"Mama here comes midnight / with the dead moon in its jaws"

Songs: Ohia, "Farewell Transmission"

1)  I have a really terrible habit of coming to love certain musicians and bands a few years later than I should.  I grew up in a DC suburb and graduated from a DC high school in 1992, but never went to a Fugazi or Jawbox show.  I went off to rural Ohio for college (Go Lords!) and promptly became a huge Fugazi / Jawbox fan (along with other DC greats like Shudder To Think and Nation of Ulysses).  So I came back to DC in 96 and made plenty of trips to places like the 9:30 and Black Cat to make up for lost time.  All of which is to say, Jason Molina graduated from Oberlin the same year I did from Kenyon.  I've been listening to a lot of his stuff lately, and vaguely remember two different weekend trips me and some friends made up there to drink and get high and try and get laid.  I'd like to think I might have bumped into him in a dingy dorm room or coffee shop at some point, but I have no fucking idea.  I did see him play once as Songs: Ohia in or around 2000 at James Madison University at a big old music showcase.  I don't remember much of it.  Q And Not U are much better than these sleepy hippies, I thought at the time.

2)  Things are really terrible right now, aren't they?  Some things I've had my first experience with in 2018:

Anxiety attacks! (like, real ones)

Insomnia! (like, the real shit)

Realizing that in fact, if your highly educated father's media intake is composed of FOX News and Rush Limbaugh for two decades or so of retirement, he will become increasingly paranoid, unpleasant, and difficult speak to for more than five minutes!

That thing where calling Republicans racists and / or fascists is no longer tinged with a hint of hyperbole! 

Seriously wondering why I haven't met and married a South Korean woman, because the thought of having to go back to Trumpistan for anything other than a summer vacation terrifies me!

My tendency to maintain a very small group of friends and social contacts is a feature,  not a bug, of my loner personality and this will never change.  If anything I don't worry about being lonely as much as I worry about why it is that I never feel lonely, as I go entire weekends without talking to anybody!

The fact that my country puts desperate children into cages! 

3)  I'm half-way through the third and final book of Liu Cixin's The Three Body Problem.  It's very good even if I have to admit I don't understand everything that's going on.

4)  Maybe I'm so cranky-pants today because I've been staying up late watching World Cup games.  Predictably, South Korea did nothing.  Argentina woke up and decided to play like, well, Argentina.  England will choke soon.  If I had to bet ten bucks, I'd put it on Belgium.  I'll still root for Germany or Mexico though.

5)  Maybe I'm so cranky-pants today because I'm doing requisite end-of-semester paperwork.  My actual grading is finished, but that's not good enough -- you have to create hard copy of everything by hand.  Because Korea.

6)  This being the first week of summer, it's also the beginning of Korean rainy season or jangma.  For the next two months everything will be slightly damp and disgusting, indoors and out.

7)  There's a juice bar across from my office building that makes fresh green melon smoothies.  They are dope.

8)  I'm going back to America for a few weeks in August.  As usual, I really love visiting my sister and nephew outside of Baltimore and I absolutely dread spending five days visiting my Trump-loving Dad in Bellingham, Washington.

9)  I don't get all the Solo hate.  It was pretty good.  I liked the characters.  It was ten times more entertaining that Rogue One, which was the filmic equivalent of a root canal.

10)  Not only are the Orioles terrible, they're about to trade away Machado.  I shall go back to not caring about them and stick to Korean baseball, even though my local team isn't doing so hot either.