My friends are cooler than your friends.

Books Finished
- Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks [e-audio & Kindle]
- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson [e-audio]
- The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang [e-audio]
- The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang [e-audio]
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson [e-audio]
- The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks [Kindle]
- Reawakening by Orson Scott Card [e-audio]

Library DVDs/Streaming Programs Watched
- Bridgerton: S4P1 [1 equiv]
- How to Get to Heaven from Belfast: D1 [1 equiv]

Finally recognized the pattern just now, while listening to Orson Scott Card's Reawakening. Multiverse philosophizing/idea wanking is Not My Jam. It's what I disliked about Baxter and Pratchett's Long [Planet] series, what I disliked about the Baxter and Clarke book a month or two ago, and what I'm not liking about this one. The first book in this series, Wakers, was more story than multiverse wanking, so I enjoyed it. This second book in the series is pretty thin on story, even 20% through already. But I knew already this seems to be a more general truth for me, too: I'm more interested in a story with movement than anything that frequently pauses for a bunch of philosophy or politics. I tolerate a bit more of the math and science wanking that Neal Stephenson often does, but I definitely struggle to stay engaged in those sections.

It's a "fizzy sweet wine in a 16 oz tumbler (at least it's not straight from the bottle) and cozy Christmas lights (because my life is so stupid the tree's still up)" kind of evening.

These days I'm starting my work weeks relatively OK, but by Fridays I Hate Everything. Talked to my old boss today, who's going to come up for a week to help intro-train the new PM starting in a couple of weeks, plus get some additional training to the newer one (about a year into the title, but only recently really stepped up in responsibility). Someone outside my management chain wanting to lecture me on how I need to focus more on the important than the urgent and that I need to do less and then immediately responding to "here's a quick thing your team could help me save time and labor in the near term" with "let's define all the requirements for the full-blown project that little thing is a part of and which you didn't ask for help with" is NOT helping. I put off that meeting for when my entire head wasn't on fire because I knew it was going to be exactly what it ended up being, and as expected it was neither urgent, nor important.

Finally got Mom's phone number transferred to the new place today, a month after I'd asked. Next will be cancelling the phone service off the cable bill, getting an alternate email set up and redirecting the important things to a new one, and then canceling the cable modem too. Still need to find the time to get to the post office during counter hours to change her address (have to show off POA paperwork)...maybe tomorrow morning. Also need to drop off her taxes with her tax guy sometime on the way to work. And call her long term care insurance company to make sure they actually got the last surprise set of eligibility evaluation forms back from the doctor's office (so many fucking hoops).

Also in the finally category, Mom was downright pleasant to hang out with last Saturday, for the first time since we moved her there a month earlier. She kept admiring the view and asking me how I found the place, and agreed that it kind of has the same vibe as her house, and she finally let/helped me hang some more pictures. She still won't go eat in the dining room, or even go walk the halls for some exercise and to see what's what, but baby steps. I'm planning to shift her to the on-site meds provider when we go see her doctor in a couple of weeks (wanted to use up existing already-purchased supplies first), and I hope that might help shift her to an earlier clock and make her more likely to go down for meals.

Enjoyed the federal holiday off this past Monday, though after breakfast out with my sweetie before his work, it was mostly a catch-up day for errands and clearing snow from Mom's house's driveway while picking up her mail. Don't think I'll have another day off for a while yet, and definitely nothing until the end of May where the backlogged work penalty won't be higher for the privilege. We'd been talking about going to Houston and to see Josh's family over spring break, but it's invoicing week, and I just mentally and emotionally can't right now, especially as I'd have to be working, and the in-laws' guest bed is literally painful to sleep on. They may still go, esp as Lillian's last great grandmother recently entered hospice (though I guess she technically still has a living step-step great grandmother).

In short, I'm tired, my to-do list is 3 miles long and most every completed item spawns two new ones, and it's going to remain bad on a personal and professional level for a while longer yet, completely aside from the whole "world descending into pedophiliac fascism" thing. Also, all my lovely snow melted this week, though it's not like I've had any time to go play in it. It is a nice little break from the 3 weeks of constant snow and a stretch of super cold we had starting on mom's moving day, though. All the local roads, even the well-traveled ones, were inch-thick packed snow for a couple of weeks solid. (As a child, I taught myself to ice-skate on that shit.)