After the Storm

I’m being a little hyperbolic here, but at the same time I’m not. I haven’t had a proper vacation in about 7 months (when we went to San Francisco), and I have all of next week off, as well as Memorial Day, so that will be lovely. I love my job, but it’s exhausting and draining even on the good days, so recharging and self-care are of paramount importance. And I’m grateful to have the time off, although this will clean out most of my available leave time, but that’s OK. After a particularly busy run of things, I often conjure up the memory of that Spaceballs scene where they’re running through the corridors, being pursued, and everyone leaps through the door just before it closes. That is a pretty accurate way to describe how I feel right now. I think there’s also a track on the Ecco the Dolphin soundtrack called “After the Storm,” so maybe that bubbled up to the fore of my consciousness as well, I dunno.

I’ve been reading a lot lately, which has been a nice change. For awhile I was mostly just listening to podcasts before bed, since I think I was in a sort of “reading rut” at that point. I’m very slowly reading Emily Wilson’s Iliad translation, which is top-notch, but it’s a monstrously long book, and easy to get bogged down in. I just recently started reading it again, since I’ve been reading other stuff in the meantime. Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves (way to make the apocalypse interesting!); various books, such as Language of the Spirit, by my friend Julie Reeser; a couple of Veo Corva novellas (I still need to read The Beautiful Decay soon!); H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (it sucks, don’t bother reading it); Richard Adams’ Tales from Watership Down. That latter one was especially nice to read, as I adored Watership Down as a kid. I read it in about 6th grade; our class was supposed to read Brian Jacques’ Redwall (an excellent series, most of which I read in elementary school), but I’d already read it, so I got to read Watership Down instead. It was so good. And returning to that world was really nice, so many years later, like meeting an old friend again.

I most recently picked up J. R. R. Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales, which has been on my shelf literally for years, and I hadn’t ever gotten around to it until now, but it just felt right, especially after reading the interesting lore of the Watership Down stories. It’s really interesting getting glimpses at what could have been, early drafts, &c., of a lot of the Silmarillion material, which feels frustratingly fleeting and slippery to me. I did a reread of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit a few years ago and, naturally, loved it. Years ago, my parents bought me a Tolkien concordance as a gift. I think it’s Robert Foster’s The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth but I am not 100% sure (it is in a box somewhere). I remember using it a lot when reading the series, and loved looking up names and places and other tantalizing information. I have a book of maps by David Day, who apparently has a terrible reputation in Tolkien scholastic circles; apparently Karen Wynn Fonstad’s The Atlas of Middle-Earth is far better, and I need to get a copy of that. Anyways, my edition of Unfinished Tales has a fold-out map in the back of the book, and is generally really cool. It even has a nice glossary! One thing that fascinated me was the idea of the “Straight Road.” The idea is that once the furthest West lands were hidden from mortals and elves alike, and it was impossible to get back to Valinor by most normal means, the “Straight Road,” if found and followed, would lead back there. Tolkien’s ancient history goes from a flat world to a 3D one, which makes sense given the archaic conception of the world e.g. in Homer and other archaic poetry. But yeah, it’s been nice revisiting Middle-earth, although I’ve been really tired at night lately and have had trouble staying awake.

I’ve been wanting to get a new phone for a little while now. I got my current one in 2022, and normally I hold onto them longer, but my Pixel 5a is almost end-of-life (Aug 2024) in terms of software and security updates, so I want to upgrade. I’ve been looking around on Swappa for used Pixel 8s, and haven’t found a great price, and was recently rambling about that on Mastodon. One of my dear friends there said she has a Pixel 8 Pro she isn’t using and needed to sell, and offered to sell it to me. How fortuitous! I happily agreed, and we’re gonna sort that out soon. The 8 should be covered for 7 years of software and security updates, and I’ll immediately put GrapheneOS on it, of course, so it will be lovely. I am super excited to have a phone that will (hopefully, fingers crossed), last for that whole time! So that’s exciting. I was hoping my mom could help me with getting the new phone for my birthday, but oh well, I am gonna do something nice for myself.

Summer is around the corner here, and we’re seeing high 70s and low 80s F lately, which is kinda my least favorite thing. I always tell people, I put up with the hot summers here for the cold winters, so it’s OK, I’ll get through it. I just don’t like hot weather and would prefer cold or cool most of the year, honestly. I was at the office yesterday and it was uncomfortably hot when I was leaving to head home. At least it’s not hot and humid like Florida, so that is a relief. And I love being near the mountains, so that makes up for it. And we have good A/C and good insulation and fans, so it’s all good. I’m just grumbling, don’t mind me.

Inspired by my friend’s post, I had been meaning to write a post about “tools” I use (computer, or whatever), but haven’t done that yet. I would like to soon if I can take the time to do so. There are plenty of things I use and would like to share with others, of course, if they may be helpful. I do have a post on my thoughts on computer security which badly needs to be updated, as I think it still recommends Blokada, which is not great (and I’d suggest using NetGuard instead if you have an Android phone). Yep, that’s on the agenda to update too, for sure.

anyways that’s all I have for today. thanks for reading, friends <3