I'm so glad I saw New Orleans before it goes away. They are fuuuuuuucked.

Russia's President Putin has taken a page from America's new playbook, and decided that democracy is too inconvenient. This is a power grab that will revert Russia to a one-party system. It'll be so cute: the United States and Russia can be heavily-armed failed democracies together, while the rest of the world trembles in fear and tries to figure out how to actually destroy us. (Note to other nations reading this on how to fix America: infiltrate the country and teach our citizens how to think.)

I failed to have a Conversation with my boss today, because he was busy. He suggested I not let it bug me, which is easy enough for him to say; I may need to emphasize for him that my problem is not so much concern about how well I'm doing my job--I may or may not mention that how well I do my job doesn't seem to matter--but the discrepancy between how well I do my job (and he agrees) and the general attitude I get from him about it.

I'm having kind of a weird time, in that I'm busy, but not really having fun. My mind is working okay, but I feel sort of thick...muted, I guess would be a good way to describe me right now. I suspect work, with the Unresolved Boss Bullshit and the shift in projects from Endless and Ultimately Frustrating to Familiar Same Old Crap For Which I Get To Exercise Only Limited Creativity. And I'm tired, as I have been for months...I imagine this muting-of-self is a defense mechanism, probably unnecessary in the end, another thing to drop and leave behind when the time is right. I have Chillits this weekend, for which I have nice company and many friends, then another weekend, then my Caboose Restoration class starts. Some friends have leads on new jobs (both in the city, which I'd have to think carefully about), tomorrow I go back to aikido after a nice 5-day rest...and best of all, summer's almost over, taking with it the endless long days of entirely-too-bright sunshine and depressingly cloudless days, and gifting me instead with reasonable temperatures and rain, reminding me that for at least a few months out of the year, we have weather here.

Well, on second thought, I don't particularly enjoy being this crabby, about work, my extra 30 pounds, or anything else; I've worked very hard and come very far, and I know I can change my mood; so I think I'll do that instead.

It's so nice when I re-create the world. Everything looks all shiny again.