December Currentlies

I'll be honest here: I came fairly close to just not even bothering with this post. More and more, this blog feels like a relic of the past, and more and more even posting this here often feels kind of pointless. So I don't know whether you'll see anything from me in January or not. But, well, it seemed wrong not to at least round out the year. So, for the moment, here I still am. And here this still is.

Current clothes: Blue jeans. A gray long-sleeve t-shirt with a picture of a spacewalking astronaut on it. Blue socks with a design featuring the planets of the solar system. Brown work boots.

Current mood: Not too bad, all things considered. (Said "things" mainly being my as-usual weird-ass work schedule and accompanying bizarre sleeping patterns.) Just a little frazzled, maybe, because I'm posting this fairly quickly, as I have somewhere to be soon.

Current music: Nothing much.

Current annoyance: My "somewhere to be soon" is, in fact, a dentist appointment. So my current annoyance is teeth. Are they or are they not the stupidest body part? I'm gonna go with yes. Yes, they are.

Current thing: Having lots of things I want to do with my time and not nearly enough time to do them in, and still somehow spending far too much of my life doing dumb time-wastey things.

Current desktop picture: Still The Good Place.

Current book: Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins. I'm about two thirds of the way through, and I swear, the more of this novel I read, the less I know how I feel about it.

Current song in head: "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon. Which I'm pretty sure is not, in fact, a song about me.

Current refreshment: I just ate a bacon cheeseburger for lunch. It was good.

Currently watching: Recently finished watching Chernobyl. Which I thought was going to be tough to watch, but, honestly, after reading Voices from Chernobyl, which it seems to have been largely based on, the TV series was nothing. Seriously, that book was probably one of the most painful things I've ever read in my life. The series was very good, though, and its themes are depressingly relevant today.

Current happy thing: Hey, I did get enough sleep today! That's always a real happy thing for me.

Current thought: Carly, please, I have never owned an apricot scarf in my life.

November Currentlies

I'm not even going to ask where the time goes anymore. It is November now, and I will accept this fact.

Current clothes: A white t-shirt from LibraryThing, a website I use basically every day. Blue sweatpants. Socks that say "Just give me a cup of tea and a good book and leave me alone," because it's nice to have socks that reflect your values and interests.

Current mood: Generally OK, but a little annoyed at how little I've gotten done so far today.

Current music: Nothing much. Bizarrely enough, I think the most recent thing I may have listened to was, er, a metal band fronted by a parrot. I don't know where I find these things, either.

Current annoyance: There are many of them, but the most immediate one is that a few minutes ago I made the mistake of petting the cat and then rubbing my eye, and now my eye is all itchy and it's driving me nuts.

Current thing: Based on my upcoming answers to "current book" and "currently watching," I think you might say that it's catching up on weird stuff from the 1990s that I'd somehow missed until now.

Current desktop picture: It's still The Good Place.

Current book: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King. Four books in, and I'm still not sure whether it was worth finally starting this series, but I guess I'm committed to it now, or something.

Current song in head: "I Go to Extremes" by Billy Joel, which has been stuck in my head off and on for days now, for some reason.

Current refreshment: A cup of chai.

Currently watching: Neon Genesis Evangelion. Which... The more I watch of this show the less I understand it, but the more I find myself responding to it. I'm not sure that makes any sense whatsoever, but I guess it does track with everything I've heard about it.

Current happy thing: No work tomorrow!

Current thought: Just give me a cup of tea and a good book and leave me alone! Except not just yet, because I really do have to put laundry away and do the dishes, and a whole bunch of other stuff right now. Sigh.

October Currentlies

Well, here we are in October. I don't have a whole lot to say about September. It was a lot less interesting than August, which is no bad thing.

Current clothes: Right now, I'm wearing a giant bath towel, because I just got out of the shower.

Current mood: My mood seems to consist of a layer of genuine good cheer over a slightly deeper layer of irritation.

Current music: Nothing much. Still spending most of my listening-to-things time trying desperately not to fall further behind on the gazillion podcasts I'm subscribed to and failing miserably.

Current annoyance: It's that time of the year, and my sinuses are bothering me. They're not too awful today, but I woke up with one hell of a sinus headache yesterday. Sigh.

Current thing: Trying to do less time-wastey stuff like, I dunno, sitting mindlessly in front of my computer clicking random things on the internet, and more time doing stuff that's useful or actively enjoyable. It's an on-going, long-term project. How well it's going is... debatable.

Current desktop picture: In honor of the start of the final season, I switched from the Good Omens wallpaper to The Good Place wallpaper. (This is a switch that entertains me since, while they're both unique in many ways, I'm pretty sure I could write a multi-paragraph description that would fit both equally well, starting with the general tone and working all the way down to details like "and there's a supernatural entity who wears bow ties." Possibly I find this more amusing than I really ought to.) I really like this image, but I'm not sure I'm going to keep this wallpaper for long, sadly, as my icons don't stand out from it very well.

Current book: During-the-Event, a sort of post-apocalyptic/dystopian thing. It's... Eh, it's OK.

Current song in head: There's been been a strange mishmash of songs in the ol' brain lately. Right now, I seem to be alternating between "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri and "Come as You Are" by Nirvana. Which may be the weirdest medley ever.

Current refreshment: Nothing at the moment. But I'm kind of thirsty. After I put some clothes on, I should make some tea or something.

Currently watching: Just started season 2 of Disenchantment.

Current happy thing: My sinuses may currently hate me, but, hey, at least I finally seem to be over the bronchitis! The lungs are still occasionally producing some goo, but I'm pretty sure that's just the allergies at this point. Because if my body doesn't have an invader to fight off, it will just go ahead and invent one. Sigh. But! For the first time in two months, I can actually recognize my own voice as sounding like me! Huzzah!

Current thought: Right. Time to get dressed and get on with my day, I guess. Onward!

September Currentlies

It seems that August is over. Somehow. And a strange, strange month it was. Things really did get nuts when I came back from vacation at the end of July, and not in a good way.

Vir ended up having to have seven teeth pulled, poor kitty. And then for weeks afterward, his eyes were still pretty runny and weepy, which had me very worried. The vets gave me several different kinds of eye drops and ointments to use on him, which was no fun for either of us. But either the last thing they tried actually worked or it finally just cleared up on its own, because he's looking reassuringly bright-eyed again now. Thank goodness. And they said his mouth was healing up nicely.

Which probably means he's better off than I am, as I still have the cough I brought back from Alaska. I keep thinking it may be getting a bit better, but that could be wishful thinking. My voice is at least slightly better now, even if it is still pretty raspy and tends to get weak if I use it too long. I did go to the doctor, after a couple of weeks, but as usual they just gave me antibiotics, and, as usual, they did nothing whatsoever. It's like they're perennially optimistic that this time -- this time! -- it will actually be a bacterial infection. Ah, well. At least I don't have pneumonia, although I do have a hefty bill for the x-ray that told me I didn't have pneumonia. Yay.

Anyway. On to the usual.

Current clothes: A gray Doctor Who t-shirt with a picture of the TARDIS and a lot of scribbings in Gallifreyan. Blue shorts. White ankle socks.

Current mood: Eh. Kind of okay, I guess?

Current music: Nothing at the moment. My listening-to-things time is currently very much devoted to trying and failing not to fall further behind with all the podcasts I'm subscribed to.

Current annoyance: Aside from the cough (which is annoying on many, many different levels)? Well, I realized yesterday that water was pouring out of my swamp cooler, and probably had been for days. I had to shut the water off to it, which means I can't use it, which is annoying because it's still in the mid-90s here during the day. Meanwhile, my bathtub drain is clogged up, and every time I shower I end up with water up to my ankles. Clearly I need to get the plumbers in to deal with both of these problems, but, of course, its a holiday weekend. Oh, and also I'm on night shifts, which means I'm going to have the choice between not getting this stuff fixed for another whole week, or losing several hours of badly needed sleep.

Current thing: I don't even know, man. Time passes, and I don't seem to have done anything with it when it's gone.

Current desktop picture: Still the guys from Good Omens. I really want to go and watch that again.

Current book: The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden.

Current song in head: It's gone quiet now, mercifully, but it was the theme song to Family Guy. (See current viewing.)

Current refreshment: Nothing, but I'm thirsty. I should go drink something. The doctor did tell me to stay hydrated so I can cough up more mucus. Yum.

Currently watching: I was watching Family Guy. I think I saw an episode or two, ages ago, wasn't impressed by it, and never bothered watching any more, but I figured I'd give it another shot. I only got about eight or nine episodes in, though. The thing is, it has moments where I find myself thinking, "Yes, I see what you did there. That was sort of clever." But I never actually laugh. I do, however, sometimes find myself cringing a little. So I'm going to cut me losses and stop now.

Current happy thing: Well, I now have a bright-eyed kitty with a nicely healing mouth.

Current thought:The first season of Family Guy came out in 1999, which is much earlier than I thought it was. And more than once, I sort of found myself thinking, "Oh, wow, I'd completely forgotten, but this is what passed for edgy parody in the 90s, isn't it?" and feeling vaguely uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure I never expected that back when I was actually living in the 90s.

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.

July Currentlies

Not sure where the heck June went or how we're this far into the year already, but here we go:

Current clothes: Blue shorts. A gray t-shirt that says, "I'm not lazy, I'm prolonging the probable heat death of the universe by conserving energy," which is the kind of physics joke that amuses me unreasonably. White ankle socks.

Current mood: I'm in a really good mood, and have been for the last couple of days. I've got some extra time off this week. I've been getting enough sleep. I've been getting some things accomplished, while not stressing out about the things I haven't gotten accomplished. And all of life's little pleasures seem somehow more pleasurable than usual. It's pretty great. I'm fully expecting it all to dissolve tomorrow morning when I have to get up and go to work, but I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

Current music: Nothing much.

Current annoyance: Still the stupid hot flashes, although I think they maybe haven't been quite as bad for the last week or two.

Current thing: My televisual enthusiasms continue to fluctuate rapidly. Right now I'm mostly fighting off the urge to go and watch Good Omens again. Possibly on a loop. I maaaaay have just bought the script book and the making-of companion, too.

Current desktop picture: Current desktop picture, unsurprisingly, relfects the current televisual enthusiasms, so The Orville is out for the moment and Good Omens is in.

Current book: On the Move by Oliver Sacks.

Current song in head: I think it's mostly been a medley of Queen lately.

Current refreshment: Mint tea.

Currently watching: For a while now, I've been watching Kolchak: The Night Stalker off and on. It's a TV show from 1974 about a reporter. But no matter what he's sent to investigate, it always turns out to be a vampire or an alien or an evil spirit or something. I find I have interesting mixed feelings about it. Part of me keeps thinking, geez, is this was TV was like in the 70s? How on Earth did we watch this stuff? But part of me finds it rather charming, in its own quaint way. (And then all of me feels very, very old at how antiquated the television that aired when I was a child seems now.)

Current happy thing: Being in a good mood, having time off work, and getting enough sleep! I mean, really, how often does all that happen? Especially that last part.

Current thought: When is someone gonna bring me that dump truck full of money so I can retire and have time off of work and enough sleep all the time?

June Currentlies

No, I didn't forget that it was time to check in here again!

I don't know that there's a whole lot to say about May, though. I think the most interesting thing that happened was that I confirmed to myself once again that, why, yes, if you only go bowling once every decade or so, your skills at the game really will not come back to you in any appreciable way. Oh, well. It was fun trying, anyway.

And now, your regularly scheduled... whatever this is.

Current clothes: Blue jeans. A blue shirt that says "Visit Mars: satisfy your curiosity" on it, with a very happy-looking Mars being roved by a very not-to-scale Curiosity Rover. It's cute! Also blue socks with the planets of the solar system on them. I really like these socks.

Current mood: A bit tired, but generally pretty good.

Current music: Not much at the moment.

Current annoyance: There are many of them but the biggie is that I am almost forty-eight and my body has decided that it is now "old lady" time. Result: hot flashes. Freaking hot flashes. Lots of them. Actually the last few days haven't been quite as bad, mercifully, but at the worst, I can have the damned things more than once an hour. It's kind of awful. And what is this even about, anyway? Why would my body chug along happily enough for a few decades and then just suddenly lose its ability to thermoregulate properly? Evolution, what is even wrong with you?!

Current thing: Aging, apparently. Well, they say it beats the alternative, but I think there really ought to be more than one alternative.

Current desktop picture: Still the Orville crew.

Current book: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou. Which is a great book to read if you want to be angry at the world.

Current song in head: Nothing much at the moment. Which I am very grateful for. I had Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains" stuck in my head for most of May, and... Well, actually, for the first couple of weeks it was kind of fun, but even Jonathan Coulton eventually gets unbearable if it echoes around inside your head long enough.

Current refreshment: Ooh, the kettle should be hot now. Brb, getting some mint tea.

Currently watching: I just finished Good Omens. Which I really enjoyed, if only because of how perfectly cast the two leads are and how weirdly adorable they are together.

Current happy thing: I've been in some kind of a mood where I'm happy about lots of completely random things lately, which is in itself very much a happy thing. It's certainly better than those moods where I'm randomly annoyed about everything.

Current thought: Come on Tom, just let me in so I can eat your stupid brain, will ya?

May Currentlies

Whoops, May kind of snuck up on me while I wasn't looking. But I'm not too late with this, I guess.

I don't think I have a whole lot to say about April, though. Well, I did have Vir back into the vet for another (stupidly expensive) blood test, and his glucose levels look great. So he's still a grumpy old lump of a cat, but at least he's a grumpy old lump of a cat with well-controlled diabetes. Yay.

Right. On to the usual.

Current clothes: Blue jeans. A t-shirt from the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy center, where I got to see the space shuttle Discovery a few years ago. Black socks. Brown boots.

Current mood: An eensy bit annoyed from some stuff at work, but mostly OK. I actually got enough sleep today, which really helps when I'm working a night shift.

Current music: Nothing much. Except maybe this country song written by a computer.

Current annoyance: Aside from the usual annoyances of my life, there's the fact that Firefox broke horribly last night and disabled everyone's add-ons. They've got a fix in for it now, but it completely failed to work on my desktop at home. As far as I can tell, I'm the victim of some other problem that's causing a problem with the fix to the first problem, and Mozilla has no idea what's going on with it. Sigh. I really hope that gets fixed. Because, my god, the internet is a dystopian hellscape if approached without an ad-blocker in place. Well, at least it's working on my laptop.

Current thing: Feeling old and getting nostalgic. About, like, everything.

Current desktop picture: In honor of last month's "currently watching," I downloaded some wallpaper for The Orville. It's nice wallpaper, but I kind of wish I could have found one with Talla rather than Alara. Nothing at all against Alara, but of the two Talla is definitely my favorite.

Current book: Down These Dark Spaceways, edited by Mike Resnick. It's a collection of science fiction mystery novellas.

Current song in head: I've been getting snatches of Imagine Dragon's "Radioactive." Apparently that song will never die.

Current refreshment: Just finished some diet Pepsi.

Currently watching: I saw The Avengers: Endgame in the theater a couple of days ago, and... Eh, it was OK. On the small screen, I recently watched One Punch Man, on the recommendation of a friend, and also just fished season two of The Magicians. One Punch Man was delightful. (Well, if you can ignore the homophobic bits. Sigh.) My feeling about The Magicians so far is very much the same as my feeling about the books. It started out feeling like something I that seemed like it ought to be up my alley but wasn't quite doing it for me, but then got much more engaging as it went along.

Current happy thing: I don't know if I have any one big happy thing at the moment, but I am making a point of appreciating lots of little happy things.

Current thought: May the fourth be with you!

April Currentlies

Time for my April check-in! Let's see, what happened in March? Well, the half-joking comment I like to make about how I expect to die under an avalanche of collapsing bookshelves nearly came true when one of my bookcases did, in fact, collapse all over the place, but fortunately I managed to duck and run in time. (One of the books got slightly water-damaged by falling onto water splashed out of the cat's bowl, though. Woe!)

I've also had Vir in to have his glucose levels checked a couple of times, and he's doing well. The last time, the vet said he was actually on the low end of normal and cut back his dosage. Cats' pancreases sometimes mysteriously recover after you've given them insulin for a while, so fingers crossed that may be what's starting to happen. I do think he's started drinking and peeing a bit more on the lower dose, though, so it may be too low. He's supposed to get checked again in a few days, so we'll see.

Current clothes: Dark blue jeans. Black t-shirt with a picture of Buzz Aldrin on the moon. (At least, I think it's Buzz Aldrin. You can't read his name patch or anything, but I believe I recognize the picture.) Black socks. Brown work boots.

Current mood: Tired. I've been on night shifts for the past two weeks, including one of those 65-plus-hour work weeks that happen pretty much any time someone takes vacation time, and I'm so ready for it to be over. Especially because I haven't been sleeping well. At all. In those last two weeks, I think there've been two whole days when I've gotten a roughly adequate amount of sleep. I just keep waking up too early and not being able to do a damned thing about it.

Current music: The soundtrack to the original Muppet Movie. Which is pretty much my definition of pure distilled joy.

Current annoyance: Long hours and little sleep.

Current thing: Long hours and little sleep? Also obsessive binge-watching, but we'll get to that under "currently watching."

Current desktop picture: Still the same bookish one as last month. So boring.

Current book: Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan. Which I cracked open this sleep-deprived week thinking it would be an easy, quick-reading SF thriller. Turns out, it has a complicated plot, and multiple points of view, and lots of deep world-building it doesn't hold your hand through. All of which is good, but it means it's going much more slowly than anticipated.

Current song in head: "I'm Going to Go Back There Some Day," sung by Gonzo the Muppet, a song I have found incredibly poignant since the first time I heard it, at the age of 7.

Current refreshment: Mint tea.

Currently watching: I just recently binge-watched The Orville, and that was a very strange and interesting experience. The combination of earnest Star Trek plots, goofy and sometimes juvenile humor, and relationship comedy/drama is an odd one, and early on it doesn't necessarily work very well. And then at some point things click together a bit, and at least in some episodes, it starts to gel nicely and is pretty entertaining. And then somewhere in season two, I found myself thinking, "Huh, wait, they're actually doing some stuff ST:TNG did better than TNG did it, and that's... interesting." And then a couple of episodes after that I'm sitting there watching the thing with my mouth hanging open going, "This is awesome! When did this turn into legitimately really good SF television? How did this turn into legitimately good SF television?!" What's funny is that people kind of told me that would happen, and yet it still took me by surprise.

Current happy thing: Legitimately really good SF television. Almost being off the damn night shift. Heading into that time of year when I can just walk around outside in a t-shirt even at night. The idea that some day I might actually get some sleep. The Muppets.

Current thought: To probably no one's surprise but mine, I find myself particularly fascinated by the robot on The Orville. My predictable character tastes, let me show you them! Somehow it's always the weird and alien ones. Which is probably also why I have the Gonzo song in my head.

March Currentlies

Well, we've made it to March. February, I'm afraid, was not the greatest month for me, mainly because my stupid cat finally failed his diabetes test. Not that it's surprising. Given how obese he is, I've been half-expecting it for years. I now have to give him an insulin shot twice a day, which is not, in itself, too bad. He sits still for it just fine, and it's not too hard to do. But I was given firm instructions that it needs to be administered every twelve hours, consistently. Which, depending on what shift I'm working and how I'm rotating, ranges from mildly inconvenient to massively disruptive and sleep-destroying, to literally impossible without access to a time machine. SIGH. Worse still, he's supposed to eat exactly half his daily intake of food at those twelve-hour intervals, but you try explaining that to him.

In happier news, I also got a new coffee table. So that's nice, I guess.

Current clothes: Green sweats. A white t-shirt with copies of various M.C. Escher prints on it. White socks.

Current mood: Not 100%. I had some bad gastrointestinal issues and no sleep on Wednesday night, and spent pretty much all of yesterday lying on the sofa feeling wrung-out and sorry for myself, drifting in and out of consciousness. I'm a lot better today. I mean, I'm actually eating food (albeit very carefully). But still kind of weak.

Current music: Nothing much. Oh, except for this sultry jazz cover of the Pinky & the Brain theme song.

Current annoyance: The fallible nature of both human and feline bodies.

Current thing: Poking the cat with a needle twice a day, apparently.

Current desktop picture: Still the same bookish one as last month. I really need to find something new and cool.

Current book: The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson.

Current song in head: "Baby Shark". Send help.

Current refreshment: Mint tea.

Currently watching: Just finished season 2 of The Handmaid's Tale

Current happy thing: The weather is lovely. Of course, it kept doing that during February and then plunging back down into the frozen depth of winter again, but maybe it's finally over now.

Current thought: Clearly what the internet needed was a sultry jazz cover of the Pinky & the Brain theme song. I mean, clearly.

February Currentlies

Well, that's one month of 2019 down! I don't know that I have a lot to say about my January. It seems like I was very busy, but I don't really have a lot to show for it. Although I did finally replace my ailing smartphone. And my car battery (again). And we won't even get into the frustrations I had with my new health insurance provider.

Right. Let's do this thing again.

Current clothes: Gray sweatpants. A red shirt with cover art from Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. White socks.

Current mood: Tired. Physically tired, as opposed to all the other kinds of tired I usually am. Today I finally repainted my laundry room ceiling after having the water damage in there fixed. And a very amateurish job I'm sure it was, but that just means it matches the rest of my house. Anyway, it involved a lot of climbing around on ladders and sniffing paint fumes and stuff.

Current music: Nothing at the moment.

Current annoyance: Tiredness and general having-to-be-an-adult.

Current thing: Tiredness and general having to be an adult.

Current desktop picture: I've gone back to one of my old book-themed wallpapers, but I feel like I really should find something new.

Current book: The Shelf: From LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading by Phyllis Rose. It's about the author's project to basically take one shelf from a lending library and read (more or less) every book on it. Which sounds like my sort of thing, but I'm genuinely surprised by how interesting I'm finding it so far.

Current song in head: Nothing at all, really.

Current refreshment: Moroccan mint tea and a Cadbury fruit & nut Dairy Milk bar. Because I need it.

Currently watching: I'm re-watching Fawlty Towers for the first time in a couple of decades. It's not quite as hilarious as I remember it being, and it's showing its age in some ways, but at its best, it's still stupidly funny.

Current happy thing: I have a new car battery and a working smartphone and a repaired and painted ceiling, and my maddening issues with the insurance company have finally been sorted out, so maybe I'm finally caught up with the adulting for a while? Except, wait, I just remembered that I still have to do my taxes. Sigh.

Current thought: I wonder if that irritated feeling in the back of my throat is due to paint fumes?

January Currentlies

Here I am in 2019, checking in the same way I've checked in every month for who knows how long.

Current clothes: Jeans. A gray sweatshirt featuring the definition of the word "abibliophobia": "The fear of running out of books to read." Aka the reason why I have 922 unread books on my shelves. Well, OK, one of the reasons. Also, white socks. And bunny slippers, because my feet are cold.

Current mood: Not too bad. A little rushed-feeling. I'm working evening shifts this week, and it always feels like there's not enough time to do very much before I have to leave.

Current music: Nothing, really.

Current annoyance: There are many, but the dominant one is the weather. Temperatures that drop down towards the single digits (yes, Fahrenheit). Snow that doesn't melt before more snow falls on top of it. Treacherous ice everywhere. What is the point of living in New Mexico, I ask you, if I have to put up with this sort of thing? Fortunately, next week looks like it's going to be warmer.

Current thing: I don't know if it counts as a New Year's resolution or not, but I'm going to at least try to spend less time on stupid time-wastey stuff and more on things I actually want to do.

Current desktop picture: It's still the TARDIS with a Christmas wreath. Time to change it again!

Current book: Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke. It's the final book in a trilogy of kids' books. It's a good story (and one that appeals to my book-loving soul), but overlong, especially this volume.

Current song in head: "Good King Wenceslas." Which is weird and annoying, because I know barely any of the lyrics, because I honestly have no idea who Good King Wenceslas even is or why I should care about him, and because Christmas is over, already!

Current refreshment: Nothing, but I must have some lunch soon.

Currently watching: Most recently, the Doctor Who New Year's special. It occurs to me that I haven't talked about my thoughts about the most recent season of Who here. I hate to say it, but I've found it kind of disappointing. There are lots of specific things I've really enjoyed, mind you. And I think Jodie Whittaker is good, and I love the new companions and the way their relationships with each other and with the Doctor are being handled. But Chris Chibnall's particular weaknesses as a writer, especially when it comes to plot, seem to trip my annoyance triggers hard. And while I think this incarnation of the Doctor being a kinder, nicer version makes a lot of sense in character terms (and manages to avoid feeling like a gender stereotype, fortunately), I long for Whittaker to be allowed to have just a little bit more of an edge to her. Now. All that having been said, I actually really thoroughly enjoyed the New Year's special. In fact, it got me feeling all excited about the show again... just in time to launch us into a hiatus of more than a year. Sigh.

Current happy thing: I always get weirdly happy at the turn of the year about having a whole new year's worth of reading in front of me. This time I'm going to make even more progress through the TBR shelves, I'm sure of it!

Current thought: A raise of the glass to all of you who have been really loving the current era of Doctor Who so far. Lots of people are, and I am delighted for them! And am trying not to be jealous. After all, in Steven Moffat's run I already got a version of the show that -- while I certainly can't say it never made any missteps -- hit my own personal fannish buttons really well and made me feel very satisfied and happy. And it's somebody else's turn for that now. That's pretty much just how Doctor Who works.

December Currentlies

I suppose the most significant thing that happened to me in November is that I got my roof leak fixed. Again. Actually, this time it seems it wasn't the roof, but the skylight. I have two skylights, and they were both in very bad shape, so I had them replaced. I also had the water damage from the previous roof leak fixed, finally. I really, really should have taken care of that ages ago, but it's good to have it done now. Well, mostly done, anyway. The ceiling in that room will need to be repainted. But I figure I can do that myself. I mean, how hard can it be? Right? Right?

Current clothes: I just got out of the shower, so I'm wearing a bathrobe and bunny slippers. I may have gotten up earlier than I should have this morning -- see "current annoyance" -- but that doesn't mean I'm moving fast.

Current mood: A little tired. Also see "current annoyance."

Current music: Nothing in particular.

Current annoyance: Yes, it's my sleep/work schedule again. This past week I worked until midnight, which is fine, except that I had to keep getting up early for things like having my roof worked on. Which not only means that I haven't been getting an ideal amount of sleep, it also means that I haven't been able to start adjusting myself for the night shifts I'm working next week. Last night, I had plans for various things I could do to keep myself up later -- computer games! DVDs! vacuuming the house! -- but when I got home, the power was out, presumably due to the high winds we were having. I read by flashlight for a while, then gave up and went to sleep. And then woke up earlier than I should have, because my nose was stuffed, and the cat was yelling about being hungry, and I had to pee. So I gave up again and got out of bed. Sigh.

Current thing: Honestly, it's probably doing far too much stupid, time-wastey stuff, while neglecting all the actually useful and important things I should be doing.

Current desktop picture: Since it's December, I've changed it to my usual holiday image of a snow-dusted TARDIS with a wreath on the door.

Current book: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I picked this book up because I heard a lot of praise for it, but I left it sitting on the TBR shelves for a long while, mostly because I wasn't sure it would be my kind of thing. I find the Odyssey infinitely more interesting that the Iliad, personally. But now Miller's got a new one out that is based on the Odyssey, which I really want to read, but I figured I should get to this one first. And I'm so glad I did, because it's just terrific. Really well-written and absorbing.

Current song in head: It's been a weird medley of stuff this morning, but right now it seems to mostly be dominated by "Just What I Needed" by the Cars.

Current refreshment: Nothing. I should make some tea. Or maybe think about having lunch, after I get dressed.

Currently watching: Season 1 of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Which... I dunno. It's cute, but it's still a little too, well, sitcommy for me. Which I'm aware is a silly thing to criticize when you're watching a sitcom, but still.

Current happy thing: It really is good to have that ceiling fixed! It had, if you'll excuse the pun, really been hanging over my head for quite a while.

Current thought: It bothers me that I am constantly so hung up on the rapid passage of time these days, but still: How the heck is it December already? How is it nearly the end of 2018? Where does it all go?!

November Currentlies

So, here we are in November. I don't have much to say about October, though. Probably the only thing worth saying about it is that it ended in the middle of me taking a little time off of work, partly because they lowered the number of hours we can carry over from year to year and I have to burn up some vacation time, but mostly because I figured I really needed a break for some low-key rest and relaxation. Although I don't know that I've been all that successful at relaxing, to be honest.

Current clothes: Blue jeans. A gray long-sleeved t-shirt featuring a travel poster for Saturn's moon Titan. White socks.

Current mood: Not super relaxed. Mostly because last night there was a terrible, terrible smell of sewer gas in my house, which is not an experience I recommend. It's gone today, and maybe it's just that a disused drain dried up, but it sure did not smell like that's where it was coming from. I've got a plumber coming by on Monday just to make sure there's nothing weird going on with my sewer vents or anything.

Current music: I'm going out tonight with some people from work to see Bohemian Rhapsody, so, in anticipation of that, I was watching a video of Queen's performance at Live Aid.

Current annoyance: My house smelled like a sewer! Also last week, the roof leaked a little. Again. In the same spot it used to. Why must I live like this?

Current thing: Trying to relax. I think maybe I'll just spend all day tomorrow reading. That sounds extremely relaxing. Right?

Current desktop picture: Believe it or not, I actually changed it! It's not the 12th Doctor anymore! Sadly, I do not yet have any wallpaper of the 13th Doctor, though. So right now it's this amazing image that won an astronomy photograph of the year contest. I might change it soon, though. It's gorgeous, but my desktop icons don't necessarily show up all that well against the bottom part of the image.

Current book: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I feel like I should say something about it, but honestly I have no idea what. It's an odd book, and I don't think I can really pass any kind of judgment on it until I've finished it.

Current song in head: Thanks to abovementioned video, it appears to be "Radio Ga Ga."

Current refreshment: Root beer.

Currently watching: So, I'm on the fifth and final season of Alias, and... I'm not sure what just happened, but I think I've reached the point where they realized they'd been canceled and panicked. Unless they really, really pull something amazing out of it, based on the episode I just watched I am fully prepared to hand them the Worst Retcon of All Time award. And that's got to be a pretty high bar.

Current happy thing: Not working for a little while is good. It's extremely good. I am not knocking it.

Current thought: You know, there's a terrible paradox to Queen. Freddie Mercury's voice is so inhumanly amazing that you sort of just want to sit there and listen to it undiluted, and yet their songs are so freaking catchy that it's often physically impossible to keep yourself from singing along.

October Currentlies

I honestly don't know what business it has being the first of October already. But since it is, here I am again.

The main event in my life in September was that I spent a few days in California visiting my mother. It was a very low-key trip. I helped her with some stuff around the house and we sort of hung out. It made for kind of a nice break.

Anyway. On to the usual stuff.

Current clothes: Blue jeans. A t-shirt with a picture of various Doctor Who monsters crossing Abbey Road, which was given to me by someone who knows me entirely too well. Also Doctor Who socks with a TARDIS image on them. But I bought those myself.

Current mood: Kind of tired. It may be Monday for most of the world, but I've already had a long workweek, and it's not over yet.

Current music: More completely random stuff. This morning, the musical algorithm gave me Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention, Klaatu, Tom Lehrer, and some guy with a filk song about Seinfeld. My music collection, ladies and gentlemen.

Current annoyance: My foot continues to bother me, but it seems just enough like it might be getting better that I still can't decide whether I should make a podiatrist appointment or not.

Current thing: I have instituted a plan I call the Whole-House Cleaning Project, in which I will, little by little, often in small spare moments, clean my entire house, including all the little nooks and crannies that never get any attention, as well as doing various organizational and repair tasks that might need doing. I'm starting at the front of the house and working my way around in some sort of orderly fashion. Or that's the idea, anyway. So far, it's been over a month, and I've cleaned, basically, the front door (inside and out! with the screen door!) and a small section of wall around it. So it's going to take a while.

Current desktop picture: Still the 12th Doctor. But we will have a new Doctor soon! Maybe I will replace it then.

Current book: The Best American Essays 2011, edited by Edwidge Danticat. Yes, 2011. It takes me a while to get around to these things.

Current song in head: Toto's "Africa" keeps getting stuck in my head, largely because I keep encountering it everywhere. Which bemuses me. I'm not sure which of the songs from my youth I would have predicted getting huge amounts of love in 2018, but I'm pretty sure it would not have been that one.

Current refreshment: Peppermint tea.

Currently watching: Just started season 3 of Ash vs. Evil Dead.

Current happy thing: I have some more vacation time coming up soon. Which I plan to spent just not working. Not working being my all-time favorite thing to do.

Current thought: New Doctor soon!!! I am stoked. But also, as I always am, a little trepidatious, especially because I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about the new showrunner. Mostly stoked, though.

September Currentlies

Since I do seem to be pretty much using this meme to check in here once a month, I've decided to start doing it on the first of the month, or close to it, rather than a week or so in.

August was not terribly interesting for me. Somehow, it never is. It's like this big, blank, empty stretch of the year I can never seem to remember much about once it's over. We did finally start getting a decent amount of rain after a particularly dry start to the "rainy season," though, so that's good.

Current clothes: Blue jeans. A light tan t-shirt from the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. Blue denim short-sleeved shirt unbuttoned over that. White socks.

Current mood: A layer of perfectly okay, spread over a deeper layer of anxiety and irritation that pokes through to annoy me at random moments.

Current music: Nothing much.

Current annoyance: Yes, it's the ol' human body again. My plantar fascitiis is flaring up, so I've been walking a lot less, which I think may be one source of my lurking irritation. Walking is good for both body and mind! Also unquestionably contributing is the fact that the calendar of my life has finally flipped over to a new and unpleasant page, and I am getting freaking hot flashes. Like, constantly. This, too, is both physically and psychologically uncomfortable. Sigh.

Current thing: I'm sort of trying to make my current thing getting stuff done around the house, but I have to admit I'm not trying very hard.

Current desktop picture: Still the 12th Doctor.

Current book: Gil's All-Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez. Which is okay, but not brilliant. It's a horror-comedy, and the horror-comedy sweet spot is really hard to hit (although wonderful when it works). The author did a lot better blending pulp SF and detective noir in The Automatic Detective, so I'm finding this one mildly disappointing by comparison.

Current song in head: There's been a lot of stuff bouncing around in the brain lately, some of it more annoying than others, but right this second it appears to be Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall".

Current refreshment: Nothing at the moment. But I'm thirsty.

Currently watching: I've started watching Matt Groening's new show, Disenchantment, on Netflix. I've only seen the first two episodes, and so far it's no Futurama, but it's not bad.

Current happy thing: I may not be trying super hard with the "getting things done around the house" thing, but I did actually have a fairly productive "weekend" this week on my days off. I was able to cross a number of things off the to-do list, including one that had been on there for a long, long time.

Current thought: I really want a vacation from the world. I am gonna do that staycation where I lock myself in the house and spend a few days lying on the couch reading books. I have plans... Just, not quite yet.

August Currentlies, And Stuff

So, I was thinking that if these days I'm mostly just stopping by this blog once a month to do this "currently" meme as a way to keep up on the state of my life, I should move it to the beginning of the month and maybe add in a little recap of what I've been up to for the past month. But, for one reason or another, it's still taken me this far into August to get to it. Oops.

Well, there's not a whole lot to say about July, anyway. The main event of note was that I turned 47. Which is maybe not that big of a deal. Certainly I seem to have long since reached the age where I barely pay attention to the number. Mind you, I have little doubt that will change soon. The idea of being -- gasp! -- fifty is just hard to wrap my brain around. It feels wrong, somehow. Fifty is not who or what I am!

Well, I guess I've got a few years yet before I have to face the thought of being wrong about that. In the meantime, here:

Current clothes: Blue jeans. A t-shirt from the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center, where I got to see the space shuttle Discovery a few years ago. It's got a nice picture of Discovery on the back.

Current mood: OK, but a little, I dunno, rushed-feeling. I had a very busy weekend -- some errands and a much-belated birthday lunch with a friend in Albuquerque on Saturday, and a frenzy of housework and grocery shopping and other annoying but important things on Sunday -- and I do not feel ready to go back to work this afternoon. I want more weekend!

Current music: They Might Be Giants' Flood, a perennial favorite of mine.

Current annoyance: Besides not having more weekend? Well, there are a lot of things I could complain about, but maybe the most significant one is that my plantar fasciitis has been flaring up a little bit again. It's not too bad at the moment, but it always worries me when it does that. Stupid feet.

Current thing: Honestly, probably buying too many things I really don't need. I mean, OK, look, I know I have more than enough coffee mugs, but how could I not buy myself this one?!

Current desktop picture: Yes, yes, it's still the 12th Doctor. Don't act surprised.

Current book: Neutrino Hunters by Ray Jayawardhana.

Current song in head: "We Want a Rock" by They Might Be Giants. See "current music" above.

Current refreshment: Nothing. I should have some lunch soon, though.

Currently watching: I am still on season 4 of Alias. And I still can't quite decide whether it's a good show or a bad one. I suspect the answer to that may be "yes."

Current happy thing: Birthday lunch consisted of a cheesesteak at this place, which was like a wonderful, delightful little taste of my long-lost home. *happysigh*

Current thought: Everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around!

July Currentlies

Yep, still doing this.

Current clothes: Gray sweatpants. A t-shirt with a picture of a Klingon bat'leth sticking out of a book and the words "Today is a good day... to read." Because I am me. White socks.

Current mood: Pretty good. I'm off work today, and glad about it.

Current music: Nothing much.

Current annoyance: I may be off work today, but I've got another extra-long week of night shifts coming up starting tomorrow. Sigh.

Current thing: Still obsessively playing One Hour, One Life.

Current desktop picture: Yes, it's still the 12th Doctor. Clearly I am not ready to let him go yet.

Current book: Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emmie Lang.

Current song in head: It's been a medley of Imagine Dragons tune all day. Why are so many of their songs so stupidly catchy?

Current refreshment: I have some Moroccan Mint tea steeping.

Currently watching: Just started season 4 of Alias. I will finish watching this show sometime before i die.

Current happy thing: I finally got my sewer pipes replaced last month! After a year of me putting it off, and then nearly another year of the plumbers not being able to do it, either because they were shorthanded and busy, or because I didn't want them to schedule it while I was on night shifts. But it's been done now, and a good thing, too, because apparently those old cast iron pipes were in pretty bad shape. Nice to have that crossed off the list of things that need to be done with this house.

Current thought: I don't even want to think about what other things are or ought to be on the list of things that need to be done with this house...

June Currentlies

Because here we are, in June.

Current clothes: Blue jeans. My Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy t-shirt, and matching socks. Although one of these socks is definitely smaller than the other, and it's weird. I may have to replace them.

Current mood: Not bad. Kind of relaxed, really. I'm on night shifts this week, and I had to get up early yesterday to go in to work for a couple of hours of training in the afternoon, but I was allowed to leave early to make up for it, since it was a maintenance day and there wasn't a lot going on. And, man, that was nice. I went to bed early and got seven hours of sleep, which is often hard to manage when I'm on nights. So nice.

Current music: Nothing much. The other day I did put my iPod on random shuffle for a while -- yes, I'm still using the ol' iPod -- and it gave me mostly soundtracks and other pop culture-y stuff.

Current annoyance: It's hot outside, and my swamp cooler does not seem to be working very well at all. Ideally, it should be able to cool things down by about 20 degrees from the outside temperature, but it seems to be consistently only doing 10. Which is non-ideal when it's 99 degrees outside. (Oddly, we don't seem to have broken 100 yet, but it's still uncomfortably warm.) I think maybe the water lines are kind of clogged? I really ought to get someone out to look at it, but that's not very practical when I'm sleeping all day. (And I'm still working more night shifts than usual, too. Sigh.)

Current thing: I've become increasingly addicted to playing One Hour, One Life. Which is a very odd kind of game, but it's odd in fascinating ways.

Current desktop picture: Yeah, yeah, it's still Peter Capaldi. Whatever.

Current book: Cocktail Time by P.G. Wodehouse. This appears to actually be the third book in the "Uncle Fred" series, and I haven't read the first two, but my experiences with Jeeves & Wooster convinced me that Wodehouse can certainly be read out of order, and that has, indeed, turned out to be true.

Current song in head: "Berlin (City of Night)" by Peter Schilling. I have no idea why. But, man, it takes me back. I spent a lot of time in college listening to that Peter Schilling album, back in the days when CDs were the exciting new way to listen to music, and the fall of the Berlin Wall was still a very recent memory, indeed. And now I feel old.

Current refreshment: Nothing. But I need some water or something. And probably some food, soon.

Currently watching: I'm now most of the way through season 3 of Alias. I still, I think, am wavering back and forth between thinking it's a pretty good show, kind of a bad show, or some complicated thing in between. But, after a slightly meh start to the season, I find I'm surprisingly caught up in the weird plot stuff going on right now. Also, Arvin Sloane fascinates me deeply. I have interesting tastes in fictional characters, really. Interesting, and yet strangely predictable.

Current happy thing: I defrosted and cleaned the mini fridge we have in the kitchenette at work last night, because it desperately needed to be done -- it was genuinely disgusting, as well as difficult to put much of anything in the freezer compartment because of all the ice -- and clearly nobody else was going to do it. But now it is done! My work environment has slightly improved! Also, go me, being proactive!

Current thought: Having a clean refrigerator at work does not, however, make me crave a vacation any less.

May Currentlies

See? I'm still checking in for these.

Current clothes: Blue jeans. White socks. A brown t-shirt with a picture of a very groggy-looking owl holding a cup of coffee, which is entirely appropriate for me today. Blue short-sleeved denim shirt unbuttoned on top of that.

Current mood: Not too bad, but the sleep deprivation isn't helping. I'm working a lot of midnight shifts right now, and, more often than not, I'm waking up significantly earlier than I should be. Which is an all-too-common problem when I'm on midnights.

Current music: Nothing much. I'm devoting most of my audio time to podcasts again. Or still. I harbor the ridiculous delusion that one day I might actually be close to catching up on them.

Current annoyance: Working lots of midnight shifts! Or, let's be honest, working at all. I still desperately need some time off. And it's still not happening.

Current thing: I dunno. Feeling proud that my book-budgeting system is still actually working, maybe? My TBR is already down more than twenty books from the beginning of the year!

Current desktop picture: Still the 12th Doctor. At this point, I'm sure no one is surprised.

Current book: Stephen Hawking: An Unfettered Mind by Kitty Ferguson. I've had this biography on my shelves since shortly after it was published, in 2012, and the recent-ish news of Hawking's death finally spurred me to get around to reading it.

Current song in head: Brain Radio has been switching songs almost constantly lately. Right now, it seems to be playing "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" by the Police, but that may not last long.

Current refreshment: Water. Hey, it's definitely summer here in New Mexico now. Gotta keep hydrated.

Currently watching: I've recently finished the entire run of Black Mirror, which was excellent, although, man, that last episode was almost too disturbing. And I'm now about to start season three of Alias. It's taken me longer to get back to that show than I really meant to. I also just watched this week's episode of Elementary, and, man, there are a lot of things I love about that show, but sometimes their plots are just ridiculous.

Current happy thing: Oooh, it's a big one this time! Are you ready? I now have a full set of teeth again! Well, OK, except for the wisdom teeth, but they were never any use, anyway. Yes, that's right, as of yesterday, I finally, finally have my new artificial tooth. It's actually kind of weird having a tooth there again. Weird, but wonderful. You guys, I can chew on both sides of my mouth! I can smile without immediately feeling hideously self-conscious about it! And there's no longer a stupid little metal cap on my gum that my tongue can't leave alone! It's marvelous. Seriously, I am so happy about this, you have no idea.

Current thought: Thus endeth the first step in my eventual plan to replace all my body parts with artificial ones. I think I need bionic eyes next.