August Currentlies (And Other Stuff)

Well, it's been quite an eventful month. First, I turned 48, which is a number that seems largely meaningless except for the fact that it's inching disturbingly towards the big five-oh, and that just feels deeply, viscerally wrong. I am not this old. I cannot possibly be this old. What the hell even is time?

Second, I just got back from a week's vacation in Alaska with my mother and sister, talking scenic train rides through part of the state and visiting Denali National Park. We didn't get to see much of the mountain itself, which apparently is not uncommon, as Alaska has lots of cloud cover. But we saw a lot of wildlife, including a startling number of grizzly bears (fortunately at a distance and from the safety of a bus). My sis and I even took a rafting trip down a (very cold) river.

Basically, it was all completely beautiful. And, I gotta tell ya, I could get used to almost perpetual sunlight. All day, every day, it basically felt like the equivalent of a pleasant spring morning (or possibly afternoon). I never had any sense of what time of day it was, but in a way that was the exact and utter opposite of the feeling I get when I get so far out of sync with the sun due to the shift work that my circadian clock just breaks. That feels deeply strange, even surreal. This felt completely natural, as if time was something I just didn't even need. Very odd, but very cool.

So that was all great, although it was marred a little bit by the fact that I managed to catch an unpleasant chest cold at the very end, which certainly made the plane flight home even more annoying than long plane flights usually are. I'm still coughing. I just hope it doesn't settle in and turn into bronchitis the way such things seem to do for me about half the time.

Also not great: I boarded the cat at the vet's while I was gone, and after I picked him up, I noticed one of his eyes was weeping mucus a little. I was worried he'd picked up something while he was in there, so I took him back to have it checked out. Turns out, he's got a bad tooth abscess. Which he's apparently had for quite some time, the poor thing. It may be the stress of being stuck at the vet's worsened it to the point where it finally became obvious. Aaaand, now he needs antibiotics and dental surgery, on top of all the other things he needs. Poor kitty. Also, AAAAARGH.

Anyway. On to the usual state-of-things meme thingy.

Current clothes: Blue sweatpants. My white "tea rex" t-shirt, featuring a monocled T-Rex drinking tea. White socks.

Current mood: Very out of it, in that way that I often get when I've just come back from vacation, except exacerbated no doubt by not feeling super well.

Current music: Nothing much.

Current annoyance: So many, many, many things, but most prominently this stupid cough.

Current thing: Trying to recover from traveling and catch up on the million and one things that seem to need doing upon my return.

Current desktop picture: It's still the main characters from Good Omens. Because they are the best.

Current book: The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki.

Current song in head: "What about Love?" by Heart, because I heard it the other day in some public place or other. I've been struck lately by how often 80s music seems to be cropping up in such places now. It seems very strange to me, but then I think, back in the 80s, was there lots of 50s music being played like that? And, you know, I think there was. (Which just makes me feel even older, because surely in the 80s the 50s were ancient freaking history. Right?)

Current refreshment: Moroccan Mint tea. (Aka green tea with mint. Very tasty.)

Currently watching: I haven't had the chance to watch anything yet since I got back. There's going to be a lot of stuff on the DVR to catch up with. Also, I still haven't finished Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Well, honestly, it's not the kind of thing you can binge-watch, at all.

Current happy thing: Alaska really was beautiful. Well, is beautiful still, I'm sure. I just can't see it at the moment, because I'm in New Mexico.

Current thought: I have also added to my lifetime list of animal species consumed, thanks to a caribou sausage breakfast burrito I ate in the dining car of the train. I'm not sure why that feels like some kind of accomplishment.