Good morning good… right well, it’s 7:30 at night. Sorry about that.

The thing is, during CHORE WEEK, it’s been very hard to, like, sit down at the computer and do my writing first thing in the morning, because after I drop Jane off at school, and then stop at whatever dumb hardware store I need to stop at, then come home and write and check all my work emails and vitals and bank balances for both jobs, well, shit, it’s almost 11. So today I chose to just jump right into chores, figured I’d write you guys during Emma’s portion of bedtime. Not like my Youtube shows have anything good and new on weekdays anyway.

Hey thanks for all your kind words about dreams. You guys have some hella dreams it is nuts. My friend Meghan told me she feels her bad ones as intensely as I do, that was reassuring. You’ll all be happy to know that last night’s dreams were great. Sorta a slacker affair, sitting around a house with some friends talking about socialism and politics and shit while drinking beers. Real nice time, even if a few of my dream friends seem to be tankies.

Chores, man. I am mentally adjusting. No way in hell I am going to come close to getting everything done that I wanted to get done. I have accepted that. Last CHORE WEEK, two years ago, I set out to finish one chore — repaneling that 3-season room in the Somerville apartment. This time I had EIGHT major chores, a dozen small ones, and I hoped to spend four solid days working on the studio. HAHAHAHA god. Who was I kidding. Now I have decided if I can get four specific things done, I’ll be happy. If I can get this fifth thing done, even better.

What’s that? have I finished any of those five? Well, no, not yet. That’s the other thing I have given up on. Remember that swell calendar I showed you of which chores each day? Out the window. Every day I work on two or three different chores, trying to get them as far along as I can before the next road block. That’s what I always love about my weekend chores: I do what is best done right then, answering to no one and no to do list. I was missing that with Chore Week. I am bringing it back. It is helping.

Constant flexibility is key. Switching it up as your brain and circumstances warrant.

And, of course, ENJOYING MYSELF. I was making myself sad and neurotic and depressed. Oh wait no that was politics. But I wasn’t helping. So today and yesterday, I’ve just tried to enjoy myself as I’m working on them.

It is working. This might actually have the makings of a decent vacation if I can keep this up.

My brain, my brain.

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 to the new Fontaines DC today, Dopamine Chamber, and it is as good as, if not better, than everyone says. I mean, I have all four of their albums before this new one. And I am shocked at how good this new one is. They just keep getting better. I have probably starred every track on this freakin thing.

I have not, however, actually purchased a copy yet. I should rectify that. Let’s take a look here on Discogs. Twenty different versions of the release. Eleven on vinyl. Oh wow only two US vinyl editions that is positively reasonable. Red Nebula limited edition or Blue vinyl alternate cover. Oh wait Rough Trade has a reasonably priced blue vinyl, original cover. I’ll go with that one. Done. Bob’s your uncle.

Been a real nice pile of records piling up for after chore week. Excited to get back to vinyl next week. We have records by Bedhead, Swans, Suss, Ex:Re, YHWH Nailgun, Virgin Prunes, The Cure and Cranes. Very exciting.

So Dens, former CEO and co-founder of Foursquare, wrote about the company’s sale and referenced my old blog post. Very sad. Reminds me of the long essay I wrote when their previous app, Dodgeball, went extinct. I don’t write long tech essays anymore, alas, for better or worse. Well, we talked about that yesterday. Being a pundit is a road to ruin.

But Dens is no pundit, he is writing from he heart.

It is not clear to me, despite different pronunciations, why I believe “conduit” and “pundit” should be spelled similarly.

Living out in the woods of North Carolina has made me much less of a Swarm user, but hoo boy did I use the shit out of it back in the day. Made a lot of friends on it. Made a lot of friends who worked there. The whole thing kind of sucks, really.

But I guess this is the internet these days. All good things must die.

I dunno, man. The internet is still okay. You know, it’s funny. Back in the day we were all worried about someone coming along and killing the internet. But the thing is: we thought it was going to be governments or, like, “boring old people” who were going to kill the internet. Or bankers. yeah, we were really worried about bankers.

Turns out the call was coming from inside the building.

The people who did the most to kill the good parts of the internet were the tech bros.

But you guys are good, though. I love you all.

Small, non-Nazi-sympathizing, simple newsletter software like Buttondown is good, too. Thank you, Buttondown.

And, I have to admit, so far, that asshole Benihoff hasn’t managed to kill Slack off. I like our little GMHHAY Slack community. Sure, he’s trying to stuff AI down our throat, but it’s still a decent app, it’s still free, and Slack isn’t, like, trying to overturn governments or anything. A rarity these days in your SaaS software.

Jane and I were sitting at Taco Bell this evening after Gymnastics and we decided to look at Instagram “like mommy,” and a story by the Haw River Ballroom came up, and it was showing the Linda Lindas show we were at, and I said “oh hey maybe they’ll show you.” AND GUESS WHAT:

(Do reels embed in Buttondown? Well, no, I guess not. That’s fine. Here’s a screenshot:)

They got Jane and her friend dancing!

I feel vindicated after that traumatizing incident with the NYT photographer at Daisy Chain Fields that took Jane’s picture and didn’t put it in the times.

She will be a rock influencer yet.

Hey if you want a sticker for voting, my friend Allison made a site that sends you an I Voted sticker. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. You tell her you voted, she sends you a sticker. You gotta pinky promise. No data harvesting, nothing. You just get a sticker. Cmon man, that is a great deal. A good thing on the internet still.

Before, like, Elon sues her into oblivion or something like somoene tried to do with Pizza to the Polls.

Anyway, back to CHORE WEEK. I have been working on IT chores at my home. I have been working on: 1) restoring ethernet to the turtle dock camera so Emma can look at the turtles, 2) getting fiber up to the attic, 3) getting the playset AP working again, and 4) ummm I forget what four is. Oh right. Getting an AP on the dock so I can sit on the dock while I do my Important Adult Business Calls like I have wanted to do since we moved here eleven years ago. I am 100% done with #3 and about 80% done with the rest. But I’m hoping to finish the other three tomorrow, so I can get back to Chore House and finish up the drip on the greenhouse, get two cameras going on the parking area for the Neurodivergent-Affirming Pediatric Speech and Occupational Therapists, and paint a couple boards on their walkway. I had hoped to also get mulch and gravel down but that is definitely not happening anymore.

I cannot convey to you what an ordeal these chores have been. Setback after setback. I have made seven trips to the hardware store in three days. I’ve gotten to know the cashier so well. She lived in Barrow for five years! We can call it Barrow because it was before the city changed its name to Utqiagvik. Cities are not like trans people you can call them by their old name after they have transitioned. I just decided this. Anyway, now every time I am in there we shoot the shit about Alaska. It’s a good time.

BUT I finally have a full conduit run from attic to basement. LOOK at this thing. That is more than 20 feet up. The ladder is only 16 feet. I literally swung that assembled conduit into a 3/4” wide hole in the wall fom ten feet below. Insane. I cannot convey to you how difficult that was.

Yes I know it looks ugly but it is behind trees. I’ll take a photo tomorrow of the finished item from the street you won’t even see it you just watch.

I HAVE finished a few other chores this week. I got Philips Hue set up in both houses — mainly cuz I need it in the studio. And I blocked them from talking to China because my god is Philips Hue VERY CHATTY with China on the network.

I paid for our FIRST BILLBOARD for the boat and RV storage facility which should go up tomorrow and will be very exciting.

I got my toilet pedal working again oh yeah I already said that one. Grasping at straws here.

But you just watch. Tomorrow? Tomorrow’s gonna ROCK.

Jane has been good these last two days. For reasons I will get into next week, I’ve been on a KLF kick, so I taught Jane about the KLF today and she approved “Justified and Ancient” and “3AM Eternal” for Daddy-Jane Playlist inclusion, very exciting. She is very disappointed in Drummond and Cauty for burning a million pounds she does not thing that was a good idea they could have used that money to save kitties. By necessity, she also learned about Tammy Wynette, so that was good.

Emma was doing some stuff with Grammy this evening so I took Jane to gymnastics and dinner solo. It was very nice. Lots of good talks about whether I think I’ve had a good life. What happiness is. Would you rather be cool or awesome. Would you rather be awesome or weird. Do you think you were happier as a kid? The real stuff I signed up for when I took this parenting gig. A+ no complaints.

Looks like no playlist for you today. I was texting with my old friend Craig about Tin Machine the other day, like you do. Running joke between Craig and I for, oh, 20 years now. And he sent this video. So I guess I will send it to you.

Tin Machine was so underrated.

Until tomorrow, fine friends.