Okay, so as always, this recovery process has been slower and more annoying, with more minor setbacks, than anticipated.

Someday, I’ll learn to take the Hoped-For Duration of Recovery and simply multiply it by three or four.

“I’ll be over this in a week or so” will then mean “I’ll be over this in, I dunno, three weeks or a month, give or take,” and I’ll be much less frustrated when, after a week, I’m not Good As New.

Anyway, I am feeling much better, but still not perfectly well. Still also tenaciously clinging to the hope of having something worth auditioning on the 4th. If we bust our buts (yes, pun intended: You know, “When the deadline’s neeeeeear, and it don’t look good — Who you gonna call? BUT BUSTERS!”), we might … maybe? … SHOULD! be able to at least put together a respectable audition, if not one that will make everybody say OMG WE MUST HAVE THESE GUYS!

Maybe.

In other news, we saw The Scorch Trials today and spent the whole movie making Burning-Man related jokes.

It actually wasn’t too bad: its storyline was fairly predictable “twinks versus the old ppl conspiracy versus alien zombie plague” fare, but both installments in the Maze Runner film adaptation series have done a good job mostly avoiding cringe-inducing romantic subplots whilst providing enjoyable visuals and action scenes, even if elements of those action scenes do frequently make one ask, “Haven’t you guys ever seen a movie? Hey, maybe standing around and waiting for all of the alien plant zombies to awaken within two meters of your tasty still-fully-human faces is a bad idea. Wait, what the … WHY ARE YOU CLIMBING THE STAIRS?!”

Oops, potential spoilers below for ppl who care about that kind of thing, so here comes a More Tag:

Also, the bad guys in this film are definitely mostly graduates of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy — but the fact that even the good guys only occasionally get off a lucky shot makes that a bit more plausible (for what it’s worth, apparently most shots fired in combat miss — like, the vast majority — and these guys mostly don’t have rapid-fire automatic assault weapons). This does not, however, excuse the Baddie who, in an early chase scene, stands there holding a PERFECTLY GOOD STUN GUN and does NOTHING while his boss foams at the mouth about shooting the escaping twinks.

Presumably, he’ll be hearing about that on his Annual Review (though surely they won’t terminate him since, you know, it’s clearly a non-firing offense … waaa-waaaaaaaaaah :V).

To be fair, the characters in these particular films probably never have seen a movie, so we can probably cut them some slack.

Likewise, I decided to grant a little leeway to the likable major character who decided that she should stand right up on a window threatening to break under her weight rather than spreading out and reaching for the huge piece of metal framework only an arm’s length or so away. Presumably, having never encountered ice (because Scorching Futuristic Sun-Desert, and clearly no one remembers where Arctica or Center Camp are located, and even then they only have blocks and cubed ice, not big sheets of ice), she doesn’t know what you should do when you hear ice cracking beneath you, and thus presumably what you should do when you hear the sheet of glass beneath you cracking. I assume that a similar strategy could be employed, there, though physics may or may not agree (enter erudite and well-informed discussion of tensile vs. shear strength, relative brittleness of sheet glass vs. sheet ice, etc).

Still, for me, the best part of the movie was the whole string of Burning Man-related sotto voce commentary the film inspired.

My favorite bit was Denis’ one-liner: “See? This is why you never go past the Trash Fence.”

Seriously, you could re-dub this movie a little and call it Where The Hell Is Center Camp, and it would probably work pretty well.

Also, I noticed a certain tunnely mountain pass from Mad Max: Fury Road (another Burning Man: The Movie of 2015) in The Scorch Trials, and now I really kind of want to see that place in real life, since it seems to be real place. Curiously, people in movies generally don’t have that effect on me, but places? Heck yes.

All right. Now I have to go Do Work. Stupid work, interrupting my procrastination schedule.

I make no predictions about ballet class. I have given up on predictions. Maybe I’ll miraculously make it to class tomorrow, assuming I can get to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight (which is a tricky proposition, given that lack of exercise makes my insomnia much, much worse — though the fact that I am now well enough to have insomnia in the first place is a bonus, I guess?).

Maybe I will not be awakened by a 4 AM attack of the hairballs.

I haz an optimism, but it is a cautious one.

Oh, and if you are in the mood for a bit of fluffy escapism, you could do worse than to hit up The Scorch Trials this weekend. The bottom line? Catch a matinee showing if you can (I’m not sure it’s quite worth a premium night-time ticket price), keep your expectations reasonable, and bring a sarcastic friend.

And try not to hum elements from the Indiana Jones soundtracks too loudly at opportune moments.