May 30

Last night was not great. After making it through work even though I had been up since three o'clock in the morning, severe weather came through the area. Luckily, I ducked out a little early and beat the worst of it, but about 10 minutes after I got home, it looked like the end of the world. It was borderline pitch black and rain came down in sheets. The TV told me there was a tornado warning and both my phones starting buzzing with emergency alerts. It was pretty scary. If the shit had gone down, Ghost would have survived because he lets me pick him up and I deposited him in the basement. Pumpkin will be on her own because I could not corral her. They are both fine, and I fell asleep before nine and slept through the night until a little past four. 

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May 29

I have been up since three o'clock this morning. Not ideal, although I did go to bed at nine last night, so a solid six hours but it was too hot in my bedroom last night and I should have slept down in the basement where it's nice and cool (or god forbid, turn on the air conditioning, it is summer after all). 

Anyway, I tossed and turned for about 45 minutes and then got up. The cats followed me downstairs and I stared at the TV until about five o'clock. Yesterday, the landscapers came to dig up my backyard, level it out, and resod it. $1500 and a daily watering responsibility for me later. It was one of those things that was long overdue, so when I look at the money, it basically comes out to (roughly) $150 a year since it has been about 10 years since it should have been done. 

I had breakfast and went to the grocery story at about 6:45. Gotta love New Jersey drivers as there was almost a three-car crash because a car did not yield to me and the car behind me was tail gating. I swear, you take your life into your own hands every time you leave the fucking house in this shit state.

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May 28

First day back in the office was fine. Honestly, not as bad as I anticipated. I spent most of the morning catching up on email, had a meeting right before lunch, then reviewed some files in the afternoon. Very low key. 

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May 27

Ugh. Today is the last day of my vacation and I am simultaneously pissed because I feel like I wasted the last 10 days and pissed because I do not want to go back to work tomorrow. I am trying to reset my body so it is back in "work" mode - I will try not to nap today, I will do my lunch meal prep, and all the rest. It is just SO dispiriting knowing there is nothing to go back to tomorrow that is in any way interesting or exciting. 

As I was going to sleep last night I was thinking about how if you live to 75, turning 50 means you have lived exactly two-thirds of your life. It bummed me out.

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May 25

I really cannot express how frustrated I got this morning when my *new car* with less than 900 miles on it, flashed the dreaded low tire pressure signal. I went into a full-throated rage monster mode, like how the fuck could this happen when I just bought this car a month ago ... it is a holiday weekend ... why does this bullshit keep happening to me ...  blah blah blah blah blah. 

Even after putting air in the tires, the light stayed on. When I got home and googled how to handle the light on a Subaru, I found out basically you just drive it around (which I had done). So, I took it to the local tire shop (who had helped with my Jetta back in February) and they checked it out. They reinflated all the tires to the manufacturer specs and the light went out. On the bright side, they did not charge me and I ran into a co-worker who I had a nice chat with and calmed me down. Ultimately, much ado about nothing, but in the moment, I was furious. 

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May 24

My vacation week is drawing to a close. I had big plans for it but ended up watching TV and going to the gym. It feels like a waste. The weather has been good, I like being outside when it is warm, but yet, I spend hour after hour mindlessly surfing the couch (and cable). Oh well.

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May 22

I was going to do a bunch of day trips this week and take nature photos, but instead, I have spent most of it napping and watching The Office re-runs. Win?

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May 21

Having read ALL THE TAKES on the series finale of Game of Thrones I have just a few thoughts. First and foremost is the question of whether the broad strokes comport with Martin's final vision for his own work. If they do, then what people are complaining about is a failure of TV to capture the fine details. 

Of course, *had* Martin finished his series we would know the answer, but to some degree, that he has not may end up ginning up more interest in his final two books. Readers (and some show viewers who became readers after the show started) are now even more incentivized to buy those books so all the unanswered questions (and those specific, point of view details) can be filled in. 

My second thought is that a show that came into the home stretch teasing us that its main character would break the wheel ended up being ground down by it. In an alternate universe, if the show ended with the season six finale The Winds of Winter (for all the criticism of seasons 7 and 8, this episode also exists after the end of Martin's book runway, so give Benioff and Weiss some credit) leaving to viewers (and Martin) the opportunity to wrap up the story some time in the future. I would have been fine with that ambiguity. 

Instead, the wheel breaker adopted the tactics of the wheel spinners and ended up being snuffed out because of it. Dany ended up ignoring the advice of some ("be a dragon" said Lady Oleanna) and continually stepped on the rakes laid out by others (most notably, her closest advisor Tyrion). When she rebelled against all of it because two of her dragons and two of her closest friends both died, and nuked the world she wished to inherit, she gets a blade in the chest for it. Ultimately, the wheel simply continues to spin, with some old people and some new people filling the seats deciding how to build sewers, replenish fleets, and all the rest. 

Finally, it is important to remember that this is all fleeting. Even writing less than 48 hours after the series finale feels dated. By next week, it will be forgotten. For as intense as all of the publicity seems in the moment, its half-life is vanishingly short once the story ends.

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May 20

Today is the kind of day I envision my retirement being. Getting up. Taking care of the cats. Eating breakfast. Going to the gym. Coming home. Showering. Eating lunch. Taking a nap. Lather, rinse, repeat, until I die. I really do just want a simple life without any responsibility, I just hope I live long enough to have one.

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May 19

In a lengthy (and largely unrelated) post, the writer Drew Magary said the following: 

I am a 42-year-old father of three. My entire goal in life is to be left the fuck alone.

I don't wanna do anything. I don't wanna go anywhere. And I sure as shit do not

wanna talk to anyone. All I wanna do is sit in my chair. 

Fam, that is me, for real (without the kids). I am at the point where I have restricted the time I spend away from my home to the bare minimum. Work. The gym. Errands. The energy it takes nowadays just to do those things is substantial, forget doing anything above and beyond that. 

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