- Being mistaken for a contractor, ‘cause of my paint-stained work pants, by a contractor on the street.
- How “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” doesn’t account for things that are likely to break.
- The slice of steel I-beam Jason and I bought from Alro Steel in Elk Grove, which they sold as a makeshift anvil.
- My hands, once again covered in flooring glue stains.
- The notion of “hugflation,” the devaluing of hugs due to excessive hugging.
- Liam’s album release, four-plus years coming, and the first of two release shows in Chicago!
- The second of two album release shows for Liam’s Due North in Chicago.
- The three chickens walking around in our alley.
- Din din with Zaid, Danny, Kendall, Charles, and Casey.
- Watching Wilco’s livestream from Red Rocks.
- The block-long line outside the DMV anxiously looking on at the impending storm clouds.
- The older man kneeling, chopping up a tree stump with a hatchet.
- The little frog hopping around at the Wilco, Sleater-Kinney, and NNAMDÏ show in St. Louis.
- Hardly a comforting thought, but a comforting thought nonetheless: when the scope and intensity of the world’s suffering seems newly too much to bear, remembering it’s always been too much to bear.
- The beautiful green moth killed on the grill of my car, post-highway-driving. :(
- Sima’s dog Arpi walking around with a drumstick (of the drum, not chicken, variety) in her mouth.
- The minute scratches on the surface on John McCracken’s Red Plank, reminding me that it’s a real object, not a Platonic form, and making me wonder about its many years of being carted around and whatever other events have occurred in its life since 1969.
- The apparent evidence of sanding around the concavities’ edges in Barbara Hepworth’s Two Figures.
- Andrew Sa’s Andrew in Anotherland.
- That the solution to the so-called labor shortage isn’t to call workers lazy; it’s to pay them more.
- If your business can’t afford to compensate employees adequately, then perhaps you need to accept that your business isn’t viable.
- And if some people want to bow out of traditional labor in order to enjoy the air around them, the grass beneath their feet, their family, or their creativity, that should be celebrated, not criticized. There are many ways to contribute to one’s community — to be a “productive member of society” — that aren’t formal employment. To me, the quantity of people who live satisfying lives within their means, however modest, is one good measure of the world’s health. (“But there are jobs that need to get done!” you say. Then: do them; pay people well enough to do them; or find another system altogether.)
- Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, equally stunning in its sadness and its well-writtenness. (Still making my way through it.)
- Witnessing Restaurant Depot for the first time.
- The big orange medallion sun.
- The hectic mad dash preparing for Avrom Farm Party, with Hayden’s hardworking farm team.
- Avrom Farm Party!
- The signs for the festival entrance, garbage cans, and recycling cans that my friends Steve and Sundeep’s kids created on their own volition.
- Decompressing from the festival at the waterfront in Green Lake.
- Returning our festival rental walkie-talkies in Elmhurst, rehearsing with Ohmme for their upcoming Thalia Hall show. :)
- Melvin, the sweet, 70-year-old electrical contractor with a Kangol cap.
- Dad’s birthday!
- Playing drums with good posture in honor of Charlie Watts.
- The daddy long-legs spider carcass in my snare drum case.
- Playing Thalia Hall with Ohmme, their first live show back in Chicago post-lockdown — OHMMECOMING.
- Swimming in the hot-as-air water in Lake Monroe with Charles, Malcolm, Macie, and Sima.
- Playing a fun, loud show at The Bishop in Bloomington, Indiana.
- Our friends feeding the “pet” spider on their back porch, Jake, by tossing a moth into its web. All of us gathering to watch the ensuing nature process (wrapping, toting, slurping).
- Wondering what the personal injury lawyers from billboards are like in-person.
- Wilco at Millennium Park!
- Holding my neighbor’s newborn baby, George.
- Arriving at the venue early and waiting to go in until the prescribed load-in time, like a gentleman.
- After driving all day, sitting down at my drum seat and wondering where the seat belt was.
- That diversity leads to security is one of nature’s most constructive, affirming statements.
- The roadside advertisement for “iBaptism.”