Another couple of weeks down, because I’ve been all kinds of busy, depressed, tired, sore, occasionally celebratory, and outside touching grass.

Work is work, of course. I’m kind of just tired of all of it all, going through the motions and doing the thing, but not feeling particularly motivated to give the powers that be any more than the minimum expected effort. I’ve been leaving the office for lunch every day, finding a space that’s simply not there to exist away from it all for half-an-hour. It’s not that I don’t appreciate my immediate team members and leadership, I really, honestly do, though everyone above the level of my agency CIO, from the HQ front office all the way up to the grifter sitting at the Resolute Desk, clearly not have the our best interests in mind, and that doesn’t exactly inspire loyalty.

I might be a bit bitter, though I have been enjoying the ugly breakup currently happening in real time, even under the deluge of partisan memos dropped every Friday along with the rest of the trash.

But that’s all I’m going to say about that, because you’ve heard it all already, and I’m honestly tired of talking and thinking about it more than absolutely necessary.

More positively, I’ve been putting some effort into advancing a few of my other projects, which have been much better for my mental and physical health. Over the Memorial Day weekend, I added four more state parks to my Trail Quest list over a long Sunday in NW Virginia, bringing my total up to 30 and crossing the next milestone. Only ten more to go, and I’ve got three more lined up for a camping trip later this month.

The Capital Trail Summer Challenge is up and rolling, and I’ve been logging the miles most days after work. So far this week I’ve got 67 miles down, and am comfortably in the top half of the rankings for the “ten times the trail” category on my way to 517 by the end of the summer.

Those last two have me down seven pounds or so over the last two weeks, which I’m also not complaining about.

Apart from that, I’ve gotten some time in with friends, which has helped as well, sharing some fun concert stories with folks over a beverage or two at the local watering hole the other day, and spending a few hours at the pitch catching a Richmond Ivy FC match mid-week, with tentative plans to hit the Kickers match coming up this weekend. It’s a nice time tailgating and shouting along with the Vine Guard/Red Army hooligans.

So yeah, simply stepping away from all this crap: it’s helping. I have to watch the headlines, of course, but I try to get a few stories in there about Fantastic Four: First Steps along with the corruption, slash-and-burn, and ALLCAPS ranting rolling down I-95.

So…tunes. I downloaded a randomly generated playlist in Spotify last week to listen to at work while working magic with PowerBI and Excel (because my building is a Faraday cage and data connections are weak sauce), and it’s hitting a right proper mid-1980s vibe, and I’m okay with that:

1. “Do You Love Me” – KISS
2. “Coming of Age” – Damn Yankees
3. “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers” – ZZ Top
4. “Whatcha Do to My Body” – Lee Aaron
5. “War Pigs” – Faith No More
6. “What Do You Know About Love” – Lita Ford
7. “Wild Flower” – The Cult
8. “Rhythm Of Love” – Scorpions
9. “Love’s A Bitch” – Quiet Riot
10. “Every 1’s A Winner” – Gun
11. “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” – Spin Doctors
12. “Seventeen” – Winter