Good morning hello. Sorry I’m running a little bit late. Had to do to the dentist. No, sorry, the endodontist, whatever the heck that is. Prepping for this root canal. Jane proceeded to act like a baby the whole time. I don’t mean that in some disparaging way, belittling her maturity. I mean she literally spent the entire hour talking baby talk. She complied with the dentist endodontist’s requests, and followed instructions, even though she was a baby. It is not clear mechanically how this would work. I should have been a proud papa and embraced her quirkiness but honestly I just felt inexplicably and illogically embarrassed, very embarrassed, though I did my best to hide it from the baby, the dentist endodontist and his assistant.

Lotta psychodrama floating around in the air of that office. Lotta psychodrama floating around in the air everywhere. Maybe this is what Phil Collins sang about.

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I am sad Jane needs a root canal. She is excited at the prospect of general anesthesia, but the endodude did not seem to think it was necessary. He’d let us get it, but we’d have to pay for it, which I already knew from the previous times I have footed the bill for Jane’s GA. But those were necessary. This is not. And this will require two visits, which suuuuuucks. So we’d be shelling out $4k for some pretty solid post-comedown humor and indulging Jane’s growing addiction to getting put to sleep. Hard to justify. Probably gonna pass. And Jane heard all the discussion so she knows it’s a possibility, and she will not grasp that $4k is not “worth it” and this is gonna be a whole battle now. Never mind how well she actually behaves at the two separate fucking procedures.

Man. I thought this whole shattered teeth thing was a cautionary tale when she got them repaired so quickly. I thought this whole thing was the world telling me that we should be a bit more careful with horseplay with concrete floors. A warning. But no. It was not a cautionary tale. Turns out it was a Fuck Around and Find Out.

I AM FINDING OUT.

Okay so what’s the deal with food and cooling. Like you’re not supposed to let food cool slowly on the counter. This has come up twice in my life recently. But I was always told that you don’t want to put hot food in your fridge because it will heat up everything in the fridge, and everything will spoil more quickly.

But now I am told about “fried rice syndrome” aka Bacillus cereus, where bacteria grow on your slowly-cooling food, and those bacteria poop shit out that is hugely sickening and heat resistant. You can’t fucking win, man. Here I am thinking I’ve been doing the right thing letting things cool slowly but nope.

So I guess we just don’t worry about food spoiling in the fridge by putting hot shit in there? That worry just…. “went away?”

Clearly what American fridges need is a small rapid-cooling auxiliary fridge to cool hot food without fucking up your cold food. I am shocked this has not been foisted upon us by Big Appliance, though I suppose there is no such thing as Big Appliance in America anymore, everything is AI.

I bet the Japanese have little bonus fridges.

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I’m listening to the new Beth Orton today. Second listen. Working through my To Investigate playlist second listens, I have been too slack about it. This is actually my third listen of the new Beth Orton, because it is great. It is called The Ground Above and it is very good and I wish Beth Orton would tour and come to Chapel Hill North Carolina. Not Raleigh or Durham please. I am lazy.

Went to Walmart with Emma last Friday. We kinda have a new Friday routine where I drop Jane off, then I go sit with the old men at McDonald’s for a while, then I come home and write to you, and write to myself, and do all my morning financial work for both jobs, then I load up the recycling in the ole Lightning and Emma wakes up and joins me and we take the recycling to the collection center then go to Walmart. It is quite nice to have company. I like this routine.

Emma is a fan of the sad discount aisle in the back of the Walmart between hardware and electronics. But I gotta tell you, man. That aisle is a scam! They were selling Duck brand Duct Tape for a dollar more than they were selling it on an end-cap right at the end of that very aisle.

There is this ten-pack of a very specific kind of CD Jewel Case: thinline ones, with both parts of the case clear. These are the kinds that old UK CD singles came in, such as, say, The Verve’s “Gravity Grave” CD single. Great single. “Endless Life” might be one of the best Verve songs and the live version of “A Man Called Sun” is killer. I have a lot of these 90’s UK CD singles and a lot of their cases are pretty banged up. I could really use this ten-pack. I am, most likely, the only fucking person in Chatham County, NC, that could use ten very specific jewel cases for 90’s UK CD Singles.

It is ten fucking dollars.

And it has been ten fucking dollars for weeks.

They are not marking it down.

Ridiculous.

I was thinking of this, walking around Walmart, thinking of their ridiculous catch phrase about having the lowest prices everywhere. And then I started thinking of Bentonville and its ridiculous fucking airport nicer than any other airport in America and their ridiculous fucking art museum with billions of dollars of art in it and how at least four of the richest people in America are family of the founder of Walmart.

Not fucking low enough, those always lowest prices.

Man these mid terms better go well I am going to lose it if they don’t go well.

Man this Beth Orton album is good.

Been reading the Silo books and they are interesting because the plot is very different than the show. I mean, not very different, I guess. There is still a silo, there is still Juliette and Solo and there is still a DC storyline (trying to do this without spoilers here). I enjoyed the first two books and comparing and contrasting it to the show.

But now I am more-or-less “caught up” to the show. A bit ahead of the show on the Daniel Keene plot (named Donald in the books — they were wise to change that) but right about where we left off at the end of this season in the Juiliette plot.

And I find I can’t really go on.

I mean I am still very interested in what’s gonna happen next, but… I don’t really want to read about it.

This is new for me. I almost always prefer books to the show. And I would not say these books are bad. And I do not especially think any of the plot changes in the show were brilliant and way better — mostly they present things in a different order in order to keep actors employed and that is fine.

But I just… I rather just wait and see it first, I guess.

So now I am faced with picking a new book. I tried to read the new Naomi Klein last night because she’s amazing and I love all of her previous books — though she needs to get the fuck off Substack wtf. But man. It starts with Kushner and Witkoff presenting a New Gaza posh beachfront redevelopment to Davos and… fucking hell I could not even read the first ten pages without getting insanely angry. It did not feel healthy. I had to put it down.

Met the Kushner bros. A few times each. They both sucked. It was obvious. From the getgo.

Think Im going to read this book about the great LSD takedown. Operation White Rabbit: LSD, the DEA, and the Fate of the Acid King by Dennis McDougal. I’ve always been curious about this. About how all the acid disappeared for decades. But people tell me we have LSD again these days. Just not as much. Seems so exotic. Not the shit that, like, one teenager in 10 had a whole sheet of in his locker like in the 80s. I need to know more about this, I think. Escapism, but not escapism.

Jane Jane Jane what do I say about Jane. She wants he root canal to be scheduled on a holiday so she does not have to miss school. She threw another fit list night right after telling me she was not going to throw a fit. It was so sad. I was just, like, “I dont’ want to argue” and she would not have it she wanted to argue so bad. Reminded me of an ex girlfriend. Needs the argument. Needs the drama. It is so exhausting.

We did have a nice talk about assuming positive intent yesterday, though. That was constructive. I think she maybe got it? Tried to use real-world illustrative examples.

But I mean, hell. If I could get her to understand and assume positive intent she would be like 20% more mature than half of my adult friends.

I did tell her Trump was excluded, though.

Justa Mix for you today. I am starting it real poppy. Someone posted a full video of the Carly Rae show at Irving Plaza last weekend and oh my god it looked like so much fun. I wish I could see her. This Icona Pop song is a bit over the top but I am enjoying it. The new Jesus Jones is shockingly not bad but even more shocking is that I do not hate the new U2 single. God that is embarrassing to admit. Love this Panic Shack band they really are the greatest. And the new AJJ is very good. And my favorite local band, the country post-rock band Slow Teeth has an awesome new track out and once again I did not go see them this weekend even though they are clearly destined to be my best friends. Alas.

Okay talk to you tomorrow. Hopefully not about root canals. Maybe we’ll talk about the latest poll that has Sharrod Brown eight points up. Highest yet. That’s a close race, that one.