It is just past 1500 in Ohio and I have cracked the first of my election day beers. Turnout seems relatively lackadaisical (hardcore Cheeto Tumor ‘burg – though it might be worth noting that, in 2020, there were 16 Cheeto Tumor / Pestilence signs on my running route and one Biden / Harris sign while this year there are three Cheeto Tumor / Couchfucker signs and one Harris / Walz sign) and, while I’m mentally prepared for any eventuality (though my prediction is that Harris wins and the House and Senate swap majority parties) the only things I will be truly shocked by are a.) a Harris/Walz win in Ohio and b.) a Cheeto Tumor concession speech.
first day
First day of school for K – and for the local elementary kids moving to the "all-in-one" school outside of town – and the first of my slowdown mornings for me, timeshifted rituals and routines abound: reading first (John Rechy's CITY OF NIGHT, at present) with dogchildren and matcha instead of coffee – because reading tastes like matcha and working tastes like coffee (and the matcha buzz wears off after four hours, give or take, the verdict remaining out on whether I have my usual two cups of coffee while working or if I can drop down to one); then to yoga, breakfast, and the day's run. Then, The Work: Attendance Cards will, as always, be the start of the workday – only timeshifted a few hours because now I'm letting myself slow down and not cram the pieces of the day that refuel my self-respect into a few hours before the sun rises and spend the rest of the day draining that fuel with utmost consistency. Notions, even, of working – or, rather, tinkering – in the afternoon – though that will be more likely once NuSanctum is up and running. Might even get some more sleep / wouldn't it be nice.
So far, it's been a lovely experiment in temporal displacement – though it's apparent that I'll have to work out new running routes for the schooldaze as local schoolchildren gather at the old elementary school near me to be bussed out to the all-in-one and the sidewalks are now, between 0830 and 0900, overrun with frazzled parents and feral children (run away, run away / keep running) but, on the bright side, after that, it's gloriously, wondrously quiet around here.
notes on a restaurant i want to love but yeah
Food solid but lacks flavor (solution: fucking add salt) except the sweet potato fries which are wonderful but still fucking add salt – and not that umbrella lady iodized shit: I'm talking real, grainy, melt sidewalk ice kosher salt – to meat I mean come on.
Claustrophobic on Sunday brunches, especially when half of their plates are the same size as some of the smallest tables (solution: use smaller plates: a lox bagel does not need to be served on a serving platter brimming with capers and half-past avocado FFS).
Breathtakingly slow service – I try not to be annoyed, and I know the wait staff is doing the best they can but damn it, the hanger is real – from being woefully understaffed (and underprepared) for the amount of brunchers and accompanying half-assed and ill-followed reservation policy (solution: Sunday brunch is reservation only, smaller menu, remove center tables; if you don't have a reservation, see you after 12:30).
An atmosphere that tries to be something to everyone (chic and trendy with family-friendly downhome comfort and childless Guinness and eggs benedict alcoholic 🤗 bruncher mimosa college crowd college professor crowd blah blah blah) and ends up being utterly forgettable (solution: fucking pick one and roll with it I mean I don’t love Bob Evans but at least they have their schtick and stick with it).
Question for myself: would I be more forgiving of the above if they fucking added salt? Perhaps. It’d be a start.
how i spent my afternoon
Little did I expect that two+ hours of my day (before picking up The Morkie from her doggie day spa appointment) would be spent in an obscenely wealthy gun nut’s panic room listening to his dissemination of each firearm in his (admittedly impressive) WWII collection. And that was after accepting his invitation to fire a silenced pistol, a semi automatic rifle, and a fully automatic rifle from his deck at a target near his woods; a memorable experience, certainly, but not one that I care to repeat - my abject loathing for those things (guns and obscenely rich white people in love with guns) remains intact.
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A caravan of at least four monster trucks, on trailers, up the road. Purple, blue, digital camo, and ... the fourth color (rust?) escapes me. Afterwards, a person on a zero-turn riding lawnmower pulled into the gas station to fill up their tank, a local phenomena around which I'll never be able to wrap my brain: wouldn't they waste more than the convenience's worth of fuel driving the lawnmower there and back?
Ohio’s issue one is anti-democratic horseshit, (special, single-issue) election day edition
As Ohioans throng to the booths to decide to whether or not to take away their democratic rights in a single-issue special election concocted by gerrymandered cult-drones (here’s a useful guide as to what wouldn’t have passed in Ohio with the issue one-decreed 60% threshold and onerous requirement to get signatures from all 88 counties instead of the current 44 before any measure could even make it to voters) who claim it has nothing to do with abortion though the signs saying it does are all over the place (and, in one case, plastered in windows AND lawn) – as are the NO signs – a re-sharing of two earlier articles and a record of my duly registering my hearty FUCK NO on this horseshit issue. FFS Ohio, indeed.
