27 Jan 2021> Last night we went out to eat w/ this mother/son from Japan + afterwards we started walking up this cobblestoned alley in the opposite direction of our hotel which was annoying cuz we were tired + wanted to go to sleep. The son was speaking to us in Japanese + @ 1st we nodded like we understood then we told him we din't speak Japanese but he kept jabbering in Japanese. We went up these stares + ended up in this cool park that felt like the roof of the duomo in Milan but w/ more of a Latin American flair, elaborately tiled like Park Güell in Barcelona. Our bedder-½ was saying how they read about this place in Popville + was wondering where it was + we were thinking there's actually a lot of cool stuff in DC we hadn't discovered yet. It was a series of elevated sky island parks that went up + down stares + the last stares were really steep + went all the way back down to the city. By this point our bedder-½ had sped off ahead w/ the Japanese son leaving us w/ the slow-poke mom, which was surprising cuz these last steps were really steep + convoluted + we couldn't believe they had basically run them. We were going down + it got steeper in this 1 section that was almost vertical. There was a pipe running along the stairs so we reached to grab it as a handrail but it came loose + we swung out high up way over this valley, which gave us a cool view but was scary cuz we didn't know how long we could hold on. We swung all the way to the other end of this valley + back to ground level + figured we shd let go there rather than risk swinging back + not reaching the other side where we'd left off. We ended up in an enclosure w/ a bunch of penguins like it was a zoo, but it also felt like a secret government compound, perhaps an Antarctic research station. We ran back to our bedder-½ + the Japanese son acting like we had run down the stairs they had come down (not wanting to admit we grabbed the pipe cuz that was cheating), but we so wanted to tell them about the penguins. Finally we made it home but for sum reason (sumbody was talking about it earlier in the night) we had our butcher knife in bed w/ us staring at the fine detail along the edge. Our bedder-½ woke up + saw us w/ the knife + we pretended like we were psycho but she just rolled her eyes + rolled over the other way. There were these people trying to get into our place that were trapped on the window ledge + 1 of them appeared dead + we were telling our bedder-½ that perhaps we shd help them. We got up + they were all okay.

29 Jan> Ate butternut squash + kale quiche + potatoes. We decided butternut is our favorite word in the english language. Also our favorite squash. Watched Marnie which is the worst Hitchcock movie we've ever seen then watched Bullitt which was also pretty bad, tho made us nostalgic for the days when we drove our '66 mustang thru the streets of San Francisco. Can't remember what we watched the last 2 nights besides The Ripper, the Netflix series about the Yorkshire Ripper which was intresting (but like Night Stalker it's appalling how much of our tax money goes to incompetent police, tho in the case of The Ripper it was British tax money). Last night we had orchiette w/ shrimps, tomatoes + peppers w/ pecorino + buffalo mozz on the side w/ a salad + garlic bread. The night before that we had miso-glazed black cod, potatoes, acorn squash + brocoletti.

30 Jan> Walked around down by the White House + Capitol for the 1st time since Biden has been in office. Everything is still fenced off + lots of Natl Guard everywhere, still living in a police state.

Jan 31> Went to sum camp in upstate NY last night. We were in line to get provisions at this shop + our college friend Mark was in line a few people behind us. We got to the front + the teller was being all chatty asking what we was gonna make + saying we were missing such + such ingreedient + we explaned how our friend Mark was in line behind us + was buying that (sumthing for Nachos). She started looking him up on the Inurnet + then he came walking by + we said we were talking about him + he started getting all chatty w/ the teller + we noticed he was actually a she, looking like a cross between Genesis P-Oridge + Tootsie. We were thinking maybe they was just dressed up but noticed she had boobs. When we got out of the shop Mark had sorta turned back into the old version of himself, tho looking + acting like Teddy in Memento. They went to check into our room + we went to hang out by the lakeshore (still w/ our bags). The cashier girl (who liked Julia Garner in Ozark/The Assistant) started talking to us + then leaning her head on our shoulder + then she started sobbing hysterically, telling us about some deep psychological issues + we wanted to console her but didn't want to get too friendly w/ her cuz we thought she might be hitting on us. Her face was all white + her tears were melting thru her caked-on foundation. We left to go to our "hotel" which was above a nightclub. Everything was all podunk + ramshackle, made of plywood. We could hear Michael Gira's wife singing that song "When Will I Return?" + when we got to the door w/ our # on it (a piece of plywood w/ a padlock) we went into our shed + Mark had all these kitschy knick-knacks organized neatly on shelves. We told him to guess who was playing + they said Swans. Evidently it was a free outdoor concert. We were in no hurry to go down there cuz we don't really like the beginning of "When Will I Return?" We eventually mozied down there + they were closing up the doors cuz nobody showed up + Swans determined it wasn't worth playing the concert. We went back to Mark + told them we blew it by not getting tix cuz we would of got to seen Swans play a show in this small club just for us in this podunk town in upstate NY.

IRL, we ate pesto pasta w/ shrimp + a kale salad + avocado-smashed bread + (speaking of Steve McQueen, the other 1) saw Red, White and Blue, the 3rd in the Small Axe series (all of which have been really good). Then we watched The Assistant, which explains why Julia Garner was our cashier last night cuz she looked just like her. Even tho we've never worked as an assistant the movie reminded us of the drudgery of day jobs in NYC. Finished Alice Knott (great start but starts to drag on after a while), then started on Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, a Carrie Brownstein memoir we found in a book box. We ain't a huge fan of Sleater-Kinney but she's a good writer + it's an intresting inside-look at the Riot Grrrl scene in '90s Pac NW. Sum of the descriptions made us really miss going to shows. She also talks about nostalgia, reiterating what we've always suspected about the music we've grown up with, that perhaps it's only better cuz of our coming-of-age associations (but let's face it, music really was better back in the '70s + '80s). At the time we detested '90s bands like Sleater-Kinney, especially 1s that essentially rehashed punk. But to her involved in that scene, to any 1 immersed in any scene, u can understand why that scene is naturally what's most important. There's a certain communal aspect to music that goes beyond just those making the music to all the listeners + fans involved. Making music now as Sound Furies we don't belong to any scene w/ no fans so can understand why no 1 else is intrested in our music cuz there is no 1 they can relate the experience to, no common associations to make with it like that are formed at a live concert or that friends are telling u about. Weave formed our one associations w/ our albums thru the making of them but that nostalgia is privy to us + our bedder-½. Brownstein captures the beauty of scene collaboration both as fan + then in a touring band, living in communal households, living + breathing music (+ art + film—she was also friends early on w/ Miranda July, whose Kajillionaire we just saw + Brownstein would go on to make Portlandia). She laments a bit about the loss of privacy, but we're still in her early glory years of being in a band/scene (we're about ½ way thru the book)... it's easy to guess where the story is going tho. Our experience w/ bands was very brief (coincidentally w/ drummer Becky Wreck who went on to be in Lunachicks, who Brownstein mentions in the book) but enough to know it wasn't a lifestyle we wanted. But intresting to experience vicarously thru Brownstein's book.

Now it's Sunday morning + the snow is coming down, the 1st significant snow we've had living in this house. Evidently this is just the beginning of it.