John Swinburn

The small portion of sky visible from where I sit is dim, but brightening with yellow-beige light.  Trickling through the still-dark leaves and needles covering most of the branches and twigs, the light makes the forest more visible by the second. Before long, the dark brown, black, and sage green branches will become more distinct. Daylight will have conquered darkness again, at least for a while. If I let it, this routine will become just another boring, repetitive circumstance over which I have no control. But if I insist on being amazed by the enormity of the magic of the transition, I will continue to be grateful simply to watch it unfold. My view on these simple but impressive mornings pales in comparison to watching a brilliant red and orange and purple sunrise over a distant mountain horizon. But it will do. And I look forward to the next opportunity to be awestruck by those incredible vistas. When? Sometime. Soon, perhaps. How can I define soon in the context of the immeasurable immensity of Time? Only Time will tell.

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The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

~ Bertrand Russell ~

I will get out of the house again this morning, but only for a while. My oncologist has a Friday-only office in the Village. where I’ll go to get a post-treatment injection meant to reduce/minimize the risks of infections associated with yesterday’s chemo session. I’ve tentatively set aside all of next week to do my taxes, the filing for which I got an extension. Though I do not need that much time, if I do not call it to my attention by putting it on my calendar, it will be too easy to ignore; I want to avoid the stress of last-minute pressure, so I’d like to get it done sooner rather than at the last minute. The following week, I have “vacation” on the calendar, though the plans for exactly when and where remain up in the air. On one hand, I would love to go on a long, aimless road trip. On the other, a visit to someplace nearby, with opportunities to behave like a typical tourist might be better. Mi novia seems to think my history in recent months of napping a LOT almost every day would make a long road trip an exercise in futility; she would drive and I would sleep, missing most of the travel along quiet country roads that I find so appealing. She’s probably right.

I am getting irrationally frustrated with month after month of what amounts to a minor irritation. Unlike so many people who are dealing with cancer, the disease is not terribly debilitating for me. My complaints are minor in comparison to theirs. Yet so many of them seem far more tolerant of their conditions than I am with mine. I live in privilege, with: someone who cares about and for me; a stable, if modest, income; a nice place to live; more than ample food and water; plenty of amenities; and so many more luxuries. Compared to people who could barely get by before being diagnosed with cancer and now probably are struggling to pay for basic necessities, never mind astronomical cancer treatment bills, I have absolutely nothing to complain about. Nonetheless, I do. It’s embarrassing to realize I know my complaints are so minor in comparison to theirs, yet still I listen to myself bitch about my affliction and its related inconveniences. At least I generally tell people I’m doing pretty well; and, in comparison, I certainly am. I am sufficiently concerned about not wanting to appear to be a perpetual whiner that I try to stifle the urge. That is vanity at play, I think; nothing even remotely related to coping, courage, or care about others’ state of mind. I have been told not to believe that assessment of myself—that it’s not correct—but it seems entirely believable to me, whereas an opposite attitude would strike me as artificial.

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My first cup of espresso is long gone. So is the banana I grabbed before rushing to my keyboard. I will now replenish the black liquid bitterness and try to find something quick and easy to eat to satisfy my minor hunger and my need for plenty of protein. Last night’s dinner of black bean burger patties and salad was the perfect meal; easy to make (though I did not make it) and easy to clean up afterward (though I did not do that, either). I am growing more and more fond of skipping most traditional breakfast foods in favor of something usually considered better suited for lunch or dinner. Leftover spaghetti, for example, or steamed zucchini from the night before or something starchy like an Asian rice dish or potatoes from another meal…something I can doctor-up with soy sauce or oyster sauce or Sriracha sauce or sambal oelek. But there are times when an apple fritter or a jalapeño-laden pastry fits the bill. Enough talk. Time for action.

Today was a cancer treatment day for me and, like the last one three weeks ago, it was a long one. We arrived at the cancer center at 8:05 this morning and left to drive home a few minutes before 5. The length of the treatment was longer than it should have been (as was that one three weeks ago), due to my body’s displeasure with carboplatin. Last time, the extended timeframe was due in large part to undergoing a process intended to overcome my allergy to the drug, experienced at an earlier session. That process worked…during that treatment. Naturally assuming the allergy had been overcome, then, the normal administration of carboplatin intravenously  commenced today. About halfway through the infusion, though, I developed some moderate symptoms of allergy/rejection (difficulty breathing and a sensation of feeling very warm/hot). The nurses immediately stopped the administration of the IV and informed the oncologist. Even before getting the doctor, one of the nurses brought a tank of oxygen to my therapy station and began giving administering it.  The doctor came in immediately and instructed the nurses to give me an injection (through the IV line) of Benadryl. After having me breathe oxygen and relax for several minutes, the doctor asked me several questions about my earlier experience with Benadryl. She then  told the nurses to continue administering  the carboplatin, but at half the original  rate of infusion. Her strategy worked. She instructed the nurses to make a permanent note in my files, indicating that future infusions of carboplatin should be administered over a period of one full hour, rather than  the half hour she had originally planned. The doctor arranged for me to get a regular follow-up injection tomorrow morning (something to protect me from infections), a regular part of the process. A long, long day; but at 8 to 5, almost like a short day, “in the old days” at the office. I won’t have a PET scan or a CAT scan until one or two more treatments have been done; so, not until after at least 3-6 weeks from now. So, I won’t have any concrete evidence of the effectiveness of adjusted treatment since progress was downgraded after a PET scan revealed the earlier success of the treatment had degraded. Impatience and worry are among a plethora of my most obvious character flaws.

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Those of us who live in my part of Central Arkansas can expect outdoor temperatures to increase by roughly 22°F before the sun sets, topping out at 95°F around 4:00 p.m. Much of my day, though, will be spent in a frigid building, while nurses periodically check and refresh the IV drip delivering various powerful drugs to my circulatory system. Among them, the drug that caused me—two days later and three or four days after that—to feel quite a bit of pain in what felt like every joint and muscle in my body. The same drug, I believe, is responsible for my hair falling out in clumps before I had the barber give me a scalp-close trim. When he finished the job, the barber refused payment; people who know me even casually know how difficult it was for me to keep my composure, as gratitude for his compassionate act swept over me.

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I wrote the paragraphs below early this morning, but left the blog to go to my cancer center appointment (described above).  I am too lazy to restructure this blog entry; I am sure anyone reading it can understand that the sequence is off.

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My sister was scheduled to have the second of two hip replacements this morning. I have not spoken to her since yesterday. I hope it went off without a hitch and will fully heal in short order, making walking much easier and less painful for her. She had been dealing with hip pain for far too long.

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I am unhappy with myself this evening. Though my anger is a bit irrational, it is real and impossible to erase. Because history cannot be altered; not eliminated, not corrected, not disguised as something it is not. I am angry that I did not successfully pursue or even try to take advantage of so many potential opportunities when I was young enough to follow them. Some of them would have been easy to achieve, if only I had tried. Some would have been much more difficult. But those are suppositions; unproveable theories that cannot be tested. I wish I had doggedly pursued more advanced education. I wish I had devoted more serious attention to learning far more about areas of interest than I did; in many cases, I sailed through easy but boring subjects, learning just enough to get acceptable grades. I didn’t dedicate enough energy and attention even to subjects that fascinated me because I feared I might not be as bright as I thought I might be…and maybe I would not be able to learn as much as I wanted, simply because I was not smart enough. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of examples; not all related to school. Some had to do with social skills, some with physical efforts to build strength and stamina, some with coping with difficult emotional matters, some with self-discipline. The list is much, much longer. People are fond of saying “you’re never too old to [pick your activity or achievement]. Oh, yes, you can be too old to do many things. Physically, mentally, and practically in many other ways, you can be too old. Looking back, so many of the missed opportunities to be a more interesting, more intelligent, more likeable, and generally better person have become old, impossible, withered dreams. You’re never too old… Oh, yes. The best approach is to try to wash away those regrets and focus on past accomplishments and present enjoyable, productive activities. At least that’s my position this evening—as precarious as that feels at this moment.

Never again, after today, will we be given the opportunity to experience, live and in-person, July 31, 2024. Photographs, videos, audio recordings, and written records are among the many ways we can try to capture and re-live this moment in time; but to actually undergo the experience of today—as it takes place—is a one-time-only possibility. After today, that opportunity will be gone forever. That is true, as well, for every second, minute, and hour. Every moment is unique and fleeting, yet we tend to treat those sui generis occasions as if they are common commodities. Of course, it’s not just the moment that is unique—it is the context of the moment, the milieu. Is it today that is unique or is it what happens today that is unique?  Today is just a label, but the label applies to both the moment and to its context. But, then again, maybe not. Simple questions rarely have simple answers.

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Creativity, when mixed with anxiety, often morphs into emptiness. All of the intricate patterns and complex designs vacate the vessels intended to hold them, leaving only traces of powder that is one thousand times finer than the finest chalk dust. Those traces later coalesce around shattered pieces of distorted memories; like sugar, dissolved in water, that forms crystals that cling to lengths of string. But, unlike sugar, reconstituted creativity is not sweet and crystalline. It is sour. It curdles, congealing like milk left in an open jar under a lemon tree.

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Everyone will die, eventually. What difference does it make if it happens all at once or slowly, over a long period of time? Well, instant extinction would save a lot of unnecessary tears, so that’s an argument for the fast track.

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Apparently, I have been in better places, emotionally, than I am in at the moment. It could be the fact that the top of my head feels like sandpaper. I should have shaved my scalp, rather than had my hair trimmed extremely close with electric clippers—I imagined my head shiny and as smooth as a bowling ball. Curdled milk, I tell you.

Waiting to plan for the future until that future is assured is an exercise in futility. The future, whatever I might imagine it to be, has never unfolded exactly as I envisioned. I doubt I am alone in that perpetual experience. Yet, even realizing how utterly pointless it is to wait for an unlikely and uncertain future, it’s a common and very risky tactic used to avoid risk. Action and inaction both involve risk. People tend to justify inaction, though, by pretending that doing nothing avoids risk. But opting to stay put on the sidewalk, rather than moving four feet in any direction, while a piano plummets from an upper floor toward the sidewalk where you are standing does nothing to mitigate risk.

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I did not sleep long enough nor well enough last night (and this morning). Long before 4 a.m., I woke and, a short while later, determined that I would not be able to get to sleep anytime soon. So I got up, made an espresso, and tried to find a reason, online, to be cheerful, grateful, tolerant, or otherwise appreciative of the world in which I live. That effort proved fruitless. My mood this morning, so far, is not suited to such pointlessness. If I can convince my body and my brain to jointly agree to let me sleep again soon, I will return to bed. Failing that, I suppose I will wallow in emotional darkness until I emerge from the cave or come to realize it’s not a cave…it’s an abandoned mine shaft with no access to the surface.  I try dark humor, hoping it will buoy me…lift me up and out of the coal dust and methane gas. That’s not working, yet, but I will keep trying.

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Finally, after a very long period of procrastination, I will visit an attorney next week to revise various documents: power of attorney, medical power of attorney, and will. I may decide to abandon the will completely, opting instead to form a revocable trust. Circumstances have changed in the nine years since my current will and related estate planning documents were written. In fact, my life has undergone radical alterations since then. With the exception of a medical power of attorney, the documents involved in estate planning do virtually nothing for the person who creates the plans; they are meant to simplify and ease the transition for those left behind. Making decisions involved in planning for one’s uncertain future can be jarring, but advisable.

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Serial Killer or Curmudgeon?

Comparing head shots of myself—some showing a head of hair and some after my chemo-triggered baldness—I am shocked to realize how much older I look without hair. With no hair on top of my head, no moustache, and no beard, I think I look about 20 years older than I am. Before my hair abandoned me, I think I looked about 10 years younger than I was. So, today I look 30 years older than I looked day before yesterday. It’s not the baldness I mind—not at all. It’s the associated overnight aging I find surprising and unflattering. Many people look great with shiny domes; I do not believe I am one of them. Some friends—no doubt realizing how unflattering my new look is—have tried to soften the blow by saying it suits me. While I appreciate their intentions, the fact that they tell me such a bald-faced lie jolts me and makes me wonder what else they might have told me that was untrue. Perhaps they lied about liking the special gourmet dish I prepared for them…maybe they really weren’t sick when they called to say they felt ill and weren’t coming to my lavish and horrendously expensive party…maybe one of them (or a gang of them) is responsible for taking $50,000 in cash from my nightstand…perhaps they really were guilty of spray-painting vulgar graffiti on my new Lamborghini. Ah, well, let bygones be bygones. It’s my understanding that insurance will cover my losses (even supplying additional guests to fill-out the party crowd). And my hair may begin to grow back in six months or so—though when it returns it may be bright neon blue, thick as molasses, and curly as a pig’s tail.

On December 19, 2010 I bought a used 21-speed bicycle for $160, a new bike helmet, and an air pump. My vague recollection of those acquisitions pairs with only a few memories of riding that bike. How many times in my life, I wonder, have I invested money and quick-to-disappear-commitments in something that illustrated my lack of discipline? I have a few pieces of more recent evidence—right here in my study—of my foolish and quickly-disproven belief that THIS TIME I will stick to it. I know I can. But, despite my ability, I don’t, thanks to the fact that my will fades so quickly. I’ve had some successes, of course, but they have been outnumbered by unmet objectives and commitments.

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I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.

~ Edgar Allan Poe ~

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Alternative facts cannot justify claims about alternative realities. Yet truth and facts are contextual; perspective can transform one absolute certainty into its antithesis. Intentional adjustments to manipulate others’ frames of reference, though, behave like sinister prisms—making malevolent acts appear charitable and worthy of admiration.  Eventually, trickery teaches lessons to the victims of fraud—specifically, who can be trusted and who cannot. That clarity, though, becomes muddy when the confusion of unyielding distrust gets in the way of reality. If two people—one with a history of honesty and the other with a history of lies—make the same claim, the dishonest one is apt to be judged a liar. But one’s judgment about the honest one may be clouded, tainted by the other’s past. Context.

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If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn,
they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

~ Leonard Cohen ~

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The indoor temperature can be 76°F; still, I feel cold, especially when I compare that temperature to the 88°F outside. I feel moderately comfortable, usually, when I wear long-sleeves and long pants. But when I walk outside to face the blazing climate, I feel positively wonderful…for a time. Soon, though, the long-sleeves, long pants, and stifling humidity become too much; I want nothing more than to run naked through a mist of cool water. But I don’t. Because I am a civilized man being who recognizes nudity for what it is: a vulgar, unwholesome, and unforgiveable abandonment of human modesty, one of the only attributes we can claim entirely as our own. No, of course I do not believe nudity is bad in some way. I do believe, though, that many of the world’s societies have adopted an irrational loathing of nudity. And I believe many people in those same societies find nude bodies (those that do not fit the mold of what is, at any given time, the ideal) disgusting. I have heard people complaining about others on a beach. They say something to the effect that “I don’t want to see the naked body of an old fat man!” When I hear such bigotry, even from friends or acquaintances, the level of respect I feel for the speaker declines precipitously. My experience with uncomfortable temperatures somehow led me to begin writing a treatise on compassion and human decency. Perhaps it’s symptomatic of adult ADHD; might I be afflicted by the condition?

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Dreams serve as punishment. Not for actions, but for thoughts.

Until yesterday, I questioned whether my most recent chemo treatment would cause me to lose all my hair or simply result in minor thinning. While, today, I am not absolutely certain, I would place a bet on losing it all. Hair left my scalp in clumps, giving new meaning to my receding hairline. Relatively long hair as well as closely cropped strands abandoned my head. Considering the volume of hair loss in just one day, I suspect my head will be bald, or close to it, later today—if not of its own accord, then probably by me, wielding electric clippers. Whether the outcome takes place before church this morning or sometime later in the day remains to be seen. I am not thrilled to be losing my hair, but neither am I devastated by it; it’s just an expected side-effect of one of the chemotherapy drugs. A benefit from the situation: I will get to see what I look like without hair.

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Fire in Paradise, a documentary film about the 2018 Camp Fire in California that left 85 dead and $16.65 billion in damage, left me stunned and deeply moved. I watched it last night—along with another far less interesting and informative documentary—while mi novia joined a bevy of friends for laughter, noshing, and conversation. (I can attest that their food was good, inasmuch as mi novia was sent home afterward with a container of savory goodies for me.) Back to the film: I learned more about the experience of residents and firefighters from the documentary than I ever did from newscasts; it’s available on Netflix and worth watching.

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The world seems to me entirely two-dimensional this morning. No significant substance, just thin-film images—façades in front of emptiness. Mirrors reflect that emptiness. They show the reality we desperately try to avoid. Two mirrors, each reflecting images of the other, reveal endless emptiness in a way that gives the absence of reality an odd appeal. We trick ourselves into believing three-dimensional experiences are real; our eyes are complicit in the deceit.

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It is after 8; well past time to prepare for whatever the day will bring.

A grove of citrus trees, surrounded by an avocado orchard. All around the perimeter, a vineyard of mixed grapes awaits the caring hands of caretakers, who will prune the vines, cultivate and fertilize the soil, and pick the ripe grapes. The cool air, shielded from the sun’s rays by morning fog, expertly defines comfort and lavishes tenderness and passionate appreciation on all the fruit. A thousand years ago, the Arctic air would have been too cold for the plants to survive. Now, though, these few thousand acres are the only habitable places on Earth. The rest of the planet is scorched. Lead pipes buried under ten feet of hard-packed rock have long since melted. The corpses of penguins, the last of the few remaining natural inhabitants of this little piece of land, litter the salty coastline ten miles away.

Lilly Thrungle, in her tiny hut, sits at the solar-powered DVD player/transmitter. She broadcasts old episodes of Julia Child’s The French Chef, hoping someone outside Lilly’s tiny enclave might stumble upon the show about preparing Boeuf Bourguignon. But, Lilly wonders, who has beef? Still, she keeps broadcasting old episodes, clinging to withered shreds of hope.

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I learned during all my career to enjoy suffering.

~ Rafael Nadal ~

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One of my long-time dreams/fantasies emerged again this morning, triggered by an article about the vision and efforts of a woman in New York city to convert an ugly nine-acres under the Brooklyn Bridge in Lower Manhattan into a park. I love the idea of using the land in Lower Manhattan to improve the quality of life in that part of New York City. Even more, I love my dream of resurrecting a dying small town, turning it into an oasis of comfort and promise and hope.

My fantasy began to take shape while I was a student at the University of Texas. When I drove home to Corpus Christi from Austin, which was a trip I made fairly frequently, I passed through a number of small towns that looked to me like they suffered from neglect. Boarded up doors and windows, cracked and peeling paint, sidewalks overtaken by dust and weeds, and various other signs of resignation and surrender. “If only,” I thought, “I could muster the resources, I would like to salvage what’s left of this town.” I fantasized about stopping the decline of those little towns, perhaps spurring the investments necessary to return them to their former glory…or to improve on their best days from years gone by. I was an impoverished college student at the time, though, and I did not have any confidence in raising money to embark on my dream. So, I just kept on dreaming. Every time I passed through a withering little town or village, I wished I had the resources to turn my fantasy into a reality.

For years after I left Texas and then returned, I allowed the dream to materialize again whenever I passed through a decaying little town. In some cases, the town’s commercial areas just needed a coat of paint and some TLC. One such town was Whitesboro, Texas, about 80 or 90 miles north of Dallas. The spark that re-kindled my dream during a drive through Whitesboro was a “for sale” sign in front of an old, abandoned Christian Church. I thought the church building was beautiful. Though badly in need of repair, it had enormous potential, I thought. My belief in its potential, though, was not enough to generate sufficient interest to pursue it seriously. I asked a friend, who was in no more of a financial position than I to invest in rehabilitating an old church; he was mildly supportive of the idea, but wondered about the use to which the restored building might be put. My vision was flush with color, but blurry; I was sure that, if we restored it, a perfect use would be found. It has been at least eleven years since I fell in love with the idea of resurrecting that old church in Whitesboro. I’m sure I wrote about my dream at the time. A few months later, driving through another small town (Whitewright, Texas), I let that town’s potential capture me. The same thing has happened many times since in many other places. But, if my resources were insufficient at the time to take action to reach my dreams, today the resources essentially are non-existent. Such is life.

Thinking about my old fantasies reminds me that I had other, related, dreams. For a few years, I considered the possibility of returning to school to pursue an education in “urban” planning. However, my interest would more closely aligned with “semi-rural” planning. But I remember feeling torn abut that concept; I equated life in rural communities with social conservatism and undeveloped intellectual curiosity, which would have made me uncomfortable. Still today, I do not know with any degree of certainty what I might do if I had my life to live over again. Nothing seems to hold enough interest for me to keep me focused for more than a little while. Perhaps I should have steamrolled my way through another idea I once had: in week-long increments, pursue 52 weeks of wildly divergent career paths and then document my judgments about each of them. Maybe I would have scored my interest in them, enabling me to pick the one path about which I was truly passionate. Maybe not. No, not likely. I know myself too well.

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The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.

~ Lyndon B. Johnson ~

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A chipper-shredder the size of Jupiter is grinding its way through the universe, leaving a trail of metallic dust and perpetual grief in its wake. When the gigantic machine nears Earth, it will pulverize the planet’s fragile atmosphere with its enormous platinum teeth. Later, it will use a volcanic vent like a straw to suck the magma from Earth’s core. Molten rock will splash onto Earth’s moon, causing massive oceans of silver lava to scrub and polish the lunar surface, revealing a shiny reflective orb consumed by an image of raw hatred and blind rage. Those who remain will watch in terrified awe as the calamity turns into an unfamiliar landscape marred with craters—cauldrons filled with bubbling sulfuric acid. Just a snapshot of the transfiguration wrought by time.

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Morbid thoughts do not belong in the kitchen, nor at the shore. Seaside tales of horror tend to ruin picnics, especially when the rising tide has permanently blocked the only escape to dry land.

The crepe myrtles near the street did not get trimmed as I intended in February, thanks to my mind being on other things. Despite that oversight, the largest of the street-side trees/bushes display beautiful, bright red—almost cherry-red—flowers. Had the plants been trimmed, the volume and density of flowers would have been much greater, no doubt; but they are just fine, anyway. The damage to the forest around us, from the March tornado, will be with us for a long, long time. Eventually, though, the hundreds of fallen trees and broken branches will decay and join thousands upon thousands of pounds of leaf litter, becoming nutrient-rich soil to feed the forest flora. We have to give nature time to heal self-inflicted wounds.

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The tools of serenity can include a magnifying glass, microscope, digital camera, net, pooter, chloroform jar, and a mounting board with pins. Those would be tools of the serene lepidopterologist; a person whose intense studies of butterflies brings about an overwhelming sense of tranquility. A serene herpetologist, a person who studies turtles with the same ultimate outcome, might need similar tools as well as some specialty tools. A serene dendrologist, one in whom serenity accompanies the pursuit of knowledge about wood science, might require a microtome to cut very thin slices of wood for microscopic examination.  But the single tool of serenity that is absolutely required in all of these endeavors and every other—no option—is intense, unwavering focus. That singular focus must be powerful enough to prevent the bombardment of unwanted and irrelevant information from sabotaging the peace those practices bring. Information about wildfires, terrorism, political assassinations, airplane crashes, child abuse, dependency on dangerous drugs, domestic violence, relationship failures, train crashes, fatal diseases, and a million other emotional or intellectual intrusions cannot be permitted to infect one’s thoughts or otherwise divert one’s exclusive focus. Even thoughts actively meant to eliminate those intrusions cannot be allowed, nor can serenity be the objective—serenity is the byproduct, not the target. Yet serenity may indeed be the purpose of meditation, for example. Focus. Intense focus. Pure concentration on…something…is the key. But, perhaps, not always. Maybe the routes to serenity are multi-fold. Serenity may be an amorphous idea that takes its shape from its context. In that case, everything I have claimed could be wrong…or incompletely right. My original point was that laser-like focus on a matter or subject of intense personal interest and pleasure may lead to serenity. Studying butterflies or turtles or woody plants, for example. Serenity, though, is unique to the individual. Those few who have achieved serenity, however brief, probably would confirm that fact.

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Relax. That’s worth a try.

Just as walking through the lobby of a swank hotel with a dagger clinched between one’s  jaws is not necessarily threatening to the hotel’s patrons, revealing one’s harmless curiosity about another person’s private thoughts or behaviors can appear anything but innocuous. Innocent interest may be mistaken for unhealthy, unhinged, menacing psychopathy. Flamboyant behavior might incorrectly be read as a signal that the person exhibiting it is about to launch into a murderous frenzy. Most of us realize flamboyant behavior can be upsetting to observers; but we might not be capable of properly distinguishing the occasionally vague line between curiosity and prurience. That being the case, people tend to rein in their curiosity, for fear of being mislabeled and/or misunderstood. That is a shame, because knowing innocent but intimate details of how and what a person thinks can create a powerfully comfortable familiarity. Suspicion about whether questions suggest sinister motives hinders honesty. We do not allow ourselves to ask questions that are too personal and we avoid answering such questions posed to us. We hide ourselves and hide from others. Revealing too much of ourselves, we think, is dangerous; knowing too much about others is equally perilous. Perhaps the only safe way to satisfy one’s curiosity about others is to place them under hypnosis before questioning them about their most intimate thoughts and emotions. But that does not sound especially safe, does it?

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I had planned to join men from church for coffee and breakfast this morning, but I am not quite in the mood for conversation. I have missed many, many Thursday morning gatherings, thanks in large part to doctor visits, chemo treatments, and/or reactions to treatments. Today is one of the few Thursdays I could go, but my mood today calls for solitude this morning. We plan to go to a wine dinner this evening and I hope and expect to go to church on Sunday to listen to our church pianist discuss his personal history. Beyond that, I think the next week will be quiet. My next chemo treatment is scheduled for next Thursday; if my experience is like the last one, I’ll be extremely tired, achy, and dealing with annoying but tolerable pain for several days thereafter. Chemo makes me feel worn out for days and days, though for some reason I feel quite good for a few intermittent days between fatigue and gloom. Still, I have it pretty easy compared to many people who must suffer through far more excruciating experiences than I. I try to keep reminding myself of that fact so I can avoid indulging in undeserved self-pity.

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A shroud of fog envelopes the forest around our house this morning. I am glad the sun is hidden by the fog and clouds. Gloomy days like this one, so far, can feel far more comforting than mornings emblazoned with bright sunshine. Those kinds of days, which attempt to demand cheerfulness and sparkling energy, sometimes are hard to take. Dull grey days that echo my mood are friendlier and more understanding and accommodating.

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Depression is rage spread thin.

~ George Santayana ~

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We’ve lately been watching a series (Wire in the Blood) on Acorn TV that stars Hermione Norris. A British police action/drama series, we came across it while I was looking for Scandinavian crime dramas (I’ve been missing them…). I would not call it a favorite, but it has kept my attention. Seeing the star’s first name, Hermione, triggered a vague memory from my late teenage years or early adult years (a wide span, but that’s as close as I can get to precision), in which one of my brothers brought a chicken named Hermione to the house. My memory tells me Hermione was temporarily held in a metal garbage can one day and my brother, the chicken master, taunted another brother by telling him Hermione was an aggressive, dangerous chicken. My memories rarely are entirely reliable, though.

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Three hours into it, I will now wade through the rest of the day.

StoryCorps, one of the many programs I listen to on NPR, almost invariably moves me emotionally. Simple stories that emphasize the importance and value of human connections tend to make me focus on important matters that are easy to overlook in the chaos of daily life. I listened this morning to a couple of StoryCorps programs. One involved a former inmate, now a death doula, who spoke of his purpose for taking on the role. Another one involved sisters Mai Lo Lee and Beth Lo, who grew up in a large Hmong family on a ginseng farm in Wisconsin after their family escaped the horrors of the war in Viet Nam. Short snippets in which scenes from the past are revealed to have thought-provoking meaning can keep my mind occupied for days on end, trying to understand how brief stories can impact me so thoroughly.

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Roughly seven months have passed since I learned that my lung cancer had returned after five years of “clear” CT scans and blood tests. I think it was less than a month earlier that I had my chemo port removed from the left side of my chest. A few weeks later, I had a new report installed in the right side of my chest to replace the one that had recently been extracted. I hoped at the time my recovery would be like the first time; fast and seemingly permanent. But the first time my circumstances were suitable for surgery and radiation, along with chemotherapy. The second time, neither surgery nor radiation would be useful. And chemotherapy—originally planned to last about as long as the first time—in this most recent situation would take more time and would not yield the immediate hoped=for good news. Seven months in, I do not have a long-term prognosis…nor a formal short-term prognosis (though short term, at least, is probably pretty good). So many people have it so much worse than I; I have no business feeling pessimistic or depressed when far too many people cannot get any treatment because financial or other constraints make it impossible. I should attempt to emulate people who confront such situations with energy, enthusiasm, and positivity. Not only would I feel better, I would feel more confident in myself and in the long-term outcome of the effort to vanquish the disease. Perhaps it’s the lengthy wait between full-throated treatments (three weeks) that gets me down. Time is subject to manipulation, if approached from the right perspective; I will approach it from that perspective. I have choices. I will make the right ones.

+++

My introduction to the unreliability and impermanence of friendship took place from my last two years of high school through the college years. That was the introduction; the lesson was etched eternally into my psyche in the years that followed. Slowly—or maybe abruptly—five guys who constituted my circle of friends disappeared from that sphere. Two of them had been close friends since elementary school. There was no sudden rupture in the friendships. One or more of us—or all of us—simply changed. I remember being surprised and disappointed, as the five of us began to go our own ways, that the bond of friendship was not close to as strong as I had believed it to be. But at the time, I doubt I was consciously aware of the depths of my disappointment with my misunderstanding of the very concept of friendship. That came a little later, when I found myself hesitant to open up to potential new friendships. What I had assumed would be lifelong connections could simply disappear. Investing emotionally in friendships would not lead to strong bonds; it would have been more like throwing money into a slot machine that never paid out. Except money has no emotional value, whereas friendships might. When, several years later, I contacted my old friends, the reception was cool…standoffish….suspicious. The relationships had not survived time and distance. I suppose I might not have been the only one surprised at the lack of interest and familiarity. After all, my old friends were not the only ones who simply allowed our long-term friendships to turn to stale vapor. By the time one reaches middle age and beyond, most friendships that might last have already been established. The likelihood that emotional investments beyond those years will be stable or grow diminishes; so exposing oneself to the increasing likelihood of disappointment becomes a risk that may not be worth taking.

+++

Dreams punctuate long periods of unconsciousness, but they leave only shreds of meaningless stories in their wake. Everything has meaning, though, right? So the stories are mysterious, not meaningless. If one could unravel their mysteries, a person might understand their meanings. Some dreams seem to consist of two-dimensional stories told through the placement of multiple layers of thin, translucent films placed on top of one another. A layer five levels deep may seem familiar, but is insufficient by itself to clearly express meaning. Frustration builds as layer two disappears and layer three melts into the strata beneath it.

Wisdom shatters in the cold reality of political turmoil. Politics goes beyond simply excusing dishonesty and dishonor. That parasitic profession encourages, embraces, and rewards depravity. Fueled by fear and by the lust for money and power (that is, greed), the mechanics of political control employs a scorched earth policy designed to murder decency by withholding oxygen and hope. Political opponents are more than philosophical foes. With razor-sharp rumors and lies, they slash at their adversaries’ arteries, attempting—at a minimum—to severely injure their  antagonists; hoping to inflict excruciatingly painful and deadly wounds. To the victor belong the spoils. More than just patronage, the spoils today refers to freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Wisdom is an obsolete concept, an obstacle to be overcome with a repetitive chant: The ends justify the means…the ends justify the means…the ends justify the means… Is it innocent naiveté or ignorant gullibility to believe in the value and dignity of wisdom—that archaic concept that once was an honorable objective?

+++

Facing your own mortality forces you to re-evaluate your priorities.

~ Paul Allen ~

+++

Trump and his minions got it right when they decided tapping into the pent-up rage and frustration of blue-collar voters would unleash a cult-like worship that could be manipulated to his benefit. The selection of Vance as his running mate provides evidence that the “working class” remains a key—perhaps the key—constituency in Trump’s way of thinking. And he’s no doubt right. The selection of a running mate for Kamala Harris can do for the Democrats what Trump and Vance have done/are doing for Republicans. Someone who would be seen by those same frustrated blue-collar voters as an ally and “one of us,” could make the difference in the November election. Who might that be, though? I wish I knew. Absent the need for mass popularity, my personal potential candidate might be Pete Buttigieg, Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear, or Gretchen Whitmer.  If I had greater faith in the American electorate, I would focus on either a two-female ticket or a female and gay male ticket. We desperately need change, strong leadership, and a powerful message that offers evidence that no one at any level of the socio-economic scale is either taken for granted or whose needs and desires are safe to ignore.

+++

I should have updated my will and my healthcare power of attorney long before now. With each visit to the oncologist—especially each one in which there’s no news about desirable progress (or its lack)—the importance of doing something about those documents becomes more pressing. Before this week is out, I will make an appointment to see an attorney about these matters. Maybe going on the record with this self-imposed deadline will give me the push I need to do something about it, instead of just talking about it.

+++

During the course of my life, some people who have long been important to me and to whom I think I once was important seem to have faded away. That reality, of course, is not unique to me. It happens to almost everyone at one time or another as the circumstances of multiple intertwined lives change. Thinking about what might have caused those relationships to have cooled or disappeared, it seems evident that decisions—either conscious and deliberate or circumstantial by default—must have been made that led to the situation. Regardless of how and why the relationships vanished, their absence leaves an emptiness that is not easy, or possible, to fill. Hmm. Just thoughts bouncing around in an otherwise empty head.

+++

I am thinking about YOU as I prepare to publish this post. All you need as evidence of that fact is to look at the words I just wrote.

This is one of those stubborn early mornings—the sort of introduction to daylight hours that promises a full day of argumentative thoughts. Every opinion…every idea, every emotion… will slam into fierce opposition. And those opposing positions will encounter equally steadfast enemies of stability. Except to those few people who might pay especially close attention—and notice the blank look of bewilderment on my face—the internal strife beating me senseless will be almost imperceptible. Promising hope versus resigned despair. Joy versus sorrow. Acceptance versus rejection. Belief versus skepticism. Fat and happy versus starved for affection. I seem to cultivate ennui and enthusiasm. Tattered philosophies in support of both suicide and perpetual life reside in the same place in my brain—at the same time. The opacity of confusion makes crystal clear the impurities obscuring my vision. And I am so bloody tired I could scream. But there is nothing unusual about this morning. It’s just the transformation of abnormal to normal; weird to routine. Perhaps this state of mind is a side-effect of cancer. Or maybe cancer is a side-effect of this state of mind. In my mind’s eye, I see a high-gloss, dark grey dinner plate covered with specks of dust. The duality of a dull shine speaks to me, but in a language I can no longer understand.

+++

Not even a drop of creativity spills from the tips of my fingers. It’s as if the spigot valve has been closed tightly, then welded permanently shut. Adding insult to injury, the spigot and all its parts and pieces were made of lead cast into a simple mold. Memory will do that, if you let it.

Every aspect of living is immeasurably complex. Somewhere online I came across an assertion that there are approximately 18 decillion colors (that figure is represented by an 18 followed by 33 zeros) available for our eyes to distinguish between. Glancing at the menu showing on the left side of my computer, I see dozens of small graphic icons, each representing an item from the menu. And I consider that every letter of every word in that menu and every graphic image comprises dozens, if not hundreds (or more) pixels. When my eyes sweep down to my desktop, they are greeted by an impossibly large number of intricate patterns of the teak wood grain. The clutter on top of the desk hides at least two-thirds of the slab of teak and the extraordinary intricacy of that hidden wood. Patterns caused by slight variations in the teak surface make visible a texture that is, at once, smooth as glass and rough as a mountain range. The distance between the nearly-invisible peaks and valleys of the desktop suggest to me that mountaintops and the plains below them illustrate a similar geography—but the relationships between zenith and nadir are radically different. Pieces of paper, each decorated with letters and numbers produced by ink, litter my desk. Every miniscule droplet of ink that left those images on the paper, is composed of countless molecules. Threads of wood fiber, probably much thinner than  a human hair, are bound together to form those sheets of paper. Speaking of hair, when I glance at the front of my shirt, I see several strands of grey; they may represent the first few hairs to abandon my head in response to my recent chemotherapy session. How many more strands of hair remain attached to my scalp, I wonder? Could the answer to that question have any practical value? How, by the way, is practical value measured? Certainly, there must be a way to equate and/or differentiate two items by measuring their practical value…right?  Infinitesimally small is not always a characteristic of complexity. An unfertilized chicken egg is a single cell, billions of times larger than the tiniest single-cell creature. The smallest single-cell organism is, depending on which source one chooses to believe, the Mycoplasma gallicepticum or the Mycoplasma genitalium or one of various other itsy-bitsy creatures. Complexity runs rampant throughout the smallest “things” to the largest. If I were to take time to view, for just ten seconds each, and catalog a description of every square millimeter of space in my study, I suspect I would be tied up until well after the thousandth anniversary of my presumed death. I say “presumed death” because we cannot know precisely what death is. That reality is a little hard to fathom.

+++

Aphrodite, considered the most beautiful of the gods, was married to Hephaestus, the god of metalwork and fire. She was unfaithful to her husband, though; his brother was her lover. I have been interested in Greek mythology for a long while, but I’ve always shied away from delving into it because I am afraid I could never fully understand all the familial relationships. Perhaps a graphic Ancestry.com family tree might help me capture and appreciate those relationships.

+++

I want to sit on the deck, drinking an espresso. And so I shall. I probably won’t go to sleep out there, but it’s a possibility. I still am tired, despite a night of more or less solid sleep. In an ideal world, I could call a bakery and have delivered to my home a couple of klobasneks (with jalapeños). I’ve always called them kolaches, but only recently re-learned that kolaches are sweet pastries; my favorites are savory klobasneks. I would like a big apple fritter delivered to me, as well. I write about apple fritters too often; perhaps I should instead write about and worship peach fritters.  And off I go; no pastries, but tasty dark espresso in an attempt to ward off napping so early on a Sunday.

Two hours have passed since I woke. I am newly tired and bursting with hunger. Whether sleep or food proves more appealing remains to be seen. My most recent chemo treatment lived/lives up to the unpleasant reputations long-enjoyed by chemotherapy. Oncologists, I have decided, are paid to poison patients—compensated to take their patients to the brink of surrendering to lethal doses of drugs whose side-effects warnings always include, among other frightening impacts, death…or wishing for it. The world outside my window looks clear and pleasant; too bad I do not feel in the least inclined to venture out into it. At this very moment, I would prefer pain-free unconsciousness.

+++

Connections to the outside world tend to wither with the passage of time and the insulation of distance. Without regular freshening, supple relationships with other people degrade into thin and brittle links, subject to shattering under minimal pressures—as light as the sound and weight of whispers. One’s comfort with casual communications atrophies and is replaced by a preference for listening to one’s own thoughts. And one starts to prefer imagining the thoughts of others; without the increasing awkwardness of hearing them and sensing the expectations for a response. Time and distance cultivate social isolation. Thoughts that would seldom manifest in the mind of a socially-engaged person can take control of the mind of an apprentice recluse. Madness risen from the depths of a dungeon of one’s own creation asserts itself and insists on testing its own potential as a lethal threat to serenity.  Who is to say this is unnatural? Perhaps most of humanity simply has trained itself to hide its most dangerous attributes…with the rest waiting to demonstrate their demonic nature at the most terrifying moments. Hiding inside a steel and stone vault may be the only reliable protection. Fear and rage combined, though, may be worse than ineffective resistance.

+++

I was just six weeks old when I crawled up onto the kitchen counter and into the sudsy hot water of the sink. No one was home with me at the time; everyone had gone frogging down by the ponds. When Aunt Samantha returned to the house with a gunny-sack full of frogs, she heard me gurgling and cooing in the kitchen. When she saw me, she bellowed, “What the hell are you doing in the kitchen sink, Brakeman Q. Jones, III?!”

In response, I said, “Do you really expect a six-week-old baby to answer your idiotic question, Auntie? What does it look like I’m doing? I’m scrubbing the mud off my behind. Someone really ought to clean my crib every month or two. By the way, isn’t someone supposed to looking after me? To make sure I don’t DROWN?!”

Samantha had never liked me, not even when she was shown sonogram images when I had spent only four months in the womb. Samantha slugged her sister (my mother), Inebria, in the stomach to express her distaste for bringing me into the world. Lorca, my grandmother on my father’s side, witnessed Samantha’s attempt to kill me and she reacted by beating Samantha senseless. Samantha has never liked Granny Lorca, either, since then.

I’m getting sidetracked. I wanted to explain how it was that, at six weeks of age, I was able to make my way to the kitchen sink and engage my aunt in conversation. I wish I knew. Unlike the rest of my semi-siblings (they all had different parents), I was precocious. I had learned to speak three languages (English, Mandarin, and Pashto) by the time I reached my two month anniversary. By four months, I had mastered quantum mechanics and trigonometry. I graduated, with honors, from Harvard University’s School of Yugoslavian Welding and Celestial Art before my first birthday. I fathered the first of sixteen children before I was two, completing the process by age four. I’ll have to tell you sometime about the period I spent with the concubines. If I hadn’t been there myself, I doubt I would have believed the story. But I was there and I have high-resolution video of me performing the surgery to replace my own clavicle to prove it. Yes, I’ve lived in challenging times, moments in history in which I had to eat my own obstacles just to survive. I can tell you are more than a little skeptical of my tale. I won’t waste any more of my time, then, on flooding you with truth. It takes too much energy to warrant throwing it all away on deniers.

+++

The news is caustic. Don’t get any on your clothes.

Living at the end of a cul-de-sac in a mixed hardwood and pine forest satisfies my craving for solitude. But when that craving has been fully met for an extended period, I sometimes long for human interaction. That yearning for engagement takes two distinct forms: 1) a desire to anonymously and casually observe strangers go about their lives; and 2) an eagerness to experience the luxury of being in the company of friends or family or acquaintances whose presence can help block the discomfort that comes with exposure to the collective flaws of humanity.

What I’ll call observational experience can take place almost anywhere; a place in the presence of strangers where I can watch people. I remember standing in the middle of various bridges over the Chicago River, watching people scurry about. While I watched, I concocted stories about many of those anonymous strangers. I knew where they lived, their housekeeping habits, the kinds of people in their social networks, and the extent to which living or working in the city either satisfied their dreams or stood as an obstacle to achieving them. Their lives, although completely different from mine, were absolutely familiar to me. Knowing them, the way I did, I was safe with them and from them.

Engaged experience is my term for the kind of intimacy among people who are close; a completely anonymous stranger would not fit in that group of people. That level of closeness almost always involves emotional connections, perhaps tempered with something like intellectual parity. Intellectual parity, alone, cannot create the kind of bond to which I refer. Engaged experiences tend to be the most fulfilling (though both are appealing and satisfying), but they can change from comfortable relationships to difficult and unpleasant relationships in the blink of an eye. That potential for change (and the fact that dissolving connections gone awry with people in that sphere can be so difficult) tends to cause people, especially introverts, to slow the development of such relationships.

But, back to living in the woods. I am used to the privacy and the quiet. I like the aloneness living here provides. Yet it is the periodic visit by forest inhabitants that unexpectedly thrill me. Yesterday afternoon, I glanced out a front window to see a large deer saunter down the street directly in front of my house. It is not at all uncommon to see such sights; nonetheless, I am almost giddy with excitement when they occur. If what I saw, instead, was a human figure walking by, I would be at once curious and a little alarmed. The deer’s motives, from my perspective, are pure and unthreatening. Even though I know about as much about the man as I do about the deer, I distrust him. Whereas the deer has ample innocent reason to stroll by my house, I assume the man’s motives are not in my best interests. Fortunately, it is much more likely for me to see a deer walk by than for me to see a man pass by my house. Which is largely responsible for my happiness with my home’s location. If I had 2000 acres of land, surrounded by an impenetrable electrical fence, I might feel even more secure and comfortable in my solitude.

+++

I wrote a lengthy paragraph about my longing to create a third place. My connection was lost, though, and there is no record of what I wrote except in my mind. I am too tired/lazy to try to reconstruct it.  That’s upsetting; I was getting all excited about my ideas for a third place.

1. The planned half-hour visit at the oncology center this afternoon is being extended to 2 hours +/-. More fluids and magnesium and something to minimize the joint and muscle pain. Chemo apparently impacts patients in different ways, so every visit seems to involve adjustments to treatment. We had hoped for a quick visit, followed by some lunch…lunch will be later than planned. That is not a problem, though, as I have not been hungry for quite some time. But I need to eat, especially protein. A small NY strip might do the trick. Or something else…something light and not too filling. Deep boredom accompanies me to these sessions. One day, this will be finished. With good fortune, it will be complete, successful, and…history. When, though?

What should occupy one’s mind at any given moment? The answer, regardless of what it is, consists of a judgment. What “should” happen now? What “should” happen next? Depending on my mood, my response might begin by defining “should.”

must; ought (used to indicate duty, propriety, or expediency)
used to express an expectation
used to express a correction

Next would come my soliloquy on all the expectations we heap upon ourselves. There would be no purpose for launching into a speech, yet the urge to orate—when it comes—is unstoppable. And on and on and on. One thing after another and before the next. Over and over and over again until a quarter past the end of Time. That’s as close to purpose as we will ever get. We will forget it, though, before a complete memory forms and suddenly turns to warm mist. Old, inaccessible, recollections strewn with embarrassment take physical form when their use as memories is no longer viable. The burial vaults and wrought-iron fences of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans began taking physical form in in 1833, paralleling the death of a number of New Orleanians. Clever survivors of family violence and farm accidents and attempted murders on Bourbon Street took to having elaborate stone carving made to mark the graves of their prominent predecessors. More than a little black magic prompted the creation of those headstones and private stone grottos. Rumor had it that an eternal resting place untouched by black magic would become a cauldron of unspeakable agony for the resident, hence the proliferation of stone grave markers. At least that’s the story I’ve been telling to children I’ve wanted to terrify.

+++

Another trip to the oncologist’s office today, this time to get routine blood work done and talk to the doctor and/or her nurse. I’ll request a new prescription for painkillers, inasmuch as there’s just one tablet left. Ideally, the aches and pains will disappear by later this morning; still, I’ll get the tablets just in case I need them for the next chemo session, two weeks hence. If this series of chemo rounds is like the last one, though, I’ll be back to see the oncologist at least once or twice a week.

+++

Three significant shots last night of powerful Crown Royal Peach Whiskey, coupled with two gummies, led me to sleep long enough to feel at least moderately rested this morning. I hadn’t had anything alcoholic for a week or thereabouts, so my intoxicating intake was enough to put me right to sleep, though I woke a few times during the night. Still, though, I feel close to becoming a member of the human species again this morning.

+++

I began this morning by focusing on the top of my head, first, then moving down slowly to the back of my head, my shoulders, and my chest and arms. My focus was to drain the stresses from every part of my body. I got part way there. I think I need instruction. Or a coach. Or an enabler. Or something. I can be distracted by a swirl of abstract black & white shapes I see through my shut eyes. I remain convinced the way to achieve complete relaxation is to be sedated by a skilled anesthetist for four days running. It could be three, could be seven; whatever is the “correct” number of days to remain in a comatose state. The combination of meditation and medication could be troublesome, though, so I’ll do whichever is safest. Except I sometimes need to take some risks. Maybe I do not need to; I just want to. I wonder if I am alone in getting the more-than-occasional urge to take risks? What is it about risks that rattle one’s brain? It is the fact that risk and romance both stimulate the same neural pathways (actually, I just made that up…may be or may not be true).

+++

Progressive anarchy may be the fairest and most efficient form of governance. Or, maybe, progressive monarchy. Or benevolent matriarchy.

The aches and pains and upset stomach are lingering far too long. But they could last even longer. I read answers to this question posed on an American Cancer Society website, “How long does it take for Taxol side effects to go away?”

“Many side effects go away fairly quickly, but some might take months or even years to go away completely. These are called late effects. Sometimes the side effects can last a lifetime, such as when chemo causes long-term damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys, or reproductive organs.”

I hope Taxol has not caused and is not causing long-term damage to my heart, lungs, kidneys, etc. And I hope the side effects I am experiencing will disappear soon. Already, though, they have lasted longer than the three or four days M.D. Anderson Cancer Center says is typical of their duration. My chemo treatment was last Thursday; I am now in the day five aftermath. The pain has diminished considerably, but there is room for more comfort in and around my joints, muscles, and other component parts. If each chemotherapy session mimics this one, I will take a strong disliking to every one of them. I should not complain, though; better now than I felt a couple of days ago.

+++

Mi novia drove my car to the auto repair shop this morning, where she left it to be coddled and nurtured and otherwise treated with tenderness and compassion (because, in her view, I think, I am too weak and fatigued…unfit to drive or even ride as a passenger). The morning reacted to the trip with growling and grimacing, filling the sky with menacing thunder and threatening lightning. Light grey clouds filter most of the sun’s light, as if hiding celestial dangers behind mysterious clumps of poisonous smoke. Those angry clouds appear dull and rounded, but they are as sharp as scalpels and as lethal as grenades. A particularly loud clap of thunder can spray blood-soaked blades and devastating shrapnel into the far reaches of the edge of the universe, a place where safety failed to find a hiding place. One’s imagination can rip comfort to shreds, leaving it frayed and torn and nearly disemboweled. A demonic morning transforms into an era of bleakness and hopeless regret. Where does all this gloom originate? The solution is laughter, of course; howling, screeching, shrieking laughter.

+++

Enough of this!

A quick look at the websites of the New York Times, NPR, Associated Press, etc., etc. has left me thoroughly unimpressed with this morning’s news. And Facebook disappoints me, as usual. So does CNN. And damn near everything else delivered by way of the internet. I cannot imagine that any “entertainment” on television or in newspapers would be interesting, either. Even the trees outside my window and the milky-white sky are dull and unattractive. Weeds in the “rock garden” are troublesome, too. Everything in my field of vision has all the appeal of a grainy, out-of-focus photograph of a hideous, dusty moonscape.

+++

A pain killer that had been prescribed for me last December, paired with a gummy, got me through the night in reasonable comfort. But they had worn off before 6 this morning. Though I am still waiting for the pain killer I took an hour and a half ago to start working, this morning’s aches pale—so far—in comparison to yesterday’s. My preference, of course, is to feel no pain at all, in part because whining is terribly unbecoming of me, both physically and mentally. Picture, if you will, the whimpering—very nearly weeping—of an old man as he suffers through the unpleasantness of drug-induced arthritis. The pain may not approach a level I could legitimately label agony, but I am behaving as if it does. The morning would be much more appealing to me if my pain would suddenly disappear. Poking fun at myself might help minimize the discomfort brought about by Taxol. If that’s what it takes, I will mock myself mercilessly. Seriously, the pain is nowhere near as unpleasant as it was yesterday, but I’ll complain about it just as fiercely as if it were.

+++

The cost of a first-class Forever postage stamp has just increased from 68¢ to 73¢. Even with that 5¢ increase, a U.S. first-class stamp is the least expensive among those available from more than 25 other countries. Japan, Brazil, Serbia, and Russia (as of June 2023) were the only countries’ first-class stamps that cost less than U.S. stamps. I am amazed by the fact that an average #10 envelope and a single sheet of paper contents can be physically delivered from Miami, Florida to Seattle, Washington for such a low price. The current pricing structure of the U.S. Postal Service is hemorrhaging red ink, though, which makes the price of a stamp seem ridiculously low and/or the service mind-numbingly inefficient.

+++

That is all.

A short while ago, mi novia persuaded me to cancel this morning’s scheduled appointment for my car’s maintenance, insisting I should not be driving in my condition. Though my joint pain and body aches are not as bad as they were at their worst, yesterday, they remain severe enough that they could make me a danger behind the wheel. I took two tablets of Motrin at 2:00 a.m., after taking two tablets seven hours earlier. The maximum recommended 24 hour dosage is six tablets; I want something considerably stronger. If I promise to use morphine or fentanyl responsibly, perhaps my doctor would prescribe an unlimited supply of one or the other? Wishful thinking, I am afraid. I will call her in a little while, though, to seek pain relief of some sort. And I will try to reschedule my car’s maintenance soon.

+++

Incoherent thoughts get in the way of contemplation. Efforts to think clearly are almost pointless in the face of moderate confusion—and impossible when confronted with full-on distraction. Headaches and body aches and worries and weakness scramble the brain’s attempts to given focused consideration to anything. Ideas transform into smoke and emptiness. Curiosity sinks like a stone, disappearing into an opaque, bottomless ocean. Even fire grows cold and rigid, its once red and orange flames turning muddy grey and obsidian black. Meaning degrades into useless vapor, leaving dull patches of triviality in place of everything it should have touched.

+++

I am unable to assemble even fragmented thoughts. So I will stop trying.

The side effects of the latest round of chemo treatments (including taxol) took two days to hit me. And when they hit, they hit quite hard. By mid-afternoon on Saturday, my knees started to ache; a couple of hours later, the pain had amplified several-fold. By 7 p.m., I felt the same level of pain in my elbows, wrists, shoulders, back, etc. During the course of the night, it intensified; every joint, muscle, and tendon felt a level of arthritis-like pain I have never before felt. The pain persists now, around 11:00 a.m., but it is not quite as intense as it was earlier—thanks, probably, to acetaminophen. According to a Mayo Clinic website, chemo-caused “pain in the joints or muscles, especially in the arms or legs…usually does not need medical attention.” Regardless, I will call the oncology clinic tomorrow to inquire. If there’s something I can take to lessen the level of pain, I would like to have it available. Ach! I anticipated possible hair-loss or thinning within the first three weeks of treatment, but I did not expect this. I should have remembered, though, that when my late wife underwent chemo for her breast cancer in 2003, the effects of taxol on her were pretty brutal.

+++

Between brief periods of sleep last night, I checked my phone for news. The all-consuming national news disturbed me, of course, as I considered what happens to a nation’s psyche after a traumatic event like an attempted assassination. If only human decency would again capture the national spirit, the future might hold some promise.

+++

Enough for now. I want to rest and minimize the damn pain.

Starting over. The thought of beginning a new chapter in one’s life prompts feelings of both excitement and fear. The idea simultaneously is inviting and daunting. But starting over is more than beginning a new chapter. Starting over erases old obstacles—and old accomplishments. Starting over rebuilds a life on an old foundation; maybe even building a new foundation on which to construct a new life. Discarding old chapter outlines to serve as guides. Weaving new fabric with fresh thread. All sorts of challenging metaphors apply. A young person with only a few years invested in building his life probably finds starting over challenging but doable. Middle age, arguably the time of life in which starting over is more commonly attempted, requires a person to abandon more of her investment in time and energy in order to try to start over. When one who has spent even more time—nearly a lifetime—writing the chapters of his life (or allowing the chapters to be written), starting over becomes considerably more difficult; circumstances may make it impossible, or almost so. Abundant and momentous challenges to beginning anew may dull whatever appeal starting over has: where to live; how to make new friends; who will join in the renewal; new doctors and other healthcare concerns; and on and on. And perhaps the most significant challenge of all: are the reasons to start over sufficient to merit the stresses and strains and loss of what is to be replaced? The reasons for starting over probably are as numerous as the people who try; certainly as numerous as the people who succeed. The core issue, of course, is whether starting over is primarily intended to change the life that heretofore has been lived or the person who has lived it? I think about this quite a lot. I never reach any steadfast conclusions. Sometimes, though, I think starting over becomes impossible at some point in a person’s life. When that point is reached, though, I think differs from person to person. And learning when that point has been reached requires a person to try, and fail, to start over. I have not stopped pondering these ideas; more to come, I suspect.

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Last night was quite enjoyable. Good food, good conversation, and lots of laughs. Casual. Comfortable. The kind of evening that is both stimulating and relaxing.

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My skepticism about the validity of  information from the internet grows with every passing day. Even sources I once I thought I could rely on for unbiased accuracy increasingly disappoint me with obvious slant and more and more frequent misinformation. Far right and far left so-called facts spread like wildfire, fueled by what seem to me intentional lies distributed by people and organizations who do not trust the truth to support their positions…so they manufacture facts to suit them. Fact-checking is becoming more and more difficult because reliable information sources are becoming harder and hard to find. I often feel it necessary to preface anything I pass along from the internet with something to the effect that “if it is true, and I would not stake my life that it is…” or “I cannot vouch for its accuracy (or its inaccuracy), but …” But I have learned that my cautions are not necessarily heard. All I can do, I think, is to express philosophies about how people should behave and how the world should work and not pass judgments on anyone or anything unless I have ALL the facts, which I typically do not. Yet what I think I can do I often fail to do. So I am as guilty as the next person for failing to direct my own thoughts to what is “right.” And  we’re all destined to suffer the same fate; humanity is doomed. We cannot be surprised, can we? We’ve had plenty of time to evolve into decent creatures but we’ve squandered our time on self-serving wars and other such power-grabs. I could go on about that for a week and a half, but I won’t. Not just now, anyway.

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I will drink another little cup of espresso. It may calm my nerves and settle my brain. It may not. Only time will tell.

I hoped for a shorter-than-advertised session with the oncologist yesterday. Hope is wasted energy. We arrived at 8:45 a.m. We left the oncology center at 5:20 p.m. I know little more now than I did when I arrived. Apparently, though, the carboplatin desensitization process worked; after it was completed, I was given a full dose of carboplatin and, as far as I can tell, I did not die from an allergic reaction.  And I was given a full dose of taxol. And a large infusion of magnesium. And an infusion of Benadryl that made me sleepy (but did no put me to sleep), and several little doses of various other stuff. It was a LONG day. I return Monday for more blood work and then again later this month for another long (but, I hope, not quite so long) treatment. And, I hope, additional information/updates. They will have me get another PET scan about 3 months after the most recent one. Little by little, I will learn what my body is doing to/for me.  In the meantime, no month-long road trips, I suppose.

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An online essay from the July 8 edition of the New York Times, entitled “The American Elevator Explains Why Housing Costs Have Skyrocketed,” offers a fascinating perspective on underlying causes of increasing home prices. Among them, according to the author, are special interests whose financial goals often conflict with one another but whose greed run in parallel. Developers want to maximize their profits by minimizing costs; union contractors want maximize their income by maximizing pay rates. Both focus, then, on what is best for themselves, sometimes (frequently?) at the expense of their end-use customers: the people who will occupy the structures they plan and build. I would not deny reasonable income to either developers or to contractors. The problem, in my mind, is who defines reasonable. I tend to support unions far more than I do developers, but I think unions can go much too far in their battles to maximize their members’ financial positions.  And the politicians and others who bend to the demands of unions are just as guilty. In my opinion, though, developers probably use their political and financial prowess to secure political support at the expense of both contractors and home-buyers. The article, by the way, extrapolates from the elevator experience to the home-building experience.  The elevator experience is what initially attracted my interest. The author, Stephen Smith, first explained the problems with elevators in this country and then illustrated the difference in price for American versus European elevators:

Elevators in North America have become over-engineered, bespoke, handcrafted and expensive pieces of equipment that are unaffordable in all the places where they are most needed. Special interests here have run wild with an outdated, inefficient, overregulated system. Accessibility rules miss the forest for the trees. Our broken immigration system cannot supply the labor that the construction industry desperately needs. Regulators distrust global best practices and our construction rules are so heavily oriented toward single-family housing that we’ve forgotten the basics of how a city should work

…

A basic four-stop elevator costs about $158,000 in New York City, compared with about $36,000 in Switzerland. A six-stop model will set you back more than three times as much in Pennsylvania as in Belgium.

What does it matter than I have read the article and feel that I better understand some of the cost-drivers of housing and elevator construction? Will I take any actions toward addressing the inadequacies and unfairness of the system? Short of calling for a series of massively advertised, highly focused, non-political national discussions aimed toward ways of achieving maximum fairness, best practices, at the lowest costs in EVERY sector of the economy, what other windmills might I tilt at? Children and idealistic old men and women, alone, view windmills as worthy of our attention. Is there anything else we can do and be equally as ineffective?

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Off to the bank in a while to complete the transfer of officer signatories for the church accounts. And, later, dinner with mi novia‘s daughter and, I hope, with mi novia‘s daughter’s father (who is AKA known as mi novia‘s former husband). I think I’ve said before I am glad to see that people who go through a divorce can remain friends; he is an intelligent guy, very interesting and pleasant to be around. Today will be a pressure-reduction day for me, I hope, easing the stress of yesterday’s unexpectedly long day of dealing with a downside of cancer. My advice: don’t get cancer—but if you do, go with the flow and float. Fight it, but try not to get caught in the rapids and drown in the process.

Today will be a long one at the oncology center. My patient portal indicates I will be there for five-and-a-half hours; my hope is that it will not take that long. But the Taxol (brand name for Paclitaxel) infusion alone, if I am to believe what I’ve read on the internet, will take around three hours. Add to that the time required for the other IV drugs and fluids, the blood draw, the conversation with the oncologist, and flushing the IV line, and I would not be surprised at five-and-a-half hours. During what I had hoped would be the only course of chemotherapy, which started in January, I often returned at least once or twice a week (if not more frequently) for blood draws and subsequent drug adjustments. It’s not like I have other pressing business, of course, but I prefer absolute freedom. Most of us do, I suspect. I hope to hear an updated prognosis, but I imagine it may be too early for that; only after the drugs have been given time to work and measures of their effectiveness taken can I legitimately expect anything more concrete than “we’ll have to wait and see.” Not that my oncologist would say that to me.  And so, Grasshopper, practice patience until that characteristic becomes your natural reaction to all thing that call for waiting.

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It’s jarring, the sense that the future is on hold until questions about its viability have been answered. But that truth is common—pervasive. We cannot know what will be until we know what is. Even then, we can only guess. And we do not seem to be able to agree of what has been. History, which cannot be changed, often is. Perception interprets reality; history is contextual and individual-specific. Two people who shared the same experience may recall completely different historical records of “what happened.”

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Enough thought for now.

Apathy once was of great concern to almost everyone. But nobody cares anymore. That’s just one more deeply-fatigued manipulation of a time-worn play on words. Uniqueness in creativity becomes harder to achieve with every new-born baby. Babies are not simply cute, innocent little beings—potential competitors, every one of them. Eventually—and it could happen today or ten years from now—all fresh, new creative thoughts will have been expressed. Every single creative idea will have been previously expressed, making it impossible to unearth more—they all will have become tarnished by use. Any new expressions of creativity claimed as one’s own will be taken as incontrovertible evidence of plagiarism. The penalties for plagiarism will rise sharply when creativity disappears. Short prison sentences will be replaced by something more meaningful—death by firing squad or guillotine…or public hangings. By that time, of course, the penalties for breaking traffic laws—speeding, rolling stop at a stop sign, unsafe lane changes, etc.—will involve public flogging. At some point beyond that moment, all crimes, no matter how petty, will be addressed with the same punishment: submersal, with no breathing apparatus, in a shark cage. Jaywalking or parking in a no-parking zone or any other minor infraction will be penalized by drowning. The immediacy of sentencing and the repeal of all appeal processes will result in an early surge of executions, followed by a period of terror-induced peace.

Cavender Baker had been proud to be a police officer. He served on the force with honor for twenty-eight years, beginning when he was only twenty years old. But changes in the statutes that resulted in treating once-lawful behaviors as capital crimes turned him against the law. His retirement at forty-eight came as no surprise, inasmuch as  he said too openly and too often, “Anyone serving as a police officer today should either quit or be treated as a threat to freedom and democracy and be disposed of accordingly.”

Four days after his retirement, Baker was bicycling toward his home after visiting Chamber’s Liquors when stopped by a police cruiser. The driver and his partner claimed Baker had unsafely crossed into the lane for motor vehicle traffic. Baker’s very vocal disagreement led to his forced placement inside a shark cage, now carried in all cruisers.

The police department docks were jammed with police cars and SUVs. Empty shark cages, wet from their recent submersion in the cold waters of Friendly Bay, were stacked on one side of the submersion point. Cages filled with screaming occupants littered the other side. Big metal dumpsters next to the wet shark cages were almost overflowing with big black plastic sacks. A crane swiveled over the full cages and carefully snagged one of them with a hook, when swung it over the water and lowered it into the bay. Five minutes later, the cage was hoisted out of the water, emptied of its criminals, and deposited on the stack of empty shark cages.

Cavender Baker knew a thing or two about escaping from a shark cage and disposing of morally corrupt police officers. Despite the fact that creativity was nearing extinction, it had not completely played out.

Already I’ve lost interest in what happens to Baker. Ach.

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Discard all you are not and go ever deeper. Just as a man digging a well discards what is not water, until he reaches the water-bearing strata, so must you discard what is not your own, till nothing is left which you can disown. You will find that what is left is nothing which the mind can hook on to. You are not even a human being. You just are—a point of awareness, co-extensive with time and space and beyond both, the ultimate cause, itself uncaused. If you ask me ‘Who are you?,’ my answer would be: ‘Nothing in particular. Yet, I am.’

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj ~

I am surprised at myself for, first, reading all the way through the above quote and, second, thinking I understand the author’s points and—moreover—agreeing with them. Nisargadatta Maharaj was, according to Wikipedia, an Indian guru of nondualism. Nondualism, I recently learned, is a viewpoint that questions the boundaries conventionally imposed between self and other, mind and body, observer and observed, and other dualities that help shape our perceptions of reality. In other words, nondualism seems to be one form of ‘woo-woo;’ but an unusual form I can understand and, possibly, embrace. According to someone, writing under the name Gobinda Sardar, Nisargadatta Maharaj ‘taught that there is no individual self , no world , no God , no creation , no liberation , nothing but the absolute reality which he called ‘I am,” I sometimes question the existence of the world, creation, liberation, etc. I regularly assert my disbelief in God. I wonder, though, about the self and liberation and other matters that may tend to mislead our perceptions of what and where and when we are. Most of the time, though, I keep such issues buried under mounds and mounds of irrelevant thoughts.

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Tomorrow, finally, I go back to the oncologist. I’ve been waiting more than a week to learn next steps. I learned yesterday, by viewing a document I earlier had missed in my patient portal, that my new/replacement chemo drugs will be carboplatin (after being desensitized to it) and taxol. I think I’ll still be on Keytruda, but I’m not sure. Taxol, I’ve read, causes most patients to lose their hair; it either goes away entirely or it thins a lot. I’ll ask the doc about whether I should expect to lose my hair. That does not bother me in the least. What bothers me this morning is the knowledge that this new chemo process is an experiment. There is no assurance it will work. That was true, of course, of the first set of chemotherapies, as well. We shall see.

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