the sticky film that soda leaves on my teeth gives me panic attacks

Happy new year, first and foremost

As I still have no idea what to thematically post here, allow me to dump a bunch of rando bs of recency.

I’ve been really binging a lot of John Denver’s music recently. I don’t know why it took me so long to stumble across his catalogue, but I’m glad I did cause his love for nature and music and his life, the peace he found within himself, is something my ears craved. There’s few artists that compose songs beautifully enough to smell the breeze and hear the crackling of timber in their songs. Agalloch is maybe the only other one I can think of. But Denver is right up there on the other side of a spectrum of serene, warm timbres.

“He was born in the summer of his 27th year, coming home to a place he’d never been before.” What an insanely good lyric.

I built a dock this week that was particularly interesting for the mere fact it had a trim board and recessed decking. Southern yellow pine is usually incredibly annoying to work with and hella ugly compared to the composite or Ipe we usually use, but with the trim it actually didn’t look half bad. These 3’ wides usually give me some problems because if you run into an issue with the frame, there’s really no room to move it anywhere you need to. But we still got it up and out in a day and a half or so. Not terrible.

I’ve also, on of how physical this job this, gained 20 pounds or so in the last two months working there. Which, as someone who was a habitual anorexic for the last decade or so and could never seem to get back above 135 pounds, just nearly brings a tear to my eye. I’m still nowhere close to where I want to be physically, but I’ve come so much closer than I ever hoped I would again. Baby steps. No pic for that cause ew who tf wants to see my scrawny ass lmao

Lastly, yesterday my family and I went to the city to see the Rockettes and stopped in St. Patrick’s Cathedral afterwards, partially because I’d never been and it looked beautiful and also because my grandmother used to attend mass there when she was young and wanted to go in again. While I’m not Christian or holy or whatever, there’s something undeniably spiritual and heavenly about the artistic perfection given to the masonry and carpentry in regards to its construction. I’ve never seen anything like it, though that’s undoubtedly a consequence of America not having as many gothic churches as Europe does to begin with. The money grubbing and historical pain held within this building disgusted me, but its sheer gorgeousness paired with how happy it made my grandma to be in it again more than made up for that in the short time we were there.

That’s all. Don’t drink too much tonight, designate a sober driver, generally be safe. But have fun and wish for days better than yesterday.