On Moving & Mortality

English: Odysseus. Group of Odysseus blinding Polyphemus. Marble, Greek work of the 2nd century BC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes, I just finished a move. I went from the big (yet, admittedly lame) city to a place where one might have both a yard and a good sushi spot. But with moves come those nasty, mean little problems, such as: “I never knew you could spend this much on gas!” and “Why can’t I find a doctor with my insurance?” In a word, mundane, banal, so-dull-you-want-to-smash-your-head-in (alright, that was several words, but I don’t care!). “How did you ever manage? What makes you keep on?” I hear you ask, and I’ll tell you because I’m just a swell gal.

Audiobooks and podcasts. Actually one audiobook, Sir Ian McKellen reading The Odyssey, and one podcast, Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. “Ew, well, who is Hecuba to her and she to Hecuba that she should weep for her?” I hear you sneer like Terry Jones impersonating a woman. And to you I say, “That bit was from The Illiad ya fakackta….” Anyhow, Dan Carlin’s amazing “Fall of the Roman Republic” got me through packing, cleaning, moving, and unpacking, so I will shamelessly plug him. I already had my Audible subscription and so could not follow the link he describes and get The Odyssey for free while supporting him . . . but you can here! So there’s my plug for Dan Carlin.*

And onward into mortality. What has revived my sense of wonder and poetry and kept those banal little problems at bay? Why, none other than that wily Odysseus, battered by the wine-dark sea, man of sorrows. Nothing of late has touched my heart more tenderly than his plaintive and eternally human refrain of hope and humanity through all the sufferings we mortals must endure echoing down the ages and into my Android phone.

And now . . . now as the world grinds on, pitiless, paying no mind to the troubles of men and the shortness of our days . . . now I sit down again to write. Blessed brief life, I scribble on against the end and etch my immortality in pixels.

*I know you’re a Trekkie, sir.