John Swinburn

The time is approaching 6:00 a.m. The remaining half of the first cup of coffee is cooling too fast. Or I’m drinking it too slow. Last night’s dishes, some of which I uncharacteristically left in the sink, now are either clean or in the dishwasher. The dining table is full of stacks of paper from yesterday’s efforts to wade through mail I had allowed to stack up. I am making progress, but I have much, much more left to do. So, I have a reason to go on; and I shall, if only because I vow to tackle my obligations to file with taxes with the IRS before they send Federal agents to haul me away to tax protestors’ prison. Oh, I do not protest the taxes; only the labyrinthine processes we’re forced to go through to fulfill our financial obligations to society.

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A friend from church recommended Pretend It’s a City, a seven-episode documentary series featuring Fran Lebowitz being interviewed by Martin Scorsese. I viewed the trailer and decided it’s the sort of series I will find entertaining and interesting and very funny (but also quite informative). So, it’s on my watch list. I’ve moved it quite near the top, because I feel a need for some humor that will challenge me a bit.

I read a bit about the series and learned that it is the second such collaboration between Lebowitz and Scorsese, the first a documentary film called Public Speaking in which Lebowitz espoused her philosophies. If I can find that, I will add that to my watch list, as well.

While reading a review on the rogerebert.com website, I read “…the two [Lebowitz and Scorsese] hold court in a few standard locations. The primary one is the Players, a Gramercy Park social club founded in the 19^th century by actor (and brother of John Wilkes Booth) Edwin Booth.” Sounds intriguing to me!

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Yesterday, the-then current president of my church unexpectedly resigned from his position and, along with his wife, membership in the church. Their reasons, whatever they are, are personal. If the reasons are painful, I hope they resolve quickly and completely; I really like the couple. He and I have quite a lot in common, intellectually. While we don’t always agree, either practically or philosophically, I always have enjoyed visiting with him, both in person and via email, to discuss “big picture” issues. He is a contemplative deep thinker who seems to enjoy exploring philosophical matters as much as I do. When I received his announcement, I wrote an email to him, expressing my disappointment and expressing my hope that we can maintain contact and communication. He responded affirmatively, which pleased me and lessened the blow a bit. Fortunately, the very capable vice president, a woman I consider a close friend, is available to step in to lead.

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My dinner last night, by plan, did not include any meat. It consisted of a variety of canned vegetables (tomatoes and corn) and frozen vegetables (peas), liberally seasoned with an assortment of spices. I like those one-dish meals that take all of a minute and forty-five seconds to get on the stove. Add a minute to add the spices and thirty seconds to rinse the cans and the meal is nearly finished. Ten minutes later, it is heated through and ready to be ladled into a bowl. Sometimes, cooking is a joy; other times, a burden too great to bear. When the latter is true, restaurants and canned meals are blessings beyond measure. 😉 Oh, as for the intentional absence of meat, I’ve not turned vegetarian, but sometimes meat just doesn’t appeal to me. Sometime in the very near future, I’ll pivot to seafood for a while. I have a hankering for salmon, shrimp, cod, and many other creatures that emerge from the ocean. But neither my vegetarianism and my lust for seafood will hold sway tonight. Please continue.

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Tonight (or, I should say, later today—early this afternoon—thanks to my sister-in-law’s gradual transition to geezer-like dining schedules), I will prepare a meal including a roast leg of lamb. There have been two legs of lamb in the freezer for awhile; I prepared one a month or three ago and I will finish off the second one today. The “semi-boneless leg of lamb” weighs 5.3 pounds, so I cannot eat it all myself. Therefore, I invited my sister-in-law to share in my bounty. We’re planning a 4:00 p.m. dinner, so I’ll have to start early by piercing the meat with a paring knife and then filling the wounds with fresh garlic cloves. There will be vegetable accompaniments, possibly including a salad. And, as I mentioned a day or two ago, there will be sufficient leftover lamb for me to make Shepherd’s Pie soon. Whenever I eat Shepherd’s Pie, I feel my British roots stir and I feel compelled to think about writing to the Queen; I’ve not yet written to Windsor Castle, but I may yet do it.

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My plan to begin setting up the bed in the master bedroom did not come to fruition yesterday. Taxes and related financial “stuff” took precedence most of the day. And, then, when I started to move some bed pieces, I recalled how bloody heavy they are; I can move only some of the very small pieces. So, I will call in the troops to help me move and reassemble the bed. The very kind guy who along with his wife moved the bed frame into the garage for me is doing some work for a next door neighbor. I hope to ask him today if he can give me a hand with the bed when he finishes the project he’s doing for he neighbors. It’s really a four-person job, thanks to the awkward size and weight of the solid wood bed frame. My wife bought the bed before I met her. We talked, off and on, about getting rid of it and buying a king-sized bed. And occasionally we talked about getting rid of it and buying a simple queen-sized frame so as to diminish the overwhelming presence of the monster frame. But we never did either. And I’m not sure, now, whether I want to part with it. I doubt anyone would be willing to pay what I think it’s worth (though I don’t really have a specific dollar amount in mind). The fact that it’s solid wood (pecan, I think, but I could be wrong) is what makes me think it’s a really valuable piece of furniture. We shall see. Time will tell, as it always does.

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I stumbled across an unattributed quote this morning that means a lot to me and reminds me of some of my most painful failings, failings now impossible to correct:

To love a person is to see all of their magic and to remind them of it when they have forgotten.

I suppose the lesson in that realization and reminder is that, if there is to be a future, one must learn from one’s most painful mistakes and never make them again.

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Time has swept by me like the water in a raging creek. It’s now nearing 7:25. That’s how the day gets away from me. I sit and write and take a break and write a little more and take another break and sit and think and write, but stop, and stare at photos, and…that’s how it got to be nearly 7:25 and to have written so little. Off to tackle what the day brings.

People express their fragility in different ways. For some, their brittleness seems spun from delicate, almost invisible, strands of molten glass. They seem at risk of shattering into sandy powder in the slightest breeze. Others, though, attempt to hide weakness through bravado; thick clumps of distorted glass fired at high temperature and left to cool too rapidly. The cooled glass reveals massive cracks that can fracture into dangerous, sharp shards when even modest pressure is applied. There is, of course, a spectrum of frailty between the delicate lace and the crude globs of vitreous sand. But, in spite of their differences, the danger of breakage is great. Everyone carries a hammer capable, in a single blow, of turning glass into scraps of silica sand and tears of either pain or rage.

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I finished the final episode of Paranoid last night. It ended in a way that suggested the writers and actors had gotten word of the series’ cancellation only fifteen minutes before filming was to begin. It worked, but only barely. It seemed to me a bit like I had read, before last night’s episode, the first seven chapters of a twenty chapter book and then skipped chapters eight through nineteen so I could get to the last one. It could just be me, of course. My expectations of television tend not to be met, though I’ve had reasonably good luck in recent months and years. I can’t say I was disappointed with the ending; just surprised.

A long list of movies and series of interest awaits my attention, but I have not had sufficient interest to start them of late. Though all of the options on my list seem interesting, I’m not in the mood lately to launch into them. Instead, I skim through lists of “what’s on” and pick from ones that seem sufficiently interesting and sufficiently short to maintain my interest for a while. Paranoid was one of them; I saw that it was only a single season of eight episodes, which seemed to me would stretch my attention span to about its limit.

However, after finishing Paranoid, I skimmed the list of the hundreds of available programs and settled on a long series I think everyone but me has already seen: Arrested Development. I think I selected it because I needed comedy. I binged on three or four episodes. Though it’s a bit sillier than I prefer, I enjoyed it. I suspect I’ll be watching it for a while to come. I understand it comprises 84 episodes in five seasons; that should keep me occupied through the end of the week.

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One of my brothers had angioplasty performed on his legs yesterday, an attempt to determine and possibly correct the cause of significant swelling and pain. He says he already has had some results on one leg, but not on the other. He’ll return for a visit with the doctor in six weeks. In the interim, he’ll exercise his legs as much as possible in an effort to shepherd along the healing.

When such procedures are done, I think it would behoove the doctors, et al involved in the process to record a description of what they did, what they found, what they expect, and how and when to follow up. That recording should then be supplied to the patient and the patient’s family so, after the stress of being in a hospital/surgical environment (not to mention the anesthetic) wears off, a clear record is available. Relying on notes and memory is, in my view, insufficient. I’ve been through many such situations and have, in virtually every case, wished for a clearer, more reliable understanding. That could have been given to me in the form of a voice recording. Who do I see about making this standard medical practice? 😉

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Last night’s dream involved at least two past places of employment, people with whom I worked in years gone by, and a visit to a former place of employment that had been in the throes of major construction for some twenty years or more (completely artificial, the construction not based in fact). It also involved seeing a woman, who replaced me in one of my past jobs, sitting at what looked like an airport bar, apparently drunk. A friend of mine was teasing her about trying to high-five President Obama in her state of inebriation and, instead, poking him in the chest. But this “airport bar” was inside a workplace. And somewhere along the line, I tried to convince my friends that I was serious about asking the CEO of a major company to give me $50,000 to start some sort of business venture.

Though I remember enough of the dream to know it combined multiple time periods and places, I do not remember sufficient details to make any sense of the dream. I know significant parts are missing from my last night’s experiences.

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Today, in addition to continuing on with significant amounts of paperwork (and trying to talk to a lawyer about a letter I received about some funds I am trying to get put in my name), I plan to begin the process of moving the big, monstrously heavy, old “four poster” bed back into the master bedroom. I’ve been wanting to do that for months, but now I’m operating under a bit of a time crunch due to an impending visiting by friends who will need a place to sleep. At the moment, I continue to occupy the guest bed; I need to vacate that bed and that room. I do not think I can legitimately continue to occupy the guest bed and just say, “pick which side you want.” That would be a particularly awkward conversation in the case of my married friends; I suspect the male component of the couple would not be pleased to have me sleep with his wife. And she might not like the idea, either.

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I think today is the day to include former co-workers and workplaces in my thoughts. I took a look at a post from one year ago today, where I discovered that a former co-worker from forty years ago had found this blog.  I haven’t heard from her much since then, but her comments stirred some memories of “the old days.” She worked with me, incidentally, in the same place that my dream suggested had been under construction for twenty years. Another incident of synchronicity.

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The ability to both wash and dry clothes in my house is a luxury akin to a need. My dryer finally arrived yesterday and I put it to work almost immediately (well, after running it empty for 30 minutes to “burn off” the smell of oil). I need to wash sheets this afternoon (and jeans), so I will keep the beast occupied for a while. The old dryer was 33 years old; hard to believe it lasted so long; I was 34 years old when we bought it.

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I think people a few years older than I, people who might have been of-age during the Woodstock era, probably have more experience with orgies than I. Inasmuch as I do not recall participating in a single orgy, that’s quite likely; assuming, of course, that some of those people a few years older than I participated in orgies. I’ve always wondered what that might be like; gluttonous consumption of decadent foods and alcohol (and other mood altering substances), along with serial sex with women I know only casually or not at all. I realize, of course, my vision of orgies may not reflect the reality of orgies. As a young man, even if I had been of-age during Woodstock, I doubt I would have participated in orgies. I was shy and reserved. And frightened of the world; and of being found out as an inexperienced kid. Now, in my old age, orgies seem to be a thing of the past. It’s just as well. I remain that shy and reserved kid; and inexperienced with orgies.

Some people who read or might read the preceding paragraph could be shocked or offended by what I’ve written. That’s an effect social norms can have on us. Shock and offense are personal expressions of fear (in my opinion). Social norms instill many good attitudes and behaviors in us, but they also tend to wrap us up so tightly in puritanical bandages that we cannot even imagine living outside the restrictive limits of what we’re told is “bad,” even when the definition of “bad” constitutes misunderstanding and fear. Okay, I’ll stop.

The unexamined life is not worth living.
~Socrates~

Since my wife died, I’ve read quite a lot about grief. I don’t know what I expected to learn; perhaps how to get through it and get on with my life. But I learned, instead, that grief is not something that a person gets through; it’s something a person endures for the rest of his life. Of course I should have known that. I’ve experienced grief before, most intensely following the deaths, quite some time apart, of my father, my mother, and my sister. That grief is still with me, but I have managed to accept it and allow it to change me in the way grief always will. But the grief on the loss of my wife has been stunning in its intensity. Though it is not as awfully painful and constantly present as it was three months ago, it still feels fresh and raw—not all the time, but still quite frequently. I think writing about it helps me examine my grief as analytically as I can, but I still feel almost overwhelmed by it from time to time. And as normal as I know it is to cry, when I’m around other people during one of those raw episodes, I still try to hold it in. I just can’t seem to overcome the effects of testosterone poisoning; the sense that men should be able to control and mask their painful emotions, especially around others. I hate that socially-manufactured bullshit, but I still let it influence me in ways that make me angry at myself. Sometimes I think I’m over it; but when I find myself struggling to maintain my composure instead of opening the spigot and releasing my emotions, I realize I’m not. I still let the prevalent concept of masculinity rule me. No matter what I tell myself about how I’m going to overcome that mistaken belief, I usually fail trying. Grief never disappears. It gets easier to deal with (as hard as it feels even now, it has gotten easier for me), but it is never erased. It changes the griever in many ways I don’t yet quite understand; I know it’s changing me.

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I don’t think I’ve ever admitted this to anyone before. In connection with grief, though more directly correlated with overwhelming depression, there have been a very few times in my life that I’ve seriously contemplated suicide; to the extent that I considered how I might do it. When those thoughts have taken hold, they scared me to think I could ever make such an irrevocable decision. But I know it’s a possibility. And that, too, scares me. That I could act, in depression, in a way that cannot be undone. That I could act, in pain, in a way that cannot be reversed. It’s not that I’m afraid of dying; it’s that I recognize the inconsolable trauma it would inflict on the people left behind to grieve for me.  There’s such a stigma associated with suicidal thoughts; the person is automatically considered unstable, deranged, or otherwise out of their minds. I do not think that’s the case, though. In my opinion, some circumstances or problems can seem so overwhelming to a person that the intense emotional pain the situations cause triggers desperate, if irrational, thoughts about how to make the pain stop. And the stigma associated with the very idea of suicide prevents people from seeking help, even from anonymous trained volunteers. The idea of telling friends or family about suicidal thoughts—people who might forever view one in a different and unfavorable light—may be as painful as the circumstances that trigger the thoughts. It is common to think that attempted suicides are cries for help. I question whether that is true. I wonder whether, instead, they are simply failed attempts that might (or might not) so fundamentally shock the suicidal person that he or she finally does seek help. There is enough pain in the world without adding to it with suicide. But I think I understand how utterly overwhelming life can seem. I wonder whether suicide is, in its simplest form, a response to stresses created in our minds by the way society teaches us to think? Albert Camus said it, I think: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” I’m just full of cheery thoughts on this Monday morning.

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Larry McMurtry wrote several books that I would list among my favorites if I had a favorites list. Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, Leaving Cheyenne, All My Friends are Going to be Strangers, and Terms of Endearment would be among them. But, like most books I read, six weeks after reading them I couldn’t begin to tell you the plots of any of them. But I know I truly enjoyed reading them. I was sufficiently enthralled by McMurtry to have made it a point to go to Archer City where several buildings housed his bookstores (at least they did at one time and may still). My memory tells me they were closed, though; we may have gone on a weekend.  McMurtry’s death is not a tragedy; he died an old man. But in my view his recent death marks the loss of a literary giant.

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Speaking of books, I just received a copy of a book I ordered, A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. I’ve only opened the cover and skimmed a few page thus far, but from what I’ve heard and read about the book, it is spellbinding. I will read it rather slowly, as my eyeglasses prescription does not seem well-suited to reading books. But read it I will. Speaking of that, I must return to reading The Cellist of Sarajevo; I somehow let that book sit too long on the shelf after borrowing it from the library, so I took it back before finishing it. It mesmerized me. I’ve thought about getting audio books, but that’s as far as it’s gotten; thinking about it. I’d love to get an audio CD and take it on a very long road trip with me. That might be an ideal way to get better acquainted with audio books.

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I think the quote from Socrates, with which I began this post, gets to the heart of why I write. At least why I write in this blog. I feel compelled to examine my life, to try to understand why I am the way I am. Examining one’s life, though, tends to lead to more questions than answers; a never-ending education that reveals an ever-growing body of ignorance that would not have been uncovered without examination.

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I’ve recently been watching a Netflix series called Paranoid. Last night, I watched episode seven and it left me wanting to stay awake and watch the last one (it’s a one-season series with eight episodes). But I didn’t. It’s another crime drama, but not “just” another one. I find it fascinating. It helps that most of the actors have British accents, with a sprinkling of German and American accents thrown in for interest and intrigue. One of the reasons I like Netflix series is that they last about 45 minutes per episode, with no commercials. American television series typically are 30 minutes or an hour in length, with something in the neighborhood of eight to fifteen minutes of commercials included. Maddening!

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This is the week for my second COVID-19 vaccination. And the week (and today’s the day) for delivery of my new dryer. And the week during which I’ll cook another leg of lamb. Which makes me think I should plan on using some of the leftovers (and there will be lots of leftovers, given that the leg is about five and a quarter pounds) to make shepherd’s pie. Shepherd’s pie uses ground (or chopped) lamb; cottage pie uses ground (or chopped) beef. I much prefer shepherd’s pie.

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With old age comes both wisdom and, occasionally, remarkably bad judgment—the latter stunning in its stupidity. That kind of poor judgment paints a person as an absolute fool. I’ve seen it. In the mirror.

I got a call as I arrived home from an outing yesterday, reminding me that my new dryer is to be delivered today. I paid for installation of the new dryer as well as removal of the dead machine. For reasons only a fool would understand (but still doesn’t), I decided I would do part of the work for the delivery team, so I managed to slide the dryer away from the wall and disconnect the electric plug and the vent. It was a piece of cake; nothing to it. Inasmuch as it was so damn easy, I decided I’d just move the dryer through the door in the laundry room into the garage. It was not as easy as the first part because I had to lift it instead of rocking it along the floor, but I did it. While doing it, I also managed to pull some muscles in my back and in my neck. The resulting pain in my back and neck, coupled with the ferocious headache that I suspect can be traced to my bad judgment/stupidity, reminds me rather sharply that I should not have done it. I paid for someone else to do it. A young buckaroo or two who are stronger and more experienced than I. What was I thinking?! When I was young and pulled a stunt like that, my oldest sister recognized my stupidity by saying, “Why don’t you go play in the traffic?” I think the point was to tell me she thought I was dumb enough to do it.

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I think I’ve done quite enough examination for this day of my life.

I just spent an hour writing a post that will linger in my drafts folder until I finally decide the post should be euthanized. That’s how I managed to have 455 incomplete posts in my drafts folder. And that’s after having euthanized quite a few of them over time.

Sometimes, I write what’s on my mind only to finally realize it has no place in the public sphere. Posting those drafts would only confirm, for those who already suspect, that I comprise an incredible assortment of flaws. Such as the fact that I dwell on loneliness far too often. And I bounce between gratitude and sorrow with extraordinary speed. And plenty more. So, this morning’s hour of writing is awaiting its turn to be discarded. Instead, I’m starting anew. We’ll see how that goes.

I had a vivid dream last night. I think. But I cannot recall anything of it (them?), other than it/they made me feel like lightning bolts ripped through me. Whatever it was, it was an intensely emotional experience; I just don’t know which emotions. It’s odd to awaken to the knowledge that I’ve just had a powerful dream about which I remember absolutely nothing. For some strange reason, that frightens me. Or maybe it’s leftover fright from the dream.

I’ve just set my alarm for 8:00 a.m. When the alarm sounds, I will shave and shower. I have to look at least moderately presentable for a Zoom event at 10 and, then, lunch with church friends on the deck of a lakeside restaurant afterward. This writing is not going to go well. I can feel it. So I may as well surrender before I waste any more time. Mine and yours. I’ll go make some breakfast in preparation for wandering into the claws of the day.

This morning, I rinsed off the soap and shampoo and stood under the showerhead, luxuriating in hot water. I always finish my showers by increasing the water temperature until it’s just barely tolerable; that leaves me feeling especially refreshed. I know I should feel some guilt—and I do—for wasting water simply for my enjoyment. But it’s more than enjoyment. It’s more of a “spiritual practice” (I hate calling it that; but calling it “deeply introspective and appreciative examinations of the world and sometimes moments of unspeakable gratitude” is impractical). Until a few minutes ago, it never occurred to me that my habit of nearly scalding myself in appreciation might be a spiritual practice. I knew my morning ritual of coffee and writing could be considered one, but a shower? Yes, a shower.

I’ve been involved—only sporadically, unfortunately—in an online video-class addressing spiritual practices (which are, remember: “deeply introspective and appreciative examinations of the world and sometimes moments of unspeakable gratitude”). During the course of the class, which has included meditations, mindfulness, prayer (not necessarily what you think), hospitality, etc., I learned a bit more about myself. For one thing, I learned that several of my rituals (which I had not considered rituals until the class) could easily be classified as spiritual practices. Like my writing, my morning coffee, my evening wine, my morning tendency to stare at the sunrise and the clouds, etc., etc.

It was only this morning I realized my post-shower hot drenching and the thoughts that go with it are, indeed, spiritual practices. It’s not every day, as I try to avoid showering every day, but it’s sufficiently frequent, sufficiently contemplative, and sufficiently entrenched in my routines to be considered a spiritual practice. This morning’s epiphany prompted me to consider what other activities (aside from those I’ve already noted) might be (or could become) spiritual practices. I think it behooves me to search for or create more because I think “deeply introspective and appreciative examinations of the world and sometimes moments of unspeakable gratitude” are important to my (search for) sanity. They help keep me grounded to the fundamental fact that I am indeed fortunate in more ways than I can even imagine. And they help keep me grounded to coincidental but fundamental responsibilities to try to help others achieve reasons to feel unspeakable gratitude.

Now, whether the the recognition of those responsibilities translates into action is questionable. But the recognition, alone, is enough for me to search for more spiritual practices as well as ways to fulfill the responsibilities that arise therewith.

An example: Yesterday, I picked up an online-order of groceries; my first from that store. All was well until I got home with the groceries, only to learn (by an apologetic call from the store) that one bag I had been given belonged to someone else and one bag I should have been given was still at the store. The caller, a young man, obviously was distressed by the mistake. It was made worse by the fact that the shoppers whose bag I had were due to pick up their groceries shortly. In recent years, I’ve consciously tried to avoid getting upset in such circumstances and, instead, to try to ease the tensions all around (admittedly, I sometimes fail to even try, though). Yesterday, I tried to lessen the kid’s worries by saying “No worries, I’ll just come down and trade the bags.” When I got there and was trading bags, I made the mistake of asking the guy whether my bill reflected a senior discount; I should have known that would exacerbate the situation for him. He said the bill should have reflected it, but looked at it and saw that it was missing. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a $5 bill and said “Please accept this as our apology for the problems.” I refused the $5, told him it was no problem for me, and that everyone makes mistakes and, again, not to worry. That’s a long way to describe an example of an occasional spiritual practice: me, trying to lessen a burden on someone by not adding to it. I was only partially successful, in that I did add to the burden with my question, but I hope I accomplished at least some of my objective.

Thinking about that little, meaningless, incident, I realized that I do that kind of thing often, though perhaps not often enough. When I do, it make me think about the responsibility I have to make even a tiny positive difference when I can. I am about as far from Mother Teresa as you can get, but I’m trying to head in that direction.

And that’s is, for now. More to come when I’m ready.

Before I get into yesterday’s failures, I want to soak in the beauty of this morning’s sunrise. The mist clinging like a cloud to a distant lake is grey and purple, colored by the sun’s rays and the reflections from the water below. A long, narrow strip of pink and grey clouds barely above the distant horizon define what appears to me to be the edge of the Earth. Otherwise, the pale cream and barely yellow sky fades into a white and blue expanse that reveals an empty universe beyond. I can barely contain my emotion, just looking up into the endless, beautiful sky.

The air is chilly now, but it will warm considerably, later. I want to sit and absorb the coming day as it washes over me, but my slothfulness is catching up with me. I can appreciate the sky only briefly before I write a little, then wade into the day’s obligations.

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Oh, I had plans! Grand plans! Yesterday morning and afternoon were going to be devoted to dealing with issues surrounding my dead clothes dryer and my uncooperative garage door, followed by a focus on paperwork. But Mother Nature forgot to take the drugs to tame her psychoses, resulting in violent, threatening weather. So, I stayed indoors, where I could focus on paperwork. I took stacks of paper to the dining table, where I could spread them out and work on them. And I began the process. But something went awry. My mood turned on me, putting one part of me in direct opposition to the other part of me; suddenly without warning, I was of two minds on that matter. Both parts wielded swords, daring the other to make a move. So, I slinked off, leaving my two minds to fight it out among themselves. While they were off doing battle with one another, the rest of me listened to music and created a YouTube music playlist, spending hours crafting a list to share with a magnetic media friend, who already had shared a list with me. And then I spent just a tad over two hours on the monthly Zoom board of directors meeting for my church. And then, just before 5:00 p.m., I opened a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc—my reward for a day’s hard work.

Today, I MUST get in gear and do my paperwork. I have to file for an extension on my taxes (first, coming up with a ballpark figure of how much I might owe, or vice versa). And I have to get some documents notarized (in lieu of an impossible-to-obtain stamp). And I have to write letters to accompany those documents. And I must go through other paperwork to determine what other mindless, bureaucratic forms I must complete before submitting mindless drudgery to bureaucrats to give them some sense that their jobs have value, when we all know they are simply filling space because they have to do SOMETHING to justify getting paid below-subsistence wages. And there is much, much more. All equal in drudgery and torment to the other paperwork. It all requires me to look up information that no one needs to know so that someone can claim they verified the information’s submission, despite the fact that no one will ever view it again—and for good reason—because it has no value to anyone for any reason at any time now or in the future. And not even in the past. But that’s neither here nor there. Regardless of how I might feel about this mindless nonsense, I must play the game in order to get paid. Or something like that.

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Knowing what I must do today, the fact that instead, I’m sitting at my desk writing speaks volumes of my discipline. I need a keeper, someone who gently will hold me accountable for doing what must be done.  That, of course, is a lame excuse for laziness. It’s not that I “can’t” get myself in gear; it’s simply that I “don’t.” Discipline. Discipline. Discipline. The etymology of the word suggests it evolved from the Latin discipulus. Somewhere during the evolution of the word its meaning included or involved “mortification by scourging oneself.” That’s really what I need; a whip suitable for self-flagellation and the willingness to use it.

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I ordered groceries online yesterday for pickup today from Brookshire’s; my first online order from that store. I received a text message this morning from the assigned shopper, Jade, asking me whether she could substitute an item and whether I qualify for a senior discount. It’s a nice touch, having the shopper responsible for my order getting in touch. I did not really need to order groceries, but I decided to give the store a try. Plus, placing the order gave me another excuse for steering clear of my critical, time-dependent obligations.

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Enough, John. Time to get back to your obligations.

I am an occasional participant, but far more frequently I am simply a voyeur. I comment from time to time, but usually I just watch and absorb and wish my life were a little more like the ones I observe. “Wish in one hand and spit in the other…”

The subject of my musing this morning is a blog called Me and You and Ellie, a piece of internet real estate I stumbled on several years ago. I don’t recall how I came across the blog, but I remember how entranced I was by it, especially by the posts made by Ellie, one of three contributors.  Ellie and her husband, who she calls “Mistah,” were in the midst of wanderlust at the time. They had been wandering the U.S. and Mexico in their Westy since January 2001, stopping in various places along the way to observe, participate, and have fun. Somewhere along the way, Ellie’s father needed a kidney transplant. Ellie was a match. And that was all she needed to know. Her kidney was harvested and her father got a needed new kidney.

My memory is unreliable, but I think I first encountered Ellie when she and Mistah lived in (or had recently left) Fort Davis, Texas. She posted pictures of the house they lived in and wrote a bit about their adventures. Ellie uses photographs extensively in her posts; that’s why hers generally are much more visually appealing than mine, though that’s not the only reason. Some time later, when my wife and I took a vacation in and around Big Bend National Park, we drove to Fort Davis and searched out Ellie’s and Mistah’s house. We found it and I took photos of it. I posted pictures of it on my blog at the time. I operated that blog under the pseudonym of Springer Kneeblood. (I used a pseudonym because I wanted to be able to safely say what I thought of some of my clients; even though I did not name them, it would have been apparent, had they read what I posted and discovered my name attached to it.) Ellie and I commented back and forth on our respective blogs at the time. It was great fun.

At any rate, Ellie and Mistah ended their grand adventure by returning to Connecticut and settling in New London, Connecticut. As I recall, Ellie went to work in a cool bar. Mistah went to work writing and reporting. After they settled in, I learned about the Hygienic Art Show and the Ledge Light (or, as Ellie calls it, Ledgie) lighthouse and the joys of living in and around Connecticut.

Since they returned to Connecticut, I’ve followed Mistah (AKA Bill) and Ellie on a more or less frequent basis. I keep up to date with their family and friend happenings, including the painful loss of Ellie’s father and marriages and birthdays and celebrations and visits and on and on and on. I suppose my fairly frequent following of Ellie’s posts is a little (or a lot) like living vicariously through a distant acquaintanceship. I feel like I know a lot about New London and about its art scene and the festival-like atmosphere that accompanies the transitions between the seasons.

The fact that Bob the Dog is on his way to Connecticut is probably what prompted me to think about Ellie this morning. I hope Bob (or whatever his new humans name him) is able to make Ellie’s acquaintance, or vice versa. That’s an odd thought, I suppose, but I am admittedly an odd person. Another friend who, like Ellie, I have never met might call the Connecticut parallels an example of synchronicity.

One of these days, I hope to find myself in New London. If so, I hope to meet Ellie and Bill. That meeting would add to the list of bloggers and blog followers and Facebookers I’ve met after “meeting” them online: Kathy Withcats, Teresa, Roger, Robin, Tara, Juan, Kathy, Larry, and more. One of these days had better come soon, though. All days eventually come to an end.

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CORRECTION: It wasn’t a trip to Big Bend with my wife, it was a trip to West Texas with one of my brothers. It was in 2013. I found the reference and the photo of Bill’s and Ellie’s house on this blog post.

There is poetry in all of us, whether we know it or believe it or not. Some of the poetry is stunning in its beauty and its clarity. Last night, I received a poem from a friend (who wrote the pem), along with a message saying the author doesn’t write poems. But the beauty of the poem argued, forcefully, otherwise. The poem’s title and its message hit home for me. For me, it expressed an aspect of sorrow we often keep hidden beneath layers of guilt. The poem expressed much more for me, but I like to hold close some elements poems’ messages to me.

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If I had been able to fully record last night’s vivid dream, it would have made a long, if incomplete, short story. My oldest brother and I, along with several other people both living and dead, were returning home from a bizarre trip to the grocery store when we were caught in heavy traffic. I was driving my brother’s car, a small Japanese vehicle with whose brand name I was not familiar and which I cannot recall this morning. Suddenly, I had to hit the brakes, but I had a hard time lifting my knees. I finally hit the brake pedal, but the car was very slow to respond. I almost slammed into a car in front of us. When we got to the front of the line, we realized it was a both a border crossing and a COVID-19 vaccination spot. When our turn came, we were asked to get out of the car, where we were questioned. My brother’s situation was unclear, as his documents indicated he and his car were from Mexico, but the rest of us were from the U.S. (we were clear). At some point, a drunk old hillbilly with many missing teeth claimed I had sideswiped his truck and threatened me. I threatened back and we both were ready to respond to the other’s first punch. But he left and another person I know, but who was not traveling with us, told us how to get in line for the vaccine. We followed her advice, which involved having our hair done in the COVID vaccination clinic, as in a permanent (we learned that was to avoid a side-effect of the vaccine, which was said to be alopecia). There was much more, but it made no more sense than the first part. I awoke during an interrogation following my vaccination.

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Today is Bob’s last day with me. I take him to the Animal Welfare League building today so the folks there can begin preparations for his journey, very early tomorrow morning, to New England and a new home. Yesterday, when I took him in for the veterinarian’s examination, she told me he already has been adopted. He will meet his new humans upon arrival. I’m glad for Bob, and for me, but I’ll really miss Bob. He’s been with me for only two and a half weeks, but we’ve developed a bond. An upside of his departure, though, will be the slow dissipation of dog-odor in every room of the house. The joys and sorrows of pet relationships.

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Last night, during a periodic videoconference with a couple of friends (one in New England, one in the DC area), I learned that the wife of the NE friend had 36 hours of moderate side-effects from her second Moderna vaccination (she’s a nurse). I imagine that’s what I should expect after I have my vaccination on April 1. Before my shot, I’ll prepare a little bedside comfort package, but I am not sure what it will contain. I should ask people who have gone through the brief “flu-like symptoms” what they wanted/needed during their short reaction.

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After Bob’s departure, and after current calendar obligations are met, I will withdraw from the world for much of the several following days. My purpose is to get back on track with respect to paperwork, taxes, financial recordkeeping, and the like. I have allowed myself to get badly behind during Bob’s stay with me. It’s not Bob’s fault, of course, it’s mine. I have a tendency to allow even minor interruptions to my day to sidetrack me for the entire day and then some. It’s a bad habit or personality trait or excuse or whatever. Regardless of the cause, I will become something of a recluse for a while until I feel my head popping up above the sea of paperwork. I may make some exceptions, interrupting my reclusiveness for poetry and the right conversations.

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I remember discussions about “situational ethics” from my college days. Arguments raged about whether ethics are steadfast and unbendable or, instead, malleable and subject to adjustment subject to the environment in which ethics are expected to control behavior. No one won the arguments. Regardless of the position taken, someone always presented hypothetical circumstances that crushed the position. I came to the conclusion, ultimately, that ethics are, by nature, situational. The situation may be cultural or circumstantial or, perhaps, something else. But there’s always a legitimate argument to be made to negate ethical positions. In the final analysis, ethics are choices we make; either to abide by reasonable limits on behaviors or to refuse to go along with unreasonable restrictions on our ability to live our lives as we please. And everything in between.

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Okay. I’m done for now.

My attitudes about so many aspects of life have changed during the past few years. Perhaps retirement is responsible. Or maybe it’s a combination of retirement and the fact that I’m more at ease, not having to face the daily onslaught of self-important board members and others who seemed to think they owned my life because they paid for my company’s time. Or perhaps it’s something else. UUVC, maybe. Or the people I’ve met. Or maybe it’s just me, mellowing and realizing and regretting what a bastard I have been my entire life. That is a regret I can never “fix.” I can never undo the past and who I have been.  I would give my life a thousand times over if I could. No one has ever deserved my unmitigated wrath. I misunderstood humanity and human decency for most of my life. Only late in life did I begin to understand how misguided I always have been. And by then it was too late to repair the damage I had done. I will never be able to forgive myself for who I have been the majority of my life. And I shouldn’t. It is said that one must first love oneself before others can love you. I think that is probably true. I remember writing, though I do not recall just when, “love is granted only to the lovable.”

In an ideal world, one can remake oneself into the person he would like to be. Maybe that’s why Arizona is on my mind. More on that and my sinuses and wheezing in a minute. But maybe it’s not sinuses and wheezing. Instead, it might be a more complete revision I’m looking for. Last night, I read about nontheist Quakers. I had never known there was such a branch of Quakers. I admire what seems their devotion to realizing peace, simplicity, integrity, community, equality, love, joy, and social justice. They simply do not believe in the divine, the soul, or the supernatural. I like the idea that people can be fundamentally good without relying on either guidance from or punishment by a vengeful being. That idea suggests people can be fundamentally bad in the absence of the same sorts of influences.

I wish I were gentle and lived among gentle people. Many years ago, when I was still in high school, I remember reading a book of poetry by James Kavanaugh, There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves. One of my favorites was the poem of the same name. I found it this morning:

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant’s profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of candied apples and ferris wheels
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who devour them with eager appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant’s world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove.
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant’s world,
Unless they have a gentle one to love.

Kavanaugh wrote something in the introduction of the book, I think, that says something I feel but cannot express any better:

Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know—unless it be to share our laughter.

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For my entire life, I have been nearly certain that the concept of God is a human invention. I remain close to certain now, but for some time I have accepted the possibility that some force or being or massively-powerful “idea” exists beyond my comprehension. Whatever is or is not controlling existence, I will never understand its existence, but I will be equally as devoid of understanding its absence. That doesn’t make sense the way I’ve written it, nor in the way I conceive of the idea; but I understand what I believe or intuit or otherwise “feel.”

There have been times I desperately wished for a supreme being that could repair planet Earth and all its inhabitants. Those times usually came after I had given up on humanity as unredeemable. But I’ve never actually believed in redemption, either. My beliefs have always been the unremarkable “what is, is.” That sounds so mundane and unimpressed. But I am mightily impressed with all of “creation.” Call it what you will. Evolution. Existence. Whatever “it” is, it’s impressive. Seeing an electron microscopic image of a dust mite and learning that its “nose” is only 100 microns wide is stunning. But noticing that, next to the “nose” are several dozen tiny “hairs,” each a tiny fraction the size of the nose, is even more astonishing. Compare those tiny creatures with enormous whales. The magnitudes of difference between them are so immeasurably huge that I cannot full grasp the idea of anything.

These are subjects I sometimes want to talk about with someone close to me. People who would willingly spend time discussing ideas beyond our ability to prove or disprove. People who often look at the world with the same sense of stunned awe that I do, completely confounded by how a universe so grandly, yet so minutely, complex can possibly exist. Maybe, though, such conversations lead to “answers” in the form of religion. Maybe, when we confront ideas too convoluted to understand, we turn to mysticism. And perhaps mysticism is just as logical and meaningful as anything else in which we might immerse ourselves.

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Wheezing—making whistling noises when breathing—is becoming more and more troublesome of late. While my respiratory issues related to my lung cancer, its treatments, and its underlying causes may be the prime culprits, I think I have allergies of some kind. Not serious stuff, but sufficiently troublesome that my airways get tightened, blocked, or inflamed as a result of them. And those symptoms lead to the wheezing. As strange as it may be, I think I first noticed my wheezing and increased sinus problems when we moved to Arkansas. My sinus issues have gotten worse over the seven years since we relocated.

I have been seen by respiratory professionals, who have prescribed various remedies, including both long term and short term bronchodilators. Nothing has worked. So, I may try an experiment within the next few months. Or I may not. It depends on my level of courage and/or commitment. What I may do is to move, temporarily, to a place where forest pollen and common molds and the like are rare. A location in Arizona, for example. I think a test period of two or three months should give me a pretty good idea of whether the atmosphere here is to blame and/or the atmosphere there offers a solution.

But will I actually do this? Despite my desire for solitude, isolation, and time for and by myself, I am quick to get lonely. No matter than I crave the quiet serenity of being alone, more frequently than I admit I want and maybe need company. I had in mind that a dog was going to fix that. But the responsibilities of animal care and the disruptions to my routine that came with it forced me to face reality. I like Bob, the dog. I really like him. He is a sweet creature. His visible joy when I return home from being out is uplifting. Having him put his head in my lap while I’m watching television makes me feel loved by a caring companion dog. But the arguments against keeping him won out; he’s leaving me on Wednesday. The fact that last night he again attempted to get in bed with me and this morning I found him sleeping on the white leather sofa he was specifically told to keep off makes parting a little easier.

So, the question is whether the additional solitude of moving, even temporarily, to a place I know no one would be too much. Would my loneliness intensify? Even living here, where I know quite a few people, I do not see many of them often. Most days, I see just one or two people. I talk to just one most days. I crave isolation, but isolation is hard to take. I guess what I crave is the kind of isolation I had when my wife was here. She and I spent hours and hours apart most days, but we were there for one another in an instant. I felt her presence. I got so used to it that I did not realize just how incredibly important her presence in my isolation was to me, I guess.

I am an adult. I know  how to cope with the vagaries of life. Whether I get lonely or not, I should be able to wade through a test run. As an adult, though, I should be able to differentiate between wanting to test a new environment for health reasons and wanting to try to build a new life as a different person. The fact that I’m acknowledging the possibility floods me with memories of questions I’ve asked myself for years. The one question I’ve never successfully answered is: Who am I? Will Arizona answer it for me? But if Arizona were to fix my wheezing and leave my question unanswered, what then? Yeah. Exactly.

But, wait. This is absurd. I’ve been mulling over going to the Canadian Maritime Provinces. I’ve considered a trip to Mexico. I’ve thought about moving to the Pacific Northwest. What, exactly, is wrong with me? Why am I being so utterly scattered in my thinking?

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I bought a dryer online today. It should be delivered and the old dead one hauled away on March 29; parts required for installation should come April 3. Until then, I will wear either dirty or wet clothes. Or I’ll impose upon my sister-in-law to let me use her dryer. As I contemplate a temporary move, I ask myself what the hell am I doing buying new appliances?

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I have worn myself out. Turned myself into a piece of dry, dusty leather so weak it cannot hold itself in one piece any longer. I did this not through hard, manual labor but by wringing all the moisture from my brain—by forcing myself to think instead of letting thought come naturally to me. Water. Soon, we all will value water more highly than anything else. We will wish we had saved it, stored it, conserved it, treated it like the life-saving liquid it is.

Something is on my mind, something solemn, dreary, and depressing. But I do not know just what it is. I know only that there’s something buried within my brain and behind my heart—a dark and upsetting event or idea or possibility. I can only imagine what magma might feel like, cooling and solidifying around my internal organs; this is that terrifying sensation. Unless I break free from it quickly and completely, there’s no return to normalcy. What should I feel? Panic? Relief? Fear? Curiosity? Elation? I might be able to develop a character around these sensations and these emotions, but only if I can escape interment in hard, black, glass-like post-magma material.  That’s only modestly odd.

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Science fiction is easy to write, I think, but hard to encapsulate in character development studies. A merger between “pure” science fiction and “pure” character-based fiction is harder, still. But I may give it a shot. Unlike so many science fiction scenarios, though, in which Earth is under some form of attack or alien danger that is fought with high-tech weaponry, I have in mind a resurrectional sci-fi piece that paints a picture of rebirth after massive destruction, without the aid of imaginary tools. In my mind, the rebirth would involve relearning old technologies on a foundation of human decency. More oddities.

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Last night, I watched My Octopus Teacher. I enjoyed the film, though it was not as moving as I expected, based on the chatter about it. Don’t get me wrong, it was moving. But it was not an hour and a half tear-jerker. It was exceptionally informative and interesting; I learned quite a lot about octopuses/octopi and about various other sea creatures. I may already have known that octopuses die shortly after mating, but if so I did not recall it. That fact made me consider the apparent “meaning” or “purpose” of the life of an octopus—procreation. The point stressed several times during the film—that the creatures are extremely intelligent—made me wonder whether the octopus’s genetic drive to procreate can be short-circuited by the creature’s “choice.” For example, can an octopus choose to abstain from sex and, if so, how long would a celibate octopus live?

I suppose the most poignant message delivered by the film reflects the seventh principal of Unitarian Universalism: respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. I do not, of course, believe there is any direct link between the film and UU principles; only that the intellectual linkage is apparent to my little brain.

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My short time fostering an older but energetic dog has taught me something about myself. It’s a revealing and embarrassing lesson: my “routine” and my personal freedoms apparently are more important to me than having a “buddy.” I have no objections to taking Bob for multiple walks, nor do I find feeding him or petting him or letting him snuggle on the couch next to me anything but endearing. More than anything, it’s the fact that he has his own schedule and it does not mesh with mine. It doesn’t help, of course, that walking Bob is a more like being dragged…by an angry sheriff’s deputy in a hurry to throw me into the back of the squad car. I’m sure Bob’s walking behavior can be addressed with proper training. But his need “to go” conflicts with my need “to stay.” And I enjoy my early morning routine; easing into the day with a cup of coffee while sitting at the keyboard, exercising my fingers.  Bob deserves better than he has with me. And I’m confident he’ll get it in Connecticut, which is his destination when he leaves Hot Springs Village on Thursday morning.

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My keyboard time was just interrupted by a hungry dog. For a short while, Bob will be enjoying a meal of dry dog food, crumbled Milk-Bone treats, and tiny pieces of pulled chicken breast, doused with a little chicken broth. It’s the only way I can be sure he finishes his meal; a hand-finished breakfast with multiple ingredients. While this process took place, my near-full cup of coffee cooled to inadequate warmth. Dammit.

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Soon, my friends from Fort Smith will drive down for a little visit. We haven’t nailed down the dates, but it will be soon. They will stay overnight for an evening or two. While they are here, we will have lunch at the Kream Kastle Drive Inn in Benton, said to have one of the best greasy burgers in the entire State of Arkansas. It’s an old place that seems to be approximately in the middle of nowhere, but is not far from Benton, nor from where I live. More important than the burger, though, will be the opportunity to sit and visit, face-to-face, with these folks who have been friends for more than forty years.

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There will be another time, soon, when I will write something other than this fragmented swill. It may be cohesive swill, but it will by god not be fragmented.

I wrote most of what follows much earlier today. But the day fractured into pieces and went in different directions. And so did I. I went to church to meet a man who refurbishes parking lots. I walked Bob. Friends came to retrieve a twin bed and chat a bit in the process (and they brought a sausage role and a piece of lemon cake). I had coffee with my sister-in-law. I spent much of my afternoon in a thought-coma, one of those unusual emotional states in which consciousness chooses to rest while thoughts choose to replay themselves in different iterations. And a little late-afternoon dreaming took place, including serious plans to ride from New York to California clinging to the top of a van that is much higher in the back than the front. There was beer in that dream, too, but the cans were empty. But here it is, 4:42 p.m. and my early morning blog has morphed into an older and decrepit version of its younger and more agile self. To be honest, though, the blog never was really agile. It willingly contorted itself into uncomfortable tangles of flesh, cartilage, and brittle bone fragments before springing itself into its original, inflexible shape.

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Lately, I have had several extremely short flashes of “memory” that I can’t quite place. These recollections are very brief but quite clear; but they arise from a hazy fog and they disappear into the same hazy fog. One of these incidents involved a friend who lives in Kansas now. The reminiscence included an image of her bright yellow car and a comment about her husband’s love of a fish dish. I remember having a conversation with someone else about making the fish for him, so that may have triggered the memory. But it wasn’t a memory. It must have been a snippet from a dream. Many other such snippets have been flooding my mind lately. The visions are so clear I would swear they are memories, but circumstances are such that they cannot be memories; they are dreamflashes. I will claim that word as mine, although I know for a fact that it has been used by an ink manufacturer to name one of its lines of inks. That’s too bad. Just when I think I have a neologism of my own, I discover someone else has stolen it from me, apparently in my sleep.

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Bob is going to Connecticut. Apparently, the Animal Welfare League here has a relationship with a rescue outfit in New England; that organization will take Bob up there for adoption. I am told the demand for larger dogs, like Bob, is much greater in that part of the country than around here. No idea why. At any rate, I take Bob to see a vet on Tuesday, then on Wednesday I will take him to the Animal Welfare League facility, where he will spend the night. They will bathe him and get him prepared for departure on Thursday morning about 3:30 a.m. to North Little Rock.; the transport rescue-outfitted RV will leave North Little Rock about 5:30 a.m. and will drive straight through to Connecticut. People tell me the organization taking Bob is extremely good to the animals under their care. So, there it is, the culmination of Life with Bob.

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Years ago, my wife and I became enamored with a Showtime series called Homeland.  Despite the fact that it seemed more than a little biased (downright bigoted from time to time) against Muslims and the Middle East in general, it was an interesting action thriller series, full of espionage and gratuitous violence, sex, and other audience magnets. We watched only as long as our free Showtime offer lasted.

I took advantage of a free Hulu offer so I could watch Nomadland. I was surprised to see that Homeland, from start to finish (I guess) was available. I tried to figure out how long we had watched it before, so I could enter the series at the appropriate time. Couldn’t do it. I finally started watching at Season 3. I had not seen (or did not remember seeing) what I saw, but I decided to stop looking and just watch. What I saw was not nearly as intriguing as I remember. I rather doubt I’ll continue watching. But one never knows, does one?

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This morning’s walk with Bob was very chilly, but productive. Bob enjoyed dragging me up the hill across the street. I assume his wiggling stump of a tail indicated enjoyment. The experience was not as wonderful for me. I have a sore throat that’s getting more sore as I type and a slight headache whose intensity seems to be gradually increasing. Walking Bob caused me to be out of breath much sooner than normal. And I have the sniffles. I am awash in niggling complaints that really do not merit mention, but my fingers are on the keyboard, so it’s like I hardly have a choice but to spill drivel over my little portion of the internet.

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Last night, after washing an especially large load of clothes, I discovered that the dryer was not producing heat. This morning, I’m running it again, on the off chance that the Universe gave the dryer a little time off for rest and recuperation. I decided to give it another thirty minutes to see how things stand. I checked again; no heat at all. So, either I’ll have to get the dryer repaired or buy another one. Sometime last year, before my wife got sick, she located the original receipt for the dryer; we bought it more than thirty years ago. Even if I have to replace it, it has been an utterly reliable workhorse until now. But I hope it can be repaired. I hate replacing equipment when the problem may be just an inexpensive part.

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Friends came to retrieve the twin bed from the master bedroom this morning, so I should be able to get the monstrously heavy queen size bed reconstructed in the not-too-distant future. First, I need to move all the “stuff” I’ve allowed to pile up on the big bed frame in the garage. Then, I’ll need to clean up the master bedroom. Finally, I’ll need to get some big, strong-like-bull people to help with the process. It’s a four-person endeavor. It will happen soon.

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Last night, I thawed ground pork, a pork loin, and a link of hot Italian sausage. I’ve not felt even remotely interested in cooking any of them today, so they languish in the refrigerator, wondering about their fate. I still have no interest in cooking them; or anything. But I am getting a little hungry. I suppose I could go pick up a burger, but that would involve working to get food in which I have no interest. I could order a pizza for delivery, but that would mean spending an enormous amount of money on food that’s worth a quarter as much. Or I could just fast for a while this evening and watch my excess pounds slide off like butter cascading from a hot butter-filled skillet turned sideways. There are other options, of course. But none of them hold much appeal. I’m in the mood for something else, but I don’t know what. Hell, it will come to me. Or I’ll go to it.

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I could have bought a dryer today. Or I could have attempted to figure out whether my dryer is repairable by someone with below average appliance repair skills. Or I could have taken a load of laundry to dry at some out-of-the-way washeteria. But where are they? I’ll look another day, maybe. I know of one place; it’s next to a bar. It’s about eleven miles from here. My sister-in-law has a dryer, though, and she has agreed to let me use it. Last night’s clothes, though, are dry now. More or less.

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I’ll probably never read this blog post again. And I won’t be alone.

People want to matter. They want to believe they have a purpose for being alive. Something beyond simply basking in enjoyable experiences and accumulating things of value and money. Most people want more than that. But for some, all that matters is wealth that gives them some sort of twisted sense of superiority.

And then there are others who are sure that mattering, having purpose, or believing their lives have some fundamental meaning are irrelevant and worthy of scorn. They are the nihilists, extreme skeptics who either deny all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth. Is truth subjective? And are goodness and badness and meaning also subjective and impossible to actually know? I think nihilists must be deeply depressed; either that or textbook sociopaths whose conscience, if it exists, lies buried deep in the recesses of the brain from which escape is impossible. I think I once was nihilist; or thought I was. I now like to think that was simply a phase.

My psychological-theory-of-the-day is pointless. I do not have enough knowledge of the human condition or the way the brain functions to really know anything. Almost all of my so-called “knowledge” has been delivered to me as factual. And, in most cases, I have not questioned it. What if most of our understanding of the world was based on lies or bad information? What if we learned that “the rest of us” are the mutants, the crazy ones, the deviants…and that the people society tends to lock away exhibit the natural behaviors of our species?

There are so many “what if” questions that compel me to think about them at night. Sometimes they are personal questions about different directions my life might have taken, like living in a van and getting odd jobs around the country, just to survive. Or what if I had taken the advice of a contemptible man who fancied himself a human resources genius and gotten a job as a Radio Shack manager instead of looking for something more in line with my interests. Some “what if” questions are a bit broader. Like, “Is a question about “before and after” with regard to the existence of the universe relevant? Is it answerable?”

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Have I mentioned that I have friends who have gotten into tarot card reading? I put no stock in the practice, but that doesn’t stop me from being intensely curious about what a reading might “reveal” about me. While I really do put no stock in tarot card reading, I am edging just slightly away from my unshakeable disbelief in such hogwash as mind-reading. What?! Can I have written that? Yes, but it’s not as woo-woo as it sounds. When I consider that invisible radio waves can be transmitted and received, I have to acknowledge that invisible energy exists. And if we can transmit information through the air with the proper equipment, might we not also be able to transmit (or intercept) energy in the form of information as it is transmitted from the brain to the open air. I am not saying I believe it happens; only that I acknowledge it’s conceivable.

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Late Wednesday afternoon, after the corned beef and cabbage dinner with my wonderful neighbors, I walked Bob a bit, hoping he would relieve himself of intestinal congestion. He did. A little. In spite of more walking, though, he seemed disinterested. So, we went home. I watched Nomadland. Bob sat next to me on the loveseat, watching me watch Nomadland. While the film is slow to develop, I think choosing to film and edit it that way helped tell the story. It was never boring, as far as I was concerned. Some people who either chose or were forced to live the life of a nomad, including two very visible characters, Swankie and Linda May, were featured in the film, along with Bob Wells, a well-known advocate for the RV lifestyle. I would give the film a rating of 9 on a 10-point scale. Definitely worth watching.

+++

After the movie, during which I drank a little wine and otherwise sought an elevated mood, I turned off the television and sat on the loveseat, thinking. Mostly, I thought about how stressful living in a van or an RV probably would be, but also how liberating it could be. The freedom to just pick up and go when the mood struck you would be wonderful. Of course, when you’re scraping by to afford gas for the vehicle and food for the stomach, freedom might be an overrated state of being. However, I might be able to get used to the RV lifestyle with the right vehicle; one that would cost as much as my house, probably. I have such mixed feelings about RV “camping” though. It’s not really camping. It’s Nature-insertable small-capsule living. I’m convinced camping involves small tents, sleeping bags, small and portable cooking gear, maps, and a compass. And food and water, of course. Unless you really want to rough it. I wish I wanted to, but I don’t.

Suddenly, the time was 2:00 a.m. I wondered how three hours sitting on the love seat could have passed without me knowing it. I told myself I should get up and go to bed. And I did. But it was three hours later. Finally, at 5:00 a.m., I awoke and stayed awake long enough to undress and go to be. I set the alarm, though, not trusting myself to wake up of my own volition. At 7:30, the alarm went off for all of one second; I heard its “preparatory noise,” which prompted me to lunge at it in an attempt to silence it before it began. I almost made it.

The remainder of the following morning, Thursday, was uneventful. I vacuumed a little, ate the remainder of some sweet rolls for breakfast, blogged a little, made a “tuna salad on steroids” for my lunch, walked Bob thrice (finally, I no longer have concerns about his digestion, by the way), and otherwise frittered away my time.  Then, around 4, a new friend stopped by to return to me a folder on the old Camry and to show off her new car. We chatted. And chatted. And chatted. At some point, I got hungry and suggested Mexican food from El Jimador. We took her car to pick up the orders. We talked and chatted and talked some more. It was a nice evening. Judging from the kitchen sink, the nice evening involved a not insignificant amount of wine.

+++

And here it is, Friday morning. Later than usual Friday morning. As in, almost 8 o’clock late. It’s an embarrassment and a Sin against Nature and Humanity (capitalizing just seemed appropriate) that I would be in bed after light spreads across the land. That happens only in sickness, madness, and tiredness.

Yes, here I am on Friday morning and I feel more than a little dizzy at this moment. Even sitting at the computer, my head keeps bobbing up and down in response to sleep and sudden wakefulness. I hope this is temporary and meaningless.

Finally, after 9 a.m., I am able to sit—however briefly—at my computer. I sit here attempting to write something other than my usual drivel. But nothing comes. Not even the drivel. I wish I could write a poem; sometimes, writing poetry helps wash away the broken glass scattered around inside my skull. Not this morning, though. I can hear the shards of glass slam into one another, creating ever-smaller slivers and tiny cubes the size of grains of sand but with edges sharper than scalpels.

During my brief attempt to write, or at least finish, poetry, I looked at my drafts folder and found eight poems…out of about 450 draft posts. I read all eight of them. Two of them seem very familiar and may be recent. I think I may have posted different versions of them here on my blog or on Facebook or read them for Wednesday Night Poetry, but I’m not sure. And not sufficiently motivated to take the time to look. Regardless, none of them could have been salvaged to fit my mood this morning. Said mood approximates a merger between Mary Poppins, Eeyore, Count Dracula, and Frankenstein’s Monster. There’s no particular reason for my odd sense of anger, anxiety, happiness, fear, innocence, and skepticism. I think I may have been infected with artificial intelligence; when I had the lobotomy, they extracted the intelligence and left the artificial.

Some emotions are wisp-thin at their fullest and invisible in their natural states. The problem with describing those emotions or demonstrating them is that they combine almost imperceptible movements of the facial muscles, nearly-invisible perspiration around the eyes and on the forehead, and a slight tightening of the skullcap, just enough to cause the hair to move just a “hair.” The best way to observe these emotions in the field is to watch close-up video images of television or film actors; when the actors respond to a surprise or a crisis or are caught in a lie, look at their faces. Watch that barely noticeable movements. Those are evidence of those wisp-thin emotions. What’s that you say? They are not emotions but, instead, visible expressions of some underlying emotion? Are you questioning me? Well, you may be right, I may be crazy, but it just might be a lunatic you’re looking for.

+++

See? Drivel. That’s one of the reasons I am no good in conversations. My mind sometimes works at the speed of a snail on downers. My fingers think much faster than my mind, but the fact that my fingers sometimes are drivel-driven contributes to the overabundance of drivel around these parts.  But I did have an idea a day or two ago for the plot of a novel. I hope someone writes it. I might write it myself, but I don’t recall the plot. I recall almost nothing about it, in fact. I may have told someone; if I told you, please let me know what I said.

+++

Okay. I’m back. It’s nearing ten o’clock now, that morning moment at which plans for the day should have been made, confirmed, and their execution begun. I’m running a little behind. I’m thinking of putting off until tomorrow the things I should do today. Making that conscious decision makes me more than complicit in the crime; it provides irrefutable evidence of my guilt. But I really should vacuum and dust and straighten up a bit because the housekeeper is coming tomorrow for her somewhat periodic now-and-again visit. I hope she enjoys working around a dog. No, I wouldn’t do that. I’ll take Bob in the car for a long, long drive. If I knew anyone nearby with a huge, dog-proof-fenced yard, I’d ask if I could impose by letting Bob run free. Then again, I might prefer to just keep Bob in the car, where he seems to be in ecstasy from the moment he jumps inside.

+++

Enough fun for now.

I learned of Bob’s fear of thunder and lightning when I felt his paws pulling at the sheet. He was trying to climb up into bed with me. I succeeded in preventing it, but moments later—when a bright flash of lightning, accompanied by a crack of thunder that violently shook the house, lit the room—he tried again, much harder, to leap up onto the bed. Once again, I succeeded in keeping him off, but this time I tried to comfort him by stroking his ears and talking to him. I had to say “No!” a few times, but eventually he got the message. He settled down on the floor next to the bed. A short while later, following a few more lightning flashes and rumbles of thunder, I heard his nails click-click-click on the floor as he padded off, seeking solace elsewhere.

When I woke up this morning, much later than usual, I was surprised that he was not in his bed. I assumed he had decided to spend the night on the loveseat in the office. My assumption was correct. He was there and there he remains as I type this post. I imagine he’ll soon decide it’s time for breakfast, which means he will interrupt my post and urge me to hurry, hurry, hurry to prepare his morning meal. No long after, he may insist on taking a walk, but the prospect of thunder and lightning may dissuade him from that routine. I’ll be interested to discover how he deals with two competing emotions: the joy of walking and terror thrust downward from the sky.

+++

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, the day my neighbors will feed me corned beef and cabbage for dinner. It’s hard to believe we’re already mid-way into the third month of the year. Time, that artificial construct about which I write far too often, has apparently ingested large quantities of methamphetamine, AKA speed. That’s the only explanation that can fully explain the “rapidity of moments,” as I am wont to call the quick passage of time.

+++

The National Weather Service has informed me that Hot Springs Village is under a Tornado Watch until 1:00 p.m. today. That fact makes me wonder about the wisdom of taking Bob for a walk, whether he wants to go or not. On the other hand, Bob’s morning walks lead to intestinal cleansing events, which if they were to take place in the house would be unfortunate and stress-inducing all the way around. One assumes one knows how to deal with such situations because, well, people have pets therefore they must know how to address such circumstances. But confusion can overcome obvious knowledge. And so it has. I will learn. Possibly.

+++

A year ago today I found the answer to a question that had been on my mind for several years. But I did not accept the answer. This morning, though, I have come to accept the answer. And the answer is: Clyde McPhatter. The question was “Whose version of I’m Not Going to Work Today was played on the Glenn Mitchell Show on Labor Day, 205?” A year ago, I believed the answer was Boot Hog Pefferly and the Loafers. No longer. No, it was definitely Clyde McPhatter.

That’s one of several benefits of maintaining a blog. It can jog one’s memory. It can serve as a repository of minutia so utterly meaningless that the chances that one’s brain will recall such minutia without assistance are very, very small. And it can remind the blogger of moods, emotions, ideas, thoughts, considerations, and other such stuff that once occupied the brain. In fact, it can resurrect such stuff, weaving it together so thoroughly that it seems real. Even when it’s not. For example, I could make up something today and write about it as if it were real. A year or five from now, I could read what I’d written and I might successfully deceive myself into believing what I’d written. I haven’t done that, but perhaps I will. But not just yet.

+++

Artificial humor is an ineffective shield against the blues. It’s about as practical as replacing bulletproof vests with cellophane.

+++

It’s after 8 and I’ve still been unable to convince myself to get up and moving. But I have to feed Bob, so now is the time to begin a new adventure.

I did not do a very good job of taking a picture, but this image should illustrate reasonably well what the urn I had made for Janine’s ashes looks like. Her favorite color was purple, so I had the urn made with three bands of purple heart. The other wood is ambrosia maple, any of various varieties of maple that have been stained when beetles bore into the maple and leave acidic trails. I think she would have been extremely impressed by the work of Craig Annen, who made the urn, and June Lamoureux, who painted the dragon fly. Dragon flies were Janine’s favorite insect creatures. She had t-shirts with dragon fly motifs, she had garden art depicting dragon flies, and she had wall art with multiple dragon flies shown in multiple “shadow box” type displays. And more. Craig is an incredibly talented wood-turner and June is an amazing, well-regarded and well-known artist. I haven’t thanked her yet for the dragon fly art, but I will.

I asked Craig to make something elegant, but simple. Janine like clean lines, simple presentations, and superior quality. That’s what Craig produced for us. He was Janine’s friend, too, and he was happy and honored to craft her urn. He spent many, many hours on the project. In an ideal world, I would have paid him $50 per hour for his work, but this world, I’m afraid, is not ideal.

In just a few days, it will be three months since Janine died. It is a tiny bit easier, but at this rate, I’ll be a very, very old man before I can accept that she’s gone and I am completely alone. Friends, as wonderful as they are, can never take the place of a spouse. I guess no one can. But maybe one day someone will find a way to me; someone who can accept and understand my perpetual love of my wife and someone for whom I can provide the same protective anchor. The likelihood, though, is slim. Very, very slim.

I do need to try to adjust. Not get over it, but adjust. I don’t know whether that will ever happen, either.

I want to make an appointment with a surgeon. I need to find one who will do a lobotomy, no questions asked. Cash only. No record of the patient’s name, address, gender, race, hair color, eye color. Nothing. Just a quick operation and, Presto! I’m a new man.

A Portuguese neurologist named Egas Moniz performed the first brain surgery to treat mental illness, in 1935. The surgical procedure, which Moniz called a “leucotomy,” involved drilling holes in the patient’s skull to get to the brain. Eleven years later, Walter Freeman, a psychiatrist, performed the first “ice pick” lobotomy in his office in Washington, DC.  But for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years before that, humans have used trepans, tools that cut shallow circular holes, to drill holes in the skull to release evil spirits. I don’t know which process is most likely to give me the results I want: Serenity that’s unavailable to people overcome with evil spirits or who have tightly knotted balls of razor-sharp barbed wire in their heads. A lobotomy severs the connections between the frontal lobes and the rest of the brain; something so simple it could be performed by children on their stressed parents in the comfort of their own homes.

Why, you may ask, am I expressing a need to make an appointment for a lobotomy? A more appropriate question might be, “Why not?” What valid and persuasive reasons might I have for NOT arranging for the procedure? Sure, the results might not be as I wish. And I might not survive the process. And the aftermath could leave me incapable of managing my own daily life. There could be hundreds of reasons to skip the procedure, opting for something else, instead.

Something a little more adventurous, like replacing my legs with newer, stronger, more attractive models. The legs of a 25-year-old marathon runner might do, as long as his knees and ankles and so forth have not been permanently damaged by the repeated poundings they took during the man’s ten year career as a professional marathon runner. As I see it, the biggest stumbling block would not be the removal of my legs and their painstaking replacement. The key obstacle is likely getting the runner’s consent. Why would he be willing to have his legs severed and exchanged with mine? I have doubts he would go for it. Money could enter the equation, but how much are two marathon-quality legs worth? And would the man be willing to exchange a lifetime of sprint-worthy mobility for, at best, hobbling around on geezer feet, simply to accumulate money? Even if he were motivated by money, where would I get it?

Inasmuch as he almost certainly will refuse to accept checks, I’ll have to gather plenty of cash. The only places that keep that much within easy reach, I think, are banks. So, I’ll have to rob a bank. A big bank awash in super rich clients who eschew credit and debit cards in favor of pulling out rolls of hundred-dollar-bills to pay for packs of gum and toothpicks. Banks that cater to the cash-loving über rich will have to be my targets. Once I’ve identified them, I’ll case the places; camera locations, security guards, ease of ingress and egress, etc. And I’ll need a disguise; I’ll want to look much taller and thinner than I am. I’ll want to walk in with blue eyes, cherry red hair, with a beard and mustache covering most of my face. And a black fedora. And I’ll wear a sky-blue leisure suit. The reason for the leisure suit is that…oh, I’m not allowed to say.

The box into which I will instruct the tellers to place the stacks of bills will measure 22 inches by 32 inches by 38 inches tall. That box should accommodate roughly $16,800,000 in $100 bills, the only denomination I will accept. Half of that will go to the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and the rest will go into my bank accounts.

From the moment I walk in the bank to the instant the full box is in my possession, I will be deadly serious and threatening. But when the money is in my possession, I will transform from a dramatically pudgy lump of White shortness into a tall, gregarious Black man with six-pack abs and skin as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

Using my new identity, I will say to the tellers, “Thank you for your professionalism and grace in the face of severe stress. I will repay you soon for your efforts to make this engagement as flawless and possible.”

But things could go horribly awry. One of the tellers, a forty-four year old recently divorced childless woman named Michelle will have pushed the emergency call button immediately after I made my demands. Four police cars, their sirens blaring, will screech to a stop in front of the bank just as I will make my way to the front, carrying my box full of $100 bills.

When I see the police, I will shout out loud, “Oh, no! Someone called the police! You’ll be sorry. Half of my take was to go to the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. But you were more protective of the damn bank than you are of children in need! I will remember this!”

Michelle will look at me and mouth the words, “I’m sorry,” but it will be too late. I already will have decided she must have been the one to press the emergency button. So I turned toward her, pointed my gun, and pulled the trigger. Michelle went down in less than an instant. I had envisioned a life with her. But she ruined it with her finger and her admission of betrayal.

+++

I’ve fallen asleep at the computer half a dozen times. I think I’ve contracted narcolepsy, perhaps from Bob, the dog. I’ve been sleeping quite lightly of late, trying to listen for Bob’s paw-steps while dozing. That act keeps me tired most of the time. The other time I’m tired for other reasons.

I’ve noticed that I twitch when I sleep upright in a desk chair. The twitch is not constant; in fact, it’s rare, but when I twitch the movement awakens me. It’s the same twitch I notice in Bob, the dog. But his twitches are followed by whimpering howls and legs moving as if he is running. I do not run, though I used to. Now, I tend to hobble. That is, I walk lamely, with a limp. Of sorts. Maybe it’s not a limp. It could be that I shuffle or stagger or stumble. Whatever it is, it does not resemble a run in any way, shape, manner, or form.  Why am I writing about twitching in desk chairs? Could I not find something more engaging? More interesting? More relevant to something…anything? Is it sloth-induced boredom? Do I need something to change my mind the way I change my shirts?

I’m in the mood for something completely different. Taking powerful mood altering drugs or special hallucination-inducing fungus or engaging in intimate relationships with married or divorced or single women. Actually, I might not take the drugs or eat the mushrooms; not without competent medical experts at the ready by my side. How strange would it be to hallucinate that a large tabby cat was morphing into an ambulance while doctors that looked like enormous crows stood by patiently, blood-drenched scalpels in hand? That would scare me. I am terrified of being scared. I get nervous and frightened and deeply apprehensive whenever I am scared. For that reason, alone, I probably would avoid the powerful mood-altering or hallucination-inducing options.

+++

All I’ve had for sustenance thus far today was a six- or eight-ounce glass of tomato juice, flavored with Worchestershire Sauce and Tabasco Sauce. I should have added some lemon juice from a fresh lemon, but lacking a fresh lemon I did not add lemon juice. So I made something like an incomplete Virgin Mary. The Incomplete Virgin sounds like a book title, doesn’t it? Sometimes the title can spawn a book. Other times, it takes a completed book to spawn a title. Life is like that, isn’t it? Sometimes a person has to die for his life to have meaning. Other times, a person has to live for his death to have meaning. The philosophy in those statements is crawling with fleas, courtesy of Bob, the dog. I sincerely hope Bob does not have fleas; because, if he has fleas, I have fleas. He likes to rest his head in my lap while I watch television. Bob and his sleeping habits and possible flea infestation has nothing whatsoever to do with an Incomplete Virgin Mary. For that reason, I recommend un-reading the part of this paragraph that has anything to do with Bob. That’s the only way you’ll be able to leave this post, untainted.

+++

If I weren’t so damn introverted in the public arena, I might get into acting. No one who has not spent time as my wife would know that I am an actor from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed at night. But especially early in the day. The “real” me is evident during the entire period, but the characters I portray are in full form when no one who has not spent time as my wife is present. I sing, I attempt to dance, I alter my voice and my facial appearance…at least to the extent I can with my face muscles and tendons that come to my aid. I’m relatively sure a candid early-morning video of me would reveal enough doubt about my stability to justify an attempt to have me committed to a mental hospital. On the other hand, an actors’ agent with sufficient wherewithal to “sniff out” hidden talent might look at the video and insist on signing me on as a client

He would say, “Either this man is a genius or an imbecile. If the former, he can make us both rich. If the latter, he can make me rich.  Either way, it’s a win.”

+++

As I sit here, nodding off occasionally, the clock reads 12:38 pm. I have spent the morning whiling away the hours by taking Bob for a walk, having a conversation with my sister-in-law, and speaking to the woman from the Animal Welfare League. They’re going to try send Bob to Connecticut if the agency in Connecticut will take him. Apparently, bigger dogs have an easier time of getting adopted in Connecticut. We’ll see.

I’ve felt enormous highs and deep lows during the past week. While is beyond my comprehension. What I feel like now is a meal. Something to eat. There’s plenty to eat in the house; just nothing that I have is sufficiently interesting to me to warrant using it as a prime ingredient. Oh, well.

The clock claims the hour is 6:00 a.m., but I know better. The time actually is an hour earlier. But what, exactly, is a moment in “time?” Could I label this very instant in time as 5:37 p.m., adjusting all other moments accordingly, and still live a full and complete life? Humans, in general, have collectively agreed to a relatively simple system of differentiating “then” from “now.” And we call that system “time.” We base our assertions about “time” on the movements of the Earth and the Sun and the planets and various observations made by long-dead astronomical mystics. We call it a scientific system. Or, at least, we seem to believe it is scientific. In fact, though, it is an artificial pseudo-scientific construct used to organize chaos into easily-understood packets of experience that last “just so long.”

Yes, I’ve written about the mysteries of time before. Many times. Time is a fascinating construct; evidence of mass psychosis welcomed by billions upon billions of humans who willingly give in to its power over them. How would our lives be different if we did not bother with time? How could we answer the simple question: “When?” Without time, we would not need (or have the ability) to answer the question because the query would be irrelevant and meaningless.

Think of how time has invaded our thought processes and our languages. Before. After. During. When. Then. Now. Multiply those words by the number of languages into which they can be translated. Add other words to the mix; words that suggest different instances or moments or durations. All right, I believe I’ve made my point: the concept of time has crept into every element of our lives. We cannot conceive of life without time, no matter how hard we try. The concept of time is not limited to life, either. Death “follows” life; it comes “after.”  A “lifetime” of memories often are on display at celebrations of the life of a person who has died.

Speaking of language, and I was (at some point), what value would a past participle have in an existence in which time was missing?  Future tense? Was. Had. Did. Will. Looked. Spoke. They all merge thoughts with instances or periods of time.

Yeah, and so what? Nothing, really. Just some irrelevant observations about the human condition. Would time exist in the absence of humans? Hard to say, having never been in such a situation. Whether other animals conceive of the construct of time in the abstract is impossible to know, I think. We have introduced them to time by way of training them about “when” feeding time is/will be. But without our interference, would they have any sense of time? And, again, so what? Does it matter? “Again.” That word also suggests an underlying connection with time. “Not yet.” They keep popping into my head. If they don’t stop, my skull will fill to beyond its capacity and it will detonate in a fiery mushroom cloud; phrases are combustible in the extreme.

Even “combustible.” It suggests combustion “can occur later.” Doesn’t it? Have I lost my mind? Has time entered my cranium and eaten my brain, leaving only an empty container and thousands upon thousands of useless, broken, spent words? It’s possible.

+++

I mentioned the time when I first started writing this morning because the dog, AKA Bob, roused me much earlier. Bob has not yet adjusted to the time change. (Didn’t we just arbitrarily adjust time on a whim?) He wanted breakfast and, of course, a long, hard-driving walk. He got breakfast. He will get the walk. I’m not sure whether I’ll shower and shave first, though. I look a little like I slicked down my hair with cold bacon grease before bed. The thin, short silver and white and sandy blonde stubble on my face and neck suggests I have not shaved since I was younger (another dimension of time). I’ve not put on jeans or a sweatshirt yet, so if I were to go out now, I would be underdressed, cold, and subject to being detained as an old man who wandered out of his house looking for his youth. I do not feel old, though. I feel like a young buck, a raging stud ready to take on the world and make it mine. A little like that, anyway. I’ll take the damn dog for a walk, first.

+++

Damn! I just checked my calendar and found that I have a Zoom class. Not to worry; it will be recorded and I can listen/watch later. This is not a good moment to do that; nice that they will record it. I think.

+++

One way or another, I will set up the heavy wooden bed frame in the master bedroom this week. I will move the twin bed someplace else. Maybe I’ll switch their places. But I’ll need help; my neighbors offered to assist, but the queen bed weighs just over one million pounds, so I’ll need another body or two. That’s no problem. The problem, really, is the reconstruction of the queen bed; getting it back together will be the challenge. It always is. And putting the Sleep Number platform and air mattress back together will make me feel small and inept. Always does. That’s why I should hire a team of servants. Highly paid servants. Pay them enough and they’ll be willing to wash the windows, inside and out. Give them three weeks paid vacation, health insurance, and keys to a new LandRover and they will be willing to clean the rugs on occasion. I already know their names: Phaedra, Linda, Apollonia, and Alluria. By some strange coincidence, they’re each 43 years old and fiercely independent, though deeply jealous. None of them knows about the others; quite a trick, I must say. Each of them has her own room with ensuite facilities; I had to add on to the house to accommodate them.

+++

Apollonia is the namesake of Apollonia James, a character in Overdrawn and the Memory Bank. Arom Fingal is another character in that film; Raul Julia played that part. Linda Griffiths played the part of Apollonia James. I’ve read that some of the actors who played in the film did not like it. I don’t care; I liked it.

+++

How would the world (or your little part of it) react if you publicly acknowledged your most private, most tightly kept secrets or fantasies? Would you be shunned? Arrested? Placed in chains? Or are you the type whose fantasies would generate admiration and respect?  Tell you what: reveal those secrets or fantasies to me and we’ll keep it between just the two of us; I’ll let you know what the rest of the world would say without putting you through the embarrassment.

We want to know things about other people; private and personal things that make us feel closer bonds to them. I’m not talking about strangers on the street, of course. I refer to people with whom we’re already close…more or less. And I think we want to share secrets. When a secret is shared with us, we feel privileged. Until it is shared with the rest of the world; the privilege shrivels like a water balloon with a moderately fast leak.

+++

Enough for now. I’ve been dawdling here, off and on, for more than 90 minutes. Those minutes are gone forever; I cannot retrieve them. I could have spent them painting the laundry room or playing online games of chance. Instead, I spent them here. With you.

A year ago, panic buying of toilet paper had begun. Grocery store shelves had been stripped of dried beans and rice. When a herd mentality, driven by fear of the unknown, begins to evolve, intelligence tends to slip beneath the surface, replaced in full view by emotion. But panic buying and hording and other such reactions to the emerging pandemic were not stupid. They were rational responses to a chaotic environment. We did not know quite what to expect, but in the event the supply chains for food and sanitation were interrupted, we wanted to be prepared.

Repeated circumstances in which at least a subset of the food supply chain has been interrupted have not taught us well. When strawberries are in short supply, we wish we had planted a bed several weeks earlier. When zucchini and yellow squash are not available, we wish we had put in a large vegetable garden at the beginning of the season. But we have no strawberry beds did we install a large vegetable garden. We did not plan for sustainable sources of protein, either, when thoughts of survival disturbed our unreasonable expectations of an unending food supply.

What might have happened if we had finally heeded the call of logic? What if we’d put out strawberries, planted a huge vegetable garden, and raised a few chickens for eggs and protein? If we had planted and raised and tended on a massive scale, many sectors of the agribusiness market, especially small operators, might have folded. Unintended consequences borne of what I might call responsible independence. The economy is an extraordinarily resilient social structure, but that pliancy is available at the cost of rippling fragility. Consider what might happen to the automotive industry if, suddenly, the demand for cars evaporated. Or to the oil industry if inexpensive, competitively productive alternatives to gasolines and plastics were to come onto the scene.

In a more ideal world, collaboration would reveal “unintended consequences” before decisions are made and actions taken. But in a competitive world, the victor takes the spoils, regardless of unplanned and unimagined consequences. Collaboration, though, in which the collective good is the desired outcome, would tend to examine (to the extent possible) potential outcomes at least several effects deep.

+++

Today’s sky is drab, wet, and unappealing. It is not a day to go walking, but I suspect I will, anyway. My creativity is languishing at the bottom of a sterile barrel. Bah!

This morning’s moment of awe came when I paid close attention to the act of swallowing my daily dose of tablets and pills. Having very little patience, I do not swallow them one by one. Instead, I pour them into my palm, throw them into my mouth, and take a big gulp of water. In one fell swallow, the drugs begin the journey:

• the tongue pushes the pills to the back of the oral cavity by pressing against the palate;
• the nasopharynx is sealed off and the larynx is elevating, enlarging the pharynx to receive the pills;
• the pharyngeal sphincters contract sequentially, squeezing the pills into the esophagus;
• the epiglottis closes the trachea;
• the pills move down the esophagus by peristaltic contractions, past the lower esophageal sphincter and into the stomach.

The only conscious decision I make in the process is the one involving the tongue. After the pills get to the back of the oral cavity, an automatic system takes over.  I did not write the bullet points above from knowledge or memory. I had to rely on The Neurology of Swallowing to guide me through the stages of swallowing. Had I not looked up the process of swallowing, I would have guessed at the physiological systems involved in transporting material from my mouth to my stomach. Thanks to teachers long ago, I would have gotten significant parts of the process right, but I would have overlooked some of the most crucial. The fact that people actually study and understand the complexities of swallowing is a wonder in itself. Life, itself, is awe-inspiring.

As I type this and drink a few sips of coffee, I pay attention to what I am doing. It transports me in some fashion to a different level of consciousness; an awareness of an action I take for granted and rarely appreciate for its mystical wonder.

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Platonic is defined (in one sense) as “intimate and affectionate but not sexual” or “purely spiritual; free from sensual desire, especially in a relationship between two persons of different sexes.” I think the term is simply a label attached to a specific spot on a spectrum of intimacy. Platonic friendships can morph into passionate relationships, just as concupiscent engagements can wither into indifferent partnerships. That is, passionate and platonic are not necessarily steady states; they can slide along the spectrum of intimacy, changing in parallel with the depth of the relationship.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “friends with benefits.” Generally speaking, in our society, the phrase and the behavior it describes are looked upon unfavorably. Again, though, our social rules are not necessarily carved in stone. Morality is a flexible construct. While I might (or might not) find the concept offensive today, that attitude might be different tomorrow. And it might have been different yesterday. I wish all people were more open and receptive to new ideas or revisiting old ideas already deemed immoral or unseemly. Even those of us who claim an open-mind live within spheres built of artificial mental boundaries.

And, then, the dog interrupted. Bob and I are not suited for each other after all, I think. Last night, at 1:45 a.m., Bob came into the room where I was sleeping and woke me. He pranced a bit with this two front paws, making me think he needed something. As I got out of bed, his prancing grew more animated. I quickly got dressed (more or less…at least I wore casual house pants, a t-shirt, and slippers), attached his leash to his collar, and took him outside. Aside from a bright streetlight and a brightly-lit house across the street, the street in both directions was dark. Very dark. I took Bob for a short walk, nonetheless, whereupon he demonstrated why he was in such urgent need of going outside. Fortunately, I was carrying gloves and a double-bagged sack from Walmart.

Bob is too big and demanding for me; I’m contentedly set in my ways. My morning routine is completely out of kilter. While taking him for walks is pleasant (except for his incessant pulling and that one late-night emergency poop patrol), I have begun to think morning walks alone, without the distraction of a dog peeing every forty feet and barking at distant dogs and a hundred other diversions, would be more peaceful and thought-inspiring.

Bob need much more activity than I can give. He needs a big yard to play in. He does not need to be cooped up in a house for most of the day, with or without human companionship. As much as I like Bob and enjoy his company, I have almost reached the conclusion that he needs someone with more space and more willingness to walk him several times a day. And take him for rides in the car; he loves car rides.

I think I may foster Bob for a while, just so he does not have to return to a kennel with very little room to roam and inadequate human company (though, as I understand, the Animal Welfare League volunteers do take their dogs out for walks and otherwise treat them well). We’ll see. I thought I wanted a dog. And I think I still do. Just a smaller, less physically needy dog. I think. I wish I could magically find Bob’s original human companion and reunite them. I can’t help but think someone is missing Bob deeply, just as I think Bob misses someone who used to be in his life.

+++

Two dreams last night stuck with me, at least in parts. In one of them, I was asked to buy a clothes hanger system for a girl who was going away to college. I never saw the girl, nor did I recognize the woman and her other daughter who asked me to buy it. The hangers comprised an ingenious system wherein the hangers were loosely attached to a rail that had multiple sections. Each section of rail expanded out of the section to its left, creating a very long rail when fully extended. The hangers’ design was traditional, except for the top; instead of a curved “hook,” the top was designed to slide onto the bottom section of the rail. It was ingenious except that it was made entirely of plastic; I thought it would not stand much use before breaking. But the woman insisted I buy and install it for her daughter. I do not know how or where it ended. Odd, that dream.

The other dream involved my late wife and me making some sort of frozen dessert and selling it to a bakery. We delivered it, but the passageway from the store’s entry to the area where the freezer was located was too narrow for me to pass through; so my wife when down that passageway and I went through another entry. When we started to unload our products into the freezer, we discovered it was completely filled with other products and, mostly, frost. It must have never been defrosted. Again, I don’t know where the dream went, nor how it ended.

Do dreams actually end with some sort of resolution or natural conclusion? Or do they simply stop, as if they were recorded on film that was suddenly cut in the middle of something important or relevant or meaningful? I’ve often wondered about that.  Many people find stories of others’ dreams boring. I find them fascinating. I can envision a dream-sharing group, just two or three or four of us, sitting around a table relating our memories of our dreams. We could then guess as what they might “mean,” as if we have any way of knowing what or whether dreams have any meaning at all. But it would be fun, I think. The conversations would be great over coffee. Or wine. Or something else.

+++

A friend from the DFW area plans to visit in early April. I think I’ve met her only once, face to face, but I’ve followed her on Facebook for quite some time.  She writes poetry, which is how I came to know her. My wife and I learned from another friend that this woman was going to read her poetry at a library event. We decided to go. I was impressed with her reading and have followed her, off and on, ever since. She has wanted to visit Hot Springs for years, apparently, and the fact that I am here and have a guest room helped make her decision to come. She may come with a friend; that’s up in the air, I think. She wants to go for day hikes; I told her I might be game, but my stamina may not permit it. I may suggest to my sister-in-law that she give my friend guidance and possibly accompany her on day hikes. My sister-in-law may read this before I mention it to her. That’s the thing about blogs; they sometimes tend to pre-communicate.

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I finished watching To the Lake, a Netflix Russian-language series, last night. To save myself and readers the trouble, here’s how Wikipedia describes its plot:

Residents of Moscow are infected with an unknown deadly virus, the main symptoms of which are coughing and discoloration of the eyes, and after three to four days, death occurs. Nobody knows how to resist infection. The capital of the country is covered by an epidemic, gradually turning it into a city of the dead: there is no electricity, money has lost its value, chaos and lawlessness reign everywhere and gangs of marauders are gathering, the media are panicking, and those who are not yet infected are desperately fighting for food and gasoline. The city is being quarantined; all entrances to it are closed.

Fleeing from the epidemic, Sergei, along with his new lover, her autistic son, his own son, his ex-wife who could not forgive him, his father and the neighbors who joined them, go to Karelia. There, on a desert island in the middle of Vongozero, they want to hide from the threat of contamination in a refuge ship.

Against the background of a terrible global catastrophe, a cruel family drama is also played out. People who normally would never have been under the same roof must now unite to try to escape the growing epidemic. On the way, they will not only face various dangers, but also overcome family troubles, learn not only to survive, but also to forgive.

I found the series (only eight episodes of about 45 minutes or an hour each) fascinating. It is based on a debut novel by Russian writer Yana Vagner.

+++

I think it’s about time to devour a bowl of bran flakes. In an earlier time, I might have made shakshuka, but it’s not as much fun to cook for one as it is to cook for a couple. My wife sometimes enjoyed my forays into international breakfasts, but more often than not she simply put up with them (or opted to eat something else, much to my dismay). But having her here to watch or, at least, view the finished dish was always gratifying. I miss her so much in so many ways. Until just now, I was ready to charge into the day; now, I’m splintering.

My first blog was entitled Musings from Myopia. The second one was Brittle Road. The third, It Matters Deeply. Those three, plus this one, are the only ones with any significant substance. A few others, each only one or two or three posts long, have disappeared into the ether of my memories. They still may exist, but I have no reason to search for them. And then there is this one, the eponymous compilation of thoughts and emotions and ideas and contemplations I hoped might be worth recording for posterity. Maybe this one is simply a monument to my ego.

Despite multiple attempts to carve out or otherwise stake a claim to an intellectual legacy, the outcomes thus far have been inconsistent and incomplete. But that may be the most lasting lesson of my efforts—that consistency and completion cannot be achieved in the universe in which we live. Our world and everything in it is in a constant state of flux. None of us are consistently reliable. We steadfastly deviate from certainty. And the very idea that we really finish anything is laughable. We don’t even truly begin. Whether we know it or not, our efforts are just continuations of ideas of others; others about whom we may know little or nothing. Our knowledge is built in layers, like the petrified sediments of a million-year-old river bed. Each successive layer requires the ones that came before it to serve as its base. There may be an original layer, somewhere deep beneath the ones above, but probably it is thin and weak. And it may have merged with the ones above it, hiding its crucial role as the place where something started.

Digging deep into our own psyches, we can mine more riches than if we were to dig in a pit of diamonds. Looking within, we are capable of creating knowledge that simply cannot exist in a cursory universe. While we do not begin and we do not finish, we always serve as critical links between past and present and future. But only for ourselves. Only for that secret person hidden beneath the façades we show the world. For me, this blog is the tool I use to explore a mine; to find out where I have been, where I am, and where I might be going. This may sound mystical and mysterious, but it is far from it. Examining every facet of our lives allows us to know ourselves more thoroughly, though not completely. I think most people, though, either are afraid of searching beneath the surface layers. Or they do not realize the substrata reflect our selves far more realistically than does the surface.

I have more to say about this. But not just now. Now, I have other obligations that take my fingers from the keys.

When we are unsure of the directions our lives should take, everyone in our spheres want to become compasses. No matter how different we are from one another, the fact that we belong to the same species suggests we should follow paths trodden by those who share our taxonomy.  Perhaps, though, we are the ones who seek out compasses. We find it easier and less dangerous to let others blaze trails than to carve out our own. But danger finds us, no matter where we go. But when we make our own danger, the path back to safety is unsure.

+++

This is not working. I do not know what I want or need to say; only that, whatever it is, it is not reachable. A dog can’t fix it. A friend can’t fix it. Only time has a chance of fixing it, and that’s only a slim chance.

The unlit day was cloudy, cool, and windy as I wrote this. I knew these weather conditions from experience, because Bob already had insisted on going outside into the dark. I assumed he needed to relieve himself, but it seems he simply wanted to go on a walk. I’d only barely touched my coffee, so I rejected his demands after taking him out for a brief stroll. A moderate walk, about a mile, came later, but not until after daybreak. Still, he did not seem satisfied. He ate breakfast, slurped some water, and then behaved as if he was ready to begin again.

My plan was to write, before Bob insisted on taking over my morning. I think I may have to do what his former foster family did; put him in his kennel overnight and then let him out after they had sufficiently engaged with the following day to become servants, treating Bob like royalty. I have never fancied becoming a serf.

+++

Distractions, the ones impossible to ignore, wreck my thought processes. They redirect my thinking, turning it upside down and sideways. Even when I crave solitude, distractions can convince me otherwise, causing me to pack my schedule with events I would appreciate and enjoy another time, but not then—not when I need to carefully unwind the spiral spring steel that resides inside my head. Distractions hatch more distractions in a never-ending pattern until I can’t quite understand whether I live in this century or another one long since passed or yet to be.

+++

Desire can have the same effect as distractions. Desire can bend a thousand perpendicular, steely strands of thought into a twisted, garbled, impossibly knotted mat of fragile and incomplete ideas. Wishes tangled with wants tangled with hopes and thirsts and passions. That snarled mass of emotion transforms reason into ignorance; motive into blind impulse.

+++

The need for affection can decay into a willingness to accept the embrace of the nearest set of arms. Loss of self-respect cannot be far behind and, with it, the loss of any sense of purpose…even a twisted, gnarled, damaged sense of purpose. When affection becomes more important than life, that’s the moment danger wraps its ragged, skeletal hands around the neck and squeezes as if the end of life depended on it.

+++

My only reliable reason for living was my wife. We had plenty of difficulties and unmet challenges, but we relied on one another for love and a reason to be. Her absence leaves a terrible wound whose pain is being deadened with time, but the wound remains, infecting all the remaining tissue.

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A year ago I wrote about wanderlust, a desire to be on the road and to experience different landscapes and different relationships.  My mind produced these words: “My daydreams about hitting the road may be about developing new relationships without worrying about navigating around existing potholes. It may be easier to repair an axle broken by driving into a new pothole than repairing a relationship damaged by misinterpreting, as cues, messages that were never sent.” I can only guess at what caused me to write that.

+++

I’ll have lunch with friends today, then late this afternoon I’ll participate in a Zoom call with other friends who live far, far away. Before the day is out, I’ll try to arrange to pick up a loaner telescope from the library and I’ll try to submit a form to the State of Arkansas. How could I describe my “productivity” for the day? What value will I add to humanity during the next twelve hours? Hard to say, really. Impossible, actually.

+++

More groceries, plus household goods. Two orders from two stores. Little that’s truly necessary, but apparently it’s sufficiently important to me that I’ve willingly spent nearly  $100 to satisfy my wants. I pick up one order tomorrow morning and the other one very early the following day. I am reduced to talking about my grocery-buying habits. I have nothing else of value to say. Jesus! But the thing is I do not want to have to take ownership and responsibility for being of value (or lacking it). So it appears I will continue to bitch about being lazy, while wanting nothing more than to be lazy.  What a sour mood I’m in right now. And there’s really no reason for it.

+++

I have yet to shower or shave or eat breakfast. And I’ve had only a single cup of coffee. I am tired. I could sleep for a year.

A few days ago, the decision my late wife and I made to skip the joys and obligations of parenthood was a subject of my observations. Today, I am at least the temporary caretaker of a fifty-four pound lap dog named Bob; a dog that requires twice-daily feedings, at least two (usually, so far, more than two) walks per day, regular veterinary visits and the attendant expenses, unwavering attention, and more. And Bob has disrupted my life to some extent. My early morning solitude is a luxury of the past. Instead of getting up, making coffee, and meditating through my fingers, Bob urges me to take him outside. Now. He wants to walk. A more apt description is that he wants to run, his nose glued to the trail of some unknown target, but his desire is thwarted by having to drag an old man behind him.

As much as I like Bob, I wonder whether I have tricked myself into believing I need a companion? I wonder whether I just wanted a way to get through the loneliness? Yet my desire for a dog is not new. I have had a romanticized idea about dog companionship for a very long time. But I have not had a dog since I was in high school. I could have had a dog long, long ago. My wife would have been flexible about it; even though she did not embrace the idea, I am certain she would have been happy with a dog if it made me happy.

Do I really want a dog, or do I simply want the idea of how a dog at my side would make me feel? I suppose time will tell. But not too much time. I do not want a dog to become attached to me, only to be put back in the dog fostering system. The thing that really gives me second thoughts is the obvious fact that Bob wants room to run and frolic and play and chase real or imaginary quarry. I strongly suspect he had that kind of home before he was brought in to the HSV Animal Welfare League. I wish I knew more about his history. I thought, today, that he might have lived on or near Brookhill Ranch, where there’s lots of room to roam. I’m tempted to try to find out. But I’m not sure how. As much as I think Bob is a wonderful beast, I think he needs more room than I am able to give him. But if I’m his last best hope, then I’ll certainly give him a home.

Before I stumbled across an online listing for Bob, I was convinced the only dog for me would be a small (under 20 pound) dog; a friendly, easy-to-care-for animal that would quickly develop an attachment to me and vice versa. Bob is nearly three times the weight. He is fiercely powerful and dedicated to pull hard on his leash. He sits on command, but only when presented with a treat. He responds to a few other commands, but only in the right circumstances. He enjoys sitting in humans’ laps or sprawling on sofas.

I’m still leaning strongly toward keeping him, but I’m feeling quite guilty for doing it. He needs more space and energy than I am able to give him. Maybe if I bought some acreage and a mobile home…

+++

My home insurance bill came in the mail today, taking my breath and much of my financial cushion away. The size of the bill makes me seriously consider going “naked,” also known as self-insuring. Of course, self-insuring assumes adequate liquid cash to rebuild and restore one’s home and possessions. I ask everyone this question: do you have enough ready cash to rebuild your house and refurnish it with everything you have bought and kept for the last fifty years? If so, I applaud and admire and very nearly worship you. I don’t have that kind of cash sitting around collecting dust (or even interest). I will not go naked. I will pay the bill and plan to set aside even more each month so I have what it takes to pay the bill next year without blinking. My wife took care of this stuff until now; she provided the pump for the financial pipeline for our two-person family. I contributed gas and appreciation and recognition, but I did not get very involved. Now, I am. With each property tax bill and insurance statement and credit card statement, I am becoming more miserly.

+++

I went to be early last night, about 9:30, and awoke late, around 6:00. Despite the long hours of sleep last night I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. This has been something of a regular thing for several days, though, before I got Bob, so I cannot blame him. The other day, I fell asleep at my computer in the afternoon. I awoke and saw the computer clock read 6:27. I was confused; I thought I had slept late and that it was 6:27 in the morning. Maybe I am aging faster than I realized.  Whatever. I need a nap.

The decision to have children is, to many and perhaps most people, no more a decision than is growing hair. It is viewed as the inevitable outcome of maturation; the natural process of replenishing and enlarging the herd. Contravening the process is as deviant as plucking every follicle in one’s head and filling the void with a chemical to induce alopecia.

On the contrary, the decision NOT to have children often involves making irreversible judgments after engaging in long, deep, and difficult thought. The hair analogy really does not quite reach the level of gravity involved; deciding against having children is more like opting to remove a limb. Obviously, one can choose to “correct” that decision with a prosthesis. The closest thing to it, with regard to children, is adoption; but after deciding against having children, I suspect agencies are not likely to permit adoption. That is not so in cases of infertility, etc. Once the decision is made and confirmed by vasectomy or other such procedure, the permanence of the choice is pretty much set in stone. But, I know very few people who, after having made the decision, wished they could reverse it. It’s simply the right decision for those who make it, despite the fact that some of them have the occasional and short-lived regret that there will be no grandchildren and no one to care for them in old age.

I have never regretted our decision against having children, aside from the very, very, very occasional (read that as “rare as ten-carat diamonds”) tinge. I’m happy to have a niece and nephews. But I think I would have made a miserable father. I would have resented the time and money and emotions I would have had to spend on children. Selfishness is a very good sign that opting to have children is a bad, bad choice. Maybe, though, all of this is on my mind right now because I’m coming to grips with the fact that I’m an old man and I’m alone. When the time inevitably comes when I grow weak and feeble and unable to look after myself, my options will be extremely limited. A civil, humane society would provide resources to peacefully and painlessly bring a lifetime to an end. Instead, our society  turns us into criminals who may have to illicitly assemble tools of compassion.

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I finished watching my Danish series, Warrior, last night. It got better as the series developed. Or my criticism weakened. Or I finally gave in to the idea that I do not really require high art in my entertainment. Sometimes, simple stuff that doesn’t pass the “willing suspension of disbelief” test is perfectly fine. But I draw the line on mindless slapstick. Usually. I don’t know what I want to watch next. If anything. I may have temporarily tired of the television screen and books and computer monitors and magazines. I may have tired of everything. Almost everything seems artificial. Relationships of all kinds are brittle replicas of reality so fragile they break into pieces when touched by frayed nerve endings. Life is not like a police drama in which a crime is committed, the criminal is caught and tried, and the future is successfully sealed in a half-hour episode.

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Yesterday was a good day. It should have left me with a platform upon which to build an excellent weekend. But in spite of positives, I’m sitting on a mat of shredded, decaying leaves loosely tethered by thin vines to the edges of a canyon fifty yards to either side. A thousand feet below me, a surly river rushes between jagged rocks and broken ledges. I’m bound, hand and foot, with barbed wire. And my nose itches.

+++

I’m scheduled to meet Bob this morning. Bob is a Mountain Cur mix, the Village Animal Welfare League says. Bigger than I was hoping to find, but apparently a nice temperament. We’ll see. Bob may require more exercise than I am able or willing to provide. And they tell me he insists on lolling about on the furniture. But, still. We’ll see, as I said. Over and over and over again.

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The backstory is too long to tell here. I received a multi-page handwritten letter from a young woman (as in 40+) yesterday afternoon. She’s a Facebook friend by way of my sister-in-law. Though we only barely know each other (I met her in person once and I’ve exchanged short messages with her…maybe twice). At any rate, the letter was a delight to receive, despite the fact that it revealed displeasure with her life at the moment. If I could write legibly, I would write a handwritten letter back to her; but I hope she’s satisfied with a typed letter. Her letter to me is part of a project she’s launched to write handwritten letters to people who are willing to receive them (I think to prompt her to get back in the habit of doing what she used to do).

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I’ve arranged to borrow a telescope from the library next Tuesday. The weather forecast calls for clouds and rain for the remainder of next week, so the telescope probably will sit, unused, for several days. The first day when sunny skies are forecast is Thursday, March 18. The forecast may change between now and then, of course.  But on March 15, I will participate in a Zoom educational program about dark night skies; I hope to learn enough about night sky viewing to know at least a little about what I’ll seen through the telescope.

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Time for breakfast. I’m hungry for something, but I don’t know what.

Dr. Fauci and another medical specialist used a word in response to interview questions yesterday that sounded, to me, a bit “stuffy.” The word is “efficacious,” a synonym for which is “effective.” Had I been the one speaking to the press, I would have used “effective,” but I am not a medical doctor. The website, etymonline.com, defines it as “sure to have the desired effect (often of medicines),” so I suppose it is not used to demonstrate superiority of the speaker. Perhaps I’m just a thin-skinned skeptic who prefers his own sesquipedalian usage. I hope not, though. I do like to use words with which I am either unfamiliar or only moderately familiar; it helps build my vocabulary, though my memory is fighting against that endeavor. For example, I’d forgotten the word for “given to using long or multisyllabic words.” I had to look it up; once I saw sesquipedalian, I remembered. But if I saw the word without a definition attached, I’d probably recognize it as a word I once knew but no longer remember.

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This post was not expected. At least not by me. I wrote a second post yesterday to take the place of this one, which I thought I would not have time to write. What with showering, shaving, and tidying up the house for the bi-monthly housekeeper, I thought I’d be hard-pressed to finish my “chores” before it was time to leave the house. Wrong. If I’d get over my penchant for cleaning up in preparation for the person I pay to clean up, I’d have more time. Or if I can’t stop myself from cleaning up, maybe I should stop paying someone to re-do what I just did. I know I am not alone in that absurd habit. Am I?

+++

I watched another couple of episodes of the Danish series, Warrior, last night. It’s not especially good, but it’s entertaining and sufficiently action-packed to keep my attention. Plus, I get to hear people speaking Dutch. That’s not common in Central Arkansas, so it’s worth a trip into the bowels of Netflix to get enmeshed in another culture and language. I find films and series in which characters interact in Spanish and French and Arabic to be just as interesting. Dutch fears of Afghans and vice versa flow just under the surface of the series, at least under part of it, and that’s an interesting tension to watch and hear.

+++

Once again, out of the blue, I got horrific leg cramps in the middle of the night last night. I was in the midst of a dream in which I felt awful pain in my legs; when I woke up, the scene was different but the pain was real. I hadn’t been using good leg-cramp-avoidance practices; I got up (finally, after painfully forcing my legs to cooperate) and drank a few big swigs of tonic water. Maybe it helped. Or maybe it was the stomping of my feet. Or perhaps the profanity had something to do with the subsidence of agony. Damned leg cramps.

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A British doctor with a Middle Eastern name presents, on a BBC video, his theories about seduction. It’s an interesting piece, though it has been a few weeks since I watched it. He defines seduction in a broader sense that most of us do and he claims seduction techniques work to achieve desired results in any number of endeavors, from romance and sex to job promotions and getting hired. Seduction plays a part in every part of our lives, he says, suggesting that the better one gets at seduction, the more likely it will be that the person will enjoy success in all aspects of his or her life.

I’m probably written about Leon Redbone and his song, “I Want to be Seduced,” before. I like that song. It’s so straightforward; incredibly direct.  Here are some of the lyrics I find appealing:

I want to be seduced,
I want a woman to take me out to dinner for two
I want to see her eyes gettin’ moody,
Flirtin’ with the thought of what flirtin’ can lead to
I want to act real cool, have her think about gettin’ little me in bed
Have a chat about Magna Charta, or Puerto Vallarta, or somethin’ Gandhi said
I might demure politely,  falter slightly, if she starts to fondle my knee,
But I’m relatively certain I’d compromise if I know me

I think the appeal is in the last line; “But I’m relatively certain I’d compromise if I know me.” Brutal honesty; but, then, that’s the way he begins the verse and the song. Nothing different, no surprise, but still it’s a flash of honesty that labels him in an unflattering way.

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Time to go. Off to Hot Springs.