CWs: massive Battlestar Galactica (Re-Imagined Series) spoilers within, caveat legens (if you haven’t watched the series, watch it!!)

You know, sometimes I wonder what home is. Is it an actual place, or is it an absence we carry inside of us? Some kind of longing for something, some kind of connection?

• Laura Roslin, Battlestar Galactica S04E18, “Islanded in a Stream of Stars” (2009)

We just finished Battlestar Galactica (TRS, or “The Re-Imagined Series”). We ended up watching E18 and then the three-part finale (“Daybreak”), 2.5hrs with the extended version, right after that. And it was fantastic. I watched BSG for the first time in 2016 or so, right after we moved to Colorado. I don’t know what inspired me to watch it; I was telling my spouse that I couldn’t remember why, but I saw it available on Hulu and just went for it. (Now that I think of it, that was back when Comcast/NBC Universal had a large stake in Hulu, so it’s not surprising that it was on there; now it’s on Peacock, IIRC). A few years ago, I bought the Blu-Ray set when I found it on sale, and I was really excited to watch it with my spouse. One night, jokingly, while hanging out with friends, I said I’d watch The Bear upon their recommendation if they would watch BSG with me. They agreed, fortunately enough, and we set about starting the series, with the miniseries of course. I can’t even remember when we started it; it must have been late last year, or very early this year. It’s been months, but we took a little hiatus for a couple of months there.

CWs: politics, gloom

Well, we’ve reached the start of July. It’s been a weird year, and already a weird month. In the US, at least, evil has seemingly triumphed, with the passage of the GOP’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” I’m worried, not as much for myself, but for myriads of others. There are darker times ahead in the US, and I fear the world as well. I remember when George W. Bush got reelected in 2004 and I wrote something insipid in Greek (I was learning Greek at the time) about the country rotting and being corrupted, but I think I was about 20 years too early for the real event. That was just one more step in the blight.

CWs: food mention

I’m grateful for a lot of things. One, that I have the means to keep this space running as a repository for my thoughts. That I have a place to live. That I have my spouse and my kitties. That I have family and friends whom I love and by whom I in turn I am loved. That we have A/C to stay cool in the depths of summer heat, and heat to keep us warm through the depths of wintry cold. That we can put food, and mostly healthy food at that, on the table each week. That we have jobs that allow us to do these things. There are a lot of things I am trying not to take for granted, especially in these often-uncertain times. I need to remember this, all the time.

CWs: food, alcohol, family health mention, fictional suicide mention

σκηνογραφία, ἡ, “scene-painting”

We saw Amythyst Kiah, one of my favorite artists, last night. She put on a really lovely, cozy show at a venue I don’t normally love, but I think it’s been upgraded since we were last there. There were a couple of openers, one of whom I really enjoyed, Katya Grasso (Both were good, but I really liked Katya’s music and want to seek out more). All around it was a very chill, down-to-earth, folksy show, and we very much enjoyed the evening.

CWs: work, family health mention, pet grossness

Well, as usual it has been a busy week. We have Juneteenth off tomorrow, which will be nice. I am glad it is a holiday but I wish more people had it off, y’know? In any case, tomorrow off, work Friday, then we have the whole next work week off for vacation. I am definitely ready for it and very tired.

We had a guy come out to start up our sprinkler system; we set a time for 11 and he came by a little later (no problem). I took my lunch a little early for all that. He walked through the whole system, got it turned on, and showed me how to get the timer working and make sure the schedule was good. One of the nozzles was broken, so he replaced it with parts he had. I was very impressed, and hey, now we have a “sprinkler guy!” yay! I have it set to turn on, for 12 minutes for each of the 8 zones, at 3am Tuesdays & Thursdays. Very quick and affordable, I was happy.

CWs: work

Writing a quick missive because why not. It’s Tuesday but it feels like it should be later in the week. I have a relatively calm week, then phones at the start of next week, which is fine. Until then, though, it’s a calm little island amid stormy seas. I also finished a Latin project on Sunday, and it’s a weird feeling not to have more stuff to work on immediately. I’m sure it’s forthcoming, but not quite yet, and I’ll enjoy the little lull while I can.

I feel like I’ve said this a lot lately, at least to my spouse (and I think at least to one of my colleagues), but this is the rainiest spring/summer I think we’ve had in a long time. Normally we get a bunch more snow in March/April, sometimes May, but it has been pretty rainy in May and June thus far. I’m totally OK with it, though, if it helps ward off wildfires later in the season. I am also happy with rain pretty much always, as it reminds me of home. I always like to say that I am from Oregon, the land of wind and rain (well, rain moreso), and well, the love of rain has never left me. I liked it in Florida too, but the problem in Florida was that it didn’t cool things down, it just made everything more humid than it already was, and still hot. Rain here is much better, as it does cool things down. We’ve had a couple of gloomy, rainy days this week, which I love. However, the sun came out in force in the late afternoon, likely drying up a lot of the rain. But that’s OK. I like having seasons here, where things change. (I just thought of the Disney “seasons” print that I have on the wall to my left. It is lovely and my spouse kindly got it framed for me in a fun frame from Michaels awhile back. I dunno, I always looked at that “seasons” print at the Disney art store at Disney World, and finally ended up ordering it!

CWs: work, personal history, mental health

I’ve been out of academia for nearly 6 years at this point (2019). At that point I was on the tail end of a teaching gig in middle/high school. It feels weird, like a different life entirely. But it’s in my past and that’s OK. I loved the time I spent working on my degrees, and all the learning that involved, and presenting and sharing knowledge with others as much as I felt like I could. I had a lot of interesting friends over the years, many fleeting and transient, as grad school/academic colleagues are wont to be, but they were in my life as long as they needed to be. That’s OK. Sometimes I miss the spoken Latin cena my colleague would host when I was teaching middle/high school most weeks. We had a lot of laughs, practiced speaking Latin, had a good meal, and read some interesting Latin off the beaten path. Those nights were fun. You might say, well, why not reach out, rekindle that connection? I suppose I could, but it would never be the same. I would always feel like the outsider, even though Latin would connect us. It’s a little melancholy losing those sorts of things, but again, it’s OK.

CWs: alcohol, food, work mention

Interea magno misceri murmure caelum
incipit, insequitur commixta grandine nimbus
- Vergil, Aeneid 4.160-61

Meanwhile, the heavens began to be mixed up
With a great murmuring, and followed
A cloud with hail mixed in…

That passage from the Aeneid has stuck with me for a long time. Whenever I think of hail, I often think of that passage, which is from the 4th book, where the Trojans, particularly Aeneas and Dido, get stuck in a raging storm. I am thinking of hail because we drove through a hailstorm this weekend. It was an intense one. Probably the thickest rainstorm we’ve been in with the new car. My spouse was worried it would crack the windshield, and I was just hoping for the best, honestly.

Many of us have dreamt of time travel in some form or another. And why not? You could be an eyewitness at crucial historical events, perhaps even change them? But as we’ve seen from many sci-fi stories (and what are sci-fi authors if not a type of prophet?), the risks far outweigh the benefits. However, there is a form of time travel accessible to us that is completely, AFAIK, safe. I would argue that emulation is a form of time travel.