Yesterday, we had a plumber come in and adjust our shower. The water pressure had been declining, it took many minutes for the water to heat up, and even when it reached peak temperature it was tepid. The plumber traced the problem down into the basement, and now we can get a scalding high pressure blast out of it, which is great for us. I’ll have to ask the shower spiders what they think of it.

Sorry, spiders, you might see more of us as we revel in a good hot scouring.

I’m a bit of a mess right now. My voice is an ugly croak, and I’m also experiencing some gastrointestinal issues, so like a good boy I made an appointment to see a doctor and get checked out. I went in yesterday.

The doctor didn’t talk about any of my concerns.

But the doctor did talk at length about my psychological survey, which I had filled out under the impression it was confidential. My wife was with me.

So now I’m home with none of my medical issues resolved, but with my wife convinced that I’m utterly nuts.

I should have stayed home, and next time I’m asked to fill out a psych questionnaire I’m going to lie.

My voice is totally gone, except as a raspy whisper that frequently cracks and can only make shushing noises. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that none of my students have stopped by to ask questions! I guess I have taught them superbly well, or possibly they are terrified of the old man who keeps pushing more facts and formulas at them.

I’ll hang out in my office a while longer, just in case. I am drinking lots of honey lemon ginseng tea with big spoonfuls of honey. Also, tomorrow I’m just giving this exam and teaching a lab which should give me another day to recover.

The timing is terrible. I developed a nasty sore throat last night that kept me up half the night — I’m going to be gulping down tea with honey all day long. I’m giving the first big exam of the semester tomorrow, so I’m giving extended office hours this morning and afternoon, which means I’m going to be dealing one-on-one with students while suffering from this croaky voice.

Mask on. More tea. Don’t ask me to sing.

I hope my terrible confession doesn’t drive away my readers, but…

I can’t stand Star Trek anymore.

I don’t want to watch it. I see an ad for a new Trek series, or Trek memorabilia, or a Trek convention, and I immediately set course for a new destination far far away. This is the year of the 60th anniversary of the series, and my mild disinterest has evolved into strong revulsion.

I have happy memories. When I was 9 or 10 years old, it was an obsession — I looked forward to Thursday evenings (I think that was the day it was on) and staying up to watch it on our old black & white TV. I was even enthused when they made movies based on it. But by the time Star Trek: the Next Generation was a thing my interest was cooling, and I was thinking it would be nice to have some more creative science fiction approaches in my entertainment. The Federation was stale.

And now, my reaction is nothing but boredom or disgust. Star Trek is oversaturated. Let’s all move on.

Remember all those 1950s SF serials that I saw in reruns? Shall we bring them back, too? Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers got some attention, but it didn’t last. I kind of wish Star Trek got the same flash of transient revitalization, before fading away as the entertainment industry found novelty more interesting.

Next: I’m waiting for Star Wars to die. Disney is helping by driving it into the ground with new series that I can’t even be troubled to look up.

Here’s a fairly typical view of what I see when I walk into my office every morning.

The pink thing is a knitted octopus tied to a leather strap, and it’s very, very important. It is the evil cat’s one toy, the one thing she has fixated on since we first adopted her. She often talks to it. It’s weird: she will yowl and babble and have long conversations with it. Some nights I’ll be sleeping in my bed and wake up to hear these eerie noises in the living room or kitchen or wherever she has dragged her little pink pal — they’re more than just “meows,” they have a kind of grammar and structure and contain sounds we don’t hear from her in any other context.

I should probably record it sometime, because I think we’re actually hearing the dark tongue of Hell.

…the crabapples drop.

This is the path I take to work, which is bracketed by some crabapple trees on either side, and at this time of year it is covered with little red crabapples.

It gets swept occasionally, but those are extraordinarily productive trees, and my walk is through that squishy, slippery mess. I tend to step in the barer spots, so I kind of dance my way across it, but bicyclists go straight through the middle, leaving a trail of flattened apples. What you can’t see in this photo is the sickly-sweet smell of rotting sour apples, or the tremendous swarms of flies and wasps gorging themselves in a gluttonous orgy.

It’s not pleasant, but soon enough it will be replaced sheets of snow over ice. I prefer the rotten apples.