It's been a weird week for new music. Skrillex has a new record out for the first time in years. I like Skrillex. I liked him in From First to Last, and I enjoy his big stupid electronic djent-style music that everyone pretends to hate but is actually a bop and everyone knows it.

This new record is a very mature progression of his electronic sound, to the point that I don't think you'd even guess it was him (save from a couple of samples; "oh my god" and "listen"). But you'd definitely not be surprised to learn it was him.

The other thing I'm enjoying this week is the new Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. These guys make music that I want from Queens of the Stone Age. I love QOTSA's musicianship but I would prefer if the vocals went harder, and that's pretty much Pigsx7. Metal Injection described this as sounding like it contains "mustaches and drugs", and that's pretty close. Very metallic, wall-to-wall bass amps, rock 'n' roll. This is going to get a lot of play in the car.

The last month or so, I've become obsessed by stories. I decided to take a break from drinking at the start of the year and it's paved the way for stories. I was trying to get into reading more late last year, with varying success, but I would always end up falling asleep or forgetting what I'd read, or getting super depressed and needing to take frequent breaks from whatever I was reading (looking at you, The Handmaid's Tale).

Now nearing a month without drinking, I feel like I'm at the edge of a realisation and I don't know how happy I am about it. I feel like I've swapped one undesirable state of mind for another and, though my overall health has likely improved, my frame of mind is the same or maybe even worse.

The most noticeable thing to have changed is I have had zero creative output for myself (or what I consider creative output anyway). I haven't written anything, I haven't taken pictures. All I do is consume; reading, gaming, listening, looking at things other people made. I cannot overstate just how much I hate this. I had hoped that reading would jolt my creativity but I feel like it's killed it instead, or at least knocked it out.

I don't really know what to do about that. If there's even anything I can do about it. There's no conclusion here or anything; I just wanted to write something and timestamp this feeling so I can look back and see when this was.

I don't plan to run back to drinking. I'm not going to be quite so strict about sobriety as I have been, but I have no motivation to have a drink and I'm not going to push it or start up just for the sake of it. I do feel better, if you don't count the constant internal screaming, feelings of general hope/worthlessness and overall malaise. Unfortunately, I do; and therein lies the problem.

I'm pretty much convinced that N.K. Jemisin is incapable of writing books that I don't love. The City We Became started slowly, and I wasn't really sure what type of thing I was reading. It both is, and isn't, fantasy. It's very strange, but so was The Broken Earth. As I was getting towards the end, I found out that the next book was released in November so I bought that to read immediately. I guess that's all the recommendation I need to give.

Every time I use motorways I get frustrated. I can understand that traffic jams occur when there's accidents, but what I don't understand is why there's consistently congestion where traffic joins motorways. Surely there should be a way to use motorways so that there's never congestion when joining them. This feels like either an economics or a physics problem.

There must be a way to behave around junctions that ensures traffic can flow freely up to a point. Things like keeping the left lane clear at junctions, merging slowly. I need a YouTuber to figure this out for me. Going to email Tom Scott.