Extraneous sounds. Barely audible shreds of irrelevant noise. Scraps of imaginary whispered debris—the only remaining evidence of the eerily silent echoes that once competed for limited space in the boundless emptiness of his mind. But was it really his mind? Did it belong to him, or was it just trickery, a reflection of a mirror image in that invisible territory at the intersection of sight and sound?

+++

I got a call from Arkansas Hospice yesterday, inquiring as to my interest in exploring hospice and palliative care.  Unless “they”  know something more than I do, I think it’s a bit early yet to delve too deeply into hospice care. But, what the hell, I might as well have a refresher on  the matter. On the other hand, I do not want to give the wrong impression…I have no interest, yet, in accelerating the timeframes involved in this fairly serious issue. Perhaps I should revisit the topic with them…maybe set an appointment for the first week in June 2075 to go over the introductory process in excruciating detail…

+++

Here I am, again, trying to decide what to write. Three hours into the day, I’ve decided not to worry about it. What a brilliant decision. I should make brilliant decisions more often.

+++

Yesterday’s breakfast—biscuits and gravy—was not what I would call an especially healthy breakfast. But it was satisfying…but could have added a bit more sausage to the mix. But…no. A healthy breakfast  is always a better choice. Except when it’s not. A deeply unhealthy breakfast can be delightful in the right circumstances.

We do not know what we are looking for; only that we are looking for something that will become apparent when we find it. But the explanation of the target of our search will be far too convoluted for us to know what we have found…only that we found something that is extremely important, but for reasons that are beyond us. And that’s the way it usually is with us; vitally important stuff that’s crucial for us to understand is absolutely, perpetually, eternally inaccessible. The answers to our questions become more urgent with each passing second…at the same moment the questions become harder to understand…because the languages in which they are written and spoken are completely unrelated. Which leads us to a corner of the universe which has never before been explored; one of those scary spots.

+++

The differences between healthy curiosity and meddlesome intrusion may not be the stark differences you imagine, at all. Instead, point of view might be the driving factor. Simple perspectives often contribute to how a person treats an expression of inquiry. The resident next door may consider his questions of you to be simple and straightforward…intended to be taken as a compliment of  his admiration of your handling of matters at hand. You, on the other hand, might label his apparent curiosity as blatant interference; the behavior of an over-eager nosy neighbor whose brashness you find offensive. What good might it do you if you were to made to understand the true—and perfectly innocuous—motive behind that offensive curiosity? On the other hand, how might your assessment be influenced by the knowledge that sinister motives prompted the neighbor’s interest? In either case, your judgment is colored by paranoia…its influence or lack thereof. Even when paranoia is dismissed as having no responsibility for one’s assessment, the very fact that it was considered a potential factor highlights the fact that it is almost always worth considering. Now, does all of this make sense to you? If it does, do you find that disturbing? Would you rather use much simpler filters to examine the the relative importance of all aspects of your life? And if that facet of existence commands a significant amount of your time, can you hold out any realistic hope that any aspect of your life might eventually become “normal?”

+++

I hold out little hope I will ever have a firm grasp on physics…quantum physics, in particular, but conversations about any regular old physics leaves me confused and embarrassed at the depth of my ignorance. Yet I continue to periodically engage in feeble attempts to understand such matters. Anyone else with even the most basic, crudest, and stunningly unsophisticated appreciation of physics would be judged far more knowledgeable. No matter how hard I try, I cannot fully comprehend the differences between the odor of emotions and the taste of gravity. Similarly, I simply cannot discern any obvious differences between light lavender, and the way numbers—especially prime numbers—smell. The fundamental complexities of the universe are far too elegant to be understood within the confines of a single human brain. Only when multiple brains are working collectively at the same speed and in the same direction as the others in close proximity can people have even a remote hope to truly “know” things that are hidden before us. I would explain these complexities to you if your brain had sufficient powers of concentration to get beyond the fourth level of GIANT UNDERSTANDING. Only at that “crimson” level is it possible to successfully blend colors with different kinds of sheep’s wool, thereby creating casual sounds that mimic hard-rock piano with just a hint of smoked coconut flavor. This is all bullshit, by the way. And I know it, of course.

+++

More when the time is right.

My thoughts are far from profound this morning. They are merely mundane remnants of incomplete ideas—poorly-formed notions left withering in the absence of fuel to keep them alive and growing. Thinking back on what once almost seemed flashes of near-brilliance, reality becomes clear: more often than not, they were just reflections of the surface scum of a pond of stagnant water.

Trust and hope are built on evidence—not on empty promises and blind confidence. The most successful con-artists, though, create believability by openly challenging their own lies. Using masterful and brazen manipulation, the most skillful schemers offer absolute assurances comprising nothing but vapor. Their convincing delivery of guarantees that have no substance supporting them can lead even the most astute among us to fall victim to their tactics. Their contemptible strategies have become so commonplace that the concepts of trust and hope seem obsolete—notions in which only the thoroughly gullible still believe. Human decency and morality…such desirable, but quaint, philosophies.

At a time in history—now—when trust in human decency and hope for strength in secular morality are so crucial, it is hard to tell whether the display of those attributes is real or not. Caution against being misled has become so vital that it grows into fear and the inability to know what is real and what is artificial. Who or what can we believe? We are advised to “have faith,” but urged to “be careful.” “Trust but verify” is the hallmark of this environment in which nothing can be accepted at face value. A line from Leonard Cohen’s  Hallelujah highlights the enigma: “Your faith was strong, but you needed proof.”

+++

The time between 3AM and 5AM simply vanished this morning. I spent almost all of that time at my desk, but I have not written enough to have filled all of those minutes. Where did those two hours go? How can such a long stretch of seconds and minutes just disappear…without a trace and without a memory?  The same thing can happen with longer periods; the months between starting first grade and my first Christmas break from school, for example. Or my junior year in high school. The entire span of time I spent in college. Adulthood. And old age is zipping by faster than the speed of light. Is it possible, I wonder, for a person to experience reality at different speeds in different dimensions? That might explain the sensation of feeling young and old at the same time. Like learning to talk and learning to drive simultaneously. Or being born and starting my first full-time job just hours apart. It may be just my imagination, but I seem to have a vague memory of planting the first redwood tree in Muir Woods about 1377 years ago, give or take a month or so.

+++

I occasionally find myself awake in the wee hours. Someone from my distant past…or more recent…may enter my mind for just a flash or for several minutes. Almost every time that happens, I wonder whether the person on my my mind at that moment is thinking of me simultaneously. I know the unlikelihood of that coincidence is astronomically high, of course, but I wonder whether it could occur, anyway. When that thought goes through my mind, I am SOOO tempted to try to reach that person (assuming they’re still living). I realize, of course, it would be quite disturbing to the person on the receiving end of my phone call. Disturbing to the point of instilling fear that I might be a stalker or worse. I put myself in their shoes; it could more than a little upsetting, I must admit. Downright scary, actually. But it’s completely innocuous; just a fleeting thought. It could be flattering, actually. I wonder: am I alone in having such a fleeting thought?

+++

Dawn is approaching. I can tell by the very dim blue-grey spots of sky showing through the deep dark forest background.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

John Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasions is one of his prose works from which is drawn this famous quote/poem, No Man Is an Island. The devotional, according to Wikipedia, “covers death, rebirth, and the early modern concept of sickness as a visit from God, reflecting internal sinfulness.” Donne wrote Emergent Occasions while he recovered from a serious sickness. Donne, then, considered his illness constituted a holy message concerning his own sins.

Washed away by the sea. That simple phrase, alone, is poetic. It summons a wide array of emotions, from loneliness to emptiness to grief to regret…to a swirling combination of them all that will not release us from its grip.  And it recognizes the extent to which something of overwhelming significance can be expunged, its remnants disappearing beneath the waves as if it never mattered.

My mother, who was an English teacher, used Donne’s words and his insights in her classes and in her conversations with me. I do not recall our conversations addressing any religious overtones in Donne’s work. In fact, I recall very little about those conversations… only that they took place and they prompted me to think about the intersections between language and emotion.  I doubt I ever questioned her about whether either one could thrive without the other. But I remember thinking that language might languish without emotion—and emotion would remain grey and hidden without language.

+++

That year, 2020, was the point at which the spokes rusted through. The axles broke. The tires’ knotted steel treads began showing through where the rubber had worn away. Humankind would have been wise to have floored the accelerator and turned the steering wheel—hard—just as we approached the most dangerous curve above the highest cliff. The freedom we would have felt, just before smashing into the rocks where they meet the sea, could have left an eternal imprint on our souls. If we had souls.

+++

The view from my windows is odd this morning. Like I am looking at trees through dirty panes of glass, smudged and unwashed for decades.

A short set of radiology treatments for me is in the planning stages. As soon as the radiologist completes the necessary calculations, etc., they will begin a 2-week (two consecutive 5-day sessions) series of treatments in an effort to eliminate or minimize pain associated with the spots on my spine. Yesterday, the oncologist’s nurse prescribed some very low-dose fentanyl patches that are applied to the skin and left for 3 days, then replaced with another patch for another 3 days. Laws (and/or treatment protocols) limit the strength of the initial prescriptions, but if necessary the strength can be increased over time. I hope the patches, which can be used to supplement the painkiller pills (or vice versa) prove effective. Time will tell.

+++

The post I began writing early this morning remains unfinished. It began as an effort to use comedic fiction to deaden the unpleasantness swirling around in my head. Instead, it evolved into a verbal Rorschach test that took a wide array of disconcerting directions. Two hours or more into it, I set it aside in the hope my head would clear, allowing a more appealing voice to leave its linguistic emotional mark on the screen. When I returned to it later this morning, my attempts to replace the dark smudges I had abandoned earlier grew into an even more dense and ominous layer. So, I gave up, surrendering to the reality that beating one’s head against the sharp edge of a guillotine blade is not a shortcut to serenity. And here I am. So, what can I say? Well, mi novia is at the pharmacy right now, picking up my pain-reduction patches. Earlier today, she took my car to have its windshield—damaged by a rock on the first of our unsuccessful trips to M.D. Anderson—replaced. And we’re expecting someone to come by later this afternoon to install our dishwasher, which could not be installed when delivered by Lowe’s because its original installation was considerably more involved than most “slide in” dishwasher installations. The installation is one of the dozens of things we need to have done by someone else because I am no longer sufficiently strong and agile to do it myself. The sense of worth that comes with the feeling that one can figure it out and get it done by oneself becomes vapor. I have never been the world’s most skilled handyman, but I’ve been able to wing it fairly well for most of my life. My confidence in my perseverance and in my physical capabilities has gone by the wayside. That’s the way of the world. There may have been a time when I mocked old men who were bitter about being unable to tie their own shoes without help. Now I think I am one.

+++

I saw some posts on Facebook this morning…or yesterday…about fresh, sweet Georgia peaches. Now, when I think about those posts, the glands in my neck urge me to drive to “peach country” to pick some peaches off the tree. But I might fall off the ladder while trying. Maybe I’ll order them online.

“If we were honest with ourselves, we would admit our lives are fictions, narrative yarns we spin from experiences as we witness them, not necessarily as they are. We write the stories of our lives on the fly, stitching together thin fibers of personal interpretation into whole cloth.  We dress ourselves in clothing of our own making; some wear gossamer gowns, others wear costumes made of canvas.”

Changed by a few minor editorial decisions over the years, the preceding words reflected my thinking of nearly nine years ago. Looking back at those syllables and sentences, I realize my words may not have quite conveyed the essence of their intended meaning. Had my mood been slightly different when I wrote them, originally, I might have phrased the message in another way:

“We do not know ourselves, so we peek through a veil of ignorance, looking for clues that might help define us. We then mold our personalities around impressions of how others see us—or how we want to be seen—creating characters who bear little resemblance to the person behind the mask as we look into a mirror.”

A lot has changed over the last nine years, though. The fragility of life has been emphatically asserted, more than once.  That fragility, though, has been counterbalanced by the steadfast, unyielding, and irrevocable permanence of death. Life is not assured, but death is guaranteed to follow life. Pain tends to interrupt the clarity of philosophies, except when emotions are anesthetized, which is a rarity.

+++

My visit with the radiologist yesterday confirmed for me that my cancer has metastasized to two vertebral structures, in addition to several lymph nodes. The good news…that some existing spots improved with the first new chemo…was counterbalanced by the bad news of the expanding reach of the cancer. I knew from the start that a recurrence of lung cancer usually means the disease is incurably terminal, but I’ve held out hope that I might be among those “one in a million” to prove that certainty is unreliable. That hope must be an emotional reaction to such news. Today, I return to the oncologist for a visit to follow-up on last week’s chemo session. I will inquire about alternative pain meds; the ones I’ve started taking increasingly over the last few weeks are not as effective as I’d like and they can cause some side-effects that can be worse in some ways than the pain they are meant to combat. For the last few weeks, the usual fatigue has been increasingly accompanied by bouts of pain.  In recent days, the pain in my gut/chest has become more frequent, to the point of being almost constant. It is not excruciating, but seems to be making incremental progress in that direction, as if it is approaching pain as a desirable objective. Sleeping through it would be nice, but it awakens me sometimes, which is more than a little annoying. Last night, I woke in the wee hours, drenched in sweat. When I returned to bed after the obligatory pee, the cold, wet sheets made me feel like I was crawling into an icy tent, its Gore-Tex floor sitting atop a snow drift. I’ve never actually crawled into an icy Gore-Tex tent floor sitting atop a snow drift, but I think I know how it would feel, now.

+++

It’s hard to maintain a good mood when in pain. And when I’m in a bad mood, I do not want to be around myself. Pain makes it worse. Even moderate pain. More severe pain degrades my mood even more, making living with myself yet more difficult. If I were someone else, I would not tolerate my presence in a particularly bad mood…but when it’s me, I have little choice. It’s best to isolate myself until my mood passes…or I do. That’s intended to be a little dark humor, by the way.

+++

Mi novia says caring for me is not a burden; that she knows I would do the same for her. And I would. But I also know it’s stressful and nerve-wracking and tiring. My appreciation of what she is dealing with is immense, but not enough to make it any more appealing for her. And the likely progression of the disease is apt to make it even more difficult. That is one of the reasons I’ve always said I would like to build a stash of medications. Ach, never mind. It’s too late now to gather enough to accomplish the desired objective. Unless, of course, anyone reading this diatribe would anonymously provide me with 15 grams of sodium pentobarbital in injectable liquid solution and access to a physician willing to do the deed. More dark humor.

+++

Enough typing for this morning. I have to get ready to go out and about.

+++

As a child, I learned that sounds arise from vibrations of an object that disturb the media surrounding the object. These disturbances create variations in pressure that propagate as waves that our brains interpret as sounds upon reaching our ears.  Well, that’s not exactly what I learned, but it’s close…yet not sufficiently accurate to be classified as a fact. Our ears implies that non-humans reading these words do not hear sounds. If we examine the assertion more closely, the statement suggests some non-humans are capable of reading the words on this screen. Beyond those fantasies, the claim that our brains interpret media disturbances as sounds is sheer folly. However, that claim happens to be entirely accurate to the extent that listeners to Fox News insist that the noises they process from their radio and television and computer speakers carry information. In truth, those noises are cleverly disguised right-wing propaganda designed to mold brains that are as malleable as lime-flavored gelatine in a hot bowl.

My intent, when I started writing this morning, was to explore the sounds of thunder. Which, as we know, are noises that arise when lightning bolts rapidly (almost instantly) heat the surrounding air to almost inconceivably high temperatures. This heating, followed by rapid cooling, causes the surrounding air to expand and then contract, producing a sound wave we hear as thunder. Again, though, the question arose in my mind: what is the identity of this we who hears the thunder?  Obviously, this simplistic explanation of the sound of thunder fails to account for the millions of realities the scientists decide to omit from their explanations.  Who, by the way, are these scientists? Are they the same group of people who practice the special version of voodoo we call meteorology? In the name of all that’s holy, I hereby assert that meteorologists are simply practitioners of the occult pseudo-science called weather-forecasting. Believe me, I know whereof I write. I have actually engaged in dialogues with meteorologists—conversations that raise the hairs on the back of my neck and in the curves of my knees.

+++

I would continue to document my exploratory pseudo-journalistic discoveries, but I am scheduled to appear before another “ologist,” this morning. A radiologist…a man who, ostensibly, may be able to aim tiny beams of invisible light at microscopic cancer cells, causing those demonic cells to explode in bursts of magic and supernatural transmogrification unequaled in modern times.

+++

By the way, I want to thank Meg and Patty and Hope for their words of encouragement for yesterday’s post. Their actions just show how one’s world can change by employing the right medium for one’s begging endeavors.

I do not look forward to the home-nurse visit today. I’d rather go back to bed. In fact, I do not know whether she will come today, but I suspect she will. I knew better than to get up so damn early, but the other option would have been to stay in bed with my eyes open and my gut behaving badly…pain, but not bad enough to warrant taking hydrocodone. At some point, the pain either will slip away for awhile or will merit giving in to those damn little pills. And I should take my “morning” pills, too. And the other stuff. I am not delighted by needing pills to make the day moderately tolerable. I’ll sleep later; that’s certain…I was up just after 2. Again. Three+ hours ago. And still futzing around with the blog.

+++

I may return to this blog later today. Or post this one, then write another one. The following paragraph will appear to have been written by a man in the throes of drinking a few pints of unicorn blood. I do not consume unicorn blood before 6:00 AM; so, no worries. I’ll feed the cat. Maybe that will turn the day into a winner.

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Tomorrow—July 1, 2025—is the first day of the downward spiral toward the conclusion of the final six months of a year that ushered in the demise of the first quarter of a dying century. Put in other ways, that same moment marks both the commencement of a once-in-a-lifetime calendar experience—a celebration of an eternal new beginning and the mourning of the disappearance of a moment in time that can never again be captured. Yet never has there been a moment in time that could be captured. Time can be lost. It can escape. Moments can slip away, but they cannot return…undamaged. Time cannot be retrieved. It cannot be preserved. Time cannot be bottled or canned or pickled or otherwise maintained for eternity. Time is an immeasurable commodity. Clocks and calendars can can measure what was, but not what is—because, once measured, it is gone. Future moments of time can be estimated, but not measured. In fact, time is simply a prediction—or a memory—an imprecise estimate of beliefs, presented as if they were immutable facts. The same is true of wealth, thirst, hunger…and so much more. All things…places…times…temperatures…circumstances…represent comparisons. Today versus tomorrow. Here versus there. Then versus now. Hot versus cold. Hunger versus satiation.  Contexts. Spectra. Continua. But comparisons and contrasts grow weaker and weaker with each expression. Every iteration becomes more difficult to defend. Eventually, our efforts to identify relationships between time, temperature, and taste become sordid and meaningless.

+++

If you did not read this, I will understand. It’s not worth reading.

Finally, after months of wishing and hoping my treadmill would disappear, it happened. We presented it to the guy who maintains our HVAC system…and whose wife visits us regularly to do the housework we are either incapable of doing or unwilling to do. I justify my avoidance of sweeping, mopping, dusting, and otherwise making the house look and feel livable by looking at the scrawny, elderly man who peers at me from the mirror. I also defend the choice of hiring a housekeeper by arguing that we may have more reliable financial resources than she and her husband have. But when I see him park what appears to be his expensive, luxurious, and fully-equipped extended-cab pickup in front of my house, I conclude that my meager fixed-income probably represents considerably less  than his potentially limitless financial resources. And, then, I envision their flush bank accounts, overflowing with massive stacks of hundred-dollar bills, and their safe deposit boxes crammed with giant bars of gold bullion and countless ten-inch layers of of ten-carat diamond rings. I imagine them driving into the Rolls-Royce dealership at the beginning of each month, trading their pre-owned Rolls-Royce Phantom for another one…one newer and cleaner and oozing prestige. But…maybe not the top of the line Rolls-Royce Droptail; after all, they’re working people, too, like the rest of us. Hmmm.  I think I’ve seen each of the two of them sporting Vacheron Constantin and Audemars Piguet watches, snatched from hand-crafted watch-cabinets made of pure-heart sycamore and ebony wood.

+++

It’s hard to say whether the chemo was responsible for the way I felt yesterday. Whatever it was and—to a slightly lesser extent—remains seems to have put the brakes on me again yesterday. My naps were shorter than “normal,” but they encroached on my day considerably more than would be ideal. When I woke sometime before 5 this morning,  I knew immediately I would miss today’s Music on Barcelona event at church this morning. And I knew I would miss the meeting of the Council of Past Presidents’ Meeting this afternoon. Though I doubt I could contribute anything of substance to the meeting, I feel like I again dropped the ball on one of my only truly visible church functions of the year. Wednesday, I will ask my oncologist to try to determine the reason the latest chemo treatment apparently is giving me grief. Or, if it’s not the chemo, what is responsible for delivering pain and fatigue and other unpleasantries so early in this phase of the seemingly endless regimen?

+++

Peppercorn. That is an odd name to affix to a noise that ostensibly describes little black balls. I would say the same thing about a noise used to describe an aperture belonging to a lagomorph with two pairs of incisors…that is, a rabbit. Purity is a different word, entirely. Who would use that noise as a meaning for tainted coal? No one, in my opinion. Humor is just one simple step away from insanity. But simplicity is not quite as simple as we’d like it to be. Simplicity is complexity hidden in a different framework…a framework incapable of supporting the superstructure of a gigantic concrete and steel bridge.

This page has remained empty until just now, roughly five hours after I awoke—when I began my day with espresso, a banana, and the protein drink I usually mis-label as Essence, instead of calling it by its proper name, Ensure. I had intended to blog during those wee hours, but instead I skimmed depressing news, read posts I had written in another blog at around the time I was closing my business, and otherwise piddled unproductively. Phaedra suggested she was not yet ready for breakfast at such an early hour. But I insisted. After I scooped her up in my arms and deposited her in front of a full bowl of delicious cat food on the laundry room floor, she got the message. My interest in writing has waned in the last five hours, so I think I will take advantage of the situation by taking another stab at sleeping.

I watched the frequency of reader visits to this blog decline. The stories that rattled around in my head echoed against empty spaces. They were not really “stories,” either. They dissolved into ideas; then, fleeting thoughts. Finally, incomplete prophesies that no longer met the definition of predictions…not even constituting words any more. Just shattered syllables. Unintelligible noises…incoherent sounds, incapable of conveying meaning. Gibberish. Blather. Damaged decibels. Fractured silence. Broken contemplations. Lunacy in the form of quiescent, loud, peacefulness. Bellowing silence.

I cannot blame yesterday’s chemo treatment—because the pain began before the treatment started. And I seriously doubt I can legitimately attribute the pain to a previous treatment, the most recent of which took place many weeks ago. In fact, I wonder whether the tenderness, the stabbing torment, or the other manifestations of the aches and agony are related to my cancer or its treatment? Theories abound, of course. Doctors and nurses and other people who have experienced—or know others who have experienced—such pain posit a broad range of possibilities. But most of those ideas assume a relationship to cancer. None of them have drifted into the deeply unlikely, though…no one has yet proffered damage from dog bites or an allergy to water or a measles variant. Some ideas, though, seem (to me) plausible, but not sufficiently so in the eyes of medically trained observers to merit focused attention on matters that might demand expensive, insurance-reimbursed tests. And, of course, I have no idea what those tests might be. I’ve begun to think I’m willingly giving consideration to utterly absurd possibilities—bypassing perfectly realistic ideas that should be explored first.  While enduring my chemo yesterday, I overheard an old man telling another patient that he’s never had COVID, thanks to the wonders of ivermectin. Under her breath, one of the nurses in the treatment room said something to the effect that the drug “seems to work wonders on sick horses.”

+++

Clothing designed as penance-wear might conjure solutions that can solve my dilemma. Perhaps I should wear a hair shirt…clothing stitched from fabrics capable of imposing on me the appropriate punishment, suffering, sacrifice, and penance for whatever “sins” I may have committed. Something that can be translated into a penitential “reward” that forgives me for drifting into the realm of “sin.” It sounds quasi-religious, doesn’t it? Fortunately, I do not buy any of it. I refuse to be shuttled from hell-hole to demonic hell-hole. But do I have the ability to overcome the hellacious climatic conditions of eternity? I’m taking bets on it.

+++

The magic light switch that wirelessly controls the lamp in my study has stopped working. Should I take that as a sign? If so, what sign should I assume the switch is delivering? Do Not Enter? No Trespassing?  You Break It, You Buy It? Keep Off the Grass? No Smoking? ID Required for Entry?

+++

My mind is bouncing off the windows…hitting them so hard I’m afraid one or more of them may break at any moment.

Hoarding cash and precious metals is an act of impotent desperation. Neither symbol of worth fulfills the promise of safety. Neither delivers on assurances of survival. Neither possesses intrinsic value. Their significance comprises false hopes, cobbled together with shreds of self-deception—fired by unearned egotism. They represent counterfeit expectations of a future that is neither promised nor necessarily desirable. Even the richest among us eventually die; memories of them fade and disappear into wretched history. And some of the poorest live on, their words and actions overshadowing their poverty and the suffering they endure at the hands of unprincipled upper-class thieves and swindlers. And, then, there is the vast middle; who often feel shame for their longing for riches. But not enough embarrassment to erase their lust for pecuniary gain. In the end, what does it all matter? Very few of us care enough about the world to change it. We simply muddle through, watching from the sidelines as pernicious power-mongers desperately fight to accumulate empty promises made of their wishes and dreams and our futures.

+++

Today is another consecutive day when my mind scurries unsuccessfully to find something to think about. Something to which my brain is able to devote both observation and analyses. When was the last time I felt sufficiently intelligent to make any sense of experience? Have I ever felt I possessed adequate understanding to interpret the world around me? To attach any plausible meaning to humanity’s circular psychoses that just swirl around what appears to be a drain? Almost a year ago, during one of the many periods when I tend to question life’s meaning or value or purpose or…whatever…I turned to two philosophers whose ideas seem to be at odds with one another. But, in reality, the concepts are not mutually exclusive; they simply present views from different angles.

+++

My chemo begins anew today, with a reduced dose of only one drug and the elimination of another. My oncologist (and I and others) hope the chemo does not lead to another lengthy hospital stay. Two weeks in the hospital was approximately miserable. I had a PET scan yesterday morning, the narrative results of which were viewable online yesterday afternoon after the physical therapist left, following his weekly visit. The results seem to be a mixed bag; several comments seemed to offer a ray of sunshine (indicating a reduction in size of some cancerous spots), but others indicated new or worsening concerns. I will inquire of my doctor today. Later this afternoon, a home-visit nurse will come by to check my vitals and harangue me about my apparent inability to drink enough water. Ach. I should not complain, yet I do. It gives me a modicum of purpose.

+++

Mi novia went to Lowe’s while I was having my PET scan yesterday. She ordered a new oven, microwave, and dishwasher. I kick myself for waiting so long to do it. If we had done it when we bought the house about three years ago, I would have had more time to enjoy them. I tend to procrastinate on things that will improve our environment. At least we’re not doing it as a precursor to selling the house. But things change. They always do.

+++

I ate a burger and fries for lunch yesterday, loading myself up with protein in advance of my visit with the oncologist. That wasn’t the motive, but it seemed like it might have been. I don’t know the difference between motive and desire anymore. What, exactly, is the difference?

+++

TIme to leave. Ach.

There are two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything

is a miracle.

~ Albert Einstein ~

There are no mundane things outside of Buddhism,

and there is

no Buddhism outside of mundane things.

~ Yuan Wu ~

Acts of war committed by my country’s military, at the direction of the country’s political leaders, tend to interfere with my ability to sleep at night. That is not to say that acts of war in which my country plays no part do not disturb my slumber.  Direct involvement, though, causes feelings of trepidation, rage, dread, and disgust—among other unpleasant emotions—to well up inside me to a much greater extent. Acts of war initiated by egotists whose cult followers equate a “tough guy” persona with power and political value are especially troublesome and unpredictably dangerous. When one or more of those egotists have ready access to—and control over—thermonuclear weapons potentially capable of eradicating life on Earth, the stakes are enormously high. Even if total nuclear destruction is removed from the possible outcomes, war on any scale has the capacity to result in massive loss of life, immeasurable human physical and mental suffering, wrecked economies, enormous waste of resources, and much, much more. It is hard—or, perhaps, impossible—to understand the flawed logic that supports war.

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The throbbing pounding in my head is more than a simple headache. It reverberates through my body, causing the blood vessels just beneath the skin on my hands and arms to visibly quiver. I can feel the veins in my feet tremble in unison with the convulsive palpitations of my heart, too.  Oddly enough, I do not feel pain in my head. The temples on the sides of my head do not hurt; instead, they simply call my attention to them and they keep time with the beating of my heart. Maybe that precisely-timed vibration is what kept me awake for so much of the time I spent in bed last night. Is it anger that caused my body to express itself so distinctly? Fear? Or is it just a byproduct of emotional tension; nerves stretched taut so that even an involuntary sigh causes them to vibrate like a banjo string?

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It’s happening again. As I sit here, musing about what to type next, the weight of my fingers depresses a few keys on the keyboard. My head nods forward and my eyelids close. Halfway between consciousness and sleep, something causes my eyes to snap open and see dozens of lines of text…all the same letter…on the screen beneath what I just finished typing. Am I losing consciousness, I wonder, or is my body attempting to shut down in response to the confusion of a world gone mad? I’ve been out of bed for more than two hours; awake for more than four…probably closer to five.

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I thought I saw swirls of dark grey clouds attempting to blot out the sky, but that must have been my imagination. The sky is light blue…almost white…and empty. I feel like it is watching me; not with attention but with detached disinterest. A bullet could suddenly pierce my forehead and the indifferent, expressionless atmosphere would not let on that it had just witnessed a murder. Or something even more sinister.

This is one of those relatively rare mornings when I am at a loss for thought. Ideas and images drift through my mind; they are not driven by consciousness. That is, I do not create them; nor do I actively observe them. I barely notice them, as if they belong to strangers with whom I have no more than coincidental connections. Or no connections at all. Any connection I may have with them, though, is stronger than the brittle ties I might have with myself. If I were to look into a mirror, I would see no reflection; only a vast, uncharted emptiness. Nothing sinister—just a placeholder for something ill-defined and innocuous.

The passage of time coincides with the addition of significant amounts of information to humans’ already enormous collective knowledge base. The volume and speed of those additions arguably have grown exponentially over the course of many hundreds of years. Limits on the capacities of human brains to absorb such mountains of information must exist, though that assertion may not have been proven. Assuming that is true, though, it follows that memories and knowledge are naturally limited. Teachers (and/or society at large) must make decisions, then, on what to teach children as they progress through formal education systems. One way of making those decisions might be to assign priorities to the elements of the information base that are available for students to learn. At various points in the education process, high priority new information must replace older information or, at a minimum, reduce the priority of older information. Over time, information once deemed critical to the “educated” mind is no longer taught—replaced by facts/knowledge judged more relevant to the times. In a world undamaged by bias, bigotry, and prejudice, such a system might be acceptable. But in today’s world, the most powerful—regardless of the “honor” or honesty of their motives and beliefs—make decisions on the basis of the extent to which those decisions reinforce their stilted beliefs and attitudes. Hence, the knowledge base upon which we rely to inform our morality decays over time, replaced by lies, insinuations, and broken logic. An argument could be made that our species is less well-informed about the real world around us today than was the case a thousand years ago. Opinions morph into “facts” and reality degrades into fiction. Its all more complex than that, of course, but that argument may contain the native seeds of truth, wrestling against invasive versions of genetically modified ideas that grow quickly in a landscape fertilized for that purpose.

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Today is unique in that the day is the year’s longest and the night is the year’s shortest…depending on which source delivers the information. At least a few claim tomorrow is the day; most seem to agree that today is the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Regardless of how we refer to the day, today will usher in a dramatic rise in temperatures over much of the U.S., thanks to a large area of high pressure in the upper atmosphere traps heat. That causes temperatures and humidity beneath the “heat dome” to spike and remain high for a relatively extended period. We are under a heat advisory today, with temperatures peaking at around 88°F today and 90°F for the next two days. Beyond that, I haven’t bothered to look…we may melt into sticky asphalt roadways or get trapped by rivers of melted plastic.

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I watched a short documentary last night about Rob Ford, the now-deceased right-wing former mayor of Toronto. The film was entitled Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem. Ford was a very popular politician, even after finally admitting videos showing him smoking crack cocaine were real. The film was interesting and entertaining and certainly informative; at less than an hour long, it was just the right length to keep my attention for just long enough. But it was short enough to enable me to watch another film…too bd.

The other film I watched last night, Plane, was an adventure movie involving a jet that went down in a storm, carrying only 14 passengers, barely surviving a rough landing on an island overrun by criminals. I forced myself to watch to the end. That was all the punishment I could take. It was a junk film; garbage that I am embarrassed to have watched.

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The brilliant blue skies outside my window look innocuous; even pleasant and comforting. But the heat they will bring in the hours and days to come will reveal their sinister side. As long as the air conditioning in the house holds out, all will be well.

Guilt is the price of behavior for which atonement is impossible.

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Yesterday, a Facebook post sponsored by The Atlantic finally convinced me to subscribe to the magazine. I’ve wanted to subscribe for quite some time, thanks to frequently coming upon articles I have found extremely interesting, well-written, and thought-provoking. Nothing has stopped me from subscribing, except for the cost: $79 per year for an online subscription. But yesterday, I began to read an article that Facebook promised would reveal details about the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370…details I had not read before. By the time the article had me firmly in its clutches, it permitted me to go no further without subscribing. I could find a copy of the July 2019 issue (where the piece was published) in the library, I am sure, but I feel a need for unfettered access, 24/7. Though I dislike the tactic that was used to prompt me to subscribe, I have to admit it can work very well. I’ve talked about subscribing for far too long; now, it’s time for action.

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My chemotherapy will resume next week. Because the doctors think the combination of two new (to me) drugs during the most recent chemo treatment may have been responsible for my two-week stay in the hospital, only one of the two drugs will be administered. If they can schedule it, I will have a PET scan before next Wednesday’s session; its results could change the plan.  During these last few weeks without chemo, I have felt progressively better; especially in the last week or so. Perhaps a less aggressive approach with the upcoming treatments will enable me to hold on to that.  We shall see.

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[REMOVED PARAGRAPH FROM THIS SPACE.]

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The first few episodes of the Danish series on Netflix, Familier som vores (Families like Ours in English) have been quite interesting. Because it is based on the premise that Denmark’s government has ordered a permanent evacuation of its residents in response to rising sea levels, one might assume it is a climate disaster action film. Unless it changes dramatically in upcoming episodes, that premise is important but not the driving force behind it. Rather, it is about human emotions—and the ways external circumstances and questionable choices can  put relationships to almost impossible tests.  I look forward to watching the remaining episodes; they might change my perspective completely. Oh, one aspect of what I’ve seen so far that I really like: the evacuation is ordered over a period of months…not just due to climate change, but in reply to countries’ inability to cope, economically, with those inevitable changes.

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I do not remember nursery rhymes. Nor do they remember me.

There is a stark difference between being passionate about one’s principles and exhibiting behavior that suggests such passion. The former flows uncontrollably through one’s veins. The latter may conceal apathy or dishonesty or complex, self-serving motives. The former tends to engender trust among open-minded observers. The latter tends to create wariness and suspicion in skeptics—especially skeptics who have a history of being misled by slick fabulists. Between those two sets of witnesses, though, lies an almost boundless “middle;” people whose innate uncertainty makes them indecisive until something sways them one way or another. That something can be as random as a coin flip or as precise as an encounter with incontrovertible evidence. But evidence—even hard evidence—can be staged; it’s done all the time.

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My computer monitor, upon “waking,” displays a random Nature photograph from around the globe—frequently beautiful, always interesting. Each photo is identified by unobtrusive text explanations in the upper right corner of the screen. This morning, the monitor woke to display a beautiful photograph of a flock of pink long-legged birds standing, against  a backdrop of distant mountains, in a shallow expanse of water. It was labeled Flamingos in the Republic of Türkiye. The description immediately struck me as hilariously funny…as if the caption referenced the nationality of those birds. Would the creatures look appreciably different, I wondered, if they were instead identified by geographic political affiliation…such as Republican Flamingos in Southern Texas? What if the photo had been captioned Sunni Muslim Flamingos in Predominantly Shia Area of  Iraq? I may be the only human being on the planet who finds the photo caption funny. Unique? Crazy?

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I’ve been up for an hour, hearing peals of thunder and listening to rain drops pelt the window panes. Those sounds are like lullabies, coaxing me to sleep. I just woke, in my chair, to find my screen covered with the letter “d.” Like this: dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd…but a much, much longer string of letters.

Last night’s entertainment: The Room Next Door, a Spanish film (directed by Pedro Almodóvar, in his English-language film debut), starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, with a small supporting cast including John Turturro. In spite of a few questionable structural issues (and an errant European electric socket in a scene in a house supposedly near Woodstock, New York), I thought the film was well-done. Swinton plays a war correspondent journalist who has terminal cancer and Moore, a published author, plays Swinton’s close friend from their youth. The story is about how the two of them deal with Swinton’s decision to commit suicide, rather than let cancer run its course…and how they deal with Swinton’s request that Moore be in “the room next door” when it happens. The film was thought-provoking and, given my situation, quite relevant. Swinton’s character revealed emotional considerations about which I am just now beginning to be aware. I thought I had easily come to grips with what lies ahead; hmm, not entirely, I realize. It is the sort of film that is best watched when the viewer’s mood is on the somber side.

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Who is to blame for unrestrained tourism? Tourists, of course. But tourism promoters and cruise ship operators and many others profit from unbridled pleasure travel. They facilitate excessive numbers of tourist visits and otherwise  exacerbate the problems “locals” face when money-laden visitors invade…and then leave and take their wealth with them. The physical and emotional damage tourists spread in their wake seems to be growing, judging from the increasing numbers of reports of “locals” fighting to maintain the beauty and serenity of their homes. During my second trip to Dubrovnik, Croatia, I learned that local residents were active and vocal in their opposition to the increase in cruise ships disgorging waves of passengers into the city’s streets. Seven years ago, the mayor implemented measures to limit the number of daily cruise ship dockings to two and the number of their passengers allowed into the “old city” to five thousand. The reason: to curb over-tourism and preserve the city’s UNESCO World Heritage status. The degree to which that solution—and others tried in the intervening years—worked may be measured by over-tourism protests across Europe in the past several weeks.

Residents of Barcelona, in recent days, expressed their displeasure with excessive tourism by spraying tourists with water guns, setting off smoke bombs, and blocking hotel entrances, among other measures. Just in the last day or two, similar protests have taken place in Italy and Portugal and France. The Louvre has shut its doors (presumably a temporary measure) in response to a staff strike called in protest of overwhelming crowds. My own non-business visits to other countries’ tourism sites were limited, but I saw the massive crowds flood those sites when cruise ship passengers arrived en masse. Even the “small group” tours in which I have participated contributed to crowding, thanks to the sheer number of such tours.

On one hand, I strongly support travel and the ways in which it can open travelers’ eyes to other cultures. On the other, though, a massive influx of visitors can ruin the quality of life for local residents and otherwise change the character and the appeal of the culture to which tourists are exposed. The obvious solution is to…I do not know, of course. I wish I did. Freedom to do as we desire can place shackles on others; an elixir comprised of self-control and compassion might melt the chains.

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Finally, after going months and months and months without a professional haircut, I got one yesterday. Granted, during several of those months I had no hair to cut, but even when my hair began growing back it grew slowly and haphazardly. I self-trimmed it on occasion, but in hindsight I think I probably made it look worse, rather than better. Now, though, for at least a moment, my head of hair looks reasonably well-groomed…ignoring the inconsistencies of texture, color, and coverage. I drove myself to the barber shop, thereby launching into a foray into automotive freedom. If I had a convertible, I could have driven with the top down, the wind in my grey stubble, after the haircut.

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Time is relevant only when it can be experienced by objects within its sphere. “When” is a component of time. Wrapping one’s mind around time, whether relevant or not, tends to lead to uncertainty and a secret fear that time is just a replication of itself…like an endless array of mirrors reflecting on another in which there is no beginning and no end.

Valentina Tereshkova was about sixteen years my senior when she became the first female space traveler. I was roughly six months shy of my tenth birthday when she made history on June 16, 1963 with her 71-hour flight. She circled the Earth 48 times during her space flight on the Soviet Union’s Volstok 6 spacecraft. I wish this information had resided in my head as a memory; it did not. I learned about her and her feat from a snippet of Today in History, published online this morning by the Associated Press (AP). A Google search returned an impressive volume of background material about her. I wonder whether her accomplishment was widely publicized in the US at the time? I have no idea. Not that it matters a great deal to most of us, but she is alive today, having outlived two spouses. In Russian, her name is written (and presumably pronounced) as Валентина Терешкова; for the record. Why do these tidbits of information intrigue me? I have no idea. Perhaps it’s the fact that they are new…to me, anyway. Maybe it is because they spark my curiosity just enough to explore a little deeper. It could be that my brain yearns for something different—something other than staring out the window or rethinking old, worn dreams and fantasies. Or, maybe, it is simply coincidental; becoming aware of an empty space in my head at precisely the same moment I encounter a plug of questionable substance to fill that gap.

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Song lyrics stick with us for many different reasons. And they adhere to our psyches for different amounts of time. Part of the opening verse of a song written by Townes Van Zandt more than 50 years ago have stayed with me for what seems like an eternity. The song, Waitin’ Around to Die, muses about “the emptiness of external solutions to inner turmoil,” according to americansongwriter.com. That subject may explain my appreciation of the lyrics. Or it may be something else. Here is the first verse, the one that sticks with me:

Sometimes I don’t know where
This dirty road is taking me
Sometimes I can’t eve know the reason why
So I guess I keep a-gamblin’
Lots of booze and lots of ramblin’
It’s easier than just waitin’ around to die

Yesterday, while tinkering with playing music from Pandora through our television, I listened to a few other sets of song lyrics that I find engrossing. Among them, several by Greg Brown, one of my favorite folksingers-songwriters:

• • Dream Café
  • Spring Wind
  • Rexroth’s Daughter
  • Laughing River

Of course, I wandered through a bunch of other favorites, stopping finally after I listened to John Prine’s All the Best several times. Almost all of my favorite music is tinged with sadness and/or regret. My brain may be hard-wired to respond to words and music combined in precisely the right way to evoke powerful emotions.

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The morning is, again, grey and listless. The thin fog dulls the trees’ images as it drifts in and out of the branches. I can almost see the air outside, heavy with humidity. I expect visits by a home health nurse, probably today, and a physical therapist, probably Wednesday. I would like to tell them not to come see me. But it’s hard to convince the nurse to stay away because the patient is “not feeling up to it;” that only puts her motives in overdrive. And lying to a physical therapist by claiming to have “twisted a muscle” has the same impact on him. I’m just not in the mood to be “evaluated” and pressured to do more, move more, breathe deeper, and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. I know what I should do…and I will…but I get resentful when strangers enter my home and demand that I meet their expectations. This week, I may bare my teeth and growl gutturally as I greet them at the door. Ach! It’s raining again. I don’t mind, though, because I am inside, looking out. It would be a different kettle of fish if the situation were reversed.

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Time to reflect on the variations in weather. No reason, really. It’s just time.

Eyesight is remarkable. If you think deeply about it, you have no choice but to come to the conclusion that your eyesight is nothing short of magic. And if you consider the amazing variations of eyesight among other creatures—eagles and lizards and horses and so forth—the concept of eyesight become more than simple magic. It is the embodiment of an impossible-to-understand occult integration between the self and the external world. We can only imagine what it’s like to have eyes on the sides of our head. We have to wonder whether beasts with such optical configurations see in stereoscopic vision…which causes us (me, anyway) to wonder if that’s how I see the world. Do I see in stereoscopic vision? And if I had only one eye, would I see the world in two dimensions instead of three? I can answer that question, of course, because I have the ability to close one eye. Some animals are said to see only in shades of black, white, and grey; dolphins, seals, and bats, for example. That “fact,” though, assumes we “know” that cones have the same function in those animals as they have in humans.  I have to acknowledge, of course, that medical professionals and other scientists know quite a lot about vision. So eyesight is not exclusively a part the realm of magic and the occult. Yet it bridges the divide between them. Consider that we sleep with our eyes closed, yet we “see” in our dreams. There is so much we do not know and so much more we do not know we do not know.

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A few minutes after 5 yesterday afternoon, just moments after the NOAA weather radio screeched a thunderstorm warning, I think my heart stopped. A booming crack of thunder as loud as any I have ever heard or felt shook the house, then instantly echoed as if bouncing off every cloud in the sky. Simultaneously, all the lights in the house dimmed. They recovered for a second or two, then went dark. Through a series of text exchanges, we learned that a tree in front of mi novia‘s ex-husband’s house was struck by lightning at roughly the same time my heart stopped pumping. Despite multiple attempts to report the outage to Entergy, our electricity provider, its online system did not acknowledge the power failure. Finally, I was able to report it to a telephonic automaton; the tone of its voice when it assured me the problem would be explored and resolved, was unconvincing. And, then, we waited. Sometime in the deep of night while I slept, many hours later, the power returned. This morning feels like another “normal” morning. But I hear growling echoes of thunder, reminding me that the power of Nature, unharnessed, dominates the trappings of control with which humans attempt to manipulate our world. Rain is falling again this morning, Nature’s attempt to wash away memories of yesterday’s and last night’s show of force. Even Nature, though, cannot erase such an experience. Only Time can do that. But Time only hides such ordeals; experiences etched into the fabric of the mind remain forever accessible. A little overdramatic, perhaps…but my creative fibers feel a little arthritic this morning, so a little stretching may be in order.

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The pains, usually in the upper right quadrant of my torso, once were extremely brief and infrequent. But they have been lingering longer when they occur, which is becoming more often. And they tend to be more intense lately. Despite all the X-rays, CT scans, ultrasounds, etc., doctors have been unable to determine their cause. The guesses have included pleural effusion, abscess, and various other possibilities, all of which apparently have been ruled out. The discomfort they deliver is not intolerable; the pain is not excruciating. So there’s no real urgency to know the source, at least not to alleviate unbearable pain. But, still, I suspect knowing the root cause might be beneficial in other ways to the doctors treating me for whatever ails me. If the only way to find out, though, were to spend time in the hospital, I would say it’s not worth the time and effort. Medicine has not come as far as I would have hoped at this stage of human evolution. Drat.

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Are all cannibals strict carnivores? If the Sun had puppies, would they be hot dogs? Are moments in the Future properly called post-historic times? Oh, only if the moments are after we’ve stopped keeping written records.

Emptiness. The fuel that drives missiles and bullets. Dark, sinister emptiness. It propels knives through tender skin. Bones shatter in the presence of emptiness. Emptiness triggers explosions and ignites fuses that transform oil storage tanks into fiery cauldrons of liquid diamonds. Emptiness, as thick and fiercely hot as molten steel.  So monstrously hot that the sun is ice in comparison. Entire galaxies dissolve into steamy mists in its presence. Emptiness fills a dangerous void, converting space and time and mass and volume and distance into everything…and nothing that remains.

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I am too old to be the leader of the free world…whether in fact or merely in my own mind. That role belongs to someone old enough to have shed the vanity and arrogance of youth and young enough to maintain a firm grip on the wisdom of age and experience. Age, though, and its tendency to correlate with (or not) such characteristics is just one qualifying or disqualifying attribute. Intelligence is another—I’m not bright enough to qualify, either. Charisma has a role to play, too, but only when paired with trustworthiness, compassion, honesty, altruism, and an sense of moral obligation cast in stone. Given that candidates who possess the requisite criteria exist only in my imagination, the ongoing search for someone to fill the role is an exercise in futility.

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It has long been my belief that reading English language versions of newspapers based in other countries can enable readers to understand perspectives not documented in domestic news sources. Reading articles written in native languages probably would be eve more enlightening, but are impossible with my language limitations. This morning, I read an article—obviously an opinion piece—in the English language Turkish newspaper, Yeni Şafak. Whether or not the opinions expressed by the writer, İhsan Aktaş, are based on defensible facts, the positions he takes clearly express both deeply-held beliefs and long-standing frustrations. True or not, the “facts” as he sees them color his world-view and are sufficient to allow him to feel justified in his perspectives. To give oneself the opportunity to learn from such articles, one occasionally must overlook “inflammatory” or “triggering” language. This particular article to which I refer is entitled Will the Stench of Colonialism Be Cleansed from Africa’s Scorched Lands? Another paper that can help readers appreciate perspectives other than the ones usually presented to Western readers is the Tehran Times, (which, by the way, published an interesting op-ed piece (dated May 18, 2025) entitled President Trump and the Name Persian Gulf). I suspect radically differing perspectives will be available in the coming days to people who read both Israeli and Iranian papers. I am confident reality exists somewhere in the tangle between the biased motives that drive the papers to publish their unique viewpoints on “truth.”

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I woke to the sound of wire shears snapping barbed wire.  I lay awake for several minutes, listening to the wire being stripped off the fence and rolled into loops. Soon, after the air became quiet, I heard the soft padding of footsteps on the wooden slats of the porch floor. And, then, a new sound. Razor wire being released from a tightly-wound roll makes a sharper sound than barbed wire being collected into loops. A higher pitch, almost like the reverberations of a coiled spring freed from tension. When I peeked out the window, I saw that the thieves had placed the roles of barbed wire on the bed of a pickup. And I saw razor wire wrapped tightly around my cabin. Strips of razor wire spread only a couple of inches apart at every window and every door.  If I tried to escape, I would be cut to pieces. But when I smelled sulfur matches and gasoline and smoke and saw the flames all around the cabin, I realized I had no choice. They had spilled the contents of all my petrol cans along the base of the outer walls and lit it with kitchen matches. I  had no choice; I had to through the roof. Fortunately, reacting to a recent horoscope in Sunday’s paper, I had installed a hydraulic-powered roof when I built the helicopter. Romeo and Gretel were waiting for me in the copter cab; Hansel and Juliet had lashed themselves to the rear rotor. I was disappointed in Hansel and Juliet, who had lost their son, Chris, when they ran over his legs with a propeller attached to a powerful Evinrude motor on their new boat. I would have thought they would have learned a little something about propeller safety from that snafu, but apparently not. I had no time, though, so I started the chopper motor and watched Hansel get decapitated and Juliet lose her right arm as the rotor spun. With luck, though, we all got away before the cabin exploded into a fireball. Ben Casey, M.D. happened to be nearby and he managed to save H & J. But they were subsequently lost in a freak desert snowstorm in the Ouachita Mountains.

Last night’s dinner provided a rare opportunity for social engagement for me. I am advised by medical pros to avoid much contact with people, considering risks to my immune system. But the evening turned into more than a simple social event. It put on display the possibilities of maintaining and even strengthening family ties after difficult circumstances could otherwise have caused those ties to fray or come undone. Dinner was hosted at mi novia’s ex-husband’s house, with whom she maintains cordial, friendly ties. Visiting from out of state, their daughter provided captivating humor, making everyone feel comfortable. My late wife’s sister, now a very close friend of mi novia‘s and a friend of mi novia‘s ex-husband (and, naturally, still a good friend of mine), joined the gathering.  And, of course, mi novia and I were there. The interactions between all of us were more than communications between friends. They were the words and facial expressions and welcoming openness between family members. The atmosphere was one in which everyone seemed to fit together quite well…like a strangely abstract but immensely appealing jigsaw puzzle. I would call it an intriguing sociological study in overcoming frictions and unavoidable life-span events. But it was much more than that.

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The morning split into fragments, beginning at 3 when I got up to pee. I decided to go back to bed then, rather than start the day. An hour later, I woke again, but was not ready to abandon sleep, so I returned to the comfort of unconsciousness. Yet an hour later, it happened again; again, I decided to get some more sleep. At 7:30, I woke, got up, and put on my morning attired…only to return to bed to get a few more minutes of sleep, at the urging of mi novia. Finally, at 9:30, I woke again, but stayed in bed until 10:30 before I forced myself to get out of bed. Each of those fragments of morning provided me with either dreams or delusions, every one different. I cannot decide, with any certainty, whether these different mental visions offer evidence of a vivid imagination or psychoses spinning out of control.

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In some fashion, Time (as a noun) is defined as involving a sequential relationship between any event to any other event.  None of the roughly three dozen generally accepted definitions of Time involve the possibility that Time has mass. The idea—that the concept we rely on to fuel our clocks—is dismissed as ludicrous, if it is acknowledged at all. The reason for treating Time as a mass-less concept is that we do not properly define mass. We assume mass exists only in “things” we can see or cause to be seen. But there is evidence that Time is recognized by some astute physicists as having mass. For example, the phrase “Time is money” implies that Time must have mass, if indeed it is equivalent to money, which virtually everyone would agree has mass. If you will agree that “yesterday” refers to much more than a single day, that is, an amount of time far greater than “today,” I hope you will acknowledge that “yesterday” has far more mass than “today.”  If you will not give me that, then surely you will admit that the center of a tree trunk is older than the surrounding bark, which is why the core of a tree is heavier than its protective shell. I then challenge you (whoever you are) to consider the weight and mass of a tree trunk in the context of Time. If you can wrap your head around that correlation, your chances of understanding the true nature of Time are greater today than yesterday.

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The past cannot be cured.

Elizabeth I