John Swinburn

Just leave us in peace. That is the desire most of us feel in our hearts, though we may not say it aloud. We just want to be left alone to go about our lives, without threats or unwelcome intrusions. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am among a minority who want to be left to my own devices; to live without interference from power-hungry lunatics with control-fantasies. Either way, just leave me in peace.

+++

Animals in the wild (non-domestic) have very little “free time” or “leisure time.” They are forced by Nature to engage in an almost constant search for resources: food, water, places to sleep, and protection from predators. When scarce resources cause animals to compete with one another for them, life or death struggles may ensue; not because they are looking for a fight, but because they are in combat for their very survival. Consider humans facing similar challenges; we would have little “leisure time” available to allow us to pursue conflict for the sake of supremacy. Like animals, we would, instead, be too busy battling for survival. Unlike those animals, though, today we do have choice. And it seems we have collectively made our choice. We devote a significant amount of our “leisure time” in pursuit of power and control and utterly unnecessary luxuries, as if they were just as important to our survival as are food and water. Assumptions. Just assumptions. I know no more than anyone else; and less than most.

+++

When reading about today’s so-called “resistance” to the burgeoning authoritarian state, I wonder how members of this “resistance” think they compare to the French Resistance of World War II. Unlike the French Resistance, the domestic resistance has (so far) not engaged in deadly tactics like bombings, assassinations, sabotaging authoritarian telecommunications infrastructures, etc. I wonder whether such tactics might be judged necessary at some point and, if so, when? In every circumstance in which such a response is deemed critical, there is a point at which it can be too late. At this early stage in the evolution of dictatorship, the opposition strategy seems to rely on the courts to block the most egregious power-grabs. Whether that reliance is intended to show “due process” before more aggressive action, I do not know. I suspect, though, that reliance on court assistance is largely a waste of time and opportunity. Will there come a time when a unified collection of cells of resistance comes together to take whatever actions are necessary to fight a dictatorship? If so, will it come in time?

+++

We enjoyed a very satisfying visit with friends yesterday afternoon, when we stopped by to make a delivery. What was intended as a brief pop-in turned into a considerably longer visit, filled with casual conversation. I miss having more of such unexpected opportunities to chat about a range of relatively unimportant but pleasurable topics. I would get out more, if not for my damned waves of fatigue and concerns about risks of viruses, etc. Exposure to even minor contagions could be especially dangerous for me, thanks to my weakened immune system.

+++

As usual, I have nothing profound to write—even to think about—this morning. My head is foggy and my body is sending me signals that I got up too early. Just two and one-half hours out of bed and I’m already feeling the need, again, to go back to sleep. Maybe I’ll write more after a while. More likely I won’t.

I was reminded this morning that the first successful U.S. launch of a satellite into space took place on January 31, 1958, only a few months after my fourth birthday. Not quite three weeks before my fourth birthday, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite into space, Sputnik 1. The Soviets’ unexpected success in being first into space spurred the U.S. to accelerate its efforts. The U.S. satellite was launched only 27 days after Sputnik 1 fell back to Earth. I find it hard to believe that I would remember either launch, but I have vague memories either of the launches or of hearing conversations about the accomplishments sometime thereafter. The more I think about this matter, though, the more I think my recollections are real memories, rather than false memories created through later conversations.

+++

Speaking of memories, I think I’ve spent most of my life misplacing them. Whether I left them unattended in a library or forgot to take them off the hood of my car when I drove off, many of them—most of them—simply disappeared and I have been unable to recover them. I envy people who remember lengthy periods of their childhoods, but I think I’d rather remember meaningful moments from early adulthood through the present. Unfortunately, my brain rarely records a permanent record of my thoughts or my experiences. I know of some of my earlier thoughts and experiences, but it is a rarity for me to feel that the memory is mine; instead, it’s as if I recall witnessing someone else’s experience. This preoccupation with nonexistent memories has been with me for a long time—evidence that I remember being disappointed in my inability to remember. I have written brief notes about this for quite some time. I wonder whether I have some form of amnesia or whether the affliction is indicative of progressive memory loss. Or just a natural circumstance that just happens to impact me to a greater extent than it tends to affect other people.

+++

Believing one’s eyes is no longer a reliable route to reality, thanks in large part to artificial intelligence (AI). AI can create images that appear stunningly real but are, in fact, fake. The internet is awash in AI-created “photographs” and “videos” that convincingly manipulate the viewer’s vision and brain. That deception has become so commonplace that actual original images often are assumed to be—and are labeled as—fakes. In the hands of people with refined expertise in directing AI’s abilities, those talents can cause doubt and confusion. In the hands of “average” people who are both competent and have malevolent intent, AI can lead to all manner of nefarious consequences. AI’s can manipulate not only images, but sounds, computer calculations, and a thousand other things. Security systems, cars, temperature control thermostats, translation services…the list may be endless…can be controlled by or through AI. Under the direction of controlling governmental authorities, AI has the capacity to unleash catastrophic results. Until reliable mechanisms are available to identify AI-crafted fakes, the only weapons against AI’s unsavory potentials are crude, indeed: checking multiple sources (the reliability of which may, unfortunately, be doubtful) to learn whether a suspected AI product can be verified…or protected against. In the interim, a healthy skepticism may be the only defense against AI manipulation.

+++

When Trump threatened Colombia with massive tariffs in response to its government’s refusal to allow military planes carrying undocumented immigrants from the U.S. to land in the country, Columbia missed an opportunity. My thought was that Columbia could make immediate overtures to Russia and its companion states, offering open trade of Colombian and Russian, etc. goods. Whether the offer would be accepted, and the speed with which it could be implemented, is unknown, it might have sent a message that would be more favorable to Colombia than did the country’s instant capitulation. However, the size of the trade imbalance between the US and Colombia is such that Colombia’s switch to open trade with Russia might not have had the impact I would have expected. Trump is not a believer in the principle that negotiations should maximize benefits for all parties; his attitude seems to be “win at all costs,” which unfortunately pairs well with his undeserved macho self-image.

+++

I’ve forgotten more than I ever knew.

+++

Signing up for a funeral plan is like getting engaged to be buried. I do not wish to be buried, so the engagement is off. By the way, cats do not bark.

The choice is deliberate: become either the victim of circumstance or the beneficiary of experience. Unfortunately, many people default to victim, when the more advantageous and more profitable option is to benefit from a lesson learned. The more unfavorable of those two perspectives is ingrained in us from an early age and tends to stay with us until and unless conditions urge (or force) us to consider the alternative.

+++

Rain fills the gutters and washes the roof this morning, creating sounds conducive to sleep. But I am awake; wondering why certain sounds are calming. Rain, waves gently splashing on an ocean shoreline, wind rustling through dry leaves…those sounds are like natural sedatives. But other sounds—sounds unconnected to nature—can have the same effects. Soft notes from a distant piano, for example, or the mysterious melodic vibrations of hypnotic Hindustani classical music. Those reassuring sounds must be reminiscent of a mother’s breathing or her heartbeat, suggestive of safety and comfort and peace. How do we know those are the sensations babies feel? We do not know, at least not with certainty. We make the assumption, based on our adult experiences with the way we understand our own perceptions. We ascribe the same sensations, and their impacts, to babies. That may be reasonable, of course, but it is not “knowledge.” It is “assumption.” So much of what we “know” is, in fact, an artifact of belief.

+++

During our last trip to visit my brother in Mexico (and probably during earlier trips, as well), he prepared breakfasts consisting of a wonderful mix of fresh fruits (blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, papayas, etc., etc.). That’s what I would like for breakfast most mornings. But sitting inside at the breakfast table in my house would not be the same as sitting on their open-air terrace amid a lush garden filled with greenery and flowering plants…with a view of village rooftops and the lake in the distance. Sitting outside, enjoying fresh fruits and a glorious environment and the company of my brother and his wife has the effect on me of washing away tensions, anxiety, and concerns. Sitting here, in my office, having just eaten an unripe banana and drinking lukewarm espresso and a café mocha Ensure with a Propel chaser, is not even remotely as soothing. But it will do, in the absence of nirvana. I could be drinking water from a muddy stream, eating week-old crusts of bread, and viewing—from a crack in a concrete wall—a body-strewn battlefield. Gratitude for my experience, in lieu of fear and discomfort hatched by my imagination, is a better choice.

+++

I had planned to join a friend for a group dinner last night, but as usual I could feel my energy begin to ebb during the afternoon, so I opted to withdraw from the gathering. And, as usual, I was in bed early. Though I missed going to dinner, getting under the covers felt comforting, as if I was escaping anxieties and concerns and replacing them with a deep sense of relaxation. I fell asleep quickly and slept most of the night.

+++

The gentle rain I heard earlier has grown more aggressive. It is now accompanied by thunder and lightning and a sky too dark and grey for this late (8:00 AM) in the morning. This house is my unlocked cage most days; today is one of them. I could venture out, but why would I?

There comes a moment when the only available options are surrender or violence. Surrender is always a minute too early. Violence is always a second too late. Both options can be tailored to circumstance, but customizing a response in the face of inevitable failure is a waste of energy. What are the real choices, then, in reply to intolerable actions or inactions? Transforming a barbaric struggle into a hellish war requires physical and emotional fuel. Equipping angry, terminally ill patients with nuclear weapons and an opportunity to leave a legacy for a mortally wounded planet might be worth a try.

+++

Discouraged does not begin to describe the emotion. Despondent, hopeless, desperate, or irreparably cynical comes a little closer to capturing the emptiness of utter powerlessness. The images from last night’s dreams remain hidden behind translucent grey veils. None of the pleading words spoken in the dreams were coherent. I remember inhaling sand-laden seawater at the intersection of sand dunes and powerful waves—where the ocean was eating the remains of the corpse of the continent. It was a wretched experience…but one’s imagination does not constitute a real experience, does it?

+++

I arrived at the hospital around 7:30 yesterday morning. The long process of getting a transfusion of one unit of blood finally concluded around noon; the actual transfusion took less than two hours. My patience wore well; I allowed myself to drift into a strange combination of fantasy and sleep while the blood inched its way down the long tubes into my chest. At home, after a post-procedure lunch, I took a nap that lasted until this morning—with just a few moments during the night when I found myself awake.

+++

For some reason, I am still tired. A warm bed beckons me. I want to shut off the sizzling electrical current to my brain, at least for a while, so I can get some true rest. Last night was not restful, despite the amount of time I was more or less asleep. I will try again.

Yesterday’s chemotherapy session was postponed for a week, due to a very low red blood cell count. Instead, my oncologist arranged for me to get a blood transfusion at the hospital this morning. Therefore, I will head back into Hot Springs in an hour or so to wait patiently for my blood to be typed (we already know the type, etc., but their policy is to double check). Then, I will wait while the requisite blood is located and delivered to the staff who will arrange to have it pumped into me. My medical procedure is one of a few taking place at roughly the same time with other people in my social sphere. Advancing age seems to closely correlate with increases in health-related processes and procedures. The transfusion should boost my red blood cell count enough to permit my chemo session to go forward next Monday. Sigh.

+++

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

~ John F. Kennedy ~

When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.

~ Victor Hugo ~

+++

The U.S. Constitution’s system of checks and balances seems to be dissolving, thanks to Republicans in Congress (and the courts) ceding their responsibilities and authorities to a lunatic they obviously fear. While the dissolution is not yet complete, most signs suggest the process is unfolding at an astonishingly fast clip. By the time this reality sinks in to the “masses,” I am afraid it will be too late to avoid the trappings of a dictatorship and all the ugliness carried with them. The rise and fall of an empire of sorts… It is far too early to tell whether a large proportion of the population will react to the collapse of our semblance of democracy with rage sufficient to foment revolution or insurrection or whatever you want to call boiling intolerance to authoritarian control. I think the “preppers” who have spent years readying themselves for dealing with massive social unrest and disruptions to supply channels may not have been so crazy, after all.

+++

My patience has been tested many times. In most cases, it failed.

Most people who know me don’t really know me. They know a public façade. It is not my intent to deceive by presenting a façade. In fact, I do not even realize that’s what I’m doing until I relax back into who I think I am at my core. The façade, I suppose, is a protective mask that appears almost automatically when I am in the presence of people who I do not know well. And I suspect those people are wearing masks, as well; until they feel safe and comfortable in the presence of people they do not know well. I think façades are natural for introverts. Sometimes, though, an introvert can get so good at presenting a façade that he can be mistaken for an extrovert. But when his attempts at disguise fall short, he is looked at with skepticism; others do not know what to make of his botched extroversion.

+++

Silence is the absence of sound. Darkness is the absence of light. Death is the discontinuation of life…not simply its absence. But silence and darkness could be present in death…yet how can that be, inasmuch as both are progeny of absences?  Is it possible to have vision without eyes to see or hear sounds without ears to listen? Is life possible without its foil, death? What state of being precedes life and what follows death? Are they one and the same?  If ignorance is the absence of knowledge, what is stupidity? Is stupidity a coupling of ignorance with the willing refusal to learn? The answers are obvious, yet inaccessibly complex and impossible to understand. That is true of almost everything. People have a cursory understanding of the universe of which they are an infinitesimally small component. But that superficial awareness is enough to get us through—it must be, for that’s all we have. Consider, though, how much more we might accomplish if we worked, both individually and collectively, to vastly increase our knowledge and understanding. We cannot even conceive of that imaginary future, though, because of the limitations we allow to be imposed on ourselves.

+++

Another almost-day-long chemotherapy session today, with a return tomorrow for the routine day-later injection. I cannot remember exactly how “normal” feels. To remain alert and fully awake for a full day at a time…to be blissfully unaware of the physical presence of my torso and its contents…to breathe without the constant reminder of phlegm in my airways…to have enough energy to walk for a few blocks without losing all my energy and most of my breath. Those aspects of “normal,” all together, sometimes seem impossibilities. I wonder whether those daydreams will come true. It depends, to a great degree, on the success of these interminable treatments. Today will be chemo session number 16. I finished radiation treatments (there were 25 of them) about two weeks ago. Sometime, I hope soon, at PET scan will reveal the results of the last several treatments (of both kinds, in tandem). And I’ll go from there. The possibility that the results might not be good often interferes with my daydreams. I can be sailing along with positive, hopeful visions of the future, but then suddenly I hit an iceberg and find myself thrashing about in icy water. That’s when long periods of dreamless sleep are so inviting. I do not recall any of my sleeping dreams involving my cancer or its treatment; I consider that a positive thing.

+++

I woke this morning to another wave of nausea. Not nearly as aggressive and unpleasant as the one a day or so ago, but disagreeable enough for me to find it offensive. All’s well now, though. I suppose the nausea is an artifact of having had so many chemo treatments. I wonder whether my hair will ever grow back to some semblance of the way it was before I lost it all to chemo drugs. It’s quite sparse now, each strand is extremely thin and soft, and almost entirely white, with some grey thrown in. My “salt & sand” hair color is long gone and the circumference of each strand of hair is a fraction of it pre-treatment size. I’m getting used to it, but I do not like it.

+++

Out of curiosity, I looked back at the second blog I created years ago to see what I might have posted on this date back then. Here’s what I posted on January 27, 2011, fourteen years ago, under the title “Safe Places:”

There are places where one can be alone with one’s thoughts…places where it is safe to question beliefs, ideas, and conventional wisdom. It’s safe there even to question one’s own motives. The key is finding those safe places. We all have them, though they may be hidden deeply within the crevasses of our minds, hidden beneath all the detritus left from the surging flood of socialization.

It may be that our cosmic curiosity…is a genetically-encoded force that we illuminate when we look up and wonder.

~ Neil deGrasse Tyson ~

+++

Brontology is the study of thunder. If I had ever seen or heard the word, before this morning, I had forgotten it—until a short while ago, when I conducted a cursory search of the internet to refresh my memory about what causes thunder. According to people who claim expertise in the matter, thunder is caused by lightning, which heats the air around the electrical discharge, causing the air to rapidly expand and contract. The temperature of that super-heated air can reach up to 54,000°F, five times hotter than the surface of the sun. The different characteristics of sounds we hear (loud cracks, dull rumbles, etc.) result from atmospheric conditions, distance from the lightning source, and other factors such as sound waves bending around (or being absorbed by or bouncing off) objects in the path of the waves.

Despite the scientific explanations of the sources of thunder and the reasons thunder can sound very different from moment to moment, that celestial noise leaves me awestruck when I hear it.  And those explanations do not even address the process by which lightning, the source of thunder, takes place. The sight of jagged fingers of brilliant blue light leaves me equally as spellbound as, if not more so than, the sounds that accompany those massive sparks in the sky. Incidentally, those electrical discharges take place between clouds, within clouds, or between clouds and the ground. Why does lightning take different paths? I imagine the answer lies in “paths of least resistance,” but I did not get that far in my exploration. Why did this topic enter my head this morning? It probably had something to do with my memory, recorded in yesterday’s post, of fulgurite. Petrified lightning and blackened and broken tree trunks are among the few pieces of physical evidence remaining after lightning has bathed the sky in blue light. Why blue? That may be a subject for another episode of curiosity.

+++

Once again, I went to bed quite early last night. I felt mildly out of sorts, physically, and thought more sleep might help. Just moments after getting in bed, though, a wave of nausea suddenly overcame me. Fortunately, I was able to rush into the bathroom before it unleashed its unpleasantness. I do not remember dealing with nausea during my first round of chemotherapy six years ago, nor did it affect me during the first six months or so of chemo sessions this time around. Different restorative poisons, an older patient, and a weaker body might explain, in part, the changed experience this time. Not that it matters. I’m not sure why I occasionally feel compelled to document the unappealing experiences of cancer treatment; maybe just so they will jog my memory some time in the future.

+++

There was a time, not too many years ago, when the music of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, The Killers, and Stone Temple Pilots (alternative rock or grunge) held no interest for me. Over time, though, my tastes have broadened to include a substantial number of tunes from those bands. I think the expansion of my musical interests took place in response to hearing more of those groups’ music, thanks to Sirius/XM radio, in my car. Today, I’m just as likely to like music by Red Clay Strays as I am to enjoy old Gordon Lightfoot tunes. And, of course, I still enjoy classic folk, rock, classical, and various other genres. But the crossover between genres is making it increasingly difficult to characterize where tunes fall along the musical spectrum.

If my musical preferences can be classified by what I listen to on Amazon Music, my musical tastes are eclectic, with favor given to what Amazon calls Alternative and Alternative Folk, both of which seem to be more recent sounds. Though I am quite fond of some music I first heard during my high school and college years, much of the seventies sound has long since left me cold. A number of members of my high school graduating class, who are planning a 53-year reunion (a 50-year reunion was not held), are asking prospective attendees to supply a list of dance tunes from our time in high school; the list is to be given to a DJ hired to provide entertainment. If I had been waffling about whether to attend that event, the idea that I would be expected to dance the night away to music I do not particularly like has cemented my decision not to go. I have not attended any reunions since I graduated, nor have I attempted to stay in touch with any of my classmates. There’s no reason to start now. Sitting at home, listening to music I really enjoy, is much more appealing to me.

+++

The recent spate of wildfires in southern California renewed my concerns about living in a densely wooded area. Though the climate here is wetter and lacks the predictably fierce Santa Ana winds, there is no guarantee that an errant spark during a dry, windy period would not ignite the forests surrounding us. Our experience last March, when a relatively weak tornado uprooted trees and left the only road out of our area blocked with fallen trees, offered evidence of our vulnerability. If trees hugging both sides of an exit route street were ablaze—or if burning trees fell onto the road—we could be trapped. The likelihood, of course, is low. But the mere potential is enough to generate worry and a heightened sense of awareness of conditions around us. Persistent anxiety of that kind cannot be good, mentally. Consequently, it might pay to engage in mental health exercises which could help allay such concerns—but how smart would it be to actively thwart an acute awareness of the possibility of fires at any moment? Another Catch-22, I guess.

+++

I have a vague recollection of being shown examples, as a child in Corpus Christi, of the results of lightning striking the sand on the beach on the bayfront and on Padre Island. I was shown pieces of “beach glass,” which captured the effects. I searched for information about “beach glass” this morning and found another name for it: fulgurite, also known as “petrified lightning.” Some of the photographs of the resulting sculptures formed by lightning striking sand are stunningly beautiful. I suspect sixty years have passed since I was introduced to petrified lightning; I wonder why it has taken so long for that memory to surface?

+++

Last night, while bending down to try to capture the cat (which had slipped into the master bedroom, off-limits to her), I twisted my right knee and lost my balance. I went crashing to the floor in what could have been an ugly accident. Fortunately, as far as I can tell this morning, no significant damage was done, either to me or to the floor. But the sensation of hitting the floor was unexpectedly powerful, as if I weighed much more than I do, and hit the floor at high speed. The force of my hip and butt smashing onto the hard floor startled and worried me; I immediately thought I could have broken a bone. But I was fortunate; no injury, except to my ego. I had to listen to a suggestion that it might be time to get a medical alert button, “just in case.” That sort of device—a means of calling for help—is for frail, delicate old folks, not for young, strong bulls like me. Give me twenty years—maybe then I’ll consider getting one.

+++

We watched a Netflix Swedish crime mini-series (just one season, four 40-minute episodes) last night. The series, entitled The Breakthrough, is based on Sweden’s second-largest criminal investigation. Two murders, which took place in 2004, were committed only a few feet apart in a public space. The crimes plagued the main character—a Swedish police detective—for what seemed (to him and to relatives of the victims) an eternity. The short series kept my interest and attention from the beginning until the credits rolled. It has been quite some time since I’ve been so absorbed by television entertainment.

+++

I concocted a tomato-based soup for yesterday’s lunch. Beginning with a cheap can of tomato bisque, the finished product was laden with canned corn, frozen peas, canned tomatoes, and a minor assortment of herbs and spices. It was surprisingly drab—almost flavorless. The days, the dividing line between overly-spicy and painfully dull is hard to find. Thanks to my cancer treatments (I assume), spicy foods that once excited my tastebuds now attack them with molten-hot pitchforks. And foods that had been bland seem to have taken that emptiness to new depths. Like chalky caves, miles below the surface of Earth, that have never been touched by light or delight. I no longer have as much of an emotional investment in foods and flavors, the way I once did. Sometimes, food is just a necessary nuisance. Lately, though, I have had much more of an appetite than I did only a week or two ago. That is not to say I really enjoy food (though I do find some foods very appealing); but at least I feel hunger and can tolerate food far more than I did a short while ago.

+++

It’s Saturday morning and I’m tired, again. Just past 7 and I could use a nap. I have things to do today; best to be rested and ready when I embark on the day’s adventures.

Seven years ago, my late wife and I went on a self-guided arts and crafts tour of the countryside around Malvern, Arkansas. A  day or two ago I was reminded of one of the highlights of the tour, when I came across a photo of my wife petting an alpaca while standing in the midst of a small herd of the animals. My wife was giddy with enjoyment at being among such soft, sweet animals. As I remember, the couple who raised the alpacas made yarn from the animals’ wool, which they then used to create sweaters and caps and the like. On that same self-guided tour, we visited several craft shops and art studios, where the artists and artisans were happy to demonstrate their skills and talk about how they came to devote their lives to their crafts. I remember being entranced as I heard of their experiences. I felt a longing I still feel today; I wanted to feel the same delight I saw in those people—the pure joy they felt when they pursued their passions. But one must first know what can ignite one’s own passion. I still do not know what, if anything, can spark that sense of joyful creativity in me. I did enjoy that leisurely day of immersion in art, seven years ago.

+++

About once a year, an artist who taught me the basics of working with clay gets in touch and suggests that she and her partner want to go out to lunch with me. I respond by saying I would love to do that; I ask her to say when and where. And then, about a year later, she contacts me again with the same invitation. I do not know quite what to make of this annual overture.

+++

I have felt considerably better the last few days than I did during the previous week or two. That is fairly common; the worst of the effects of chemo decline a week or two after treatment. But just about the time I feel almost human, it’s time for another treatment session. Two or three days later, it starts all over again. Not awful by any means, but definitely not something to which I look forward with great anticipation. My next treatment is scheduled for Monday. Ach. Maybe it will be different this time.

+++

Expensive jewelry holds no appeal for me. None whatsoever. But that does not mean there’s anything wrong with people who find expensive jewelry—diamonds and such—extremely alluring. I just do not understand the attraction. The same is true of “classic” cars; they do not trigger automobile lust in me, but some people find them incomprehensibly (to me) appealing. Do I find any physical “thing” almost irresistible? Nothing comes to mind. Maybe, though, irresistibility is a matter of mood. Perhaps I find some things almost magnetic…but only when I am in a certain frame of mind. What, though?

+++

A warm bed could easily lure me in right now. My hands and feet are cold and my eyes seek closure.

The angel realized, when it was too late, her audience was gone. She had become a witch—a powerful, awe-inspiring, angelic witch—at the same moment they had stopped enjoying the antics of witches and angels. And they had no interest in transmogrification, either. Nor did they care about her claims of supernatural connections with the netherworld. Their only remaining fascination was with themselves. Even as she melted, she heard them complimenting the cracked mirrors that reflected their perfection.

“If only you could have seen me before I flew into the sun,” she muttered, her black feathery wings dripping wax onto her wiccan tunic. “I was stunning!  My black platinum halo reflected only the purest light and my…” 

Her speech slowed and the volume of her voice fell to an inaudible whisper. With that, she and her words melted into oblivion. Her worshippers had paid no attention to her demise. They were too absorbed by the abstract images in the broken glass to notice.

+++

The only way you could know my deepest thoughts would be for me to allow you inside my head. But I cannot do that, as much as I might want to share myself with you, else when you leave you might carry my secrets with you. What value could those mysteries possibly have, though, to anyone but me? Their value is not in being divulged, but in being maintained in a vault—behind a lock for which only I have the combination. Secrets protect one from revealing realities that might paint an unflattering picture. The jealous, violent monster hiding behind the façade of a gentle, caring husband, for example. Or the neo-Nazi thug living beneath a thin veneer of civil rights activist. Or the libidinous beast counselling sexually harassed women. Or the serial killer who expresses outrage and disbelief at the horrific actions of Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. My secrets, though, are not so shocking. Just revealing. Yours, too, would expose a side of you few have seen. If you were to share a secret with me, you might learn that my secret and yours are one and the same. And, if you shared your secret more widely, you might find that ten of your friends hold that same secret in their own impenetrable vaults. But you could find, instead, that your friends recoil at your revelation, unwilling to admit their own versions of the secrets hidden  and protected within that locked safe.

+++

I had lunch at a Mexican restaurant yesterday, one of the rare occasions I allow myself to go out in non-medical settings in public. I could have gone into town, but for some reason the time and distance involved in going to a sushi-bar or a Vietnamese restaurant or some other more “exotic” place seemed a bit much. Back home after the adventure, I napped on one of the long, white leather sofas in the living room. When I started napping on one of those sofas, I was surprised at how comfortable it is. The sofas are quite long, so I do not have to bend my body to fit (not that my body is especially long, but still…). Sometimes, the sofa is more comfortable than the bed, if for no other reason than its convenience and easy access. If only the living room had a wood-burning fireplace stoked with big oak and hickory logs, it might be the perfect retreat for a geezer in decline. Sometimes, I have Alexa play soothing music while I nap, a relaxing respite from the harshness of television and internet news. There are days…or weeks or months or years…when I wish I had absolutely no access to news. Times when living the life of a dedicated recluse would be as pleasant as anything I can imagine.

+++

Until yesterday, my calendar included a visit to an ophthalmologist in Little Rock, who was to fix my left eye. For a thousand reasons, I decided—again—to postpone the procedure. Among the reasons: I would rather be done with my chemotherapy treatments and all their side-effects before delving into the after-effects of a procedure that would give me discomfort and reduced vision for a week or a month or more.

+++

Is anyone willing to share the name and contact information for an anesthesiologist who might be willing to place me in a temporary coma for a month or two? I am asking all three of my regular blog visitors—it could be down to one or two by now—for input. In other words, I am whispering into the wind. I hear my words come back to me as I ask the question; but the words are garbled in the powerful breeze. Ach!

Peeking out from beneath the covers, I looked outside—past the window blinds’ wooden slats—to see budding evidence of what might become a brilliant sunrise. Two hours had passed since I woke, intending to get out of bed and go about my day. But, instead, I had drifted off to sleep again, wasting the precious darkness of those pre-dawn hours on pointless dreams.  I wonder which are more likely to come to fruition: dreams that fill my head while I sleep or fantasies that keep the world at bay while I am awake? Both, I fear, are futile efforts to stem the relentless march of predictable reality. All of us dream or wish or hope or yearn for a different reality. But when a different reality presents itself, we realize the mirror’s glass is irretrievably fractured.

+++

It was never soon enough to take action to prevent the inevitable collapse. But it was always too late.

+++

The trees, with their jagged grey branches, long-since barren of leaves, seem to have given up. Fighting the relentless winter season, the trees decided, is wasted effort. Only time will reveal whether any life is left in their drab, brittle boughs. But the forest floor, littered with broken twigs and shattered limbs, suggests the time left to those trees is brief—if not already gone. The trunks of the larger trees already fallen will take years to decompose. Eventually, though, the only evidence they existed will be in the soil that feeds new growth. The inexorable cycle of life and death will continue in these forests until the land is cleared and covered with temporary housing for the next three or four generations of interlopers who insist on four bedrooms and temperature control in every room.

+++

Happiness is contextual, as is sadness and catatonia. Everything, in fact, is contextual. All emotions and all responses to internal and external stimuli exist on an immeasurably long spectrum. That continuum seems so long because it is circular; every point a beginning and every point an end. We express opinions that follow that circuit, too. Everything that is, was. And everything that was, is. When the sun’s fuel is finally exhausted, as it unquestionably will be, time as we know it today will have been exhausted, as well. The end of the universe could be just over the horizon, you know; but you dare not express the possibility for fear of causing the termination to come sooner than later. How could you explain your role in causing the end of everything? It’s best to simply ignore the one final certainty until it’s too late to do anything about it. And it’s always too late to do anything about it; unless you had started to act when there was still a possibility…but there was never a possibility, was there?

+++

I am finished for the moment. How long does a moment last? When does it begin? Can a moment be extended?

I feel restless in the extreme. The urge to hit the road gets stronger day by day. Assuming my cancer treatments do not go on forever, the prospect of making massive changes in my life and lifestyle is more than mildly attractive. The time may be right to “sell everything,” buy a big Chevrolet Suburban or Ford Expedition, and head to Victoria, British Columbia. “Sell everything” is a euphemism for “downsize in the extreme.” I doubt I would want to take the time or expend the effort to sell everything. I would rather just empty the house as quickly and easily as possible, sell the place, buy the things necessary to make a slow, comfortable, meandering cross-country drive, and take my time relocating to a place that better suits my politics, my personality, and my mood. Yeah, adapting Carlos Santana’s lyrics just a bit…I could change my life to better suit my mood. Initially, I would apply for a six-month visa and, assuming I received approval, I probably would apply for an extension after about 4 or 5 months. Is this sheer fantasy, or does it have some roots in reality? I think it’s real, but only by developing and executing a plan can I be sure. If I were to find it is not what I had hoped and dreamed, nothing would be cast in stone. Hmm. Health is the key obstacle. As I sit here this frigid morning (it’s 12°F warmer in Victoria right now than it is in Hot Springs Village), I regret I did not do this years ago. And I regret I was ever a smoker. And plenty more.

+++

A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.

~ Charlotte Bronte ~

+++

A renaissance of vengeance is upon us—an era in which retribution emerges as the victor over justice, dignity, compassion, and intelligence. Powered by hatred, willful stupidity, undeserved power, and limitless greed, a beast has placed its hands around our necks and—with our collective willing support—is squeezing the life and decency out of us, leaving our helplessly writhing corpses as evidence of a epoch of shame. The murder of civility is celebrated in the public square, to the cheers of millions of delusional reptilian zombies who are being led to their own slaughter.

+++

I spent much of the day yesterday avoiding television, internet feeds, and other sources of endlessly depressing news. Sleep, when it tried to grant me a few moments of peace, instead was accompanied by apocalyptic fantasies in which corpulent cannibals swimming in rivers of blood greedily dined on the flesh of innocent migrants. This is not a good time in the final minutes of humanity. Even if the species survives, the eternal guilt for having allowed and even facilitated Armageddon will forever stain and ruin any possibilities for self-forgiveness—a rancid eternal bitterness will fill the mouths of survivors until well past the end of Time.

+++

In hindsight, liberals and progressives and others who fancy ourselves “better” than our conservative counterparts should accept much of the responsibility for the decay of the human condition. We should have learned from, and lived by, the message carried in the aphorism: “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Rather than cast blame, we should seek to understand and to ameliorate the pain and trouble our so-called adversaries go through. But, instead, we condemn them for their experiences. We amplify their rage by mocking them. We shatter our own shelters when we assign guilt to others for seeking solace in the same ways we seek our own. Yet, still, even when we recognize our own responsibilities for the conditions in which we find ourselves, we seem unable to stop ourselves from being mean-spirited. I call my own attention to the phrase “delusional reptilian zombies.” Stephen Stills got it right when he wrote “nobody’s right when everybody’s wrong.”

+++

I have been restless for as long as I can remember.

~ Henry Rollins ~

+++

I can imagine that, one day, I might just disappear. Leave a note, letting people know I am okay, and then go incommunicado for long enough to clear my head. That could take years. Or just a weekend.

The chief problem in using gasoline to douse a fire is obvious. Equally apparent is the fact that employing rage to quell anger will lead to similarly unsatisfactory results.

+++

My computer clock gently reminds me of the time: 4:57 AM. By the time I surrender in my effort to write something that carries even a touch of value, the sun probably will have risen. I wonder how it is that the temperature outside the windows of my tolerably cozy study can be only 14°F, while the surface of the sun is roughly 10,000°F, a difference of 9,986°F.  The sun is about 91,472,000 miles from my house (depending on the route taken). Assuming the ambient temperature declines at a constant rate over that distance, the rate of decline would be about 0.000109 degrees per mile. Among the reasons I believe that is not true is that space exploration vehicles would fracture into billions of icy pieces before entering the atmosphere. Speaking of space exploration, I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I am fascinated by the scientific advances uncovered during the course of pursuing space exploration. On the other, I am woefully disappointed that the human and financial resources invested in space exploration have not, instead, been devoted to addressing famine, war, poverty, inadequate availability of potable water, climate change, and dozens of other existential problems facing the inhabitants of this planet. Human beings have been too stupid for too many millennia to cling to any realistic hope that the species will long survive the damage we have inflicted on ourselves—this is in spite of the incredible advances we have made in gene splicing, metallurgy, heating and air conditioning, and several other stunning achievements. If only we had directed our attention to the core problems facing us…

+++

One of the myriad drugs injected or dripped into my body as part of my cancer treatment is a brand-name drug called Aranesp (generic name: Darbepoetin alfa), which is labeled an “erythropoiesis-stimulating agent,” or ESA. While the drug is meant to be beneficial in addressing anemia by reducing the need for red-blood cell transfusion, it comes with some rather significant risks. Among the many, many warnings associated with the drug:

• ESAs shortened overall survival and/or increased the risk of tumor progression or recurrence in clinical studies of patients with breast, non-small cell lung, head and neck, lymphoid, and cervical cancers.
• ESAs increase the risk of death, myocardial infarction, stroke, venous thromboembolism, thrombosis of vascular access and tumor progression or recurrence.
• In controlled clinical trials of patients with cancer, Aranesp® and other ESAs increased the risks for death and serious adverse cardiovascular reactions. These adverse reactions included myocardial infarction and stroke.

If I were afraid of dying, such warnings would be terrifying. But I’m not. Nor am I looking forward to it, though. I would much prefer a complete remission. But a recurrence of the kind of lung cancer I have comes with the unhappy understanding that its treatment does not seek a cure but, instead, is meant to extend life (and, presumably, enhance the quality of that extended life). I’m all for that…but only with the provision that quality of life is improved.

+++

My attempts to keep my mind off the side effects of my cancer treatments are largely unsuccessful, thanks to constant reminders of those effects: fatigue, nausea, upset (should I say fiercely angry, instead?) stomach, weakness, runny nose, bloody nose, moodiness, etc., etc. I think my complaints about sleeping so much may be misplaced; sleeping through the side effects is far more tolerable than confronting them while awake. Again, though, I have it relatively easy, compared to some people whose lung cancer experiences are truly monstrous. I am grateful mine are just irritants and not full-blown hardships. I keep promising myself I will get serious about meditation as a means to minimize the impact of the side effects, but thus far have broken most of those promises. Perhaps I break the promises as a means of punishment for whatever infractions justify them.  I hope note.

+++

I’ve taken a break or two since beginning this descent into the bowels of the Earth, where I hunted for rabbits and conversed with gnomes. Among the semi-conscious dreams that interrupted my serenity was one in which I finally returned to a car dealership several weeks after purchasing a car, only to find it had been sold to someone else. Probably part of the same dream, when driving a luxury car at night I realized the car’s headlights were not on and I could not get them to work. And I left work for several days, telling my long-dead, real-world boss that I had to pick up a rental car at a massive, cheesy resort hotel in Florida. There was more, but the confusion involved in the dream-like experience was beyond my comprehension.

+++

Time to plunge ahead into Monday…after exploring the possibility of an early-morning nap and some easy-on-the-gut apple sauce.

I feel as useful as a bag of wet rocks in a dust storm. I need to sleep again. No matter how much I sleep, it’s never enough. No matter how little I write, it’s always too much.

+++

Big, challenging, and probably cumbersome ideas may be the only hope for the survival of humankind and, indeed, all life on planet Earth. If those visionary ideas form in time, where will they originate? In a world of skeptics and pessimists, who will embrace them?  Who will cultivate and nurture them? Who will provide the global leadership necessary to implement them? The ideas, probably, are the easy part of the process. Achieving sufficient consensus around them will be considerably more difficult. Assigning priorities among hundreds or thousands of crucial ideas will be vital and—if human history is a reliable indicator—close to impossible. The overwhelming task of identifying priorities is already on clear display with regard to climate change; the current status of the Paris Agreement illustrates that reality. Subsidiary self-interests tend to usurp the importance of what should be universal interests. Perhaps the “big and bold” ideas are too big and bold…or not big and bold and audacious enough. Maybe a collection of ideas, with intersecting areas of importance, would be viewed as more achievable.

A globally-supported Manhattan Project, for want of a better metaphor, dedicated to ensuring adequate supplies of drinking water for every human being on the planet might be a good start. Though the global supply of clean, potable water already is widely recognized as critical, an infusion of fresh, collective energy worldwide might actually enable us to achieve permanent or long-lasting solutions. Food security, worldwide, might be another Manhattan-style endeavor enlisting the direct, committed engagement of governments and people around the globe. Collective solutions to food and water insecurity would offer evidence that human needs are overwhelmingly more important than conflict and imperialism and protectionism. Remaining challenges might then more readily fall in response to our collective efforts.

Finding charismatic leaders willing to take the risk of promoting the critical global cooperation necessary might be the most significant stumbling block to progress. Leaders of nations tend to want to present images of strength, independence, and power. The characteristics we might need, instead, probably include a willingness to embrace collaboration, cooperation, and shared responsibility. Charisma, again, is a necessary quality of leaders—not ferocity, not dominance, not imperialism—charisma. And intelligence. And a willingness to give careful consideration to a broad array of perspectives about relevant issues.

It’s easy to think about these matters. Putting them in motion is akin to lifting the weight of the world with one hand.

+++

Perhaps the first and most important task among us is to change mind-sets. Private property is a fantasy. The air we breathe and water we drink have no owners, only caretakers. Borders are synthetic boundaries established to create artificial perimeters of power. Allegiance to one’s various sub-communities is always secondary to allegiance to humanity. Changing minds is like chewing granite.

+++

My desk is littered with facial tissues bloodied by an annoying nose, a banana peel, an empty demi tasse, and reminders of tasks I have not yet completed.

Maybe there’s something to be said for the argument that undocumented aliens should be deported. After all, look what happened to the indigenous people on the land that became the United States. The original inhabitants of this territory were rounded up, slaughtered, or forced to live in what amounted/amounts to concentration camps. Perhaps the only fair and reasonable response is to eject the progeny of the original invaders, returning the land to the collective indigenous people. But that’s not quite what the incoming oligarchs are after, is it? Why, I wonder, are the oligarchs and their cult followers so hell-bent on “sending them all back?” I truly do not understand. I understand their announced reasons—to stop the interlopers from taking “American” jobs—but inasmuch as we all should know, that is pure, unmitigated bullshit. What’s the real reason?

+++

Hypocrisy seems to be my stock and trade. On one hand, I have long been a rabid proponent of private land ownership (as long as it’s mine). On the other, though, I cannot agree with the logic for private real property ownership. Arguments between economic liberals and socialist economists identify land as a commodity, subject to individual ownership. Indigenous peoples, though, tend to see the use of land as something that can be traded or bartered, but that trade involves only the right to use the land, not the underlying land itself. I read somewhere that indigenous peoples consider land as something to be shared, like air or flowing water, not something to be owned and controlled. Except for my hypocritically fierce insistence that I personally can own a piece of land, my philosophies are in much closer alignment with indigenous peoples than with the capitalistic views. And I would gladly relinquish my claims to land—if everyone else would do the same. Still, that’s a deeply hypocritical attitude that merits deep embarrassment and unvarnished shame.

+++

I have argued for months that I am perfectly capable of driving myself to medical appointments. Yesterday, I drove myself to get an injection of a synthetic protein intended to treat anemia. Later, I drove myself to a meeting that was to have been held online but could not because of a Zoom failure. Later, still, I took a late afternoon nap. And that nap lasted until around 4 this morning. Apparently, driving myself can wear me out. Or, I have just gotten used to very long periods of sleep. Or, perhaps, my need to get an anemia treatment might have been a clue that I easily can get tired, weak, or light-headed.

+++

Tonight’s overnight low temperature is expected to drop to 23°F. Tomorrow night’s low should hit 16F. Nighttime lows are forecast to be well below freezing until at least the end of the month. I have grown partial to daytime highs of 77°F to 81°F and nighttime lows of 72°F to 74°F. Where, I wonder, can I find such a place that meets those criteria and a number of others in areas involving social and political climate, economic stability, financial affordability, low crime rate, natural beauty, limitless supply of fresh and clean water, etc.? I’d gladly trade my soul for a large, airy, quiet, full-service apartment in such a place.

A text yesterday afternoon from the oncology nurse asked me to return for a “red blood cell shot” this morning. I subsequently checked the results of the lab draws two days ago: quite low red blood cell count and the lowest platelet count in my records. Not entirely clear on how important this might be, I readily agreed; despite the fact that it conflicted with an online meeting I had confirmed only a short time earlier. Calling these frequent interruptions to my “schedule”—such as it is—annoying would be an understatement. I’ve gotten used to them, though, more or less. Fortunately, my meeting partners are flexible, so I was able to change the meeting time. And I have become more malleable, thanks to the realities of dealing with cancer treatment. But yesterday’s last-minute change to my schedule tested my tolerance. I felt tension increase in my neck and back. My jaws tightened. I reacted with anger to something that was not especially important. That kind of reaction seems to be more common in me of late. Metaphorically speaking, the peaks are higher, the valleys are lower, and the vast stretches of flat, endless desert extend farther in every direction. I suppose it’s a matter of being tense and tired of an mental state of mind that feels heavier and more burdensome by the day. The fact that I know the “burden” is not really heavy at all makes it all the more irritating.

+++

When NASA was the focus of this country’s space-flight program, I remember feeling intensely proud of the team that regularly accomplished remarkable feats. Even though I had no connection to the space program, I felt it was something “we” could embrace as our own. NASA was “ours.” “We” could take pride in the fact that “we” achieved the almost unimaginable. Today, though, space exploration is by and large a commercial venture. NASA subcontracts to for-profit companies whose executives and investors are in it for the money and the fame. When joint space exploration ventures between nations made international cooperation seem increasingly achievable, peace between nations was a realistic goal. For me, space exploration has lost its luster as a symbol of international collaboration in pursuit of exciting objectives. It has become competitively capitalistic. Farming out various aspects of what once was the singular province of NASA has cheapened the concept of looking star-ward. I doubt the pride I once felt will ever return. Space exploration has become a commercial competition like Ford versus GM. It’s depressing. It really is.

+++

I’m thinking of Duck-Duck and clan this morning, wondering how they and their beasts are doing. I saw a photo of their lonely mailbox, poking forlornly out of the snow, on Facebook and, then, in the local rag. One day soon, when my energy is reliably higher than it is, I will visit. You read that, Duck-Duck?

+++

I started yesterday with a boost of energy that lasted into the afternoon. But that peaked long before sunset. By 6 PM, I plunged into a valley that allowed me to sleep for the remainder of the day and through the night. At this moment, I feel moderately “strong,” but already I feel drained again, as if I could sleep through the end of the world. I am so damn tired of being tired.

Even the simple luxuries we take for granted can turn against us. When that happens, they remind us that luxuries can transform into burdens. And they inform of us the emotional (and financial) costs they can bring to our lives. For example, the electric garage door opener is a simple luxury that has become almost a necessity. And the moment that near-necessity breaks or malfunctions to the point of inoperability, chaos takes the opportunity to wrap its wicked claws around our psyches. Coinciding with the recent snowstorm and cold weather, our 24-year-old garage door opener (designed to last 20 years) gave up the ghost—the door would go up and down, but would not stay down. A garage door mechanic discovered a broken gear and metal shavings. It could be “fixed” temporarily but other parts showed signs of impending despair, so we chose to spend a substantial part of our retirement savings on a new opener. The new opener is to be installed this morning. The degree to which something so simple as a broken garage door opener can disrupt one’s life is incredible. There was a time I would raise and lower my garage door by hand. That was a time when I was young and strong and energetic and had a bright future—long ago and far away.

There’s more. Last night, I discovered that a spot-style light bulb in a hallway has burned out. I may have to enter into a contract with the Light Bulb Replacement Company to remove the old bulb and replace it with a new one. There goes the remainder of our retirement savings.

+++

Mi novia is frustrated with the accompaniments to her advancing age. A recent visit to a cardiologist, for a routine check-up in response to the fact that she is—like the rest of us—aging, resulted in the doctor’s advice to have a cardiac stress test. Nothing obvious arose from the routine check-up, but it’s just time to have a look under the hood…an evaluation to catch anything that might not be apparent in a cursory exam. The very idea of a cardiac stress test disturbs her. I understand, of course. But it’s just a fact of the aging process; our bodies need more detailed and focused medical attention with each passing year.

As if the prospects of a cardiac stress test were not enough, she experienced significant pains she believed were related to kidney stones (she has experienced that in the past). A CT scan performed during her visit to the urologist revealed the presence of a very small—but potentially very painful—kidney stone. Presented with the option of taking a drug that “might” cause the stone to pass or undergoing a procedure that would laser-blast the rock into dust, she chose the latter (at my suggestion). Better to just get it out of the way than hope it will resolve itself with a little nudge.

+++

Next week—a week from today—I return to Little Rock to undergo a procedure to correct the epithelial basement membrane dystrophy (also known as map-dot-fingerprint-dystrophy) in my left eye. I will return sometime in the not-too-distant future to have the same procedure performed in my right eye.  I’ve already cleared the procedures with my oncologist; as long as the timing does not conflict with my chemo-treatments (and a few days before and after), there should be no problem.

+++

There’s a pattern here, isn’t there? Our luxuries are wearing out, along with our bodies. Unlike our luxuries, though, our bodies cannot be easily repaired (or replaced) with new parts. Our bodies’ warranties can be extended just a touch by patching or filling in cracks and crevices in the worn out parts at just the right times. Like everything else around us though, there’s a limit.

+++

I don’t know if this New York Times opinion piece by David Brooks is accessible without a subscription…I hope so. If a subscription is necessary, I recommend spending the money. You don’t have to agree with all of Brooks’ political philosophies (I don’t) to appreciate his even-handed assessment of the world around us. At any rate, read the above-linked article, We Deserve Pete Hegseth, to understand that no one is asking the right questions…and to see clearly that Hegseth would be unable to answer them, even if they were presented to him. Doom is not too strong a word to use in considering the world with Trump in a position of power.

Strength takes many forms, some appearing vicious and some benign; some soft and malleable, some hard and inflexible. The only way to know whether an attribute is a strength or a weakness is to examine its context. Even then, appearances can be deceptive. Tears at a funeral may suggest weakness, but mean something entirely different. A frail man attempting to protect an abused child from undeserved blows may be strong in intent, but weak in execution.  Which is he, then? Like so many other people in so many diverse situations, he is neither weak nor strong; but he may be both. And that begs the question: does strength or weakness define us? Should it?

+++

Lung cancer, according to Livescience.com, has a five-year survival rate of 26.7%, but  when detected early, the five-year survival rate for non-small cell lung cancer (which is the kind I have) can be as high as 65%. I beat both measures—at least for the first diagnosis. It has been more than six years since my first diagnosis. It’s been just over a year since the recurrence was detected. The median survival time after a recurrence of lung cancer, according to data published by the National Library of Medicine, is roughly 21 months. Assuming my situation follows the median, I have about 8 months left. It’s a morbid calculation, I realize, but I imagine “how much time do I have left” is a fairly typical question for people to ponder. The problem with asking the question, though, is that the answer might tend to lead the patient to “give up” on efforts to go into remission because, “it’s just a matter of time.” Ach! I do not intend to give up, but the extent to which I might be willing to suffer through the stages of deterioration probably has limits.

+++

Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see a dark grey background upon which literally billions of nearly microscopic images are briefly displayed. Yesterday, it occurred to me that those tiny images, collectively, are like individual pages of a book that, if sufficiently enlarged, contain all the information I have ever absorbed. We may think we have forgotten things, never to recover them, but our brains hold them in deeply hidden memory! Every page of every book we’ve ever read. Every conversation in which we have ever been involved. Every film we have ever seen. Every email we’ve ever sent or received. Every image our eyes have every beheld. It’s a fascinating thought, I think; to imagine that every experience we’ve ever had remains stored inside our bodies. If that is, indeed, the case, there must be a way to retrieve it. Sadly, we have had thousands and thousands of years, as a species, to find the key…to no avail. It may take thousands and thousands of more years to begin the search, in earnest.

+++

Time to get ready for my visit to the oncology crowd…a blood draw to measure exactly where my magnesium levels are this morning. Oh, boy!

I feel somewhat better today but not sufficiently so—thus far—to want to go for a drive. That’s fine, because I do not plan to go for a drive. I’ve been sleeping for the better part of the last almost six days and am happy to continue that pattern—at least the part that does not involve extreme forms of discomfort. And it shall continue, at least for today.

I opted to call my oncologist’s office yesterday, in the hope that they would agree that a blood test scheduled for yesterday could be delayed. They agreed. I will go in tomorrow. Mi novia also arranged to see a urologist on Wednesday. Today, she is scheduled to see her cardiologist for a long-scheduled visit; whether she decides to go is still to be determined. I feel somewhat better than I did yesterday, thanks to finally being able to eat a little and keep it down. Mi novia had enough energy to make an online “rush” order of grocery items that I might find palatable and tolerable among which are: bananas, canned soup, potatoes, and zucchini. Boiled new potatoes and chopped zucchini in chicken soup, I hope, will make a meal I can tolerate. Even though the “rush,” 3-hour delivery cost an extra $5, I am grateful it was possible and available. Neither of us felt well enough to try to maneuver through the remaining snow and ice to go shopping. I appreciate the delivery people who were willing and able to cope with whatever conditions faced them. Their willingness, I suspect, was fueled both by altruism and economic necessity. Capitalism enables people like me to pay for help; and it forces people like those delivery drivers to work to cover the cost of basic needs—even when that work exposes them to potentially dangerous circumstances. These are untested assumptions, of course, but I would be willing to place a bet that they are sound.

+++

An article that addressed issues related to capitalism, carried by NPR online, caught my attention this morning. The piece discussed, among other things, an article by a University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire economist (Thomas Kemp), entitled “Shred Central: Estimating the user benefits associated with large public skateparks.” It also addressed a presentation he made, entitled, “The Skateboarding Ethic and the Spirit of Anti-Capitalism.” I am not, nor have I ever been, a skateboarder, but the article grabbed my attention with its economic twist. Another of those things that, too late in life, piqued my interest: economics. But I’m too tired, now, to continue and let that interest run free. Now, I need to make something I might be able to eat.

I am scheduled to have a blood test—to check my magnesium level—in one hour. The results are intended to determine whether I need to return tomorrow to have an IV infusion of magnesium. Snow still covers most of my driveway. My gut continues to punish me for my arrogance of being alive. My street has not been plowed. Road conditions on the route to the lab may be just fine. Or they may be icy. I am trying to decide whether to go or not. Confounding these matters is the fact that mi novia has been suffering for two days from what she believes is a very painful kidney stone. Hers is, by far, the most urgent of the issues. Why must they all arise in conjunction with the recent snowfall of 12 to 16 inches and the resulting warnings to “stay off the roads?”

+++

The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.

~ Karl Marx ~

Perhaps Marx was right. But how would he have known?

+++

Writing does not cure all the ails the world throws at us. Nor does reading. Writing and reading simply wrap newspapers around sharp-edged stones, making easier the distribution of deadly projectiles to intended targets. Writers and readers are equally to blame for broken arms and damaged feathers.

Slightly better this morning than yesterday. But, still, sufficient pain in the gut and chest to make me angry at my body and the universe. I slept nearly around the clock yesterday; the latest period began around 6 PM and lasted all night, until just before 6 AM this morning. I want to go to sleep again—this time a deep, deep sleep.

An unexpected crash overwhelms me this morning. At least I have no immediate obligations. Except for the notice I received on Thursday, advising me to go in for a blood draw early Monday to check my magnesium, I have no confirmed appointments during the upcoming week. But the blood draw will determine whether I need to go in to receive more magnesium the following day. I do not feel good enough to do anything but stay in bed and sleep. Not even good enough to sleep. My stomach throbs. My head aches. I feel something like sharp rods pressing against my internal organs. When I try to rest, with my head on the pillow, I hear something pounding on my eardrums…hard enough and loud enough to splinter the membranes inside my ears and cause a perpetual echo. If I had sufficient energy, I would scream, in an attempt to block out sounds that try to compel me to slit my throat. More hydrocodone, if only I can find any more. Or sleeping pills. Or something that could snuff out the noises and the constant jabs of minor—but irritating—pain or frustration or whatever it is that makes me want to be in a deep, utterly unconscious state. My fingernails seem to be decaying. Halfway down the quick, they look dull. They are fading; becoming chalky. And my runny nose is bleeding again. Am I imagining this wholesale degradation of my body? Or have the chemicals and repeated doses of radiation finally reduced my immunity so much that my body has surpassed simple deterioration, sliding directly into rot? I was prepared for four sessions of chemo and two years of Keytruda follow-up. But I’m somewhere numbering fifteen to seventeen sessions of chemo, only a few sessions of Keytruda, and 25 sessions of radiation treatment. I said, recently, I could not complain. I’m proving myself wrong. I can complain, I can bitch, I can gripe, I can whine and whimper and object strenuously. It does no good. No more of this. I am done.

Snow started falling fast around 1:00 PM yesterday in big, wet clumps. Three hours later, after the ground was buried under roughly three inches of pure white, the snowfall diminished considerably. Occasionally, it stopped, then started again—but the new snow was much lighter and the flakes much smaller. I got distracted from the winter entertainment, so did not notice how much snow came down until darkness fell; after that point, I have no idea whether more snow covered the already thick blanket and, if so, how much. I’ll have to wait until the sun rises to know more. I know this, though: after a period of heavy snow, silence envelopes the landscape.

+++

Snippet
Gregory Boxer felt a heavy emptiness where his legs should have been. No pain, just an oppressive absence. The debris of the car in which he had been an unwilling passenger lay in the ravine below him; a bloody, mangled mass of broken glass, bent steel, and shattered plastic. As Boxer’s eyes drifted toward his captor, Dolin Clark, emerging from the wreckage below, he heard a loud male voice shout, “Freeze! Don’t move!”

At almost the same instant, Boxer heard the deafening report of a gunshot.

“Okay! Okay! I’m not moving! Don’t shoot!”

As Boxer watched the highway patrol officer slowly approach Clark, an officer kneeling behind Boxer spoke. “Hold on, man. I’m gonna get tourniquets around your legs. The medics will be here soon.”

Boxer opened his eyes three days later, in the intensive care unit of a large urban hospital, far away from the site of the crash. But he had no memory of the chase, the car crash, the gunfire, or any of the other circumstances that brought him to the ICU.

+++

If I had recorded the amount of time I have spent inside my house during the last year, I think I would be stunned. Except for medical appointments, hospitalizations, occasional restaurant lunches, and a very few other “outings,” I have spent the majority of all my waking (and sleeping) moments within the confines of this house. I am not complaining; this is a pretty nice place to spend my time. And I am becoming more and more comfortable as a hermit or recluse or whatever you might prefer to call it. Having visitors, I suppose, negates the validity of calling my present lifestyle one of a hermit or a recluse, which is fine with me. I like having contact with pleasant people who enter my sphere. But solitude, increasingly, agrees with me. I can be myself with myself, though I sometimes find myself more than a little annoying. In the presence of people outside myself, I have to try to be more civil, kinder, and gentler.

+++

I am thawing a wad of frozen cooked rice, which may take quite some time. Once thawed, I will heat it in the microwave, douse it with soy sauce, and dribble a bit of Sriracha on it. Some people might consider that an odd breakfast, but I do not. I’ve already had a banana, half a carton of Ensure, two shots of espresso, and several slugs of water. I cannot imagine anything more appropriate to follow that preprandial munch-fest. Unless, of course, it would be pancakes. I have had a hankering for pancakes for a while now. With maple syrup. But I have to be careful of what I eat, because lately even the most innocuous stuff seems to create quite a rebellion in my gut and elsewhere.

+++

The time is 6:30 AM. I am writing drivel. Must stop. Now.

Neither the undeservedly rich nor the undeservedly impoverished nor anyone in the vast middle deserves the traumatic horrors engulfing them in Southern California. Money—no matter how much—cannot be a salve for the pain of watching one’s own home and neighbors’ homes and the entire communities they formed go up in flames. The images I have seen on television and online from Pacific Palisades and the Hollywood Hills and surrounding areas are too hard to see, but impossible to forget. They linger like photographs of Nazi concentration camps—unfathomable horrors that will not release the viewer from the terror of their origins. The photographs and videos make one wonder how—or whether—physical and emotional recovery ever may be possible.

+++

Here I sit, in my warm and comfortable house, awaiting the expected 4 to 8 inches of snow that’s anticipated to start falling by noon today. That threat, even if realized and accompanied by power outages, does not begin to compare to the ordeal facing the people of Southern California. Oprah Winfrey, of all people, is quoted as saying, “Be thankful for what you have and you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” The first six of those words are the only ones that matter: be thankful for what you have. The philosophy underlying those words have been drilled into me my entire life. Too often, I allow myself to ignore the concept,  permitting myself instead to want more. Or different. Or something other than what should be more than enough.

+++

Yesterday, unless something dramatic changes, I had the last radiation session to treat the resurgence of my cancer. A tad less than three weeks hence, I will get another chemotherapy treatment. Then, either a PET-scan or another chemo treatment, followed by a PET-scan. I am grateful I did not reject treatment six years ago, which I considered doing. I would have been long dead by now, had I made that foolish decision.

+++

Credit: Joshua Coogler

A pink glow above the horizon watches over me. Or maybe it’s just my eyes, looking up at the vastness of an endless sky. Last night, I thought about how incredibly tiny our planet is against the backdrop of the limitlessly vast universe. And I thought about some macro photos of ants, taken by photographers who shared their techniques with fellow aficionados. This morning, thoughts of how tiny we are against the universe, and tiny ants are against our miniscule size swirled in my head. It’s just too incredible to explain! And it’s even more amazing that, for example, each tiny hair or sections of the ants’ eyes are enormously large in comparison to individual atoms. Sometimes, the complexity and beauty of the world around me brings me to euphoric delight. These photographs (credit to Joshua Coogler) add to my amazement…actually seeing what is often right before me, but which I rarely actually see. Click on the image; be amazed!

Reading the news is akin to stumbling into an extremely hot sauna—the vapors for which are supplied by filthy water, acetone, and gasoline—and hearing the door lock behind you.

Greenland. Panama. The Gulf of America. Zero percent containment of hurricane-force wind-driven wildfires. The very existence of Elon Musk and his symbiotic, psychotic, power-driven, narcissist puppet. How many times must I admonish myself to avoid intentional exposure to such damaging “understanding of world news?” Revolution may well have been the only answer, but the time for effective resistance, I fear, has passed.

There was a time when I fancied a beautiful, modern house overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Not just a fanciful house; a real house—available for sale—I encountered online. As I recall, the price was exceptionally low for such a magnificent place…$260,000 sticks in my mind. I should have bought it. It had a beautiful pool, a whirlpool, and the entire ocean-facing side consisted of enormous windows. I could have resurrected, and then vastly improved, my Spanish and lived peacefully, without television, internet, and newspapers. I could have forgotten the world outside my immediate surroundings. And I would have been too far removed from excellent medical care to have discovered my cancer (first round) early enough to staunch its spread. And I would, in all likelihood, be dead by now. There’s something to be said about missing the decay of modern civilization.

+++

Very little sleep last night. I went to bed early, as usual, but by 11:00 PM I had not had even a hint of sleep. Sometime during the night I drifted in and out of consciousness, but I doubt I ever reached a true state of slumber. I got up a couple of times to eliminate some of the massive volumes of water I consumed during the day, but did not feel sufficiently rested to rise for the morning. At 5:00 PM, I rose for a third bladder call, only to return to bed until 7:00, when I got up. That is when I realized the store of bananas had been depleted, so my usual (of late) breakfast was not an option. I am hungry, though. If life were fair, I would be able to call for delivery of a quart of miso soup…made the way I like it. Lots of dashi, lots of tiny pieces of nori, miso paste, firm cubes of tofu, and water. I like mine livened up a bit with sambal oleek and a spritz or six of low sodium soy sauce. I haven’t had miso soup in far too long. Ditto a version of a Chinese dish I love, congee: rice cooked until it’s mushy, with rice, chicken stock, fresh ginger, fried shallots, minced pork, green onions, and white pepper. And sambal oleek, because I have an inexplicable passion for sambal oleek.  The problem, of course, is that I have neither the ingredients to make these dishes, the energy to do the work even if the ingredients were readily and hand, and no sources that would deliver them to me. Damnitall!

+++

You do not want to read any more of this rubbish. I do not want to write any more of it for now. So, I shall stop. I will be back. Some day.