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Didn’t sleep much or well on Friday night, I think mostly because I stayed up way too late reading and playing iOS games. Hung out with Karen and Pär and Jeremiah during the day on Saturday, mostly playing Terraforming Mars, which has become one of my favorite boardgames. Then came home to help Kam move a bunch of her stuff into my garage, and chatted with Jeremy for a while.

By late afternoon, I was pretty sleepy (and possibly a little sick; headache and maybe fever). Which is unfortunate, because it meant I wasn’t safe to drive up to San Francisco for a friend’s birthday party. Instead, I watched an episode of Black Lightning and an episode of Jane the Virgin, and then tried to do a cryptic crossword puzzle created by Jim and Abby but kept drifting off. I lingered on the couch in a half-asleep state for an hour or so before admitting to myself that it was time to go to sleep.

Slept well and long, woke up early, am lingering in bed. Today, more boardgaming: playing episode 1 of season 2 of Pandemic: Legacy.

And writing the above led me to realize that I haven’t posted here about other stuff I’ve been up to lately. Some notes:

• Spent a very social week in Seattle recently. I was there for a work thing: a team meeting/offsite. But I also spent a day gaming and chatting with Debby and John and Rose and David, and saw Ellie and Dana and Esther, and had dinner with Geoff, and hung out with Lori and Brian, and went on a sort of a blind date, and recorded a video interview with Paul (as part of my family-history project). And did an escape room with co-workers (my first one; was fun), and went to the Living Computers Museum also with co-workers. And probably other stuff I’m not thinking of. Good to see everyone, sorry to miss everyone I didn’t see.
• Continuing my photo-labeling project. I’ve labeled 24,000 photos; a little under 14,000 left to go, which means I’m almost 2/3 done. If I can keep up a steady pace, I can finish in six months; but if I follow my usual pattern of getting out of the habit for weeks at a time, then it might take me another year.
• Making a little bit of progress on Constellation Press. Finally saw a tax person about the company’s tax situation. Have been discussing a possible book to publish. More news on all that as/if things develop.
• Finished reading my grandmother Helen’s diary from 1926-1927, when she was eighteen. It’s not as interesting or as revealing as I had hoped; her notes about her own thoughts and feelings are pretty minimal and oblique. But still nice to have it. I’m gradually transcribing it, by reading it aloud into Apple’s speech-to-text system and then cleaning up mistakes.
• TV: Kam and I finished watching season 1 of Star Trek: Discovery, which is my favorite Trek show despite some flaws. We also finished watching season 6 of Deep Space 9, and have started on season 7; still liking it, but I’m much more aware of its flaws than I am of Discovery’s. I’m also liking Black Lightning, and still loving Jane the Virgin, which I’m a couple episodes behind on.
• Speaking of black superheroes, Kam and I saw Black Panther last weekend. I liked it quite a bit, but didn’t personally love it. But I’m very glad it was made, and that its core audience loves it so much, and I hope to see it again soon, to look at it in light of the various commentaries about it I’ve read and heard.
• Have now read all of Joanna Russ’s published short fiction, approximately in publication order. A lot of great stuff there. Oh, but it turns out that the ISFDB (which was my source for most of that list) may be missing some other published fiction, according to another bibliography; I’ve contacted the creator of that latter page to try to find out more.
• Also finished reading Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey. I found it interesting and worth reading (I had previously only read retellings-for-kids versions of the story), but didn’t love it. Odysseus is not a very sympathetic character.
• Have been teaching my niece Avery to juggle.
• Have been playing the new iOS game Alto’s Odyssey, sequel to the excellent Alto’s Adventure. Lovely graphics, of course, and some nice new gameplay elements, but I’m finding it a little more frustrating than the first game, somehow. But still worth playing.
• This coming week will include the thirteenth anniversary of my father’s death. So far, I’ve been pretty much okay (as compared to past years in which I’ve found myself tense and irritable in the couple of weeks before the anniversary), but am going to try to take things easy this week.
• Probably unrelatedly, I’ve felt kind of scattered/unfocused for several weeks now. Having a hard time getting things done. Hoping to get past that soon. We’ll see.
• Next weekend is FOGcon. I have various things I need to do to prepare for that; I should try to get moving on that this evening.