see cause it’s the end of march. it’s like the … bottom of march.

Spring hath sprung. In Portland, this means only one thing: news outlets forecasting thunderstorms that never happen. I swear to god, they’ve been forecasting thunderstorms for like three weeks now and NONE of them have ever happened. I have not heard one peep of thunder! It’s a travesty, I tell you.

Anyway welcome to the newsletter.

News & Updates & Ut Oh Josh is Being Introspective Again

I have updated my website. Wow, oooh, aaahhh. In short, I moved the blog to the root folder and now my website is more or less a blog. For now, at least. I have reasons for why I did this but the general gist is twofold: first, I was getting sick of trying to figure out the weird HTML/CSS language to make things do things and not look like shit on mobile, and second, I was kind of sick of having all of these projects on my site that went largely unnoticed except by search bots.

As I’ve stated many times, this is my Marie Kondo year, and that includes all aspects of my life. First I looked at all the literal stuff in my apartment, and now I’m looking at my online presence. I don’t really want to get into detail about my relationship with the ratio between the things I create and how they are consumed by an audience, but suffice it to say that it does not Bring Me Joy to review this information or even to think about it for more than three seconds, generally. (I did write a blog post touching on this issue though if you’re truly interested.) Thus, things like Plays and Albums and Music and Projects stuff like that are going into the Disney Vault for the time being.

I know what you’re thinking. “Josh, how can people consume your art if it isn’t there to be consumed?” Well, it’s been there, for many years, sitting like a smörgåsbord of content.¹ Those who have picked up their nibbles did so long ago and either ate or spit it back up in their napkin. To each their own. It’s now just gathering dust on the internet shelf. I’m mixing my metaphors a bit there. Plus, some of it is still around—albums are on Bandcamp and Spotify, for example, for the foreseeable future.

I’m not expecting people to be listening to or reading my shit every second of every day, it’s just that the statistics behind the content is depressing. Back in the day we didn’t have this level of statistical analysis and you could just make stuff and post it on Myspace and if a handful of people liked it, that was pretty good. Like, I heard somewhere that the bast majority of people who write books² sell less than two dozen of them, ever. That’s depressing! Please don’t tell me that information. Ignorance is bliss, you know?

“Josh your newsletter is depressing now—” Yeah yeah I know, this is what happens when you’re about to turn 40. Mi introspección es tu introspección. My life now is about enriching myself and not worrying about how many people are into my shit. Maybe I’ll reupload some stuff to my site later on, but right now I just want to write drivel into my blog and just kind of be. Just vibe, bro. Big on vibing these days. Thanks, Gen Z. Or younger Millennials. I can’t keep track anymore.

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The only other news I have is that I signed up for two 5k races outside of the Portland Metro area. Oh mah gawd. The first is on my birthday weekend in Long Beach, Washington, just across the river from Astoria, and the second is a ridiculous additional 5k I signed up for in June in Redmond, Oregon, which I completely forgot is in central Oregon. I.e. a fur piece away (as my dad would say).³ My reasoning for the Redmond 5k is that the only 5k I had in June was the Starlight Run, which is a “fun run,” aka not timed. Part of my New Years Resolution technically is that I would be running actual, timed, races. So there you go.

Some of you might have seen my Instagram story where I made a poll about whether my 10k Foot Traffic Flat race in July (my only July race so far) counted as a 5k race for the purpose of my resolution, because it is a race which contains 5k, or if it doesn’t because the type of the race is a 10k, not a 5k. Everyone voted for the former option, which I still kind of disagree with on principle, but also am happy because it means I don’t have to run a separate 5k race in July. Thank you.

I got a nice hotel room in Long Beach for the night prior to the May run and a lil tiny cabin home in Terrebonne, OR for the night before the Redmond Run. It’s close to Smith Rock so I’m assuming lots of climbers like to stay there and climb on the houses or something, I dunno. Climbers are weird. I’m pretty excited, to be honest. I like road trips and hotels and stuff and I haven’t taken a proper road trip anywhere that wasn’t to see my parents in Idaho in a while. Should be fun.

Couve Clover Run

I done did it again, folks. A 5k a week after a 5k! Read about it in detail on my blog, but I will give you the TL;DR here. First off, wasn’t a 5k, was only 3 miles. Why? I have no idea. They don’t do kilometers for this run. As far as I can tell, this is the only run Why Racing Events puts together that is not in kilometers. It’s indefensible. It doesn’t make any goddamn sense. I have to turn my brain off thinking about it because it makes me unnaturally frustrated. It’s the principle of the thing! Did St. Patrick hate the metric system?

My time was 38:26. Not too bad considering I’m still running with a knee and leg injury (which is getting better! Thanks for asking). The Vancouver Waterfront is nice but kind of fake feeling. The swag and food wasn’t bad. The medal is large and heavy, a stark contrast to the paltry medal we got at the Shamrock.

I took a long rest and recovery and then ran an excellent (for me) run at parkrun on the 25th, which I talked about on my Instagram AND my blog. I’ve already talked about these things. Let’s move on.

Happy Birthday to My Dad

My dad is 81 years old today and that is a wild thing to think about. Do you ever think about turning 80 years old? Like, we all know we’re going to get older but I really can’t imagine it. Why would you? It’s literally a thing that hasn’t happened yet. I’m surprised I’m 39, for chrissakes. Sometimes I’ll remember something and realize that my memory happened in high school, but feels like it happened a year ago. Time is weird in the ol’ noggin.

Anyway, my dad is an old fart and I love him and I’m glad he’s still around. Happy birthday, Dad.

(Love you too mom!)

A Video for You

Folks, I’m sorry, but I am an Andrew Huberman guy now. I knew nothing about this guy until I was recommended a running video on YT from a woman who was doing Andrew’s routine for a year. I didn’t know what that meant but for some reason I was intrigued so I watched it. I wasn’t a huge fan of her video, but for some reason I wanted to watch one of Andrew’s podcasts, and I found it very interesting! In a way he explains a lot of “intuitive” concepts through science. Like, watching the sunrise, for example. People talk a lot about enjoying the sunrise on occasion and how good it makes them feel. Well, Andrew explains why we like it and how good it really (potentially) is. I like that!

I was concerned that this guy was a Joe Rogan-esque type, but no, he’s just a former skateboarder turned neuroscientist. Very interesting stuff!

I’m linking this video because it’s a great conversation and the later bits about emotional health were particularly enlightening to me. Have a watch/listen!

CRUCIAL UPDATE: I still generally like his podcast but he does say some stuff that I disagree or have problems with. Like filtering out fluoride in your water. I don’t think that opinion is right and moreover I think when his scientific opinions get farther away from neuroscience, they sound more like pseudoscience. So, point being: take it all with a grain of salt.

The End

That’s all this time, folks. Nothing too exciting for now. As always, if you want more in depth Josh-brain-delvings, head to my blog. Which is now just my website! Huzzah!

1. I didn’t need to spell it that way, but why wouldn’t you? It’s much cooler. ↩︎
2. I’m leaving this in here but I just want you all to know that in my editing pass on this post I did realize that the official term for these kinds of people is “authors” and I did, in fact, feel like a dummy. ↩︎
3. I honestly thought my dad made this up as a general malapropism, but no! ↩︎