Good morning! Hello! Hi! How are you? Did you have a lovely weekend? Get a lot of chores done? Get some relaxation in, maybe a couple TV show episodes? Spend any time outdoors? Get some chigger bites?

Woke up at 7 this morning in preparation for Jane’s school starting tomorrow. Boy I am ready. I love summer and I love sleep and I am so tired right now but I am ready for some alone time. She is sitting behind me right now. She’s on her iPad, though, so she’s zombified. Won’t be bothering me this morning. It’s her last day of summer, so I am giving her an hour or two of iPad as a special gift. I’d say it will be a while till she gets it again, but I suppose she’s gonna get like six hours of it on Friday when we fly to LA.

Speaking of which: if you are in the LA area, come visit us in Santa Monica on this coming Sunday! We’ll be there all day, just chillin’ hanging out with friends. Come on by. It’ll be swell.

All right what do we have in news this week. Boy it sure is nice to take a weekend and not look at news. Lately, Jane’s been batting my phone away when we are watching her educational videos together in the evening. It is very cute. I have learned so much about our battle against screw worms and the South Korean population crisis.

Ah I see we have started a trade war with Canada. Well I’m sure that will work out for us just great. But you know what, Donny, if you want to start a trade war right before the mid-terms, I am here for it. I did learn this weekend that Canola literally means “Canadian Oil Low Acid” and it’s just a euphamism for rapeseed oil because people don’t like the word rape, which, sensible enough. Always found that Current 93 song slightly unnerving. Anyway Canada, thusly, makes all our Canola oil. That’s gonna go great for us.

The thing about starting a trade war your country’s populace doesn’t want is maybe don’t start it with a country that is 100% behind fucking you up in a trade war. We do not have the stomach for it.

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!

Looking at Bluesky at 7 this morning, I saw some Wedding DJ say that he had been asked to play “City Pop” at a wedding dinner this weekend and was unfamiliar with the style. And a bunch of people chimed in about how great city pop was and one provided an Apple Music playlist and I, too, did not know about City Pop. So now I am listening to a “City Pop Primer” playlist on Apple Music and it is pretty fun. Loungy, upbeat, synthy, jazzy, Japnese pop. I am into it. Entire genre I knew nothing about. It’s as Pizzicato Five had a million babies born with saxes in their mouths.

Chores! So many good chores this weekend. Chores chores chores chores chores just the best.

Met with the carpenters to go over Serenity Walk repairs and it’s all fixed up, though I need to paint the new boards, and I gotta work some sort of pressure washing routine into my life, which is gonna be a pain because paint is not sticking to that. But at least no more neurodivergent kids will, you know, almost plummet.

Gardening! My grape vine and trellis had collapsed, sort of, while I was in Boston. I suspect the deer were at play, tugging at it. The pole was fine, but everything else came undone. So I had to slowly bungee the grape vine trunk back to the pole, working my way up the pole. Then re-string the trellis wire, then re-spool the grape vines on it. It is done. So many grape leaves have been eaten, those fucking deer. Should be like 2 more weeks till this gate is fixed? Maddening.

Trellissed and cleaned up all my tomato vines, also getting decimated by the deer, but at least they left enough tomatoes for me for this week including two big’uns. Delicious.

Not a single fruit on any of my fruit trees. I will blame the deer. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

It’s pepper season and I picked about 40 thai peppers, 20 banana peppers, 20 shishito and 5 jalepeno, so I am very excited for extra spicy stir fries this week. All pepper stir fry. Am I that much of a glutton?

My basil is everywhere. One day my basil will cover the earth. My herbs are out of control. I transplanted a rosemary, thyme, and three basil plants into the greenhouse early this summer and they are out of control. Just filling up the whole place. Anyone need, I don’t know, six pounds of thai basil? It is intense.

Then I weeded for two hours becuase my garden needs either more mulch or gravel and I am paralyzed with indecision between the two and in any case I can’t get any delivered until I am back from Daisy Chain Fields. So I weed, even though the weeds will grow back in a week. But right now, the garden looks great.

But of course most of the weekend was spent in the attic. I am back on my floor journey. I got about six panels in. I have now re-floored all the way to three corners of the house. 75% of layer one of the floor is done.

I had a meeting with the structural engineers last week and I await their verdict on a few things, and I need their input on the specific placement of one pole. I need to find out if I can move it like two feet to the right. I suspect that this is going to involve reinforcing a floor joist. It’s gonna be a pain. All to put a wall like 18”s further out. But I think it is the right thing to do, and I made myself a promise with this build that I would not half-ass anything. This is an almost impossible promise to keep when it comes to long-term, self-financed remodel projects, but I am doing my best.

I also did a ton of cleaning up in the attic, and took a bunch of photos and made a bunch of notes on the floor plans so I can update the digital floorplans as the structural engineers get their report in. The place is looking good. Here is the eastern half. I did that flooring in the back right corner this weekend. Now I am working on that electrical panel, so I can floor under it. And then move that crooked post next to it.

It is all very exciting. I feel like things are moving more quickly, even though I am out of town too much.

I also filed about a hundred records. I want you to know that. Filed all the new purchases and everything I have pulled recently to listen to. Woke up at 7AM on Saturday and spent two hours filing records before anyone else woke up. I can’t decide if this was healthy or insane.

Other weekend items: went to Waffle House to see “our guy” and had some great talks with him. Went to the pizza place and daringly, thrillingly ate lettuce I am such a rebel. Had a leftovers dinner those are real fun. OH and the whole family went out to Sunday breakfast together thank you Emma for waking up that was a super good time. I had a dream about my old friend Julie and I FB Messaged her because I do not have her phone number anymore and I doubt she’ll ever see it because we’re all not using Facebook anymore and man that was a nice time when you actually could message anyone you ever knew in your whole life I will miss that.

Trying to decide what t-shirt to wear to Daisy Chain Fields. My original approach, of course, would be to wear some cool band t-shirt. But I’m now leaning towards something politcal. Maybe my vintage AOC Green New Deal t-shirt. Or a Writer’s Guild union shirt. Or my Harris-Walz shirt in the form of the Husker Du logo.

Or is there another approach besides politics or bands? Maybe I need a black metal Hello Kitty shirt.

I am very excited to see Bikini Kill this weekend. I think it might be the longest I’ve gone between two times seeing a band. I saw them in 1992 and have never seen them since, thanks covid. Hrm actually I saw Red Kross in 1990, my archives tell me, and I didn’t see them again till last year so that might be the one. Wow. That is nuts. Ooo Pigface is touring next year (I think). That could break the record. Or if the Circle Jerks ever tour again.

Last night Emma and I watched the ‘Vrach Frankenshteyn” Director’s Cut of The X-Files: I Want to Believe, a new cut of the movie Chris Carter inexplicably made to make it Rated R, a bit more horror focused. And you know what? It kinda worked. I had seen the original film before, so I wasn’t paying the most attention at first, and the editing is far more fast-paced than the original cut. So I got a bit confused with some plot details at first. And as with my first viewing, I could take or leave all the religious stuff. But the main plot worked, and it worked better than I remember. I would not characterize the film as good, but I will say I didn’t hate it, which is a more positive sentiment than I recall having the first time around. So, bravo Chris Carter, I guess.

Really wondering if this Ryan Coogler X-Files pilot is going to get picked up. Can you imagine saying no to Ryan Coogler? Doing the X-Files? That would be a brave suit indeed. Though I guess from here on out if any studio needed a stone-cold hatchet man, they would know who to call.

Canning the Chloe Zhao Buffy was painful enough here, man. We need things to live for in this apocalyptic hellscape.

It was grammy’s birthday this weekend and Jane made a very cute card and I bought her a puzzle and they went out for ice cream while I worked on chores. Jane gave good birthday, I am proud of her. And she is very excited to help me up in the studio, which is one of the reasons I cleaned up. She’s gonna help me put Big Stretch into all the floor cracks. It’s a great task for her.

She is excited about school tomorrow, excited about Olivia Rodrigo on Saturday. We are all going to be very tired. it is going to be 92 in Irvine this weekend what the fuck. But at least it’s a dry heat, right? God. It’s almost as bad as Coachella.

All right no playlist today. Just gonna keep listening to CITY POP. Here have another playlist!

City Pop!