Hello and welcome back. This is Issue 24 of “a bit of bird words” and there’s a good chance I’m melting in the Spanish sun when you read this. Summer’s too hot, man.

What did I play/read this month?

Notably, I finished Wuthering Heights. It was an utterly astonishing read, and I’ll just quote myself from how I described it elsewhere.

You know, I think because I came into this one right off the heels of Sense and Sensibility, I think I had this expectation that it would be similar, and it is truly not. I found the narrator absolutely insufferable early on before realizing that, surprise, I’m just as deeply curious (re: nosy) about the lives of the Earnshaws and Lintons and Heathcliff and want to watch the hurricane at work, so to speak.

It’s also quite sharp in its critique of society at the time, but where Austen I felt wielded a scalpel to carefully slice away the pomp and circumstance, Brontë wields a rusty knife without a handle. No one escapes unscathed in this work.

I’ve started Sontag’s Against Interpretation essay collection but will probably set it to the side for some re-reads while on holiday.

In the spirit of re-experiencing something, I replayed Link’s Awakening DX and finished another Ocarina of Time randomizer seed this month, and there’s not too much to say about them. Link’s Awakening continues to be an absolutely magical experience and the OOTR seed was a nightmare of our own making.

What else?

Two fun things arrived this month: a secondhand Playstation VITA and my long-awaited SiSTER unit (a Superstation One).

I’ve already been trying out the SiSTER with various things (I finished that previously mentioned OOTR seed on it, for one) but the VITA will be coming with me and getting its first real run while out of the country. It’s a gorgeous little unit and was dead simple to hack, so it’ll be my dedicated PSP/VITA unit with some occasional dips into PSX.

Apart from that, I celebrated five years in Sweden this month, which I’m still grateful for (and I am never going back to the States), and we went to Närcon for a one-day romp about the convention. I’ve really missed anime conventions honestly; I love how much passion and joy is on display everywhere you turn. I bought a bunch of stickers and keychains from some artists, hung out for some quiz shows, and met even more of my partner’s friends for the first time.

We’ve almost unintentionally jam-packed our July and vacation with things to do (swimming at the lake, visiting a nature reserve not far from us, Närcon, attending a relative’s birthday) that it really brings into focus how little time I feel like I have to do the important things in life. When I’m not at work, I actually have time to do these things, to live.

I hope you have some time in your day-to-day to also do the living part of life.

See you next month.