I got to the beach shortly before sunrise Friday. The water was nice, but there were quite a few more swimmers than usual, and more of them swimming in packs. I certainly don’t begrudge the group swimmers their camaraderie, but they always swim abreast, which means an always-yielder like me has to go far out of my way to give them the berth wide enough for my comfort. There was a moment when a large pack was coming up behind me while a smaller pack came toward me from ahead. I got out of their way as they converged and fought the annoyance down.
It doesn’t make sense to be annoyed if I’ve got a larger personal-space bubble than other swimmers, who based on my experience have teeny-tiny bubbles.
I picked up a loco moco from Bob’s BBQ on Dillingham. The loco is inexpensive there and rather good for the price, but it’s not quite as satisfying as I need after a good swim, so I also went through the drive-through at the neighboring Taco Bell for a little bit more.
My focus Friday was completing edits for the staff newsletter, and I also did edits on an appeal letter from one of the higher-profile units at UH Manoa. Worked a little on my stories but not enough. I’m going to have to do them over the weekend.
It took me a while to find my groove, but I eventually settled in and got the stuff done. I have to say I’m fairly proud of the results, something I don’t feel every day.
I watched the news, did some crosswords, listened to podcasts, and read some football news. Played some silly phone games in my bed and crashed there without intention. So I got up shortly before three and wrote Wednesday’s journal while giving the new Public Enemy a spin.
There are some solid tracks there, and it’s something of a relief to see that Flavor Flav is back in the mix. My early favorite tracks are “GRID” with Cyprus Hill, “Public Enemy Number Won” with Ad-Rock, Mike D, and Run-DMC, and “Smash the Crowd” with Ice-T and PMD. There’s an update of “Fight the Power” called “Fight the Power: Remix 2020” with Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and ?uestlove. I like it a lot but it’s not an improvement on the original. If I saw them in concert and they broke this one out instead of the original, I’d be super annoyed.
Friday I also spun the new album from The Ocean, Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic. Musically it’s a lot less heavy and dense than my favorite work from them, but it’s still quite a terrific album. I’m going to have to sit down with the lyrics and see how it works thematically. Strong contender for best metal album of the year.
Crush Girl texted me a photo of her latest baking accomplishment. It looked pretty great. We talked a little about one of her favorite movies from her childhood. I love talk like this.
Sylvia and I texted all evening. She’s got some Hilo acquaintances staying over for unexpected, strange reasons, but she’s such a trouper. Sharon and I texted some work talk, actual business related stuff and not just office chitchat. Vicky texted me to let me know there’s a special for new members, but it expires at the end of the month. I told her to send me the order form but not to get her hopes up.
How the heck is it almost the end of September? Uggggggh.
For lunch, I finished off the beef stroganoff, and for dinner I unwrapped a small hunk of Oma cheese from the Jasper Hill creamery. Didn’t finish it off, thinking it might be good to cook with. It’s a good, creamy, slightly nutty, somewhat pungent cheese; I enjoyed it with some crackers. A balsamic vinegar drizzle cut through the pungency and added a little bit of depth. Some local honey did very little for it, but I think something sweet would really add something.
All righty. Bring on the weekend. And leave a comment if you’d like someone to connect with in these pandemic days. I’ve got bandwidth for that.