Chronologia

CWs: food, ponderings on mortality, death, physical health, mental health, pet health

I’m writing this lateish at night. It’s shy of midnight but not far. I’ve spent a good chunk of the evening messing about with tagging music and downloading old TV shows scattered across Internet Archive. I absolutely love Internet Archive. I’ll often find things that I thought were lost forever on there, since some kind soul has retained a copy of something and uploaded it to share with the world. It’s wondrous. One of the best parts of the internet, hands down. Currently I have about 204Gb of music in my active collection, and probably just as much “deprecated” on backups. My music backups are on my backup HDD and sometimes I pull albums off of there, but I’ve found that generally if they’re only on there, that’s for a reason (I’ve outgrown the album; not something I want to listen to regularly; &c. &c.). I think it’s like 30-40 days of music, all said and done. I love throwing it on shuffle and seeing what random stuff comes up. I rarely listen to an album straight through anymore. I should change that probably, but I love variatio.

I’m tired, it’s been a long week. A good one, to be sure, but a long one. My eyes are a little tired as I write this. I’m turning 42 this year (ha ha, the magic number, the meaning of life, &c.) and feeling it more and more. I’ve definitely said this before, but isn’t it a shame that just when you’re starting to figure things out, the game is half over? I love life and I am happy with where things are at. But I feel creaky and all. Physical therapy is helping, but I had to cancel my last appointment due to weather, and I need to reschedule. Also, my resistance band broke, so that is a bummer (I am hard on all of my equipment I guess). But I’m feeling old and tired these days. I’m mostly OK with that, but I really dislike when I tweak my back somehow and it hurts for a couple of days and then goes away. Bodies are weird, wonderful, terrible, all sorts of stuff.

I wrote a bit ago on the fedi that I wish I had centuries and centuries to read, listen to music, and watch videos. In practice I don’t know if it’d be great. I suppose if I had a solid, fast internet connection, and lived in the middle of nowhere, cool. That would be cool for centuries. I guess I’d eventually get through everything and then want more. I always want more creative works. I love books, I love listening to music, and I love watching stuff. Art is a wonderful thing. I don’t have a talent for really any of those things, but I do like writing. I played instruments when I was younger (violin, then piano; briefly guitar). I enjoyed them while they lasted, but I eventually fizzled out because I lost the discipline to practice regularly, and it became more of a chore than anything. My spouse has a keyboard that they’ve had for years, and I tinkered with it a bit, but I’m just not into it anymore. I vastly prefer listening to others’ creations and cheering them on, and supporting them however I can. My spouse asked me if I wanted to see any shows this year and I said “well, the music I listen to, most of them are dead or making music in their basements, so they don’t tour.” They were taken aback a little and I guess I was being cheeky, but it’s true. I listen to older music, but also, some of the newer music I listen to, band members have died (sadly). But like, we saw Yasmin Williams last year. We saw Amythyst Kiah. We saw Beach Bunny. Those were all awesome shows. I told them I’d love to see Mitski if she comes to Denver. That would be a wonderful show. Otherwise who knows. I guess I should look at the Red Rocks calendar, and at venues locally, because you never know.

People joke about never getting through their TBR (“to be read”) and the older I get, the more I’m having to accept that I won’t get through it. I have two shelves of books standing behind me, one of which is almost exclusively “to-read,” and the other is my Classics shelf (a lot of those are “to-read” as well, but I’ve read a ton of them). Too much to do and too little time. But it’s OK. I will do my best and enjoy whatever I can, as long as I have. And that’s enough.

Speaking of that, my spouse and I really need to sit down and write out a will. I have some directives for my digital life (I posted about this awhile back), but we haven’t set anything up legally, and I think we really need to do that. My spouse said my sister-in-law has already said she’d provide for the cats, if both of us go, which is totally fine with me. Although my sister could probably help as well; at the same time, I wouldn’t want to split any of them up. The three are a package deal. In any case, that’s something we need to get on. I just don’t know where to start and I don’t really want to get a lawyer involved at the moment. Something for the ever-growing to-do list.

Oh! Speaking of cats. I took Ajax to the vet today. He had at least two ingrown nails. We are terrible about trimming his nails since he really loathes it. I was freaking out when I saw them, so I booked a vet appointment for them to take a look at him. I took some vacation time from work for the appointment (I wish I could use sick leave; we don’t have kids, why not? ugh). It only took about 30min total. They said he was fine, no issues, he was a bit wiggly but all good now. I was incredibly relieved. We’ll keep an eye on him and try to trim them again down the road ourselves; my spouse said they heard that sitting down gives better leverage. If that doesn’t work, we’ll find a groomer. The girls are totally easy and don’t mind it, Xya least of all, so we take care of them pretty regularly, but Ajax is a fighter. It’s sad seeing Ajax and Xya getting older. They’re turning 14 this year and I can’t believe it. Hoping we have many more good years with them, but my spouse acknowledged that they have more years behind us than ahead with the older two. Glad Lyra is young (she’ll be 5 this year, IIRC?) and hoping we’ll have her for a long time (provided she stops chewing on the blinds! ugh!).

Life is weird and interesting and it’s kinda stressful all the time. I’m trying not to overdo it on the news, but I need to know what’s going on. Trying not to go down the rabbit hole. I’m trying my best to make as much of a difference in the world as I can. I can’t fix everything. I can’t fix many things at all, but I am trying to fix what I can. And that’s gotta be enough, for my own mental health. I need to find a therapist. I like writing about things, to be sure, but it would definitely be good to talk to someone. My spouse listens and is wonderful but they can’t be my therapist and I know that. I think this weekend I’ll look at the therapy options and get something booked. If I could book something in the evening, after work, that would be just fine. I don’t love the idea of doing a therapy session then having to go back to work, or whatever. Not my favorite idea. So that’ll be a weekend goal.

We have a lot of errands to do this weekend, but also fun stuff, so that’s cool. Need to take some things to the landfill, which will be nice to declutter. Then some more fun errands like I want new body wash, going to the bookstore, getting spices, probably getting a meal. I’ll probably play some games. February is almost here. I keep thinking February is the “feverish” (febris) month, but februum, -i, n., is “purification, purgation,” and per L&S, februa, -orum, n. pl. is “the Roman festival of purgation and expiation.” So I guess, hoping February will be cleansing for us all, a fresh start, better things ahead. Gods know we need some good news. <3