Today I Learned...

• We (NH) are the ONLY state in the US that do not have seat belt laws. I knew it was unusual, but didn't know we were all alone in our freedom to fly through a window. And we're 1 out of the 3 that don't have any motorcycle helmet laws. One out of the five with no sales tax. And the motto "live free or die" goes a bit back. Like, Revolutionary War back, and our ranking for being #1 in overall freedom of the US remains. Take that Texas (which ranked #17). NY was the least free.

Don't feel so free in a bad winter when the motto changes to "live, freeze, then die" though but unlike Texas we can handle a dusting and a few days of below freezing. I think every single soft serve customer would be disappointed if we had Texas heat and 80% of the ice cream melted before being eaten.

• Yesterday I learned an ice cream truck can (and is) also used for drug deals. I've only been in this city since the winter, and in my dad's city it was the taco trucks. Devil's in the details. Don't come here and get your crack from a taco, and don't go there and get your taco from a truck.

• Someone said alcohol withdrawal is more dangerous, but opiate withdrawal is more painful. Yeah, accurate I guess for 99% of situations, but my alcohol detox was in a hospital, being strapped to a bed, having flashbacks to all the other times I've been mechanically restrained, hallucinating madly, thinking any male that comes into the room is going to r*pe me. My opiate withdrawal was feeling like my bones were decaying and releasing all the pain I've held in my emotions in a physical form and being tortured by my brain saying "I NEEEEEEED OCs OR I'LL DIE!!!"

• I thought we liked our fireworks. No. Apparently we fking love them and when the weather warms up we have to shoot them off in every neighborhood every weekend in every parking lot big enough.

• Nobody in The Beatles could understand/read sheet music.
  
• Some people online use upper and lower case letters to distinguish major and minor chords when they be explaining how to play something??? I guess, but it feels limiting when you could use roman numerals to fit ANY key, and maybe, yeah, everything's in fking C Major but mayyyyybe some of us have a bit of an obsession with Ab major.
  
• Take the whammy bar off, use whammy pedal. Never consistently played with pedals, but there is the pro of not constantly going out of tune or even replacing strings if you go overboard (if you can even afford the pedal in the first place).
  
• "You don't need to have any knowledge of music to be a musician. You just need to have a feel for what sounds right." I've always gone by that philosophy, having played a bit without a clue, but it was good to hear it from a local musician.
  
• Today's the 20th anniversary of the last episode aired of Friends
  
• The cheapest grocery store that you can actually get all your food shopping done at is an hour and a half walk. The most expensive, of course, is the closest at a 5 minute walk.
  
• MOST IMPORTANTLY: the trick to not getting into trouble is to find a safe place to stay, stay there, and preoccupy yourself with the shyt that makes you want to claw your eyes out like laying down and watching TV, reading, listening to music. Like, actually listening to it. Not hearing 30 seconds and getting irrationally pissed because you have an idea and NEED a guitar or keyboard but at the moment do not, and not just having some noise on for the sake of not sitting in silence.

(Chica wanted me to pick up groceries but my head had ideas about the store next door so I looked up random shyt instead).

I remember hearing that about the Beatles way back when. My older brother was in a band and they used to practice in our basement. Their lead singer sang "For What It's Worth" better than the original, i thought.

Since moving to Southern NH after getting to a point I more consistently attract dedicated musicians, I've learned that local bands can be fking amazing with top tier talent, but get paid like $50-100 a gig and maybe get 3 a week and have to pay out the wazoo for their equipment, while shyt but famous bands luck out and make tens, thousands, even more for a gig.

That makes sense why the ice cream truck didn't stop for me and that neighbor lady that one time. But why was the music going though.

The ice cream jingle has words and they are incredibly racist.

There is an extravagant number of small mattress shops in my area. At least one on each shopping strip. I always believed they were covers for organized crime. Like a meat shop in Sopranos.

BTW NH also doesn’t have any laws about minimum wages. They just follow federal law of 7 something. Weird

Yup. $7.25 an hour. And living wage for one adult no children is $23.58. So, if you want your own space, go fk yourself.

how much my house needs cleaning