John Swinburn

The points at which people are willing to risk imprisonment, torture, or their lives in the fight for freedom and self-determination vary. Most people whose lives have not been badly upended by the cruelty of a dictatorial regime probably have a greater tolerance for political and social discomfort than people who are targeted by authoritarian abuse. By the time the abuse hits home for them, though, their options are limited. They can challenge their own imprisonment and torture, but with little hope of success. They willingly can give up their lives for the “cause,” but without any assurances that the “cause” will triumph. I wonder what would cause me to risk my freedom and my life in an effort to derail an autocracy? How bad would my day-to-day experiences have to get to prompt me to make a full-throated attempt to restore my freedoms…or the freedoms of people whose safety matters to me? After nearly a lifetime of rejecting the idea of gun ownership as a means of personal protection, it occurs to me that the time to amass a stockpile of defensive weapons is well before they are needed. Now, watching a budding dictator as he tramples civil rights and treats freedom as a right reserved for the rich and powerful, I am in the mood for acquiring surface-to-air missiles, shoulder-launched munitions, and nuclear weapons. And, of course, shotguns and rifles and an assortment of handguns, grenades, and other devices capable of doing severe damage to unfriendly, weapon-wielding beasts who want nothing more than to hurt or kill me. Civil war is anything but civil. Perhaps the “weapons” we need are injectable chemicals that cause recipients to slide into pleasant, happy, non-dangerous mental states. States in which the desire to hurt or kill is replaced by a deep appreciation of poetry and painting and sitting by a fireside engaged in conversation over a nice glass of cabernet sauvignon.

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I have a vague recollection of being asked, in an email message, to join a few other members of my church in reading some of my poetry as part of a Sunday service. The event may well have already come and gone; I am relatively sure I read the message and set it aside, planning to return to it later. But I didn’t. And now I feel guilty for having forgotten to reply. I probably have been branded a non-responsive curmudgeon. I have gone to church only a few times in the last year or so; I try to avoid crowds while I’m undergoing chemotherapy because my oncology team tells me the chemicals dramatically reduce my ability to fight off all sorts of infections. But I doubt I’ve told many people that’s the reason. I should make it a point of filling them in—I might be viewed as less of a curmudgeon and more as a dutiful patient.

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This afternoon we plan to get together with a small group of friends for drinks and light snacks at a local restaurant. I will avoid hugs, though I truly like hugging and being hugged…again, the dutiful patient. These are friends from church…the same church I have not visited much of late. It still surprises me to hear myself say it: I belong to a church. No way! Oh, yes, way. But it’s not a church that demands I adopt beliefs I find offensive or intellectually stunting. I’d still like to call it something else…a “gathering” or a “fellowship” or a “place to make friends.” I need to nap in advance of the get together, lest I fall asleep in my chair at the restaurant table.

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Humans tend to believe we are the only creatures who think. But we are willing to concede that dogs and cats have dreams, which we begrudgingly acknowledge are evidence of thought. But we dismiss the idea that trees and bushes and fields of grass and many flowers think, as well. The problem, of course, is that we have a hard time understanding that thinking among vegetation is an entirely different process than among humans. For one thing, trees and shrubs apparently do not have a firm grasp of human language…not English, not Mandarin, not Spanish nor German nor French nor Icelandic nor any others. We cannot conceive of thought without language, despite the fact that Helen Keller stands in direct opposition to that ill-conceived bias. Not only can vegetation think, vegetation can feel…emotions, like ours, but completely different. Pine trees, for example, experience emotions in a way humans experience heavy doses of marijuana gummies. Birds, by the way, can communicate with trees and bushes and grasses either using bird language or vegetation language. Which should tell you…yes…trees and their ilk can hear and understand (and even “speak”) bird-talk. Though they call it “chirpster.”

Not long ago, as I neared a small but tangled highway intersection on the edge of Hot Springs, Arkansas, I was struck by the similarities between humans and ants. Not their physical appearance, of course, but the deliberate nature of their frenetic behavior. Like ants engaged in the collection of food or some other keenly focused tasks, people on the move appear driven to accomplish…something. Watching lines of cars swoop around big curves leading from one roadway to another, I wondered whether the drivers actually think about their objectives or, instead, simply respond to environmental cues—like zombies. People seem to be mindlessly performing tasks to which they are assigned: drive from point A to point B; exit the vehicle in a grocery store parking lot; purchase celery and a slab of salt pork; hand a five dollar bill to a derelict who is returning shopping carts to the front of the store. Maybe, though, these vacant behaviors are not mindless. Perhaps they are meticulously programmed in the same way some ants are directed to change direction in mid-stream, bumping head first into hundreds of other ants with critical jobs to perform. What could those contrarian ants be thinking or feeling? Have they received signals from supervisory ants, telling them to do an about-face? Or have they just remembered they failed to leave instructions with ant larvae about how to progress to the next stage of development? It’s the same with people, I think. We could just as well be ants. We seem to need tasks to perform, jobs to do, functions to fulfill. But, if we lack purpose, we wander around in parking lots, collecting money in return for keeping shopping carts readily accessible. Or we offer ourselves up as clerks in clothing stores, where we dutifully fold shirts and slacks that lazy, arrogant, imperious people leave scattered about. It’s a damn good thing that people and ants cannot rust. But corrosive paralysis may be just what we need to understand why we sometimes act like our minds are made of wet paper.

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I may have set a sleep record yesterday during the day and through the night. Nobel Prizes are awarded annually in the areas of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. Disappointment washes over me like a tsunami whenever I consider the fact that there is no Nobel Sleep Prize. Why would there not be? Who made the decision to leave sleep out of the mix? Wait, maybe it’s not the Nobel Prize I’m after; perhaps it’s the Guinness World Record for Sleep that’s missing. Either way, it’s unfortunate that someone forgot to include such an astounding feat in the record books. 

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My alarm clock must awaken me no later than 9:30 this morning, just two hours from now. I have to be ready for my M.D. Anderson registration, which will take place at 10 by way of telephone and online portal. In the interim, though, despite my record-breaking sleep, I need to crawl back into a deep slumber. I assume the intensity of my need for sleep is the result of my most recent chemo or the settling in of anxiety that’s more acute than I originally thought. Oh, well. Sleep is healing, they say.

Had time not plunged forward in the wee hours of this morning, the moment I am experiencing right now would have been labeled 4:21 A.M. However, thanks to what seems to me a rather arbitrary shift, clocks added an hour. Or lost one. I cannot decide whether the adjustment amounts to a gain or a loss—or a simple change in perspective. I can decide, if I choose, to assign greater importance to various other changes in the world around me. And that’s enough of that.

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I spent quite a bit of time yesterday afternoon uploading to my M.D. Anderson patient portal copies of my health insurance cards, prescription plan cards, my Arkansas driver’s license, medical history information, etc. Those tasks were assigned to me in preparation for  tomorrow morning’s phone and portal meeting with hospital registration staff. The hospital had already gathered an extraordinary amount of data about my medical past and present; surgeries, hospitalizations, immunizations, illnesses, etc., etc. By the time I meet with the oncologist on Friday, he will have access to vast stores of information about my body’s engagement with the planet on which I live. Understanding that reality, I wonder whether he will consider me a person seeking medical help or just the physical manifestation of a data dump. Not that it matters a great deal.

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My trip to Houston will give me the opportunity to visit at least briefly with my niece and her husband. When I return from Houston, my sister will arrive to spend several days with us. Just a few months ago, my brother and his wife came up from Mexico for a visit. And my Houston niece and her mother paid us a visit not too long ago. My late wife’s sister, who lives close by, makes a habit of spending time with us almost every week. I truly enjoy spending time with my family. In an ideal world, I would be able to accommodate all of them at the same time in an attempt to replicate moments in time when all of us were able to spend time together. But the real world is intent on inserting time and distance between families and friends. The extended family as a single unit is rarely tenable these days. Mobility and the unyielding desire for independence are quick to loosen family bonds.

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Yesterday afternoon, during a brief period of hunger, I fantasized about what would have been the ideal meal at that moment. Baba ganoush, hummus, an assortment of olives, twisted feta, pieces of warm pita, dill pickles, some crunchy raw vegetables, pickled beets, and a glass of dry red wine. I have no idea whether the components of my ideal meal pair well together; only that the combination sounded delightful to me. We had/have few of the components on hand, so I had to be satisfied with celery dipped in hummus, plus a few crisp, seed-filled crackers. And I was. This morning, I wanted fruit. So I had blueberries, strawberries, sliced apples, and segments of mandarins. Though I wanted papayas and watermelon and mangoes, too, I was happy to eat food that was actually available. Would that I always will be able to modify my wants to reflect what I have.

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The computer clock tells me it is almost 6:30. My hands and feet tell me they are uncomfortably cold. My mind suggests I return to bed, pull the covers over me, and try to sleep again.

Sixty years ago today, the first 3500 combat troops arrived in Vietnam to defend the U.S. air base at Da Nang. I do not know whether any of those troops were among the 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War. But a quick search tells me the total number of U.S. military fatalities from that war was greater than each one of the current populations of Prescott Valley, Arizona; Everett,  Massachusetts; Gallatin, Tennessee; Saratoga Springs, Utah; and Bothell, Washington. It boggles the mind; numbers greater than the entire populations of small cities. Every soldier’s death must have reverberated through families and entire communities, leaving gaping holes that could never be filled. Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed during the war range from 970,000 to 3 million, leaving shock and grief across an even larger cross-section of people whose lives were upended by state-sponsored violence.  The collective number of physically and mentally wounded victims of the war must be unimaginably larger than the number of deaths. I wonder how the citizens of countries that were embroiled in the war were persuaded that the killings and injuries were justified? Is propaganda that effective?

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Around 6 yesterday afternoon I developed a severe case of heartburn; among the worst cases I can remember experiencing. Chewing a mouthful of Tums had no immediate palliative effect, but the discomfort slowly became more tolerable during the course of several hours in bed. The Polish dog I had for yesterday’s lunch and/or the bean burrito I ate for an early dinner may have been responsible for the pain, but I do not recall such foods causing me such discomfort in the past. This morning I continue to deal with the aftermath of heartburn; a feeling of fullness almost to the point of being bloated. I may regret drinking espresso; had I been thinking more clearly when I woke up, I would have limited my liquid intake to water. I did not sleep a full 11 hours last night and this morning, but I was able to sleep for a good bit of that time. Still, though, I am tired. I may have to try to nap again.

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At what point would “replacements” for failing human body parts be considered “too much?” Perhaps a better question would address the point beyond which replacement parts would transform a human into a human-machine hybrid or something clearly not fully human. Whether the replacements are biologically identical parts harvested from other people or are created from non-biological components may be factors to consider. Or maybe the only human part that would be off limits would be the brain—the organ considered by most people to be the driver of humans’ humanity? I think the degree to which an artificial body part replicates—exactly—the original may be a factor; the more similar to the “real thing,” the more acceptable…ethically. Artificial intelligence (AI) probably will accelerate the need to make decisions about what is acceptable and what is not…if, indeed, anything is not acceptable. Issues unrelated to the core function of a replacement part probably will come into play at some point. For example, if replacement parts were to effectively assure “human” immortality, how would humankind deal with growing numbers of living, breathing people? Available space might become the deciding factor, versus the degree to which a person remains a person after having more than fifty percent of his body replaced with artificial parts. This probably is not something that will need action within the next two years, but it may not be long thereafter before it requires serious consideration.

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Sleep has never been fully understood; and it probably will never be completely revealed for what it is. It is just as mysterious as life in the deepest parts of the deepest oceans. We still do not know all the insects that inhabit Earth. Our appreciation of non-human life forms is shaped by our tendency to compare other beings’ lives with our own, even though we have little reason to believe the comparisons are legitimate. I read a headline the other day that claims a scientist…somewhere…has successfully transformed light into a flexible solid. We have only skimmed the surface of reality. I would like to see a snapshot of what more humans will know in a thousand years. Perhaps I can. Just not yet.

Early yesterday morning, I received a phone call from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, following up on a referral from my oncologist. A consequence of the conversation is that I am scheduled to meet in Houston with an M.D. Anderson oncologist one week from today. That consultation, coupled with an oncology team review of my medical history, will help determine whether I qualify for participation in an oncology clinical trial. Another phone call, a little later in the day, led to an appointment for another consultation with a radiologist late this month. I did not expect such immediate action on my oncologist’s referrals, but I am pleased with the speed of follow-up and grateful to her and her staff for acting so quickly.

I do not yet know how much time I will need to spend in Houston; could be just the day or two or more days. A phone call to register for the appointment, scheduled for this coming Monday, should clarify what to expect.

The Texas Medical Center in Houston is enormous and the city’s traffic is justifiably infamous, so we have decided to get a hotel room close to the location for my appointment—I want to minimize the stress of traveling on Houston streets and freeways and getting lost in a maze of hospital buildings and corridors. Though not quite what I envisioned for a fun-filled road trip, the drive to and from Houston will have to suffice for now.

I am under no illusions about the potential results of participating in one or more clinical trials. But the uncertainty of the responses to various “standard” treatments makes the exploration of as-yet untested options more appealing than they might otherwise have been.

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Historians interpret the past through a lens both clouded by hindsight and polished by understanding. The problem is that hindsight and understanding often are too closely linked to allow the free flow of factual insights. Key to the concept: interpretation. Assertions about the meaning of acts and omissions in times past are merely opinions informed by perspectives that may or may not be comprehensive or valid. None of us can be certain about what others think…today. The uncertainty grows exponentially with the introduction of time and cultural distance. We may believe we understand the thought processes that drove an anarchist, for example, thanks to having read what he wrote. But reading involves interpretation; and writing involves selective sharing of one’s thoughts. Time inserts shifting ideas and attitudes into the mix. Information claimed to be history, then, may simply be near-fiction tainted with half-truths and unjustified beliefs. Evidence of this chaotic misunderstanding is rampant in today’s media. We cannot agree on the “meaning” of what we observe today, much less what occurred in the past. And not just the “meaning.” “Facts” are regularly subject to relentless challenges. At some point—and it may already have passed—we will be unable to believe what we see with our own eyes.

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Ethics can get in the way of understanding. For example, a well-designed study in which groups of identical twins are separated at birth and reared in completely different, carefully controlled environments, could go a long way in enhancing our knowledge of the relative influence of Nature versus Nurture. Such a study, though, would almost universally (and rightfully) be condemned as an ethical breach of the most serious order. Hundreds or thousands of other ethically unsavory experiments could provide enormously valuable insights into human behavior, but the harm they could do to study participants is judged to far outweigh their value. Yet ethics and morality in human societies are neither fixed nor universal. Societies and cultures transform over time; behaviors that are prohibited today may have been perfectly acceptable a few generations earlier…and vice versa. Like so much else, human morality and ethics are contextual; dependent on culture, timeframe, evolutionary era, and more.  At any given point in time, though, we treat morality and ethics as if they were immutable—rigid realities not subject to social transformations. Looking back just two or three generations, that obviously is not the case, but we pretend it is. I suspect we collectively feel more than a bit of shame in allowing ourselves to modify our unshakeable beliefs—certainties we feel at our cores—to change. By denying their flexibility, we protect ourselves from all but the most hidden embarrassment when we allow our minds to change.

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My sense of weakness and fatigue yesterday may have come over me in response to Monday’s chemotherapy; the timing seems about right. But it could have been a mental reaction to the results of my PET-scan. The results did not hit me particularly hard—I was half expecting them—but they were disappointing. They triggered thoughts about mortality and regret and curiosity about what the progress of lung cancer will sooner or later do to my body and how I will deal with the decline. I would rather erase those thoughts from my mind, as they are not exactly pleasant, but so far I have not been fully successful in that endeavor.  Despite trying hard to do it, I cannot seem to empty my mind of an elaborate web of wide-ranging thoughts. They are not just thoughts of cancer, death, etc.; they include vague memories of high school, fights on the playground at my elementary school, train trips with my late wife, visiting Schenectady with mi novia, finding that my first car, a Ford Pinto, had been damaged in a hit-and-run in a parking lot in Austin, and a thousand other things. Madness! I guess I am just wound up, in one sense, but tired and worn out, in another. That must be what is making my mind crank through massive volumes of past experiences (most of which I rarely ever remember).

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I woke later today than yesterday but, still, it was 3 hours ago. So, another  brief nap may be in the offing.

The results from my PET-scan were available to me on the cancer center’s portal within an hour or two of the procedure yesterday (Wednesday) morning. As usual, the findings in the report were laced with medical terminology and, therefore, not completely clear to me. But I understood the radiologist’s summary well enough to know the scan was not what I had hoped for. Among several concerning statements from the report’s “Impression” section was this one: “Development of hypermetabolic nodularity in the posterior and medial right pleural space compatible with pleural metastasis.” A quick online review of the prognosis associated with pleural metastasis suggested I might have a relatively brief, rather bleak., future.

Later in the day, when I met with the oncology nurse and the oncologist and told them what I had found, I was advised not to rely on Google for medical opinions. Yes, I was told, the results were not good, but they were not nearly as bad as they might have been. I was presented with various treatment options to consider, going forward, among them: switching out some of the chemo drugs that have been used so far to fight the cancer; additional radiology treatments; and exploring clinical trials conducted by M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston that might be a fit for my situation. In addition, I learned that it is possible that my recent bout of COVID-19 might have had the effect of accentuating some of the physical manifestations of cancer…so the results could conceivably have been overstated; they will explore that possibility.

After a fairly lengthy consultation, we collectively reached some decisions: 1) my oncologist will present information about my case to M.D. Anderson, requesting consideration of my inclusion in one or more clinical trials [one of my brothers had suggested that more than a year ago]; 2) in about four weeks, I will have a CT-scan to enable the oncologist to determine the extent of changes to the disease; 3) after the next chemotherapy treatment, the drugs used will be replaced by others that may hold promise; and 4) I will consult with the oncological radiologist about further treatments. The realities of my circumstances are pretty stark, though. I have Stage 4 lung cancer, which is generally considered incurable, so the medical response to the disease tends to focus on limiting the cancer’s growth, improving the quality of life by minimizing symptoms, and extending life expectancy.

I mentioned to the oncology nurse (who I like very much and who shares our sense of humor), after I read the results of the PET-scan yesterday, I coincidentally received a piece of promotional mail from the Neptune Society, gently suggesting I consider pre-paid cremation. We got a good laugh out of that. The nurse responded that I should not to plan to go into hospice care just yet. And mi novia replied that she would just have to unpack the hospice care “go-bag” she had prepared for me. Gallows humor.

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Dealing with the idea of death through humor seems both powerful and absurd. Death is inescapable; there’s no point in denying it. And there’s no point in insisting on treating the concept of death with unshakable solemnity. But to laugh at something so utterly final—something that alters the world left behind—suggests more than a hint of madness. “We cannot conceive of our own death.” I’ve read that many times and I suppose I agree with it, yet even in facing that impossibility I still insist on trying. Thinking about death leads to all sorts of questions. How long does death last? Does one’s consciousness simply disappear at the moment of death…and, whether it does or not, what happens to it? Does the death of another person manifest physically in survivors in some way? Is death equivalent to flipping a light switch? Of course, there are many people who believe death is simply the next stage of some kind of magical or spiritual existence…how do they square two (or more) different dimensions? Far more questions than answers.

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I wonder if anyone will ever read the thousands of pages of blog posts, etc. that I have written? Much of my writing today gets an occasional view by a very small number of people, but the vast majority of what I’ve written in the past decade or two has never been seen by eyes other than mine. I certainly understand why the output of my fingers is not lapped up by eager readers. There’s too damn much of it to cope with and the number of idea “gems” buried in it is far too small to warrant the time and effort to read through the rest of it. But, still, without someone to read it, all those hours at the keyboard seems completely wasted. Except that those hours probably rescued me from my own madness.

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My weight seems to have stabilized, more or less, but yesterday’s weigh-in at the doctor’s office surprised me. I had lost a bit more weight, tipping the scales at 169 pounds. A few years ago, at the peak of my corpulence, I was 82 pounds heavier. I am pretty sure most of my recent weight loss (in the last year or so) has been the result of losing muscle. My skin and flab hangs off of me like clothes that are several sizes too big. Had I been smart and disciplined, I would have worked to at least maintain my musculature, rather than let it weaken and shrivel. “Should have…” Ach!

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For some reason, I feel incredibly weak at the moment, as if I haven’t eaten in days. But I have. I’ve eaten as if I have been trying to gain back all the weight I lost. Perhaps a cookie is what I need. And maybe an Ensure. And a nap.

Online news this morning is deeply depressing, so I will not subject myself to any more of it for a while. I made the mistake of glancing at the AP and NPR websites when I sat down; the headlines were more than enough for me. The unrelentingly monstrous news coverage of the President’s address to a joint session of Congress dashed my secret desire to learn that the Designated Survivor procedure had been implemented.

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Sustained winds of only 15-20 miles per hour were—until just moments ago—making the doors, walls, and windows of the house creak as if the howling winds roaring against them were much more powerful. For a few moments, though, the winds’ ferocity seemed to have diminished, only to be replaced by even longer and louder shrieks. I can only imagine the power of the gusts as door and window frames groan against them. Though I doubt the winds will be strong enough to do any direct damage to the house, I have no such confidence in the ability of nearby trees to withstand them. Recent storms have knocked large, time-weakened limbs and branches to the ground, cluttering the streets. The roadsides close to us have lately been littered with shattered pieces of old-growth trees, torn from their trunks. Perhaps Mother Nature is cleansing the forest in preparation for a frenzy of sprigs and shoots and assorted other greenery.

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Interference with my usual morning ritual disturbs me. No coffee, nothing to eat…only water to drink this morning. Five hours will pass before I can return to some semblance of early-day normalcy which, by then, will no longer be a match for the time of day. At least the PET-scan is scheduled for relatively early today (8:30-10:30); otherwise, I would feel the pangs of hunger and the chaos of shattered custom until late in the afternoon. By the time I visit my oncologist for the scan results, I may have been able to consume a light lunch. I am ravenously hungry. I will be hungrier as the hours pass. Not a complaint; just an observation.

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Last night, we deliberately avoided the atrocity that would take over broadcast television. Instead, we finished watching a BritBox 2-season Australian serial (Scrublands) about a journalist’s investigation into a small community’s young priest who commits a mass killing in his congregation. I was impressed with the plot, the writing, and the acting (for the most part). One of the characters looked very familiar to me; mi novia investigated why I might know him and discovered that he (Robert Taylor) played Longmire on the long-running American TV series. I had no idea he is Australian.

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The wind. Again. The sounds could be recorded and used as part of a sound-track for a film set in a lighthouse during a vicious storm. Why a lighthouse? I am not sure; it just seems right. It could be set in a decrepit old mansion on a deserted coastline.

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I awoke too early this morning. I can barely keep my eyes open. Time to set my alarm for 7:30, rest on the loveseat in the TV room, and forget about my powerful urge to eat breakfast. Later, I’ll make my way to town…hopefully bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

A quick scan of today’s Life Kit feature on the NPR website this morning led me to another NPR story from last September.  The second piece changed my approach to this drab-looking day just enough to make me want to delve more deeply into into eight so-called skills the article claims can help boost one’s mood and manage stress. The skills, taught in an online course developed by a team led by Judith Moskovitz, a research psychologist at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, are these:

• • positive events;
  • savoring;
  • gratitude;
  • daily mindfulness;
  • positive reappraisal;
  • self-compassion;
  • personal strengths; and
  • attainable goals.

Had I been writing the articles, I might have referred to the “skills” as “habits” or “practices,” but the names attached to them probably are not particularly important. I think developing habits that can redirect one’s thought processes is what can lead to positive changes in one’s moods and sense of optimism. And, of course, reduce anxiety and stress to more manageable and more tolerable levels. In many respects, the skills described as taught in the online course (which I have yet to find operating online) remind me of the elements of meditation practices. Perhaps my interest in this morning’s readings will prompt me to invest more real, measurable efforts toward developing the skills/habits…rather than just investing more time in mulling them over.

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A wall of windows in the oncology center’s treatment room looks out on a small private courtyard. On the other side of the private space, across from the windows, is a two-story artificial waterfall. Yesterday, while I spent 5+ hours receiving my chemical infusions, I stared at the waterfall. The water pouring over a flat stone at its top fell in a smooth, almost solid, sheet to the pool below. Rough stones on both sides of the waterfall lent an air of authenticity to the scene, but the smooth sheet of water did not look natural. It was too consistent, too precise, too predictable. Aside from its location—inside the courtyard of a building—its controlled flow over that flat stone betrayed the fact that it was counterfeit. Had the stone over which it flowed been interrupted with rocks too heavy for the water to move, the water might have been disturbed into “rapids” that would have seemed, to me, to be more realistic. But as I pondered these unimportant perspectives, it occurred to me that my sense that the design was imperfect overlooked the purpose of the feature: it was meant to be soothing and mesmerizing. The water feature was designed and created and built by people who likely understood and appreciated its purpose. People for whom easing the anxieties of cancer patients was and is important. That, I think, is an example of my own positive reappraisal.

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For the next 24-26 hours, I am to minimize my intake of (or refrain from) carbohydrates, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and various other substances that could interfere with the validity of the results of tomorrow morning’s PET-scan. I sneaked in a banana and a cup of espresso before the fast began; if I hurry, I could have a little more before the clock strikes the hour of abstinence. Last night, as I thought about what I can eat during my hours of denial, it occurred to me that medical centers and offices could do a service for their patients (and make some money on the side, as if they need it). The service would be selling pre-packaged meal kits designed to ensure proper diets before medical procedures. Ideally, these kits would require no refrigeration and would have long shelf-lives. And they w0uld be reasonably-priced. I had a similar idea (that I thought about pursuing on my own) several years ago when I was mistakenly diagnosed as being in kidney failure and, later, with pancreatitis. I tried to interest members of one of my client associations (dietitians) at the time in joining forces with me, but did not know how to attract both the right expertise and the necessary capital to launch the idea. The scope and breadth of “do not eat” foods for people facing various diseases is stunning. I really believe such a service would take a great deal of pressure and anxiety off of people who face medical demands to radically change their diets. Fortunately for me, for now anyway, I am on only very short-term restrictions. I can last 26 hours. I’ve proven that over the past few months, when I’ve sometimes gone 4-5 days without eating more than a cracker or a bowl of soup.

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Today’s scheduled post-chemo injection is delayed until tomorrow, after my PET-scan. Apparently, having the shot today would require another wait of several days (or a week) before the scan. So, after my scan tomorrow, I will get the shot and meet with my oncologist to go over the results of the scan…assuming the results reach her by the time of my afternoon appointment with her. Crossing my fingers and toes that the results are good.

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If a full-blown dictatorship is in the offing or a global thermonuclear war is just around the corner, I hope their horrors will be quickly extinguished. Utter and complete nuclear annihilation (if it’s instantaneous), of the entire planet’s population might not be such a bad thing. But a dictatorship, which could ruin otherwise tolerable life experiences for a lot of people who don’t deserve crushing authoritarianism, is not acceptable. Whatever it takes to avoid it—socially acceptable or legal or deadly dangerous or not—must be undertaken when the signs are unmistakable.

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On a more positive note, Springtime is just a few weeks away. Soon, flowers will begin blooming, leaves will start to sprout, the air will warm (and, unfortunately, fill with pollen), and the grey days of Winter may be behind us for a few months. By the way, I believe the creators of the television series, Designated Survivor, were engaged in wishful thinking.

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I hear the voices of reason, but only in my dreams. Noise that pretends to be Silence drapes over me like a shroud. Absolute silence is just a fantasy, except in death. Even then, its echoes reverberate off walls, limitless in their thickness. Darkness, darker even than before there was Light, envelopes everything, even Time. Truth has yet to be created, so it cannot be told. But without Truth, there can be no Lies. Proof of the impossibility of Everything, laden with Doubt, signals that Nothing is strewn all around us, discarded like the rest of all the knowledge we never had.

Yesterday afternoon, after the outside temperatures had climbed into the low 50s, I went for a short walk. Walking into the brisk breeze, in the dappled shadows of leafless trees, I felt uncomfortably cool, despite wearing a down vest. When I turned around to face the sun with my back to the wind, warming comfort washed over me, instantly erasing that feeling of unpleasant coolness. The sensation was exaggerated, almost like walking into a house heated by a wood-burning fireplace and leaving brutal winter conditions behind.  Had the outdoor temperatures been much colder, the adjustment might have seemed too much. Basking in the sunlight and protecting my face from the wind was enough to give me a giddy sense of appreciation for what, in hindsight, was so minor that it makes that sense of elation seem almost absurd. But that is how startled one can feel to experience even brief flashes of unexpected, almost overwhelming, awe.

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My appetite has grown enormously—exponentially might not be too strong a word—since last week, when I began taking my doctor’s prescription for prednisone in response to my COVID-19 diagnosis. Based on the limited research I’ve done on the correlation between appetite and the drug, surging hunger seems a common side-effect of taking prednisone. Fortunately, the decreasing-dosage prednisone regimen (4/day for 3 days, then 3/day for 3 days, then 2/day for 3 days) lasts only nine days. According to several assertions made on health-related websites, I can expect my hunger to return to normal levels soon after I stop taking the pills. I am relatively sure that the pills are largely responsible, too, for a significant boost in my energy over the same period. Breaking a many-months-long routine, I have been napping only rarely and briefly over these several days, too. I wish I could count on a continuation of that increase in energy, but I doubt I can. Today I will have another chemo treatment (number 17?) which, if it is like the others, will sap my energy, my appetite, and my ability for a week or two to tolerate only 7-8 hours of sleep per day.

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Three large scars on my body offer evidence that I have escaped death at least three times. There may have been other occasions when I was spared that personal conclusion, but the scars are visible and obvious reminders. The first one, an almost fully-healed slice about six inches long, is on my lower-right abdomen, where a long piece of my intestines (and my appendix) were removed in 1990, allowing me to survive a severe effect of Crohn’s disease. The second one, from 2004, is easily recognizable as evidence of coronary artery bypass graft surgery, or CABG. A surgeon split my sternum to get access to my heart and arteries, where he bypassed two significantly clogged coronary arteries with living materials harvested from my inner chest wall. The third scar, produced in 2018, curves around the upper right side of my torso, where a thoracic surgeon gained access to my right lung, surgically excising the lower right lung lobe, which had been invaded by a malignant tumor.  I suppose the two scars—one on each side of my upper chest—where two jugular Infuse-a-Ports were installed (one in 2019 and one in 2024) might count, as evidence of potentially life-saving surgeries. They were implanted to facilitate access for infusions of chemotherapy drugs to fight lung cancer. All of this is to suggest that my body has been attempting to take its own life for quite a number of years. I believe I was 18 years old when first diagnosed with Crohn’s; 53 years since my body’s first obvious effort to kill me. Had my Selective Service System lottery number been lower, my death might have occurred long, long ago, courtesy of the United States military and/or the Viet Cong. Fortunately for me, my lottery number (which I do not remember) was too high for me to be drafted. I was in my final months of my high school senior year when the drawing for men born in 1953 was held in February 1972; I went to college, instead of Vietnam, where 58,220 of my fellow Americans died in an unnecessary war.

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How much of the “news” we read or hear or see is based on propaganda? How confident should we be that the “enemies” of the U.S. are truly as despicable as we are led to believe? And how certain are we…or should we be…that people who share our political and social philosophies truly understand and have thought critically about the “facts” and how they interpret them? If they are wrong…or lying…or terminally biased…are we just as misguided? When we wonder whether Russian citizens or Chinese citizens or Iranian citizens really and reasonably believe the U.S. is the enemy, should we not wonder whether they wonder the same about us? I have grown increasingly skeptical over the years of politicians of all stripes. Not just politicians, either; the average Joe or Jane must convince me of their honesty before I assume them to be believable. I think all the political philosophies in operation worldwide are, at present, simply expressions of manipulative power-mongering. What we need is not democracy or communism or socialism or authoritarianism or dictatorship, but a new form of governance and citizen participation composed of elements of various political foundations…with healthy doses of anarchism thrown in to keep them all in check. What that new form of governance might take is anyone’s guess; I just think we have been lucky so far that we have not been collectively obliterated by allowing any of the existing forms to become overwhelmingly powerful. But people in general, who often tend to be stupid and arrogant, tend to believe what their minds tell them; we all need to insist of ourselves that we be far more humble, while maintaining high degrees of doubt and curiosity. At least that’s how I feel this morning.

Immutable facts—certainty cast in bronze—often take on different appearances when viewed through a temporal lens. Like people, as they age, they can become encrusted with patina left by the passage of time. Though facts may remain unchanged, their importance—or their insignificance—evolves to reflect the circumstances surrounding them. Sacrosanct facts and truth are illusions created at the sometimes-chaotic intersection between understanding and interpretation; both of which reflect the influence of perspective. The angle of one’s point of view and the presence or absence of obstructions to that viewpoint determine what a person’s mind processes. There is no inarguable reality. “Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.”

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Bias can cause us to interpret ideas and experiences in ways that confirm our opinions and beliefs. We can, for example, decide that every word from the mouths of progressive politicians is a liberal lie or, conversely, that when far-right conservatives speak, it is only to mislead. Statements or actions made by people with whom we usually disagree may be ascribed negative motives which do not actually exist. But people “friendly” to our biases may be assumed always to have only the best intentions. Either way, bias is the enemy of understanding and an obstacle to knowledge. We tend to find it difficult to admit our biases, especially when they contrast with evidence that does not support them—we disbelieve the evidence in favor of our biased opinions. I think the root of that difficulty is that we feel deeply wounded when proven wrong. Rather than admit our strongly-held (but unsupportable) opinions are wrong, we fight to hold on to our self-respect by refusing to admit our faults. By doing so, we dig the grave for our own integrity.

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I keep coming back to an old idea of mine for a book or a short-story set in a fictional town suffering decay brought about by “progress.” Though I regularly think about it, I have been unable to force myself to do much more than that. Actually thinking through the story and the characters—and the ways in which the circumstances and the people affect one another—would take much more time than heretofore I have been willing to force myself to give. If I am to have even a remote chance of brining the story to life, and to conclusion, I have to insist on spending many uninterrupted hours writing every day. Even then, I do not know whether the product would be worth the effort. And maybe it’s just wishful thinking; maybe it’s more work than I’m willing or able to devote to something for which there is no assurance of “success.” Who knows? I’ve had so many now long-dead ideas for stories that I’ve lost count. Ach! And here I sit, procrastinating by complaining to myself about procrastinating.

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We’ve begun watching an Acorn TV (British) police detective drama series entitled “Ellis.”  The show, starring Sharon D. Clarke, has thus far been riveting. I need to admit that I’m better at consuming entertainment than creating it.

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Even though we both feel considerably better than we felt during the peak of our fairly minor battle with COVID, we’re still spending our time at home. Had it not been for the damn COVID, we would have gone to the World Tour of Wines dinner a few days ago (Thursday); it would have been nice to visit with our regular wine dinner group and to taste good wine and good food. But, to the extent possible, we’re avoiding contact with others, just in case…we do not want to get, nor to give, unwelcome illnesses. Tomorrow, though, and through Thursday, I will make the rounds with medical folks again. A long chemo session tomorrow, a post-chemo injection on Tuesday, a PET-scan on Wednesday, and (still to be confirmed) a follow-up review of the PET-scan results on Thursday.

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It’s almost 6:30 and I’ve been up for 2½ hours. I’m getting a little sleepy, though, so I might just nap a bit. I’ve already had my breakfast of a peach-flavored Ensure and a banana, but I may have room for something a little more substantial. I shall see.

I finally solved the most recent problem with my blog’s administrative interface, at least for the moment. There’s much more to learn about how to avoid such problems in the future and what to do to limit the potential for technical issues beyond my capabilities to address them. For now, though, I can return to my comfortable morning routine.

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The concept in my mind is not yet fully-formed, but it seems to mature a bit more every time I give myself the opportunity to think more deeply about it. In my mind’s eye, I envision that every moment of our lives—every thought and every experience—is transformed and recorded in our brains as invisibly thin—incredibly small—waves or wafers of mental energy. Some of those waves remain for a time in our brains, as memories. The vast majority, though, simply drift into the air and the space around us. They remain, afloat and intact, for all time; they are pure energy, which as we know cannot be created or destroyed. The enormity of the universe is such that it can hold all of these miniscule waves that emanate from every person who has ever lived and all those who will live in the future. When humankind discovers a way to recapture, harness, organize, and recycle the thoughts and experiences recorded on those waves or wafers—and we will—we will be able to experience, again, every experience we have ever had. And will be able to experience others’ experiences. So, for example, you will be able to engage with and live through the experiences of your great-great-great-great grandparents and their great-great-great-great grandparents…and everyone else. This concept, I suspect, long ago evolved into the idea of “heaven.” A place where people can be reunited with their dead relatives, free of the challenges presented by life as we have known it since we became sentient creatures. Over time, this simple but amazing possibility was transformed by creative thinkers into the source of all manner of religious mysteries. In reality, though, it may be a simple fact that is explainable by physics and scientific understanding. I can imagine how, as humans gain more complete knowledge of these waves or wafers and how they function (and how they can be manipulated and controlled), privacy will become an anachronism. The unexpected consequences of being able to actually “remember” conversations that too place between people hundreds or thousands of years ago probably will be beyond our wildest dreams. Imagine how stunned one might feel to experience the world through the eyes (or replayed experiences) of the first humans to wander the savannas of Africa. If we could physically see even shadows of these tiny wafers, they would fill the sky; it would be like watching millions of “live” recordings, at once, of time gone by. The circuits in our brains might be unable to process the experience. Perhaps that is why we have not had it just yet.

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The second month of the calendar year has whizzed by me, leaving little but vague memories suggesting I was at least semi-conscious during several of the most recent 59 days. My memories of the past two months are only slightly more vivid than my memories of the time span that began in December 2023 with the preliminary diagnosis that my lung cancer had returned. Recollections of occasional travels during 2024 are nonexistent because travel came to a halt even before the diagnosis was confirmed. No long road trips, no weekend excursions, no day trips; the longest rides were rare drives to and from Little Rock. Over the course of the year, up to and including the present, the vast majority of my time has been spent at home, interrupted primarily for medical visits and an occasional meal “out.” I have gotten used to being a confirmed home-body; most of the time, I do not mind living as a recluse with mi novia, my willing partner. From time to time, though, I get cabin fever; I desperately want to get away from the house, from the Village, from this state, from this country. Lately, I have longed to be someplace fare away—Canada or Norway or Sweden or… Not to travel to one of those places, but to be there. Living in an increasingly stifling and deeply worrisome political and social hellscape often fills me with almost-crippling anxiety and stress—so much so that I feel a deep desire to be in a place of soothing escape. A quiet reserve where serenity will let me leave thoughts of the state of the world behind. Yesterday’s appalling event at the White House, when this country’s so-called “leaders” embarrassed themselves and the nation by ganging up on the leader of Ukraine, increased my desire to be isolated from those imbecilic gangsters and their remarkably stupid, gullible, heartless cult followers. There are times I cannot force myself to see them simply as people who have philosophies that differ from mine; instead, I see them as thoroughly contemptible bastards whose collective demise would dramatically improve life of Earth.

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Before it was taken over by its current lunatic overlords, the National Institutes of Health published an abstract of an article about the relationship between hair and fingernails. Here is an interesting quote from the abstract: “Hair and nails are predominantly epithelial structures derived from primitive epidermis and made up of keratinous fibrils embedded in a sulfur-rich matrix.” I have known for quite some time that hair and nails are related, but I have never understood exactly why humans do not have hair growing at the tips of their fingers, nor do we have hard, barely-flexible keratinous fibrils growing out of the tops of our heads (and other parts of the body). I still do not understand. Fortunately, I do not need to appreciate the “whys” of those facts; I can live a moderately satisfying life in the absence of such knowledge.

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Last night, we watched “To Catch a Killer” on Netflix, a police drama about the search for a serial killer, set in Baltimore. The fairly brief part of the film in which the killer discussed the sources of his deviance made me feel some empathy for the guy; I understood his alienation from the “noise” of society in general. But that’s a far cry from understanding or tolerating the senseless killing of random strangers. Had he gone after specific people who are regularly in our national news lately, I might have had more compassion for the guy. The night before, we watched “Stolen,” a Swedish film dealing with the brutality heaped upon the Sámi people (reindeer herders). It was filmed in far north Sweden. Based on a history of real events (but clearly a piece of fiction, the film was definitely worth watching.

Blog admin still not functioning properly, but I have nothing better to do…just waiting for the next chemo session and PET-scan.

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I frequently think about—and perhaps mention too often in my writing—the significance of context in how we perceive the world around us and the way it affects us. Context is especially influential when we form judgments about the importance of specific circumstances or events. When those situations have particularly positive or negative effects on ourselves or others in our familial or social circles, we tend to judge them more important than were they impactful to others. UNLESS their impacts have equally powerful influences on our own circles as well as the broader public. A  tornado that destroys the home in which one lives is viewed as more important than one that wrecks a neighborhood in a town two states away. But if that tornado damages our home and destroys dozens of homes within a tight radius of ours, we tend to view the devastation as equally important…or nearly so. A death in the family is considered more important than the death of a famous actor. But the death of the leader of one’s country is viewed as extremely important for the wider society.  Yet the death of the president of a different, smaller, or lesser-known country may be concerning, but not especially important to one’s own world experience. None of this is news, of course, but thinking about the extent to which context matters fascinates me. Winning a multi-million-dollar lottery at a time in one’s life when one expects to live for 40 more years is apt to be viewed as far more important than winning the same sum after being given a terminal diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in the immediate near-term. Context makes an enormous difference.

Still no fix…but here is what I have been unable to easily post thus far…

February 27, 2025

Exploring one’s creativity can be immensely rewarding, but unless it is accompanied by the ability to adequately express it physically—through writing, sculpture, art, dance, music, and so on — the exploration can be enormously frustrating. The argument against that assertion seems always to involve the meaning, or relevance of, “adequately.” Some obviously creative people insist that neither the ingenuity of creative efforts nor the quality of their products are relevant; that only the expression of creativity matters. That may be true to some extent, but if one’s ability to translate creative ideas into satisfying expressions is lacking, the joy of creativity cannot be fully realized. Someone who conceives of a compelling idea for a story, but who cannot tell it, may experience the reward of inventiveness, but not the delight of sharing it in a way that fully reveals the imaginativeness of the idea. In my view, to truly appreciate and enjoy one’s own creativity, a person must both conceive ideas and be capable of expressing them in forms that enable others to “see” the idea in ways that mirror the person who conceives them. In my mind’s eye, I may envision an extraordinarily creative piece of sculpture—something truly unique—but if the product of my efforts to physically create it looks nothing like my vision, my creative effort is incomplete…inadequate.

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I have not been to Santa Fe, New Mexico in several years, but I suspect I would like it just as much today as I have every other time I have visited. On a couple of occasions, I stayed in very nice, historic hotels: La Fonda on the Plaza and the Hotel St. Francis. Though they were nice, I was just as happy when I stayed in 1940s-style adobe motor courts. One of those old motels was unique in that it had several very well preserved original glass-block walls separating the bathroom from the bedroom and the wall tiles in the bathroom were shiny black ceramic subway-style tiles. During one of the trips, I bought a pocket-knife at a little shop on the plaza. It was a stainless-steel stockman 3-blade knife with a turquoise inlaid handle. Though I have long since lost the knife, I remember how much I liked it. I kept that knife (and others since) with me almost all the time, in my jeans’ watch pocket. It took me a while to finally learn that my knives tended to fall out of that little pocket; I’ve lost several knives over the years, including most recently another stockman 3-blade knife, a Case. The reason I am thinking about Santa Fe this morning is that I read that Gene Hackman, his wife, and their dog recently were found dead in their home in or near Santa Fe. A woman with whom I used to work recently retired and moved with her husband to Santa Fe, where they had a townhome built. The photos she posts on Facebook remind me how beautiful the city is; the look and feel of Santa Fe is unique. Unfortunately, my experience driving through Colorado a couple of years ago revealed that I cannot tolerate such altitudes any longer. Mi novia insisted that I be taken to the hospital by ambulance after I fainted in the motel room the night before and mumbled incoherently the remainder of the night. The hospital staff diagnosed my problem as altitude sickness. They advised us to get to lower altitudes as quickly as we could.

February 26, 2025

My efforts to have my blog admin repaired have thus far been for naught. This morning, I was able to post a short explanation…using my phone after disabling my WiFi… but it’s too tedious to try to post real, thoughtful (or deviant and thoughtless) concepts. So, for now, this will have to do.

Speaking of my “phone:” That term is an anachronism, a relic of a brief but extremely consequential fragment of time. It seems the best we have been able to do to modernize what we call the original device is to “update” the single word to a mindless phrase: “smart phone.” Our failure to more creatively adjust our language in response to change is a sign, I am afraid, of unimaginative cultural dementia. Calling it something clunky and cumbersome—like “sight, sound, and information pipe” (call it a SSIP)—would be more appropriate, I think.  However, as I give the matter more thought, I have to acknowledge that “information” might be misleading; “disinformation” or “propaganda” might be more accurate. Yet those words all suggest limits that do not necessarily exist with the devices in use today. We might call the devices something simpler, yet considerably broader and more descriptive; maybe “tether” better describes the functions they perform. They tether us to one another. They tether us to information (and disinformation) resources. They can behave like audio/visual tethers that allow us to eavesdrop, spy on, stalk, and otherwise surreptitiously infringe on the privacy of people and places. And there is so much more. They are computers. They are simple calculators. They take photographs. They record voices. They record and play back music. They listen to birds and identify their calls. They transmit questions and commands. They translate languages. They can be used to facilitate social uprisings. In many respects, they duplicate the capabilities of their users. They can replace and, in many cases. replace the capabilities of their users. And, perhaps, not just the capabilities…but the users themselves. They sow chaos, but in gentle ways almost impossible to detect until the damage is done.

Like the original telephones before them—and like radios and televisions and computers and automobiles and airplanes and incandescent lighting and thousands of other evolutionary and revolutionary advancements, “smart phones” by whatever names you call them will become obsolete in due course. Their functions will be either absorbed by something else or will become anachronistic and descriptions of their once-vital duties left to museums to explain. Artificial intelligence (AI) is, at the moment, the “next new thing” to invade our lives. Perhaps AI will be the first iteration of a full replacement for all our functions. When the abilities of chips and machines have far eclipsed humans’ capabilities, perhaps humanity will finally have become its own anachronism.  Someday, someone or something may watch the last useful human take the last breath, a crucial step in repeating the processes that will lead to the last act of whoever or whatever replaces us.

February 24, 2025

The phrase, “Think outside the box,” is trite; speaking the words is a waste of air. Thinking of those words dulls the mind, the way sandpaper erases the cutting edge of a surgically sharp steel knife. Creativity does not necessarily involve replacing tried and true answers to old problems with new and novel approaches. Instead, creativity may flourish simply by redefining old problems—treating them as solutions to questions that have yet to be posed. Wheat, for example, often is viewed as a solution to hunger; but what if, instead, we considered hunger to be a solution to an overabundance of wheat?  How would our behaviors change in response to that alternative way of defining problems and solutions? The “box” establishes artificial parameters that may need to be taken down to allow answers to flow into the limited space it once defined; the answers are not “outside” the box…they exist in the creative merger between confinement and freedom.

Once again, I do not have access to my blog, nor to administrative control over its content. Consequently, I am forced to exercise my fingers by engaging with Microsoft Words, rather than with WordPress. The principal difference between the two is that WordPress allows me to share the fruit of my fingers with the wider world, where Microsoft Word imposes far stricter limits on access to the ideas I attempt to document. My ideas can be too flexible; they can look and feel like chaotic pieces of burning and melting rubber whose fleeting shape can never be replicated. Just as their shapes cannot be recovered, neither can their purposes be firmly defined nor captured. Their unstable forms are forever changing; never are they what never were…for long.

February 23, 2025

When I attempted to gain administrative access to my blog this morning, I was denied access. I could not view the site, either; access was denied again. After a few feeble, uninformed efforts to identify and correct the problem, I gave up. Something is obviously amiss with my site—or with the host site—that I cannot control. Later today, perhaps, when I have more patience and more energy, I will contact the host company for assistance. I should have done this long ago, but procrastination interfered with my intentions. Now, I feel powerless to express my thoughts to the wider world…that is, a very small number of intentional or accidental visitors. As I sit here, in this powerless state, I realize the world is continuing to function as it otherwise would. My inability to blog has no appreciable impact on anyone…except me. Even its impact on me is questionable. I make this out to be more important to me than it really is. Or do I? Perhaps blogging is my one crucial outlet. Without it, I may not be capable of rational thought. Or, perhaps, I may not be capable of rational thought with or without having the ability to blog. I am stuck in a place in which I cannot function, but where my functionality, or lack thereof, is irrelevant. Here, in this infinite limbo, I cannot move in any direction: not forward, not backward, not in any other direction in which there is even the tiniest shred of the possibility of escape. This perpetual state of waiting for eternity to end is increasingly maddening and all-consuming. The overwhelming sense of claustrophobic rage and fear has no limits; it grows exponentially with each passing second…as if time could pass in this never-ending state of smothering loss that multiplies itself a thousand times over with every imaginary moment that grows a million shades darker with each blink of my eyes.

Glancing through the top of the windows in my study, I see the sky adjusting its colors. From bright blue to faded white, the invisible cosmos transforms itself while I watch. At night, I see faint pinpoints of light, but when the sun’s power overwhelms the darkness, those microscopic dots vanish. In reality, they are not microscopic dots; they are enormous fireballs—a thousand times larger than the sun and millions of degrees hotter—that could incinerate our galaxy if they moved just a celestial inch closer. But I do not worry about that. Because beneath the clouds I see flocks of birds whose tail feathers are as long as time is shallow. Their brilliant cobalt blue and incandescent white feathers stand out against limitless space, making me wonder whether negative space defines positive space or whether the reverse is true. Or, is it possible that space is neutral? Is the granite figure remaining, after a mountain has been carved away, the object of our attention, or is it the missing stone that causes us to stare in wonder at the emptiness that once was solid rock?

My blog admin is broken. I hope to have it repaired soon. In the interim, I will not blog…but I will continue to write…just not here.

We experience the stages of our existence at the mercy of a mercurial universe, one that vacillates between unexpected kindness and capricious cruelty. Ascribing human attributes to the cosmos seems absurd—and it is, as I begin to understand that my appreciation of the relationship is backwards. The cosmos does not possess human characteristics; rather, humans demonstrate features of the universe of which we are a part. Humans, though, attribute our own motives or emotions to the cosmos, whereas no such cause-and-effect forces power the universe. We seem to believe the world around us is driven by psychic intention, whereas the reality is that volcanoes, ice ages, tornadoes, tsunamis, terminal disease, and an endless list of other calamities have no intrinsic purpose; they are the results of unplanned and inexplicable randomness. Our powers are limited to our perceptions. They stop there.

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After I acquiesced to my body’s insistence that I take another “nap,” I woke a couple of hours ago from almost 12 hours of sleep. I had only been awake from my most recent earlier nap for a couple of hours, but that restless snooze apparently was not enough. Even now, I am not sure 12 hours did the trick. I’ll find out soon enough, I guess. COVID packs quite a punch. Mi novia‘s doctor willingly prescribed, by telephone, paxlovid for her, as did mine. Unfortunately, the pharmacy had only enough for one prescription, so they advised us to share it until the pharmacy can deliver the second prescription on Monday morning. Thanks to the goodness of a very generous man, the one available prescription was delivered to our door yesterday afternoon.

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I reported my COVID to the APRN at my oncologist’s office. She postponed my next chemotherapy session for another week; now set for March 3 and my PET-scan also has been postponed for a third time, now on for March 5. Time is a limited commodity. I would rather not run out of it.

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The thought of meat of any kind is beyond unappealing now. I have no idea why; I just know I have no interest whatsoever in meat. Yet “they” want me to east meat because it is, they say, the quickest and best way to get protein, which I need to improve my red blood cell count and various other health-related measurements. Instead, I try to make up for meat by eating hummus. And nuts. What I really want, though, is fruit. Peaches. Pears. Grapes. Citrus of all kinds. Watermelon. Strawberries. Plums. Papayas. Blueberries. Raspberries. Blackberries. Mangoes. I’ve tired of things I once craved, including—at least temporarily—oatmeal raisin cookies.  Even ice cream does not sound interesting. But very tart lemon sherbet does…old-fashioned homemade lemon sherbet. Or sorbet. My stomach is growling again. Or braying. It sounds more like braying. That’s a new sound for my stomach to make. Fortunately, it has not been honking like geese or making pig-noises…oinks, I guess you’d call such sounds, though I can honestly say I’ve never heard a real animal of any kind make a sound I would describe as an oink.

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I dreamed I had quit a job as a police officer and accepted one as a sheriff’s deputy. It was quite an involved dream. One especially frightening scene took place while I was on a walking patrol in a poverty-stricken rural area with a seasoned, very tall deputy. Just after he advised me to carry a “poking stick,” I encountered a copperhead snake. I grabbed it behind the head and squeezed as hard as I could, but it kept slithering out of my grip and attempted to strike me. I think it may have sunk its fangs into my hand once and released venom. There was more, but I do not remember just what.

We now can describe the symptoms of COVID-19 from first-hand experience. In our case they are quite similar to the symptoms of a severe cold—chest congestion, sore throat, coughing, headache, chills, body aches, nasal congestion, and general malaise, among others. Two recently-purchased COVID-19 tests verified the diagnosis mi novia had suspected. Local authorities correctly continue their strong warnings to stay off the roads due to black ice, so getting out to buy medicines is out of the question…I am not sure whether any over-the-counter medications would have much of an effect on calming the symptoms, anyway. Fortunately, the fact that we’ve both been vaccinated, along with getting available boosters, probably keeps the symptoms far less threatening and dangerous than they might be in the absence of vaccinations. Ah, but give it time; Kennedy and his lunatic pseudo-scientist friends probably will make vaccines illegal…and getting a vaccination will become a felony punishable by death. In the interim, we will do our best to suffer through the symptoms until they pass. According to a Google search AI overview, the duration of symptoms vary depending on the severity of the infection: 1-2 weeks for mild cases, 2-4 weeks for moderate cases, and weeks or months for severe cases. I am hoping for mild…which would mean just another week-plus of dealing with these damn symptoms.  Until learning that the COVID test was positive, I was not especially concerned about the likelihood that my immune system has been compromised by my chemotherapy. That possibility suddenly gave me a reason to be conscious of a sinister new worry. But the symptoms have been apparent for several days, so I figure my compromised immune system would have opened me up to the worst of it by now. Whether that is just my self-protective attitude rising to the occasion or a legitimate obstacle to worst-case disease, I’ll take it. Who needs to worry about something that’s already happened, that cannot be undone? Not me, if I can help it.

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Nightmares. They lately have become more common intrusions into my sleep. Frequently, they have involved getting separated from friends and/or family, then realizing we were planning to meet somewhere miles away…but some of us had no transportation to get there. And “there” was an unknown place…a town that had once been small but had grown into a monstrous metropolis jammed with drunken revelers. None of us had an address to look for, only a town name. In one case, it was a place to which my late sister said she would walk, but I realized it was at least 15 mile away and she was in no condition to walk that far. I wonder how many versions of this dream I have had? I have awakened several times in a state of intense worry; even after shaking off the fact that it was “just a dream,” the artificial experience was enough to keep me on edge for hours.

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Nationalism is a disease. I’m convinced of it. It is a mental disorder in which the sufferer is inexplicably enamored with a geographically concentrated group of people whose characteristics normally would spark disdain or worse…but who, instead, engender respect and appreciation. Moreover, sufferers view opponents of those normally unappealing people as broken; enemies who must be subjugated and forced to worship them. I am not doing a good job of describing either group. I know who they are, though. And I am ready to expose them for what they are, when the time is right.

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It’s almost 7. Where has the day gone?

Yesterday, my cold made me feel miserable all day and all night. If not for the rough, raw, sandpaper-like scratching inside my throat, the day might have been a tad more tolerable; even then, though, I would have had to deal with high-volume sinus drainage and a troubling cough. I have no way of knowing how much volume of sinus drainage, but I would not be surprised to learn it has amounted to multiple liters by now. And the headache. I could go on, but that would be just another recap of complaints I’ve already written more than enough about. So I will stop writing. But not until I mention the surface pain on my back—the lightest touch causes minor (but still annoying) pain; the kind of skin pain that accompanies a fever. None of these symptoms are life threatening, unless they are caused by pneumonia. I’ll assume that is not the case. For now.

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If I felt much, much better than I do, I would try to write something interesting and thought-provoking. But, because I don’t, I won’t. And I can’t.

It was worth a shot, I thought. I decided to give it a try; open a website operated by a Canadian media company, in an attempt to avoid the constant barrage of desperately-negative news from U.S. media companies. Almost immediately, my decision seemed to have paid off: a link to a Globe & Mail article entitled, “The tried and tested way to stay happy: small doses of spontaneity.” But when I clicked on the link, my heart sunk. Instead of the text of the article, I got this message: Join a national community of curious and ambitious Canadians. Just $0.99 per week for your first 24 weeks. So, you CAN buy happiness…and at a discount, no less. But, after having taken advantage of similar offers from the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and others, I decided I already had taken enough advantage of several deals from generous media companies. But I noticed several other interesting links that merit exploration, including Happy Enough, which is a soon-to-come podcast from the Globe & Mail about happiness. Hell, it might well be worth the $0.99 per week for 24 weeks to look into the article behind the paywall. And, when I searched the newspaper’s website, I found 492 links to articles in which happiness was a primary topic. Hmm. I’ll have to think about it a bit longer, but I’m beginning to lean toward making the investment—or simply spending the money, if that’s what it is—if it offers a chance at happiness in a very sad world. A “trite” aphorism contained in a letter-to-the-editor, though, gave me pause in my consideration of where to look for happiness: ‘Success is getting what you want, and happiness is wanting what you get.’ I’m much more interested in happiness than in success.

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Last night, shortly before 9 PM, I was awakened by the sound of my phone ringing on my bedside nightstand (yes, still sleeping around the clock). The caller was the technician who handles my PET-scans, telling me the clinic would be closed today, due to ice and sleet and snow, so my scheduled PET-scan would be delayed again. As much as I want to get the scan done and learn the results, I had been hoping for a cancellation; I hate driving on black-ice. So, the news was good. The technician said he could reschedule my scan while we were on the phone, but I opted to wait (I was groggy and worried I might not get the information right for my calendar). I’ll reschedule soon, hoping I can get it done next week. In the meantime, I will go back to bed shortly in an attempt to recover some of my interrupted sleep. I woke this morning at just before 4 AM; already, I am so tired I am having a tough time keeping my eyes open. The outdoor temperature when I woke was 14°F; it has warmed by one degree since then to a balmy 15°F, The next few days are expected to be monstrously cold. Thanks to last night’s ice and snow, and temperatures that will remain below freezing, the roads will be treacherous, and I will plan on remaining indoors.

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My cold and bad sore throat continue to make me feel a little worse than rotten. Time for me to suck on a cough drop that contains “anesthetics” to make the pain in my throat a little more tolerable. I haven’t had such a bad cold in at least the last two or three years. Perhaps I should drink a little whiskey, too. But maybe I’ll wait until after sunrise.

There was a time not so very long ago that I thought of “preppers” as “nut-case conspiracy theorists” with irrational action plans. I still think some preppers are just that. But I am developing a growing regard for people who pay careful attention to potential social and political upheavals and who prepare to withstand their impact. Watching Trump and his acolytes chaotically deconstruct social and political systems that evolved over hundreds of years is terrifying. I seriously doubt his objectives have anything to do with saving money or creating efficiency; instead, I think he is setting the stage for an irreversible fascist regime that will outlast him and every member of his cult of followers. In other words, he is creating a Trumpian legacy that cannot be overturned without engaging in unspeakable violence. “Preppers” are readying themselves to respond to this horrific regime—by putting distance between themselves and the worst aspects of social collapse. They have sought and outfitted “hiding places” too remote for fascist thugs to pay attention. They amass stores of food, water, fuel, clothing, weapons, and an array of other items that will become necessities for survival when society as we know it begins to rot. The “preppers” probably are not planning to share their resources with the rest of us, who labeled them as “nut-case conspiracy theorists.” By the time it gets to the point when society’s degradation makes it necessary for us to “take cover” and fight for our lives, social cohesion will have evolved into intense distrust.

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When I checked out from my magnesium treatment yesterday afternoon, the oncology center staff surprised me by telling me I have another appointment this morning. But after last night’s battles with a stopped up chest, aching muscles, clogged sinuses, splitting headache, and too much sleeplessness, I have decided to call and cancel. My PET-scan is scheduled for tomorrow, but the weather forecast may cause that appointment to be cancelled, as well. My forecast for today is sleep…attempted sleep, at least…for as long as I can shut the world out of my mind. I finally gathered enough energy this morning around 6 to force myself out of bed. I need to be awake between 8 and 8:30 so I can cancel my early-bird appointment; once that’s done, though, I will do my best to plunge into a deep and restful sleep.

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Birds have disappeared from the trees outside my windows. I have no idea where they have gone; only that they are nowhere to be seen or heard among the branches where they usually frolic. It’s not just the birds that have suddenly become invisible. Squirrels and chipmunks and their larger mammal companions seems to have fled…or, at least, hidden themselves in plain sight. I suspect animals’ behavior responds to their uncanny ability to “feel” or “sense” or otherwise experience significant changes in the weather. Our cat’s behavior changes in advance of rainstorms, for example. Long before we have any sense of a change, the cat begins to pace, zoom around the house, and exhibit signs of fear or nervousness. The weather forecast for today and tomorrow and the rest of the week calls for snow, ice, sleet, and frigid temperatures. Unless the forest creatures and domestic pets can understand English, I think they have some way of knowing in advance that the weather is about to change…significantly. Perhaps the atmosphere can communicate directly with cats and dogs; in a language you and I cannot hear but that enables them to clearly articulate what to expect, weather-wise.  Ah! I just saw a bird zip between some trees. I have no idea what that means in the context of what I’ve just written.

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Food holds no interest for me this morning. None whatsoever. Though I suspect I could be enticed to eat a perfectly ripe watermelon or a ruby red grapefruit. Oh, and an avocado.

Harmony. Yin Yang. Peace. On occasion, I superficially explore various elements of Buddhism. My intent, in examining concepts and practices of Buddhism, is to develop an understanding of a philosophical framework that seems—on first blush—to be the very core of simplicity. Quickly, though, when I devote time and energy to learning, I find that Buddhism is quite complex; so complex, in fact, that I sometimes lose interest because its complexity strikes me as unnecessary and artificial. But my sense of necessity, or the lack thereof, is driven by my own lifetime experiences…the very experiences I hope to hold at bay while exploring attitudes and ideas that are foreign to me. I find that many people selectively embrace minor elements of Buddhism, leaving the rest to dedicated practitioners. To me, that seems a waste of energy, because I think all the convoluted intricacies of the practice—the aspects that seem far too complex to understand—must necessarily be understood if the depth and breadth of the practice can be truly understood. I describe myself, of course; I am unwilling to invest the time and energy to learn how a thousand intersecting layers interact with one another to form a “simple” whole. Perhaps if I were to force myself to explore more deeply, I would discover the value of devoting my time to the exploration. But I may be inherently too lazy or too mentally limited to reach that point. Yet there’s something about Buddhism—mandalas, for example—that seems to offer ways to better understand, and see beyond, chaos. Mandalas may serve as instruments to help focus thoughts and clear away debris that impedes understanding. But, in reality, I do not know and probably never will.

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Last night, when I went to bed, my throat felt slightly scratchy. During the course of the night, other minor symptoms of a nascent cold—coughing, headache, sinus drainage, etc.—began to present themselves, frequently interrupting my sleep. This morning, the symptoms do not seem to have gotten worse, but neither have they begun to lessen. I feel like I am on a precipice; if I lean one way, the cold will pass silently, but if I lean the other, I will plunge headlong into a two-week period of headaches, chest discomfort, coughing, sneezing, and otherwise unpleasant experiences. I got up once during the night, in search of Motrin for my headache and cold medicine for the other symptoms. I found the Motrin, but gave up looking for the cold medicine. Perhaps I can find it this morning, after the sun rises; if, that is, it is available to be found. Or, when I go to town this afternoon for the infusion to boost the level of magnesium in my blood, maybe I will stop at a drug store for cold medicine and an assortment of other drugs that could envelope me in soft, hazy comfort.

+++

Weather forecasters predict that by Wednesday afternoon, when my PET-scan is scheduled, the expected sleet and snow of Tuesday will have ended. But the temperatures will remain below freezing, making the roads slick and icy—obviously hazardous. The scan already has been delayed a week and I have no interest in any further delays. So, unless conditions appear especially treacherous shortly after mid-day on Wednesday, I will battle the uncooperative roadways…assuming, of course, the procedure has not been cancelled by the time I am ready to leave. I have a history of dealing with adverse weather (i.e., icy road conditions, heavy rain, etc. ) when trying to get to the oncologist’s office. I wonder about the significance of that history?

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Torturous dreams, in which I am faced with severe consequences as a result of my procrastination, lately have all too commonly infected my sleep with intense worry. The circumstances vary from dream to dream, but aside from the core theme, there is another commonality: the setting of every dream involves one of the people with whom I worked at my first association job. Last night, the organization’s CEO showed up at the office late one morning, driving a huge white Cadillac which replaced his old Mercury station wagon. I suddenly realized I had not finished a project he expected me to have completed; I panicked. Similar situations have invaded my subconscious during other dream states. I tend not to be completely irresponsible about letting obligations slide…except in those damnable dreams.

+++

We are memories; our echoes ricochet off granite canyon walls. Every drop of rain that fell searched for a way to return to its ancestral home. Waters that carved deep scars into steep cliffs have long since replenished oceans of the world. River beds are empty. Trees slowly heal from wounds inflicted by bolts of angry lightning. Thunder rousts massive boulders from mountain peaks. Truth is neither sentimental nor cruel; no opposite confronts it.

Shadows are obstacles created by light. When light is extinguished, its companion shadows die with it. In the absence of light and shadows, darkness fills space with empty obscurity. Empty obscurity asserts it strength by simply existing; a dark, vacant space with the power to consume time in the same way a black dwarf star consumes light.

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I have watery eyes, a runny nose, a growling stomach, and a growing sense that these conditions may be permanent. They are not intolerable—more like perpetually annoying, after being present so long—but are sufficiently irritating to put me and keep me in a bad mood. While once I would have complained loudly about willfully stupid people, these afflictions are causing me to consider excruciatingly painful ways of ridding the planet of them. I could get used to perennially low levels of minor aches, if they were the price of revenge justice.

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In my opinion, Trump and his minions are engaged in a campaign of manipulative psychological torment. Their crusade, I believe, is based on reliable principles involving torture, terror, and an overwhelming volume of non-stop chaos. The checks and balances we once believed would protect our so-called democratic society from a zealous, autocratic ruler have proven useless. Only a near-universal rage, supported by the near-universal actions of an intolerant public (all willing to risk prison and death), has a chance of overcoming the attack on democracy. The realization of the seriousness of the matter, though, will come too late for even the strongest replies to do any lasting good.

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When the expanding universe reaches its own limits, it will instantly implode with the same force, at the same speed, and within the same timeframe that the Big Bang took place. That prediction is somewhat different from the Big Crunch theory, which seems to suppose the universe will collapse somewhat slowly. There will be no warning, nor will there be any evidence of either the Big Bang or the Big Crunch.  In the final tiny fraction of a second, the universe will become an enormous fireball with a near-infinite temperature. Then, suddenly, at the absolute end, time and space will cease to exist. The question remains, though: what will replace time and space?

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It is entirely possible that, if there is a being who many call God, the being is so small as to be barely visible through the most powerful electron microscope. Nothing can be smaller than God; if a person believed anything could be smaller than God, that person’s burning flesh would light the sky from the most distant galaxy to the nearest sunrise. On a clear night, one can see the tiny remaining sparks of the last person whose conflagration lit the universe. Stars, we call them. They are not the impossibly distant hot gaseous masses the astronomers would have us believe, though. They are the dying embers of the last person to question God’s infinitely small size. Alternatively, maybe God is a single piece of pink granite, a remnant from a quarry that served as the source of a public building’s foundation. Captured within that hard stone could be a being whose powers exceed all other powers, combined, in the known universe…except the power to escape the crystals that keep God inside that stone.  Or, God may be a figment of a collection of hopeful, gullible imaginations, too afraid of the unknown to let it remain an inexplicable mystery. I have to admit, too, that God may be an old white bearded man who possess extraordinary magical powers. Or a blonde woman with the tail of a fish and the power to control everything that merits her control. Or a black woman who wears colorful scarves and beads and sings new-age gospel music to wake the birds each morning. The other possibilities are too preposterous to consider.

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He spied a weed in the middle of an acres of roses, so he mowed the entire field down to bare soil and soaked the ground with gasoline.

Glancing around my desk, hoping for inspiration, my mind remains vacant. Nothing provokes thought. Ideas flash through my brain, gone before they have time to settle and take shape. I try to force myself to focus on something…anything…that will trigger a chain reaction of thoughts. The attempt falls flat. No matter what I try, the results are the same— like harmless wires connected to a dead circuit, my mind remains dormant, as if my energy flows elsewhere. If it flows at all.

I closed my eyes and drifted into a light sleep while trying to conjure thoughts that might awaken my fingers. When I woke, several minutes had passed. But my fingers’ awkward coma persisted. In spite of many hours of sleep, my energy was not renewed last night. I will give up this fruitless endeavor and will attempt to sleep a little more.

Without referencing a source (other than the author, identified as Amy Morin, giving an expert opinion), an online article in Inc. claims, “Most modern-day psychologists agree there are five major personality types.” The five types, comprising the “five factor model,” according to the article, are: Conscientiousness; Extroversion; Agreeableness; Openness to Experience; and Neuroticism. Everyone possesses some degree of each, the article claims. As I understand the model, each personality type exists side-by-side on a single ribbon, with the width of each strip of the ribbon having varying degrees of influence on one’s behaviors. My college-level psychology courses, as I recall, measured and defined personality on a different scale: the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI identifies sixteen personality types, categorized into two groups: introverts and extroverts. Those groups are further differentiated on the basis of combining four preference scales: introversion/extraversion (E/I); sensing/intuition (S/N); thinking/feeling (T/F); and judging/perceiving (J/P). My recollection of where my personality fell within the sixteen types is cloudy, perhaps because my type was inconsistent from one MBTI measurement to the next—and my type was measured several times during the course of my college career. However, I think the most common “learning style” was classified as INFJ, or Introversion, Intuition, Feeling, Judging. Though I remember being modestly satisfied with the way my personality was classified, I recall wondering whether the label was truly correct. And I remember wanting to change it, but nothing else quite fit, either. Despite my misgivings about the legitimacy of the MBTI scales, I was extremely interested in learning where people around me fit into the scheme. My interest in others’ core personalities remains quite strong for some reason, even today. When conversations with friends turns to the broad subject of relationships between people, the phrase “my people” often comes into play. I would be fascinated to learn the MBTI identifiers for people with whom I feel close or comfortable. I would be equally as interested to know where other people—people I find offensive or distasteful—fall on the scale. Given my creeping skepticism about the validity of personality measures, though, I wonder whether I would trust such information. My confidence in personality measures is similar to my doubt about superstitions; I don’t wholeheartedly believe in them, but just in case there’s a kernel of truth buried beneath their absurdity, exploring them may be worth my time.

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Nearly four months have passed since Hurricane Helene emerged from the Gulf of Mexico, ripping into Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, etc. Approximately 220 people died as a result of the hurricane and a still-changing number of people remain missing. The number of people left homeless in the immediate aftermath of the storm was enormous. The number of people who remain homeless is hard to know; but there is no question that figure remains quite high. But the passage of time begins to scour our brains, leaving them clean and receptive to the next unthinkable catastrophe. Those of us who felt grief and sympathy and compassion for the dead, injured, and missing when the storm’s brutality was fresh have had to return to our mundane lives. Unless the impact of such a disaster is immediate and personal, our minds cannot sustain the onslaught of emotional pain for very long. We have to move on. Yet reducing painful memories of unimaginable devastation to mere regrets seems cold and callous. Donations of cash and food and clothing may have eased our pain, but we are left to wonder whether those offerings did much good for the people who suffered through the brunt of the calamity and the chaos it left behind. But, still, we have to return to our lives. How many people in the ravaged areas have nothing to which to return? I wonder how different is the experience of losing everything to a natural disaster, versus losing it all to intentional warfare? Does one’s mind respond differently to wind and wave damage than to mortar and bomb damage? Are capricious acts of Nature easier to accept than are intentional attacks intended to kill and maim and leave entire countries in ruin?

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The inconvenience of going in this morning for an infusion of magnesium should feel like a welcome opportunity to get out of the house, when compared to the hellish conditions of people enduring starvation or life without a roof over their heads. But that comparison is far too absurd to allow the mind to process the starkness between the two experiences. We grasp at almost anything to avoid the hideousness of circumstances that have no reasonable or defensible justification. It is impossible for me to compare such utterly incomparable situations.

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Time to face up to the world around me.

Some people, as they age, become increasingly attractive—even beautiful. The smooth wrinkles etched above their eyes are comparable to the work of a brilliant creative artist—someone who transforms a damaged limb from a wind-ravaged tree into a stunning piece of sculpture. Fine lines gently carved into their aging skin display a patina of tender wisdom borne of knowledge. Time softens the rough and ragged edges of youth, expressing the enlightenment that comes from hard-earned experience. Their evolution can be likened to the rebirth of dead cedars, whose rough bark and sharp splinters are converted by waves and wind and salt into smooth, grey driftwood.  But not everyone becomes more visually or emotionally or intellectually attractive. Some of the rest simply wither; their lengthy life experiences are expressed not as a patina, but as a rash. They portray the definition of decay. And then there’s the remainder of us. We simply disappear into the great unassuming, unimpressive, unwashed masses. Whatever we learn, we learn incompletely. We discover tomorrow is too late. We make our  marks with water-soluble invisible ink.

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A photograph of a broad expanse of prairie beneath of sky full of clouds was among the images displayed by the screen-saver on television. There is no telling when the picture was taken, but for many reasons I believe it was captures at least a few years ago. As I stared at the screen, I wondered about the droplets of water in the sky full of clouds: where are they now? From there, I honed in on a particular cloud; then on a particular droplet of water in that cloud. Where is it today, I asked myself. And that question launched a cascade of additional questions about the water droplets and the molecules of air surrounding them. By the time I realized how deeply I was engaged by those unanswerable questions, the screen-saver image had changed several times. Was the time I spent thinking about those droplets of water wasted? Or does thinking about such matters have any value? If it does, what is the measure of that value? And if it has value only as mindless entertainment, what is the point of such unproductive pointlessness?

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Mundane matters occupy my time. A series of phone calls from my oncologist’s office yesterday reminded me that confusion and chaos can infect even highly-structured, rigid environments. First, I got a call to ask me to come in next Monday for another injection to increase my red-blood-cell count. Then, another call asked me to plan to go in for magnesium infusions for each of the next three in-office days. Finally, I got another call saying to cancel today’s visit…for some reason I do not recall…but to go in tomorrow (to a different location than usual) and Monday. Should I be concerned about the apparent confusion? I don’t think so. At this late date, it’s probably too late to be concerned, anyway.

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We thought one of our favorite series on Netflix, “Wrong Side of the Tracks,” had only three seasons. But a few days ago we discovered season four has become available. If I had more energy, we probably would have binge-watched the fourth season, but I have been unable to stay alert for more than two episodes at a time. This (I think final) season has eight episodes, so we have four more to go. The series is set in a fictional neighborhood in Madrid, Spain (filmed in Spanish…we watch with subtitles). Two of our favorite Spanish actors, José Coronado and Luis Zahera, star in the series. I recommend it…highly.

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I could write a lot more about the state of my health, but I am more than a little tired of dealing with it. So I won’t. For now. If I had access to pills that would give me selective, health-focused amnesia, I would down two or three or a bottle.

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Morally ambiguous is a term I find intriguing. It sounds less sinister than amoral or immoral, and so much more honest than moral. I do not believe in the death penalty, except in cases in which I am carrying the executioner’s axe. How about: I am the only person I would trust to carry the executioner’s axe? Are those morally ambiguous enough?

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It’s safe to say I am not in peak form this morning. It would be safer to say I should not have permitted myself to get access to the keyboard.

Watching dense smoke flow—like a waterfall—gently down from the ember of a cone of incense intrigues me. The explanation for the direction of flow, counter to what would normally be expected, is a matter of simple physics; but it appears almost magical. I have never had a backflow incense burner, but when I see them on display in shops I invariably stop and stare at them. The ember of the cone of incense and the smoke flowing in the “wrong” direction captivate me, yet something almost always seems not quite right. This morning, as I was skimming a website that sells incense, I realized what struck me as out of place: the incense cone, the ember, and the smoke appear “natural,” but the holders tend to be artificial. Plastic. That juxtaposition interrupts and damages what could otherwise be a sensation of calmness; like viewing beautiful ornamental glass spheres become cheap rubber balloons that pop when hit by a dart. My willingness to be persuaded that I am viewing something almost mystical was suddenly shattered when I realized the experience involves blatantly misleading trickery. Those gentle, magical rivers of smoke flow over molded petroleum products…poorly made in an attempt to look like stone. That realization was like learning the man I thought was Santa Claus had been mortally wounded in a shootout with police over a fentanyl bust gone horribly wrong. Imagine learning that a set of remarkably beautiful stained glass church windows you have admired all your life are, in fact, cheap and brittle colored plastic film. Your world is suddenly turned upside down; nothing you believed can be trusted anymore. You want nothing more than to forget everything  and everyone you ever knew—just disappear from the face of the Earth.

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Distant thunder just interrupted my coal-black reverie. Temperatures are in the mid-thirties at the moment, on their way to barely reaching the mid-forties by 2:00 P.M. Lightning flashed in front of my windows, followed two or three seconds later by growling thunder. The day’s weather will be belligerent again…threatening, in fact. Like a prison inmate, recently released on parole, with no job, no home, no money, and no friends…his only comfort a bottle of cheap whiskey. He could earn a pretty penny, though, if he would just agree to perform a long string of public service assassinations disguised to look like natural causes.

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We are being watched. Even in small towns. In laundromats. In convenience stores. As we use crosswalks to make our way to the other side of dangerous intersections. Quite possibly in our own homes, where Mark’s and Elon’s eyes and the eyes of dozens of others are glued to monitors that track our every movement. Privacy is a fantasy, thanks to Alexa and Siri and the WIFI-driven cameras and microphones hidden in your refrigerators and clothes dryers and shower stalls and doctors’ examination rooms. Malevolent technicians control every device you have come to depend on; your smart-watch, your tablet, your phone, your television, the lights in your home, your automobile…the list is endless. If you ever wonder why a subject suddenly popped into your mind…it was placed there by the technicians or their AI counterparts. And it can be removed…as can anything else in your mind. It’s time we all become conspiracy theorists, assigning blame for all the world’s ills to Atheists and Catholics and Muslims and Southern Baptists and others whose own conspiracy theories paint targets on the backs of the rest of us. Paranoia will no longer be classified as an illness but, instead, as a great gift of foresight…because people with paranoia will have cameras and microphones implanted in their eyes and ears. If you do not believe these are factual statements, look over your left shoulder, where a microscopic camera will record the terror on your face as you spy the reflection of its lens. Do not worry, though. Bird-flu might rob us of chicken eggs, but the transition to platypus eggs will be easy…and worth the fear of cameras.

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Assuming she does not think what I’ve written here today indicates I am dangerous, my sister will come visit soon. As we grow older, I think people naturally gravitate back toward family, even if age disparities in the past made familial connections somewhat more tenuous that in families in which children were spaced quite closely together. The temporal space between the kids in families like mine ensure that all of us have memories that might as well come from different eras. Or, in my case, memories that somehow have largely disappeared over the years. So, gathering with one’s siblings is like making connections with bygone moments some family members did not experience. Hmm. Hard to explain, now that I am attempting to present myself as a moderately sane person.

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When I become emperor of this great domain, I will issue decrees that will cause enormous consternation to those who are causing us anxiety now. Where does one find suitable parolees on wet winter mornings? Would that life were so simple.