Unread Shelf: September 30, 2023

On September 30, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn Photography, Reading2 Comments

I’m back in “I need more hours in the day” territory here…

Oh COME ON

On September 29, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy

September has been a deeply shitty month, all told; this week my son got sick again (not COVID this time, something intestinal) and my wife’s car decided it didn’t need to stop any longer, but I figured that was probably the end of it, what with it being both Friday and the 29th and all. But no! This morning my car decided not to start, so I missed another day of work because we couldn’t figure out a way to swing it with just one car, so a tow and a rental later and I’m already out nearly $500 before my car guy even looks at the damn thing, which they won’t have time to do until Monday at the earliest.

At the rental place, they asked me if I wanted the optional “you can actually set the fucking car on fire and then just return the steering wheel and not pay for anything” insurance, and I started to say no, like I have every time I’ve rented a car, and then thought some more about the month we’ve had and said yes instead. I literally did not complete a left turn out of the parking lot before discovering that my new rental vehicle had way bigger blind spots than I thought and nearly having an accident. Someone else laid on their horn at me at a point later in the drive, and for the life of me I don’t even know what that one was about.

I may not get out of bed tomorrow.

Mental health note

On September 27, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn life3 Comments

I alluded the other day to realizing that you’ve grown tired of a long-term hobby, and it’s floated through my head several times recently (and, I think, was also suggested by someone here, although I’m not about to go looking through comments) that if I described what I’ve been like lately to a third party and especially if I didn’t tell them I was talking about myself, they’d describe me as clinically depressed. My anhedonia is through the roof lately; I don’t enjoy much of anything that I used to enjoy, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

I’ve effectively stopped watching all things that can be watched. I have a probably month-high stack of comic books sitting next to me that I bought and actively don’t want to read. I’m ready to clear all of my superhero memorabilia out of the house, and that’s a lot of stuff. Even video games have been sources of more stress than stress relief yesterday; I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate III pretty consistently for a few weeks and I had a moment the other day where I realized I was getting tired of it. I’m … maybe a third of the way in? And my backlog is like six or seven games deep right now. If I hadn’t already shut down the YouTube channel (which is another thing I used to enjoy that I’ve stopped doing) I’d have to at this point, just because I can’t fucking finish anything.

I’m still reading, but nothing’s set the world on fire recently. I don’t know what the shit I’m going to do if I lose interest in reading. It’s unimaginable. And, well, y’all can bear witness to the amount of time I’ve spent writing recently. The weird thing is that I don’t feel like I’m unhappy; I just … feel like I don’t really enjoy anything lately. A bunch of perfectly cromulent geek hobbies have been tossed aside in favor of the fucking NYT crossword and Spelling Bee and I refuse to be that person.

I’ve been on brain meds long enough that I’m used to sort of monitoring my mental status from a distance. I’ll get in touch with my doctor if I start feeling like this is getting genuinely alarming, or if my wife comes to me after reading this and says she’s noticed something different. It may just be that I’m finally aging out of my juvenile bullshit; who knows. I just … really miss liking things, that’s all, and I don’t feel like that’s something I do any longer.

Blech.

I swear I had something for this

On September 26, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized1 Comment

There is almost certainly something more annoying than being a blogger who has suffered for a lack of material lately who has had a good idea for a post and subsequently forgotten what it was, but seeing as I am that blogger and am currently very annoyed, I can’t think of what it might be.

Shit.

What, again?

On September 24, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching

It’s kind of appropriate that I know good and well I’ve made this joke in the last few weeks already, but I can’t believe that I spent all last week teaching these kids math and somehow I have to teach them math again tomorrow. One would think they would know it by now, or at least enough of it, but no. I do genuinely envy people with regular jobs; this weird thing where I have to decide what I’m doing at work tomorrow just aggravates the shit out of me sometimes. That was one of the cool things about selling furniture, y’know? I got home and I was home, and I didn’t have to spend two hours preparing for my eight hours of work the next day. I could just go to work and work would happen. Not so for teaching, which is why teaching is dumb.

But whatever; you’d think after 20 years I’d be done griping about this shit but apparently not. This has been a solid Week of Nothing to Say; I have gotten home from work, plugged Baldur’s Gate III into a vein, then unhooked it long enough to eat and prepare for the next day, and rinse and repeat. Nothing’s really happened in the world that I’ve felt the need to talk about and my reading lately hasn’t been compelling enough that I’ve wanted to talk about either, which means I’m either doing music posts or, well, this.

Anyway. My Algebra class I’m good for but I gotta go figure out something for the 8th grade Math class. Sigh.

Goals!

On September 23, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized

Okay, guys, I’m gonna leave the house tomorrow, but not to go to work.

I can do this. Seriously.

Write Your Own Blog Post

On September 20, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy3 Comments

Have you ever abandoned a long-term hobby? Not, like, because you weren’t physically capable of it any longer for some reason or some external reason, but just realized you weren’t interested in something that you’d been doing for decades and stopped doing it?

Not asking for any reason. Really.

(And absolutely not talking about the blog.)