Saw the trailer for The Mandalorian & Grogu. The title feels awkward, like it should be “Grogu and the Mandalorian.” Also it’s apparently The Mandalorian season 4 reworked into a movie, which… I’m not sure how much rework happened and whether that is bad news. It’s not as if major decisions were poorly made about Star Wars movies in the past or anything ::cough cough::
I like Pedro Pascal. I enjoyed season 1 of the TV show, and its theme music. But I’m finding it hard to summon more than a “meh” for Star Wars or Marvel comics at this point.
My Zenowell Luna stopped working after 11 days. The screen lights up, the buttons work, but the electrodes don’t do anything. I sent an email to their support on Sunday and haven’t heard back yet. Hopefully soon; I chose them because of a reputation for good customer service.
I had to think about whether I wanted a refund or exchange. I’m not sure the device is that effective, and maybe it’s redundant with the Lexapro anyway. But it’s also too early to dismiss, and it can be a pleasant sort of ritual. So I asked for the exchange.
I’m also looking seriously into an Oura Ring. I feel like (A) it might have some useful insights and information, and (B) it’s just kind of neat. 🙂
Had another therapy session yesterday afternoon. We actually wound it down a bit early, beacuse things are going well and nothing much came up. She does keep asking if there’s anything else I want to bring up, and I’ve been saying no. Maybe I should go ahead and go into the emotional difficulties I had as a kid, even though they got so much better? Maybe talk about gender identity… although I think the additional stress that puts on my mental health is 100% from the transphobic poolitical climate and I’ve made piece with being a weirdo. Actually I think I might privately journal about those things to work out if they’re something I want to bring up.
We changed the scheduling so it’s theoretically every 2 weeks, rather than every week.
I picked up a bunch of books on mindfulness from Alibris. Ironically, several of them were recommendations for “if you read just one book on mindfulness…” Here is a size comparison of two of them:
But the one I’m reading now, Fully Present, is more moderately sized. Its authors are an anthropologist/psychiatry professor, and a former Buddhist nun and mindfulness educator. Between them they cover both “science” and “art” perspectives of mindfulness, and the book leans toward practical, uh, practice. I’ve already picked up some specific advice for meditation with a bit more discipline (but still gentle and accepting). I have to say I’m grateful to be able to sit for 15-20 minutes and just focus on breathing or body sensations or gazing, without it being boring. That doesn’t mean consistent focus without the mind telling stories isn’t a challenge.
My previous read was The Seafarer’s Kiss. Take the basics of “The Little Mermaid” but put it in freezing Scandanavian waters, change the queer subtext to text, make the king a sexist tyrant who needs to be overthrown, replace the sea witch with Loki and add a very heavy dose of “be careful what you wish for.” I liked it.
Ask A Historian was a little bit of a mixed bag. The stories were enjoyable and I learned some stuff, but some of what it covered needed a little more debunking or clarification.
- the “Hayfeverite” craze. There was a period when hay fever was fashionable among white, upper-class men (this part is true, there were clubs and everything). This was because a doctor claimed it was a disease of the priveleged, which women and “lesser races” (sigh) didn’t get. The book said it was because exposure to pollen reduces hay fever susceptibility — but the accepted explanation seems to be that the doctor was mostly just treating the privileged in the first place and/or just wanted to distract patients from feeling miserable with a little casual white supremacy and sexism.
- the alleged craze for fistula surgery among the sycophantic aristocracy after King Louis XIV’s life was saved. Kaz Rowe did some research on this and presented it in a recent video, and gave a pretty solid argument for what they were thinking and the way it’s been exaggerated. 17th century medicine was pretty grim…
- there was a mention of the Moses myth where the author was speculating which phaoroah it might have been. He really should have said that it wasn’t any of them — Egypt had at various points conquered some of its neighbors but it never mass-enslaved any population. The pyramids etc. were built by farmers in the off-season, and they were paid for the work. In fact the first known labor strike was among pyramid builders because their beer shipments were late!
We’re 13% of the way through the year (thanks timeanddate.com) and NAMM is behind us, and I’m not finding myself tempted by any other Eurorack modules or plugins so far. I looked at Minimal Audio’s Poly Flanger this morning, added it to my cart and then said “…I don’t need this, I should instead play more with regular flangers” and dropped it. I see that GRM Atelier has a Windows release now, but… it’s still a “you have to trust that we’ll add more stuff in the future” thing and I’m just not feeling the hype.
Still waiting on a shipping notice from Control for that Walk 4. Their website still says “week of February 10th.” I just sent a message to ask if they have an update.
The first batch of K-Accumulator has shipped, and apparently us folks who put down a deposit for batch 2 will get an update next week. Meanwhile there’s a “quick start guide” which is pretty mind-blowing, revealing a bit more about the morph system, the delta-sigma pattern generator and the interactions between sections. I’m super excited about it. Hopefully anticipation for Walk 4 and K-Acc isn’t the only thing keeping my gear curiosity in check. There’s gonna be a lot of fresh exploration to do.