Shrouded in blah

I’m feeling rather apathetic this week. Not depressed, per se, just lacking interest in doing, well, anything. This is rather worrying, especially for someone with such an eclectic range of hobbies such as myself. Maybe I should try picking up one of my guitars. I need to trim my nails first. Last night I just went and laid on my bed from around seven and stayed there until I fell asleep. I had hoped that, at some point, I’d have a second wind and get back up again but, nope, I remained in bed for twelve hours straight. Not bad going, for me. Lying there was nice, actually, as there was a major rain shower and thunderstorm, which are always nice to snuggle up to. There seemed to be a lot of people out and about, which is unusual for British people in wet weather. A bit of rain has been known to stop riots in London. Anyway, I had The Mysterious Cities of Gold to keep me company. I think I’m on the last episode now. Or second to last. The introduction of the alien-like Olmec characters is very bizarre, but that’s fine. I might try watching the new series again, as I’ve only gotten a few episodes in until now. My appreciation of the original 80s series is based more on nostalgia, I think. And, perhaps, the performance of the actor Shiraz Adam, who plays Esteban. He’s very energetic and endearing. Somebody actually managed to track him down recently and did an interview with him. It’s a frustratingly short interview (one wonders whether the interviewer doesn’t care much for the series), but it’s nice to know “Esteban” is still out there and doing well for himself.

I’m trying to think what else I’ve been up to. Even my brain seems to have given up on being interested in remembering things. Sigh. Oh yeah, I picked up my medication last week after finally getting my sleep pattern back on track. It’s been raining on and off for quite a while now, but the summer warmth is still in the air so, erm, you can imagine what that’s doing to the humidity levels. Luckily for me, humidity is my least favourite type of weather, so I’ve now got even more of an excuse not to go outside. Seriously, poop could be raining from the sky, but I'd still be all like "Well, at least it's not humid".

On that note...

I texted my ex yesterday, as we haven’t spoken much since all that drama last month. It sounds like she’s still off work and in touch with a crisis team. I’ve been keeping in touch with that mutual friend of ours, with whom I agree that there’s nothing much we can do for my ex right now (especially since we’re prone to depression ourselves). We’re still here if she needs help, but we can’t solve her problems for her.

There’s been no change regarding my gaming situation. I’m still appearing offline whenever I do switch on the PS4. My despondency has affected even playing the solo games I enjoy, so I think my new standalone DVD player is about to get a good workout. My old gaming buddy did text me over the weekend about some random stuff, but the conversation was pretty brief. At least he’s not annoyed with me because of my flirtatious behaviour the other week.

I cooked a nice curry the other night, which was an event because I used pork instead of beef, chicken or lamb. Shocking revelation, huh? I was looking into the history of the vindaloo, which is derived from a Portuguese dish called “Carne de vinha d'alhos”. The curry version often mistakes the “aloo” part of “vindaloo” as meaning “potato”, but it actually comes from the word “d’alhos” in the Portuguese name, which means “garlic” (with “vinha” meaning “wine”). Carne de vinha d'alhos sounds more like a sharing dish that’s served at Christmas, where you marinate some pork in white wine, garlic and chillies and serve it relatively dry with bread, which is very different from the Anglicised version of vindaloo, which is a sauce-based dish. I basically made something somewhere in between these two versions, by frying off the pork, then making a curry sauce out of red wine, garlic and chopped tomatoes. Along with this, I also added my usual vegetables and spices, but it’ll take a while to list all of those. It was very nice, I must say, and I’m now sold on using pork in curries. It just never occurred to me, before. If I do the dish again, I may use white wine instead, as I think that’s what the original Portuguese dish uses.

Oh, those nineteenth century Shakespeare books arrived, and I was very impressed. Their condition Is wonderful, relative to their age. The covers are slightly different to the one I’ve had for years, but I’m wondering whether it’s an extra layer that was removed from mine. I’ll have a play about. Still, it’s nice to have them altogether. It’s just a shame the one I’ve had for years is in such poor condition. Oh well. I also can't read any of these books now, thanks to my deteriorating eyesight, but that's another story.

I think I’m going to take a break from The Office, as my interest is starting to waver a bit. I’ve just started season four, and was a little let down by how uneventful it was when Jim and Pam finally got together. They kinda messed that one up. All the actors are starting to look a bit bored now. I know that’s the point of the show, but they really are. It’s a shame Rashida Jones left (I'll just pretend Karen Filippelli changed her name to "Ann Perkins", moved to Pawnee and became a nurse) and they kept that horrid Ed Helms guy. They’ve really pared his involvement down though, to the point where he now says about two lines per episode. No bad thing.

I bought the Blu-ray set of Stanley Kubrick’s key works. This is the third time I’ve bought them now – the first was the Region 1 set (back when Kubrick was refusing to release A Clockwork Orange in the UK), and then the Region 2 set, which also included Eyes Wide Shut and the A Life in Pictures documentary. This Blu-ray set omits Dr Strangelove, which is a shame, but it’s nice to have new copies. Those two older DVD sets are about twenty years old now too, and Warner Bros were pretty negligent with their early DVD releases, in my experience.

It sounds like the fourth of July might very well be the day the pubs open back up, which I’m really looking forward to. Pub culture is an integral part of British culture, so taking that out of everyone’s lives has had a bigger effect than has been let on in the news. Hopefully the humidity will have dissipated by then. The valley where I live has been shrouded in fog for a week now, which is only adding to my sense of isolation.

Well, I think I’ll leave things on that positive note. I hope you fine people are faring better than myself. Maybe by my next post my motivation will have returned. We shall see. I have enjoyed writing this though, so that’s something.

Do stay in touch, droogs.

Toodles!