Checking in
First of all, I'm OK. Last week I wrote about feeling overwhelmed, and haven't written anything since. I really am OK; this past weekend was Thanksgiving in Canada and I had to do a lot of driving, other than spending time with my wife's family. But I have been up to some things, so here's a bit of a mishmash of what I've been doing. It's almost a thoughts post but not quite.
Life
- While driving home Monday, I passed a couple of cars and "had" to get up to ~127 km/h to do so. Immediately after, an OPP patrol car came from the opposite direction and pulled me over (understandably and deservedly, the speed limit on that part of the highway is 90 km/h). I was super lucky, the officer only told me "try to slow down" and did not give me a ticket. Maybe my barking reactive dog in the back seat made him think it's not worth stressing her out more?
- Today my wife is 26 weeks pregnant. How did half a year go by already?
- I've done a lot of prep work in the house, getting things ready for the baby in the new year while my wife is up north with her family. I mentioned feeling overwhelmed last week but since then I've broken tasks down into specific to-do items and have been tackling them methodically.
Reading
- While driving this weekend I started listening to Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown. Ariadne mentioned it as one of her September reads and it sounded like something that would help me. One of the early chapters covered the difference between 'overwhelmed' and 'anxiety'—super relevant for me here. I think what I was feeling last week was anxiety, and not truly overwhelmed.
- Brandon wrote about Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming and I saw that it was available on Hoopla from my library. I borrowed it, but haven't read it yet, but also saw a few other Trek comics including Star Trek Godshock which features the return of Benjamin Sisko from the celestial temple. Colour me intrigued. It's a little contrived though, partnering him up with Dr. Crusher, Data, and Worf. And in the latest development, even Q shows up. We'll see how it goes.
TV
- Continuing my watch of X-Files; season 3 is about the time when I tuned in to random episodes as a kid and was freaked out so never got into it until I was in high school and saw the later seasons. "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" was a great one.
- Network TV is back! My wife and I have joyfully restarted watching the latest of NCIS, Heartland, and Chicago Med. Waiting for High Potential to come back, too. We were very surprised by this season's new cast addition for NCIS!
- Over Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law introduced her mom to Marshalls, a Yellowstone spin-off, so we watched some of the episodes. Not my cup of tea, but it's basically a police procedural set in the Yellowstone universe. So, over-the-top violence and melodrama. It seems like this was an idea for another show that Paramount decided to turn into a spin-off. Sort of like how Ocean's 8 was likely a generic heist movie that got folded into the "Ocean's" franchise. I prefer Marshalls over Yellowstone but I suspect that's because of the police procedural aspect.
Music
- Still digging Brigitte Calls Me Baby and their album "Irreversible". I listened to it on my Friday night drive.
- Also listened to Girl Talk's two albums, "Feed the Animals" and "All Day". Haven't heard these in a while. Great listening for driving.
That's about all I can remember right now. A longer list than I thought when I started typing. Got to get back to work.