends would have been my elementary school friends, whom I remember well from elementary school. But not middle school. What the fuck.

I was telling Jane this and I realized I think I still have my yearbook from 8th grade? I am going to look at it.

But I am dreading it.

Jane also got to spend a bunch of time with her grammy this weekend. They talked jokes on Saturday and on Sunday they sat out on the swinging bench by the playset and Jane watched Youtube videos and Grammy engaged and chatted about them with her. Which is a thing we never do really. I mean, a little but not much. But oh my god it might be her favorite thing ever. That time with Grammy may well have been the happiest moment of her life.

iPad and talking about it? Mind blown.

Shoegaze playlist for you today since these Swallow and loveliescrushing records have arrived at my house. Been a while. Other than those two, and seefeel, the rest is new stuff. Thank you… um… I think it was Jes for the Blackwater Holylight recommendation? That needs another listen.

Right-o. Happy June. Until tomorrow.