Hebdomadi Finem Imponens

CWs: wildfires, mental health, food

hebdomadi finem imponens, or

“putting an end to the week”

I am just happy the weekend is here and I thought of a fun way to express that in Latin, sorta. finem imponere means “to put an end to” something (cf. also manum imponere, “to put the [finishing] touch on” something), so it’s a fun phrase in general. When I was doing spoken Latin, I learned a lot of conversational Latin that one might find in more conversational genres like comedy (Plautus, Terence, &c.), and I honestly would like to see more in the wild in literature. I really haven’t read any Roman comedies, aside from Terence’s Andria at the start of my MA, and a tiny bit of Plautus during the PhD. It just was not at all my focus.

In any case, again, long week. I’m looking forward to a couple of days to recuperate. A wildfire started, not nearly far enough away from us, at the start of last week, so the last week or so has been harrowing. And we’ve been relatively OK, but others have evacuated and had much worse times, so I am grateful for that at least. Still, psychologically, it’s been a challenging nearly two weeks. At this point, the fire is mostly contained, and will just have to burn itself out, and we’ve also had much cooler weather and rain, so that is even better. I’m the most relieved I’ve been since all of this started. We still have stuff packed up, but that’s more due to me not putting it away yet. Part of me wants to keep it around a little longer until we get an all-clear of sorts, y’know?

I’ve not read nearly enough this week. I read some Iliad (I am on Book 17 now), and more of Perdido Street Station. I may have to think more about my little “currently reading” “widget,” if you wanna call it that, and might include page numbers or something, but I dunno. Right now it just lists what I’m reading and I threw in Bookshop.org links to the books, in case anyone wants to buy them. I’ll try to keep it updated. This method is a lot more chill than something like BookWyrm, which, while fun and a cool idea, was too much for me. Again, I haven’t read that much this week, mostly been very tired at the end of the day and listened to podcasts instead.

Speaking of podcasts, I ended up joining Classic Gaming Today’s Patreon, since one of the perks of the middle tier is a bonus podcast called “Expansion Pack.” I am already really enjoying the main podcast, so I figured why not? I came across the podcast completely by accident when looking for retro gaming podcasts, and I’ve really enjoyed listening through so far (I think I’ve listened to 40 or 50 episodes now?). I’ve also been sorta saving up You’re Wrong About episodes and slowly listening to them. Podcasts are pretty much all I listen to in the car; I am in-office one day a week, so I usually listen to them on the way there and back home. And I usually listen to podcasts right before I go to bed most nights, and especially on Fridays and weekends before bed. It’s a nice way to wind down before sleep, at least for me. That reminds me, I need to listen to the next Beers, Beats, and Battlestar Galactica episode, since we just started season 3 (dear gods it’s bleak! I forgot how bleak!), and we’ll likely watch another episode tomorrow. I love love love that show and I’m happy my spouse has been enjoying it too, although they did remark on how heteronormative the show is (“everyone’s paired off and married!”). It’s true, but sadly par for the course in the late 2000s, although I hear that Gaeta briefly has a boyfriend in some of the Season 4 webisodes (put it in the show proper, you cowards!). I remember really enjoying Gaeta in general but I think I soured on him near the end of the show, but can’t entirely remember why. We’ll see on that I guess!

I’m a little rambly tonight. I’m listening to music per usual and the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack came on shuffle. My parents bought me this a ridiculous 3CD version of the soundtrack awhile back, and it’s got all sorts of fun bonus stuff. I’m not sure what I want to do with the rest of the evening. I could play games but don’t 100% feel like it tonight. I’m about 3/4 of the way through season 4 of Clarissa Explains It All and may watch more of that. I’ve been really enjoying revisiting that show, as I loved it as a kid and I don’t honestly remember how much I watched during the original run. I certainly didn’t remember it being 5 seasons!

I need to drink some water. I’m not sure what we’re doing with the weekend. The car badly needs an oil change, so I think that’ll be the first order of business tomorrow. We might see our friends. My spouse wants a burger somewhere, so that’s TBD; we may have to do In-N-Out for that, but tempus docebit. Our friends expressed a vague interest in seeing us tomorrow, but the text exchange was very cryptic, as sometimes happens, so I don’t entirely know what we’re doing, but we’re flexible. I have to get a good chunk of Latin done this weekend, but it’s not too terribly bad. And we don’t really have plans for Sunday at the moment, I don’t think. I need to get more bananas and actually eat them; the last batch we got was kinda goofy and mealy and I was not a big fan.

I hope y’all are having a good start to the weekend so far. And I appreciate you reading my work, disorganized and random as it can be at times. Talk soon, friends. <3