Category: life

48

On By Luther M. SilerIn life10 Comments

Enjoy the obligatory birthday selfie; I did remember when I got dressed this morning that for both of the previous birthday selfies I had the same shirt on, and I considered putting that shirt on for the third year in a row and rejected the idea. 48 is entirely too fucking close to fifty for my comfort and I don’t like it one bit. I had to get my drivers license renewed earlier this week and dear god the only way I could look more like a white supremacist in that picture is if I had an actual swastika tattooed on my face. See how I’m clearly holding the camera above my head and looking up? That’s my angle. They made me look down for the DL picture. It did not go well.

Anyway.

We went to Indianapolis today; we went to the IKEA in Fishers and the Lego store, and I fought back against my advanced age by spending entirely too much fucking money for Lego sets that I don’t have anywhere to put once I build them. We’re going to ignore the fact that I can only afford the Goddamn toys I bought today by virtue of being an old person.

Oh, and we found a Tesla overflow lot, completely by accident:

It is genuinely difficult to convey just how much fucking uglier these things are in person. They’re absurdly large, the interior is shit, and the whole thing is so snub-nosed that even if it weren’t designed like a PS1 car brought to life it would still look ridiculous. Also, while I admit I have never once in my life complained about “build quality” on any other vehicle, it took less than a minute of looking at the car in the picture to notice this:

Those pieces of trim are more or less flush on the left and you can get a finger in the gap on the right. It’s not the angle of the picture, I swear. Those are the pieces that keep blowing off of the car at high speeds, too. Also, we got there just after a rainstorm, as you can see, and I’m wondering if anyone has to come over from the dealership to wipe the rainwater off the damn cars so they don’t rust.

Anyway. I’d say “on to 49,” but let’s try surviving through November first.

On side effects

On By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

I moved my Mounjaro dose to Sunday for the summer after taking it on Friday for however many months I’ve been on it (4? 5? Less? Who knows?) and I would really appreciate it if the second day after taking it would stop completely sucking. I thought I got sleep last night, but apparently I didn’t, and the combination of imaginary sleep and side effects meant that I spent the entire day so far in bed, and as of 7:13 PM I haven’t managed to take a shower or really do anything at all yet.

There is a review coming, hopefully tomorrow, of Jay Kristoff’s Nevernight trilogy, and the short version is that it’s the best thing I’ve read this year by a comfortable margin. It’s going to be hard to write the review without spoilers, though, and I don’t have the mental energy for it right now. It’s probably enough to point out that his current series is two seven hundred page books about vampires and I liked Nevernight enough that I’m actually going to pick it up.

What’s going on with y’all today?

In which I skipped today

On By Luther M. SilerIn life4 Comments

Woke up this morning with my head swimming, and while I’m not unused to occasional dizziness first thing in the morning, holy shit— this, with no other symptoms, knocked me flat on my ass for almost the entire day, and I took a four hour nap this afternoon. That didn’t really leave a lot of time for much else; I’ve been reading a book that I’m not enjoying very much, and I’m trying to decide whether I dislike it enough to review it after I finish it or if I should just put it down and not worry about it. Advice, to future writers: you are not allowed to introduce time travel as a plot element with only a hundred pages left in your book. Don’t do that. Please.

Tomorrow I go back to studying in the mornings, after taking a couple of weeks off– my test is July 1st, and I am bound and determined to pass this damned thing on the first try. I have one more practice test handy, so I’ll start going through my last remaining study guide tomorrow, and take that test Wednesday, maybe, and then use the last couple of days to make sure of things like “I know how to use the calculator” and “my computer will run the software without a hitch.” I have no reason to leave the house next week other than a handful of tasks to take care of on Wednesday, so I have plenty of time to get myself ready. I popped into my classroom for a few minutes last week, and told my boss that I was about to take the test, and she didn’t say “Oh, that class isn’t happening,” which I’m hoping means that there’s still at least a good chance.

I dunno, that’s what I’ve got. How was your Sunday?

In which I must be sick

On By Luther M. SilerIn life, video games2 Comments

I haven’t ordered the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC yet.

I … what?

I put something like 130 hours into Elden Ring. My Let’s Play series is a hundred and ten episodes long. I completed every mission I could find, got the Platinum trophy, all of the endings, everything. Played the absolute ever-loving shit out of that game and enjoyed Goddamn near every second of it.

And they’re releasing a lengthy DLC on the 21st, which by all indications is amazing. And I haven’t bought it, I don’t think I’m going to buy it, and I’m not excited about it. Right now I should be planning on staying up late on Thursday night so that I can get started immediately, just like I did with the actual game. I stayed up late to record the demo, for God’s sake.

What the hell is wrong with me?

There’s been a consistent theme in my life over the last several years of this creeping anhedonia, where I just … stop doing things I used to really love doing, or stop enjoying things I used to enjoy. I effectively don’t watch anything any longer. No movies, no TV, nothing streaming. There’s a new season of The Boys, which I’ve enjoyed. Not gonna watch it. The Acolyte? Not gonna watch it. I’m done with Star Wars. I’m done with Marvel. I’m only still buying comic books because my weekly trip to the comic shop is my only reliable in-person interaction with human beings I’m not related to or work with; I can’t stop shopping there unless I move or die. I could literally just come home and put them in a box and never read them and I wouldn’t miss a thing.

You’re never going to catch me complaining about reading, but it’s literally the only thing I do for fun. That’s weird, right? I read books and I write here. Dassit. Those are my hobbies. The honest truth is I think I could sell my PS5 and my Xbox and I wouldn’t miss them. And I’ve been a gamer my entire life.

I don’t fucking get it, and I don’t like it.

(And, to forestall this: Yes, I recognize that I’m basically describing a textbook case of clinical depression here. And while I’m on Effexor, that’s an anti-anxiety med, not an antidepressant, and I don’t think the two overlap much. But I have no other symptoms of depression, including the not exactly minor detail that I’m rarely actually feeling depressed. This is a mental health issue, don’t misunderstand me, but I feel like the most obvious answer is not the right one.)

Blech

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I slept like absolute shit last night and I’ve been alternating between nauseous, dizzy and chills (?!?) all day. God, the second day after Mounjaro sucks.

At any rate, I’ve got nothing for you today, so feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

Ah, Mounjaro

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I don’t mind the weight loss, but being sick the whole day after each injection is starting to get real old. Today featured a five hour nap and not much else, although I’m about to watch Godzilla Minus One, so hopefully that will be good.

Family in town today

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Everybody behave.

In which I haven’t failed yet

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I was able to successfully get myself up out of bed and showered before 8:30 this morning. I had a cup of coffee and screwed around on my phone for a while, then spent an honest to goodness solid hour studying, and managed to successfully regain at least some of my knowledge of trigonometry in the process. I think what I’m going to do this week is spend the next couple of days filling obvious holes in my knowledge (“obvious” meaning “I remember knowing this, and now I don’t,” as opposed to, say, calculus, which is an entire domain of knowledge that I never really had a grasp of) and then take a practice test on Thursday. (Why Thursday? It’ll take a while, and Friday’s going to be busy. I’ll have time to study but not for an entire practice test.) If I do okay on the practice test, I may go ahead and take a shot at the real test next week and see if I can just knock it out. I only need like a 60% to pass, I think? If I do crap on it, I’ll stick with the original plan and study through June or until I can pass a practice test solidly. I don’t want to have to pay for this thing more than twice, and ideally, only once. I’ve also literally never failed a standardized test so I have some pride on the line here too.

In other news, school is out, and I’m finding that I don’t have a lot to say about that. This was a pretty good year, all told; it had its moments, like they all do, but my honors class was awesome enough to carry through the rest of the year and even my most annoying kids continue to pale in comparison with what I’ve had to deal with at previous schools. That said, I think I’m due for another round of reevaluating classroom procedures; everything I’m doing right now is still very COVID-informed and I’m seeing signs that certain policies may be starting to bite me in the ass a bit. I didn’t really try to reinvent the wheel when I changed districts, but I’m comfortable enough in the new place now that I think I can tweak some things. We’ll see.

I’ll end on a question: certain sectors of American society have been claiming that attempting to impose any sort of penalties or punishments for the obvious criminality of certain individuals was going to cause widespread civil unrest. Locally, I am aware of one (1) house that is now flying a very small (comically so, in fact) American flag outside their house, upside down. Is anyone reading this aware of any civil disobedience or protests literally anywhere other than the tiny little group that’s been outside the courthouse in New York since the trial started? Any downtowns flooded with fash lately? Trucker rebellions? Anything at all?