First, the good: We had a wonderful time with Detective Pikachu, which was actually quite a lot of fun; in great part due to Ryan Reynolds’ performance as the title character. The story was cute, though the resolution wasn’t exactly not obvious from the get-go. Still quite enjoyable, however, and gorgeous to look at. The trailers ahead of things, aside from Godzilla: King of Monsters, however, were from a weird sort of alternate aspect of the world I simply don’t live in: treacly, touchy-feely fluff that doesn’t end up on my radar. It was an interesting step into how the other half lives, I guess.

The rest of the weekend was less than ideal; I’ve just been on edge for a bit (once I kind of figured out why – no need to share here – it made sense, but…), and I was less than pleasant to be around, either as myself or as an outsider. I tried, but I wasn’t my best self. I spent most of Sunday crashed alternately in bed reading or watching a couple of movies I rented (Aquaman and The Happytime Murders, both entertaining, but in the end, non-remarkable) lying in repose on the couch.

Heck, I struggled to get out of bed this morning, though managed it, as I had stuff to deal with, and I’m a goddamn professional, so I soldiered on. Doesn’t mean that the big meeting I had to address today didn’t end up getting heated and I had to bust out my dad voice with folks who ought to be professional, but tend to circle the wagons and answer simple questions with cascades of cruft and jargon, along with a healthy dollop of feined misunderstanding.

Sometimes (let’s be honest, most of the time), I hate my job, though I’m on the verge of getting something really good for the Department done if I can manage to offset the garbage bullshit these people are doing their best to obfuscate, because it means that their kingdom of long-outdated obsolete-except-for-here software applications is one step closer to irrelvance if this initiative of mine finally comes to fruition. I have no such loyalty to the status quo, and if I get this right, I save the taxpayer a heck of a lot of money (at least until somebody spends it on some other piece of pork sausage), but I’ll have made my corner of the public sector much more efficient.

Anyway, that’s what I get paid the big bucks for. I make it through the next couple of days, I get to make a bunch of music with and for my friends. I’ve got my Open Mic hosting gig on Wednesday, another opportunity on Friday if I feel up to it, and I’m playing Durham NC (at Bull City Ciderworks) with the Humdingers for two shows on Saturday afternoon/evening. Two of these gigs even pay.

Also, Tuesday’s a short day at work, as I’m taking a couple of hours off to make the trip west to pick up the kid as she’s wrapped her semester (I have a kid who’s half-way through college! wow), and do so in daylight.

That’s life right now…such as it is. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, as things tend to be.