Cheers!

New job continues to be ridiculously good. I jumped yesterday when my desk phone rang with the name of the paper I was currently reading.

My partner and I are changing life plans. We're no longer planning to move to Chicago for her to get a graduate degree, but instead are looking to stay local. Decision is 1/3 to keep this job I've landed, 1/3 economic, and 1/3 emotional (family, including the old and dying, are all local). Cost will be less than half that of the other degree.

The snafu of US Democratic primaries is frustrating, but I think overall it is a good thing. The post-2016 rules, largely instituted by the progressives, lead directly to a wider field (specifically, 15% threshold, more and more-populated debates), and gave voters the ability to express their first-choice preference, even if it's Marianne Williamson the Earth Mother like it was for 91 people in NH. In Political Science they talk about the primary cleavages between parties, the single thing that mostly decides which side of the aisle you fall on. I think the Dems are positioning themselves well to be the party of democracy, as opposed to the Rs, actively and vocally suppressing non-white votes. I'd love to hear others' views on it.

galen and I have been talking, only slightly jokingly, about writing music reviews/having an album listening club on here. If there's interest, we can do a thread this weekend. If not, we'll probably just continue to text each other our pretentious opinions about Coltrane.