<Family chats quietly with Grandma on the iPad while I am washing dishes> Me: <subito F> IT MUST HAVE BEEN LOVE, BUT IT’S OVER NOW-OW-OW Family: <slowly turn their heads and look at me silently> Me: 😁

Love is dragging your bony old lady cat out of her condo, shoving a pill down her throat, then proceeding to give her 11 ml of tuna water with laxative in it with a syringe, and ultimately being overjoyed that she pooped on the hearth.

FYI: from a friend, “A heads up to anyone who has kids in Ann Arbor Public Schools or who are teachers in the schools, ICE is scheduled to be there tomorrow (Thurs), during parent drop-off and pickup, trying to forward this on to folks who may have connections to families in both Ypsi and A2.”

<my spouse gets cut off in the school parking lot> The Lad: How come that person was so rude? They’re not even driving a pickup truck! My Spouse: Stop listening to your father! *** Y’all, my work here is done.

I am trash

Some classic Route 66 signage in Glendora, CA

Today’s reading.

Post the cover of a book you love from the 90s (any century) This one is from 1989, but imma say it counts.

Starting to come down from sheer panic and realizing that when people I follow on Bluesky write posts like “FUCK” and “HOLY SHIT” and “THE POPE” with no other context, they are talking about sportsball and not world events 😬

I just tried typing “cold packs” and got “cokd oacks,” so that’s how this Sunday is going.

I finally found a use for AI that I can stomach: making my numbingly inconsequential decisions for my #musictheory assignments.

So Trump hates our protesters, but loves the protesters in the Middle East? Can someone make this make sense

WHOA!

Ah, another day of meaning to do things, but only ever managing to barely stemmed the tide of emails

Good news, no monorail in LA!

We pause to spare a thought for the common zombie: not only must they obtain brains from those that would rather not part with them, they must do so at an shambolic pace, and—to add insult to injury—must somehow get their meal to their stomachs without it falling out of their many rotting orifices.

Re-upping this because it deserves more love than it got

Labne and chicken salad from Samin Nosrat!

Got thunderstruck this morning with a need to write short stories about life in my hometown forty years ago. I love short fiction as a format and remain deeply affected by James Joyce’s “Dubliners” and Banana Yoshimoto’s “Kitchen.” What are some of your favorite short fiction collections?

Slightly diminish a band/musician: Fivepence None the Richer Yo Ma Itzhak Imitationperlman Musketball Adderly Stan Doesn’t Getz They Might Be Slightly Taller Than Average Smashing Decorative Gourds Fiona Crabapple Duran Charcoal Gray Sabbath Skin Tone Floyd

There are no great white sharks on baby blankets and I, for one, think this is missed opportunity.

@theorymeg.bsky.social is killing it this morning!

This is excellent observation. I also think that the “do it yourself” ethos—another way the world currently opposes crucial academic enterprise—is a way for the powerful to divide and conquer, making us all less able to resist. I will think on your comment carefully as I plan my syllabus for spring.

I got something productive done today. What is this feeling so sudden and new?

We’re not far in, but I’m already souring on 2026…

Ready for the new year. #kendo #bogu

100% agreed and co-signed

I made this video on the relationship between Japanese language and Western-based musical styles for the French Society for Japanese Studies. It looks at how word and stress systems interact with musical rhetoric and how gendered language contributes to narrative. youtu.be/IqQ0Iy_7dIQ

My “following” feed is a cluster of horrendous news I can’t face while my “mutuals” feed is a cluster sportsball news that I can’t understand. So imma go transcribe some Telemann or something 🤷‍♂️

One day you’re young and wild, the next you’re wondering why broccoli bits aren’t used as an industrial bonding agent because that shit ain’t ever coming off those dishes.

A full-on, traditional kendo dojo, complete with floating floors and with its own small izakaya.

Time to get back in shape. #kendo #suburito #katate

Reporting for duty 🫡

I had my first negative response to a skeet yesterday. Awww, people are still assholes! Have I arrived?

No cheating, reskeet with the most recent photo of your pet

One of JRR Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, or Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Or all three in a pile.

Hi! I’m an articulated city bus whose driver didn’t signal a lane change or check their side mirror to see if any cyclists were next to them.

One day you’re young and wild, the next your 5 yo is telling you he can’t get his pants on because he’s a T. rex and his arms are too short.

Sigh, I got “mid.” Thus, Merriam-Webster’s totally random, completely meaningless word assigner managed to speak to my deepest fears.

Auld lang syne Auld lang yndex Auld lang ycon

French toast because it’s New Year’s or French toast because it’s Thursday? You decide.

Last selfie of 2025

New Year’s soba soup and salmon dengaku! 年越しそばと鮭の田楽　(^^)

All my friends are like “here are the 137 books I read in Q4, not as many as I wanted, but there’s always next quarter” while I’m like “I made it through two hundred pages of this one book I’ve been working on since January… 2023”

Someone came up to me after a premiere and said my music was like Sibelius on steroids. BEST. COMPLIMENT. EVER.

Concerto for Trumpet and Strings, first movement double bar! Now it’s off to the soloist for (probably copious) feedback 😂

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when I was six. The dinner party, the heart-extraction-cum-dipping-in-lava scene, and the drinking-the-blood-of-Kali all… left an impression…

Absolute yep

Make a Bond movie academic: Doctor No, It’s Really More of a Comment than a Question