friday random elevenish: “thirty-one days” edition
Starting this one out on a positive note, on Saturday, the Humdingers won “Best Performer” in this year’s Pegasus Awards (essentially the Grammys™ for “filk” music). It’s a big deal, and the fact that I’m a piece of that win feels good.
Now, to the rest of it, which is mostly awful bullshit:
Not a lot of new, concrete news on the obvious front; all kinds of gossip, walking back of gossip, the first mentions of the so-called “nuclear option” (which I think is how this is eventually all going to end), but mostly all sides digging in (in this link’s case, for what I think are the right reasons, but alas…). There are a few checkpoints coming up in the next week; the non-subsidized ACA premiums becoming visible, SNAP funding expiring (in spite of that emergency fund right there and way more complicated and less legally clear things getting funded), and of course, election day 2025 coming up on Tuesday, with governor’s races in New Jersey and here in Virginia, all of which could change the political calculus of this thing, but I honestly don’t expect much.
In the meantime, I sit here at home on a Friday morning waiting for management to send over a second furlough notice, because the first one expired.
Practically, I’ll be okay short-term, given the financial deck-chair rearranging I’ve managed the last week or two; it took working through a couple of options, but it’s now all but sorted, and might even work out for the better long-term assuming they don’t undo this piece of legislation passed after last time.
But, given the uncertainty of all this, I’m spending almost nothing, scheduling bill-paying carefully, thank thanking $diety that I’ve got some savings and there are a handful of secondary income streams to absorb some of the shock
Otherwise, it’s Halloween, and it can be taken as read that I didn’t go out and buy any candy and my porch light will be off this evening; I just don’t have the energy.
I also don’t really have anything on the agenda for the weekend; some friends have offered to put a drink or two in our hands at a small get-together, but we’ll see how that shakes out. Again, the silverware drawer is kind of empty
Today’s tunes come from the playlist I’d pump through the P.A. between sets during bar gigs, which I haven’t had a use for in a while, because, well, I haven’t had any bar gigs in what feels like forever; largely because all the bars I used to play don’t exist anymore. There’s some really good stuff on there, though: little indie bands I saw in the 90s, friends’ tunes, and other stuff I’ve always thought was cool, most of it from that era when I was in my twenties and the world seemed like it had possibilities. That was nice:
- “I Will Dare” – The Replacement
- “My Dad Is Rich” – Draco and the Malfoys
- “Grey Cell Green” – Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
- “Bouncing Around The Room” – Phish
- “Cheshire Kitten (We’re All Mad Here)” – S.J. Tucker
- “Friday Night 1988” – Mikey Mason
- “Meownir” – Madison Metricula Roberts
- “8 Miles Down” – Big Back Forty
- “Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now)” – Cracker
- “Feed The Tree” – Belly
- “Girlfriend” – Matthew Sweet
- “Endless Summer” – Superchunk
- “32 Flavors” – Ani DiFranco
- “Hey Pretty” – Poe
