original future
disgust retro
a few things:
leah and i bought a house in cincinnati
my job is still stupid
leah and i are going to italy in august
i spend a good amount of time doing uncle things
we have 0 money
we don’t know what colors to paint our walls
we have no furniture
two things i’ve posted on facebook recently:
idk what it is that makes people lose connection with their younger selves. i feel so in touch with who i was when i was a child and a teenager that it's totally foreign to me when people talk about teenagers as if they never were one, or as if they never knew any.
like when i was a teenager i was the classic suburban rebel, minus drugs and alcohol. i would meet up with my friends and smoke wood tip black and milds. i would drive way too fast through residential areas. i would pick up my friends late at night blasting music. i would sneak onto golf courses and destroy the practice putting green. many times i went out and spray painted random shit with complete nonsense.
it was joyful for us. my friends and i felt stifled and upset by living in a shitty republican suburb and we were all bored as well with a very small amount of money and no responsibilities. we did all sorts of stupid, destructive, funny shit and we felt nothing but ebullience in doing it. the times in my life when i have laughed the hardest are the times when i was doing something dumb like TPing someone's house and they came outside midway through and my buddies and i just took off running into the woods.
so sometimes i'll see a news story like "high schooler does stupid thing" or "boy in trouble for destruction" and people are in the comments like "why would anyone do such a thing?" and i'm over here like "if i had thought of that when i was their age i'd be in the newspaper too."
i know that not everyone was like that in high school but at the same time it is insane to me to not be able to understand what makes a bored child do weird and funny shit.
and
look the fact of the matter is that nothing in this world is designed for you in particular unless you go out of you way to make sure it is. not the clothes you were or the furniture you buy or the computer you use.
and this is a painful fact. things ought to conform to their user. your clothing would be more comfortable, longer lasting, and better looking if it was designed for your measurements. your house would be more expressive, more comfortable, and more durable if it was designed for your uses. your computer would be more ergonomic, faster, and more pleasant to use if it was customized to your liking.
but there is an upside: everything can be customized at any stage. you can change your clothing however you like, your furniture can be worked on and reshaped and redesigned, and your computer can be customized to an incredible level of granularity.
and especially for your computer, you can make it look and feel and function however you want. you can configure hotkeys and macros so you never need to take your hands off the keyboard. you can change every color, every button, every border, every background to your liking. not only will it make using your computer more efficient, it will bring you a greater understanding of what it is that you're interacting with.
and that last part is true for all customization work: when you begin the journey of understanding exactly how the things in your life fit together, you grant yourself a much deeper level of insight into them, and it's impossible to overstate how valuable that is.
i read a few books recently. i got about 50% of the way through 2666 and fell off. i need to finish it. impeccable writing with great flavor to it. bolano was supremely talented.
i read the poppy war by r.f kuang and it was okay. i started the dragon republic and it was terrible so i didn’t finish it. i don’t plan on reading the last one either. the poppy war leans hard into a lot of fantasy tropes that i think it would have been better off without. the historical allegories leave a lot to be desired and left a bad taste in my mouth. the writing style is for the most part fine, but dips into being horrible with enough regularity to destroy any interest i could generate during the good times.
i read it’s okay not to share by heather shumaker. it was okay. a lot of the book is shumaker providing situations that you’ll encounter as a parent and then advice on how to handle that. i don’t find that type of writing useful or enjoyable (i am neither a parent nor interested in parenting techniques as such). there were some moments when shumaker edges more towards pedagogical ideas and the teleology of parenting, and those moments are interesting but not new to anyone who is familiar with pedagogy. i think for parents who are not well versed in breaking rules or who have not spent much time investigating what they believe to be “good” parenting, this book could provide some very important lessons. for others, this book will seem like an author stating the obvious over and over for 200 pages.
some things i am in the market for:
rookwood pottery vases
leah and i have spent a lot of time looking at Rookwood Pottery pieces lately. we went to the factory and have visited the art museum many times and we’ve spent a good bit of time in local antique malls looking at Rookwood pottery pieces. they’re very beautiful. hopefully soon i will be able to get some vases and maybe some tiles as well.
audio equipment
i am in the market for some speakers. i am planning on putting a set of small bookshelf speakers in our living room, like the Focal Theva No.1 or similar. i have jamo no. 7s in my office at the moment but they’re slightly too big for the shelving we have up. i could of course upsize the shelving but i would like to get some nicer speakers for our living room anyway.
i plan on picking up a turntable like an AT-LP5X or similar.
furniture
we need a sofa. i have been looking at things that are obscenely expensive so i am trying to tone it down. i’ve been looking at these Jitona 1970s living room sets and they’re cute. i’ve also been looking at these low armed chaise sofas.
we need a dining room table. i’ve been looking at a vintage travertine table from a local mcm store. overall leah and i like ovular tables with bases that do not block our feet when we want to giggle and kick our feet
we need a bed frame. we’ve been looking at silk & snow and haiku but they’re pricier than i feel like spending for something so normal so idk
we need dining room chairs. i hate dining room chairs. caitrin just got some beautiful ones with ratan backing, which is a style leah absolutely adores, so we’re on the prowl for s/t similar
kitchen shit
espresso machine
grinder
knives
cutlery
cutting board
serving platters
plates
bowls
tupperware
etc. we’re lacking in kitchenware bc we haven’t invested in the past so all of the stuff we own is like temporary type shit
limewash paint
leah and i have been looking at Portola and Color Atelier for limewash paints. we’ve chosen a couple colors but we need more money before we commit, and we want to have a better vision for our overall design goals before we start spending money on shit that can be both hard to reverse and very distinct.
i’ve been feeling good lately. stressed quite a bit. my stress level has been taking a toll on my life. moving into a house has been hard bc it feels like there’s nowhere to relax. like the house is stressing me out so at the end of the day when i’ve been stressed all day bc of work i come home and it’s not comforting at all. all our shit is random places and the rooms aren’t set up well and there’s clutter everywhere and we only have like 2 dishes so every time i want to eat something i have to wash a dish. so it is difficult to find respite from this stress. however, it’s getting better as we work on the house. and taking edibles helps. and spending time with leah is never stressful and always very fun and easy.
if we had like $10k in cash right now things would be a lot easier because we could furnish our rooms and replace our water heater and our electrical box and finish painting our rooms. but instead it’s going to take 3 or 4 months to do all of those things. it’s hard to prioritize and annoying that none of them are done but they will be done in due time.
leah and i went to my friend rob’s wedding the other day. we saw some people i haven’t seen in a long time, like alex and dan. seeing alex was a treat. he is fun and earnest and very cute. seeing dan again was refreshing because we’ve progressed in our lives down relatively convergent routes. we like similar music and get our music from similar sources and we have similar politics and like similar designers. he’s a great conversationalist and he gave me an invite to [redacted] and sent me some music recommendations.
i’d like to start focusing on some hobbies in a more fun way again. so that’s my goal for the summer: do fun things
here’s a playlist of stuff i’ve been listening to. some old some new. no theme here and frankly the playlist is kind of hard to listen to, but maybe you’ll enjoy it:
Dennis Kamakahi - Moanalua [vocal]
Marika Hackman - Please Don’t Be So Kind
E-40 - Tanji II
Discharge - The Final Blood Bath
Da Unda Dogg - Beware
Eminem - Open Mic
MF Doom & MF Grimm - Break 'Em Off
Dido - Thank You
Dr. Lonnie Smith - Peace & Love
Skee Mask - BB Care
Cookin Soul & Tha God Fahim - Get Ur Weight Up
Cymande - For Baby Ooh
Leith Ross - I Just Don't Think That You Like Me That Much Anymore
Rjd2 - Apocalpyse March
Earl Sweatshirt; The Alchemist; - Free the Ruler
Jungle - Palm Trees
NxWorries - KeepHer (feat. Thundercat)
download: https://mega.nz/folder/SIdklIbQ#y8beI2PN0YaHrpYFSj6eRw
youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4bUgvWbrZGJxAxRJgoCBFhdhu8M9gwYe