Good morning good morning. Probably won’t finish this before my meetings start, but man, I really was awake. Jane’s just been busy browbeating me trying to get me to let her use iPad this morning, because I made the mistake of letting her use it for an hour yesterday and it’s like the goddamn Ring of Power or some shit. MY PRECIOUS.

Hey look at this pretty picture I took this morning. Doesn’t quite capture the amazing glow that was coming from the pond, alas. Man I love that pond.

Had some primary elections last night. All good signs for dems and the Right Sort™ of Dems. Let’s do this people. Three more months. I didn’t mind Vindeman so much in Trump 1 resistance era, but he was willing to throw trans people under the bus, so under the bus he goes. Do I even have to say this? Apparently you do have to say it in 2026: trans people are people, trans rights are human rights. Jesus. Bye bye dude.

In Alaska, Mary advances to the general for the senate, with very promising numbers, we may well get a Democratic governor and if you squint real real hard and imagine the controversial-but-awesome ranked choice system going exactly our way, we might even get a Democratic congressperson again.

Donald Trump, Make Alaska Blue Again.

Started watching Heroes again because I am sad about Hayden and it is a little aged and a little overwrought but still very very good and I am still so sad it jumped the shark in season 2. Except it didn’t really jump the shark it… lost the plot. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Lost the plot. I keep re-watching Season one thinking season 2 can’t have been as bad as I remembered, and this time will be different. This will be the fourth time in my life. Reader, it will not be different this time.

There was an important comment made in the GMHHAY Slack yesterday about Gett Off and the “ribs” line which is that “the rib” of course, should be acknowledged as a potentially biblical allusion. Lotta biblical literature about the rib out there. And I meant to throw this into the essay, but I was scatterbrained. But in the end I do not think Prince was making a biblical allusion when the lady-object of his horniness said she wanted ribs while hanging at the Paisley crib. We should also acknowledge that ribs have bones and maybe she was saying she wanted to get boned, but in that case, Prince’s immediate turn to negging is even more f’d up.

We should also take this moment to acknowledge one of my favorite songs of all time, the bonkers-ass Jennie C Riley song “The Rib.” My god I want to cover that song so bad. It is so gloriously insane.

We got our Daisy Chain Fields wristbands in the mail yesterday. Brief panic because tracking said they were left on our front porch and they weren’t there and my god how hard was it going to be to get replacements. But they had been blown off the porch and Emma found them. Whew.

Looks like we’ll stay at a hotel down in Irvine Friday night before the festival and Saturday night of the festival. Then we’ll head up to LA and get a hotel there and hold office hours, if you’re around in LA. Might pick something fun with a pool. Should probably check the weather.

Are any of you guys going? Would love to see some friends at the festival. Of course it sold out in like five minutes so you had to be an Olivia action-fan like yours truly to get a ticket, but one can home.

(Action-fan: a term coined by my old friend Mike Anderson, aka Drekka, describing the most dedicated, obsessive fans. Usually meant regarding a more obscure band. A band like a local band or something that can be stalked, perhaps. But man, it is a great term. ACTION-FAN).

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 this morning to the majestic but unfortunately named Toy. There are at least 17 other bands in Discogs named Toy. We are listening to the English indie drone/psych/pop band from the oughts. The album is Join the Dots. I’ve loved it since it came out and I bought a cheap copy from a re-seller a while back. I was actually buying a copy of another album, and I picked this up because they had it cheap. Toy makes me think of my departed friend Andy Shea, because in the months before his passing I had gotten him into them and we texted about them a lot.

The other album I was buying from that seller was the Smashing Orange album The Glass Bead Game. A lost masterpice of 90’s American shoegaze. The band themselves are barely remembered, and this album has been all but buried. But my god, it is so good. I re-listened to it yesterday and it took my straight back to the 90’s. Straight up that Dinosaur-Jr-meets-MBV loud guitar rock shoegaze. Just majestic. I wish everyone could listen to this album. Oh look it’s on Youtube:

Question for you, a thing Emma and I were talking about last week: does anyone like receiving voice text messages? I know, oh god I know, people love sending them, but are there people out there that like listening to them? Am I alone in not liking to listen to them? Or does everyone feel this way? Exceptions are made of course, when the voice is really really ASMRY or sexy.

The Neurodivergent-affirming Pediatric Speech Therapist loves sending me very long voice texts. I don’t really mind, because Google will translate them for me and I can just read them. But it does make me wonder…

Also the Neurodivergent-affirming Pediatric OT (her office-mate) did a Instagram Stories yesterday about how their walkway has collapsed, their HVAC went out, and then they had internet problems yesterday and my god it made me feel like a slum lord. I AM TRYING PEOPLE. The HVAC is fixed! The internet is fixed! A guy is coming today to shore up the Serenity Walk! It’s not like I wanted all these things to happen at once! While I was swamped at the day job AND the second job AND on the road AND doing morning childcare AND a graphomaniac who needs to write a daily newsletter!

I swear. No one ever accused Professor Xavier of being a slumlord.

Or did they. Shit, I don’t know. I guess we never did get a real good look at any member of the X-men’s bedrooms.

I wonder what he fed them.

I know I am becoming a broken record about this, but this Ian McEwan book is just so damn beautiful. It does make me think, though. The 2100’s historian in the book talks about how we all just went about our lives when the world was burning. And it’s true. Here I am, going about my life. But I don’t think it quite captures the dread and shame and misery we all feel for just going about our lives, desperately wishing we could do something, desperately wishing there was some way to get the world to go in another direction.

So, you know, just want to put it out there for any 2100’s historian of GMHHAY: I am terrified of climate change and desperately wish we could do more and am trying to do what I can. I fail, we all fail, but a lot of us are trying. Don’t hate us all.

I read a NYT review of the book, and it turns out that McEwan did just dash it off, more or less. Well, not dash it off, but writing comes easy to him these days. He says he gets lost in it, can write up to 12 hours a day if he’s not paying attention. Writes 700-1,500 words a day, decently edited. When he was younger he wrote fewer words, joking at one point he wrote 17 words a day. But nowadays it flows. Good for him.

Also his two best friends are dead. I feel bad for him about that. My best friend who loved Ian McEwan is dead too. Man I miss people. I miss you. I hope I see you soon.

Do I have music for you? Probably not. Maybe just listen to that Smashing Orange up there. You will probably like it. It is very good.

Until tomorrow, fine friend.