Things are such a persistent mess. My car got towed again for unpaid tickets, need to deal with that. Pete Alonso got his 300th home run at Citi Field as an Oriole, and the fans stood and cheered for their own team losing. Learned my older kid has a heart murmur, which I guess is normal and common but makes me so angry. It would be so on-brand for the best person I know who does everything right to drop dead while I persist. My last living grandparent was the one who sat in his armchair chain smoking and being miserable.

Chatting with him about his appointment with the cardiologist and the fight his mother and I were having about it, he said it's a stupid situation and I said that life is a series of stupid situations and he said "No, life is a test to remain faithful to God." I was moved. I know he got that idea from me. I'm lucky he listens to me rather than watches, and hears rather than feels, which was the trap Isaac fell into when Jacob put goat skin on his arms and neck to steal Esau's blessing.

I owe work and money to so many people. It's overwhelming and it's always going to be this way. Nothing is ever going to be any better and one day I'll be old and look back on this era and wish I could live it again. I am going up to Schuyler Falls Sunday night to spend a few days in a cabin. Poor little rich boy.