Where to now?
I debated whether or not this should be a "toot" (status update), or a proper blog post.
Like one time before, I am going to allow it to be something in-between. An off-the-cuff blog post, not quite as structured and agonized over as a proper blog post/article, but more permanent than an ordinary status/toot.
Watching the last episode of The Good Place... again.
(Third time around)
This time, seeing Chidi walk around his old neighborhood struck me much differently than before.
I wasn't thinking about my mom or anyone else, but my own life. I was remembering walking around my old "neighborhood" (my old university) a couple years back when I went to VCFSW, which was hosted at my old Alma Mater.
I was remembering that feeling when nostalgia and remembrance gave way to the present and the banal, and my special day of nostalgia-tripping turned into just another day at the university, even though I hadn't been a student in nine years at that point. Beautiful sentiment was effaced and replaced with ordinary nowness, even though it was out of place (as was I).
And like Chidi I found myself wondering... what's next? What's left?
I'm... scarcely sainthood material, but I've done what I could in the past few years to live for the sake of others, and the one I had been focusing most of my emotional energy on is now no longer here.
So... what now?
I guess this is me unraveling one of the stages of grief. Until the past few days, I was unsure if I was even really in grieving at all. I felt fine. Relieved. A burden lifted, not that a person is ever a burden, but the burden of concern, of worry, the tight cage of emotional perturbation defined and constricted by a thousand eternal variables coming together over the span of years and finally all focusing in on a single moment.
All that suddenly gone, I felt... almost an elation. Not happiness, for certain, but a release.
And now that strange tightrope has gone slack, and I am left wondering where my footsteps should take me.
Songs to Improve Your Mental Health
Background
I'd be fooling myself to think that I could be the first person on the earth to note music's incredible ability to heal and salve the tormented human soul. My own journey with music is, well, unsurprisingly, about as old as I am. Most everyone on one side of …
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Anker SoundCore P30i mini-review
Time for another little hardware review.
Background
I've been getting complaints that the small, inexpensive bluetooth earbuds (Skullcandy Dime XT/XT2) I had been carrying around for the past five years have pretty poor audio quality during phone calls (likely no microphone noise cancellation), so I started looking around again …
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Some thoughts on *Severance*
Content warning: This post contains some minor spoilers for Severance seasons 1 & 2, as well as a discussion of some religious and cultic themes.
I had seen many fedifriends discussing the Apple-produced TV series Severance, and after completing my watch-through of The Good Place (blog post on that is in …
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The Scenes that Made Me: Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
Lars looking on wistfully while ingesting his sister-in-law's retort to his rant
Video clip
Content warning: this post unavoidably and briefly touches on some "mature" topics
If you had told me six months ago that one of my favorite movies of all time would be a bout a man who …
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The Scenes that Made Me: Star Wars
Luke looking wistfully out at the dual sunset on Tatooine as The Force Theme plays hauntingly in the background, beckoning him to his grand adventure
Having grown up in the 1980s, one thing random friends would often ask me (actually what family friends would ask my mom) was: "Has he …
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The Scenes that Made Me: Star Trek
I'm starting a new series where I recount the TV show and movies that were formative in my life. Not only in my childhood (although that will be heavily emphasized), but even recent days.
As I mentioned in a recent post, there were some scenes in Star Trek that deeply …
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I (again) want Star Trek to be real
When I was in High School, I fell madly in love with Star Trek: The Next Generation. The fascinating characters, the (at the time) amazing special effects, the stories, the optimism, but most of all, the technology.
My eyes dazzled seeing huge touchscreens, digital tablets, and incredible spacefaring vessels every …
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A Toast to the Prolific ones
I wanted to take some time out today to acknowledge some folks on the fediverse that are remarkably prolific, just for fun.
Prolific blogger — Rubenerd
Oh holy moly. This fella has words. Lots of words. Many very fine words. Just look at bro's output for 2024:
~ $ curl -s https://rubenerd …
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Blog Questions Challenge: Ten Pointless Facts About Me
Thanks to my fedifriend Joel for nominating me for this challenge (after I had pestered him 😄).
Do you floss your teeth
Before I answer this, you must understand something about me: I strongly believe in truthfulness as a core virtue. Inasmuch as I am able, I never lie or purposefully …
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