June 30

The year is half over. You measure time far more acutely as you age. You become so much more aware of its value and how it is fleeting. You just do not know how many more years, months, or days you have left and it is terrifying. It gets you both ways - you think a lot about the time you have squandered - almost FIFTY YEARS, while knowing you may have another thirty or forty or you may have two. Will you spend your golden years hale and hearty, or attached to an IV drip as cancer eats your insides? Will you live to see our nation become more just or will you drop dead while Donald Fucking Trump is President? Will you get to enjoy a retirement you are assiduously planning for or will some random driver speed through a red light and kill you? Andy said in Shakshank that you have to get busy living or get busy dying but what happens when you feel caught between?

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June 29

I just watched the first two episodes of Euphoria. It is ... a lot. The teen experience is well-mined ground, all the way back to Rebel Without A Cause but in the online-all-the-time world we live in, the blend of sex, drugs, and violence is disturbing (even though most research shows teens are doing less of the first two than prior generations). The lead actress, Zendaya, is excellent. To carry a show like this you have to have the balance of pathos, sympathy, and charisma that she possesses. She is a drug addict who can lie with a smile on her face, is manipulative, and makes a lot of really bad decisions, but you still root for her. 

The touchstones of online dating, porn, and text messaging are not so much blended into the story as the atmosphere. In an earlier time, throwing a party while your parents were out of town might result in some fuzzy memories and memorable stories, but now, it is captured, catalogued, and shared with the world in all its out-of-context unfairness and risk of shame and discovery. To be sure, some of the characters are cliched - the hyper-aggressive high school quarterback, the white-but-talks-black drug dealer, and every adult over the age of 40, who is invariably naive, clueless, or hiding deeply disturbing secrets (the father of one character is a serial philanderer, sexual dominant, and closeted bi-sexual - like I said, it's A LOT). 

I am absorbing it in all its insanity (and occasional inanity). Youth culture was the defining time in my life; I am here for seeing its progeny expressed in a raw, extreme, and challenging way. I think James Dean would approve.

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June 28

The Democrats just had two nights of debates. I admit, I got more sucked in than I expected to. The reality is that most of what happened will be forgotten by the weekend. The after-action reporting was predictable superficial, who "won" and who "lost" and the questions were equally bad. I keep having to remind myself that most of what we see on TV is not there to inform us, it is to entertain us in order to keep the advertising dollars flowing. It is not to say there is not some decent journalism being done, but it is too often buried underneath an avalanche of "analysis" that is really just random people giving opinions that you or I could share too. 

None of that bodes well for next year. It is clear that most reporters *still* have no idea how to handle Trump. My own view has been that if you ignore him, he goes away. If you stop focusing on his Twitter vomit, if you made him explain why it is that the government he leads has failed to cover the 30 million people without health insurance, or address gun violence, or invest more in STEM, he would be exposed for the dope he is, but instead, he just says stupid shit and reporters react to it. 

I have long believed (and data is starting to bear this out) that the American people may have passed a tipping point with him. Like a reality show, he got big "ratings" (attention) at first, but as the novelty has worn off, as he just keeps repeating the same antics over and over, the novelty has worn off, people are tuning him out. Of course, when this happened on the Apprentice, they made a CELEBRITY APPRENTICE to goose ratings, I guess a war or a fake trade "win" is what will replace that now that he's President. Someone who runs on attention can only be defeated if people become indifferent to him. 

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June 26

Tonight, I picked Ghost up to give him a scratch behind his ear and he started licking my arm. I get a little weepy. Cats are not like dogs, they do not typically express themselves and their affection for you like dogs do. You have to earn that affection and it means a great deal. I love him.

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June 25

Ghost was sick yesterday. Poor little guy. He did not want dinner and was acting weird (I did not appreciate how much parental intuition one gets). As it turned out, he barfed down in the basement (which I did not discover at first because I went to the gym after stopping at home after work) but then seemed a little better. It was stressful because P and G are so low maintenance, but by this morning he seemed ok - he ate all his breakfast and had some more water. I checked in with the vet last night and she told me to keep an eye on him and follow-up if things do not improve. I think it passed. Fingers crossed.

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June 23

One upshot of Pumpkin and Ghost's vet checkup was a stern lecture I received that both of my fur balls need to drop some weight. This is a problem mostly of my making, I feed them too much and cave easily if Ghost (it's ALWAYS GHOST) starts meowing over by where they get fed. I put food out and Pumpkin comes bounding in to steal the food Ghost has nudged me to give him, so then I end up feeding them both. The end result is Ghost is 15 pounds and Pumpkin is 13 pounds.

Since Tuesday (when we saw the vet) I have been trying to be better about only feeding them in the morning and at dinner time (around six p.m.) It's been mildly successful (easier to do during the week) but the weekends are tough and Ghost is not happy. I have a hard time saying no and he is persistent, but I am making an effort.

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Neil Young - Tuscaloosa

In a roughly five year period between 1968 and 1973, music poured out of Neil Young’s febrile mind almost faster than he could produce it. He released iconic solo albums like Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Harvest, and After the Gold Rush. He also added the “Y” to CSNY on the brilliant 1970 album Deja Vu. All of this would anticipate a career that was spent dipping in and out of musical genres, always charting his own course, zigging when others zagged.

Young has plumbed his extensive archive for the benefit of a fanbase that now stretches from early Baby Boomers to smart phone-addled millennials. His latest release is Tuscaloosa, recorded with the Stray Gators at the University of Alabama on February 5, 1973.

There is a shaggy dog quality to both the recording and the performance. Although this set was played in a large auditorium it has the feel of a honky tonk. The beginning tracks, which Young performed solo or with acoustic accompaniment by the Gators, have a looser feel than their studio-recorded siblings. Old Man and Heart of Gold mix some of the nascent California-influence of Linda Ronstadt with the Nashville sound Young mastered on his seminal work Harvest while Out on the Weekend has a languid, almost hallucinatory quality. 

The second half of the set is electric. Young shows his no-fucks-to-give attitude by pulling out a searing version of Alabama that hints at his later exploration of guitar feedback and grunge. Other tracks, like Time Fades Away and Don’t Be Denied move the country stomp of Hank Williams and Willie Nelson into electric guitars anchored in a solid backbone of bass and drum. 

Tuscaloosa is another data point indicating Young’s sui generis place in modern music. His interweaving of rock, country, and rhythm and blues is evident throughout this truncated set of music, a must have for fans of this one-of-a-kind musician. 

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June 21

I do not get Bobo. I get being a super fan. I paid money for a Sirius subscription solely because of the Stern Show (ok, it did not hurt that Sirius has a Grateful Dead channel too). When the show started at 6 a.m., I would time my lunch so I could pick up the West Coast feed around the time I got to work. I posted on Stern Fan Network. I get it.

What I do not get is why Bobo subjects himself to daily ridicule from the person he worships. He is mocked. He is made fun of. He is the punchline to jokes about everything from basic grammar to his low IQ. Is being the court jester worth a small dose of fame?

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June 20

The nice thing about getting older is never sleeping through the night. The past few nights have been similar - I am in bed and asleep between 9 pm and 10 pm and wake up sometime between 2 am and 3 am. Instead of falling back to sleep, my brain is able to immediately race through what feel like a hundred different things, from what I have to do at work tomorrow, to what home improvement projects I will need to do 10 years from now if I sell my house. It is really something. At best, I may drift off into a shallow slumber that does not last past 5 am or so because I have two hungry feline mouths to feed who can go from alert and attentive to deep slumber in the blink of an eye.

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June 18

Pumpkin and Ghost did SUCH A GOOD JOB with the vet today. It is stressful for me, but for them, it is a little inconvenience they quickly forgot about. Of course, I had to run the vacuum so Ghost would go down into the basement so I could then corral Pumpkin and get her upstairs and then, go back down to the basement and bring Ghost into one of the bathrooms, where he meowed his head off until the vet was done with him. 

Their check ups were fine, although Ghost is too chunky (my fault). He now weighs 15 pounds (up 1 pound from last year) while Pumpkin held steady at 13 pounds. I think it is more their lack of exercise, but I do feed them too much. Gotta work on that, but at least there won't be any drama for ONE WHOLE YEAR!

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June 17

I really like Big Little Lies. I know I am not the ~ demographic ~ for the show, but it reeks of precisely the type of "prestige" TV that epitomizes stuff white people like. It is beautifully shot, the cast is full of scene-chewing acting heavyweights, and the core of the show is about how lies and secrets erode ourselves and our relationships. Admittedly, the characters can be hard to root for (another signature of prestige TV) they are self-absorbed, wealthy (and in a snobby way), and holding this secret, that one of their own killed a man (a man who routinely abused his wife and raped one of the other main characters, so, you can't say he didn't have it coming). 

As I watch Big I am reminded of why I tend to steer clear of most people - not that life imitates art that directly, but as a general matter, I have found people will elide the truth, or hide it altogether in service of their own wants and needs. It is rare to meet people who will be upfront and honest, and really, who needs all the drama when you can get it on your TV every Sunday night? 

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June 16

Today is Father's Day. My dad died a long time ago and he wasn't much of a father when he was alive. He was abusive, demeaning, and constantly eroding my self-esteem. We were estranged when he died. It left me with a lot of mixed emotions but as time has worn on, I have come to realize how critical his poor parenting was in my own stunted development. When you do not have role models to look up to, when the people who are supposed to love, support, and protect you do not do those things, it is very hard to develop into a properly functioning adult. So, thanks dad!

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June 15

You think it is easy to write a couple of sentences every day and then three days go by and you're like "oops, I totally spaced it." It sounds absurd but some days I cannot carve out five minutes of time to write a random thought or maybe there simply is not a random thought to share. The last couple of days have passed by without much to say. Work is work. The cats are the cats. I worked out a couple of times and that was about it. 

I did have a chat with a friend of mine at work. I was lamenting the fact that I am turning 50 next year. He is close to 60 and basically told me to seize the day and that the older you get, the harder it is  to break out of your routines, which means you have to push yourself harder to do it. Not unlike staying in shape. But here is the thing. I do not want to seize most days. When I do, it exhausts me. Most days, I just want to come home and stare at the television and numb myself to the rest of my life. How do you break *that* habit? It is almost like our own DNA conspires to encourage us to shut down.

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June 12

I found out I am getting a raise. It is a funny thing. I have spent the last year or so trying to get promoted (and failing) so I could earn a salary I will now make without having to do any additional work. I should be happy. It seems like a win/win, but I find myself identifying a lot with the frustrated white collar workers highlighted in David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs. 

I want my work to be meaningful, for there to be some value in it, but most of the time, I feel like a paper pusher or an actor in Kabuki theater, where I and an adversary go through an elaborate, choreographed dance knowing the outcome of the case ahead of time. The nice thing about Bullshit Jobs is in finding out not just that other people feel the same way, but do similar things as I do (tweet, photography/other forms of art) as a creative outlet while also recognizing that for as much as we are unhappy with what we do, the money that comes with it discourages us from making any radical change.

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June 11

It is T-minus one week for P and G's visit with the vet. I am already DREADING the day. They are really hard to manage and have that cat sense of when something is afoot, which makes it more challenging. I am going to try and get them situated well ahead of the house call so they are not all freaked out, we will see how it goes.

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June 10

Recently, New York magazine had a cover story called "This is a Chad." It was about so-called "incels" (involuntarily celibate) men who undergo various types of plastic and reconstructive surgery to look more like a "Chad," which the community uses as slang for a desirable man. It's mostly jawlines and noses, inferiority hoping to be cured by a square jaw or higher cheekbones seems like an incredible waste of money to me - like, go to counseling instead, but that was less the point than my thinking about the term "incel." 

It is now used as shorthand for the (unfortunate) proliferation of mass violence attacks by these men who incubate in misogyny online, marinating in their hatred for women because they are not getting laid. But here is the thing, a lot of people - men and women - are "involuntarily celibate." Ask yourself a simple question - "would you like to have sex?" If the answer is "yes" but then you answer "no" to the follow-up, "are you having sex?" PRESTO, you are an incel. There are surely married people who are in this situation, single people too, so "incel" is an insufficient term for this subset of people who want to get frisky but are not.

I would like to have sex but am not, but instead of directing anger outward, I am more clear eyed. There are certain things that limit me that have nothing to do with anyone else and who I do not blame for my singledom. I mean, I live in a suburb, I am nearly 50, I do not go out much, and I am a slave to my routine. These are but a few of the reasons I rarely date, and while it is not an ideal state of affairs, in fact, I bemoan it regularly, unless/until I do something about it, things will basically remain as is. I accept that, I know that, I understand that, so I do not need a doctor to laser off my back hair or recreate a nicer hairline thinking it will make a difference.

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June 9

Today was a good example of why I spend a lot of time alone. A friend* of mine (*woman I see every few months for platonic hang outs) wanted to go to van der Goot to see the roses. No problem. What time should we meet. 11. Fine. Then, radio silence until she suddenly thinks it makes more sense to take one car (I had suggested I just pick her up since she'd never been there before) and then she did not want me to go out of my way, so suggested I pick her up around Princeton's campus. Fine. Then another 20 minutes back and forth via text over where we should meet. Then when I get there, she's running late. And on and on and on. Once we got on the road and got to the garden, it was fine, but I just felt like I moved things around today (like skipping the gym) and then spent WAY too much time on what should have been a simple logistical plan. The juice, as it were, not worth the squeeze. I like doing things when I want to do them and when I move those things around in the name of social interaction, I usually feel like it was wasted.

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June 8

Look at me keeping up with this dopey blog. As Saturdays go, this one has been good. I was up around 5 am, as per usual, had a good diner breakfast ("the usual" is SUCH a nice touch up here. Like, you just have your dude or dudette who always waits on you and they know your order, you do not even need to say anything) and then filled my car with groceries for the week. I even got ahead of some anticipated weather by mowing the lawn (because the lawn service is on hold while most of the backyard fills in and I will not pay $40 for them to do the front yard only).

I might try to nap or just do some laundry, who knows, the world is truly my oyster.

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June 7

So it turns out there *was* a nail in one of my tires. The first place I took it too missed it, and the dealership found it. The whole thing cost $40, plus three trips to have it taken care of and having to be driven back and forth to the dealership today (which they did free of charge). In all that drama, I did have a good day yesterday. I did a presentation for our summer interns that got a lot of good feedback after it was over. I had prepped a lot and when it was over, I knew I had nailed it. Now, to start the weekend ...

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June 6

My go-to move is getting overly stressed about things and then slowly getting a handle on them. To wit, yesterday, I scheduled an appointment to take my car into the dealership to have it looked at. The grass is <slowly> starting to come in in my backyard, and I will schedule my cats' veterinary appointment today. 

I also have a full day ahead of me. I am part of the committee that oversees our office's summer intern program, so I will be spending much of my morning in orientation and presentation on what they can expect. It will be a nice distraction.

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June 5

The new routine - keeping an eye in the car for the low tire pressure light; watering the backyard; stressing over the cats' soon-to-be visit with the vet. Later. Rinse. Repeat. I really need someone to deal with my life for me. 

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June 4

The hits just keep on coming. The low tire sensor went off again in my *new* car. The tire shop I went to confirmed my back driver's side tire was low but then could not find a leak or other cause for the drop in air pressure, so now I have to take it back to the dealership to handle. In a vacuum it is not that bad, but juggling stuff like this with my job is hard. On top of that, all that regrading and reseeding done in my backyard looks like shit because we got a ton of rain last week. So I may have to go back to the landscaper and see if he can fix it. Again, in a vacuum, not that big a deal, but it all compounds. And, on top of all that, it is almost time for P and G to have their yearly check up with the vet, which causes me all kinds of stress. It is times like this that I feel so overwhelmed and really struggle to do everything myself.

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June 3

I rewatched the first season of Succession this weekend. On second viewing, I realized it is the perfect show for the Trump era. The show is about a media mogul and his four kids. There's a lot of infighting, backstabbing, and jockeying for position, and a not-too-subtle Oedipal struggle between the octogenarian father and the son he passes over for the top job in the company. But more than anything, the show is about how the rules do not apply to the very rich. Victims of their behavior, sometimes illegal and other times simply immoral, are given hush money payments, forced to comply with NDAs, and otherwise bullied with the threat of teams of white collar lawyers in order to make their problems go away. None of them suffer consequences, whether it is wild child Roman's failed satellite launch that blows up on the pad or his older brother Ken killing someone while stoned and  dumping his car into a creek. The family's putative brother-in-law, who is not from money but comes into it thanks to his engagement to the patriarch's daughter, laughs at being ripped off for a $2,000 bottle of vodka at a club - the rich, they do not live like you and me.

And while all of this is morally reprehensible, it is also an apt reflection on our country in this moment. It is led by a man who has never suffered a consequence for decades of illegal and immoral conduct, indeed, he has been rewarded for it with the highest office in our land. But it is not just him, it is now a coterie of people in his orbit who traffic and leverage their positions of power for their own personal gain. And in the rare circumstance that they are called to account, they lose their jobs but not their prestige, there is always another hustle to start, another grift to run, another sucker willing to buy their bullshit. It is all quite depressing.

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June 2

I was stood up (ghosted) again. It is annoying if only because I move around other things in my life to accommodate the potential that I might go on a date with someone and it might work out and then nothing even happens and I have changed my schedule around for nothing. So that was fun.

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June 1

For a short work week, there certainly was a lot of drama. First, we had three straight days of severe weather, all of which coincided with the commute home. Wednesday was the worst of the days, it was pitch black, like armageddon as a strong line of thunderstorms and drenching rain blew through. Thursday, the whole ride home was in a driving rainstorm. It was not great for someone like me who has a lot of anxiety to begin with. 

What made it worse was I had $1500 worth of landscaping done on Tuesday - the morning of the start of all this bad weather. I am not sure how much will be salvaged, but now I have to talk to my landscaper about redoing some of the work and whether he is willing to do it free of charge or for an additional charge. I hate dealing with stuff like this.

Finally, I have slept like shit all week. My house is weird in that at this time of year, when it is not fully summer, I will run the air conditioning or not, depending on the heat, but the top floor of the house is warmer, the main level ok, and the basement nice and cool. On nights I slept upstairs, it was too hot, but the basement was too damp because of all the rain. It was a no win situation and because I slept poorly, I was in a bit of a fog at work. Not ideal.

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