John Swinburn

“Galveston Pyramids.” Others say “Moody Gardens.” Either way. You either know them or you don’t. If you don’t, you should. Because they embody wisdom. Raw wisdom. Wisdom that has escaped being shaped by power-hungry despots with ego issues. But, back to the Pyramids. They hide a rain forest and a superb aquarium, among other things. Things that impart wisdom simply by being in the same room. Learn more. Let’s sit in a quiet grotto next to the ocean. I will explain.

+++

It’s late and my poor finger suffers the abuse of one-fingered blogging. It’s a sin against Man and Nature. I shall stop. Galveston awaits for awhile.

Here I am, on Galveston Island, Texas. Passenger seaport. Host to one of the most powerful hurricanes. Ever. But I am in the calm of the storm. With enough money, anyplace can be tolerable. Here, a person could get by nicely with lodging and $30k a year. That’s just a guess.

Yesterday was massively successful. After starting with unexpected sausage kolaches, we spent most of the remainder of the day at the Bishop’s Palace and wandering the Strand, a remarkable shopping area. During our Strand browsing, we stopped for coffee and for lunch. And I discovered, during a browsing wander, that I am fascinated by the octopus, the jellyfish, and the sea horse. Yes, I should have been an oceanographer. Or a farmer. Or an attorney. Or an electrician. Or a welder. Or a cardiovascular accountant. A tad off track.

Last night, we had a shrimp-and-oyster-fest, with the main attractions coming right off the boat just hours earlier at wharfside. Before dinner, one of my friends joined me for a drive to the grocery store to pick up staples like horseradish and shrimp boil. While there, wine seemed to become a staple, right alongside coffee.

+++

Inasmuch as I am one-finger-typing, I will end this one-sided conversation.

+++

One more thing. I witnessed a real neighborhood in action. Close, friendly neighbors. I like it.

Time speeds by every morning. Between the time I wake up and the time I sit down at the keyboard to think with my fingers, half an hour has disappeared into the mist of history. How can it take half an hour to slide out of bed, eliminate the urine that has accumulated since the last wee-hours trip to the bathroom, throw on my morning clothes, take my pills, and make my coffee? How, indeed. Yet it takes that much time to make my way from bed to desk. The speed with which time flies by is another reason I want and need to arise early. If I got up later, half the day would have disappeared into a smoky memory, robbing me of the peaceful introduction to the solitude that is mine each day. As always, I am grateful for that solitude, yet mindful that I need companionship and affection. That’s the subject of a conversation I would like to have one day with people who are close to me; what are their thoughts and feelings about companionship and affection and solitude? But that’s a subject that many people, especially male people, would rather avoid. Discussions about emotions tend to strip away the masculine mystique, revealing sensitive spots subject to “unmanly” pain. We men can be such babies.  Wait. How the hell did my thoughts about how time rushes by turn into a lamentation about male emotional fragility? Who knows? That’s the way my mind works—or malfunctions—at this hour of the day. And most other hours.

+++

There’s a fine line between indignation and rage. Both responses to unexpected and unacceptable circumstances generally are inappropriate in public settings. So, in place of emotional melt-downs, we (I, anyway) must mask our feelings of fury and bitter animosity. In their place, we sometimes must substitute empathy and understanding, all the while wishing we could let loose with a barrage of profanity followed by a volley of physical abuse rarely seen in modern civil society. For example, when discovering at the car rental counter that the make and model of vehicle one has reserved and paid for is not available and will not be available for the foreseeable future, one might become animatedly angry. But that does no good. Instead, one swallows hard and accepts one’s utter inability to control the situation, acknowledging one’s impotence and accepting circumstances beyond one’s control. But, beneath the calm, one wants to find the bureaucrats who control the car rental agency’s ineptitudes and processes; and, when found, beat those bureaucrats bloody with a hardwood baseball bat. And that’s just one of millions of upsetting situations one encounters during the course of one’s life. Is it any wonder that, sometimes, people simply snap under massive waves of insanity? Personally, I am surprised I do not see more people wandering aimlessly about the streets, shaking their fists at the sky and babbling incoherently. Perhaps I’m just not paying sufficient attention, given that I’m busy, giving the finger to the “bad side” of the universe while I scream a string of profanities a mile wide and a lifetime long.

+++

If life were as fair as I want it to be, I would have a warm apple fritter waiting for me in the kitchen after I finish typing this tirade. But life is not fair in that way. In place of an apple fritter, dry cereal and an over-ripe banana await me. Punishment, I suppose, for my acknowledgement of my tendency toward indignation and rage. But, at least it’s food. If I had not practiced suppressing those emotions and replacing them with empathy and understanding, I would have only wet cardboard and rotted lemons for sustenance. So, in the overarching scheme of things, dry cereal and over-ripe bananas look like gifts of gentle appreciation. We mask the ugly with the unsightly. Still, I would deeply appreciate an apple fritter. Hell, I would be delighted with a glazed donut or a spicy sausage roll. But I will accept the damn cereal, if I have to, and won’t complain too bitterly about it.

+++

I have places to see and things to be, so I’ll end this diatribe now. Again, I may not (or may) blog much (or at all) in the next few days. But I will be back when the time is right and my thoughts are ripe. Like lemons.

We must continue to repeat asking the unanswerable questions; not simply because we may one day have answers, but because questions without answers challenge us to think abstract thoughts. Most questions, I believe, were once unanswerable. Science and physics and technology and mathematics and other arcane branches of intellectual exploration have answered many of those questions. But many more remain. Even as we carve away at knowing the unknown, though, we must ask new questions for which we have no answers. Failing to explore the unfathomable would be tantamount to extinguishing the thrilling excitement that gives life its beautiful mystery. Stopping “pointless” inquiry would rob us of the extraordinary joy of things as simple—and as complex—as the awe we feel while watching a magnificent sunrise or sunset. Such delights do not prove the existence of a supreme being anymore than does the polio vaccine or the understanding of the role of DNA. They simply emphasize the wonders of the universe. Many Nobel prize-winning scientists have dismissed the concept of a supreme being, while acknowledging the inexplicable beauty of…reality. Questions always will take us to the edge of wonder and awe.

+++

This morning’s coffee has an off-taste; a flavor I find more than mildly offensive. Perhaps it’s the interaction with the remnants of that taste of toothpaste. Or the water may be “off.” Or maybe it’s the coffee itself. Lately, I’ve noticed some disturbing changes in coffee’s flavor. Both at home and at Melinda’s. Yesterday, we went to Melinda’s for breakfast after dropping the dog off for boarding; because of an earlier experience with unpleasant coffee at the coffee shop, I opted for water, instead.  I’ve been fantasizing about strong, rich, flavorful coffee. Some people loathe Starbucks’ coffee; I do not. It’s one of the only places in memory where I have been able to dependably get very strong, very flavorful coffee. But I haven’t had Starbucks’ coffee in years. It’s time I break that drought.

+++

Humans started wearing shoes about 40,000 years ago (evidence from the Armenia Areni caves suggests), according to an interesting video short I watched this morning. The short, about Australians’ somewhat odd habit of going barefoot (to a much greater extent, supposedly, than other cultures), inquires into the reason for the uniquely Australian habit of going barefoot in public places. As I watched the video clip, I was taken by a clip from an old promotional video that referred to the tendency for Australians, year-round, to “surf and swim and sunbake.” What’s that? “Sunbake?” That’s right. In the U.S., we would call sunning ourselves by a different term, “sunbathing,” the Australians would call it “sunbaking.” But, back to the issue of barefootedness; it’s common, though by not means universal, in Australia. As one might expect, going barefoot is more common in outdoor settings in leisure atmospheres, but it’s not restricted to those locales. This little tidbit will not alter my view of the world, but it’s interesting, nonetheless.

+++

Thanks, again, to BBC, I learned this morning of a city in India where it is forbidden to sell or consume meat. Beginning in 2019, the local government has banned the sale and consumption of meat with a 250m radius of all Varanasi temples and heritage sites. The citizens of the city seem to be completely on-board with the prohibition. One resident is quoted in the article as saying, “My family and I have been pure vegetarians for generations. We refuse to even drink water in a home where eggs are consumed.” That is some serious dedication.

While I have toyed with the idea, off and on, of vegetarianism, I have never quite gotten there. But the more I consider the obvious reality that diets can be very healthy without the reliance on any meat products, the more my thoughts turn that direction. Reading about and watching videos about animal treatment practices I consider abhorrent reinforces the idea that eating meat is not something I believe is necessary. But, on the other hand, I love the flavor and texture of meat. I love smoking and grilling meat. Yet when I consider that many animals that form part of my diet may well be sentient beings, I hate the idea. Lately, especially, I find it difficult to square my love of grilled octopus with my belief that the creatures are intelligent and feeling. And the idea of killing lambs or calves or full-grown cows is tough to think about. Yet many creatures I might eat are carnivorous. At what point do I draw the line? This is one of those questions that cannot be completely answered without drawing assumptions about “knowledge” we do not possess. People who raise cattle for beef are likely to think vegetarianism is fundamentally off-key, at best. But, then, those people probably force themselves to avoid even giving a shred of credibility to the idea of limiting or eliminating the consumption of meat. Their economic livelihoods are, from their perspectives, more important than the idea of treating animals with dignity (and, I would argue, killing animals for food is hard to label a “dignified” thing to do to animals). It’s a tough question. I love beef, lamb, pork, seafood of all kinds, etc., etc. But I find it difficult to think about putting creatures to death simply to satisfy my craving for the flavor of their flesh. Yet that’s exactly what I do. Hmm. Hmm, indeed.

+++

I may not blog much for the next several days. Just throwing that out there.

The air in Galveston, Texas is twenty-five degrees warmer this morning than the air in Hot Springs Village. While, in Galveston, the temperature is a brisk 57°F, it is barely freezing in HSV, just touching 32°F. Daytime highs on the Texas beach near 80°F and nighttime lows ranging from 50°F to 70°F make difficult the choice of clothing. “Layers,” says the common refrain. “Economy of space,” comes the reply, taking note of the need to limit wasting space for luggage for the trip to the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. The obvious solution, in my delusion, is to wander naked on the sand during the day and to don over-sized t-shirts at night. But that would be for a different moment in time, perhaps a century or two deeper into the evolution of the human species, when intelligence overtakes emotion in the quest for comfort and survival.

+++

I wonder whether the evolution of our species will, eventually, reduce war and interpersonal violence to a dim, ugly, embarrassing memory? Were I a betting man, I would put odds on a timeframe of “never.” There’s something fundamentally and monstrously human about relying on violence as a means to accomplish our ends. Whatever the circumstance, violence seems to be the answer. Someone offends you by cutting you off in traffic? Road rage, up to and including murder. Someone else disturbs your sense of comfort by having greater financial resources? The violent taking of those resources. Your masculinity threatened by an idiot who challenges you with name-calling or mocking you? Respond with a baseball bat or a 357 magnum.

Those are small-scale eruptions of violence. Amplify them several hundred thousand or several million times and you’ve got yourself a little war going on. Obviously, we belong to a species that is, at its very core, stupid. Our motto might as well be “Kill or be Killed.” It’s embarrassing. I’d rather be associated with doves or butterflies.

Speaking of violence, my IC and I remarked to one another lately that the series Goliath and Squid Game are hideously violent; both of them are so flush with gratuitous violence that they seem almost hilariously violent. But I think the creators were making grisly points about humanity. And I can’t disagree. I wish I could. But I have to acknowledge my own violent fantasies about people I find thoroughly upsetting and annoying: my mind is just as capable as the creators of TV series of imagining the most grotesque means of dispatching “bad guys.” In fact, my mind might win a contest to determine who could create the most horrifying and painful circumstances of pure and heinous violence. Pity, that.

+++

Among the rare memories of my childhood is one in which I found and observed (for several hours, my memory suggests, but I’m sure it was not that long) several sea anemones in the waters of Corpus Christi Bay. Sea anemones are beautiful creatures, but like humans, they are predatory creatures. I spent some time this morning reading about sea anemones (my random childhood memory triggered an adult interest in the object of my fascination). They are related to corals, jellyfish, tube-dwelling anemones, and Hydra. According to Wikipedia, “Unlike jellyfish, sea anemones do not have a medusa stage in their life cycle.” Nor do I. Reading about sea anemones took me down rabbit holes in which I learned a bit more about jellyfish and all sort of other sea creatures. And those little side-trips made me recall, quite clearly, a phase of my young life in which I felt certain I wanted to become an oceanographer. I imagined myself becoming intimately acquainted with all forms of ocean life and sea creatures. Living, as I did, by Corpus Christi Bay and spending time in educational programs at the Corpus Christi Museum, I easily imagined becoming a researcher dedicated to learning about and preserving our oceans. Somehow, though, that dream was eclipsed by other, more mundane stuff. It’s a bit late, now, to redirect my life’s work away from pointless bureaucratic paper-shuffling and toward something that matters. Ach, wisdom comes late to those for whom wisdom would not have mattered, anyway.

+++

Perhaps it’s the mood I’m in. Whatever it is, I was fascinated a while ago watching YouTube time lapses of seeds growing. The specific video I started watching was entitled “I Could Watch Time Lapses Of Seeds Growing All Day.” And I could. I watched several others, as well, and found each of them just as intriguing as the others. Watching, closely, the actions of Nature is perhaps the most calming, yet most exciting, thing a person can do. The development of plants and animals (but especially plants, for some reason) holds enormous interest for me.  Maybe it’s just the high-speed replay of slow-motion evolution that intrigues me. But I think it’s more than that. I think watching such stuff appeals to the child in me. It sparks in me a sense of absolute wonder and awe. On those rare occasions I recapture it, makes me terribly sad that most of that sense of wonder has long since disappeared. I ache to feel the reverence and pure admiration I once felt almost every moment of every day, simply by looking at the world around me. Children are fortunate. They can feel and express their amazement at the simplest things without feeling even the slightest sense of awkwardness or unease. Adults should retain that magical quality of childhood. But we don’t. We become skeptics; rough, tough, worldly creatures who have a very hard time being amazed by the simple things that take place around us every single moment. We seem to think we outwit Nature as we mature. Most of us, in fact, we simply ripen and rot. We could choose to transform, the way a seed morphs into a stem from which leaves unfold. But we forget how magnificent was the experience of wonder and awe. So we leave it behind, languishing on the edges of memory where, if we’re lucky, it will on occasion move into the center of the surface, where we can enjoy it. If we’re lucky.

+++

When we move to our next house, the views will be radically different. Instead of mountain views, we’ll peer deep into the forest. We’ll see deer more frequently. And raccoons and skunks and foxes. There will be more plants growing on the forest floor. A new experience. I will try to retrieve the magic of my long-since-forgotten youth. That will be my work. And I will try to capture in words what I see and feel. For now, I will finish this post and move on to another interaction with the world at large.

I haven’t mentioned that my IC and I suddenly and with little provocation decided to buy another house in the Village. Yes, that’s right. We made an offer on a house deep, deep in the forest. The offer was accepted. The process now is to complete loan approval, arrange for an inspection, and wait for the current owners to vacate the premises. We gave them a month plus two weeks. We will sell my current house after we close on the new one. I hope the real estate agent is right about the value of the current place. The new place is secluded; the only house at the end of a cul-de-sac lane that has only one other house, several empty lots away.  Whee! Another adventure.

+++

Today is more like it. I woke around 5:30, though I stumbled awake instead of springing up, instantly alert and aware. I spoke to my IC briefly, who needed a Motrin before nodding off (I hope) to sleep again. As I woke, I recalled a strange set of dreams in which I drove a monstrous old American car around a parking garage. The car was horribly difficult to steer. And it kept drifting into other cars and into concrete posts. My mother and a brother were in the car with me. And at some point, we were inside, where we had breakfast. I was angry that butter kept spilling onto a table cloth. Another brother was furious with me because I was angry. And my father was in the scene, too. Someone else, a person I did not know, was cooking an Indian dish on the stovetop. He left out the asafoetida, but I pointed out that it was on top of the cabinets, hidden behind the rim of the upper cabinet. And then I was awake. Hmm.

+++

Last night’s episode of Goliath introduced me to Anabell Gardoqui de la Reguera, a Mexican actress I find quite attractive. So far, I know only that the character she plays is campaigning to be mayor. I tend to dismiss information about actors; it’s the characters they play who interest me. But occasionally I explore the actors, albeit only superficially. Many actors seem, in my view, to take themselves too seriously. It’s hard for me to defend that attitude of mine, but not impossible. I just think many actors are arrogant; full of self-importance when self-importance is unjustified. Hmm. Maybe I’m projecting. Maybe I’m the one whose brain is flooded with self-importance. Maybe that’s why I so often find actors annoying.

+++

As we prepare for a short visit to Galveston, I find myself wondering what to expect and what to take with me. Does the place have a coffee maker? A Keurig? Shall I take Kuerig K-cups? Or ground coffee? Filters? There’s no wifi, so I shall not be likely to blog while I am away, but I might use my phone on occasion. No television. No problem. Reading. Conversation.

+++

For reasons beyond my ability to comprehend, I am extremely tired again. I could drift off to sleep in my chair. Quite easily. I will try not to. At least for awhile.

My toenails were getting dangerously long; turning my toes into sharp, weapon-like appendages that could slice sheets and carve flesh. I should have cut them myself, but I felt a strong desire to get a pedicure. There’s something about a pedicure that turns an average day into a day for celebration. A pedicure can heal the soul just as surely as it improves toes’ outlook on the day ahead.

I sat next to another old man who was having a pedicure. Compared to mine, his misshapen, yellowed toenails looked ancient and beyond redemption. Mine are no prizes, but they look like toenails; his looked like genetic mistakes, as if they were pieces of cracked and milky yellow quartz emerging from a bed of incompletely formed flesh. I would not recommend hanging a photo of those nails above a fireplace. I drew some assumptions about the guy, both from his horrid nails and from his disturbing habit of speaking on his cell phone while the nail technician worked on his feet. Those assumptions were not positive. They were judgmental. I feel embarrassed to have judged him simply because of his physical abnormalities and his ungracious intellectual babblings that, because of changes in his voice while speaking, often seemed to me (and the technician) that he was asking her questions.

I, on the other hand, had a nice conversation with my nail technician (is that what they are called?). She used to live in Garland, Texas (grew up there, in fact) but moved to the HSV area about six years ago. She misses the easy access to “everything” in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, especially Asian restaurants and food stores with Asian ingredients. She and I share those big, gaping holes in our experience. Based on several comments she made, I think I would enjoy going to her house for dinner. I think I might even enjoy chatting with her husband and her college-aged daughter and tenth-grade-level son. But who knows, in reality? She may think of me as just another geezer who tries unsuccessfully to engage with people several generations younger. Geezerhood can be a tricky situation; we can think we’re in touch and in-tune, when in fact we’re deservedly the butt of jokes. Yet no one will tell us; we have to find out on our own.

+++

I watched three more episodes of Goliath last night. My IC watched just one, opting to go to bed much earlier than usual because she has not been getting enough sleep. The series is becoming more and more intriguing to me, even though I have not completely suspended my disbelief in the premise of the program and its ongoing set of strange circumstances. Though I try to avoid it, I keep seeing aspects of myself in Billy Bob Thornton’s character; sometimes, reality hurts. He thinks and acts younger than his age, which describes me in many situations; he looks older than he is and is accordingly as fragile as he looks. Me, again, in some senses. He surrounds himself with beautiful women. Bingo.  I’ll keep watching. Once hooked, one cannot turn away.

+++

This morning, as my IC and I chatted over breakfast, we talked about incidents in our past that remain top-of-mind. One such incident for me involved one of my brothers. It was the hostage-taking by Fred Carrasco in 1974. When Carrasco shot himself (I gather), he did not die right away, as I recall. He was taken into the prison unit’s infirmary, where then-director of the Texas Department of Corrections medical team, Dr. Gray, and my brother worked to try to save him. At least I think it was Carrasco they worked on. At any rate, my brother was there at the time. And he was there when the eleven-day siege ended. Ach! I remember than. And I remember another incident, in Dallas, when I did a “ride along” with a Dallas police officer. During the ride-around, a call came in about an unwanted visitor in a woman’s apartment. We went there and entered the apartment, along with other officers. The cops were talking with a guy on the couch when, suddenly, “my” cop quickly stepped forward, leaned down, and snatched a gun from the guy’s waist-band. I had not even seen the gun before. The couch guy did not seem even slightly perturbed by the confiscation of his gun. Wow. I hadn’t thought about that in years.

+++

This morning, I got up extremely late: right around 7. Yet here I am at the keyboard, occasionally nodding off. I have to correct this. I will do something to resurrect my energy. I just don’t know what it is. But something.

+++

One’s circumstances can change, dramatically, in a matter of hours. One moment, the Earth seems intent on following its accustomed path around the sun; the next minute, it veers sharply off course, as if undecided about which star’s guidance is most appropriate for the planet to follow. I won’t get into particulars right now, but I am relatively certain the planet upon which I live is now attempting to follow Proxima Centauri, the star (other than the sun) closest to Earth. I once may have thought the gravitational tugs I felt were from the binary pair of Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B; but, now, it’s clear to me that Proxima Centauri is the fiery mass that’s pulling at me with enormous force. This ferocious force will change things for me; there’s no question. The world will become more serene and I will dwell in a quiet forest. Distance is a relative thing; close is a term one applies to relationships just as appropriately as one applies it to distance.

+++

Robert Frost understood the power of choice and the impact decisions have on the fundamental course of one’s life. Take, for instance, the final lines of his poem, The Road Not Taken:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Choices might seem minor, but they hide enormous power beneath their simple shells. Decisions can alter the course of time and can twist one’s personality into the shape of a pretzel—or a perfect circle or a perfectly straight line. Personalities, you see, are simply expressions of one’s response to the forces of the environment in which one lives. Personalities are just reactions, not immovable representations of one’s core being. Personalities can change. But, then, so can the roots of who we are. Our roots respond radically differently when places in a hydroponic bath designed to bathe us in nutrients, versus a crunchy, rocky soil that hold water and nutrients for just a flash before sending them to the center of the Earth to extinguish the flames of Hades.

I dreamed last night I was in conversation with a friend who seemed to have been asleep in a couch in my living room. The sky was just beginning to turn a very dim pink when she roused from her sleep. Dressed in a strange one-piece “pullover” sort of garment, she looked like she was wearing baby clothes. She reached our for me and asked me to take her to the “other side of the fabric.” I did not understand what she meant; she became flustered at my inability to understand. She gripped my hand tightly and told me she had to go to the “other side of the fabric.”  A quick kiss and she stepped through a large glass window; no broken glass…,her body just slid through the glass, as if if were water. I then saw a man sitting in a soft chair just outside the window. He spoke: “Hemophiliacs bleed through glass like knives slide through hot butter.” It made no sense then, either.

+++

I can feel that today will be another strange one. I’ll get a pedicure late in the day, but that won’t be the strangest component of the day. Something else will slide in to make today unique in the annals of time.

Today is my late sister’s birthday, a day I’ll always cherish as a moment to remember all that was good about her. When she died on February 19, 2010, the world lost a beautiful soul, someone who modeled real-world decency and demonstrated the kind of indignation the world needs. I wrote about her, shortly after she died,

She fed people she didn’t know, she gave up her bed for people who needed to sleep, she battled the IRS and Social Security Administration for people who couldn’t on their own, but desperately needed an advocate…She was, in many ways, the Molly Ivins of our family; she gave people hell if they deserved it, especially when they had mistreated someone else…the underdog was her pet!

That was so true. And her compassion for people who lived near the bottom rung of the economic ladder was founded on real-world experience, not simply on observation. She was poor, from the perspective of money and pecuniary matters. But her wealth of kindness and humanity was breathtaking in its humility. She was no gentle saint; she cursed a blue streak and soundly condemned the heartless rich, hoping they would experience the torture they deserved. Yet her tender compassion for people in need was stunning.  So, November 2 is a day of remembrance. A day that reminds me how vitally important compassion, coupled with indignation and furious anger, can be. I remember you, Mimi, and always will.

+++

I wish I were even fractionally as good a person as my sister was. But I don’t have the core of pure decency in me. I’m too much like the people my sister detested; people who were all talk and little to no action. It takes courage—bravery may be a better word—to face the world the way she did. Too few of us possess that trait. Instead, we talk about action instead of taking taking it. Our righteous indignation is safely ensconced behind the walls that protect us. We are careful to protect ourselves before we offer our protection to others who really need it. Ach! I’m sometimes embarrassed to be a member of the fringe elements of the human race.

+++

Yesterday began as a very, very tough day. I don’t know why it started that way, but it did. Soon thereafter, though, I felt the the love of friends embrace me. And it helped me emerge from a dark, dark place. There is no substitute for real empathy and compassion and love. Those healing resources seem to be especially helpful to someone like me; someone whose exasperating fragility is both unseemly and embarrassing. Even in light of that awkwardness, though, virtual hugs feel like love should feel; comforting, safe, and authentic.

+++

Sometimes, I think I may have problems with depression. That is, in spite of the fact that I usually am pretty “up,” I tend to ride a roller-coaster of often painful emotions that swoop downward at warp speed, briefly almost touching the ground just before they veer sharply upward. Just before they would otherwise crash in a fiery explosion. Yet they never get quite so out of control that they fail to put on the brakes. It’s as if I am faking it; acting as if I am in free-fall, while actually just playing the part of a stunt double. I wonder if that’s actually what’s happening. I’m behaving as if I’m in excruciating pain, only to suddenly flip a switch to reveal that I’m almost giddy, instead. It’s odd to wonder about such things. You’d think I would know, definitively, which it is: am I really on the edge sometimes, or am I playing a part? It’s maddening to even think it. It’s more than maddening; it inspires anger at myself for not being able—or willing—to tell the difference.

+++

This morning’s weather will be chilly and damp; maybe even wet from time to time. Despite that forecast, I predict today will be a good day. A superior day. A day in which grey clouds are braided with invisible sunlight to create a warming, life-affirming blanket. I like the sound of that.

+++

Yesterday, my IC and I drove by a house—very deep in the woods—that we instantly fell in love with. No mountain views, no lakefront, no golf course, but something about it was extremely appealing. Perhaps it’s the fact that the place is hidden deep in an empty area; on a flat, leaf-laden cul-de-sac. Whatever it is, we hope to be able to take a first-hand look at the place very soon. Who knows? Maybe we’ll jump on it. Or maybe not. Whatever happens happens. For some reason, I have this strange fantasy about walking naked in the woods, as if I were just as wild and unencumbered as the deer and raccoons and squirrels. I doubt I will do it, but it is an appealing thought, nonetheless.

+++

After finishing Squid Game last night (the morality tale grew on me), we began watching Goliath. I can tell already that I like Goliath. It’s a little formulaic for my taste (in terms of the lawyer’s character), but I like it, nonetheless. I suspect it will become one of those series that holds me spellbound and that I will mourn as the end of the series draws near.

+++

When I got out of bed this morning, just a few minutes shy of 5, I thought I might crawl back under the covers. But I didn’t. And I’m glad I decided to put on my casual morning clothes, rather than remain casually indecent. Flip flops, sweat shirt, and sweat pants are comfort clothes when the weather is just right. After last night’s lightning and whistling winds, his morning’s casual morning clothes seem just right. They are ushering in what I believe will be a satisfying day, rife with hugs and embraces and smiles and so forth. Let the day continue!

This morning, when I could find nothing in my head to write about, I decided to look back a year to see what was on my mind then. A year ago. Of course I remember, now, what was on my mind. My wife was, very briefly, at home. She was sleeping a lot and eating very little. I had hired an agency to help me look after her at night; to turn her during the night and to help minimize the pain she was feeling. I think I knew at the time that my wife was dying, but I did not want to admit it to myself, or to her. I wanted to think she would recover from five months of lonely, painful, isolation. I wanted to believe her misery would come to an end and we would once again be able to converse with one another, talking about something other than her disability and her discomfort. As I look back a year from today, I wonder how I could have been so damn clueless. I wonder how I could have allowed myself to hope for the best, even though I had witnessed a daily decline for five months. A year ago, it would be almost two months before she would die and I was stubbornly clinging to hope she would get better and would survive. God, what a miserable experience those awful five months were for her. I can only imagine it because I could so rarely see her and talk to her. And she either refused to talk about it or did not realize how bad it was. But I knew, deep down. I knew the world was crashing in around her and, by extension, me.

There’s something about the calendar changing from October to November that feels so deeply painful. It’s as if the world has robbed me of the ability to make any difference in the way the days play out. Depression doesn’t begin to describe  my state of mind. This morning, it’s more like terminal pain. This morning, I can feel myself clawing to reach out for soft, caring warmth and tender comfort, but I’m alone in an empty room. Normally, I would welcome this early morning isolation, but this morning it feels more like hollow desolation. Like abandonment; but I know I wasn’t left alone. It was more like I abandoned a life that defined mine, creating an empty shell out of the remnants of all the mistakes I made over the course of a lifetime.

I haven’t felt so damn vacant in many months. I don’t know quite why it all seems to be collapsing around me this morning. I guess it’s just the fact that it’s a new month like last year. And like last year, this one has no hope of recapturing what was lost long before.

It’s not fair of me to feel so bleak and lonely. I should feel grateful for my IC’s presence, and I do, but I am fighting with myself about how I can overcome the rawness of this morning. How can I be grateful and appreciative but, at the same time, be lonely and sad and utterly bereft? I hate writing this stuff because it must seem like I am not grateful. But I have to write it so I can remember, later, how I felt on these random days when I wanted to just curl up and disappear into vapor. There will be a time when it’s just a memory and I will be glad it’s gone. But I think I need to remember so I will recognize how bleak it felt, even ten or eleven months after the fact.

It’s not fair of me to share this with anyone, least of all with my IC, who somehow drew me out of the grey edges of doom into the light. But it’s not fair to keep it hidden, either, pretending I have gotten beyond the sharpness of the pain. I am fortunate to be able to emote, I guess, but it feels more like a weakness than an outlet.

I have to stop this. Just let it settle. This is a temporary dip. All will be well, eventually.

A couple of specific colors of paint hold me in their grip this morning. The paints’ appeal began yesterday, when I skimmed bathroom designs online. One of the paints, Wayfair’s Cashmere Gray, made an especially well-suited match for a bathroom vanity sitting atop dark wood flooring. The other, PPG’s Antique Silver 530-5, also was an excellent pairing with deep brown wood planks. In one case, white marble streaked with grey and black complemented the look. In the other, my mind’s eye told me marble would go well with the pairing. The odd thing about being captured by these colors is that I was not necessarily looking for decorating ideas; I was simply skimming some web sites to pass the time. But those specific paint colors grabbed me by the collar and shook me; “update the colors of your bathrooms,” the computer screen said to me. Paint, alone, would be insufficient to “update” the bathrooms, of course, but it could trigger a minor project that would dramatically improve the looks of the rooms. In my experience, small projects like that can be transformational. They can change one’s attitudes, putting them in almost stratospheric territory. A little like the effects some drugs can have on the brain. If nothing else, I’ll keep those paint colors in mind if and when we decide to modify, rather than move. If that’s what we decide. Still, we may decide to move. But I don’t know. Only time will tell.

+++

Yesterday morning, we went out for breakfast at Melinda’s. I ordered two sausage rolls; they were adequate. My IC ordered Daniel’s Tacos; they were transformational (See?  I used that word again in the same post.). Seriously, the tacos were absolutely superb. Chorizo, bacon, salsa, beans, eggs…who knows what else? They offered an extraordinary way to start a Saturday morning. Both of us felt they were the kind of menu item that could keep us coming back every Saturday morning; a way to jump-start the weekend in a way that would keep us happy and smiling for hours on end. My IC made note that the tacos reminded her of the offerings at our now-favorite breakfast chain restaurant, First Watch. I assiduously avoid chain restaurants, but with First Watch I have found one I would actually seek out. Now, I can say with conviction that I will regularly seek out Melinda’s, a one-location coffee spot, for special breakfasts. It’s the little things that makes life delightful. Now, I’d like to introduce other people to Daniel’s Tacos. My Virginian friend, Jim, would appreciate them. And perhaps Patty and Ducky and Becky and Deanna and Kim and Steve and Ed and Lana and Mel and a few more would enjoy a breakfast-fest with us. I’d like that.

The downside of yesterday’s experience at Melinda’s, though, was the coffee. For a self-style coffee shop, the “dark roast” coffee was surprisingly weak, bland, and flavorless (and served in a paper cup, for God’s sake!). I suppose showing up with my own cup of French roast coffee would be frowned on with vigor.

+++

I need a kick-start to get me going. That is, I need a dose of motivational energy to spark a whirlwind of organizational frenzy. In other words, I need a kick in the pants (or something equally as transformational…there it is, again) to prompt me to feel positive about putting stuff away, reorganizing around the house, and otherwise making this place look like everything in it was put there intentionally, versus haphazardly. It would help to have some generous and energetic friends willing to help move stuff, urge me on, and otherwise contribute to a positive mood. Or, I could hire a strong young man or two to move things at my direction; that might be the best bet. I would feel bad if a friend were injured by doing something people “of a certain age” should not do—like move furniture, climb ladders, hang pictures, put boxes up on shelves, etc.  Not to worry. The time will come. It always does. And when it does, I will get more done in four hours than I recently have done in four weeks. That’s just the way it works with me.

+++

My IC and I strictly have avoided alcohol for two weeks, while simultaneously being quite conscious of and careful about our eating habits (i.e., little to no “junk” food). In addition, we’ve planned to get some exercise, though that has been less in evidence than has privation. The intent is to lose weight, feel better, and otherwise improve our lives through deprivation. Somehow, that seems counter to logic. It goes against the advice I see so often in memes that tells me—simply by virtue of having lived so long—I’ve earned the right to eat what I want, avoid exercise, etc., etc. Seriously, it makes good sense to watch one’s diet and get exercise. But I question the long-term value of forcing oneself to totally abandon guilty pleasures. I subscribe to the validity of the advice that we should consume “everything in moderation.” It’s easier and better, I think, to cut back than to stop entirely. Except for horribly bad habits like smoking cigarettes. Trying to cut back on smoking is akin to trying to cut back on swallowing razor blades—it’s a fool’s errand with disastrous results. Anyway, we’ll see how much longer our self-imposed torment lasts. I think, though, going “cold turkey” does have the effect of making dramatic reduction in consumption (of booze, food, etc.) considerably easier. So maybe that’s the value of self-imposed denial. Time will tell. As often it does.

+++

I woke today considerably later than I’ve lately done, just after 5:30. While I suppose I needed the additional sleep, I miss the extra moments of profound solitude that would have been mine had I awakened at 4:00 or so. If the universe were a fair and just place, I would have access to a switch and a timer that would allow me to sleep and wake at precisely the times I choose. Thinking about it, I suppose I do have such switches and timers (I’ve heard of and actually used alarm clocks in years past), but I would rather not use them. I want my sleep to be short-lived and natural, not dictated by some monstrous machine designed to interfere with my normal circadian rhythms. But are my circadian rhythms normal? How can we know? Do we have to rely on Ph.D. or M.D. sleep experts to wire us for precise measurements, in order to know this? I do not know and I’m not sure I want to know. I like to keep secrets sometimes; even from myself.

+++

It’s just a shade after 7:00 a.m., closing in fast on noon. That’s what happens on Sunday mornings. This morning, we’re going to church to listen to our periodic program, Music on Barcelona, where the guy who hosts Arkansongs on NPR will entertain us. I’ve heard he’s a better host than musician, but I do not know that. I would like to go in without preconceived notions, but it may be too late for that. At least I’d prefer to be pleasantly surprised by his performance. And embarrassed that I thought it would be less than a stellar opportunity to listen to extraordinary Arkansas music.

Off I go for more coffee and an exploration of a Sunday I’ve never experienced before. This should be fun!

The headlines from Aljazeera differ radically from those found on domestic news sites:
“In Lebanon, petrol is now priced out of reach.” “A military coup shakes up Sudan.” “Sudanese gear up for nationwide protests against military coup.” “UN renews peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara, calls for talks.”

The similarities between domestic and international sites, though? Pain. Negativity. Upsetting circumstances. It’s hard to get away from the stress of unhappy news. It’s difficult to find reasons to look favorably upon the human race and our ability to make peace or otherwise to engage in refreshing, positive behavior. Strong arguments can be made that we “need” to know about all the misfortunes that befall our species and the planet we inhabit. But equally strong arguments can be made that we need an escape from violence, fear, hatred, animosity, and anger. Yet the arguments calling for black news seem, increasingly, to be winning. For that reason, I rarely watch television news. And I try to avoid online news, though truth be told that is a hard line to hold. I suspect “bad news” has the appeal of a car wreck; it draws us in as if it had a message produced specifically for each of us. I don’t know why that is, but that’s the way it seems to me. I hate it.

On the other hand, news designed as “feel good” fodder would be equally annoying, I think. But a mix of news stories that echoes the reality of the human condition would be welcomed, I think. News that acknowledges the goodness surrounding positive human interest stories, as well as the heartache of human frailties. This morning, I would make a terrible journalist; I would lobby for good news that might change the path of humankind, giving us a reason to be positive and appreciative and grateful for the circumstances in which we live.

+++

Maybe the constant barrage of unpleasant news is responsible for my recent spate of less-than-positive posts. Or maybe it’s just my natural state. Whatever it is, I hope to turn that around. At least to some extent. So, I will try to avoid the negativities.

+++

So, one way to avoid the negativities is to relate an experience I had last night and a few minutes ago this morning. My good friend, Jim, who resides in Alexandria, Virginia, texted me the photo (to the left) last night of the twelve-and-a-half pound Prime beef brisket he bought at Costco. He knew I would be in awe of the massive chunk of high-end brisket, which is why he sent me the picture. Jim and I are brisket aficionados; we baptized my first offset smoker while we both lived in Dallas, with a monstrous Choice beef brisket (Prime was not available to the riff-raff at the time…only professionals who owned their own BBQ joints could get the good stuff). This morning, we exchanged text messages about cooking times and temperatures, then spoke by phone for a few minutes (he knows my habit of getting up very early in the morning, so a text and phone call around 5:30 in the morning is perfectly natural). Jim is smoking the brisket for a block party he and his wife are hosting this afternoon. Neighbors and friends are supplying the accouterments, such as a keg of beer. I do wish I were there! (My apologies to my vegan and vegetarian friends; I cannot help myself.)

+++

I vacillate. I want a lake house, but only if I can afford it. I can afford it only if I sell my present house for a significant sum of money; at least equal to what one Realtor told me my house would sell for. But I question the validity of the Realtor’s estimate. And so I vacillate. I suppose the only way to know whether I could get what the Realtor says is to put the house on the market. But, then, if it sells, I’d have to act quickly to find a place to move. And therein lies the problem. The alternatives are to play the ponies (based on extremely long odds) or buy lotto tickets or work out details of the perfect bank robbery or the perfect swindle (involving the redistribution of wealth from obscenely wealthy but awfully bad people to me). Inasmuch as I’m allergic to incarceration, the latter is out of the question. So, I stay where I am and long for a sudden windfall. There’s no windfall in the offing, so I simply stay put. Unless some other option comes along.

I like my house. But I’d like a house on a lake even more, I think. Well, the right house on the right lake. Ideally, it would be nestled in a quiet spot, with few if any close neighbors. Where is my ideal spot? I don’t know. But I’m willing to find out.

+++

My IC and I began watching Squid Game last night. It’s bizarre, to put it mildly. But after a couple of episodes, it started to grow on me. We’ll see if it continues to satisfy. If not (or even if it does), we might go for another series a friend recommended: Goliath. I enjoy legal dramas, so I think I’ll enjoy Goliath. Still, I have dozens of Scandinavian crime dramas and police procedurals to watch. I could happily sit in front of my television for months, I think. Except sitting in front of the television can get very old, very fast. We’ll see how it all goes.

+++

It’s almost 6:30. Time to stop blogging and, instead, play games of one kind or another. I need a diversion. Maybe a nice breakfast would be good.

Several years ago—it must have been at least ten or twelve years ago—my late wife and I flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where we rented a car and embarked on an exploration of the wonders of the Land of Enchantment. A day or two into our trip, a warning light inside the car alerted us that the air pressure in a specific tire was low. I remember being impressed at the sophistication of the system’s specificity; not just “a tire is low,” but “the “front left tire is low.”  Yesterday, in the midst of a cold and rainy day, a warning light came on in the Subaru. “The pressure in a tire is low on some unnamed tired.” Or some such generic warning. I still haven’t checked the air in all the tires to determine which one needs air. I wish my car had the sophistication of a twelve-year-old Chevy (or whatever it was) so I could devote my attention to just one tire. Dammit. I realize this is a very minor issue in today’s world, but it rankles me, nonetheless. I wonder how much much I would have had to pay for a car equipped with four-wheel air pressure sensory devices?

+++

Finally. We watched the last episode of Schitt’s Creek last night. I’ve been offered a number of suggestions for other series to watch. I’m not sure what genre my IC wants to watch, but I’m inclined to snag another mystery thriller along the lines of Lupin. Or, perhaps, another action-packed Scandinavian police procedural like Bordertown (Sorjonen) or The Valhalla Murders.  Fortunately for me, I found some recommendations for just such a set of options on a Travel+Leisure page.  My decision to mark it here was based on selfishness; I just want to know where to look.

+++

For reasons unknown to me, this morning I wondered when and by whom the first man-made lake was made. Research into the matter yielded information about the largest man-made lake (Lake Kariba, along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe) and the earliest dams (around 3,000 B.C. in Jordan), but nothing definitive about the first man-made lake. That’s understandable, in that the first such lake may well have been created by an individual or a small group of people who dammed a stream to create a reliable reservoir of drinking water. The underlying reason for my curiosity about man-made lakes, though, was based on my interest in just how much an individual could do to create a lake. That question, of course, probably has a thousand answers (none of which could be satisfactorily verified) and a thousand stories, besides. I suppose my inquisitiveness about the topic springs from another bit of curiosity, this one about myself:

Was I ever capable of doing what it takes to create a lake? Does any individual have the wherewithal to do that, or must lake-creation always be a collective effort undertaken by a group of like-minded people? I realize, of course, the question has no merit in the overarching scheme of humankind’s development. Still, it’s a question that needled its way into my brain and it won’t go away of its own accord. It’s one of those questions that triggers additional questions about oneself—questions that attempt to measure the breadth and scope of one’s strength as a contributor to the evolution of the species.  And those questions always give rise to other questions about how one got to be the way one is.

A million and one “what if” questions. Crazy, mindless, anxiety-inducing what-if questions that have one second-guessing oneself until the end of time. That’s an endless ball of emotional pain, just waiting to be unraveled.

+++

Once again, I am physically hungry. I feel like a cinnamon roll. Or, perhaps, something that will cause my headache to disappear. Food can do that sometimes. Though this headache may have nothing to do with hunger. It may be related to my sinuses or anxiety or a thousand other reasons.  Yet I think of food or drugs as the cure. Whereas the proper cure could be a hug or a shot of mezcal or ten minutes in a steam cabinet.

And, once again, I am extremely tired. I did sleep last night, though I woke to pee many times. And the time to get back to sleep was always excessive. And the dreams, some involving participation in preparations for combat operations, were a little stressful. What the hell. Life is what it is. I will try to sleep more. That’s what I will do. It’s almost a quarter after six; I still have a good three-quarters of an hour or more to rest, if I can. So I will try.

I don’t think I ever got to sleep last night. All night, I felt like I could not breathe; could not catch my breath. Obviously, I got enough oxygen to keep me alive, but I felt like every breath was an effort. I was up and down all night, hoping just one more change of position might leave me able to sleep. Finally, though, around 4:30, I got up. Staying in bed was pointless. All I accomplished was getting sore muscles and joints.

I made  a cup of coffee, despite feeling monstrously tired. It chilled, untouched, while I sat motionless at my desk. Around 5, I sat in a recliner, hoping to be able to drift off. I did not get to sleep, but after sitting for at least an hour or so, I managed to slip into semi-consciousness for a short while. Before 7:30, after my IC was up for the day, I returned to bed for another attempt at sleep. I drifted off, again. It’s now 9:55 and I assume I’m up for the day. During my “sleep,” I kept fighting with stories about my sleepless experience. For some reason, in my semi-sleep, I called last night’s episode of insomnia “Come from Away.” I know about (but have not seen) that film. I have no idea why its title applies to my insomnia, though.  I had another film title for another segment of last night’s experience, but I do not recall what film.

If I had taken painkillers, I might be able to explain the insanity. But I’ve taken nothing of the sort.

+++

The recent change in the weather sparked a renewed interest in cooking, though I have not responded to that interest just yet. But I have idea of things I’d like to make. Several versions of lentil soups; chili; sambar; Berliner kartoffelsuppe; leg of lamb; a thousand other things. I wonder why weather has such an impact on my appetite? I wonder why my sleep habits, or lack thereof, impinge on my good moods?

+++

My creative juices do not seem to be flowing this morning. In their place. viscous mud and cooling volcanic magma appear to be drooling from my brain. That’s an unpleasant thought. But there you go.

We drove to Danville, AR yesterday, where we met friends for lunch at a tiny Lao/Laotian restaurant called Vientiane Cafe. Our friends had suggested we meet “halfway” between their home and ours, in one of three towns: Russellville, Booneville, or Danville. I picked Danville somewhat at random, then searched online for a place to eat. As one might expect, the scope and range of luncheon options in a tiny (less than 3,000-population) town in Central Arkansas are limited. But I was pleasantly surprised to find a Lao restaurant among those options. It was an obvious choice.

We arrived just after 11:00 a.m., before the doors had been unlocked. The place looks old, decrepit, and quite frankly on its last legs. From the looks of it, it’s an old, decaying gas station that has suffered too many poor paid jobs, too much time and neglect, and not enough investment of money and heart-felt interest. Inside, an abandoned buffet-station and a few Formica-topped tables scattered around a haphazard few unused display cases contribute to a look of desolate disregard. It was obvious to me that the décor of the place has been on no one’s mind for a very long time.

The young chef/owner was in the midst of preparing lunch, we learned, for a group of high school students who soon would be let out of class. He also was making lunch for a few other people who either had phoned in their orders or were “regulars” whose lunch requirements automatically went to the top of the line. Our orders, we soon learned, would become priorities only after everyone else was fed. If we had been in a hurry, we would have been disappointed; even angry. Fortunately for all involved, we were happy to have time to simply sit and talk while meals were made for and consumed by the locals, while the tourists (we) cooled our heels. After sharing some egg rolls, having soup from the soup station, and watching hungry high-schoolers come and go, we were served a nice lunch. My IC engaged in chit-chat, as she is wont to do, with the waitress and the chef/owner and we learned a bit about the background of the owner and his family. The owner, a first-generation American, was born in San Antonio, as was the waitress (a cousin, if I recall correctly). I believe his parents arrived at Fort Chaffee, AR as refugees after the fall of Vietnam. The restaurant had been started by, and had belonged to, his mother; she had suffered an injury or illness of some kind and the young man had taken over and, shortly thereafter, was given ownership of the restaurant. COVID-19 took its toll on the business, but hard work and perseverance apparently has paid off and the tiny place is doing reasonably well again. The young guy told us he plans to change the name of the restaurant from Vientiane Cafe to Wok-Man or something like it. I think it would be a mistake to drift so far from its Lao roots, but then maybe my understanding of the preferences of rural and semi-rural Arkansans is not as clear and clean as the owner’s understanding of his customer base. I wish him and his family well. I wish, too, I could feel confident that he will maintain a close connection to his cultural and ancestral roots as he wades through Central Arkansan assimilation. But for some reason, I doubt those root will remain strong.

Yesterday was an interesting day. I already miss my friends. I long to sit with them in the evening, sipping a glass of wine or a bit of Scotch or whiskey, and talk about whatever is on our respective minds. When we’ve done that in the past, I have felt exceptionally part of an exclusive and loving “tribe.”

+++

My taste in music always has been quite eclectic, but in years past I listened without knowing who or what I was listening to. I could not have told you which artist sang which song, nor could I have recited lyrics to most of the songs to which I listened. Lately, though, I’ve begun listening more intently, I guess. And, in the car at least, I can see the name of the artist and the song displayed on the Sirius/XM device. Inside the house, I can ask Alexa to tell me what’s playing when something of interest pops up.

My IC and I both have noticed that we like music by groups we once essentially dismissed. Groups like Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chile Peppers and The Flaming Lips. That is not to say that I have become a devotee of those bands, but I like some of the music they have recorded. Recently, I’ve found myself enamored of some more recent music by groups that, in the past, I might have dismissed out of hand. For example, I find quite interesting a rather new release by Foo Fighters, Making a Fire. But, although I love the sound of the music, the lyrics make almost no sense to me. If I extrapolate and make a thousand assumptions, I can make the music make sense, but it takes real work. Yet simply listening, I love it! Odd, isn’t it, that music can so thoroughly capture one’s emotional attention? I think one of the best ways to verify that is to listen to appealing songs sung in a foreign language with which one is unfamiliar. The words need not be understood for the emotional impact of the music to be felt.

+++

Once again, I got out of bed this morning just after 4. I had been awake for a good hour or more—thrashing about and coughing and otherwise behaving badly—when I finally gave up the battle and rose for the day. Fortunately, we went to bed early (about 9:30?), though my IC stayed awake until much later, I think, eyes glued to her glowing electronic device. I slept, off and on, for much of the remainder of the night until I just couldn’t stay in bed anymore. I have an imaginary dream that I go to bed at a reasonable hour and sleep comfortably and soundly for a solid seven hours; it’s a fantasy is what it is. A stinking fantasy.

+++

Last night, for a good hour or two before we went to bed, I was in the mood to drink an Irish coffee. Unfortunately, I have no Irish whiskey in the house; plus, we’ve both sworn off drinking alcohol for a while, intent on retreating in size and weight to a time before, when we were svelt. The real way to do that, of course, is to get more exercise. And I can’t get much more exercise until I solve my problem with stamina. Some days, I feel strongly that I should abandon efforts to look like and be like someone else and simply allow myself to be me—the decadent, corpulent, passionate, food-loving gourmand that I am. Deep down inside me. But abandoning those efforts could lead me to outgrowing clothes at a record pace; that’s too damn expensive.

+++

I spent an obscene amount of money on new glasses recently. I should have the new lenses in my old frames and the two new identical pairs of sunglasses soon. Prescription eyewear for people whose vision is like mine is more than a little expensive. It is like buying ten-carat diamonds instead of lenses. It is like investing in hundred-pound blocks of crypto-currency (yeah, I know that’s absurd…deal with it). I will not look different. I will simply feel different. And, especially in the car, I will be able to see better when driving in the direction of the setting (or rising) sun.

+++

I could go on, of course. But I won’t. I won’t touch on my unhappy and unsuccessful experience with Walgreen’s yesterday. I don’t write about my displeasure with myself for continuing to put off “putting things away.” I won’t address a thousand other crinkly things that make me feel like crumpled aluminum foil has been stuffed inside my brain just to annoy me. Instead, I’ll stop writing for now. Back to the salt mines.

The clock tells me it’s not yet 4:30 a.m., almost an hour after I finally gave up in my fight to breathe and sleep at the same time. Now, sitting upright, I can breathe through my nose again. An hour ago, I felt like I was struggling for every breath, whether through my nose or through my mouth.

Notwithstanding the wonderful Greek avgolemono soup and pastitsio dinner (topped off with an extraordinary baklava dessert) we had with friends last night, I woke up about 1:30, very hungry. And starved for oxygen, but that’s another story.  I have done nothing to assuage my desire for food. Instead, I’ve stoked my gustatory libido with a cup of coffee. And I suppose I’ll have more coffee before I have food. Ach! What a fine meal that was!  In line with the known preferences of at least one of last night’s dinner partners, I have a taste this morning for the offerings of a charcuterie board. I envision a board filled with sliced meats, cheeses, olives, hard crackers, nuts, various mustards, and a sampling of other goodies. The contents of the board normally would call out for wine, but it’s a tad early in the day for that. Plus, my IC and I have avoided alcohol for more than a week in an effort to jump-start a bit of a weight-loss regimen. Yeah, and a charcuterie board probably is not on that “diet,” either. Small steps. Everything in moderation.

+++

In spite of my desire to understand others’ perspectives before making judgments about their motives, I often fail to even attempt understanding. Instead, I make assumptions about why people behave as they do. Often, those assumptions carry with them deeply judgmental attitudes that are, at best, extremely uncharitable. For example, I am biased against people who refuse to get vaccinated or to wear masks as a means of minimizing the likelihood of spreading COVID-19. People who refuse both tend to bear the full force of my sanctimonious wrath. While my indignation may seem almost a coveted badge of honor, in the general context of my personality, I am embarrassed by it. Until I have made a serious attempt to see the world from another person’s vantage point, my dismissal of his or her position on anything of consequence is ill-informed and capricious; it is inexcusable. And my incomplete understanding of another’s position on such matters is just as blind and pig-headed as I judge their opposing point of view to be.

To be clear, understanding another’s perspectives on masks and vaccinations does not mean that I will agree with or adopt those perspectives. Understanding does not equate to endorsement. But understanding the philosophical foundations of an opposing view is absolutely necessary if one’s opposition to those views is the carry any legitimate weight. So, to dismiss a refusal to wear a mask or get a vaccination is evidence of “stupidity” or “blind political allegiance to an idiotic mental framework,” without getting in the head of the person refusing those measures is dangerous. Failure to examine all vantage points weakens opposing arguments. And the obviously harshly judgmental language I used in the preceding sentence does not help keep conversations about the matter calm and rational.

But, God, is it ever hard not to simply write off—as grossly mentally deficient—the people who seem oblivious to overwhelming scientific evidence about COVID-19! It is damn hard to figure out their perspective. But it is possible. I’ve found, for example, that many “deniers” simply do not trust, nor do they believe, government. Many people do not believe the numbers of deaths attributed to COVID-19 are legitimate. They attribute ulterior motives to medical reports about pandemic-related deaths. And these same people do not believe scientists know enough to make judgments about best approaches to the pandemic. Many deniers have seen, in their views, too many about-face decisions about matters such as: mask-wearing versus bare-faces; the necessity of means of virus avoidance (like washing every piece of fruit and every container that crosses a home’s threshhold); etc., etc. In their view, science is either pure truth of pure fantasy; there is no room for incremental understanding of something even as new and unknown as the virus that brings us COVID-19.

It is not enough to assume, with presumptuous dismissal, that those beliefs are mindless. They are not. They have a basis. The basis may arguably be invalid, but it is a basis that must be acknowledged if one is truly to understand the positions. Understanding is not enough, either. Again, acknowledgement, is critical.  Treating an opposing position as having at least some legitimacy is vital. If there is any question about that, I would challenge anyone on “my” side of the argument to consider their reactions to “deniers” calling us “sheep” or otherwise treating our beliefs as invalid and as evidence of our stupidity.

Okay. Rationally, I get my arguments about judging “deniers” and I believe them. But I have a much harder time with them in practice. I admire people who can remain calm in the face of bitter and frenzied disagreement in the context of name-calling and contempt. I admire people who can maintain their composure even in circumstances in which their intelligence or sanity is being loudly and openly questioned or ridiculed.

The next step is to become of those people I admire. I keep trying, but I keep falling short. I just have to keep trying.

+++

I could go on writing here for days, I think. I am in a conversational mood at this early hour. Now, the clock reads 4:43 (I keep shifting paragraphs around, so this post is not being written in chronological order).

There are few people I think I could call at this hour, just to talk, and have a reasonable expectation that I would not be rejected out of hand. I do not know why that is, although I do try to understand the perspective. If I were to get a call in the wee hours from anyone I know, I suspect I would answer and plan to talk as long as necessary. My assumption would be that the caller needs me to be there, so I would be obliged to be there. I’ve never, to my recollection, had such a late-night or early-morning call, but I’m pretty sure I know me and that I’d take it without complaint.  But my interest in conversation this morning is not a need; it’s just a fancy. In an ideal world, I’d have a friend who likes to go out for coffee and pastries in the wee hours; and, in that same ideal world, there would be a place to go in the wee hours for such a repast. Alas, the ideal world melted into the ether of time sometime in the early part of the last century, I think. Perhaps I belong in a different era; an era in which personal social engagement with like-minded insomniacs was sufficient reason to explore the night.

+++

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.

~ Socrates ~

+++

This morning, we are driving to a small town about fifty miles away, where we will have lunch with a couple of very good friends I’ve known for well over forty years. We’ll meet at a Laotian restaurant in this tiny town and catch up with one another after too much time and too little interaction between us. I have few friends with whom I feel absolutely comfortable sleeping in their homes and to them sleeping in mine. These people are such friends. I would, of course, welcome others to my home—and have done many times—but these are friends who, when they enter my house, are just as much at home as when they are in their own house. They do not need to ask for something to eat; they can raid the refrigerator or the pantry. They do not need to ask for a blanket; they can scrounge around and find one. They are home when they are here. At least I hope that’s how they feel. That’s the way I want any good friend to feel. Completely at home in my house. I wonder whether that’s simply a romantic notion? I don’t think so. I have come to recognize, after far too much time, that I have more friends than I once thought. I am slow to warm up to people—probably a vestige of an earlier need to protect myself from emotional injury—but increasingly I am finding that, once I do, the world brightens a little. I will never be particularly social; I much prefer to listen than to talk (writing is my way of “talking”). But I do enjoy conversation in the right circumstances, even though I might seem invisible in many settings.

+++

All right, world. I am ready to face you even as the clock continues to plod along, ever so slowly, toward 5:30. My IC probably won’t be up for at least an hour and a half, maybe two hours, so I have considerable more solitude and seclusion to keep me sane for a bit longer. Perhaps I’ll have more coffee. Oh, a sweet roll would be good. Maybe a leftover baklava would be even better! I can sit and absorb a caffeine and sugar boost, right here in my private nest.

+++

Oh, good morning, Ducky! You’re probably up by now, yes 🙂

After yesterday’s almost summer-like temperatures, today’s high is forecast to reach only 73°F. The forecast calls for virtually no chance of rain. A light breeze should make the moderate temperatures feel cooler, by a degree or two, than the “real feel” temperatures discussed by some television meteorologists. In other words, we might as well be in Hawaii or Ajijic or the Canary Islands or San Diego. But, instead, we reside in the Natural State; Arkansas, United States of America.

Today’s weather is compensation for last last’s howling winds and piercing NOAA weather-radio reminders that we were under a tornado watch. The screams of the radio interrupted my inadequate sleep more than once, but I have grown so used to them that I do not even try to listen carefully to the subsequent alerts, most of which are clogged with static and unrelated noise. It’s highly possible I could ignore a tornado warning of “take cover now!” failing to take heed of the warnings I paid to hear when I bought the radio more than seven years ago.

+++

Time sails by at incomprehensible speed. Or is it Time? What robs us of experiences, leaving reality to memories and causing us to grip the sides of the roller-coaster we ride at breakneck speed as we reach the summit and plummet, ever-faster, toward hard, unforgiveable ground? What leaves us breathless in disbelief that so much experience in our memories could have taken place in such a short period? And, then, to realize that the vehicle has no brakes; only an accelerator pedal that senses pressure even when there is none?

Mortality lumbers through every day, its pace growing slower by the hour as we are forced to watch it shuffle by and stare at us. As if we constitute its next appointment. I wonder whether there is a physica-spiritual connection between Mortality and Time. That is, do the laws of physics intersect with what I’ll call our “spiritual” dimensions, so that we observe Time through a spiritually-influenced lens? It’s probably all physics, but we have learned so little about how physics and chemistry present themselves in the form of emotions. We have to rely on spirituality to explain the inexplicable. So, we make things up about experiences or wishes or fears we do not understand. It makes sense, but it smells a little like magic.

I loathe the concept of mortality, at least where my family and friends and I come in. There is no place for it in a truly happy existence, all the philosophical arguments to the contrary notwithstanding. The most spectacular joy need not be emphasized by contrast to the most excruciating agony; it’s simply not necessary. But that seems to be the way it goes. Exultation seems to require disconsolate grief for verification of its validity and strength.  The concept is similar to “you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” Well, unless you take “what you got” for granted, that may be true. But if you value everything that matters and acknowledge that value regularly, you “know what you’ve got.” And you cherish it. So I say on this Monday morning in late October, 2021. How did such a long span of year simply vaporize into fragmented memories that seem disconnected and fuzzy and without beginning or end? How, indeed.

+++

I am extremely fortunate in almost every way. I have enough health, enough wealth, enough desire, and enough attraction to keep me from sinking into the abyss. That’s all we really need. “Enough.” Enough of whatever keeps us reasonably safe and sufficiently content to want to get up in the morning to explore what the day has to offer.

Almost everything could be better, of course. Better health, more wealth, more passion, and more appeal. But, given the limitations on every aspect of who I am, I feel extremely lucky. I feel equally as bereft at times, though; every time my late wife’s memory floods my brain, tears flood my eyes. But perhaps I was wrong about the need for contrast in our emotions in order to emphasize the extremes. Maybe those hard, harsh, almost intolerable pokes with sharp weapons are necessary to illustrate just how healing those physical and mental strokes are.

+++

I could go on about this all day long. But I do not have time. I have an appointment with an ENT doctor this morning (probably wasted time, if my past experience is any indication) and I have to go grocery shopping early enough to get the ingredients for what I hope will be a spectacular Greek salad. So, it’s off to more coffee and action, action, action!

It doesn’t pay to get up at 4 in the morning, though it’s one of my favorite times of day. This morning, I awoke to the sound of whistling wind and loud wind-chimes, noises that triggered all manner of thoughts in my head. For some reason, one of the thoughts that flooded my sleep-logged brain was my history of television-watching; that I enjoyed it but that it has become more than a bit of an opiate.

Ever since we recently finished watching the series, Homeland, the original which concluded in April a year ago, the television-based tension of our evenings has been converted to the silliness of Schitt’s Creek. It took a number of episodes for me to overcome my aversion to the slapstick nature of the series, but I finally eased into it enough to enjoy it; even the abject absurdity of the ongoing premise of the comedy. That acceptance notwithstanding, I long for something dramatically powerful and absorbing like How to Get Away with Murder or Lupin or Borderliner or Hinterland or…whatever. Whether through the television screen or the pages of a book, I feel a need in the evenings to have my interest captured in some way that requires little of me, other than willing submission. I want to be entertained and engaged through no effort on my part. Even though I enjoyed the Joe Bonamassa concert in Little Rock a few weeks ago and I look forward to a getaway to Galveston in the near future, I seem to prefer my entertainment poured into my head, while I sit in a chair and drink it in.

The attitude of wanting to be entertained rather than to create my own entertainment is more than a little bothersome. I think it’s healthier to enjoy a mixture of different types of entertainment and engagement. One’s mind can become stagnant and his intellectual flexibility rigid and brittle if he depends too much on a single form of escape. Even entertainment in the form of reading or walking can become a mind-numbing anesthetic if we let it.

I keep thinking about “doing” something instead of “watching” something, but to date I’ve done little about it. Art of some form keeps bubbling up in my mind: stained glass, sculpture of some kind, painting…even whittling. I simply must get off my duff and do something about breaking out of my personal cage.

+++

The wind this morning is more than a little brisk. According to my computer’s weather data, the temperature is a rather balmy 68°F and the wind is blowing at 11 miles per hour with occasional gusts up to 16 mph. If any nearby neighbors slept with their windows open last night, I suspect they are cursing my wind chimes at this hour.

Not long after I got up and made my first cup of coffee, I heard a rather loud crash outside on the deck. I turned on the light and went out to explore, but saw nothing untoward. I suppose I’ll have to wait until daylight to find out what made the racket. My guess, now, is that a branch from a nearby tree blew down, causing a noisy commotion before sliding off the deck onto the ground far below. Just in case the noise had been made by my IC—perhaps she had fallen out of the dangerously high bed—I turned off the kitchen light and opened the bedroom door to check on her. I found her lying in bed, wearing her glasses and looking at a glowing electronic device. No, the noise was not her. But I think I convinced her to go back to sleep.

Knowing I was not the only conscious human in the house at that moment changed the texture of the morning for me. I don’t know quite what it is that solidifies solitude’s hold  has on me, but I discover in such instances that being alone with my thoughts in the early morning hours is very much a part of it. I get distracted simply by knowing that someone else is awake in “my space.” I can be alone in a motel room, knowing that people in the next room are awake, and that’s fine; being alone in a house, knowing that people in the next room are awake, scrambles my serenity for some reason. Perhaps it’s my madness at play.

+++

Not long ago—when my IC and I were in the early stages of our ongoing efforts to pare down our belongings so we can both fit in this house—I finally parted with my 30-plus-year-old espresso maker. I very rarely used it, primarily because I was never satisfied with the espresso I made with it. I think the problem was the coffee beans I used; either not the right roast or insufficiently finely-ground. And, of course, the metal and plastic components of a cheap thirty-year-old device like that can impart off-flavors to edibles or drinkables that contact its elderliness. Whatever, I gave it away to Habit for Humanity. Someone else will use the machine and will find it an inadequate stand-in for access to wannabe espresso.

All of this leads up to my wish for some espresso this morning. I have never been to the Starbucks in Hot Springs, nor to Red Light Roastery nor to any other coffee-hawking establishment. And, given that it’s Sunday in the Bible Belt, it’s probably illegal for them to be open; certainly, it would be considered immoral for them to be open at this hour. But I wish I could look forward to a leisurely drive to a place where the scent of strong coffee would embrace me on this windy morning. I would love to sit inside a little shop, next to big picture windows, and watch the wind tear the leaves from the trees outside, as I sit sipping my third or fourth double- or triple-espresso. Alas, I live in a place and time where such dreams are delusions.

+++

The morning does hold promise, though, for something special. My sister-in-law brought me an avocado the other morning, a post-birthday surprise. This morning, I shall cut it open, scoop out its flesh, and sprinkle a little fresh lime juice on it as I smash it into a smooth paste. Then, I will paint it on a piece of rye toast (and a piece of oat-nut toast for my IC) as an introduction to breakfast. Avocado toast, in spite of its reputation as evidence of outlandishly decadent millennials’ attitudes about life, is wonderful. With just a hint of Kosher salt (or any of its flavorful relatives), it becomes a delight beyond words. And a little later this morning, that’s exactly what will happen. Hallelujah! Joy of Man’s Desiring!

+++

I received a three-page hand-written letter yesterday from my “pen-pal,” a beautiful young woman who lives in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Though I’ve only met her once for just a few hours, more than six years ago, I’ve stayed in occasional touch with her through Facebook and, within the last year, by exchanging letters. Hers are lovely examples of beautiful handwriting and openly-shared emotions—both pleasant and painful—and mine are my normal manic-depressive blather produced on a printer (because neither my printing nor my handwriting are legible). Yesterday’s letter to me came roughly seven months after my last one to her. The delay in responding did not bother me in the least; in fact, I did not expect a reply because I thought our exchange of letters was a simple “blip” in the  young woman’s meandering mind; trying something different to jump-start her interactions with the world around her. But, after receiving her letter, I realized how personal has been the information we’ve shared. And I feel like we may have become a little like life rafts to one another. Not close friends, but strangers willing to listen, without judgment, to what causes heartbreak and joy and pain.

I find it interesting that I call her a “young woman.” I think she must be in her early forties; maybe not quite that old (I am terrible at judging ages). Regardless of her age, she is quite pretty. Blonde with blue eyes and the face of a Slovakian model (she is from Bratislava, Slovakia, the hometown of my niece…the one married to the nephew who lives in Ohio). And I call her young. Because she is. Especially compared to me. And reading her letter, I realize she thinks young, which is another thing about her I find quite attractive. I like people who continue to think young as they mature. My IC, who has a teen-aged grandson, thinks young, too. I know other people of like ages who seem to have abandoned their youth in favor of the drudgery of deliberate and perpetual mental decay. Ach! Such a terrible bondage!

At any rate, I look forward to writing a long letter in response to my young friend. It may take some time, but the letter I write will respond in depth to hers and will add some of my own thoughts and will reveal some of my own emotions. Perhaps a connection with a geezer who aspires for youthful engagement will be good for her. I know already a connection with a young and intelligent searcher is good for me.

+++

I am thinking and learning, at this very late point in my life, about the value of microscopically close friendships. By that, I mean friendships with close, intimate connections that are limited to slivers of one’s experiences. These friendships may not touch on anything but a miniscule fragment of the lives of two people, but those fragments mesh together so well the two people feel momentarily quite close to one another. I’ve only given a name to what I now call microscopically close friendships just this morning. But I’ve thought about them for months. They are surprisingly valuable, though admittedly brittle and not necessarily long-lived, links to other lives. These links expose slices of oneself that one did not necessarily know existed. They prompt self-reflection in areas of one’s life either ignored or misunderstood in the past. Given that I’ve only named these relationships this morning, I think I need more time to reflect on them before I write much more about them. But I shall, one day. I consider my relationship with my pen-pal one such microscopically close friendship. That is true even though the two of us probably would not recognize one another if we passed in the street. This bears more thought. More consideration. More exploration. What if the only friendships I have are microscopically close? What if some of them are broader than others, but still just microscopically close? I mean knowing someone deeply in just one or two or three areas and remaining blissfully distant and unaware of the rest of a person’s personality.

+++

I’ve dawdled too much this morning. Spent too much time thinking, with my fingers resting softly on the keyboard without allowing the weight of my hands to press down on the keys. I think that may be my way of meditating; keeping my hands in contact with the keyboard, but with such a light touch that ideas flow through my fingers, but do not cause the keys to be pressed. Regardless, it’s time for me to stop this and go on about my day. Up next: avocado toast.

+++

Good morning, by the way. I love you. You know who you are. 😉

Reinventing oneself is not only possible, it is necessary. Reclaiming the fresh components of one’s ability to contribute to the world around us—those intellectual structures that led to the earliest evidence of our uniqueness—is vital. Reinvention need not involve trips to the gym or sprints on the treadmill or daily jogs on city streets or country roads; it can constitute, instead, a complete reordering of the manner in which one’s brain cell’s interact with one another and with the world at large. Reinvention does not require a transformation of the physical body—although that may well be a component of one’s plan for understanding and expressing ourselves anew—but it does demand a reordering of the brain’s processes. It necessitates a rebirth of the way in which we perceive ourselves, the space and time in which we live, and how we engage with the world around us. In short, reinvention compels us to shatter the old formulae that drive us and to emerge, newly-formed, from the dust of those broken pieces.

Without periodic renewal, we don’t simply mature. We decay.

Too often, discussions of “reinvention” conjure trite motivational platitudes. Real reinvention strips away the banality of platitude and replaces it with flesh borne of experience and deep aspiration. Reinvention recognizes the danger of stagnation. And it strives to balance heart-pounding risk with almost unimaginable emotional comfort. Reinvention both protects us from decomposition and rot and promises a salve to relieve the wounds caused by fighting battles with life and its warriors.

Reinvention does not always announce itself in advance, it often expresses itself after the fact. It “suddenly” appears, like a new sun rising with its sister in the morning; or another moon pairing with its brother, brightening the night sky. Reinvention reminds me of the way snakes shed their skin, leaving the remnants of a tired, worn existence as evidence that the shackles of time can be released and left behind.

One day, I hope to have the courage and the stamina to reorder the way my mind works. I hope to change myself enough so that I can see a new man within my body and my brain. I hope to see myself in a new way, clearly understanding the time and opportunities left to me in this unforgiving world. I have never been satisfied with myself during this first iteration of who I am and who I have been. If ever I have the wherewithal to make my reinvention take place, I expect it to smash the already broken pieces into dust—the ones that clash with the twists and bends of their environment—and to remold them into something shaped more like the smooth curves of the world.

+++

The other evening, after I got the phone call from my doctor’s APRN telling me to go to the ER right away, it occurred to me that I have yet to update my Directive to Physicians. The reason I thought about that is that the nurse expressed to me that, if I had a pulmonary embolism (which she thought possible), I could die suddenly and without warning. It occurred to me that I had not formally gone on notice to the world at large that, in the event I ever were sick or injured in a way that required heroic life-saving measures to keep me alive, I would not want to be kept alive by artificial means. So, just in case, I sent an email to my siblings, expressing my wishes (though I feel sure they already knew).

This morning, as I was looking through the contents of the bowels of my billfold, I found a little card with the following words printed on it:

To My Family, My Physician and Any Hospital (Living Will)

If there is no reasonable expectation of my recovery from extreme physical or mental disability…

I direct that I be allowed to die and not be kept alive by artificial means and heroic measures. I ask that medication be mercifully administered to me for terminal suffering even though this may shorten my remaining life.

I hope that you who care for me will feel morally bound to act in accordance with this urgent request.

The card bears my signature and the signatures of two witnesses. On the back of the card is a space for an emergency contact to be identified; it is blank. I suppose I should fill it in. It’s been six years since I signed that little card.

Such little formalities can make life much easier on people faced with gut-wrenching decisions.

+++

I remain angry with Western Civilization. My anger, at the moment, rests on the fact that men who carry purses are looked on with derision. They are laughed at, thought of as “pansies” (to use an old phrase that’s probably still in use among some groups),  their masculinity is questioned, and they are otherwise treated with no respect. I am too weak to go against the grain; otherwise, I would carry a bag (I probably wouldn’t call it a purse for reasons unrelated to masculinity considerations). I envision a cross-shoulder strap with a hook or connector of some kind to which a small pouch could be connected. Inside the pouch (if I were to carry one) would be my billfold, cell phone, car keys, pocket knife, small notepad, breath mints, and any other small odds and ends I might regularly need or want to have with me. Restaurants and cafes would install at every seat a small, unobtrusive hook from which the pouch (or purse) could be hung to keep it out of the way and safe from bag-snatchers.

But our society does not encourage or endorse this. And that angers me. And it angers me even more than I allow myself to be swayed by idiotic societal practices that preclude me from carrying a bag. One day, I may well reinvent myself into someone who relishes the idea of shattering stupid social norms into a thousand pieces and crushing them under my heels.

+++

Enough of this. I am hungry. It’s a weekend. I may celebrate by having a breakfast not suited to normal “workday” consumption.

Here it is, the day after my birthday. As always, I feel a little let down by it, as is always the case. They do not merit the anticipation they sew in the weeks and days leading up to them. They approach with the promise of blaring trumpets and exciting celebrations. But they arrive with whispers and they depart with whimpers. Non-events, they are, billed as earth-shaking experiences. But we treat them as if they were measures of progress, cast in silver and set in stone. Birthdays measure progress as precisely as clouds measure the light in the sky.

I have long said birthdays constitute artificial mileposts based on a misunderstanding of time and distance. We do not know how long we have been aware of our own individuality. From the start, our consciousness assumed we were appendages attached to our mothers—or that our mothers were appendages attached to us. We can only guess how far we have come and how far we have yet to go in our journey. Because we cannot recall the starting point and cannot fathom where it might end. Yet we stumble and bumble our ways through the unknown, always pretending we follow a road map of our own making.

Birthdays measure time with smoke and distance with mirrors.

I like a quotation about aging, attributed to Frances McDormand:

My position has always been that the way people age and the signs that we show of aging is nature’s way of tattooing. It’s natural scarification, and the life you lead gives you the symbols and the emblems of your life, the road map you followed.

~ Frances McDormand ~

Of course the road map rarely is one of our own making. It is one beset with dead end trails and stretches of long, lonely highways that turn out to be culs-de-sac hidden by billboards. But birthdays do give us some record of where we’ve been or how we got where we are. I like the idea of natural scarification, in the form aging has taken on one’s mind and body, being equivalent to tattoos. But, God, those tattoos can be indescribably, excruciatingly painful. Sometimes, I think death would be preferable to the perpetual pain of the tattoo needle.

+++

I am inherently lonely. Lonely in a way impossible to shake, no matter who I am with nor what I am doing. The older I get—birthdays notwithstanding—the lonelier I get, as if I am moving further and further away from something central to who I am. No one can cure this loneliness I feel; it is a more a part of me than I am a part of myself. There was a time when I thought I had escaped loneliness, but I was wrong. It was just a temporary misinterpretation of who I was at the time; I thought I was part of a larger whole, rather than simply a disconnected fragment.

These thoughts come to me late at night, hours after I have gone to bed and to sleep. Last night, I awoke four hours after going to bed quite early. In the wee hours, my loneliness stared at me in the mirror, through bleary eyes. It was as if I could see it, physically, as it mocked me for being unable to understand why it follows me wherever I go. Odd, the sense that my loneliness might be a physical being, an entity apart from me yet very much a part of me. It is difficult to put into words how these thoughts come to me. They are not incoherent musings of a man half-asleep. Rather, they are crisp, clear expressions of reality; understanding that comes in the form of intense intellectual self-examination.

Perhaps the loneliness arises from my inability to share these intense experiences with anyone. Oh, there have been times—two or three times—when I was able to share. In those moments I felt the loneliness subside. But those rare moments are long gone. Now, my attempts to share my experiences are limited to sharing them with myself by way of writing about them; it is never sufficient, never adequate in that I cannot capture the intensity of the experience in words. Words tend to be laden with emotion, whereas these experiences might seem emotion-laden, but they are not. Instead, they lack emotion entirely; they are made entirely of factual observation.

+++

It’s time for the day-after to begin in earnest. I’ve been up for a couple of hours; I wish I’d been up for a couple more. I sometimes need more solitary time than I give myself. I give that time to myself in the early morning hours. Getting up earlier is the way to do that. But even going to bed early doesn’t always allow me all the early morning awake time I need. I have to figure that out.

Onward to face the day-after-birthday sunlight.

Yesterday was too complex, too convoluted, too laced with stress and unexpected sharp left turns into the unknown to be a good day. But it had its moments. I do not condemn yesterday for its flaws. I appreciate the day for turning out far better than it could have done.

A blood test that had been delayed from the day before (due to a technician’s absence) started the day. The intent of the test was to determine the potential for the existence of a blood clot in one or both of my lungs (pulmonary embolism). The origin of the need for the test is too involved to worry with here.

By the end of the day, thanks to a flood of unexpected news and wildly frenetic brain activity, I had forgotten about the test; the technician told me when she drew my blood, though, that the results would be available to the APRN late in the day. But I forgot, thanks to an earlier wash of mind-blowing news.

My IC, who earlier had been experiencing some pain in  her lower back, had felt the pain much more acutely. Her doctor’s office referred her, by phone, to another office that took an X-ray yesterday morning; the X-ray suggested a need for a more precise image, so a CT scan was done. The CT-scan revealed a kidney stone, a bizarre finding in that my own painful experiences of late had been caused by the same thing. We spent the day in mental confusion about the matter. I figured we would talk to the urologist this morning (during my appointment to remove the stent installed during what I believe was my nephrolithotripsy), if possible, about when he could see her to determine what could be done about her kidney stone.

Late in the day, during an early dinner of an order-in Japanese meal, I got a call from my the APRN who had ordered the blood test I had taken early in the day.  She strongly recommended I go, immediately, to the ER for evaluation and any necessary reaction to the results of the blood test. She said the test suggested the likelihood that I had a blood clot in my lung. I suggested I should wait until this morning, when I will be at the hospital for the removal of my stent. “This trumps that procedure,” she said, and told me a blood clot in my lung could cause my “sudden death.” We decided to follow her advice. So off we went to the ER.

Between three and a half and four hours later, the results were in: no pulmonary embolism was found. A number of other potentially troubling findings suggested a need to visit with my cardiologist sooner rather than later, but I could safely return home without expecting to die in my sleep last night. And the fact that I’m writing this offers evidence that, indeed, did not happen.

We got home sometime around 10 (I think). We made the bed (the sheets in the drier were going to be put on the bed after dinner, but that plan got derailed) and went to bed. In a short while, we will head back into town for my stent-removal procedure. And we will consider next steps for my IC’s kidney stone adventure.

Aside from all the stuff I’ve outlined above, yesterday was full of plenty of other frenzied activities (just less frightful). I prefer days with less drama and fewer sharp twists and turns, but yesterday’s outcome made the drama a little less troublesome. I finished the day yesterday with an appreciation of—and longing for—boredom. And I awoke this morning with the same appreciation of—and wish for—a long, boring stretch of the same.

Today, we have reason to celebrate, even in the shadow of circumstances we’d rather not have to plow through. And celebrate we shall.

Yesterday, my IC and I went for a walk by one of the area lakes. The clear blue sky and the crisp morning temperatures were the lures that got us lakeside. We weren’t the only ones on the level trail, but the relative paucity of other walkers make the experience especially refreshing. My stamina remains extremely low and thin, so we trudged along at a slow pace and stopped at a couple of benches along the way, pausing long enough to soak in the serenity crafted by calm water and the occasional call of water birds. A couple of fishermen in bass boats were visible in the middle of the lake and a couple more near distant shores. Walking along the water, and sitting near the water’s edge, made us both long to live in a lakeside home. I think I would be satisfied with a small cottage, provided it was sufficiently secluded; I think she would be happier with a larger place. Our preferences don’t really matter, though; the cost of a lakeside home is out of reach for us, me especially. I am unwilling to get into levels of debt that would rob me of the serenity a lakeside home might provide. We can be satisfied, I think, with the knowledge that lakes are nearby and the serenity of a lakeside walk is just a short drive away.

Yesterday’s experience brought to mind the unfortunate fact that, in our society, money is required to gain access to so much of what we value personally. Peaceful environments, comfortable houses, access to amenities like shopping, entertainment and the like, and so much more require money. And our wishes and dreams and desires seem so often to be just beyond our financial reach. Yet, with the proper attitudes, we could adjust our perspectives so that we look with appreciation on what is readily available to us, rather than with envy on what is not.

The older I get, the more disenchanted I get with a culture that molds our wants and needs around the financial desires of business. We’re coached by advertising and marketing into what we should desire: we want the latest gadgetry, the newest trends in clothing, the most fashionable footwear, the biggest houses, the most up-to-date automobiles, the latest trends in home décor, etc., etc., etc. With just a bit of self-reflection and introspection, I think we’d all be much less inclined to be herded like sheep into commercial chutes to buy, buy, buy, buy. Knowing this, though, and allowing the knowledge to transform our lives are quite different. Though I feel, deep in my bones, that consumerism is, by and large, a nasty virus that ruins the serenity of living in—and being satisfied with—the here and now, I regularly get roped in by the consumerism and commercialization I know is trying to control me. I want, want, want, want, want, succumbing to the desires injected into my  mind-stream by savvy marketers. It’s not a simple matter of rejecting their subtle forms of mind control; it requires a concerted effort and a commitment to rejecting buying for the sake of buying.

So, back to wanting a quiet, secluded, bucolic lakeside house. It’s all a matter of priorities. Must this house be large? What attributes must it have? How many bedrooms? How much land must it sit on? Must is be ON a lake or would a place just “up the road” from a lake do? Must the place be outfitted with the latest fashions in home décor? How close must it be to entertainment? With respect to the latter, priorities have to be established: which is most important, seclusion or access to a bustling environment? There are so many aspects surrounding what is important in one’s life; all of them must be considered and prioritized and evaluated in light of available resources and how much of those resources one is willing to expend to achieve those priorities. I think these decisions should be made in one’s youth and should guide one’s life. But youth is not suited to such decision-making. Youth is a time of trial and error. Too often, it is a repeating circle of the same trials and errors. By the time we reach retirement, we find we haven’t make the commitments to self-knowledge necessary to knowing what we want and need and require for contentment.

And so it goes.

+++

I think health challenges tend to cause us to reset our priorities, or at least to reexamine them. It makes sense; without our health, living contentedly with whatever priorities we have been able to reach becomes difficult, if not impossible. It’s too bad we don’t find it easier to reset and/or reexamine priorities without being prompted to do it by urgent health concerns.

As the following words of Phoebe Snow illustrate, I am not along in thinking along these lines:

Sometimes when you’re overwhelmed by a situation— when you’re in the darkest of darkness—that’s when your priorities are reordered.

~ Phoebe Snow ~

I think it would make good sense for every person to start each day with a ritual of sorts (despite my previous expressions of aversion to ritual). This ritual would have us first restate for ourselves our own most pressing personal priorities. Then, we would articulate specifically how we are going to pursue the most important of these for that specific day. Finally, we would commit to examining, the next day, how we did in that pursuit. It sounds simplistic, and it is, but that process could help us stick with priorities, rather than letting them disappear into the mist of day-by-day living. And it could help us discover which priorities really have meaning for us and which are simply window dressing that we might be better off by shedding.

+++

The last several days have been strange, to say the least. After spending most of the day last Thursday waiting for the procedure to remove a kidney stone, I seemed to have plunged into a labyrinthine cage of delirium. Though I remember most of what I thought and felt during the time between Friday and Monday morning, the images I recall seem like fictions I read about, rather than realities I experienced. My memories include pain, coughing spasms, deep depression, confusion, constipation, and groups of people who I tried to convince to join me in forming financial collaboratives. None of these things seemed connected to the others, though they all formed part of a web that appeared interrelated in some way. The complexities of the illusions, delusions, whatever…were impossible for me to understand. Apparently, this odd miasma was not just in my head, either; things I said to others were just as bizarre and disturbing. And one truly troubling thing I remember was thinking, “if this is the way my life is going to be, I want to end it.”

Until yesterday morning, the only thing I had to eat between Thursday evening and yesterday morning, was a piece of cold pizza on Friday morning. I had no appetite whatsoever. I did not even want to drink coffee. Despite the admonition that I should drink a lot of water after the procedure, I could drink only a sip or two at a time until yesterday.

The experience was incredibly odd. Yet none of the drugs I took for the pain, etc. seems a  likely culprit to have created the wild mental storm that took me in its winds during much of those three or so days. Finally, though, the storm subsided yesterday. I saw my primary care doctor’s nurse practitioner yesterday afternoon; she was stumped by the weirdness of it all, too. But, again, the storm is over, I think. I have to go back in Thursday to a stent removed; perhaps, with that, the episode will be nothing but a frightening memory. I hope so.

I feel like I lost several days while swimming in a black hole. I have no idea what took place in my world while I was “out.” I remember what took place in my mind, but not much else outside of it.

+++

The whirlwind of experiences that were not expected to, or supposed to, happen has left me more than a little stumped and confused. For the moment, at least, I do not feel compelled to or even able to write much more. Suddenly, this morning, I realize this blog is not my life and my life is not this blog. But it will be here, waiting for me, when I am ready to write more. Maybe tomorrow, maybe a week from now, maybe longer. Time will tell.

The visit to the urologist to remove a kidney stone was not the quick and easy process I expected. An anticipated quick trip that would last no more than two hours turned into an all-day affair, beginning around 10:15 and finishing up just before 5:00 p.m. In hindsight, it was simply a matter of managing expectations, both on my part and on the part of the urologist’s nurse. Not a major deal, just a much longer experience than I’d planned.

It was fortunate that my IC had decided to put the loveable beast in doggie day care. And it was fortunate that we had asked my sister-in-law to be available to pick him up in the event we were longer than expected. It was almost noon by the time I had been directed to outpatient check-in in the hospital, where the procedure would be performed; I had assumed it would be done in a “surgical” suite in the urologist’s office. However, I believe I was wheeled into the hospital’s procedure room—where, thankfully, I was sedated—some time after 2:00 p.m. I was taken from the post-op recovery room to the holding room for soon-to-be-released patients around 4:00 p.m. We left for home around 5, after my IC went to get three prescriptions filled at the pharmacy located in the medical center building. I had told the staff of the hospital I wanted Walgreen’s in the Village to handle any prescriptions; unfortunately, Walgreen’s shut down their pharmacy for the day (and perhaps longer) when they could not secure sufficient staff to keep it open.

Ultimately, all seemed well. I was given a couple of pain pills and another prescription for who knows what and given advice on ways to minimize discomfort, etc. And I was advised to call the urologist’s office on Monday to set up an appointment later in the week (Tuesday, I hope) to remove the stent inserted into my ureter. We’ll see.  All in all, I feel fortunate that I was able to get in when I did and that I did not experience excruciating pain that can accompany problems with kidney stones.

That was yesterday. Last night, though, things changed. I woke repeatedly during the night with an urge to pee. When I got out of bed, the urge amplified a thousand-fold; I was afraid I would not make it to the bathroom. Fortunately, I did. But just barely. Between these bouts, I had bizarre dreams involving a failure to reconcile financial records. During trips to the bathroom, I felt certain these financial records would cause a financial institution to come crashing down. I moaned during the night. I kept my IC awake. I kept myself awake; just not coherent enough to make any sense of the records. Bizarre, indeed.

Finally, I woke up this morning around 9:00 a.m. I’ve had a glass of water, but no coffee. I’m not sure why, but coffee sounds unappealing to me today. Food sounds rather unappealing, but I would make an exception for chicken-fried steak drenched in gravy and covered with medium-grind black pepper. And jalapeños, of course.

Back to the kidney stone. It was 4.4 mm in size; apparently pretty big for a kidney stone. I do not know whether the doctor simply scooped it out or whether he blasted it with a laser. I guess I’ll find out something early next week. I should have inquired while I was in the recovery room, but I was incoherent at the time.

+++

I started writing this post last night. I finished it just now, about 10:15 a.m. It strikes me as being deeply boring. Such is life. My life.

The lyrics to a Loudon Wainwright song, Missing You, keep playing in my head. The first verse, and all that follow, tug at me, hard:

He don’t stay out anymore
No more coming in past four
Most nights he turns in ’round ten
He’s way too tired to pretend
Sure, you might find him up at three
But if he is it’s just to pee
Sometimes he’s awake ’till two
But that’s just ’cause he’s missing you
He’s lying there and missing you.

~ Loudon Wainwright ~

+++

It is hard to say whether my failure to ask questions in certain circumstances is attributable to surprise, to shock, or to some other emotional reaction to something unexpected. Whatever the cause, I sometimes neglect to make inquiries that might both inform and reassure me. That’s true, especially, when confronting unanticipated news from doctors or other healthcare professionals. For instance, the procedure I will undergo this morning remains something of a mystery to me because I did not ask questions (or, if I did, I did not retain the responses). I did not expect, on a routine follow-up exam, to learn that a completely unrelated issue—a kidney stone large enough that it is causing the urethra and kidney above the stone to blow up like a balloon—needs to be addressed. That surprise, I suppose, was enough to put my mind in a fog that left me a bit dazed with respect to asking the right questions or remembering answers to the questions I asked.

I wonder why our minds do that to us? I know I am not alone in leaving a doctor’s office in something of a fog, not knowing what I just learned, nor fully understanding next steps. In this case, as I understand it, my situation is no big deal; it just needs to be addressed so it won’t become a big deal. But, in other cases, the failure to grasp the news or fully understand enough to ask relevant questions can be serious. Perhaps it’s the instantaneous realization that we’re not invincible; maybe that’s why we leave without fully comprehending what we just learned. Or maybe it’s something else. One day, I will take the time to explore the matter. But not now. Not today. Today is reserved for getting yet another intrusive medical matter out of the way.

+++

My minor maladies pale in comparison to being  hospitalized. A friend from church is in the hospital, dealing with breathing problems. That’s the sort of thing that makes kidney stones seem nothing but minor inconveniences. Ach! Yet I complain, nonetheless. There are days I get so frustrated with myself for being so damn self-centered, when my problems are so minor and my good fortunes are so extraordinarily broad. Reminding myself of the bounty in my life should be a daily practice. Perhaps that would tend to erase my mumblings about the minor stumbles I make and the inconsequential roadblocks I encounter.

+++

When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.

~ Vietnamese Proverb ~

+++

Gratitude for unknown benefactors is healthy. It reminds us that we did not construct the world in which we live, nor did we create the majority of the positive circumstances that make our lives worthy of appreciation.  The following words have been attributed to John F. Kennedy: “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” That’s an even more important lesson, I think. Live by the gratitude we express. That can be hard, sometimes, but it is necessary. Deliberate contemplation about who or what is responsible for our good fortune is humbling. And we very definitely should be humble.

+++

My IC gave me an unexpected present yesterday (but I owe her for half the cost); she persuaded me to have the tree-cutters who were in the neighborhood come to the house to say what they could do to open up the shrinking view of the farmland below. Today and everyday the atmosphere is willing, the newly refreshed view is enough to make me very happy. More genuine gratitude flowing from my mind into the universe.

+++

I am a mess in so many ways. I am like a car that has been run for too long without an oil change. And that same car has been in numerous scrapes in parking lots. It has driven over too many deep potholes; its front end is badly out of alignment. I need to be put in the shop. Repair the dents and scratches. A complete paint job. Rebuild the engine. Replace all the hoses and install new shocks. This process is going to take more than a few hours in a doctor’s office. It will take a month or more at the Mayo Clinic; maybe even a year.