Good morning good morning hello hi howdy doing all right? Good weekend? Get some sleep? See some friends or family? Do any chores? I hope so, I hope so.

Busy morning, did Jane morning and drop-off, went to the grocery store and awkwardly talked to the old man (good news they have Turkey Chomps there now, though a buck fitty more than Walmart), went to the recycling center and took out the compost. I missed my traditional Friday morning Walmart/recycling center run this week owing to the Boston trip, so I am trying to fit it all in piecemeal. It is very stressful.

Oh Jane has a boosterthon at school. You know the drill, Republican-controlled state, not enough money to the schools, teachers and the PTA have pay for everything. Not that it’s much better in Democrat-lead states is it? hahahaha why don’t teachers make a half million dollars can you imagine thinking me or Sam Altman are more useful than a teacher? What a world. Anyway, can you throw her in ten bucks? I promise I’ll do the same for your kid. Or mom. Or GoFundMe in our elderly years when none of us can afford healthcare and GoFundMe is all we have.

Unfortunately this one does not have a cool video like her Girl Scouts one.

So. Anyone see SNL last night? Anyone notice the skit involving a lifetime supply of Advil? Longtime readers of GMHHAY will recall that last year I purchased a lifetime supply of Advil. Well. Ibuprofen. I am now convinced that an SNL writer reads GMHHAY. You are welcome. I won’t sue. I am flattered.

Everyone’s pissed at Tom Morello for not voting for Kamala in the last election. I can see that, of course, and I think if you lived in a battleground state, there was really no excuse. But I will say a few things: Tom Morello lived in California. We need people in safe states to hold the Democratic party to account. And also the dude is in a band named Rage Against the Machine. Do we really think Chuck Schumer and Hakim Jeffries are not part of the machine? You should hear the shit my ex-Fed friends say about the shit Jeffries has pulled. Not exactly fighting the good fight against genocide, that guy.

And, yeah, you could construct an argument that not voting for Kamala was idiotic if you are against the genocide. I suspect that argument is the correct one, though I gotta say it’s not especially clear we’d have less genocide under Kamala? You could easily construct the other argument. I personally think it’s obvious the world would be better now, somewhat, under Kamala. Especially for immigrants and trans people. BUT ALSO: Kamala could totally see this coming. I wrote in here extensively about the opportunities Kamala had to allay the fears of the anti-genocide contingent in her party. She did not do that. I held my nose and voted for her anyway, but tell me she didn’t know full well that she was going to lose votes over her lack of stand. Which was it? She didn’t care about the genocide or she made a calculation she’d lose less votes this way? Why is either of those okay?

I am pissed at people in battleground states who didn’t vote for Kamala but I am pissed with her more and I don’t recall seeing her do much about, well, anything these last two years. Has she? I could be wrong, I could be wrong.

But man, I am not excited to do that again.

Our primary is going to suck.

In the meantime, though, we have the midterms and man those are looking shockingly good. Oh god I am so scared. Fingers crossed, fingers crossed. I desperately want to win the senate, but I can handle losing it. I cannot handle losing the house.

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We’re listening to Sonic Youth this morning: Experimental Jet Set Trash No Star. Found a cheap, ish, first pressing, blue vinyl. Hard to find OG pressings of the DGC era. Sounds great. Not my favorite Sonic Youth album but I think it’s better than people give credit for it.

Man, what is my favorite Sonic Youth album? My god, what a difficult question. Can’t think about this too long, got shit to do. Evol or A Thousand Leaves.

Flight from Boston to RDU was delayed by, like, three hours, so no chores Saturday, that was sad. Got a pretty good day of chores in Sunday, though. Finished up the living room sound system setup at Chore House. Got rid of the ancient, proprietary Bose system there (AV18 with a room controller) — just dropped it off at the recyling center’s free drop-off, actually. Along with a Lucius Malfoy mask no one wants in the house anymore.

I am using two very cheap amplifiers from Amazon to replace the Bose. Seriously, the main amp was like $80 and the subwoofer amp was like $40. I am not going for high-end here this is a guest house. The primary use of this soundsystem is “let me keep hearing the music as I walk through the room between the attic and the garage.”

I say I finished up that project but actually I did not since even though the ethernet port was working last weekend, it was not working this weekend and I don’t know why and I did not get around to figuring out why.

Also the speakers sound like ass, there’s no mids. I kinda suspect the room never sounded that good. The subwoofer is hidden in the ceiling, which makes it very directional and does not fill the room with bass quite like it should. The right and left speakers have ZERO effort at a woofer (or even a driver, a think Bose liked (likes?). Maybe the vaunted-in-the-90’s Bose ADAPTIQ system compensated for it, but honestly I doubt it. You could blame my cheap-ass amps but I know that’s not the problem, I pulled em and tested em on a pair of bookshelf Polks and they sounded fine.

So I bought a $100 pair of Polk in-walls that are open box special, have a 5.25” woofer which is better than the ancient tweeter-less Bose speakers in the wall. And I can’t do bigger because they’re wedged into two studs. But at least this should give me some decent mids so I can sweep the subwoofer lower.

Had a hole in the attic studio floor where I had cut it open to find the in-wall surround speakers. I also had a screw hole in the ceiling I needed to patch. In the end I didn’t need to have made an of these holes, but they are all patched now.

Did a lot of cleanup in my workspace in the attic and garage. Shit was getting messy.

Picked everything in the garden. Not many tomatoes this week but a ton of shishito, jalepeno, Thai and banana peppers. Got my Thai basil for the week. Didn’t plant the fall garlic yet gonna wait another week or two.

I lost my wallet in Boston on this trip. It was a crazy thing, we’ve traced it down to ‘must have fallen out of my pocket getting out of or walking to a car, so it is probably gone. Driver’s license, bank card, main credit card, Nimbus credit card. Total pain in the ass. Paused the bank card but needed the main card to get home. Now that I am home with my backup Apple card, I will report that one stolen. But that is going to suuuuuuck. I’m keeping an eye on the transactions, and no one has used it yet, so I am hoping a good samaritan mailed it to me, so I’m stalling a day or two. But man. It sucks.

Also a month or two ago I lost my newest passport somewhere in the house.

So I am currently without ID, and because I had a real ID, they were both a pain in the ass to obtain, and now I am going to have to obtain them both, again, without having the other one.

Damn damn damn.

How do I feel about Black cars? Not, like, Black Cars in NYC as in high-end cabs, but just the fact that, like, every car these days is black or grey or white. I mean, I always have only owned black cars, I like black, it’s my favorite color, but dammit, I like to stick out in black. Sort of. Do I? I remember as a kid I’d watch shows set in NY offices or streets and everyone would be in black and I was like “that is so much better than now.”

But I guess maybe I like some color on the roads now? I kinds think I might not buy another black car? I kinda think I want a brightly colored car? I know that people are not gussying up their cars anymore — or their houses for that matter — for fear of damaging the resale value, and that is valid, but also… man, that is sad. You bought this cool thing, make it cool! Make it the way you want!

Except I like black.

I don’t know, man, I don’t know.

I think about this one a lot.

Jane was very nice to me yesterday, didn’t complain about stopping Youtube videos, went upstairs… and was promptly horrible to Emma all night. We talked about it this morning and she was like “I don’t know sometimes I just need to be mean” and I’m like “but you can still put away your clothes I mean what the heck, putting away clothes with mommy is fun?” She doesn’t know. I’m so proud of her when she pulls off a modicum of self-restraint and then wham boom bam. Holy terror. Parenting is exhausting. I have said this ten thousand times. That is the point. My god is it repetitive.

And yet, she’s my little buddy, we starred “The Spangle Maker” by the Cocteau Twins and Kon Kan and Kraftwerk this morning and we had nice talks about tempers and kindness. We hugged and she brushed her teeth this morning without a single complaint.

And she made a cheese ball out of her cheese stick and got fucking cheese all over the center console of my car and it took me thirty minutes to get it out.

Disgusting.

Got a country playlist for you today. Man am I excited to switch back to Spotify I mean they suck as a company too but at least they don’t suck as a company and have a product that sucks. I will sort-of miss the better HD sound of Apple Music but I am not super an audiophile, so I’ll live. Anyway, lots of good country here, I like the new Orville Peck and the new Brandon Flowers, I do not particularly love the new Margo Price but I love HER and I see I accidentally put two songs by her on here whoops sorry. At least they’re far apart. Unlike the Dolly songs but technically that is a Trio song, then a Dolly song, so that is allowed. God Trio were so good. Oh my god actually there is so much Margo Price on here. I am sorry I am too lazy to change it.

Until tomorrow, dear friends. I know I had BIG NEWS but it’s gonna have to wait till Wednesday, I think. SORRY.