Lockdown: The Reitman for a new (to me) series

Saturday was a bit closer to normal, thank goodness.

I did get up at a ridiculously late hour, as I wrote yesterday. Like 3:00. I had breakfast while I wrote my Friday journal entry. Since it was Independence Day, of course I had hot dogs. I thought I’d fancy them up a little, so I made pizza dogs of a sort. Just put some marinara in the buns with the dogs and sliced some medium cheddar to melt on top.

They were delicious, and an apt way to celebrate the nation’s founding.

I took a little nap, then did a little bit of tidying up. I watched the last half hour of the Silicon Valley series finale. Then I put in a DVD from Netflix: the first five episodes of the first season of a series called Casual, a Hulu original. I was interested because its first two episodes were directed by Jason Reitman, probably my second-favorite director today, after Alexander Payne.

The best thing I can say about it is it looks like a TV series directed by Jason Reitman, which is a very good thing. It’s about a mid-thirties developer of an online dating site who lives with his late-thirties sister and her sixteen-year-old daughter. Or, they live with him, since the sister is recently divorced.

It’s a bit of an exploration of casual dating for all three characters, and I’m only halfway through the first season, but I think it’s a bit like Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm in how it looks at consequences for everyone involved, especially the kid. It’s funny with an undercurrent of deep sadness, which of course I love. Although the central male character is insufferable, I might suffer him because the other characters are so good, and it’s a very character-driven show, at least so far.

I’ve got the second DVD of season one on the way, or I will once I drop this and That Touch of Mink in the box. The rest of the series (three more seasons) are only on Hulu, but thanks to my Spotify subscription, I have Hulu’s basic plan too.

I continued going through my CDs — ripping the ones that aren’t on Spotify and getting them all ready for storage. I went through close to sixty titles and put them in a CD storage bag I ordered four of from Amazon.

I won’t list them all, but some of the CDs I ripped because they’re not on Spotify are Level Heads’ Memento Mori (1988) and the Darling Buds’ Long Day in the Universe (1992), a CD single with three otherwise unreleased tracks, as far as I can tell.

I also started a spreadsheet just to log all my CDs as I put them away. Just title-artist-year plus a column for notes. I don’t want to put them away and then forget I have them, you know? I figure I can skim a list and go, “Oh yeah, let’s listen to that Cocteau Twins album I love but never think of for some reason.”

I had a late dinner — the same thing I had for breakfast! It was really good, but of course I did it just to honor my country. Planned to make a microwaved apple crisp in a mug, but those two meals were all I was hungry for.

There was very little texting. I asked Ali something and didn’t hear back. Then I sent a link to Crush Girl, a news story about something she’s interested in. Charles and I traded a few FB IMs about his new workplace.

Did not go for a walk. I plan to Sunday for sure, though.

Daily reminder: if you’re looking for connectivity, let’s chat. DMs, IMs, and texts work for me — just reach out in this space. The world’s going crazy and we’re going to need to lock back down soon; I just feel it. Also, I only found out recently that sleep apnea patients have greater difficulty with COVID-19 — they’re more likely to need hospitalization. So, great. Now I’m not just being careful for my parents, but for myself. Could be a long rest of 2020!

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