John Swinburn

Sometimes, my habit of looking back at my blog to see what I was thinking a year ago is a mistake. Today, for example, I looked back to see what wrote on Thanksgiving, 2020. I wrote that I was making special tapas to take to my wife, whose life was slipping away while she spent another miserable day in a rehabilitation facility. That day, and more that followed, left me feeling empty and aching and wishing I could do something to change the course of history. I did not acknowledge then, though, that my wife was dying. I still hoped that she would recover form her five-month-long deterioration. Even though I did not know her end was near, I felt a sense of unease; dread, almost, that the nightmare would just drag on, with nothing suggesting we would emerge from it unscathed. Yes, it may have been a mistake to look back a year. I hope that mistake doesn’t ruin this Thanksgiving for my IC and me and for our two Thanksgiving day guests who are joining us for dinner, my late wife’s sister and our friend. I’ll figure out a way to pull out of this self-imposed tear-fest before the day begins in earnest. I do not want to experience today this way—this moment that seems to stretch on interminably as an endless sense of loss envelopes me.

My good fortune—of stumbling into a relationship with someone who fills me with such joy—will help me overcome the sadness that swept over me as I perused last November’s posts. I feel guilty, though, both for what feels like my undeserved good fortune and for bringing my sadness into her life at the same time she brings joy into mine. I wonder, more often than not, whether my grief will ever become tolerable. I know it will never leave me, but will it ever allow me to keep it locked inside me, so that it doesn’t infect people around me? Ach! I will find a way to harness the power of my grief in positive ways. I am sure many others have done it. It’s just a matter of committing to do the same and translating commitment into action.

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Before I retired, I made a habit of getting up early and going for a walk—between two and four miles—ever weekday. Then, before my wife awoke, I showered and shaved in preparation for going to the office to begin my workday before my staff arrived. Since retiring, I’ve slacked off. Not only have I stopped my habit of taking long walks, I’ve almost entirely abandoned early morning showers. Nowadays, I usually wait until mid-morning or later to shower. But not this morning. I woke at around the usual time, 4:30 or so, and immediately went in to shave and shower. After I got dressed, I put a load of laundry in the washer before I made coffee. I felt so incredibly productive! But then I make the mistake of looking at old blogs… Yet I see how I might reinvigorate myself if I simply got back into an old, familiar habit. Rather than reading old blog posts, I should just launch right in to writing. Or, maybe, I could get back in the habit of early walks. But that might be a tad more difficult than it was back in Dallas; even in early morning darkness, street lights were sufficient to enable me to avoid many trips and falls. Here in the Village, the lights are fewer and less powerful. And I am older and my vision is not what it once was. But even without the walks, I could get into a new version of an old habit; up early, shower, shave, and jump into a productive exploration of what’s on my mind. I’ll give that more thought. It has potential. It has merit. I may still have the ability to launch into something energizing that might start my days with an injection of enthusiasm I’ve been lacking.

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Before I began writing this morning, I skimmed emails that came in overnight. One of them struck me at once as a bit odd and rather thought-provoking. The message suggested that Bruce Lee, the actor and marshal artist, was also a philosopher. Hmm. I like the label. I’d like to adopt it for myself. John Swinburn, philosopher. It works for me. But I realize, of course, that we’re all philosophers. We all have philosophies of life that guide how we live; how we behave, how we allow the world around us to steer us in various directions. But I doubt many of us recognize that the way we think and the patterns of our thoughts are the  hallmarks of philosophers. We’re all philosophers. We just do not acknowledge it. We should. We ought to consciously recognize how our thoughts move us through the course of our lives. Only by responding to our philosophies of life are we able to cope with the obstacles and opportunities the world throws at us. But, of course, I’m thinking of something a little more formal. Something I might feel comfortable putting on a business card. “Examiner of Life in a Fiercely Independent Universe.” That may be too long. And it may be the wrong approach. I’ll have to give it more thought.

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Once again, I’ve allowed my coffee to get cold. I could save it and drink it over ice, later in the day. But that doesn’t sound appealing to me. When I drink iced coffee, I want freshly-brewed coffee that’s poured over ice; not luke-warm coffee that’s saved from going down the drain by dumping it in a glass full of brutally cold pieces of rock-hard water. For some reason, I just had a vision of pouring too-warm coffee into a glass that contains not only ice but pieces of uncooked salmon. What in the name of God is wrong with me? Who thinks of such miserable, unappetizing stuff at this hour of the morning? Now, even freshly-brewed coffee poured into a pristine cup sounds less than appealing.

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Okay. I’m ready for Thanksgiving Day. Before I get too far into it, though, I have to finish the load of laundry. It might have finished washing by now, in which case it’s time to throw it into the dryer. I might finish the load completely before my IC awakes to take her small strange dog out for its morning constitutional. It’s actually a very nice little dog; exactly the kind of dog I have long been thinking about, except it’s a tad small, so it can’t safely hang its head out of the car window and sniff the breeze, as if it were engaged in a wonderful adventure.  Stop changing the subject. Do the clothes. Write later. Maybe tomorrow.

My relationship with religion in general is not simply tolerance. It is more like acceptance, though not in the sense that I accept a belief that runs utterly counter to my own. For several years—at least six or seven, I think—I gradually have come to accept the power and value of religion for individuals who believe humanity owes its existence to some form of divine power or being. I stipulate that I accept the power and value of religion for individuals because I still think religion in a broader sense—as a social structure—often is an ugly and dangerous construct. But, for individuals who believe in a supreme power, it can affirm life and everything in it. It can be an anchor and a guide.

This morning, I read an email distributed by the Unitarian Universalist (UU) Association that captured the value of prayer for people who believe in and need a “higher power.” Entitled “An Atheist’s Prayer,” the message told the story of a new UU chaplain, Rev. Sally Fritsche, an atheist like me, called to prayer with the family of a dying Catholic man. The chaplain hesitated, wondering whether any prayers she offered would seem hollow to a family of believers. But she wrote this, in describing her reaction to the situation:

But a dozen pairs of teary eyes turned to me; what else could I do? I invited everyone to gather close. Together, we prayed the Hail Mary, the Our Father, and prayed that whatever came next would come with peace and overwhelming love. A powerful connection formed when that family reached for me, the chaplain, and asked me to put their sadness and their hopes into words, and to tell their God what they needed. Those prayers were far from empty.

This morning, as I considered my acceptance of religion and, in this case, prayer, I had something of an epiphany. Acceptance in such circumstances is simply an expression of compassion. I need not share the beliefs of someone else to accept and appreciate what they are doing (or hope I will do) by offering prayer. I simply need to share humanity.

The email message in which Rev. Fritsche’s story was told ended with a prayer, one I can embrace on a personal level:

May we release ourselves from the need to fit every truth neatly into our own language. May we occasionally forget ourselves long enough to remember each other.

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I spent most of last night after going to bed, and the subsequent wee hours of this morning, in extremely restless sleep and near-sleep. Thoughts and dreams of during much of the night revolved around problems with closing on our next house, scheduled for next Tuesday. There are no such problems, but my thoughts and dreams insisted all night that there are: inadequate funding, mistakes with the title and insurance, scheduling difficulties, errors in arithmetic, lost checkbooks, etc., etc., etc. Those interruptions to my sleep were supplemented with difficulty breathing, including complete and total blockage of the right side of my right; as if skin had grown over my nostril so no air could enter or escape. And the usual joint pain and coughing and dry mouth and headache. The idea of a truly restful sleep is pure fantasy. When I finally got out of bed around 4:30 (at least a couple of hours after I was thoroughly awake), I considered the possibility of testing whether five or six shots of high-end tequila might make sleep come; I abandoned that idea, though, for fear that the “cure” might utterly wreck my plans for the rest of the day. So, I’m simply waiting for my body to adapt to its environment and the torture it must endure.  Ach.

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One of my brothers was admitted to the hospital again yesterday. He had breathing problems. Though I have not been able to speak to him, I learned from another brother that the hospitalized sibling was told by his doctor that a procedure to correct a problem with his heart is not longer an option. My brother is not a good candidate, he was told; he might not survive the surgery, the doctors said. This is in direct opposition to what he was told earlier. I wish I were there so I could listen to doctors directly, rather than get information third or fourth hand. But, that’s not possible at the moment. So, I will try to reach my hospitalized brother today to get more information. When loved ones far away are ill, the burden on everyone involved with them is exacerbated by distance and incomplete communication.

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This morning, I will prepare a broccoli and rice casserole, which will sit in the refrigerator overnight in advance of cooking for dinner tomorrow. My IC will make a green bean casserole for the Thanksgiving feast, as well as sweet potatoes in some form or another (maybe just baked, maybe jazzed up in some fashion…time will tell). Guests will bring salad and a pumpkin-based (I think) dessert. We’ll have various munchies (olives and other pre-prandial delights). And, of course, wine. Riesling for at least one of us; maybe some Sauvignon Blanc for me (and others); and some nice Cabernet Sauvignon for those who wish for it. I rarely make a “traditional” Thanksgiving dinner, but this year I’ll prepare a ribeye roast (which I have done before, with some rather grand success). Oh, yes. Food will be fun. I love ribeye with horseradish; we shall have horseradish.

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“When you know your history, you know your value. You know the price that has been paid for you to be here. You recognize what those who came before you built and sacrificed for you to inhabit the space in which you dwell.”

~ Cicely Tyson

I read in passing in a newsletter [recently renamed The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings)] a mention of “fractals,” a term with which I am familiar but whose definition I have never fully understood. I set aside the newsletter, but the term “fractal” stuck in my head. Later this morning, when I looked up the word, this is the definition I found: “an irregular geometric structure that cannot be described by classical geometry because magnification of the structure reveals repeated patterns of similarly irregular, but progressively smaller, dimensions.”

The definition went on to offer examples: “Fractals are especially apparent in natural forms and phenomena because the geometric properties of the physical world are largely abstract, as with clouds, crystals, tree bark, or the path of lightning.”

A secondary definition, applicable to architecture and decorative art, is offered as follows: “a design or construction that uses the concept and mechanics of fractal geometry.”

Neither definition adequately explained to me the meaning of the word, nor its applicability in the world around me. Only after I searched for images associated with the term did I begin to understand it. Even then, it remained fuzzy until I returned to the natural examples. Finally, while considering the description and another specific graphic example did it begin to become increasingly clear. An abstract tree canopy clarified it for me, as did a magnified image of a snowflake, an enlarged photo of a splash of alcohol ink on a field of pure water, and a photo, taken from space, of a river network. The website of The Fractal Foundation offers what may be a more precise definition; somewhat easier to grasp:

“A fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. Driven by recursion, fractals are images of dynamic systems – the pictures of Chaos. Geometrically, they exist in between our familiar dimensions.”

During the course of growing older, I regularly discover and rediscover the almost incomprehensible beauty of physics. And that discovery upsets me that either I never had the intellectual capacity to understand physics or the ability to regulate my own interests to successfully pursue it or both. I have long since given up on trying to comprehend physics, opting instead to marvel at its incredibly complex beauty and its absolute integration with the natural world around us.

Even now—in what I hope is only the beginning of the very early stages of the long twilight of my life—I still wish I had devoted more of my youth to my own education. I wish I had been smart enough to know how important an understanding of the world and my place in it could have become. If I knew in my youth what I know now, I might have applied myself, even in school subjects that seemed boring at the time. I wish I had been able to appreciate that “practical” knowledge is not the only knowledge worth having. I wish I had understood that the pursuit of “understanding,” in its purest form, is the most valuable gift one can give to oneself. And it is the most meaningful gift one can help others give to themselves.

The beauty of physics and geometry—and fractals—always drives me to appreciate art’s natural attraction. Art captures the mystique and complexity of nature, as if it seizes the importance of never-ending repetition of patterns. Art, whether created with a brush or by hands on a wheel or any other means, uses repetitive patterns of movement to form monuments to the natural world around us. Even abstract art, seemingly unrelated to nature or, indeed, any aspect of the world around us, appropriates observations and translates them into patterns for others to see, if they choose to examine art closely enough.

I cannot adequately explain my thoughts this morning; they are too convoluted to put into clear words. But like so many other days, this morning seems to clearly point me in the direction of “knowing” how important our understanding of the natural world is to our appreciation of life itself. It’s sad to think that most people—like me—fail to devote the time and energy to understanding fractals and physics. If they did, their time on this planet would be more fulfilling, I think. And they would contribute to a more fulfilling time for others. Alas, it’s easy to nourish and hard to starve ignorance, while it’s hard to nourish and easy to starve knowledge.

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Grocery stores should open much earlier. Like breakfast restaurants, they should open by 6:00 a.m. at the latest. Only savages stay in bed after 5:30; the rest of us need to be up and productive long before then. And than sometimes means getting breakfast or buying groceries. I admire donut shop/bakery owners and employees; they know the value of “early to rise.” That’s both “pun”-ny and productive.

Here it is, three years and three days post-surgery. I failed to celebrate the three-year anniversary of my thoracotomy and lobectomy, the outcome of which was to prevent me from dying of lung cancer. On reflection, three days after the anniversary date, I think it appropriate to express appreciation for the enormity of the efforts undertaken on my behalf. Not just the surgery, performed by Dr. Jason L. Muesse and his surgical team, but for the doctors and researchers and other scientists and inventors who made it possible for a patient to survive such traumatic, invasive procedures as thoracic surgery.

Imagine everyone involved in learning the processes and requirements that led to: sterile operating room conditions; special instruments to cut into the body, evacuate blood, monitor heart rate and blood pressure and brain waves, etc.; reliably clean surgical gowns and masks and draping; anesthesia processes and products…the list could go on for weeks. Every piece of equipment has a history of product development and refinement. Every member of the operating room team and post-op recovery team spent literally years absorbing knowledge and perfecting skills. Even the architects and construction professionals involved in designing and building the hospital and its surgery theaters should be acknowledged for their role in saving people, thereby keeping families intact and preventing overwhelming grief from washing over people not ready to face the reality that mortality is not a myth.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not believe doctors are gods, nor are all the people involved in today’s medical establishment heroes. If I believed in the concept of sin, I would say many aspects of the insurance bureaucracy constitute sins against Man and Nature. Doctors and nurses are mere mortals who, in the right circumstances, help delay death and keep the pain of injury and illness at bay. But everyone involved in any aspect (even tangential to) of the various fields of medicine deserves recognition and appreciation for the roles they play in keeping us adequately healthy and alive.

I think humility is an appropriate response to what can seem to be the miracles of modern medicine. Even in light of its failures, medicine is extraordinary. Even when doctors cannot perform miracles—when patients die, leaving survivors in unspeakably difficult mental anguish—appreciation for valiant efforts is, at minimum, appropriate.

Three years after what could have been a brush with death, I am more than a little grateful for medicine. As much as I think the medical establishment is rife with greed, merciless indifference, and inefficiencies, I am delighted to have been (and to continue to be) an appreciative recipient of its capacity to heal me.

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Though I remain skeptical, curmudgeonly, and more than a little suspicious of the motives of humankind, I find myself mellowing in my old age. While enormous numbers of people can be counted as parasitic thorns in the side of human decency—and, therefore, deserving of unemotional extermination—quite a few of those who remain are, by all measures, fundamentally good. And those good people merit our goodwill and appreciation.

It’s odd, though. The older I get, the more certain I become that many people—maybe most—simply are fundamentally rotten to the core. But at the same time, I become more and more positive that there are huge numbers of good ones who should be acknowledged for their goodness. Why I see that big divide is beyond me. I find it interesting that few people seem to fall in the middle between the two.

Another oddity: it’s hard to know into which camp people fall until they are past child-bearing age. So, while it would be great to be able to discourage the bad apples from procreating, one can’t be sure who the bad apples are until after their children have already inherited their bad genes. My solution would be to simply skip at least one complete generation. But that wouldn’t really solve the problem. It would simply give us a breather. Which wouldn’t be bad. But it would be equivalent to kicking the can down the road a bit. We do that too often already. Look at Congress and its propensity to delay action on urgent items until it’s too late to take action.

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I did not buy milk yesterday, so again we cannot have cereal for breakfast. I did not thaw bacon yesterday, so we cannot have bacon and eggs. I did not make congee this morning, so that item will not be on the menu today. I would like very much to go out for breakfast to First Watch. But the nearest location is three-plus hours from home, so that’s out. Life is such a challenge. But I prefer challenges to the certainty of their perennial absence. I’ll figure something out for breakfast.

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My IC and I talked yesterday about how hard it has been, during times of extremely challenging emotional stress, to reach out to ask for help. Or even to ask someone to sit quietly with us as we go through the experience. I think people who have extremely close friends and who think of themselves as worth others’ time are better equipped than the rest of us. People who question their own value have a harder time because they assume any offer of a gift of time will be made from another’s feeling of uncomfortable obligation rather than a sense of a genuine desire to help. The problem with not asking for, or even rejecting, help is that there may come a time when it’s too late. I’ve sensed that I’ve gone too long being afraid to accept help. By the time I’m willing to accept it, the offer has faded or the hugs are no longer available. Emotions are far more difficult to heal than are cuts and scrapes. Just some out-of-the-blue thoughts on a topic often on my mind.

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I am ready for another cup of coffee. I wonder why my mind is so much on appreciation of late. Thanksgiving usually does not do that to me. And it’s not Thanksgiving that’s doing it this year, either.

Yesterday, I prepared a broccoli and rice casserole; I will take it out of the refrigerator and heat it for 40 minutes before taking it to church this morning for our pre-Thanksgiving luncheon. If memory serves me correctly, I think I read that the church is providing turkey (or is it ham?) for today’s meal; members of the congregation, like me, are providing the side dishes. I have not participated in a meal with the congregation in what feels like a very, very long time. COVID-19 acted like a wrench thrown into the gears of a finely-tuned machine, slamming on the brakes of group gatherings, especially meals. Today’s meal will, I hope, resurrect the practice of having group meals from time to time.

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Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

~ Voltaire ~

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This morning, quite by accident, I learned the meaning of a vulgar British slang term: goolies. Goolies refers to male genitals, “more specifically, his testicles or ‘balls’.” While I found no definitive etymology for the word, I came across evidence that the word entered the English language by way of India, where the Hindi word goli mean a small sphere or ball. Language intrigues me, especially language that conveys information about the context in which it is used. I can imagine, for example, using the word goolies in a story to suggest the Indian subcontinent background of a British character whose parents, we might learn later, speak Hindi in the home.

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Like millions of others around the world, I was appalled to learn that a jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on all counts against him in the deaths of three men and the wounding of another in Kenosha, Wisconsin. I thought he deserved to be found guilty on all counts. I was angry that he will not be punished for his actions. But unlike millions of others, I do not think the Federal government should charge him with other crimes; we do not have a “do-over” provision in the Constitution for verdicts we do not like. And I absolutely abhor the signage some protestors displayed in various places around the U.S. after the verdict, including one that says “The people’s verdict: GUILTY!”  Vigilante “justice” is not justice; vigilante means “done violently and summarily, without recourse to lawful procedures.” Too often, when jury verdicts do not go “our” way, I see people who share my perspectives on the verdict decide they should be allowed to overturn it. Yet they do not give the same permission to the other side when the verdict goes our way. Hypocrisy is not a good look for ostensibly intelligent progressives.

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I envy playwrights the experience of watching an audience respond to the performance of their work. Playwrights can see and hear whether their words elicit howls of laughter or shrieks of surprise. When the sound of sobs fill an auditorium or the sight of tears streaming down the faces of theater patrons, the playwright knows whether his writing touched a nerve. He knows whether his words extracted emotions from spectators. My posts rarely prompt readers to reply. Only rarely can I be certain eyes have seen my posts, much less sparked an emotional response.

But, occasionally, someone will respond to what I’ve written. Yesterday, my friend Meg gave me feedback on my musing about eating meat and Colleen noted that I mistakenly titled my post with the wrong day of the week. And Deanna wrote an insightful response, not long ago, to my comments about isolating from the news cycle. And Becky reassured me that coffee would be in my future. And Patty comforted me in her response to my emotional expression of bleak loneliness.

Those rare responses to my sometimes nearly incoherent blather reinforce my envy of playwrights. Comments of any kind let me know someone is out there, reading. Comments function the same way for a blogger as audience reactions function for the playwright. And the playwright has the benefit of knowing the size of the audience, even when the audience sits in uninspired silence. No so the blogger; if he sees no comments, it either may be because his writing had no effect on the audience—or because there was no audience for his words; no one read what he wrote.

A few years ago, a very critical comment about a short post (fiction) generated an interesting dialogue between me and the commenter. The commenter, a first-time visitor to the blog, caught an extremely amateur mistake in the story and she called me on it. Embarrassed, I replied to her and acknowledged the error. We exchanged comments for a bit and eventually, thanks to fortuitous circumstances, met face to face. We since have not seen one another in several years and only rarely communicate, but that simple comment illustrates how interactions between writer and reader can spawn interesting experiences. I suppose it’s that rare result to a rare comment that I envy. Something meaningful can come out of even uninspired writing as long as ideas are exchanged. That is, as long as communication takes place. Communication is not a one-way interaction; it requires information to flow in both directions.

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The Ötztal Ice Man, a mummified corpse found on the Hauslabjoch in the Tyrolean Alps in September 1991, had tattoos—sixty-one of them, in fact. Otzi, as he is affectionately known, offers glimpses of the first tattoos known to humankind. Tattooed mummies and remains have been discovered in forty-nine locations around the world, confirming that tattooing has been practiced all around the world for literally thousands of years. The oldest evidence of tattoos is from between 3370 BC and 3100 BC. My point: the recent popularity of tattoos is nothing new.

Today, Goth youth, hillbilly grandmas, bikers with a violent streak, and sensitive and tender young poets share a propensity to have tattoos. It’s interesting that each of them seems to view tattoos as their own personal modes of expressing uniqueness in a bland, ordinary, and common world.

Still, though, I have no tattoo. And I may never have a tattoo. But I might get one on a whim, giving the matter about as much thought as I might give to picking which fruits to buy from the greengrocer. Odd; the idea that a decision about something so permanent and so personal might be made with almost no thought. No planning. No consideration of the repercussions. With regard the latter, I wonder what possesses a person to have a cross tattooed across his forehead or the image of a cartoon character imprinted on her cheek.

While tattoos maintain negative images in many quarters in this era, they are becoming more acceptable. Not long ago, when I went to the hospital to determine whether I might have a pulmonary embolism (I didn’t and don’t), I encountered a young ER doctor—a first-year resident—who had a tattoo around his ring finger. In response to a question from my inquisitive IC, he explained he had gotten the tattoo in lieu of removing his wedding band before engaging in various medical procedures. Subsequent to that experience, I have had vague recollections of seeing other medical doctors with various unobtrusive tattoos.

So what? Why write about tattoos? I honestly can’t say. The subject just arose in my mind earlier this morning and I followed it. Online, I explored a little about the history of tattoos and I examined images of tattoos. I saw what I consider hideous full-body tattoo sleeves. And I saw photographs of women with small, discreet tattoos; images that aroused a wish that I could have known more about these delicate people. Of course, they may not be delicate at all. Tattoos do not necessarily reveal a great deal about a person, any more than do the earrings someone may wear. But the mere fact that a person displays a tattoo—or wears an earring—says something. It says “I am not the average person next door.” It invites questions. It suggests an interest in human interactions. I suppose a tattoo or an earring (or bracelets or necklaces or…whatever) is the equivalent in humans of mating dances or feathered strutting in birds. It says “look at me.” Not necessarily for mating, but for acknowledgement or recognition or simply engagement.

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I wish I could harness my curiosity. I wish I could channel to stay focused on a specific subject for longer than a minute. If I could do that, I might know far more than I do about the world in which I live. But I do not stay focused. Instead, my mind flits from subject to subject like a bee zips from flower to flower. The bee is after pollen. But what am I after? I’ve said it a thousand times before: my interests are wide but shallow; I know a little about many things but I know a lot about so very few. I cannot stay focused for long. I get bored or, perhaps more precisely, I encounter a wall that informs me I am not disciplined enough or smart enough to become more proficient or more knowledgeable about a subject. So, I flit on to the next one, always hoping to find one that will be sufficiently interesting to me to enable me to stick with it for a while. But I know better. I am afraid I always will be the impatient bee. He will try to experience every flower, but he will know almost nothing about every one upon which he lands so very briefly.

I’ve said before that I might one day get a tattoo of a dragonfly or a scorpion. I might consider a bee, as well. The dragonfly would have special significance as a reminder of my late wife. The scorpion would suggest something of my false bravado, I’m afraid. But the bee might reveal something of my personality; inherently prone to skip from idea to idea, never stopping long enough to really understand anything.

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We bought a large ribeye roast the other day. We chose the prime grade, despite its premium price, because it is for a special dinner. Never in my life, until now, have I spent more than $100 on a cut of meat. This better be damn tasty! In addition to the beef, we’ll have a salad and some nice vegetable sides. Before Thanksgiving Day, when I cook the huge piece of meat, I will buy some prepared horseradish to serve as a condiment. And we will have wine. And there will be music and conversation and laughter.

I’ve written several times before about my ambivalence toward eating meat. While I love the flavor, I loathe the history of the food before me when I am about to eat beef or chicken or turkey or lamb or…whatever. Even fish, sometimes, causes me to wonder whether I would be happier and healthier as a vegetarian. That’s exactly how some people want me to feel. They might say “See! I’m right about this! You should swear off meat in favor of a happier and healthier diet based on gentle sweetness instead of violent dominion!” Or something like that. But I have mixed feelings. I think humans evolved as omnivorous creatures. That is not to say that we could not continue to evolve so that, eventually, we remove meat from our diets. But would that truly be natural? And why does the idea of humans as vegetarians seem natural when, in the world beyond the ends of our noses, other animals are decidedly carnivorous? Why is it okay for a leopard to stalk its prey and to kill and consume its flesh, but not for humans? Why give eagles a pass when they dive into rivers or lakes, their talons snatching fish they will consume? Why not endeavor to persuade the birds to feast, instead, on seeds and nuts?

I don’t know. Like I said, I have mixed feelings. I think I could get used to eating a primarily vegetarian diet. For example, I could be perfectly happy with the pumpkin and black bean soup my sister-in-law made and brought over recently (even without the chicken she included in the dish). And I could easily survive on the vegetarian chili she made and shared with us shortly thereafter. (She makes some incredibly good food, just to mention.) But would I miss steak and seafood and sausage and pork and fowl? No question: yes. But I could get used to their absence. The planet might become a gentler, more healing place for it. But not in my lifetime. I wish I could return for a visit in 500 years to see what, if anything, has changed in human behavior. Will we be just as greedy, just as selfish, just as ugly and violent and vicious as we are today? Probably. But maybe not. Maybe if we just stopped…

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The universe is bigger and more powerful than I. It can crush me if it wants; if “want” is within the collection of emotions available to the universe. I doubt the universe has any desires. It is a massive “thing” so incredibly complex that a debate with it would be impossible. There’s no arguing about “want” with this universe. She will get her way, no matter what. The weather forecast could call for molten meteorites to rain from the skies, tsunamis to shred coastlines worldwide, and ice crystals the size of cruise ships to form in the prairies of Canada. There’s just no arguing with Mother Nature. She is crazy and dangerous.

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I just drifted off to sleep as I sat in front of my computer screen. In my stupor, I dreamt I stood in front of my kitchen sink and looked down at the floor to see quite a lot of shredded cheddar cheese on the floor. I blamed myself for eating cheese while standing over the sink. But I realized I do not tend to do that. I was mislead on this matter. Goodbye.

FICTION

Plumes of dark grey smoke arose in the distance, evidence of the arsonist’s hatred of the man. The man’s thumb had pressed on the syringe that delivered a fatal dose of poison to the condemned prisoner’s bloodstream. The person the State murdered by lethal injection was the arsonist’s father. The arsonist: Lemma Cartwright, the dead man’s daughter. Jacob Targus had volunteered to inject the lethal chemicals into the inmate’s body. By volunteering, Jacob became eligible for a three hundred dollar bonus. By performing the State’s death duty, Jacob became the target of Lemma Cartwright’s smoldering rage. And Jacob Targus suffered Lemma Cartwright’s immeasurable, burning hatred. Jacob’s agonized cremation at Lemma’s hand was Lemma’s first act of revenge against the State of Florida and a host of contributors to her father’s death.

Lemma Cartwright was sixteen years old when her father, Gideon Cartwright, was convicted of murdering Father Bryan McDaniels. The priest’s body was never found—only scraps of bone among charred remains—but the evidence of his death and the circumstantial evidence of Gideon’s guilt was enough to convince a Florida jury to convict Gideon and sentence him to death.  Gideon’s steadfast denial of his guilt was enough to convince Lemma that the jury had convicted the wrong man.

“Dad, every single person involved in this horrible miscarriage of justice will pay with their lives,” Lemma told her father as he was escorted from the courtroom after sentencing.

Gideon Cartwright blew her a kiss as he was led away. “Honey, my appeals will go on for years. Don’t be foolish. Let the system work.”

And she did. She let the system work for seven years. Until it stopped working, when the final appeal was rejected and the governor refused to grant a reprieve. Four days after Jacob Targus carried out his murder-for-hire function. Lemma began to implement her plan to make everyone who played a part in her father’s death pay with their lives. She had tracked the roles of each player; she decided to execute her plan in reverse order of involvement. Jacob Targus was the last to fail her father, so she chose him as the first to pay for his inhumanity. The governor, who refused the reprieve, would be next on her list.

Governor Lawrence Throp was, in the words of Lieutenant Governor Brace Purifoy, “as stupid as the day is long.” Yet there he was, the top elected official in a state known far and wide as one of the most corrupt and intellectually bankrupt fiefdoms in the United States. One investigative reporter had labeled Throp “a genetic mistake, proof that the spawn of apes and spinach can thrive in a nutrient-rich petri dish fed by dung and malfeasance.” Not surprisingly, though, that investigative reporter’s body was found days later in his car. Beside his body, and next to a hose attached to the car’s muffler, was a “suicide note” that apologized for the genetic mistake comment and praised the governor for his “wisdom in leading Florida to be the best state in the whole United States.” The reporter’s colleagues wrote snide comments about the intellectual capacity of the people in the governor’s inner circle.  “Even dimwits don’t buy that suicide note,” one journalist wrote, “but there’s nobody in the man’s circle-of-stupid smart enough to realize how obviously bogus it is.” Yet that situation, which took place a year before Gideon Cartwright’s execution, simply faded into the background. Only after Lawrence Throp’s body was discovered in a fifty-five gallon barrel filled with wilted spinach and the corpse of a dead chimpanzee was an investigation launched into the reporter’s death.

NONFICTION

Okay, that’s enough exercise for today. I haven’t written much fiction in months…and months…and months. I’m out of practice. I hope my rusty fingers simply need some oil and a few high-energy workouts. Unlike most of my fiction, this little “story” is almost completely worked out in my head. But, fortunately, it’s only an outline up there, so I have plenty of room to maneuver and modify.

Onward. I need some breakfast fuel.

One of the draws of places like desolate stretches of unpopulated desert landscapes is the absence of artificial light. When night falls on miles and miles of empty countryside, the sky takes on a mesmerizing appeal; a wondrous black canvas filled with millions and millions of stars. Viewing our own galaxy—as if through a luminous vapor—inspires awe and clarifies Earth’s insignificance in the cosmos. That planetary insignificance magnifies our own irrelevance; the thought of humans struggling to achieve power in a space so enormous becomes unspeakably sad. At the same time, the idea of our own inconsequence puts us on equal footing with all the creatures over which we seem intent on exercising dominion. In that context, we can see ourselves truly as microscopic threads in the fabric of existence. We can understand we are never more than equally important—or unimportant—pieces of a puzzle  so immense that we cannot hope to understand it. That always-incomplete understanding is a gift; it forces us to return, if only for a moment, to those instances in our childhood when the wonder of the universe around us inspired awe. Those childhood moments allowed us to appreciate the vastness of space. Dark skies stippled with light as old as time give us the same opportunities to acknowledge both the enormity of the universe and the microscopically small parts we play in it. It is for those reasons that I think every one of us should spend at least a full night outdoors, on a crystal clear moonless night, far from artificial lights, every few years…at least. Each of us should do that—if for no other reason than to brush off our dusty humility and let it wash over us. Frankly, I don’t know why that should matter; nothing we do can be as important as the vastness of the sky is large. But an occasional immersion in just how immaterial we are seems, to me, to have the potential for restraining us from doing any more harm to the world than we have done for millennia.

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Okay, I’ll switch gears and devote some thought to matters that—in the huge scheme of life and space and time—don’t matter. But they do matter on a nano-microscopic level.

Yesterday, we got good news that my IC does not have any more issues with kidney stones. A short (15-minutes, more or less) visit with the urologist left us feeling very happy with life; no need for drugs, procedures, or whatever. Good news is good to hear.

This morning, we will drive to Little Rock for a few errands. First, we stop for an oil change and tire rotation for the Subaru. Next, we will stop by a bank (the one handling the mortgage on the house we’re buying) to leave off a signed copy of the certification of receipt of appraisal. I would have rather the appraisal come in at a much higher number, but at least it came in high enough that it won’t be any problem. After that, we’ll have lunch at a Mellow Mushroom, a spot we’ve tagged as a favorite. Thence to Costco, where we hope to buy a big prime rib roast for Thanksgiving dinner, along with a few other staples for the pantry. And then, back home.

Last night, we finished watching Goliath. While we liked the actors, neither of us were particularly impressed with the writing. In fact, quite a lot of the story line was irrelevant and obstructionist. A character, Patty Solis-Papagian, was pregnant, for example; an utterly pointless and unnecessary aspect of the story. Ditto the relationship between other characters. And the dream sequences infested with bizarre “old west” themes  was evidence of unpracticed writers who simply wanted to fill space and time. There were more problems, but it’s not necessary to review them. I enjoyed enough of the series to be moderately glad I watched it; I just wish I’d spent only half as much time watching it as I did.

+++

Once again, I had a hard time sleeping last night. In spite of my efforts to facilitate breathing (I inhaled albuterol, squirted nasal spray, and swallowed an antihistamine), my pulmonary system was inadequate for the task. Doctors have been unable to do much for me. They suggest or prescribe drugs of one kind or another, but the drugs do little to nothing to resolve my difficulties. The problems have been with me for a long time, but they have been much, much more noticeable since my lung cancer surgery three years ago. I assume the removal of an entire lobe from one of my lungs must play a part in the difficulties. But, even in light of my difficulties breathing (and the related coughing, etc.), I am fortunate in that I can breathe. My IC and I spoke yesterday about the good fortune I have experienced during several engagements with bad luck. I could have died during any one of several run-ins with health-related emergencies, but I did not. Instead, I was able to limp through to another stage of my life. Wounded, but not fatally. Not yet, anyway. I should be grateful, and I am, but I’d really like to have such an extraordinarily successful health experience that I would feel the need to dance in celebration. Today, dancing would leave me out of breath, struggling to maintain adequate strength to stand. Bah! When we move to a new neighborhood, one mostly flat and ideal for walking, I will exercise more and will recover my strength and my energy. That I will do.

+++

When I was much younger—maybe 30 years old or so—I felt certain I would die long before I reached my sixtieth birthday. I have no idea why I felt that way; I just did. But I’ve recently celebrated my sixty-eighth birthday and I remain very much alive. And I plan to stay that way for as long as possible (as long as I can ambulatory and alert). It amazes me that I am as old as I am (though, admittedly, I know many people much older than I). I’m still the same old kid; the same child wrapped up in an aging body, but still with the same childish brain. The same brain, though, that frustrates me beyond belief when I cannot remember simple words that should be second nature to me. I get angry with myself for struggling to recall words that should flow from my lips as easily as breath…ah, but there’s a matter for concern, huh? I don’t breath as easily as I once did and I no longer think as freely and as clearly as I once did. That’s maddening. It’s more than enough to frustrate the  hell out of me. So I bitch and moan about the natural progression of human decay. Most of us go through it; though some of us may be more fortunate than others, dying suddenly and without warning. But an unplanned death is equally as chaotic and problematic for those left behind as is a slow deterioration that leaves a body limp and useless. What an absolutely cheerless bunch of thoughts this morning! I must stop it! Instead, I’ll return to the idea of buying a standing rib roast and some good wine; and the ingredients for a broccoli and rice casserole or two. That’s the ticket! Food! Food is the elixir of life (especially when coupled with a little wine or/and licores. Hmm. I could turn my attention to becoming fluent in Spanish, which should remove any thoughts of premature death from my brain. Yes, that did it. Time to think more about food. Perhaps I’ll write, tomorrow, about some traditional family recipes. And some not-so-traditional recipes that might prompt me to explore tastes beyond my routine.

Almost 6:30. Time to finish the first cup of coffee and explore the universe without using my fingers.

The sellers responded favorably to our list of necessary repairs; they agree to have the repairs (all relatively minor) made in advance of closing, which is now scheduled for the ends of this month. Oh, did I mention we’re buying a house? Yes, it is true. We are buying a house. That means, of course, I’ll be selling the house in which we now live. We’re trading an open floor plan for one that’s more “old fashioned” and traditional. But the new house is hidden at the end of a cul-de-sac, deep in the woods; the nearest neighbor (who rarely stays in the house, we’re told) is at the end of the street. And our new place has a fire pit where, I can imagine, we will sit with friends and enjoy evenings of solitude and quiet. We probably won’t be in the new house until after the middle of December; we gave the sellers fourteen days after closing to move out. Ah, another major adjustment in my life.

Within the past year, my life has changed dramatically and experienced weird changes: my wife of almost forty-one years died; I entered into a new romantic relationship; my new romantic partner sold her house and moved in with me; I’m in the midst of buying another house; I’m about to put my current home on the market; and I had a bizarre experience with kidney stones (and the physical and mental aftermath of treatment to remove them). There’s probably more, with my mind blocking them this morning as a protective mechanism. I’ve read many times over the years how major stress—both positive and negative—can lead to health crises. I hope that is not true of me in my current swirl of life upheavals. On one hand, I say I do not feel like I’m under stress. On the other, I actually feel like I’m walking across a wide, deep canyon—balancing on a rapidly-warming tight-rope woven of microscopically-thin crystals of fragile hoarfrost. At any moment, the stress could evaporate or the rope could break.

+++

Last night, I thought long and hard about talking to someone about what is going through my mind—the complex mix of joy and fear and happiness and overwhelming sadness and a thousand other emotions that sometimes seem to have me in a grip so tight I can’t breathe. A disinterested third party, trained to help people wade through emotional crises, might be an invaluable listener. But I am not especially comfortable with the idea of sharing my deepest thoughts with a stranger who, when all is said and done, doesn’t really care about me in the least. Sharing my emotions with someone who might as well be a paid gunslinger doesn’t appeal to me. Yet the idea of burdening a friend by unloading those same thoughts seems terribly unfair. And doing that could dramatically change the character of a friendship; it could evolve into something cold and rational, quite different from what friendship is meant to be.

Maybe my dream last night (or was it this morning?) was the outgrowth of these thoughts. I was sitting with my friend on the tailgate of  her old Ford pickup truck (which she does not own, as far as I know). The truck was parked in the driveway of my new house and we were seated so that we faced the fire pit, maybe sixty feet away. The pit glowed red and orange, but I could not see any flames. My friend said something like “you have to let yourself feel whatever it is you feel.” I responded with “That’s not the problem. It’s not giving myself enough permission; it’s that I give myself too much permission.”  The conversation went on with what seemed like gibberish. At some point, I realized I was alone on the tailgate, which had somehow transformed into the back of my car, with the liftgate raised.  In my hand, I held what looked like a high school photo of my friend and a tiny glass of grapefruit-flavored vodka. I have no idea how I knew/know it was grapefruit-flavored vodka; I just did. In the last scene of the dream that I remember, I was standing on the back of my car, holding one end of a string of lights above my head; the other end was attached to a pole in the center of the fire pit. There were no other cars or people around, but I somehow knew that there had been many cars just a few minutes earlier; but they were all gone.

Yep, my dream must have arisen from my thoughts. It only goes to show that dreams can be triggered by something, yet evolve into something else completely nonsensical.

+++

I was up before 5 again this morning, which I think must mean I am settling in again to my old sleep habits. But I have noticed, too, that I get incredibly tired during the day; so tired that I cannot keep my eyes open. Never one to nap, I have begun taking short (and long) naps in recent months. Napping interferes with my day in troubling ways. I feel like I’m missing something important while I sleep, but I cannot help myself. My eyelids get so heavy I cannot keep them open. There was a time when I regularly went to bed early, slept all night long, and woke up just before 7. That was a time when I got far more sleep than I needed, but I felt better when I woke than I expected. Odd. What is “normal” in one’s own sleep patterns, especially when they change so much from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year?

+++

It is just shy of eleven months since my wife died. Whenever I think of that, my emotions go haywire. I can’t seem to keep myself together. And I know it will be even worse a month and a few days from now, on the one year anniversary of her death. I still feel like I could have done more to advocate for her; that I could have changed the course of her deteriorating health if I had only been more aggressive with the automatons who ostensibly looked out after her while she was in the hospital and rehab facilities. People say I did all I could do. They may believe that or they may assume it to be true or they may say it just to sooth my ragged emotions. In hindsight, I do not believe I did enough. I do not think I was anything like as insistent as I should have been that her doctors treat her more aggressively. But the fact is that, whether I could or could not have done more, there’s nothing more I can do now. History is history; facts are facts. There’s nothing that can be done now. That fact is clear to me, but I can’t help but feel the most overwhelming sense of guilt. And I feel rage against myself for being too weak to sufficiently advocate on her behalf. Some days I want nothing more than to snap my own neck in payment for my inadequacy. But eventually I come around. I never feel really “good” about my responses to my wife’s illness and treatment, but usually I can handle it. Sometimes, though, I question whether I can and whether I should. It’s a little like circumstances when I have to make a decision, but any decision I make is either too close in quality to another or is not good enough to warrant being made. So I feel frozen; like I cannot make a decision because it will inevitably be the wrong one.

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When I come back to this post a month or a year or five years from now, it will trigger feelings of sadness and anger. I know that, even as I write it. So, why don’t I write something that will instead spark feelings of happiness and gentle joy? Because that’s not how the mind works. The mind does not allow one to pick and choose one’s emotions. Maybe to some extent. But not completely. The power of positive thinking is not an overwhelming power. It is simply a way to trick oneself into believing in magic. And it’s not a good enough trick to convince oneself that the magic is real, when circumstances say otherwise.

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Life would be so much simpler, I think, if we could answer only to our own sense of morality, leaving social mores to wither. But we can’t do that. Morality as defined by the society in which we live grabs us by the neck and drags us through life, forcing us to behave in ways that may be completely foreign to the way we think and feel. Morality. Where the hell does morality come from? Is it fundamental to human behavior? Or do we, as humans, create it to control the baser elements of our behaviors? I would bet on the latter. Knowing how we’d behave without the limits placed on us by society at large, we create and/or subscribe to rules of morality. We police our thoughts and our actions by agreeing to abide by rules crafted by people who lived in entirely different times and circumstances. Morality, then, is situational. And it ethics rely on morality as their anchor, so, too, are ethics situational. God, that argument could go on for years. In fact, I think it has.

+++

I saw a butterfly yesterday; first one in many weeks. I wonder: was it the last remaining butterfly before the brutality of winter sets in, or was it an early scout, looking for environments suited to flocks or rabbles or flutters or flights of butterflies? Hard to say. I’d have to consult with a linguistically-inclined lepidopterist.

Two of the fingers on my right hand are stained with cyan ink, thanks to my handling of a replacement ink cartridge for my printer. “Handling” may not be the right word; “bumbling” probably describes the situation more clearly. I give myself a pass on it this time, though. The time of day had just crept past 4:00 a.m. when I changed out the printer cartridge; though I was “up,” I was not entirely prepared to face the day. I had not yet taken the first sip of coffee. I was not quite ready to function in my usual “morning person” manner. So, I smeared ink on two fingers. Why my printer refuses to continue printing due to being out of cyan ink—even though I set printing to be black and white only—escapes me. I did not want cyan ink on the page; yet my printer ignored my wishes, apparently, and attempted to mix a touch of cyan with the black ink. This sudden need for cyan ink was days ago, by the way. I ordered replacement ink the same day and received it a couple of days ago. It was only this morning, when I needed to print something, that I got around to replacing the spent cyan cartridge. And it was this morning that my fingers appeared to have bled cyan blood. And that’s all I’ll say on the matter.

+++

Have you felt his touch on your shoulder? Did you feel her brush against your hip as she walked by you? When he hugged you, did you notice his slight hesitation to let go? Yes? Then you know what it’s like to feel impossible passion. Passion that cannot be permitted to succumb to the temptation to act. But you feel that passion coursing through your veins with such ferocity that you know, without looking in the mirror, your face is flushed. You are not the only one who noticed, either. He noticed. She noticed. They all noticed. But they remained silent. Visible extramarital passion is not something one talks about openly, is it? No, but you want desperately to have that conversation. And perhaps one day you will.

[This is an example of writing in the second person. It’s rarely done. Even more rarely done well.]

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The aroma of the salt air filled his nostrils even before he opened the car door. Forty years had passed since leaving “for good,” he had told himself, yet he recognized that smell instantly. It brought back memories long since buried beneath layers of time and experience. He remembered that time on the desolate winter beach when he made love with Teresa in the back of his friend’s gold-colored Datsun station wagon. He recalled how surprisingly cold the water was when the two of them had dashed into the waves to wash off the scent of love-making. His memory came flooding back, the image of Teresa disappearing under the water as clear on this cold January day as it had been forty years earlier.

“Do you want a piece of cheese?”

Sierra’s voice interrupted his reverie, if that’s what it was, and brought him back to the present.

“Yeah, that sounds good. I wish we’d brought some chili, though. It’s one hell of a cold day.”

Sierra Preston did not know about Teresa’s drowning, nor about the suspicions that surrounded the girl’s death. Todd had planned to tell her, at the right time, but the time never seemed right. He always had a reason to delay the conversation. Now, after living with Sierra for two years, the right time to tell her seemed deeper and deeper in the past.

+++

My coffee sat untouched for two hours before I finally realized how long it had been since I set it down on the desk beside me. Two hours can turn hot coffee into cold coffee. And it can turn doubt into certainty and certainty into doubt. Two hours can change one’s perspective on the world. Two hours can transform a room into a cage. Extension cords can become nooses in the space of two hours. A bright future can melt into brutal regrets about a wasted past.

+++

The thoughts in my head are mixed with visions and images and sensations that belong somewhere else. Ideas do not feel or taste. They do not have weight or color. Visions and thoughts and memories do not have odors. They cannot ride a bicycle. They cannot be pulled around in a little red wagon. The wagon must be a different color; something new and exciting, like a shiny beige tank, freshly delivered by the weapons manufacturer.

+++

Ye Gads! I feel only moderately alive at this moment. I think I could sleep for a week, but I would miss out on all the excitement, whatever that is. So I remain conscious, if only barely.

Our trip to Galveston last week brought back memories of a trip we took during the waning weeks of 2008. We spent several days in southern Louisiana, where we visited Natchitoches, ate Natchitoches’ famous meat pies, and wandered the Tabasco Sauce manufacturing facility. After a week or so in Louisiana, we drove to Galveston, which was still reeling from the catastrophic damage inflicted by Hurricane Ike, a brutal beast whose destruction remains in evidence even today. Testimony was rampant throughout our drive that Hurricanes Ike and Rita had brutalized the Texas and Louisiana coasts. Abandoned cars, flattened homes and businesses, and enormous volumes of debris littered the countryside. Memories of Galveston from last 2008 were reinforced when I read several blog posts from last 2008 and early 2009, detailing various aspects of our trip. I mentioned, in those late 2008 blog posts, some places where we ate lunch and dinner. I described Joe’s Seafood, where we ate lunch, as “a small place operated by an Asian couple.” I went on to say “The clientele appeared to me to be poor, but working, and was quite diverse; Black, Hispanic, White, etc., etc., etc. The oyster po-boys were excellent.”

Last week’s trip reminded me how much I miss life on the Texas coast. Even though it has been many, many years since I lived on—or even near—the Texas coast, memories of that time grab me by the throat every time I’m near. During last week’s trip, we took the Bolivar Peninsula ferry that links Galveston Island with the Bolivar Peninsula. Dolphins followed us across the water, as did seagulls and pelicans. The smell of salt water permeated the air, reminding me of my childhood in Corpus Christi. Unfortunately, though, life on the Texas coast has changed dramatically since I lived there. The housing remains relatively sparse between the ferry landing and Galveston-proper, but even so it is much, much denser than it was in my youth. The same is true further south, along both North Padre Island and South Padre Island, where high-rise condos have overtaken the beaches and changed the complexion of the islands from desolate sandbars to tourist attractions designed for people with poor taste and subpar intellectual capacities. I’m only moderately bitter about the horrors that population growth inflicts on pristine shorelines.

Reading about the world as it was thirteen years ago is depressing. Too much has changed since then. My life has changed into something unrecognizable. I still want to wander desolate beaches and experience life as it should have been one hundred years earlier. Alas, that’s not an option. None of us can live in a time long since gone. We can only dream and fantasize and wish.

Manfred Steiner will celebrate his 90th birthday this month. He has another reason to celebrate. At age 89, he recently earned his Ph.D. in physics from Brown University. “He admired the precision of physics,” an AP article about him says about his pursuit of his lifelong dream. Steiner’s decision to earn his doctorate in physics followed a career in medicine. According to the same AP article, “Steiner studied hematology at Tufts University and biochemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before becoming a hematologist at Brown University. He became a full professor and led the hematology section of the medical school at Brown from 1985 to 1994.” His interest in science and physics did not magically emerge late in life; he held onto his dream from the time he was a teenager in Vienna, Austria.

So, what does this have to do with John Swinburn? It’s hard to say. I do not have a single, passionate dream I might pursue now, as a man retired from a meaningless career facilitating pointless endeavors. But I have plenty of old wishes and dreams that, had I followed them, would have led me in a radically different direction from the one I took. Veterinary medicine. Human medicine. Law. Linguistics. Criminology. Architecture. Sociology. Psychology. The list goes on and on. But I settled for something less interesting; in part because my interests were quite wide but extremely shallow. “I settled.” That’s the bottom line. Adequate in lieu of exceptional. Okay in place of amazing. I could have allowed myself to be challenged by a world in which failure was just as much of an option as success. Instead, I opted for easy “success” in place of inspirationally earned accomplishment.

But, as Manfred Steiner demonstrated so well, it’s not too late to pursue a dream. The challenge, though, is to identify a dream worth pursuing. The troublesome aim is to uncover the embers that might spark a fire in the belly. That, I’m afraid, might be impossible, because nothing excites me that much anymore. Not that anything ever did; at least nothing has challenged me enough, intellectually, to trigger my passions. So, instead of pursuing a passion, I’ve waited patiently (more or less) for the flames of an overwhelming passion to consume me. I continue to wait for the magic of compelling interest to overtake me. Maybe, I say to myself, I should pick one of my old, passing interests and ferociously pursue it. But that’s as far as it goes.

Oh, I write; so that could be my “fire in the belly” passion. But writing is a pastime for me, not a serious avocation. I don’t take it seriously enough for it to merit more than a nod. I used to value writing far more than I do now until I discovered what writing is, at its core: the rearrangement of previously used letters and words. There’s nothing unique or inherently gratifying about that. Yet there’s nothing especially enchanting about linguistics or law or sociology or architecture, either. No more so, certainly, than bricklaying or plumbing or installing solar panels or sidewalks. Maybe we (I) need to pay more attention to simple satisfaction than to fulfilling fantasies. No, not maybe. Certainly. That’s what we (I) should do. And I will. Perhaps. Someday. Right. Still, Manfred Steiner is a role model.

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A Florida Seminole tribe has been fighting for years to get human remains back to Florida for “proper” burial. The controversy has raised all sorts of issues relating to archeology and who, ultimately, gets to decide the fate of the dead and buried. Anyone who has skimmed international news over the past several years knows this issue is not new. The questions about decisions about burial sites, etc. have been brewing for years. I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I understand archeologists’ assertions that buried remains and items found with and near them are important to the record of human evolution and societal development. But on the other, I appreciate familial and tribal insistence on reclaiming control over  ancestral remains. But yielding to families and tribes also yields to their religious beliefs; I have some issues with that. On the other hand, even though I am decidedly non-religious, I do not favor discounting religious beliefs simply because they are religious. Yet…and on and on and on. Would that humanity would recognize religion for what it is and, with that knowledge, knowingly leave it behind as an embarrassing mistake in human traditions. That would not necessarily solve the Seminole issue, but it might help narrow the field of possibly solutions.

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Today is a Sunday, one of many such days we have so-named. I wonder how many Sundays have come and gone since we first started calling one of the days of the week by that name? If only we knew, we might either gladly waste them on frivolities or worship their power to direct us toward deeply meaningful conversations. Or something entirely different.

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Without soap or detergent, where would humankind be today? It’s a legitimate question. I hate to imagine the hideousness of the answer. We could be living in unimaginable squalor. Surgery might be unbelievably dangerous. The death rate of children under age ten could be astronomical, thanks in part to the tendency of young children to spend time in dirty places. Who invented soap? There should be a global holiday in honor of that person/those people. We owe them a debt of more than gratitude; we may, in fact, owe them our lives. Yet we chuckle at the very idea of celebrating a holiday in their honor. We’re a hard-hearted bunch, aren’t we?

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Windshield wipers. Headlights. Front window defrosters. Gas take fillers. Modes of opening gas tanks. These are just a few of the items I believe merit Federal government regulation. No, not just Federal government; Global government! No matter what car I enter, I should know how to turn the windshield wipers (and washer) on and off. I should be able to control the headlights. And the front window defrosters. And, without staring at the gas gage in the dash, I should know where the filler is located. And I should know how to open the gas tank so I can deposit gas. These are just a few of the things I believe should be standardized. My beliefs are strong and unwavering. We, the people, should demand immediate and irrevocable action on these matters.

More than one thousand miles over the course of sixteen-plus hours, in just five days. Including three days of kicked-back relaxation. That’s what the five of us experienced, beginning on Monday morning this week. We got home yesterday evening. Worn out, but satisfied, because our trip was a good one. The changes in topography were welcome adjustments to steep hills and thick forests. Taking a ferry across open water, where dolphins broke water as they frolicked next to our vessel, shattered our sense of stagnation. Sitting outside, sipping samples of Galveston Brewing Company brews, woke me to a different place and time. I wanted to stay there. I wanted to relocate to the Texas coast. I wanted to face down hurricanes and join with neighbors as we battled high winds and fierce waves. But that’s all over now. We’re back, sleeping in our own beds and ready to shower under spray heads we recognize for their reliable, piercing needles of pressurized water. Adventure is good, but known comfort satisfies like nothing else can. Home. Even when it is in flux, home welcomes us with open arms, a loving, casual embrace.

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I spent most of five days in a news blackout. It was not necessarily intentional. but it was happy. Few interruptions to remind me that the world around me continues to be flush with rage and bubbling anger. Only a rare intrusion to call attention to the fact that mayhem, death, and human-enabled pain sits just beyond the synapses of my raw nerves. Five days during which I could pretend I existed in a secluded bubble in which I could remain free of the chaotic agony crafted by humans and their criminal stupidity. Even within that brief period of quiet and freedom, though, I felt the encroaching universe doing its best to unravel my solitude and tear holes in my psyche. There it was, just inches away from its sharp teeth ripping my brains from my skull. You didn’t know the universe had sharp teeth? Oh, it does. Like tiny bent razor blades dipped in Merthiolate and hydrochloric acid. Ah, yes. The pain inflicted by small, sharp, angry things. Just beyond my reach, yet close enough to feel as the cruel evidence of humanity tears at one’s flesh. But far enough away to realize it’s all a fantasy; even the little cuts crying out for a stitch or two to seal the open wounds. A happy news blackout reinforced with a razor-wire cage and starving piranhas worked into a frenzy of furious hunger by the presence of fingers stripped almost to bloody tendons. Ah, the days of unfettered freedom!

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Today, finally, is Saturday. We must retrieve A.J. from the dog prison where he has been kept under arrest for five days nearing seven days now. And we must return the big, bulky, obscenely expensive  SUV to its masters. But the SUV we rented was not even close to as expensive as the SUV we had planned to rent. I had planned to pick up a Suburban; they gave us a Tahoe, instead. A Suburban sells from somewhere between $79K and $75K; that’s insanely expensive. A vehicle priced that high should provide excellent gas mileage, unmatched comfort, absolute protection against injury if the vehicle is involved in a wreck, and oral sex on-demand. Christ! $75K for a damn CAR?  Even its cheaper brother, the Tahoe, should provide deeply satisfying massage-on-demand, as well as several other private pleasures. To be honest, though, right now I would be perfectly happy with a deep-tissue massage of my elbows, knees, ankles, and wrists. I think I have contracted some form of contagious arthritis that responds well, but only briefly, to massage. So, I need 24/7 massage to keep my muscles and my tendons happy. And God knows we all need to keep our muscles and tendons happy 214/7.

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I desperately need a shower. And a shave. And cleaner clothes than I’m wearing. It’s not that my clothes are particularly dirty, but I was clothes that are as fresh as a daisy. To match my soon-to-be-cleaner-than-a-dish-of-soap body. I do appreciate cleanliness. If only I could achieve it by snapping my fingers. The work involved in showering is more work than I want to do. I crave magical cleanliness. The kind of cleanliness that comes out of cans but behaves as if it were the real thing. Yep, artificial cleanliness that looks and smells like actual cleanliness. I want to invent a cleanliness spray that extracts all the dirt and odors from one’s body and deposits it, inside tiny envelope bubbles, beneath one’s feet as one walks. So no one can tell one is actually showering on the fly. That could be my ticket out of here.

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Still, even today, I want to start another business. I have a passion for small business. Something tiny and lucrative. Something that takes little effort but yields enormous returns. A miniscule money-spitting powerhouse that requires little energy but produces monstrous, unstoppable income. I’m not asking for much. Maybe $100,000 per month, after taxes. And I want it to be more fun than I’ve eve had. So much fun I’d happily learn how to dance, just so I could celebrate accordingly.

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During our random walks along The Strand and its little shops, I found several octopi that I found quite appealing. One was a nice jade-green glass octopus I could have had for only $800, give or take a few dollars. Another was a similarly expensive octopus that looked real; it seemed to develop quite a liking for me, but its price (something along the lines of $300) was a little rich for my blood. I like expensive things, but something that expensive should leave a lingering aftertaste and a very nice tip. Why do I have such expensive taste? It’s just not fair. I should appreciate cheap stuff.

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It’s just after 6:30 and I’m still extremely sleepy/tired/beat to a frazzle. I need more sleep, but I’m afraid if I get more I’ll stay away for days. So, I will remain awake and tired. Maybe I’ll try to eat a little something. Or take a shower. Or shave. Or all of the above.

The bloody weather may have turned on us, but it’s hard to tell. That’s the trouble with relying on distant visions, through doors. It does’t matter. Either way, we’re homeward bound today. The topography will adapt to the sky, above, and Earth’s mantle, below. And so will we all.

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I would like three days’ time to explore the way home through western Louisiana. No. East Texas, today. One day. Eight hours. The scenery will flood by as if the gates of time were ripped from their hinges. And that is exactly correct.

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Onward!

“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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!