The Once and Future Thing

With Labor Day now behind us, we're out of cultural summer and into what is usually my favorite time of the year. Labor Day to Thanksgiving sees cooling weather, and longer nights, and most important, Halloween. The forecast for the next week-and-a-half includes highs in the upper 80s and lower 90s, so I guess the cooler temperatures are going to be later in coming, a further consequence of cooking the planet. I'll take the longer nights.

Got home from work last night and had a feeling that I should turn on the phone's Do Not Disturb function. It automatically does that from midnight to 7AM, but, like I said, had a feeling. So, I did so, and plugged in the charger, and went to bed. This was a good decision. Woke up to a couple of spam texts (thanks, Careerbuilder), and a couple of missed calls that, if answered, probably would have meant hearing complaining and a request to give someone a lift. Normally, I don't mind helping out someone, but today, I don't have the spare energy for it. 

That's something I'm getting better at. One of the big emergency responder lessons that I've held on to is don't become a victim yourself - make sure you're okay before you try to help someone else. I've worn myself out, overextended myself, all that, and I don't want to be in that place again.

I finished reading a collection of Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne stories last night. Pretty darn pleased with it. I first encountered the province in an old D&D module, and it's always had some small space in my mind. The appendix to the module had enough information on the setting to make it appealing, and finally getting around to reading the source material was quite enjoyable. I'm interested in weirder fantasy, going back to the time when the lines between fantasy and science fiction weren't quite so firm.