John Swinburn

Today is Patty’s birthday. AND it’s Christmas Day, as well. Coincidence? Or a diabolical plan hatched by Krampus?  No matter. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, and other celebratory situations.

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Regardless of how early I go to bed, my morning blush of energy when I wake is short-lived.  Sometimes it lasts long enough to allow me to reach a satisfactory—to me—endpoint in writing a blog post. Other times, my stamina is an invisible hologram; an expectation that does not fully materialize. Sleep can be a refuge from the dangers of consciousness, but sometimes wolves that live in one’s dreams tear through the sanctuary’s walls, pinning the dreamer down in a state of terrified submission.

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Options can seem more like threats than like choices. “Would you prefer to eat broken glass, sir, or to drink gasoline?” Such unpleasant thoughts disappear, though, the moment I hear the “hoo-h’HOO- hoo-hoo” of an owl; presumably a Great Horned Owl, or hoot owl. Though the sounds can seem like they are coming from just beyond the panes of glass of my window, I have read that those notes can be heard over long distances. Mother Nature’s deceit. Forest trickery. If I had better eyesight, more stamina, and enormous patience, I might wade out into the darkness in search of the source of those haunting noises. And, if I did wander into the woods, I might trip over a fallen log, smashing my skull against a large rock. At what point are risks worth the possible rewards of taking them? In the time it took to write that sentence, dull grey illumination spilled through the foggy haze; enough to confirm the impending onslaught of daylight. We are certain of predictions we make, based on repeated experiences. But yesterday’s sunrise is no guarantee that the sun will return to the skies today. Guarantees are iffy propositions, even when “everything is the same.” “Everything” is never “the same.”

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Imagine a child blowing soap bubbles while laughing gleefully at the shining globes floating through the air. Now, imagine those bubbles as they slowly drift to the earth. The moment a bubble is pierced by a blade of grass as it reaches the ground, the little sphere bursts in a nuclear explosion of unimaginable strength. Its heat is so great that the surrounding air instantly zips through several stages—liquid, solid, gas, and one more we’ve never seen before. The child is unphased by the chaos. She goes on smiling and chuckling, mesmerized by the magic of thermonuclear abstraction.

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The spirit has not quite captured me yet this morning. I’ll give it more time.

Roger Whittaker release the single, “Durham Town (The Leavin’)” in 1969, when I was sixteen years old. The tune spent sixteen weeks on the UK Singles Chart, reaching the peak of its popularity when it was number 12 of the chart. I do not recall how I was introduced to the song; only that I heard it shortly after its release and I liked it quite a lot. Years later, after Urinetown won three Tony Awards on Broadway, my wife and I went to a production of the musical at a performing arts center in Addison, Texas. Though there was (to my knowledge) no relationship whatsoever between the musical and Roger Whittaker’s song, I managed to merge the two into the lyrics of a new song I sometimes sang, to the distress of my late wife:

I’ve got to leave old Urinetown,
I’ve got to leave old Urinetown.
I’ve got to leave old Urinetown,
And the leavings gonna get me down.

Many years later, I learned that Whittaker’s original lyrics referred to Newcastle, not Durham. He changed the town to make the music sound more “natural.” But he did not change the name of the river referenced in the lyrics, the Tyne. Had he made the appropriate change to reflect the river near Durham, he would have referred to the river Wear.

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Just a shade more than eleven years ago, I began writing a short story that featured two drunk and disorderly mermaids, Molly and Shirona. The riveting tale, cut short almost before it began, is typical of my attempts at writing autobiographical fiction. That is, fiction laced with more than simple fabrication; filled, instead, with bald-faced lies, complete with verified bibliographic references attributed to giants of literature—people whose fame seems familiar but whose surnames are misspelled. At any rate, as the story ended abruptly after only a few incoherent paragraphs, “Molly and Shirona surfaced in a shrimper’s net, their tails in tatters and their smiles intact.” There could have been—should have been—far more to the tale. Their bravado and drunken revelry had already been introduced, when they paid for a two-month drinking binge with “gold doubloons snatched from sunken ships.” But the story’s promise ended long before it was told. Somewhere in the ether of my brain, the arc of the story resides, still. There is more to tell about Shirona’s full lips, curled into a come-hither pucker. Had more of the story been written, readers could have learned whether mermaids deliver babies or lay eggs. The reason for Molly’s affection for alcohol might have become apparent as the story unfolded. Instead, the reader (had there been one) would have been sorely disappointed to discover Molly’s troubled upbringing was not even mentioned before the thickening of the plot could begin. I could return to continue, and perhaps complete, what I began. But I have begun and ended so many others before losing my motivation…that the pointlessness of selecting this story over dozens and dozens of others might simply represent compelling evidence in my trial or motivation in my sentencing. The oldest trick in the book, though, is to weave fiction into the fabric of truth, hiding reality in between layers of honesty and mendacity, both of which might be sprinkled with fantasy and fear. What “book”
is that? In which of the many encyclopedic volumes of magical deceit might that trick be revealed?

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Here it is, Christmas Eve, and my calendar shows only one obligation: a visit to my oncologist’s office, where I will have blood drawn for laboratory evaluation, get an IV infusion to counter my tendency toward dehydration, and receive an injection of neupogen to support my white blood cell count.  No chemo today, but during the chemo visit last week my oncologist noted in my file that she will “Continue conservative approach with chemotherapy dosing given patient’s history of treatment ­related complications.” Tomorrow, mi novia will prepare salmon chowder. We will have have two guests (our little local semi-extended family) with whom we’ll share the holiday meal.

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Winter weather has abandoned us for the time-being. Highs over the next few days will surpass 70°F. That brief reprieve from intolerably cold outdoor temperatures may spur me on to try to jump-start my car, after which I will either buy a new battery or get confirmation that the current battery died from a lack of attention during a recent cold snap, therefore not needed replacement.

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Two recent visits by friends reinforced my sincere appreciation for people who act on their good intentions. Christmas cards, phone calls, emails, and the like add to the sense that there are many, many good people in the world. My failure to reach out to them, and to others, is an embarrassing flaw. My good intentions, smothered by laziness, must be given infusions of oxygen! Hand-written cards are not my thing (because my handwriting is illegible), but personal correspondence created on my keyboard will, I hope, accomplish the same thing I experience.

Back in the early days, when I was young and energetic and more than a little naive, I wore a suit and tie to work every day. My favorite ensemble from my collection of business attire comprised a dignified, light-grey three-piece business suit, starched white shirt, brightly patterned red tie, and highly polished black loafers. Whether I had anything to put in it or not, I regularly carried home with me each day a thin black Samsonite briefcase—irrefutable evidence that I belonged in the executive suite. I was under the mistaken impression that “the image makes the man.” It was much later that I realized the world operated on an entirely different principle: “the man makes the image and tries desperately to climb into it.” The first thing I did when I wore my costume to the office was to take off the jacket, put it on a hanger, and place it on the back side of my office door. I liked the way I looked when I wore the two remaining pieces of my three-piece suit. The vest, especially, sculpted the image I thought I presented: a no-nonsense, hard-working young man who was serious about sprinting into a future full of spectacular opportunities. In hindsight, though, I think the image was considerably more comedic: a young, inexperienced, buffoon who was easily manipulated and misled into thinking he had important contributions to make to a world that had dismissed his laughable misconceptions about himself long before he was born. My fragile self-confidence, always brittle and subject to being shattered in a stiff breeze, was an exercise in pointlessness in the face of the hurricane winds of young adulthood. I was a relatively believable actor, though, so I managed to muscle my way through seemingly endless crises of confidence by pretending to be someone I was not. I hid my quivering lower lip beneath blankets of false bravado. During the many years of pretense—while I focused on making my counterfeit self appear real—I lost sight of who hid behind my masks. I cannot tell which version of me is authentic and which ones are simply products I created from pieces I found in books or films or lifelike models. Who am I, really? If I could strip away all the synthetic pieces, who would remain? I wish I knew, but I am afraid I might find authenticity intolerable. Are we all, in fact, actors? Do we act out of necessity, knowing that somewhere in the recesses of our mind is an empty form that can live only through mimicry?

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My thoughts spin between rage and humor. I need more rest.

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All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

William Shakespeare

I do not know who created this image, but whoever did it is, in my mind, a brilliant artist and thinker. 🙂

Blue Lights, the BBC police procedural set in Northern Ireland, is annoying in the infrequency of available new seasons and episodes. We completed Season 3 last night (on BritBox), which had six episodes. Each of the six episodes was released at least a week apart in the U.S., meaning viewers had to either wait a week (or more) between them or wait until all had been released to binge-watch. Because we had watched Seasons 1 and 2 on an incredibly rewarding binge-basis, we jumped at the first opportunity to start watching Season 3. We did not wait to binge-watch it, though. A maddening mistake. Now, we have to wait until at least late 2026 to begin watching Season 4, which will not begin filming until early 2026.  If the distributors of the series had even a shred of human decency, they would speed production, in the interest of people with terminal lung cancer who are facing  an uncertain future. Gallows humor.

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Somewhere on the outer fringe of my mind, I feel the edge of a mostly-hidden memory of last night’s dream. It involved anger, my two dead siblings, my late wife, a faulty home security system, and a woman who was involved in a client association (not sure who she was, nor which association). The woman and the client and my own company all had accounts at a common bank. I strode across the roofs of Chicago skyscrapers, one step per building at a time. It was another disturbing dream, complete with a cold, early-morning sweat. I hate such intrusions in my head! My acquaintance, David, who commented recently about his similar stressful dreams, knows the source of such nightmares; now, if only someone could tell me ways to prevent them.

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I feel icy crystals of blood in my arteries and veins. Blood must freeze at temperatures much higher than does water. But maybe it’s not blood crystals. Maybe, instead, I feel the hulls of tiny hematological ships scraping against the tubular channels as the ships pass through. Somewhere along those miles of shipping lanes are canals, the flows within which are controlled by locks. The locks, you see, adjust to control blood pressure. When the pressure rises to potentially dangerous levels, shore birds poke their long, probing beaks through the surface of the vessels, relieving pressures and gently stroking the tubes with their delicate feathers. This is the kind of truth that Kellyanne Conway discovered when she went searching for alternative facts to confirm truths that, to her, seemed self-evident.

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His creativity cannot be located. It was last seen as it plunged into the frigid waters off the coast of Newfoundland, followed by a murder of whales and a pod of crows. Spotted by a sunbeam, the caravan was then trailed by daylight for immeasurable miles, until dusk showered the travelers with darkness, stars, and scorn. Scorpions scurried across the southern sky, preparing for battle with an Achilles heel. And then, God created enchiladas, awash in  African spice and mental anguish. Suddenly, after a laboriously long year of plotting and planning, and after a lengthy exposure to flames as hot as the sun is hungry, a tub full of tuna  sashimi was declared cooked and ready to thaw. Mermaids, their muscular legs as soft and short as a granite California redwood, marched in unison to the sounds of trumpets firing rounds of cotton candy into a swamp filled with solemnity and fresh gravity. After a lifetime of worry, he found his creativity, buried between the folds of an empty steel blanket in a pool of empty space that extends well past the end of forever in all directions. Everything else was no more than an abbreviation; a symbol for nothing is the absence of anything.

We know it’s fiction, of course. Though we play along with the idea—to an extent—we’re under no delusions. There is no question about it. Clearly, it’s fantasy. But somewhere in the deepest recesses of our minds, we secretly consider the remote possibility. We wonder whether there may be a shred of reality tucked into the far corners of that imaginary world. No, of course not! We shake off that brief exploration of the impossible, laughing at ourselves; embarrassed that we would ever entertain such a ridiculous concept. Yet, while we’re unwilling to admit it—even to ourselves—we permit ourselves to glide aimlessly through this whimsical flight of fancy.

But maybe forest sprites really do exist. Maybe the stories about the tooth fairy are based in fact. Maybe Santa Claus is not just a character created to fascinate children. Maybe all the creatures that populate children’s books and childhood fantasies are not just ingenuous fabrications. Maybe they arise from hidden memories that have been repressed to protect ourselves from believing we have lost our minds. Or to protect ourselves from recognizing that reality.

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I don’t believe in magical beings. But I often wish, desperately, I could. A fantasy existence holds so much more promise than a real world awash in hatred, war, famine, thirst, cruelty, greed, poverty, starvation, and an array of other such atrocities that emerge, endlessly, with every sunrise and sunset. The byproducts of these horrors—hopelessness and rage—add fuel to the fire that keeps the cauldron scalding hot. Holiday cheer, drowning in rivers of molten humanity—once belonging to Venezuelan fishermen or drug smugglers—struggles to overcome its diametric opposite: misery.

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Yesterday’s Zoom video with mi familia cercana was far too short. I may reinvest in a paid subscription to Zoom so I can enjoy longer conversations with my brothers and sister (and mi novia). I have another Zoom engagement scheduled this morning with a pair of friends from Dallas. Even with my preference for limited social engagement, I find myself wanting to bask in the comfort of time with family and friends. I sometimes worry that my comfort with seclusion, though, is viewed by some people as meaningful, targeted, intentionally vindictive aloofness. That misreading of my personality might result in close friends leaving me alongside the road of life; a bit like a snake sheds its skin.

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My hands are as cold as ice, as if I stored them in the freezer overnight and just now remembered to retrieve them. If I do not stop typing right away, my fingers could shatter into a million pieces, leaving me unable to think. Sometime later…hours, days, weeks, months, or more…I will return here to think with freshly-warmed phalanges. In the meantime, I will seek out a comfortable rock under which to hide.

Both my attention span and my memory are short. Together, they have the capacity to create an insurmountable obstacle to developing expertise in any subject.  When coupled with a lack of discipline—and levels of curiosity and interest that ebb and flow like Bay of Fundy tides—they seal the deal. In my youth, my interest levels never reached a point at which expertise would have been attainable. The older I get, though, my passion to learn  can burn as hot as the sun. But the heat never lasts long enough. My interests erupt like a volcano, only to cool when another captures my imagination. And the cycle repeats itself. Over and over and over. How many times have I documented these failures of mine—and to what end? I cannot count that high and I can only guess at the reasons I repeat the tale. If I were to guess.

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Similarities exist between stupidity and ignorance, but ignorance is curable. And ignorance is forgivable. Stupidity, on the other hand, tends to be an incurable condition nourished by bigotry. And stupidity often is willful and, therefore, unforgivable.  Stupidity can be infectious and/or hereditary—people who are not inoculated against it at a very early age are at high risk, especially in environments in which it flourishes. Education, including the teaching of tolerance, is subject to disdain by stupid people. But education can erase ignorance, up to a point. Education cannot eliminate intolerance of stupid people. The hypocrisy of intolerance in people who consider themselves tolerant is difficult to defend, but easy to understand. Perhaps another word or phrase is in order; one hates to consider oneself a hypocrite. Even worse, though, would be to consider oneself stupid.

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The view outside the window of my study is radically different today than yesterday. Shrubs loaded with red berries had afforded me an additional measure of privacy—beyond the privacy of living in the only house on a cul-de-sac—now are gone.  The lower branches of a large round shrub  across the driveway are gone, exposing the ground beneath and beyond it. Other trees and shrubs have been pruned and shaped, replacing the wild look of natural growth with the appearance of a freshly semi-manicured landscape. In the Spring areas of the ground that are now vacant except for a thick layer of small rocks will be planted with low-growing shrubs and a Japanese maple. The setting will have the appearance of casual formality, surrounded by a natural forest. I am counting on being here to see it.

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Temperatures are rising. The forecast calls for highs to reach 70°F, and maybe a bit higher, by Christmas Day.  Cooler air is expected to return within a few days afterward, though, a prelude to who know what? If January 2026 is like most beginnings of the new year, much colder air will follow. Ice? Snow? Bitterly cold winds? I no longer trust the National Weather Service to give accurate forecasts; government meteorologists are being stripped of the resources they need to give reliable predictions. I would not be surprised to experience blizzard conditions at the same time the White House announces the most pleasant, warm January temperatures ever felt during periods when groceries are almost free for the asking and gas prices are lower than they have ever been.

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Early Christmas Eve morning, I will go to the cancer center to have my blood drawn and get an injection…either to counter low blood cell counts or protect me against bone disintegration or some such thing. I doubt we will have tamales and chile con queso and beer for dinner on Christmas Eve this year. That annual tradition from my childhood would require more effort than is warranted. Tradition. Ritual. Custom. Practice. Such stuff tends to dissolve over time, especially when reality interferes with memory.

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Mi novia is tentatively planning on making a salmon stew for Christmas dinner, which I think will be just right. When she mentioned it, I immediately remembered telling her several months ago about a comfort food I have not had in far too long: creamed salmon over rice, seasoned liberally with white pepper. Sometime after Christmas…not too soon, but soon enough…I want to make creamed salmon over rice. The dish is, hands down, my favorite comfort food, surpassing every other common comfort food such as macaroni & cheese, pasta, chicken pot pie, shepherd’s pie, tuna casserole, etc., etc.

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Early to bed last night, but not early to sleep. Hours after getting in bed, I remained wide-awake. After I finally got to sleep, I woke less than an hour later. Again, when I returned to bed, I was unable to get to sleep right away. Even after I did, I woke again in a couple of hours. I’ve been sleeping a LOT during the day, courtesy I suppose of my most recent chemo treatment a few days ago. When not having disturbing dreams, I am delighted to be able to sleep. It is a refuge from an overactive imagination. I am ravenously hungry at the moment. Perhaps a double-stuffed Oreo cookie will hit the spot. Or, I could shower and shave and go out to breakfast. We’d still have to take mi novia’s car; I have yet to deal with my car’s dead battery. Why do I still have my car? I bet I’ve put less than 200 miles on it this year. Ach.

Five years ago today. It was both yesterday and a thousand lifetimes ago. I suppose I was fortunate to have known my wife’s death was at hand, but I was not prepared for it when it came. How does one prepare for the impact such an event has on one’s life? The shock was far beyond my ability to have expected it. Suddenly, her life ended. How long is a “lifetime?” It is both elastic and inflexible. As I have learned, grief is never-ending, but it is survivable.

Earlier this week, I learned of another death. A man who, along with his wife, was active in our church died suddenly, without warning. I can only imagine the shock of such an utterly unexpected tragedy. My wife’s illness had already emptied me of the emotional “high” I had always associated with the Christmas season, but this man’s wife—a remarkably selfless person and a good friend of mi novia—had no warning that Christmas time probably will forevermore be a time of grief. Ach! No matter the certainty of death, it surprises us and takes our breath away. Goodbyes are never sweet sorrow, Shakespeare’s words notwithstanding.

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I awoke, soaked in sweat, from a disturbing dream sometime before midnight. My memory of the dream has all but disappeared, but I remember fragments. At some point, I was thrashing about in a huge body of water—possibly an ocean—trying to reach the visible but distant shore. The surface of the water was relatively smooth, but I expected sharks to surface and attack me at any moment. I was afraid, but not in a panic. I wondered how painful the attack would be. Another fragment: a vacationing neighbor couple had left some cable television equipment for me to pick up while they were gone. Just in case, I rang the doorbell before I entered. The door was answered by a Black woman who knew nothing of the agreement but did not question its legitimacy. She and her husband/ boyfriend offered to help me with the equipment, but none of us knew what I was to pick up. Yet another piece: I offered to give a couple a ride, but after we were in the car, I realized I had no idea where we were, nor where we were going. I could not make the maps on either of two old smart-phones work. We stopped at a bar to ask for directions to a car dealership where I had left an old sports car to be refurbished, but none of us knew which dealership. Our search then involved climbing steep cliffs and crossing railroad tracks. All the while, during all these dream segments, I was extremely worried about…something. The dream must have taken place in pieces; sometime during the night, I got up and put a towel down on the bed to insulate me from the cold, wet sheets. This has happened before.

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You are a product of my mind. You exist as I perceive you only because I perceive you. And I exist as a product of your mind. It’s not just you and me, though. It’s everyone. We’re all interpretations of someone else’s perceptions. For that reason, I think the possibility exists that none of us are real; we’re just expressions of the way we are imagined in the fictional minds of nonexistent beings. Vapor, in other words. Not even vapor, actually—vapor has considerably more substance. More weight. More mass. More…reality.  The same is true, by the way, of everything else. Bottles of pills. Boxes of Kleenex. Scissors. Coffee cups. Paper clips. Paper plates. Papier-mâché. Wall-paper. Trees. Yes, even trees. And their roots do not exist until we start digging around the base of their trunks, which also exist only in what I’ll call our “vaporous universe.” Perhaps we’re the products of the hallucinations of a tiny being; something smaller than one tenth the width of a proton. This miniscule being dreams big! Big, as in spaceships and planets. Ponder that.

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Given the size of the audience for this blog, it is reasonable to consider the words I record here as pieces of a long, disjointed soliloquy. I write to provide an insubstantial, almost fragile, structure for my thoughts. With or without that delicate framework, the ideas that spill from my fingers would bleed into one another. Thus, therefore, ergo…

Townes Van Zandt once was asked why all his songs were so sad. His response, I think, summarized his life experience:

I have a few that aren’t sad, they’re hopeless. About a totally hopeless situation. And the rest aren’t sad; they’re just the way it goes, kinda. I mean, you know, you don’t think life’s sad?

His song, Waitin’ Around to Die, is a sad tale of hopelessness, a story about a man’s hard life in which drug addiction, alcoholism, loneliness, abandonment, and abuse all seemed more appealing than simply “waitin’ around to die.” Most of the lyrics of his music I’ve listened to reflect a deeply melancholic take on life—understandable, given the monsters he faced in his life…alcoholism, drug addiction, emotional trauma, broken relationships, and the like.  While direct experience with personal demons is not required to suffer the consequences of seeing their impact on the world around us. Van Zandt was both a victim and, like so many lyricists who write and perform “sad” songs, an observer. Van Zandt died young, at age 52. He stopped “waitin’ around to die” when he welcomed the New Year with his own death. He died (officially of cardiac arrhythmia, though his addictions are said to have contributed heavily) on January 1, 1997, after being badly injured in a fall at his home…just a few days before Christmas the month before.

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Complaining that the night sky is too full of stars, or the ocean is too deep, is an exercise in futility. Many complaints fall into that category—a category most people would call pointless or absurd or wasteful of mental energy—yet the fact that such grievances are utterly trivial, does not stop them from being made. Too many among us frequently incur fruitless expenditures of limited emotional resources that could be more productive if invested more wisely.

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The morning sky is very light beige, with just a tiny hint of creamy violet creating a tint I rarely see in the sky. Is it that I rarely see the color, or that I simply fail to notice it? Conscious, thoughtful observation is necessary if we are to have any realistic hope of actually “seeing” the images that cross before our eyes. Unless we make a point of taking notice, our senses ignore opportunities to experience the world around us. The items sitting on one’s desktop go unrecognized, just as typographical errors often are missed when we scan the page of a book. We see what we expect to see, not what is put before us. While staring at my computer monitor, though, the sky expelled both the violet and the beige, replacing them with a gentle grey that I see as comforting; others might view it as dull or boring. Yet others may not give the color of the sky a thought; it might go unnoticed. Emotional context paints the sky with a different brush and a different color than does physical context. Context. Contrast. They are at once different; but, the same. Seasons behave in much the same way; early Spring gives us green tomatoes, while Summer colors them red. Or purple. Or a combination, reminiscent of a chaotic battlefield littered with yellow flowers that would be out of place somewhere else.

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Some memories belong in permanently sealed lead boxes, inaccessible for all time. I would pay to incinerate them, even if I had to accompany them into the flames.

History is within arm’s reach. That is to say, it’s much closer than we think. This morning, I was reminded of just how near we are to “the past” when I glanced online at an Associated Press (AP) regular feature entitled Today in History. The headline notes that the Wright Brothers’ first flight took place on this date, December 17, in 1903. What struck me was not how recently humans took to the skies. Rather, I was jolted by the fact that my father was roughly five months old at the time, having been born in July of that year. My father was considerably older when I was born, at fifty years of age, than most newborns’ fathers. It occurred to me the first flight took place just fifty years, minus a couple of months, before my birth. Time slips by, almost unnoticed, leaving breadcrumbs as evidence of its passing along the way: multiple wars, computers, space exploration, advanced telecommunications, television, and millions of other, less revolutionary, changes in our lives. When I consider time in the other direction, I wonder whether the past was a prelude to a positive future or just a preface to a grim epilogue.

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When voters elect leaders, are they abdicating their responsibilities to govern themselves? Are members of the electorate simply choosing rulers to make decisions they do not wish to make? Despite complex systems of check and balances that ostensibly are meant to protect populations from falling prey to authoritarians and dictators, the populace seems paralyzed when those systems fail to perform as expected. The U.S. Declaration of Independence asserts the Right of the People to act when governments fail them:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…

Yet the people, guaranteed the right of revolution, very rarely exercise that right, even when faced with tyranny. At what point is the agony of despotism sufficiently painful to warrant the exercise of that right? At what point are the risks associated with revolution deemed worth taking?

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Another chemotherapy visit to the oncologist today, a probable precursor to several more days of fatigue and general ennui. What better to do at this very moment, then, than describe a couple of scenes that flash by as I watch through closed eyes:

Light, in liquid form, seeps into his cell, illuminating the stone floor on which he is sitting. After an hour, light has deepened enough to cover his boots. After a full day, it has risen to his chin. An hour after that, he can keep it out of his mouth only by tilting his head backward. Moments later, he begins to cough as the light enters his lungs and causes him to react by choking. Suddenly, though, he is illuminated from within; no untoward negative reactions from his body. He feels like he can breathe better than ever before, as if the blue glow has purified his environment and cleansed him of the filthy residue of a lifetime chained in the bowels of a dank coal mine. Then, in a moment that passes far faster than a single second, he is gone. As is the cell…not just empty, but gone. No walls, no stone floor, nothing. Empty space. But an eerie, barely audible, echo remains in the space where he was; a sound like a breath way off, in the immeasurable distance. Enlightenment. Not a guru’s mystical insinuation. Not a secret pathway to an unknown place. Actual enlightenment. The same enlightenment first experienced before time began, before the universe expressed itself from its invisible primordiality.

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Earsplitting silence, interrupted by sounds so soft the ground vibrates and rolls in waves, fills the emptiness like an orchestra of dead musicians. Leaves, clinging to the trees in a desperate attempt to avoid plunging to the forest floor, shake in anticipation of ferocious winds shredding the atmosphere and filling the air with swirling ribbons of menacing dust. Watching from the entrance to a cave, I watch deer and raccoons—their eyes wide with terror—bolt across a meadow, fleeing what must seem, to them, like the personification of Mother Nature’s irrational rage. I share their fear. And their pain. It courses through my veins like molten lava, searing every cell in my body. Escape is impossible, but surrender promises an experience a thousand times worse; and twice as unlikely as freedom. 

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I could write for days and end up with swill of equal quality, even after turning it all over to a team of professional editors. You can’t make a silk purse out of sour buttermilk sullied with the corpses of rotting flies.

I woke earlier today than I have been waking in recent months. The extra time of darkness and solitude could have given me an infusion of serenity if I had approached it properly. But I did not. I skimmed the news. I followed the same routine I almost always follow, despite my almost daily promises to myself that I would do this day differently. I allowed myself to engage the day as if it were an opponent; an enemy to conquer. An obstacle to overcome. So, instead of darkness behaving as if it were a soft, warm, soothing blanket, it seems more like a suffocating polyethylene bag over my head. My efforts to extricate myself have gone nowhere. I want to breathe slowly and think softly and embrace the coming light as a positive force. Instead, I permit national and international news—over which I have no control—to thrust my head under water, starving me of oxygen. I long for peace, but instead I cultivate rage. Some days, feeling fatigued—almost impossibly tired—I try to renew my energy by “napping” while listening to soft, soothing piano music. Maybe that is what I need to do today. Retreat to bed and let the music drown the rage.

+++

My oldest brother and his wife are celebrating their wedding anniversary today. At least I assume and hope they are, inasmuch as today is the day. Celebrations take many forms, from frenetic festivities to quiet contemplations and everything in between. Birthdays, too, are like that. The levels of excitement they generate varies from raucous, jubilant, public expressions of pure joy to private acknowledgements that, for all of us, they are limited. And there must be at least a thousand other ways to make note of birthdays. I tend to acknowledge my own birthdays in a very low-key sort of way. Almost two months ago, on my 72nd birthday, I wrote on my blog: By the way, today is my birthday. I can tell by looking at the calendar. Some people take milestones like anniversaries and birthdays extremely seriously; others not so much. I think the degree of importance we assign to such occasions is contextual; it depends on what else is going on in our lives. This coming Friday is another anniversary in my life; it will mark the fifth year since my wife died. Whether I will do or say or write anything publicly about it on that day has yet to be seen, but I am certain I will mark the sad occasion privately. Perhaps I am writing about it now, a few days beforehand, as a way to prepare myself for a resurgence of grief. Grief still surprises me. After all the billions of people who have lived and died on this planet, we still have not gotten used to the reality of death.

+++

More chemotherapy tomorrow. I still haven’t taken steps to recharge or replace my car’s dead battery. And I have not rescheduled the haircut I postponed last week. And I have done nothing else productive for what seems like an eternity. Despite my slothfulness, I was rewarded last night with a nice spaghetti and meatball dinner, prepared by mi novia’s ex-husband, who invited us to share it, along with my late wife’s sister. I feel guilty for accepting such generosities while I do nothing generous for others. My mood this morning is, thus far, rather dismal. I have only myself to blame, of course. But instead of “fixing” it, I just complain. The sun will rise in a while. Maybe the light will improve my attitude. For now, it’s good that I do not have the ability to take preemptive action against governments and idiotic cultists. But I think I would thoroughly enjoy causing the chaotic horrors I would rain down upon them.

Half an hour past noon today, half of the month of December will have slid past us, with the remaining half trying to decide whether the rest of the trip is worth the effort. If Time were a sentient creature, it would choose to bury itself beneath a thick protective layer of timelessness. Even at the risk of losing the opportunity to create the future, a sentient Time would recognize the hopelessness of trying to outlast the past. Depending on one’s perspective, that might be best for all involved: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And all those in-between moments that do not seem to fit anywhere.

+++

Fantasy weighs just a fraction of the weight of reality. Sometimes even less. Magic, measured not in weight but in transparency, can stand in front of a set of scales and not be seen. Nor heard, for that matter. That double negative is what differentiates children from witchcraft. Or, at least, it differentiates children from good witchcraft. Bad children embrace witchcraft, which is where Krampus comes in.

+++

Monday arrives, a cudgel in its left hand and an automatic pistol in its right. Strapped to its waist is a pair of wire-cutters and a set of handcuffs. Monday leans against a barber’s pole, waiting impatiently for the barber to arrive. But the barber does not come; he is sitting at home, drinking a tumbler full of steaming hot Irish coffee. After waiting a full twenty-four hours, Monday slinks off into the darkness, where Tuesday has been waiting. Tuesday, wearing a pin-stripe suit and a fedora, strides in, dragging behind him a little red wagon overloaded with tiny, live, miniature giraffes nibbling on fresh mushrooms. The smallest of the giraffes, a necklace dangling from its minute neck, looks back at where Monday had stood. Tears flow from its precious little eyes as the little creature sobs. We’ll never know what caused the tears.

+++

The Lumineers, one of my current favorite alternative folk bands, has a song entitled Ophelia. Several of the verses of the song begin with “Oh Ophelia…” Mi novia and I both listen to the song and laugh, because when they sing those words, it sounds like they’re singing “Oh beady eyes…” I guess you have to be there.

+++

My level of discomfort does not equate to the mood of my writing this morning. Ambiguous is a word that comes roaring into my head, slamming into the back of my skull with the energy of a semi-truck traveling at 80 miles per hour. Naturally, the back of my head bursts open with a spray of blood and grey matter and torn connective tissue. I have an appetite for activities, like parachuting from hot air balloons, that require more energy than my body is capable of mustering. But sleep, too, holds some appeal. Perhaps I could be taken up in a hot air balloon and, after I fall asleep, thrown out into the cold, crisp air.

+++

Twenty degrees Fahrenheit. That’s a touch more brisk than I like. For that reason, among others, I will not wander outside, naked and shoeless, to water the lawn or pick strawberries. A Monday gummy might be in order, right before I climb back into my warm bed. A brilliant blue sky, like the one outside my window, is not appropriate on such a cold day. Where are the thick snow clouds I associate with winter weather?

+++

The soft light of artificial candles does not owe its existence to paraffin.

Hope and hopelessness do not belong in the same universe, do they? One is illumination, the other is darkness. One is a pathway to survival, the other a collapsing bridge over a bottomless abyss. Both, though, exist at opposite points on a single circle.  Each of them compete for dominance in the pursuit of the same objective: a point at which pain disappears. In answer to the question, then: they belong. They occupy the same space at different times; or different spaces at the same time. Opposites attract, but like a pair of magnets, they repel one another, as well. Collaboration and conflict emerge from different positions involving the same concepts, mirroring love and hate. Circles. Cycles. The physical laws governing what we know of the universe do not stand alone. They intersect in perfect harmonic discord with the ways emotions dictate the ways we respond to the world around us.

+++

I used to believe most of the one-off “hits” on this blog were individuals who simply “stumbled” upon it. I now think—with near certainty, supported by evidence too involved to share—that almost all the one-off “hits” are just “bots” that automatically visit websites to index them and for various other reasons unrelated to what I write. That being the case, my blog’s traffic is much, much smaller than I had thought. I had been under the impression that I had a small number of “followers,” but a large number of “accidental” visitors who could, conceivably, become followers. Based on site analytics, though, I now believe my regular visitors amount to fewer than fifteen. Only five or six  are frequent visitors; i.e., between daily and weekly. I am grateful for those frequent visitors, but on those rare occasions when I write something I would like to share with a larger audience, this blog is not the place to do it. So, I am considering taking the advice of a friend who suggested I consider creating a Substack site. Whether I do or not will depend on the strength of my interest in getting a larger audience for those occasional posts for which I would truly appreciate feedback. Inasmuch as I tend to be lazy, lethargic, and otherwise slothful, my consideration may take a while…a long, long while. Or not. I am, in many ways, unpredictable. Even to myself.

+++

A First Person Account of Events Leading to My Death

My disappearance went unnoticed for many weeks. Only after the third month of failing to receive my rent payment did the landlord make inquiries about me. She asked the postal worker whether I had been picking up my mail. The response was that my box had been overstuffed and my mail was being held at the post office. The next inquiry she made, to my bank, finally led her to learn (against the rules and entirely unofficially) that I had stopped my automatic deposits three months earlier. Another inquiry to her friends at the post office revealed to my landlord that the only mail being held seemed to be commercial “junk” mail. No bills, no magazines, no personal mail of any kind. Only after letting herself in to my apartment did it become clear to the landlord that I emptied the place and left.

I had intentionally withheld my landlord that I was moving out after seven years. I had never had a written rental agreement for the place in all that time, during which she had never said a cordial word to me. My secretive departure may have seemed petty, but it pleased me to cause her just a little bit of grief. She had done nothing else to deserve my wrath, but seven years without a smile or a kind word seemed, to me, to deserve a little unkind treatment.

Aside from my landlord, my bank, and a few creditors and magazine publishers, and the ever-intrusive state and national government, no one knew where I lived or where my income came from. I had long-since withdrawn from my already small social circle, so the only notices of my move were made to those few must-know commercial connections. But after my landlord went snooping, I took the next steps.

***

Before my departure, I had withdrawn all but a couple of hundred dollars from my bank accounts. I paid to have new documents forged with a new identity; passport, driver’s license, birth certificate, and so on. Though it was quite risky, I paid an expert hacker to create false history records with my identity with the credit bureaus. And, then, the two-step move. First, an eight-month temporary relocation from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Cleveland, Ohio. Then, a last-minute twenty-four-day seagoing voyage on a commercial cargo “tramp” freighter. My intended destination was Lisbon, Portugal, but I had to be flexible; my cruise ended in at the port of Tangier Med in Morocco. From there, I made my way to Lisbon, then Porto, Portugal, which is for now my new home.

During my travels, a badly-decomposed body was found on the north bank of the Mississippi River just outside Bettendorf, Iowa. It was identified as mine, thanks to the greed of an underpaid staff member in the county coroner’s office and her accomplice in the state medical examiner’s office. I was officially dead. In fact, the body had belonged to an unidentified homeless man who had drowned months earlier. May he rest in peace.

+++

My energy is on the rise, I think. When I let my imagination loose, I forget the reasons I want so badly to just go to sleep.

A quote attributed to Albert Einstein is phrased slightly differently, depending on the presenter of the attribution:

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. (from GoodReads.com)

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it. (from BrainyQuote.com)

While the difference in phrasing does not change the meaning in any significant way, it reminds me that information labeled as “factual” may be modified, incrementally, from its origin. Because the variations do not alter the meaning, we tend to dismiss them as immaterial. There is a danger in disregarding minor adjustments to “facts.” Over time, and through cumulative “minor’ editorial revisions, “facts” can decay into stories that change reality into fantasy; truth into lies. The sources from which the two internet presentations (shown above) were derived is unknown to me; the variations may well have been caused by simple mistake. Regardless, one (or both) of them is erroneous. In this example, the difference has no appreciable impact, but one can easily see how dangerous such minor differences can make. For example, modifications to original instructions on how to save a  choking person or disarm a nuclear device could be catastrophic.

+++

Yesterday, when trying to start the car to make the short trip to my oncologist’s office to get an injection, I discovered that the battery apparently had died. Fortunately, the other car was operable, so I made the appointment. Normally, I would have returned home and jumped the dead battery, but I remain weak. My low energy level does not permit me to easily do something so simple. Today, perhaps after the temperature reaches its expected peak of just over 60°F, I will give it a try. It would be more than a little embarrassing to call AAA for something so minor, but if it comes to that, so be it. Mi novia might insist on doing it herself, but I pay AAA for just this sort of inconvenience; my dues would be wasted if I fail to take advantage of the service. My ambivalence is frustrating.

+++

When I refuse to let my irrational paranoia take control of my thoughts, I believe Republicans and Democrats (AKA conservatives and progressives, respectively) generally seek very similar social objectives. The differences between them largely are found in the methods they want to use to accomplish those aims. Common ground between their two philosophical approaches can best be found in the following ways: First, refrain from referring to the “other side” as monsters, demons, murderers, etc. Second, using language that is as inoffensive as possible, articulate their objectives regarding each target without referring to the means by which they wish to achieve them. Third, where their ultimate objectives are closely aligned, express each aim as simply as possible. Fourth, evaluate each side’s preferred tactics for achieving their common or near-common goals. Fifth, debate tactics, with the intent of reaching compromise that will adequately satisfy the aims of each and will minimize points of disagreement. Easy-peasy. But, as the Ken Yates song says, Surviving is Easy (but living is hard).

+++

Music accompanying lyrics is more expressive than the words, alone. The third verse of a Jackson Browne tune (sung by Joan Baez in the video below) is a good example of that.

Now for you and me it may not be that hard to reach our dreams
But that magic feeling never seems to last
And while the future’s there for anyone to change
Still you know it seems
It would be easier sometimes to change the past

The hypocrisy of so-called Christians whose support of an utterly immoral regime that celebrates its thirst for cruelty and demonstrates its rejection of Christian values seems to confound the pundits. How is it, they wonder, that people who claim to be deeply religious are so public in their approval and endorsement of a government that behaves as if every act of inhumanity is a symbol of its strength? I, too, have been perplexed at such obvious duplicity. But I think the answer may be obvious: the two approaches to Christianity reflect belief in two very different deities. One is the generous, loving God that rewards compassion, empathy, and kindness. The other is the angry, vindictive God that practices and prizes vengeance. Ultimately, I think the beliefs in the different versions of God reflect the very different world-views of the believers. The two conflicting and competing sets of beliefs both are judgmental and, hence, can be dangerous. But one is much more likely to condone and reward behaviors that uninvolved bystanders would consider barbarous and perverse. If I were to have the ear of some all-powerful being, I would encourage the prohibition one of the religious viewpoints and strong discouragement of the other. If humans in general need religion, as seems to be the case for many, a peaceful, forgiving, benevolent one would be far more attractive than the alternative.

+++

When AI responses to questions posed on Google include links to sources like Quora and Reddit, I have to wonder about the reliability and legitimacy of the answers. I tend to give them about as much credence as I give to quotes, attributed to Abraham Lincoln, that refer to the internet. No matter the specified sources, though, I wonder whether there is any validity to the information I am being fed through the internet. There was a time when I routinely accepted the U.S. Government as a dependable source, when it was given attribution. No longer. And I do not feel absolutely confident even when sources I believe to be legitimate are given. A drunken Estonian prostitute and her wired, meth-head American boyfriend could have infiltrated Wikipedia, claiming to be the pair of Japanese nuclear scientists who published a paper on which I relied to be “factual.” The countries of origin of my hypothetical liars are irrelevant; let them all be Canadians or French citizens or residents of the moon, if you like.

+++

Starburst Collier and Cleopatra Nile had managed to slip past the exit checkpoint by clinging to the undercarriage of a delivery truck.  The strong odor of ripe oranges, just unloaded from the truck’s citrus cargo, overwhelmed the noses of the guards’ sniffer dogs. Still, additional obstacles ahead could ruin their escape attempt, so the pair hung onto the underside of the truck. The vehicle passed beneath the sweep of powerful search lights, as every bump in the road threatened to dislodge them, exposing them to the sharp eyes of roving patrols, all of whom wore night-vision goggles. Finally, though, the truck entered the highway, more than a mile from the detention center gates, where the rough, pothole-strewn road suddenly changed to a smooth asphalt surface. After ten miles on the highway, the truck pulled into a convenience store and gas station, the only commercial establishment for miles around. When the driver parked his truck at the pumps, Collins and Nile climbed out from underneath and sprinted, unseen, into the darkness behind the store.

“Now, we wait,” Collier whispered, as the two of them sat with their backs against the wall of the building. “The tanker should arrive just before 4:00 a.m. They won’t discover we’re gone until an hour after that.”

+++

The transformation of time into matter is, like so many other issues, far beyond my ability to comprehend. But I scanned an abstract earlier today that I hoped would lead me to some basic understanding. Here is an extract from that abstract (from The Matter of Time, by Arto Annila, Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland):

About a century ago, in the spirit of ancient atomism, the quantum of light was renamed the photon to suggest that it is the fundamental element of everything. Since the photon carries energy in its period of time, a flux of photons inexorably embodies a flow of time. Thus, time comprises periods as a trek comprises legs. The flows of quanta naturally select optimal paths (i.e., geodesics) to level out energy differences in the least amount of time. The corresponding flow equations can be written, but they cannot be solved. 

As usual, my hopes were dashed. I feel like I am attempting to swim from the middle of an enormous pool of quick-drying concrete to its perimeter, while sinking into its depth at the same rate as I am moving toward its edge. The author’s abstract continues beyond what I have shown above, including an assertion that: Thus, the future remains unpredictable, and ultimately leads to this statement: Thus, time does not move forward either but circulates. I might as well be attempting to understand the infectious colors of the thoughts of a celestial seahorse.

That having been said, I believe my utter lack of anything remotely resembling a knowledge of time and physics and such gives me license to make any assertions I wish to make. In other words, my imagination is unrestrained by the restrictions of reality. If I choose, I can explain, in great detail, the process whereby time can be melted and then cooled, solidifying into space. By the same token, I can describe how space can be heated into its gaseous form, thereby becoming time. Without the limitations of reality, I am untethered to constraints that otherwise would inhibit my ability to experience the universe in ways I might never have dreamed of. And, I might add, I am not limited to experiencing the universe; I am perfectly capable of experiencing its unborn twin in an infinite set of dimensions well outside everything. I can, for example, look at everything as an infinitely small particle of an infinitely more massive…something. Freedom from the bonds of time and space and so many other chains that confine us to a miniscule speck of everything there is, was, or will be is remarkably refreshing. At least that’s my theory at the moment. Almost everything there is has no bearing on life, and vice versa. Yet we’re trained or indoctrinated into believing life is the most important thing. It’s enough to make one’s mind explode into a magical mist in which forest sprites become rulers of the planet.

The world as we know it today—a fragile, dangerous place that could erupt into an explosive, apocalyptic inferno at any moment—is very different from the world that could have been if humanity had prevailed over hatred. But we will never know what would have been; we can only look back in regret, unable to change history and unwilling, thus far, to force change in direction for the future.

+++

I read this morning about a 400,000-year old site in eastern Britain where archaeologists have found the earliest evidence to date that modern humans’ early neanderthal ancestors made fire. I still cannot make fire without a propane lighter or matches, though I have a vague recollection of being taught to (or trying to) make fire while participating in what I think was called the YMCA Indian Guides program. I couldn’t have been older than 6 or 7 years old. Today, I imagine that program is long dead, due to its misappropriation of elements of indigenous culture. From the tiny fragments of memory in my head, though, I think the program was truly reverential to the culture. We live and learn, though. Except I doubt I have retained enough of what I learned to enable me to make flames.

+++

With few exceptions, I visit my oncologist’s office once every week. The staff there have become almost more familiar than were the people at church, where I used to visit at least once every week. Unlike my experience with church, though, none of the cancer center staff have become friends, nor did I expect anything more than a cordial, professional relationship. Despite the reasons for visits to the cancer center, though, I find myself looking forward to those weekly appointments. Though I am not a “people person,” I sometimes enjoy engaging with the wider world. The imposition of restrictions demanded by cancer treatments has shrunken the size of my wider world. Sometimes, I miss participating in that larger wider world. Yesterday, I received holiday greetings from a couple of friends in Dallas, which reminded me that I have not initiated any of our rare conversations in far too long. My desire for more frequent interaction with people—especially with people who matter to me—is at odds with my tendency to wait for someone else to kindle such interactions.

+++

Speaking of my oncologist…I just got a call, asking me to return to her office today (and again tomorrow) for an injection to address a lower-than-desired white cell count. Sigh…

Time rushes to replace moments that should have been preserved. When fond experiences exist only in memories, we cling to lies we’ve been told: that now is better than then; that new is better than old. But familiarity fits like bespoke clothes, sewn from custom fabrics woven for us; every seam stitched with soft threads that conform to who we were and who we have become. The difference between being stuck in the past and living comfortably in the here and now involves the transition between them. Those among us who struggle to accept change treat it like replacing a wardrobe of old sweats with stiff, starched denim overalls. The rest of us treat change as if we were upgrading from sweats to soft, weather-worn jeans. Ach! A simile that attempts to equate one’s choice of clothing with one’s ability to adapt to fundamental change is profoundly superficial. That is especially true when trying to address an even more crucial matter: preservation of what matters in an environment in which adaptation to change honors the importance of the foundations upon which today’s environment was built.

+++

Mistakes that cannot be corrected can be treated as lessons or as wounds that will not heal. Or, as is often witnessed, they can dismissed as meaningless stumbles that should have no bearing on a person’s ability to fully enjoy life. Mistakes made without subsequently feeling regret for having made them tend to compound the damage caused by the original misstep.

+++

Another follow-up with my oncologist today. Lab work and IV fluids. A reminder of the fact that cancer remains a defining part of life. I would rather write a psycho-fictional essay-short-story that explores my thoughts about the experience of being human in an inhumane world—or about experiencing life as a sentient sub-sea member of the plant kingdom.  Or, absent pursuing those opportunities, I might prefer to sleep.

Pessimism, when countered by optimistic fantasy, can decay into hopeless avoidance. Realism, on the other hand, has the potential of sending ocean-going passenger vessels to the bottom of the sea. Optimism paints lifelike portraits that are a little too perfect; AI images that lack moles and chipped teeth and about 45 pounds of unnecessary and undesirable weight.

+++

I have proven the impossible. I have seen the invisible. I have remembered a future that has yet to take place. I have foreseen a history, watching it take form from the immeasurably distant future. I have arisen, alive, from the impenetrable dungeon of death. I have disobeyed the laws of Nature, while casting the ashes of certainty into a sea of doubt.  I have determined that all things are impossible, though accomplishments cannot be unmade. I have exposed an obvious secret—that time is forever hidden behind the face of a clock, where its fingers scratch at evidence that time is a fantasy. I have uncovered felonies hatched from unfertilized eggs. I have measured the strength of absolute weakness and the weakness at the peak of strength. I have imagined the unimaginable and claimed to have done the undoable. I have listened to sounds that cannot be heard and parroted noises that cannot be mimicked. I have escaped from inescapable conclusions and have been bound forever in a prison cell too large to hold me.

+++

Late last night, not long after mi novia got in bed, my phone’s “Hello?” alert (notifying me that I have received a text message) interrupted my effort to sleep. Because such late night alerts could be important, I looked at my phone. It was just a notification that a Freezing Fog Advisory had been issued. The advisory expired just a few minutes ago. As I glimpse outside, I see fog filling the woods. it is especially dense near the top of the trees, where I think I see a thin film of an icy coating on the pine needles. The garage roof, too, is white with frost. This paragraph would have been far more interesting if the advisory had alerted me to an impending invasion by a gang of weapons-toting water fowl that were suspected of carrying rabies in knapsacks on their backs.

+++

Water in a plastic cup on my desk is the only item in my study responding to vibrations I cannot feel. Nothing else in my study displays any movement; not even an echo of a sound that might have been made hours ago. Light reflecting from the water reveals miniscule waves on its surface; tiny ripples that would be invisible if the ceiling light above was moved by a hair’s width. My imagination offers dozens of explanations: vibrations from an earthquake thousands of miles distant, transmitting microscopic movements of the Earth’s crust directly to the surface of my cup of water; nearly undetectable sounds caused by a jet airplane’s engines, thousands of feet in the air above me; a heavy truck traveling over a nearby road, sending tremors through the asphalt and underlayment to and through the foundation of my house; the sliver quivering or bouncing of my leg on the floor below my desk, broadcast through the furniture; my breathing, sending air molecules slamming into one another, causing the commotion to reach the water’s surface; a tiny, almost invisible, insect moving its legs just enough to disturb the water, and many, many more. The core cause for the vibrations probably does not matter. But it could. Unless the vibrations grow in intensity, though, my attention will no doubt be drawn elsewhere, to yet another diversion…another distraction that makes little difference in the way I experience the world around me. That, of course, raises a question: how intrusive must a distraction be to capture enough of one’s attention to cause that attention to deviate from the thoughts or things that drew one’s attention previously? That question, if applied to every instance in which one’s attention left its earlier path, could rob a person of actionable focus. It could cause madness; a sort of mental explosion that might leave him incapable of other, more rational, though. Is this something we should carefully watch for? Should we ask friends and family to be on the lookout for evidence of psychological eruptions? If so, what might we advise them to do if they found such evidence?

+++

Just short of two weeks from now, the Northern Hemisphere will experience the Winter Solstice. The shortest day, the longest night, the beginning of winter. Drinking mulled wine, making gingerbread, lighting a Yule log, feasting, and several other rituals coincide with celebrations of the Winter Solstice. Several ancient traditions, as well as many significant modern cultural practices, are rooted in observances of the Winter Solstice. The alignment of stones in Stonehenge mark both Winter Solstice and Summer Solstice.  Many celebratory Winter Solstice traditions involve fire and light, welcoming the sun’s return to its realm and celebrating renewal and rebirth. From a particular heathen’s perspective, celebrations of the Winter Solstice are far more more natural—as well as more authentically human—than traditions involving Santa Clause and gift-laden reindeer and once-a-year moments of charity and compassion. Granted, the two styles of celebratory philanthropy, kindness, and human decency share many commonalities; but our modern versions are not very good at shielding their capitalistic foundations from public view. Regardless of one’s philosophies about the Winter Solstice “season,”  though, it seems to strike a chord across social and political and economic divides. As is the case with so many other aspects of human behavior, our emotional attachments to the Winter Solstice may be radically different, but give us the capacity to safely bridge the shark-infested waters between us. With that in mind, I hope I can follow my own advice and seek that protected pathway on December 21 and every day thereafter.

+++

Nothing can be so utterly destructive to trust in others as betraying it in oneself. That admonition seems so obviously correct that one would be foolish to question it. Yet it happens every day to incalculable numbers of people. A “little deception” may appear innocuous and easily tolerable, but it brings into question every assertion one makes. Every assurance one hears is compared to one’s own dependability. If I can dishonor commitments I make to myself, why should place my trust in others? A history of breaking commitments to myself—whether explicit or implied—is a warning to myself and to others. And, when one determines he cannot be trusted, one’s self-esteem must evaporate completely, leaving a bag of empty skin devoid of merit. I hope I can trust myself. To know otherwise would be absolutely intolerable. I wonder what people who cannot trust themselves feel about themselves? Such a dark, dark place; a point from which return must be next to impossible.

+++

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

~ Khalil Gibran ~

+++

I think I may have exhausted my reservoir of tiredness. Though I felt completely spent when I went to bed early last night, I could not get to sleep. At most, I slept for fifteen minutes or thereabouts every hour for most of the night. I started trying to track my clock-watching just after 1:00 a.m. The amount of time I slept between 1 and 2 was negligible. At 2:00 a.m., I turned over to have another look at the clock. I did the same at 2:30, at 3, at 3:30, at 4, and at 4:15. I stayed in bed until almost 5, but finally decided I had used up my capacity to sleep. I am tired again, but I think lack of sleep (and not ongoing fatigue) may be the cause. That would be good. It would mean I may have gotten over the post-chemo stretch of my committed attachment to exhaustion. I hope that’s the case. As much as I’ve grown to appreciate excessive sleep, I’ve also grown tired of it. My energy may be making a post-chemo comeback. My timing is more than a little off-balance.

+++

If my hands get any thinner, I think I might be able to see light through them by holding them up to a bright light. That’s an exaggeration, by the way, but not by much. The bones and tendons, already easily visible beneath a web of blue veins and ribbons of connective tissue, seem to have less volume than I would have expected. My fingers, once short and stubby like miniature light tan cudgels, now look more like beefy beige pretzel sticks. But “stubby” and “beefy” suggest thickness that has long-since devolved into something without as much body as those words might imply. Though they are far from toothpick-thin, my fingers belong on the hands of a tall, lanky teenager—proportional to his angular gauntness. On the other hand, they might be fitting for an old man whose body is shrinking, revealing what happens when food no longer is as attractive as it was when the body belonged to a ravenously hungry boy-person. Though I once was a ravenously hungry boy-person, I never had the sleek, svelte body I assume such persons have. Instead, my body was clad with thick layers of protective coverings that simultaneously hid both evidence of skeletal structure beneath body-warming temperature regulating tissues and any suggestion that powerful muscles might reside there.

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It has happened again. My fingers are rebelling against forced employment as alphabetic laborers. For now, anyway. I may explore whether the bed is still as comfortable as I remember it once was.

The closest we come to truly experiencing the entire human life cycle requires conscious observation of—or participation in—several crucial moments. The very first involves the moment of conception. A little later, watching the fetus become a visible lump in a mother’s belly, is another critical event in the human life cycle. Later, still, viewing the emergence of the child from the mother’s womb is a vital piece of the cycle of life. From that point forward, witnessing the baby’s growth and development through each stage of the child’s life, through maturity and old age, contributes to our eternally incomplete experience of human life. People who cannot, or choose not to, rear children miss long periods of observation that must be experienced to even begin to understand our life cycle. Though we can witness others’ transition from life to death, simply watching it unfold does not equate to experiencing that transition—we can only watch and weep and wonder about that final departure; that irreversible transformation from life to death. In fact, the human life cycle is so complex and convoluted that we “experience” vast stretches of time we simply cannot remember. When periods of one’s life take place in the absence of conscious awareness or memory, we cannot claim to have truly experienced those moments of life. We miss relatively close to one-third of our lives, simply by sleeping. And we lose long segments due to fractured recollections or memories buried in a locked vault of time. We think we know so much about our own life cycles, but reality tells another story. And we cannot realistically hope to understand the ending. We pore over thousands of pages during our lifetimes, only to discover final chapter—the one that brings the entire story together in a riveting conclusion—is missing.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes our senses irrelevant. Sight. Sound. Touch. Taste. Smell. Once upon a time, they were real. Today, though, they are available only from sensory historians. And, like authors of history texts, AI manipulators deliver their biased interpretations of the sensations experienced through the sensory organs.

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Bubbles form in response to instructions provided by physicists. Or, at least, physics. I am not sure whether physicists provide instructions for the production of bubbles. If they did, though, I might not be the first to say they do.

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Where do internationally active political spies get their hands on suicide pills that are fast-acting and have no detectible side-effects (except death)? Such pills are sufficiently common in spy literature that I think they must be based on the real thing. And how does one deliver said pills, unnoticed, to psychopaths? Especially psychopaths surrounded by protective thugs? Just curious. Could be the basis of a short story.

Today—December 6, 2025—is the 108th anniversary of Finland’s independence. The celebration will include a review of troops and a ceremonial march. Many of the day’s events will be broadcast live on TV1, Radio Suomi, Yle.fi and Yle Areena. The president, Alexander Stubb, and his spouse, Suzanne Innes-Stubb, chose Missä muruseni on, a song written by Jenni Vartiainen and performed by her and the Guards Band as their first dance, which will take place this evening at the Presidential Palace, followed by an afterparty at Hotel Kämp. My only real connection to Finland is embedded in memories of our one-day visit to Helsinki. We arrived in Helsinki early in the morning, after an overnight cruise from Stockholm, across the Baltic Sea on a Silja Line cruiseferry. Following a day walking through Helsinki under an overcast sky, we boarded a cruiseferry for the overnight trip back to Stockholm. I took no photographs. I bought no trinkets to serve as memorabilia. My memories of Helsinki are cloudy, but I recall having a lunch of reindeer stew and beetroot soup at a small restaurant. That single day’s exposure to Finland sparked a deep appreciation in me of the country. I have already written about that one-day introduction to Finland (I believe my visit in 2004), so there’s no point in another post about it. Yet I was almost as enamored of my few days in Sweden during the same trip; another trip which I have mentioned before. Perhaps I am running out of happy memories, forcing me to recycle some of the best ones. Had my early life taken a few sharp turns in different directions, I might be living in Scandinavia now, or somewhere else in Europe; fluent in Swedish and Finnish and proud of my decision to escape the religious and racial and myriad other bigotries that have found a comfortable nest in the USA.

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Courage. Bravery. Fearless determination. Those characteristics—necessary to escape the uncomfortable bondage of claiming to have no choice but to submit to the invasive slavery of patriotism gone off the rails—never took root in me. I wanted to be strong, but I think the requisite attributes were smothered under a blanket of so-called socialization. Artificial bravado, a crucial part of the educational curriculum designed to inculcate obedience in moldable children, blocked the real thing from becoming part of me. Not just me, of course. Millions of others, herded into conformity with easily manipulatable norms, experienced the same pressure…not to question social conventions that buried the spirit of adventure beneath layer upon layer of conformity.

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I hope I emerge from this lethargy very soon. Within minutes, not hours. I felt tired and spent last night, so did not join my gathered family for dinner. Again, I slept. And slept. And slept. At the moment, I feel like I could easily drift back to sleep again. Whether this sense of listlessness is based on mental or physical reactions to chemotherapy on Wednesday, I do not know. Whatever it is, I want it gone. I want a fresh infusion of boundless energy. I want to break out of the doldrums.

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Fog makes the trees outside my window look…vague. As if they are trying to decide whether to reveal themselves fully. The only movements I detect outside are the chipmunks (or whatever) darting across the driveway. Everything else…the leaves on the trees, the fog, everything…is as still as a painting, long-since dried.  Perhaps I am vague, too. But not for long, right? Right?

Among the reasons scientists say water is necessary for life (as we know it) is that water is a solvent. But an article (entitled, Is Water Necessary for Life?) published in the July 2019 issue of Astronomy says this: “There are also plenty of opportunities for life to flourish based on solvents other than water.” The author, David J. Eicher, is reported to be “one of the most widely recognized astronomy enthusiasts in the world.” Whether that recognition, or his extensive history of authoring scientific books and papers, qualifies him as a reliable source of believable information about the connection between non-water solvents and life is a subject for debate—debate for which I am not qualified to moderate nor in which I am qualified to participate. But for as long as I can remember, I have questioned the assertion that water is absolutely necessary for life. A press release (entitled, Water is not an essential ingredient for Life, scientists now claim) published online on SpaceNews.com on November 26, 2004, approaches the matter differently. Subsequent scientific explorations may have found data that would argue against both positions. But I’ll leave it there, anyway. I am curious about the matter; I would like a definitive, inarguable answer. But I am resigned to the likelihood that I won’t get it; at least not one in which I have absolute faith. As in so many other circumstances, my curiosity is strong, but not strong enough to lead me on a “mission” to find an answer that probably exists (if it exists) far outside of humans’ ability to reach.

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Last night’s World Tour of Wines went on without me. Mi novia, though, came home with some plastic bento-boxes full of my food; already paid-for. She took with her to the dinner the bento boxes in which my oncologist sent home with me some Thanksgiving meals last week—so kind and thoughtful! I did not really feel bad; just drained of energy. I feel that way this morning, as well, though not quite as fatigued as I was yesterday, when I cancelled my haircut and my appointment with the podiatrist. I’m still not quite up to speed, so those appointments will have to wait until another time. Bah!

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We’ll have family with us this afternoon through Sunday, a welcome visit that will no doubt boost my energy and otherwise improve what looks like a grey, dreary day outside. The high temperature today is forecast to reach 45°F, only 9°F higher than right now. Fortunately, we will not spend time wandering around shivering and naked outdoors. We won’t spend time indoors in that state of discomfort, either. Instead, we will immerse ourselves in a temperate environment; inside, where we will be sheltered and warm and comfortable. Good people, good food, good conversation. Ideally, all family members would be here with us; that will take place another time. Patience and commitment are what that will take.

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I do not understand why I can get a reasonably good and consistent connection on Zoom with my family in Mexico, but not with telephone connections. Those connections typically are unreliable—static, dropped calls, and wide variations in the volumes of the voices on the other end of the line. The only downsides with Zoom are that they take a small (but still irritating) amount of planning. In addition to the aforementioned problems with phone calls, phone connections involving more than two locations amplify the difficulties. I can cope with troubling interference with communications, but I allow my impatience to dissuade me from making the effort. Perhaps I contribute more to the problem than do the technological connections. Ach.

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Early to bed last night and late to rise this morning; I should be fully rested. Yet my body insists I have not slept long enough. Apparently fourteen to sixteen hours (or more) is inadequate. I am not in intolerable pain, though, so I can handle a bit more sleep in lieu of unwelcome weariness.

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Somehow, our society seems to have determined that we must choose between white color careers and blue collar careers. If we choose the former, we are asked to accept that our education should be delivered in college; preferably through a four-year program or through a more intense path that leads to an advanced degree. If we choose the latter, we are expected to attend trade school or learn on-the-job. In making the choice, we are asked to accept that white collar careers should correlate with higher incomes, more prestige, and opportunities for greater social mobility. Blue collar work, on the other hand, should correspond to lower income, less prestige, and limitations in one’s ability to climb the social ladder. It’s either-or. One or the other. A blue collar worker is not expected to appreciate or understand sophisticated literature, complex scientific or engineering concepts, art, or mathematical theories. And white collar workers who also have an interest in working with their hands are viewed with suspicion, as if “manual labor” is embarrassingly “beneath their station.” Bullshit. I think lives which combine engagement with both worlds are far more likely to be fulfilling than are lives limited to one or the other. Who are the people whose lives are apt to be most enriched? Plumbers who enjoy philosophical discussions or reading the great works of literature. Doctors who spend their spare time doing landscaping. Carpenters who express themselves emotionally by writing poetry. Lawyers who immerse themselves turning wood or building furniture. Electricians who delve into the physics of astronomy. I believe people who venture outside the assigned “color” of their chosen career paths probably develop greater respect for and appreciation of those who have chosen different shirt collars; routes to job satisfaction and career  success.

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Yesterday’s chemotherapy session delivered two anti-cancer drugs, an escalation from recent treatments. I was infused with two medications (gemcitabine and navelbine), but “appropriately” reduced dosages (compared to…?), and given an injection of bone-strengthening medication. I have lost track of the chemo meds I have been given since my original diagnosis and even since the diagnosis of recurrence, two years ago. My oncologist explained that the “abstruse report on genomic & epigenetic biomarkers measured in a blood sample,” which I mentioned in a recent post, revealed “no actionable (genetic) mutations.” She will continue to periodically schedule the measurement (which she called a “liquid biopsy”) periodically, in the hope that any such mutations might offer additional options to stall or otherwise slow the development of my cancer. The latest information yields “good news,” but “good” might suggest a tad more optimism than the news deserves. When I hear her review the meaning of recent developments, I interpret her words as saying something like, “the good news is that your inevitable death due to cancer is unlikely to occur within the hour.” Just a touch of black humor.

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Shortly after I left the clinic after yesterday’s chemo treatment, I began to feel tired.  Or maybe it was a little more like empty or like I had suddenly been robbed of even a shred of energy. I took a nap when I got home. No long after I awoke from the nap, I was ready for bed. So, about 8:00 p.m. I called it a day. Usually, my energy seems to spike upward for a while after treatment; no so, yesterday. My calendar for today includes a follow-up visit with the podiatrist to complete the treatment of my onychocryptosis (ingrown toenail) by applying a chemical to thwart the nail from regrowing along the edge. And, later, I have an appointment for a haircut. And, this evening, we have reservations for a wines of the world dinner. Because my energy level remains quite low, I’ve decided to postpone the first two obligations. I hope to meet the third one, but that remains to be seen, depending on how I feel as the scheduled time approaches. Normally, I can count on at least a little boost right after chemo; I guess I should not count on that expectation.

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My treatment yesterday concluded with the administration of the bone-strengthening injection. I sat in a chair against a wall to get the injection (in my stomach). Just as the nurse plunged the needle into me, I heard an odd noise above the back of my head. And, then, I felt a strange sensation on top of my head. The nurse started laughing, which caused her to jiggle the needle, significantly amplifying the pain of the normally quite painful injection. Her laughter was triggered by the fact that the odd noise and physical sensation were caused by a wall-mounted hand-sanitizer, which began releasing its foam onto me because of the proximity of my head. No permanent damage; the stuff evaporates quickly. More humor; not sure of its hue.

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Back to work and life satisfaction: I sometimes wonder which career path I would have found more appealing: college professor or stone mason? I suspect I could have been comfortable in either role; but happier dabbling in both. I admire people who work with their hands; people who have gotten good at that work. Many kinds of blue collar work are far more artistic than most of their white collar counterparts. Which is likely to be more creative, an office administrator or a wood turner? A plumber or a wedding planner? A paid assassin or a volunteer doing the same work?

Frost on the roof and evergreen trees, visible from the windows of my study, suggests I would be more comfortable staying indoors today—my typical day—than venturing out. But chemotherapy is on the agenda, so I will just have to deal with the underabundance of warm temperatures. Even when we claim to have no choices, we are drowned in them. I could simply opt to cancel my chemo appointment, for example, or I could ask to be placed in a brief, medically-induced, coma while enroute to and from the cancer treatment center. I could postpone the treatment until we experience a period of reliably warm weather, but that might interfere with or counteract the progress made thus far in keeping the cancer from advancing as rapidly as it otherwise would. Choices, then, are not necessarily appealing, or even realistic, choices. Sometimes, they are unattractive or unpleasant options. Maybe options is not the right word; perhaps alternatives is a more descriptive fit. Options suggests, to me, alternatives that are at least modestly interesting. How is it that something so mundane as this can command so much of my time? I often wonder why I can burrow so deeply into such rabbit warrens.

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I am not the only person who has expressed curiosity about whether there is a maximum temperature—an opposite of absolute zero. Fourteen years ago, more or less, a query on reddit asked that very question. The few answers almost immediately assumed a knowledge of such esoterica as how logarithms work, Planck temperature, and other such excursions into quantum theories and physics that are beyond my comprehension. But what I got out of the responses is that absolute zero, the lowest possible temperature, is a theoretical limit that cannot be reached in practice. However, that unreachable limit is assigned specific theoretical temperatures: 0 Kelvin (K), -273.15 degrees Celsius (°C),  -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit (°F). But, at the log scale (according to one respondent), the lowest temperature would be equal to negative infinity. At the other end of the spectrum, there is no specific maximum…except positive infinity; except one respondent says quantum theory may predict a maximum temperature.  At this late stage in my life, there is no compelling reason for me to attempt to absorb a lifetime of understanding of and knowledge about physics. But, if that understanding and knowledge were obtainable by getting a simple injection, I would go for it. I loathe that I did not devote enough time and energy to learn this stuff…or that I am not sufficiently intelligent to achieve that knowledge and understanding.

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A high school classmate with whom I have been in occasional online contact in recent years sent me a message this morning, letting me know she and her son are in Hot Springs Village for a few days. She wondered whether we might be able to visit briefly. Thanks to my schedule and her limited time here, that is, unfortunately, not possible. I have not seen her in 53 years and, to the best of my recollection, we were at most casual acquaintances during our school years. It’s interesting how some faint and tentative connections can endure after such a long time. From what I know of her now, her philosophies are liberal and progressive, which might explain why we remember one another. Another matter to occupy my mind; how are people who otherwise have little in common drawn to maintain informal connections over the course of time?

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The howling cat is complaining bitterly that I will not permit her to leap onto my desktop and shed enough fur to weave into a heavy coat. She seems to crave attention, yet when I try to reach for her to pet her, she rejects my overtures and clearly expresses disdain for me. Yet she looks at me, from just beyond arm’s reach, and looks pleadingly at me. She cries pitifully, as if distraught that I am not paying enough attention to her emotional needs. Dogs are far more friendly. Dogs are kind. Cats are self-indulgent, emotionally empty creatures; feline versions of the Kardashians or the Trumps. Potatoes are friendlier than Phaedra.

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Desolate places are like magnets to me. That is one of many compelling arguments.

I spent most of the last hour poring over an abstruse report on genomic & epigenetic biomarkers measured in a blood sample taken during a visit with my oncologist a few weeks ago. Understanding the significance of the report requires far more knowledge of genetics and oncology than I possess, but with the help of Google’s AI Overview, I have become even more confused by the report’s contents. However, if the Google AI Overview did nothing else, it left me with an uneasy optimism about the potential negative effects on the progression of my cancer, as suggested by my genetics. My visit tomorrow at the cancer center, when the staff will administer more chemotherapy drugs, will, I hope, confirm my optimism about the meaning of the report. My optimism received a pre-abstruse-report boost yesterday afternoon when I received a summary of the morning’s PET-scan results and the doctor’s office called me to tell me she was quite pleased with them. Despite the good news, I need medications (though not as much) to manage pain. I can live with needing a little (rather than a great deal) pain control.

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Tiny icicles dangle from some leaves on the bush outside my window. The dense clusters of bright red berries seem to be encased in thin coatings of ice, as well. If the outdoor temperature is truly 34°F, as my computer monitor tells me, the ice should melt before long. The Weather Network, though, asserts that the temperature, at the moment, is two degrees colder than my computer claims, so I will not count my frozen chickens just yet. Inside the house, some rooms remain unpleasantly cold, even though the digital thermometer (part of the HVAC thermostat) says it’s a balmy 73°F in the house. My body insists the digital thermometer is wrong, at least here in my study—where I am confident temperatures are approaching absolute zero.

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Mi novia‘s grandson will play in the Arizona 5A State Championship (football) game later this week; Friday night. Thanks to her (and her daughter’s) infectious enthusiasm, it is impossible to maintain any semblance of disinterest. Mom’s and grandma’s levels of excitement are, literally, audible; the two of them during their phone conversations and grandma’s when she describes his latest accomplishment to anyone within earshot. Though I doubt I will ever develop sufficient interest in football to prompt me to watch the Superbowl, I am cheering him on, regardless of which team finishes the game with the highest score. The fact that he is maintaining a very high grade point average and is actively involved in other extracurricular activities adds to my appreciation for his accomplishments.

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The icicles are getting longer on the leaves outside my window. And the branches of pine trees, their needles coated with a white sheen, reveal the weight of accumulating ice. Temperature readings still insist the air is barely above—or at exactly the point of—freezing. I doubt the evidence of winter weather will remain visible for long today, which demonstrates my confidence in meteorologists’ ability to predict Mother Nature’s capriciousness.

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Yesterday afternoon, mi novia put up our Christmas tree and otherwise set about decorating the house for the season. Whether the tree will survive the presence of a surly, assertive, occasionally obnoxious, fur-shedding beast of a cat has yet to be determined. I enjoy seeing Christmas decorations—briefly in the month of December—but I have never been especially enamored of being involved in the doing the work of elves. Perhaps, if I had enough eggnog and/or medically-necessary gummies, I might be more inclined to contribute to the efforts. But, more likely, partaking of those seasonal nutritional supplements would simply amplify my enjoyment of the signs of the season.

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Somehow, I slipped into December almost without noticing the end of summer. My birthday in October should be a reminder that Thanksgiving will soon follow, and that Christmas (paired with another’s birthday 🙂 ) cannot be far behind. The speed with which time passes catches me increasingly off-guard, though. Before I know it, leprechauns will be spilling green dye into the Chicago River for St. Patrick’s Day and Buddha Purnima will follow on May 12 to celebrate Buddha’s birth, the latter just a week after Cinco de Mayo.

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Does anyone wonder whether Mona Lisa’s facial expression might have been a response to an episode of flatulence…or diarrhea? And, was it hers or Leonardo’s?

I have written a few paragraphs this morning, but their attempted flippancy has fallen flat. I am in no mood to be flip. Only after my PET-scan, scheduled to begin in 90 minutes, might the tensions I feel fall away. Only then might I try writing again. But maybe I’ll put it off until I get the results of the scan. With good fortune, the results will leave me in a more relaxed, comfortable mood. Time will tell. I have no interest in petting a cobra, by the way.