A big chunk of my weekend involved actually getting some miles under me, and took me, for the first time in a few months, out of my typical 25 mile radius of my living room. It was, at least, novel, even if it consisted primarily of pandemic theater, manual labor, and a sore ass.

Addressing the title, first the 30; That’s about how many miles I biked this weekend; as is my habit. fifteen miles on the Capital Trail each on Saturday and Sunday mornings. As I say, it’s my happy place, my therapy, and my time for me. Worked the muscles, breathed the fresh air safely distanced from everybody, and encountering some of the local wildlife, including a mother turkey and her six chicks (which I’m informed are called poults, which was new to me) out for a walk along a spur trail between markers 42 and 43, which was kind of neat.

As for the rest, much of that was hauling the eldest’s huge pile of posessions out west to install in her apartment lodgings for the fall semester. It’s a long, dull drive, regardless of the route, not easy on the behind or calves, especially when giving up leg room to boxes of stuff. The campus itself is trying its best to address pandemic conditions, though a lot of it, like the temperature checks and waiver signing at the gate, is mostly theater. We remained masked, and heaved all kinds of stuff up stairs, and got the stuff inside and the emotional support fish set up well within our assigned move-in window and left the kid to arrange her gear at her leisure.

As a reward for our efforts, the lovely spouse and I took a small detour on the way home to enjoy a beer and the delicious food from The Return of the Mac food truck on the patio at Steam Bell, who does a pretty good job of making sure that proper pandemic guidelines are followed (as do all the breweries in town, really – it’s a refreshing change from regular retail establishments), and doesn’t tweak our virus anxiety.

Apart from my ride on Sunday morning, we spent much of the rest of the day working to get the back room in order to once again be the sewing and music space rather than the kid’s crash space, which was more work than we would have liked, as the kid is not, shall we say, particularly fastidious about cleanliness. This adventure also involved a trip out to several of those above-lamented retail establishments to obtain some gear for storage, and running all over creation to find a cheap curtain rod to fit the window (apparently curtain rods in the 36 inch range are the new toilet paper), which I finally found, not particularly cheap, at the hardware store.

I also did all that shopping while wearing my Elizabeth Warren campaign t-shirt, which isn’t necessarily the wisest or safest thing to do in a southern Walmart on the edge of the suburbs. Nevertheless, I persisted, and survived (probably helps I’m a tall 200+ pound man), receiving only a few dirty looks, and couple of surreptitious thumbs-up and whispers of “I love your shirt.” I like to think I validated a few people’s closely held politics in this pocket of conservatism. Also, I’m kind of a jerk like that sometimes; if these conservative asshole types can flagrantly not wear masks (or wear them incorrectly) as a political statement, they can look at my damned t-shirt advocating for candidates with progressive policies and social welfare.

Mostly the usual on tap for the coming week; work, bike, and spend some time getting my studio space back up, as I’m supposed to record my set for virtual Dragoncon one evening this week (I guess I should decide what songs I’m going to play, huh?) and maybe hash through some plans for a project I’m due to work on with a friend.

Oh – we watched the 2015 “Jem and the Holograms” film on Netflix on Friday night; we have opinions. It wasn’t “bad”, per se, just kind of bland, but it made some odd directorial choices that didn’t work (like editing in social media videos of random people to try and set tone), and kind of got lost trying to find it’s audience. It obviously wanted to court the youth market, but the only people at all familiar with this property are greying Xers who watched it on weekday afternoon latchkey tv. They put in nods to the trappings of the show (quoting theme lyrics in dialogue, general character looks, etc), but mostly, what they ended up was kind of a rehash of the Josie and the Pussycats” movie without all the campy self-awareness, and didn’t start hitting the fun, weird crazy stuff until the end, setting up for a sequel that will never happen, as it only grossed $2.3 million at the box office on a paltry $5 million dollar budget.

The Misfits’ songs were better, anyway.

It’s been a week; certainly. Glad to see it mostly behind me.

There actually hasn’t been all that much to report since the storm kinda fizzled earlier this week. Been just rainy and humid enough to scuttle most of the bike riding, but I spent a couple of nice enough afternoons hiking a local park, resting the cycling muscles a bit (which are kind of strained) and working the other kind, just for variety. Changing things up a little can be refreshing, I guess, or at least novel.

Been pretty typical otherwise, really. My body has consistently been waking me up around 5am, so that’s when I start working, which gets me done a little earlier in the afternoon. I can send emails pulling strings to shake program bits loose any time; might as well get myself a shot at taking advantage of a few more hours of daylight if the option’s there.

Beyond that, I’ve spent a little time with my books, watched a couple of movies, watched the headlines in abject horror, and had a couple of beers to numb the pain into a vague sort of ennui.

For the weekend, there’s some car time in the mix moving some things from one place to another, but otherwise, it should be typical as well. Looking forward to snagging some more fresh melon at the farmer’s market on Saturday morning, because I’ve finished all that I had. Perfect breakfast, that.

In any case…tunes. That first one there’s a welcome one; I wore that cassette out in high school; killer riff. As for the rest, the spotify algorithms seem to think I need some noiserock shoegaze in my life, along with some decent power pop. It does kind of speak to me in terms of next-level mixing ideas for future recordings, assuming I don’t just pay the kid’s paramour to do it, because there’s some serious studio wizardry working in that brain.

Also, the song called out in the title? It’s a pretty decent punk tune, but maybe little on the nose:

1. “Decadence Dance” – Extreme
2. “Bird is Bored of Flying” – Mastersystem
3. “Future Mixtape for the Art Kids” – Beach Slang
4. “Fake Plastic Trees” – Trampled By Turtles
5. “Kimmy” – Antarctigo Vespucci
6. “Asshole Pandemic” – Pkew Pkew Pkew
7. “I Think We’re Alone Now” – Billie Joe Armstrong
8. “Wasted on the Senate Floor” – Emperor X
9. “Take on Me” – Cap’n Jazz
10. “Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues” – McClusky
11. “Sick Jam” – Chris Fleming
12. “It’s Catchin Up” – Nomeansno
13. “More Than Love” – The Prize Fighter Inferno

Oh yeah, it’s another Bandcamp Friday, so if you were holding out on picking up my record, World’s Okayest…, today would be a good day, as they’re waiving fees, so I (and any other artist you’d care to support) get all the money from the sale. Just sayin’.

As I type this Isaias is working it’s way up the East Coast, and is likely to drop 4-6 inches of rain all over us here in the center of the Commonwealth, and a bit more on my friends to the East, as well as all the states north and south. Yay.

Rain’s been coming down since 8pm or so Monday night, nothing too bad so far, though the power was out for a few hours in the evening. As I type this Tuesday morning, it’s likely to be heavy through the afternoon, with high winds, thunder and lightning, and all the good stuff we get this time of year when named storms decide to roll up the coast.

I got several automated calls from the office last night (this is the benefit of certain public sector jobs; we have our own emergency broadcast system) about the general event, as well as a “facility is on a two hour delay, don’t show up early” message, although that barely applies because almost all of us are teleworking anyway because of the ‘rona.

Such is life. Why not dump a tropical storm on us along with everything else? What’s one more thing? Bring it on, as they say. All I ask of the universe is that if it sees fit to knock down a tree on my house, do it in a way that gets me a new roof with minimal other property damage, okay?

I fully expect work to be spotty today, given the storm situation, with the predicted intermittent power outages, and inconsistent phone and internet services. I haven’t cancelled my weekly staff with my team yet, but it’s probably going to happen. But, since I’ve been up since five am because I’m weird like that, I’ve already gotten the “must-haves” done for the day.

To close this on a lighter note (rather than the current semi-sarcastic tone), after I worked yesterday, the youngest and I went out to a not-quite-as-local-as-usual park (because my closest local trail is closed for two weeks for renovations/improvements) and hiked three miles or so in the woods counting squirrels. On our drive back, we were listening to The More Perfect Union, a political podcast my friend DJ is a part of, and they were, as one would expect, talking about Biden’s potential VP pick, including a significant segment about Congresswoman Karen Bass, who’s been the “dark horse” pick by the media this week. While this was going on, the kid asked:

“Isn’t she the one who killed her husband?”

Which proves, I guess, that Netflix is really in charge, right Cats and Kittens?

Apparently I pushed myself very hard this weekend in terms of physical activity. I did almost 70 miles on the bike over 4 days this week/weekend. Felt really good while I was doing it. I woke up Sunday morning unable to move without wincing.

I am not 20 anymore; I’m in better baseline physical health at almost 46 than I was back then, but I simply don’t bounce back as fast, and I’d be lying if I didn’t resent it a little bit.

My lovely spouse (who deserves better than a wreck like me for any number of reasons) advises me of the need to rest/recover after exercise, and she’s right (and I do take at least one out of every 4 days off), but as I’ve said in this space before, my time traversing the trails is really the only time I truly get that’s really mine, which is important to me, especially in this time when my house is constantly full of all sorts of other people and pets for whom I am responsible to in various capacities. My mental health, which, frankly, is less solid right now, needs that time to stave off both the interpersonal frustration and the looming existential dread that’s part and parcel to living in 2020 America, which is, unfortunately, not a great place and time to be.

Sunday was not a good day; we’ll say that; details aren’t necessary.

I hate being as irritable as I am, and it’s really hard to let go of frustrations that should be fleeting, but by their nature hit me on a visceral personal level, when, frankly, I’m barely hanging on to that elusive “even keel” on the best of 2020 pandemic days.

That’s kind of what it feels like; that I’m barely hanging on to well-adjusted humanity, while the world around me devolves into chaos and incivility (just going out to the store for something and seeing the sheer volume of irresponsibility, selfishness, and lack of care for the collective general welfare is rage-inducing), especially in this society at this point in time, where from the top down, so few are appealing to better angels.

When I get so angry so quickly at what should be small things of relatively little significance (but nonetheless feel ridiculously significant in the moment), I feel like I’m no better than the rest of those unwashed (sorry, that word’s hitting on particular stress point) teeming masses out there in the community doing their level selfish best to exercise “Mah Freedums” at the expense of their responsibility to their fellow humans.

And that just makes me feel worse, because on some deep, base level, a part of me want to say “screw responsibility” and just do whatever the hell feels good, damn the consequences, and when I acknowledge that, I acknowledge that I’m, deep down, I’m pretty terrible myself, and that’s an idea I really am not comfortable with.

I hope you enjoyed this window into the inner life of the upper-middle class white male in the midst of mid-life crisis. Dammit.

So this week…up and down. Could’ve been worse, I guess.

Once I got past the monthly review board at work, things settled down nicely, except that the boss went on surprise paternity leave (kid was a few weeks early), and he didn’t read us into a bunch of things. Hoping he drops us some knowledge one of these days, though I’m not going to bother him. We’ll manage.

It’s been very hot this week, but it hasn’t stopped me from doing almost fifty miles on the trail; looks like Friday is rain, so I’ll have a day off, but I’ll probably still put 25 down this weekend, as is habit.

Otherwise, I’ve just been coasting along, work, bike, read, sleep, repeat. Thursday afternoon I did my usual shopping and stopping by Kroger’s bar for a beer. It was nice. They had Kentucky Christmas Morning on tap; weird in July, but okay…insert retail cliche here. Nothing else, really. It’s life in the age of Corona.

The world’s still hosed, what with 45 surprising absolutely no one by floating the idea of postponing the election; of course, as a former civics teacher, I can tell you that such a thing ain’t happening, but it sucks that he brings it up (in the same week as monumentally shitty, worst in modern history GDP numbers and with Doctor Demon Seed, no less), especially given that Thursday was John Lewis’s funeral. I caught a bit of President Obama’s eulogy on my way to the park after work; I got kind of choked up, remembering how we used to have a charismatic leader who had eloquence and mastery of the English language. Sigh.

Oh well; nothing in particular on tap for the weekend. We’ll get by.

So…tunes. Running off the personal hard drive collection this time, which means that Zappa makes an appearance for the first time in a while, some basic hipster stuff, and twice the Cranberries. Cool. Coolcoolcool.

1. “Cosmik Debris” – Frank Zappa
2. “King of Hollywood” – The Eagles
3. “Just My Imagination” – The Cranberries
4. “Just What I Needed” – The Cars
5. “Purple Haze” – Various Artists (Make a Difference Foundation)
6. “Iron Lances” – Valentine Wolfe
7. “When You’re Gone” – The Cranberries
8. “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” – She & Him
9. “Less Than Useful” – Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
10. “Reminder” – Mumford & Sons
11. “Want Some, Need Some” – Poison
12. “Swingin’ Party” – The Replacements

Odds are, if you’re reading this, you’re sitting in the United States, so what’s going on around us right now, whatever your political stripe, has become somewhat normalized to you, even as abnormal as it seems.

Thing is, there are a lot more people outside our borders than there inside them; it’s important, as a citizen of the world, to understand their perspectives on things as well.

The New York Times (don’t you dare say fake news; it’s unseemly) published this video recently, getting reaction to conditions on the ground here in the United States from citizens of other countries, from Senegal to Germany to New Zealand and everywhere in between. Just watch it; give yourself seven minutes or so to watch this video (and whatever ad they throw; it’s worth it), without distraction, and get a vision of how the rest of the world sees what we’re doing, or more accurately, not doing. You’ll also likely see some images you *haven’t* seen in U.S. Media, but rest assured, it’s on the level.

“American Exceptionalism” is certainly a thing. It’s just not necessarily what you thought it was.

That really about sums up my outlook at the moment.

I’d much rather be positive, of course, and I try to make that choice as often as I can, but so far this week, I’ve had a hard time summoning energy to be productive, and am honestly relying on inertia and sufficiently distant deadlines to keep the wheels turning.

It’s hot, humid, and full of allergens out there (though I keep biking because physical health, endorphins, and also because it’s one of the only ways I can get an hour entirely to myself without anyone else’s demands on me), and there’s just too much life-mass (does that make sense?) in here, between the people and the cats, and for at least eight hours a day, I’m tethered to the office via internet pipe that mostly works, except when the damned systems I need go down.

I can’t get comfortable anywhere, and it’s starting to wear on me, which means it’s wearing on them too, and thus, the cycle feeds itself.

Sure, physics says that a perpetual motion machine isn’t possible; maybe they should talk to the psychologists and just get it done.

I wish I had better news, or a better outlook. I’m trying; I truly am, but it’s really tough going.

I know that this is a historical, once-in-a-century fustercluck we have going on here in the world right now, especially since idiots in charge are bored and much of the rest can’t be bothered to care about the larger community because they’re selfish contrarians. When the world outside my window looks like this, it’s just hard to be optimistic.

Can’t really put it any other way. Not that there wasn’t some good (my tunes hit spotify, got some good biking done, etc), but largely, it was a hot, stressful slog that I struggled to push myself through. It is, however, Friday, and I’m going to keep plugging on the best I can, hoping that things stay as low-key as my work calendar currently indicates.

Not going to speculate on weekend activities; gonna keep it loose. There’s some stuff happening on my periphery, but as far as I can tell, I don’t have any direct responsibilities beyond the mundane, and that’s fine. I had entirely too much responsibility this week for my liking.

I can point to my friend DJ’s new record You’re Not Cleared For This, which dropped last night, and I contributed a couple of guitar tracks to and offered some mixing advice (such as my experience would allow) on. There’s some really cool stuff here. Go take a listen (I love “Star Fleet Program Manager”).

Anyway – tunes. I’d been listening to some atypical stuff the last couple of weeks, digging into some low-key instrumental electronic music for background, for example, and it’s showing in my “Discover Weekly” playlist. Lots of stuff that’s new to me, an old favorite or two to raise pleasant memories, and more than one’s daily allowance of bands with names canonically in ALL CAPS:

1. “Vagrants of Venice” – David Crosby
2. “Day Tripper” – YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA
3. “The Conversation” – SACRED PAWS
4. “Stolen Car” – Beth Orton
5. “More Time” – Eileen Gogan and The Instructions
6. “If I Only Had A Brain” – MC 900 Ft Jesus
7. “Lost in the Supermarket” – The Clash
8. “What Presence?!” – Orange Juice
9. “Armageddon Days (Are Here Again)” – The The
10. “Tom Collins” – The Sloppy Boys
11. “Chewbacca” – Supernova Chile
12. “The Witch of the Westmorland” – Stan Rogers

warning: little bit o’ self-pity driven by anxiety here…

It’s Thursday, fill the appropriate HGTTG quote here, because damn, if it isn’t applicable. Not sure why, other than the fact that I’m going to be stuck on the phone for a meeting-before-the-meeting that’s scheduled for two hours, but has 19 things on the agenda to get reviewed, and my two items are dead last, but if it was only that, I’d not be in the doldrums where I’m finding myself.

Honestly, it’s probably just one of those days where one struggles to find motivation, and the balance of neurotransmitters is just *off* for whatever reason. I’ll muddle through, I always do, because responsible adult and goddamn professional, but it’s going to be a bit of a slog.

So be it; cest la vie, it is what it is, oh well.

Let’s do this thing.

So, folks, as of checking in this morning, my record, World’s Okayest… is now streaming on Spotify! I’d still love if you bought the thing, of course, but I’m happy for folks to just hear the stuff, to be honest (plus, I get like a fraction of a cent if you play one of my tracks, but it adds up).

You can, of course, just search for me, but if simplicity’s your bag, click here to get directly to my artist profile.

The fact that I’m now out there, as well as on pretty much any streaming service you care to use, makes me feel like a kind of professional and stuff – it’s cool.