Greetings, Emergent Properties!

It's Friday everybody!!! Yaaayy!!! "Friday", too bad nobody really knows what the hell that means any more. Truth be told, nobody really knows what anything means right now. And that's ok.

But, you have to ask yourself, "Did we ever really know what anything meant?" Maybe it was just easier to lie to ourselves during those somnambulant salad days that were everything before about 3 weeks ago.

Monday was rough for me. I nose-dived into pretty fierce malaise and had zero interest in any of my social obligations. Of course, my social obligations were dinner and drinking with my fearless wife and foofly dog. But, for that, no freaking interest. But it was ok, I locked myself in my office with some Old Overholt and recorded music until about 3 in the morning. When I woke up the next day, I was born again in all the flavors of my typical rosy disposition.

The point is, we're all going to spin-out in our own time and in our own way during this thing. To be able to give each other the gift of space during that freak out and the promise of attention and love when we're ready again for it is the best thing we can do for each other right now. (Unless, of course, you're a trained medical professional or someone assisting them, then there's more you can do.)

One of my favorite beers that we make is having it's debut in 16oz cans next Friday. Brainwash is a 7% wheat-based tart farmhouse made with Styrian Dragon, Mosaic & Huell Melon hops. It's fermented with this beautiful genetically modified yeast that sours beer without introducing any bacteria. Fuck yeah: Science!

Brainwash will go out to the city next Friday, West on Monday, North burbs Tuesday and South Wednesday. A fresh batch of Junior Astronaut Juice will be going out with that as well. We're not quite there yet, but we're getting dangerously close to Orange Sunshine season again. Stay tuned.

Music helps orient my brains when I drift too far from center. Califone's cover of Psychic TV's "The Orchids" is a track I come back to often and for all kinds of different reasons. "In the morning after the night, I fall in love with the light..." Isn't it amazing how humans can turn letters into words, recite those words to music and, abracadabra, you create real human emotion? What a world!

Speaking of mornings, I've gotten into the habit of waking up about 4:30 or 5am as of late. This gives me enough time to drink some coffee and get dressed before me and my fuzzy freakish friend head out for a sunrise stroll through one of Cook or DuPage county's lovely forest preserves.

There is a truly magical quality to the early morning. Whether it's the beginning or the end of your day, there's this quiet, steady energy to dawn you just can't get any other time. Maybe it has something to do with that rush of chemicals drenching down our nervous systems as the earth twists its way back into the fiery gaze of that big star up there in the sky. I don't know. I'm not a plumber, so I wouldn't know about these things.

It's been great aquatinting myself with a new Forest Preserve every morning. There's a site that lists all the trails in Cook county. You can search the trails and get directions to each of it's access points. Alternatively, you can search by preserve locations first. Every morning over coffee, Alice and I figure out where we're going. We pick our spot, map it and go.

I love urban forest preserves. All the lousy ways humans don't know how to live in the world come to stark relief when you drop the concrete. We are bad guests, to be sure. But there is beauty in the dream like way human crap rubs up against the wilds of the natural world.

DuPage County has a similar website that lists sites to visit. It was in a preserve here in the far west suburbs that, one morning not very long ago, Alice and I came across clear evidence of goblin activity. This time of day is ripe for the fay folk, so, please conduct yourself with a little decorum and watch your ass.