Hi hi hi omg it was dark this morning when I woke up wtf. I slept in yesterday, but on Monday I got up at the same time, 6:30, and it was… not dark? I mean I love fall and all but this is bullshit. Reminds me too much of Fairbanks and waking up in the pitch dark for half the year. Do not like.

Speaking of Fairbanks a high school friend posted a Facebook post (god I know I am sorry) and it said “if you are going to go to one of these Free Palestine rallies, you are an asshole.” And I’m like “well I would go to a Free Palestine rally, and I do not need to be friends with people who think I am an asshole,” so I unfriended him. Very straightforward I mean I have not talked to the dude in thirty-seven years who cares. But noooo now I have a chat request from him. Cmon man leave me alone.

Speaking of Fairbanks last night, I was laying in bed thinking of all my dead Alaskan friends. I was thinking of a therapist I had in, eh, 1999 or so who told me that growing up in Fairbanks is a form of PTSD. And I took that to heart, kind of? It really got me thinking, you know? Like how young was I when my first friend died? Is it normal to have friends who get mauled by bears or killed when his dad suicides by cop, or when he suicides by cop? I’m just a kid trying to live my life, maaan. And it has really… shaped me? Like my parents were good and did what they could to shield us from the 70’s and Alaska but also the whole thing was fucked up.

But last night I was kind of thinking the opposite. What is trauma, didn’t everyone used to have trauma, especially when you consider some sort of stolen valor, trauma-by-proxy like I’m talking about here? And what is the goal for humans? Do we aspire to all be trauma free? For the whole race to be free of trauma? On the one hand, yes, absofuckinglutely. We should not have trauma! And this is rational and right and just and true and I wish no one had any trauma.

But also, of course, we will be fundamentally changed as a species when-or-if we are trauma free. Lord knows our art will change. Everything will change. Imagine 99% of Republican-asshole talking points if no one in the world had no trauma. They would cease to be.

And we definitely wouldn’t have Joy Division.

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Continuing my journey with this 16-disc new live Joy Division box set, Eternal. I am listening to a sweet live version of “Heart and Soul” from disc 13, which is from the Ajanta Theater in Derby, on April 19, 1980. It is real fuckin good. Sound quality is garbage but man, they are locked in. Which isn’t always the case. My god Joy Division played a lot of wrong notes. Some of them because the song wasn’t written yet, some of them because, well, I don’t know.

But by mid 1980? The Closer dates? So tight, so locked in. I have heard a lot of Unknown Pleasure live stuff but not as much from the Closer years. “Isolation” and “Heart and Soul” are generally awesome live.

But I will say, fans fucking loved Joy Division live. They were “underground” I suppose, but they had adoring fans all over England. You can hear them in these recordings. People fucking loved Joy Division from day one.

[Update edit: I am on now on the live version of “Ceremony” that is previously released on the Still album and my god have their been advances in mastering technology this sounds so much better.]

OKAY BIG NEWS ARE YOU READY?

CHORE WEEK

ONE WEEK OF NOTHING BUT CHORES

And actually… owing to holidays and weekends, IT’S GOING TO BE TEN DAYS STRAIGHT OF NOTHING BUT CHORES. OH MY GOD I AM SO EXCITED.

I have so many chores planned. At home. At CHORE HOUSE. In the studio. On the truck. CHORES CHORES CHORES.

I have made a special CHORE WEEK CALENDAR to map it all out.

I have made a project board where every chore has a pre-flight checklist of all the things I need to buy and take with me to the CHORE SITE so I do not spend all of Chore Week walking back and forth to workshops and driving to hardware stores, even though, let’s face it, that would be really fun.

This is going to rule so much. And don’t worry, fair GMHHAY reader, you will be with me every step of the way. I will make a point to write a GMHHAY every morning even during chore week.

Kind of a trial for retirement here, I suppose. Live the life you want to live. Manifest it.

I have so many good chores planned. Networking chores. Mulching and landscaping chores. Gardening chores. Workshop chores. Painting chores. Studio chores. Toilet chores. Oh my god it is going to rule so much this is going to be the bright spot in my life of the 2020s you just mark my words.

CHORE WEEK.

Wallet update: I have cancelled my Amex, replacement on the way. Cancelled my bank card, replacement on the way. Got into a giant fight with a dude at Chase Business about my Nimbus card, had to tell my main banker the guy was a dick, threw a fit, but eventually got my card sent out. I do not feel great about that, but that guy sucked. I did not lose my pool company card or my storage company card or my Apple card. I have not replaced my main personal credit card yet. I don’t know why. It is going to be such a pain. I guess I’m secretly hoping that some good samaritan found my wallet and sent it to me. Assuming they found it on Saturday and mailed it out by Monday, though. It should be here by tomorrow or Friday latest. So… I am soon facing the inevitable. I have been checking charges on it multiple times a day and so far no one has used it. Mysterious.

I got a new driver’s license. I misread the NC DOT site: You can order a replacement RealID online, but not a new one. I already had RealID, so I ordered a replacement and it is en route. Also they gave me a piece of paper to tide me over.

And I’m going ahead and sucking it up and replacing my passport. I should not do this. I know it’s in the house somewhere, but I am sick of looking. I have an appointment for Friday.

And I am going to get trackable wallet cards for each of these. GMHHAY readers have recommended the Pebblebee Card 5 Wallet Tracker and the Ridge Power Bank. Went with the Pebblebee 5 in a cheap Amazon wallet that also holds an AirTag. Doing double duty. YOLO.

Big news from the North Carolina Zoo and Botanical Gardens in nearby Asheboro. The long-awaited Asia expansion is complete and will be opening. Not till next March, because of the Republicans and the budget god those guys suck.

BUT when it does open, guess what? ASIA is going to play in the ASIA expansion. I am so excited. I haven’t seen ASIA in 20 years. I wonder if they are going to play “Video Killed the Radio Star” again that was awesome. Or play “Heat of the Moment” twice. That was also awesome.

I cannot find a link to the news article I read about this, though. Bad SEO what with Asia and Asia also shit maybe that was fake news. Let’s hope not.

Jane’s root canal part 1 was pushed back because the Endodontist was “waiting on a laughing gas order.” Never heard that before. Also it’s weird how dentists refer to Nitrous Oxide as laughing gas. I can think of no other medical situation where they do this. Imagine you’ve severed your leg and you’re in the hospital and they’re like “we are going to give you 2 MG of Dragon’s Breath.” Weird.

Unfortunately I re-scheduled her procudure to the same day as the SCHOOL FUN RUN though, so now I gotta reschedule it again, which I don’t LOVE to do with all this infection in her mouth. Ugh.

Yesterday Jane got sent to the principal because she drew a picture of poop coming out of a butt during a group exercise and the teacher told her to draw something more school appropriate and she, well, she did at school, for the first time it seems, what she does to us like… three or four times a week. Dug her feet in, said no, refused, told them to leaver her alone then shut up and stopped talking or moving. Teacher and principal both wrote this long detailed explanation of events to us.

And like five things go mine and Emma’s minds at once while we are eating our lunch:

1. Chill out. Poop from butts is human and kinda funny

2. They really played that wrong, shoulda complimented her and laughed and “yes anded” her boy you could see that one coming from a mile away

3. Poor Jane was so tired from her knees hurting and not getting enough sleep but at least now she will understand the value of sleep

4. It’s so weird these people have not seen this thing before that she does all the time

5. But also it suuuuucks when she does that, so I am sympathetic.

No point telling them all of that, so we focus on #3, and they are relieved to hear there is a reason for it. So last night we gave her a melatonin to make sure she got plenty of sleep. We do not like to do this, but… yeah she was super sleep deprived. This knees thing sucks. Mild hypermobility, the doctors say. Emma has it too. Hard to sleep when you’re in pain.

We talked about it a bit at dinner and this morning. She has apologized to the teacher, will do it again. She knows she fucked up. Honestly she is handling it very well.

PARENTING.

Nice to have someone else experience what we go through so often though lol. Boy they seemed shaken!

Oh shit well I have no playlists for you because I have only been listening to Joy Division live recordings for like two days now and have not watched any Youtube music vidoes in the last few days.

Oh right I did watch this great CHVRCHES concert from the other day though. I liked Lauren’s solo stuff but I am a bit Aerogramme fan so I like the sound of CHVRCHES a lot more. Seeing Lauren with blonde hair is real weird though. But I do hope they tour. I have never seen them! They are too young, I suspect, for them to merit a place on my “allowed to travel for” list, but it would be nice if… something worked out.

Okay I gotta go. Meeting the gas generator people over at Chore House to get some maintenance on it and get it back on a maintenance plan so when the world ends I can live an extra day or two before the nutjobs kill me and steal my house.

Until tomorrow!