August, somehow
Don't mistake my surprise at it being August for feeling that July rushing past. Actually it feels like July has been going on forever. I'm more surprised we got out of it.
It's been a few weeks since I blogged. I don't feel like there's much to catch you up on. I've started working on my book again and I've done some archery. My friends are starting up a Vampire: The Masquerade game and we've done a bunch of calls going through character creation. That's been pretty fun so far. I'm looking forward to the first real session next month.
Last weekend I also went to a wedding. It was a nice wedding and I got to dance to ABBA, which is a must. It had been a while since I last went to a wedding – there was a period about ten years ago where it felt like there was a constant stream of weddings, and then everything settled down, and now I'm old enough that people have moved on to the second weddings. Congratulations to the happy couple, and thank you for the music.
The Sunday checklist
I've spent most of today doing chores. For a few years now, Sunday has been the day where I try to blitz through as many admin tasks as possible – planning the week's meals and booking the food shop, doing laundry, going through my budget, cleaning the bathroom, watering my very sad houseplants, etc.
None of this is particularly fun to do, and sometimes I just sack it all off entirely. But on the occasional event that I do actually get through the whole list, I am rewarded with a sense of peace.
A few years ago I read a book called How to Keep House While Drowning. One of its central points was not to think of cleaning your home as a moral obligation, but as a nice thing to do for yourself. It's an idea I'm still internalising, but I do find it helpful. Shaming myself for the sink being a bit grotty never accomplished anything anyway. Also, I like my hypothetical future self, and I want her to have a clean bathroom. So today I cleaned it. Thank me later, future self.
Writing a blog post is also an item on the checklist. Part of me thinks I should take it off, because there's no reason for blogging to be an obligation – but on the other hand, would I have written this post if not for the satisfaction of checking it off? I don't know.
To Odyssey or Notyssey
Here's another thing I don't know: should I go see The Odyssey or not?
Pros:
- I like the experience of going to the cinema and it gets me out of the house
- Unlimited pass for the multiplex means it's basically free
- Ancient Greek stuff is pretty neat
- Exciting opportunity to enjoy Robert Pattinson being a weird little freak
- Relieve crushing feeling of FOMO
- Literally nothing else to see in the cinema at the moment except kids' movies and Spiderman
Cons:
- I have not liked the last few Christopher Nolan films I watched and this certainly sounds like another one of those
- May now actually be impossible to experience the film as a film because my brain has been so poisoned by the absurd levels of discourse surrounding it that I would likely spend the entire duration composing my own insane hot takes regarding the absence of sex scenes, the presence of horrible-looking food, who is being racist, etc
- Long af
All things considered, I will probably just sit tight until Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma comes out.
Music corner
I really like the new Nia Archives album.
I really do not like the new Charli XCX album.
I am excited about there (maybe???) being a second Slayyyter album this year.
The album I have listened to most this week has been Decksandrumsandrockandroll by Propellerheads. I randomly grabbed it from a market stall the other week and have been playing the hell out of it ever since. That 90s big beat sound is pretty cheesy but I still have a lot of fondness for it. Also "History Repeating" is a bop.