Good morning good morning. Man I have done a great job in my life not thinking about work on weekends. I used to be terrible at this, I am SO GOOD at it now. Makes for very disconcerting Monday mornings. It’s like The Matrix with “I know kung fu.” Wake up and get assaulted with emails and phone calls from bankers and HVAC repair people and dudes who rent tractors and adtech research films and lawyers and I legit don’t remember any of it from Friday. It’s pretty intense.

And I haven’t even looked at the news yet.

I have eighteen minutes until my first meeting.

I am not going to finish this.

I did finish book seven of Dungeon Crawler Carl this weekend, though. I am tearing through them it is kind of insane. Very readable, very fun. I wonder how mapped out this all was back when he started. There are hints but also… how could he have known? It’s really quite impressive. I wonder if Matt Dinniman is contributing to George RR Martin’s depression. I suspect Peacock is a good place for these TV adaptations. HBO would have been able to spend more money but they would have made it turgid and added boobs. Wait does HBO still add boobs to everything or is that a 90’s cliché? Out of fashion.

Like me, like me. God, I really need to up my summer clothing game. I look like such a schmuck. But it’s so fucking hot! How does anyone wear anything that looks moderately nice in the summer. It is ridiculous. Impossible. But god, man. It is bleak, I am bleak.

I think part of it is that the entire world has moved on from the Gen-X black uniform. No one wears black anymore. Everyone is so preppy. I mean, I know I am sitting here in a biotech and academic capital, smack between Harvard and Tufts, but jesus everyone looks so functional and normal. You almost never see a band t-shirt. The only black is manifested in running bras. Everyone is so healthy.

That reminds me I gotta go take my Ozempic.

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Listening this morning to This Mortal Coil’s Blood, specifically “Mr Somewhere” at the moment. Because I am a goth and the world is saaaad, man. I haven’t listened to this in ages. I have some very precious hand-written, book-bound journals from 1991-1992 and I have carefully written the words to this song in the front cover. I fell in love that year. It was very whirlwind and forbidden and sorta Romeo and Juliet. My journals were handwritten that year because I was taking an English class and the professor had us journal. Boy she sure liked mine. Almost had a fling, I’m convinced. Okay maybe it was just a crush.

Had a pretty great weekend, heat aside. Friday I worked, that was fine. Saturday Jane and I got breakfast at the not-Ukrainian place and met a lovely lesbian couple that had a baby newborn, a very cute pug, and two cats at home. That’s a lot to pack into a Somerville apartment, let me tell you. Jane played Switch in the morning while I read until Emma work up and convinced us all to go to the mall.

This was a slight bastardization of my plan, which was to go to Harvard Square and introduce my daughter to Newbury Comics and, I don’t know, wax nostalgic about the Pit or something. It was an ill-formed plan. Emma said there was a Newbury Comics in the Burlington Mall. I knew it wouldn’t be as good musically as the Harvard one, but I was only really thinking about new release records, so figured it would be fine.

Reader, it was bleak. I mean, to be clear, I still deeply admire Newbury Comics as a (I think?) independent retail establishment that has navigated 40 years of American music and retail trends. And they do have a decently-sized vinyl section. But man. God. The kids do not listen to good music. Except I know they do, because I see them at shows. I do not know what’s going on. I did find a Newbury-exclusive copy of Robyn’s new album and a Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab pressing of Floodland by The Sisters of Mercy. MFSL has had some scandals lately (IYKYK) but I still have a soft spot for them.

Anyway the mall made me sad. It was packed. I admire third-place places, I don’t hate malls. But this one is 100% chain stores, nothing local, nothing independent. No fun non-retail stuff like Camp Snoopy or a movie theater. Oh I lied they do have the Bluey experience, that is cute. But Jane did that a year ago so it is not for us. Just… I don’t know, man. The whole thing seems empty. The people seem empty, the stores feel hollow. I do like how there are a lot of furries and people with pink hair at malls now compared to when I was a kid but… to what end, man? Why are we all going through this capitalist sham?

Is there a single thing for sale in a mall that will last? That will appreciate in value?

Lego sets, I guess.

Oh and we got ice cream. Not at the mall but nearby. Some (local, I think?) place called Holy Cow. Man, that was some good ice cream.

It was Sean and Jussi’s 20th anniversary last week, so Saturday night they had a little gathering of friends in the park next to the house. That was nice. I got to see Emily and Al and Ivelise and Matt and Isabelle and Jared. Jared and Sean did some very good karaoke later in the night. I told them all the mall made me sad and they were all like “oh yeah of course” and it was nice to be understood. I talked slightly too much about the trauma of growing up in Alaska. Been thinking about dead friends a lot lately so, you know. Good to hang out with living ones.

Sunday I did some house chores and took a walk with Jussi while Emma and Jane went to Boston Common to see the Girl Scout documentary Cookie Queens, which sounded pretty amazing. I should have gone. And even though I was (relatively) responsible the night before and went to bed not-too-late and didn’t drink too much (ish), I was not up for it. So… Chores! I cleaned the kitchen and hung a new shelf and hung the Bardo Pond poster and fixed the location of the Beleriand map poster. All very productive. Very proud of myself.

(Apple saying “Beleriand” is not a word. They’re just pissed Bezos got the TV rights and not them.)

Look at those shelves? Aren’t they nice. The one on the right is half of one on the left. I had to slice it in half with my miter saw, and route in and install a new second shelf hanging hook on the back. Both are stained and varnished to match the room (ignore the doors, I have not fixed them yet). Man it takes an ungodly number of tools to do things correctly. It really is ridiculous. Drills and drivers and routers and tape and levels and screws and pens and this and that. I miss when I half-assed these things.

We had a nice evening at home and Jane watched videos about nuclear annihilation and getting sucked into black holes, and was not terrible when bedtime came. Emma and I watched Ted Lasso which, I mean, okay. I guess. I will keep watching it. I don’t know if it needed another season. His mom is funny, though almost abusive? Scary potential subplot. He is too emo about losing his childhood home cmon man you’re a grown-ass man. But still, you know. I am a sucker for the feels.

Here you go. Today’s playlist is the first 16 artists on my big, 8,000-song “All the good” playlist. The hits. The classics. The feels. The soul of my musical heart.

All right. Let’s go do this Monday morning thing. Meetings ahoy!