Retro #13: May

12 Jun 2026

Another friend of mine passed away in late May. Mike McAuley, frontman of hardcore bands Mickeys Crew and Human Trainwreck, true Yankees fan, friend to all cats and a generally great guy, is no longer with us. I have fond memories of attending a game with him at Yankee Stadium—every time the crowd would get way too excited about a routine flyout he would yell at them to chill out and learn to read a fly ball. (I think of him every time I see this Onion headline.) Mike is one of the myriad friends I made on baseball Twitter, back when that was a genuinely wonderful presence in my life (mid-2010s) and the source of countless connections and friendships. He was in his 40s, which is just too fucking young by any measure, and I would like to suggest that whatever deity is involved in removing my friends from this earthly plane should take a hike immediately. RIP Mike, you were so cool.

I forgot to share my “consistency updates” last month, so in the interest of completion, here is both April and May:

Habit tracker for April and May with some days crossed off

You’ll notice there is a third option this month. I started taking casual piano lessons with one of my dearest friends, an accomplished voice and piano teacher and a real music pedagogy expert (I have learned so much about how the brain works during this process; would highly recommend!). I’m not looking to play classical piano, but instead looking to learn good technique to enable me to stop thinking so hard when I need to play “keyboards” in a rock band and things like that. I’ve winged it pretty decently all my life—I can find all the triads I need to find, I even played keys in a live karaoke band for a time (every time someone called “Don’t Stop Believing” it made my heart jump into my throat though). But most of the time I’m thinking very hard when I play, and I’m only really using like four fingers, and my left hand is not pulling its weight. So I’m hoping to build some better muscle memory awnd some bilateral ability.

As I have previously learned … it is so annoying how regular practice just works.

I was also rethinking the “mobility” item a little bit, because I was starting to just cross it off whenever I did any kind of stretching at the gym, and for awhile I was fine with this (doing anything is better than doing nothing). But I really want to focus on specific mobility issues, primarily my hips from all the sitting and my ankles which are blocking my squat progression. So I’ve resolved to focus a bit better on those things this month and use that row to track that.

There’s also a big chunk crossed off this month, because I was on vacation in Montréal!

A group selfie in a Montreal bistro A group selfie in a park with all of us holding ice cream A huge table of flowering plants at Jean-Talon Market Two sleeves of bagels, one from Fairmount and one from St-Viateur

I had a great time, it’s been way too long. And it’s so nice to be able to chill out and read a book on a train.

Things I liked this month

Where did all the affordable cars go?
I saw Skye Wallace open for Ace of Wands at the end of May and this song has been stuck in my head since.
The feed is fake. (Via She’s a Beast.) Some of this continues the Geese/Chaotic Good/psyop conversation from last month, but is also an interesting look at “clipping,” which I hadn’t really known anything about, as I try my damndest to avoid short-form video these days.