Spring Song

CWs: mental health, oblique politics

Well, here we are, a couple of weeks into Spring proper (at least in the Northern hemisphere). Yesterday we had light snow and rain most of the day, and today there was a decent amount of light snow, but as is the case with most spring snow, a few hours later it’s like it never happened. I’m OK with that. I love the winter but I’ve had enough snow over the past few months, and I’d like it to stay cold for a little while longer before we get into the ardor of summer.

It was a busy week as usual. Next week will be busier (phones), but OK. I have appointments coming up in the next week (dietitian, pulmonologist, dentist in a couple of weeks too). I still need to find a therapist. There’s stuff that needs to be done around the house. I need to call to get the gutters cleaned and futureproofed. Need to get quotes for foundation repair. Just a lot going on. We’re kinda waiting to see how the state budget shakes out next week, though, and I am hoping for the best.

I have been speedrunning “Brutal Wolfenstein 3D” and just finished Spear of Destiny tonight. It’s a mod running in GZDoom with the DOOM II engine, so it’s light-years beyond the original games, and it’s been fun playing through them. I think it’s a one-and-done, but I’ve had fun with them.

I also need to read more. I read for 1.5-2hrs every weeknight, usually, and Sundays, just before bed, which is always nice. I was reading a library book recently which I enjoyed and finished, then I went back to read more Wicked, which I finished last night. Wicked the book was an interesting duck. It’s far different from the later musical and movie adaptation, which I’m OK with. It’s much darker, much more intense. However, I found the two halves of the book to be very dissonant and uneven; I’m not sure if that was intentional or not. The first half was a lot better IMHO; the second half had some interesting spots, but it kinda devolved into weirdness for its own sake. And then it intruded a little upon its source material, which was interesting and meta. I’ve mentioned elsewhere, probably, either here, or if you’ve talked to me in general, that I read all of the mainline L. Frank Baum Oz books maybe a year or so ago (there are an astounding 15!). I really by and large enjoyed almost all of them, and highly recommend reading them. At least the first two or three. I think they’ve aged remarkably well, too, considering they came out over a century ago. I had bought three large Barnes & Noble volumes containing 5 books each, and just plowed through all of them.

All that to say, I vastly prefer the source material to Maguire’s epigonist work. It’s fine, and I’m going to enjoy part 2 of the movie when it comes out later this year, but I’ve spent enough time in Oz personally. I was talking to my spouse earlier and I compared the Wicked universe to the Star Wars prequel trilogy; some people just like the later (ha) stuff better I guess? I think it’s an apt analogy. I totally get that it has its audience, and I enjoyed reading it, but again, it is not 100% my thing, and that’s totally OK. I hope y’all read the Oz books and Wicked et al., because why not? I think if you’ve read the originals (Maguire obviously knows his source material well!), you’ll appreciate Wicked more. But if you haven’t, I think you’ll still probably enjoy it. After all, it is a prequel, and hey, you could read Wicked and then go back to the originals from there, if desired. Apparently there were others writing Oz novels after Baum, and they seem to have been well-received, so I guess it is sort of a cottage industry.¹

Made it through the week. It’s been a stressful time with everything going on in the world. We’re keeping our heads above water, and by all accounts doing pretty fine, considering, but it’s still been a worrisome time. I’m just trying to keep doing what I’m doing, helping in whatever small ways I can, trying to take care of others as much as I can while still taking care of myself. I don’t know what to say a lot of the time, there is just a lot of anger and hurt and stress and I don’t know a great outlet. I can’t put a lot of it into words very easily. I sorta infodumped on my spouse about it a few days ago, which was cathartic, but also confusing. I don’t know where to go from here and I’m trying to figure that out every day. Life is confusing enough most of the time, but it’s been especially confusing and aggravating these days.

I’m okay with having busy weeks though. I do my absolute best throughout the week, and I am proud of that, and then I get to the weekend and want to relax and recharge, which mostly happens. And there are oases, coves, air pockets during the week, too. Reading at night before bed, a cup of tea, surrounded by kitties on the couch. And then sweet Sleep usually makes everything better. I try to have the mindset that I am going to sleep and everything will keep until the morning, I can retreat into myself for awhile and let my mind and body rest, and everything will be there to tackle the next day. Because it can wait.

Anyways, I need to feed the girls in a few here. Lyra is probably whining outside my office door. After that I’ll do some music tagging and such, maybe watch some TV. I am going through the ’60s Gumby episodes, I have sets with the original soundtracks, and it’ll be fun to revisit. I am really excited about the ’80s episodes, though, as they are, IIRC, a lot of fun. Thanks for reading, friends, and I’ll talk with y’all soon. <3