Author's Tier News: My Wedding, Looking For a Good Decaf, more

It's a news roundup kind of morning!

On Saturday, September 7, Lauren and I will be married at a small ceremony here on our property. This event is the culmination of, among other things, one year and one week of constant renovation, repair, financial hemorrhage, landscaping, and the desire to strangle a certain electrician with his own 12-gauge Romex. (Q: How many crooked switches and outlets can a man truly install? How many old circuits can one man fry and fail to repair before that tasty pow-pow falls and snowboarding season opens? A: How many you got, pal.) Then, ten days later, we're off to the Amalfi Coast and Rome for a couple weeks. I'm gathering a handful of those single-row-style comics to post here and there throughout the time we're gone, like I did last holiday season. If you have any travel recs for those areas, please share in the comments! My heart soars not only to think that I will join the love of my life before all gathered on a day of joy, but also that I will not pick up an impact driver, compound miter saw, or paint gun for at least a month.

Did you miss the Achewood livestream? Patreon tells me that only 119 of the 3800 or so members got the announcement, due to a permissions error, so you probably did. It was a full hour of happy live audio, where I responded to reader questions in voluminous and illuminating detail. I got so excited by the experience that I told my good friend Uncle T that I was considering investing in a nice lavalier microphone, and he immediately sent me two brand-new Yeti Blue mics from Sweetwater Music. (This man cares a great deal about microphones, and occasionally teaches classes about them.) It's the size of the microphone Letterman had, so I am feeling pretty good about things. Are there any podcasts you think I should be on? I was thinking maybe I could pay a visit to the Senator Ted Cruz podcast and create some variety besides cheap, nasally partisan whining. (I am actually only thinking about him because I wanted to sneak into the wedding program that the homily would be read by surprise guest Senator Ted Cruz, and quietly observe the crowd for growing discomfort.)

During the livestream, a nice man from Iceland said that he was under attack from volcanoes. Let's all hope he's alright, and tunes in again with an update. Was a new Todd being born? (Töddikkáá?)  

In lesser news, I am looking for a tasty decaffeinated coffee. We stopped drinking caffeine several months ago, mainly out of boredom with ourselves, but quickly noticed several positive health benefits. Chief among them were equanimity, focus, and no longer waking up at 3am to pee (me). If you're a nightstalker like I used to be, take a few weeks off the chittering bean and see if your life isn't acutely improved. What makes a tasty coffee, to my palate? Rich, dark, chocolatey, almost burnt. (I'm not into that poncy, acidic, light roast stuff. I want Willy Wonka and roofing tar. I don't want there to be any doubt that I am tasting something.)

Speaking of dull dietary tweaks, we've stopped buying food that has enriched flour in it. I don't remember exactly why, but it largely has to do with (a) generally eliminating food that the government/cigarette industry/pesticide industry has fucked with, and (b) some podcast about the inability to methylate folic acid. One of us, perhaps due to a misfiring MTHFR gene, has noticed a distinct lack of inflammation/fluffiness in the subsequent months, but more I will not say. Fucked-with flour has joined refined sugar and BPA-lined cans on the shame wall of our dietary history. (Recent inductees to the diet include potato chips fried in avocado oil, herbal teas with honey and lemon juice, and all the homemade hummus we can eat.) If this paragraph has painted a sad picture of two ageing Portland worry-warts, a millimeter of alfalfa sprout just visible at the creases of their mouths, don't worry: It's Always Sausage Week.

Also health: I noticed that since I've transitioned from a flat, 10-mile run to a very hilly and excruciating 5.5-mile run, my VO2 max has climbed a few points, so I'm saying goodbye to my favorite long slog for now. At least, until I get nostalgic for that one concrete plinth behind the MLK Safeway where a different solo drug addict or vibrating alcoholic always seems to be producing a glistening pool of vomited cereal.

(I had spelled that "excrutiating" at first, and could not fathom why it got a red underline. And two days ago I realized it was "impostor" and not "imposter." Will I next forget my own mother? That would certainly make for an awkward wedding.)

Lyle is claiming that he just pooped out "one of the rings from the Olympics logo," but nobody is fooled. Téodor just yelled at him to flush it and stop claiming stolen valor.

That's it for today. I'm off to Lowe's to buy lumber for the new front porch stair risers, prime and paint a used console table we'll use for living room books, get some new trim for the double doors, and maybe even write some vows. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll see you...at the Library.