John Swinburn

Stir-crazy. That term describes me lately. Even though I get out of the house fairly often, I’m going stir-crazy. I feel the need to break out of the constricting limits of whatever has me in its grip. I don’t know whether that grip is marked by the boundaries of Hot Springs Village or the limits of Arkansas or the contours of the southern part of the country or the borders of the United States. I have the sense I would feel this sense of suffocation regardless of geography. So maybe it’s me. Maybe I need to get out of myself for a while, free from the constraints of my mind and body, and explore the universe. That’s a tall order. One doesn’t vacate one’s mind and body easily; I suspect it takes meticulous planning and copious amounts of confidence, magic, and risk tolerance.

I am experiencing my circumstances only from my jaundiced point of view. I wonder what others would say about me, watching me thrash about like a man drowning in warm wax? First, I doubt people are watching; they have their own lives to live and their own challenges to face. Second, one never knows what’s going on in another’s head; I doubt I’m displaying any overt symptoms of asphyxiation. And I probably don’t see any such signs in others. But I am sure there are those in my circle of acquaintances who feel they are about to go under for the third and final time, clogging their lungs with the denseness of the empty air around them.

Maybe we all live in our private little worlds, holding everything close as if revealing chinks in our corroded armor would assure its instant and utter destruction. So, we see barely-visible evidence of one another’s blemishes, hidden under expertly-applied superficial cosmetics. If even the slightest fissure were to appear in the paint covering those scars, the skin would peel back in sheets, revealing wounds impossible to heal.

More drama. Drama. Just effing drama. It’s not that bad. It just feels that bad sometimes. Yesterday, I went to a gathering organized by a couple to thank friends and acquaintances for their expected support during the couple’s upcoming medical crises. The husband has a difficult form of myeloma and is about to enter treatment that will involve harvesting stem cells, undergoing chemotherapy, and otherwise exposing his body to attack in the hope of saving his life. That’s a serious matter worthy of a dramatic response. My stir-craziness is a joke in comparison. I feel embarrassed to be even remotely distressed by it. But, still, it claws at me. I should feel embarrassed. Self-centered prick.

How can one adjust one’s responses to the world in which he lives so that he doesn’t gauge the quality of the world by the way he responds to it? That’s a hard concept to grasp, especially when framed that way. I understand it, though. What can I do to change the way I deal with both internal and external stimuli? That’s an easier question. And probably one for a battle-worn therapist to answer. I can imagine a psychological therapist responding to a client’s strident cries for help and understanding: “You’re behaving as if you were in a battle for your soul. In reality, your situation is more akin to being forced to choose between Cheerios and Bran Flakes.” It’s all relative.

Ultimately, I suppose, one has to decide whether his sense of sanity is sufficiently at risk to warrant just abandoning everyone and everything for a time so he can get it back. The feeling of letting people down by bailing out on promises made is a powerful negative force. But sometimes, I think, it’s the only reasonable one. Because it is possible to suffocate on Bran Flakes.

I am making sausage and cheese balls to deliver to church this morning; a commitment I made to provide “treats” today. Yesterday, my wife made something sweet to serve as her contribution. I had planned on making cookies, but she suggested I abandon that idea because she feels I’m not competent to do “baking.” I’m still angry about that suggestion, even if she might be right. One of the many horrible menaces threatening me. I should just grow up, but at sixty-six, I think it’s a little late.

I wrote this on December 30, when I had decided to take a break from posting to my blog. I may eventually post many of the other things I wrote during that time of restraint. This is the sort of stuff I write to and for myself. I’m a child. 

Yesterday, I suddenly wanted to know how my view of the world would be different if I were several inches taller. Like, instead of being just shy of five feet, eight inches tall, if I were six feet two inches tall. I don’t recall ever before wondering how the world would look different if I were taller. Maybe I have wondered. But, if so, the memory didn’t stick. At any rate, I stepped on the lower rung of a small stepladder and had a look around. The world did, indeed, look different. I had climbed that stepladder innumerable times before, but always with a mission in mind; reach something on a shelf, for example, that I could not reach without assistance. But yesterday, I took time to look beneath me, to see how far I was from the floor; I noticed how slightly smaller objects on the counter top looked.

The lower rung of the ladder was ten inches from the floor. So, instead of seeing the world as it would look at six-two, I saw it as it would look at six-six. I bent down a bit to see it closer to my target height. It looked different than from my normal diminutive stature and different from my tall-guy vantage point. Physical distance from the ground colors one’s perception of the world, I decided. Looking down at the tops of heads makes the world look different than looking at the sides of heads.

I only spent a few moments surveying the world from a taller person’s perspective, but those few moments changed my understanding of height. Greater height gives one a sense of dominion; undeservedly, perhaps, but there it is. If I could arrange for my feet to be six inches thicker, I might just do it. But I might discover unintended consequences; like being unable to run or walk without great difficulty. The sheer added weight beneath my current soles might be impossible to accept. After getting my wife to agree to allow me to have six-inch-thicker feet, I might beg for corrective surgery to return me to semi-runtdom.

***

I’ve noticed that I have devolved into silliness and stark idiocy. I do not like that. Usually, it’s the result of trying to come to grips with something solemn and being unable to accept what I’m thinking. So I get stupid and act like an eight-year-old kid, complete with a child’s imbecilic sense of humor. I maybe using words like stupid and idiocy and imbecilic in ways that are insensitive and offensive. I need to try harder to be a decent human being.

I herewith abandon my fantasies. My longings are impossible wishes—dreams so removed from reality they would be funny if they weren’t so painful. Pain, though, is an instructional tool. Pain leads us away from delusions and into reality that hosts knowledge on its own terms. At least the pain of reality can be resolved with truth; the pain of delusion can be resolved only with the most improbable magic. Reality is more reliable and less excruciating.

With the abandonment of dreams comes the unpleasant acceptance of the potentials of reality. Fantasies can mislead us into believing we have stumbled upon success; reality can turn us away from so-called success, as illusive as it might be, toward in-your-face failure that hides real success beneath a shroud. There’s danger in every direction but down.

A fantasy involving full recovery from lung cancer can devolve into an acknowledgement that lung cancer is not the only killer. So we grab the pistol and consider killing the newly-knowledgeable. Chance becomes a player in the game. Statistics begin to matter more when all the lotto numbers have been drawn. Playing roulette takes on an entirely different character when one loads all the chambers, spins the cylinder, stares into the barrel, and prepares to pull the trigger.

But all this is make-believe. It’s vapor escaping from a vacant cavern.

I doubt I’ll ever be able to abandon my fantasies. They are too much a part of me. Without them, I would be an even emptier shell. And the shell would be as fragile as the invisible, impossibly thin, arc of ice that once was the surface of a bubble.

That image, for some reason, pleases me. It suggests something so beautiful, so delicate, and so impossibly brief that it would be impossible to develop an emotional attachment to it; instead, the image is simply an experience, not an interaction with a physical thing.

What fantasies shall I abandon? That I’ll ever be young again. That I’ll ever hold dominion over a large tract of isolated land, where I’ll mold and shape the ground with my tractor and my implements into the paradise of which I’ve always dreamed. That I will build, with my own hands, a simple but magnificent castle that pays tribute to the natural order and to Emotion, that God of All Things that Matter. That I will ever be loved for my mind and my body and my soul, except by some demon I create in the deepest recesses of my brain. That peace will envelope the Earth in a shower of unending joy. That anything I have ever done, or will ever do, matters.

I rocket between glory and gloom with such speed it’s dizzying. It’s as if I can experience the heights of joy and the depths of dejection at the same instant. They are so closely ordered in time and space that I cannot tell them from one another. Agony and ecstasy exist in the same place at the same time and are experienced in the same way.

Everything decays. Even atoms. Knowing this, is it not reasonable to assume that, at some point, the entire universe will degrade into a mass of spent fuel, leaving only ashen residue as evidence it ever existed? What would take its place in the vast expanse of nothingness? We cannot begin to fathom endless nothingness, any more than we can fathom an endless supply of time and space. The concept of infinity is our feeble attempt to understand the inexplicable.

I realize, of course, that what I’ve written here—and much of what I write day by day—could be construed as the shrieks of someone so deeply depressed that he is in danger of snuffing out his own brief candle. That is not the case. I simply express, in amplified fashion, the massive spikes and dips I experience while riding my emotional roller-coaster. Using yesterday’s incomplete and disjointed internal conversation as a point of departure, my emotional highs and lows cycle several orders of magnitude between one another. At least I document them in that manner. In reality, I’m probably just overly dramatic and desire some exercise for my fingers.

Escape. That’s the key fantasy. Escape from the constraints, the shackles, the chains—all the ideas and thoughts and restrictions that bind me to the surface of the Earth instead of freeing me to float above the chaos we create and nurture here below. Oh, to be rid of the messiness of humanity for long enough to know what purity really is. That’s a fantasy worth having. And worth abandoning, I suppose. Pursuit of the unachievable is not a reasonable goal; it’s a wasteful distraction that interferes with the possible. Wishing I could fly gets in the way of building aircraft or watching, in awe, as butterflies dance through the air.

Two wise young rockers, now decrepit geezers, said these true words: “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you just might find, you get what you need.”

Pandæmonium. The capital of Hell, whether real or symbolic, the concept Pandæmonium expresses surpasses the strength of chaos by an order of magnitude.

I write “order of magnitude” as if I fully understand the concept. I do not. While I grasp that “the order of magnitude of a number is the number of powers of 10 contained in the number,” I do not necessarily grasp what that explanation means. That failing can be traced back a long, long way to my childhood, when mathematics and algebra and all manner of numbers-related concepts were insufficiently explained to me. Or which I insufficiently understood. Or both.

John Milton created Pandæmonium  when he wrote his epic poem, Paradise Lost. I read Paradise Lost when I was young and stupid, failing at the time to fully comprehend the poem’s vast expanse of lush, awful meaning. I tried to wade through Book 1 again a short while ago; I realize that I am now old and stupid, failing at this moment to have either the energy or the interest to translate Milton’s blank verse into sentences of which my modern mind can make sense. The story line is mildly interesting, but its presentation leaves a lot to be desired, in my opinion. Right. I have an opinion about John Milton’s writing, and it’s not an especially appreciative opinion.

I do not remember when I read Paradise Lost, but I suspect it must have been in high school English class, probably a literature class taught by Mrs. Allen. I can still remember the woman’s brunette hair, pulled back in a bun and tied with a rubber band, and her apparent interest in students who seemed to be interested in the subjects she taught. I doubt she had much interest in me, inasmuch as I was an indolent little bastard who would have been happy to have skipped school every day.

So, my education failed me (or I it) in both math and literature. I slid through high school without learning much, though I guess enough knowledge stuck to allow me to slide through college, where I found the subjects more interesting. Still, though, I avoided the “hard” stuff that I thought I would be unable to comprehend. Math in general—algebra, trigonometry—and anything else that might have required real effort. I stuck with subjects that seemed to be sticky; things that did not roll off my brain but, instead, clung to my budding intellectual superficiality like glue or tree sap or tar.

I remain angry at myself, all these years later, for my failure to understand how much more I would know and understand if only I had applied myself in high school and college. The world would be easier to understand and, perhaps, mold to fit my expectations if I had only paid attention, completed my reading assignments, engaged in spirited discussions in class, and otherwise behaved as an interested, involved, student. Instead, I kept my head low, attempting to hide the fact that I wasn’t as bright as I had hoped I was.

It’s silly and stupid to hold a grudge against oneself for so many years. And, if it meant enough to me, I would have spent my adult life compensating for my failings by filling in all the knowledge gaps left empty during my so-called education. Obviously, it means something to me, but not enough to merit real work. Another piece of evidence of the fact that I am and have always been a fainéant fake (My first time to use fainéant; I’d never seen the word before this morning’s foray into the thesaurus. I suspect within a matter of hours I won’t remember the word. It means idle or indolent, for the record.).

Maybe I beat myself up a little too much, though, huh? I do continue to learn, though most of my education focuses on language (always something of a strength), rather than mathematics (always a glaring weakness). So maybe I’m not an entirely worthless human being. I could get a respectable job polishing tarnished letters fallen from the alphabet. Speaking of letters in the alphabet, according to Lexico.com, the letter Q is the least-used letter in the English alphabet, barely surpassing J in usage. I could report percentages and proportions, but I would be in danger of getting over my head in mathematics, so I will steer clear of that embarrassment.

I had breakfast yesterday morning with a friend from church and writing and other such endeavors. We spent a couple of hours at the Home Plate Cafe, talking about a wide range of topics that included my recent descent into boredom. She seemed much more concerned about that than I am. She is, in my view, unnecessarily concerned about minor matters afflicting people in her sphere. That is, I think she makes more of issues than they warrant. I suppose that is the trait of a compassionate person, but it can be moderately annoying. It’s as if she is saying, without saying, “something is wrong with you and I want to fix it.” In spite of this exasperating little trait of hers, I always pick up a gem or two of wisdom from conversations with her. Her reflections on dealing with the vagaries of daily life often are instructive and revealing; not of her, necessarily, but of people in general. What yesterday’s conversation revealed to me is that I seem to be allowing myself to be “bored” with almost everything, yet I could easily get energized by simply deciding to focus on something specific. Like learning a little more math. Or taking a road trip and learning about towns I pass through along the way. Or examining the motives behind my decision to engage in another “doing without” process I wrote about (again) recently. So many things could capture my imagination, if only I would let them. I think I just need to get out of the house on a regular basis. Do something besides sit and write and think.

This afternoon we will attend the Democrat Club meeting. I do not want to get involved in the club as an active volunteer. In fact, I want to withdraw from some of my current volunteer activities. But I do enjoy being in a big room with lots of people who share at least the core sense of decency represented by democracy, if not always shared by the Democratic party. So it will be fun. Maybe.

Even as one slides into old age, it’s still possible and advisable (I think) to set goals and celebrate their achievement. So I shall do that more frequently. Happiness accompanies celebration. Celebrations follow achievement. Achievement, then, correlates in a positive way to happiness. Goals can then be said to cause happiness; though the logic is flawed, it is sufficiently intertwined with truth to be believable. I already have set some goals. I will add more to the list. I will be accountable for pursuing them by documenting successes or failures, the latter far fewer in number than the former, I hope.

Damn, it’s almost seven-thirty. I need to go eat a tangelo.

My computer has been running quite slow for the past twenty-four hours. The reasons for the slowdown are beyond my ability to know; I know only that the machine takes its time to perform every task given to it. Screen refreshes take many seconds. Opening software applications takes minutes. Saving work takes hours…days…weeks…months…years.

I believe I’m still working on a novel I began writing in 2014. At this rate, it may be ready for publication about the time the sun explodes in a dying flash, its source of fuel consumed in a spectacular, final fireball before the final darkness befalls our solar system. That being the case, there’s really not much point in continuing to write the thing, is there? Well, unless I want to know how it ends. And, with the sun’s fiery demise, I know how IT ends. So maybe I should direct my attention toward something that gives me greater pleasure. What might that be, though?

I could try my hand at seduction, endeavoring to persuade a married woman to abandon her husband for an afternoon of steamy, sultry exploration of emotions pent up since the 1970s. Or I might steal away to a firing range, where I could work on polishing my skills with deadly firearms with an aim toward becoming an accomplished assassin. Maybe, instead, I should visit a car dealership and demand to test drive a monstrously powerful “muscle car,” in which I would speed away, dozens of police cars in hot pursuit. Another option might be to sneak into an animal shelter, where I could unlock all the cages and release the inmates into the surrounding neighborhood. An option I’ve never considered until this very moment is this: walk into the local police station and announce that my name is Hyacinthe Collier and I wish to confess to a future crime, the details of which are as yet unclear but which will be sufficiently grizzly to warrant a headline-grabbing trial and certain conviction.

Hmm. Only the first option holds any significant appeal; the danger associated with the others is too great to merit serious consideration. Of course the danger in the first one could be excessive, as well, depending on the circumstances surrounding—and the intensity of—the dalliance. All of this raises the question in my mind: how does one define excitement? And where does one draw the line between entertainment and excitement? Is there such a clear line of demarcation? And, if so, where does one cross the threshold between excitement and adventure?

In my mind and without the benefit of dictionary or thesaurus, I am trying to define “excitement.” So far, I’ve come up with “a state of emotional arousal.” Well, that could apply to any number of conditions, including that business with the married woman or the high speed chase. And the rest. Perhaps my dilemma is that I’m attempting to define the parameters of the matter as if the answer were to be found in a thesaurus. Excitement. Adventure. Enthusiasm. Elation. Ad infinitum. Words. Just words. Words do not define excitement. Adrenaline does. Within moments of the body’s experience of a stressful experience, adrenaline (also known as epinephrine) spills into the bloodstream, triggering a host of reactions and responses from various components of the body. So, perhaps what I need is not a dictionary but, instead, an epi-pen.

No, epi-pens are to be used only in situations involving life-threatening allergic reactions. To my knowledge, I don’t have any of those. So, what to do instead? It’s obvious, isn’t it? Thrust myself into circumstances that will prompt in me a sense of abject terror. Like the circumstances I described above. Forego the thesaurus and, instead, just absorb what follows potentially self-injurious behaviors like speeding the wrong way down heavily-traveled freeways or leaping between high-rise buildings or jumping onstage and stripping nude during a recital by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Those sorts of adrenaline-pumping experiences.

Another question. At what point does an interest become a fascination become a passion become an obsession?  We live along a continuum of emotion—a tightrope upon which we walk every day—rarely coming to grips with the fact that we could fall off at any moment. We could slip gently from interest to fascination or plunge directly from passing fancy to uncontrollable obsession. The danger surrounds us in every instant. Yet we wander deftly between menace and pitfall, jeopardy and risk, hardly even pausing to realize the perils we face. We are, indeed, magnificently oblivious creatures, aren’t we? Either stoic or stupid, methinks.

I wonder whether we humans sometimes tire of safety and comfort and ease. I wonder whether, on occasion at least, we need danger and discomfort and stress. Can we become stodgy and brittle and mentally frail if we don’t force ourselves to experience fear and put ourselves at risk of the unknown? I think I have grown too soft and mushy and insufficiently resilient. I am too easily crushed under the weight of a feather pillow; too readily brushed aside by vaporous ghosts whose only substance exists in my imagination.

We need to be challenged. We need to be tested. We need to be thrown into a roiling sea, attached to an anchor and left either to swim to safety or drown in our rebellion. This day is shaping up to be another odd one. Time to shower and shave and confront the demons. It is not the time to be running slow. It is time to run faster and faster and faster.

The sound of sleet hitting windows is unique. Windblown pellets of fresh ice striking glass make a noise that seems to occupy a range of disquietude midway between a weak thud and a feeble, metallic scrape. When those same pieces of frigid slush land on concrete pavement, they make clicking sounds, as if fragments of heavy, brittle leaves had shattered into pieces and sprinkled to the frozen ground. Together, on grey days like today, they intone dreary winter medleys, reminders that weeks of intermittent cold and darkness will follow.

Sleet makes fireplaces inviting and blankets alluring. Sleet makes streets treacherous and highways even worse. Sleet wraps its icy fingers around our psyches as if to prove we have no immediate control over the weather.

Sleet almost invariably melts, at least a little, soon after pelting the windows and siding and sidewalks and streets. It then freezes again, forming sheets of black ice on roads and walkways and dribbling as icicles from leaves and eaves.

Thin coatings of ice on trees, whether from sleet or freezing vapor or refreezing snow melt, causes some trees, especially pine trees, to take on a white halo; a ghostly aura. When those trees are close together, the collective white glow looks like the forest is filled with steam or pale grey smoke; one half expects a vaporous coven of witches to step out of the wood.  Why these odd images seems to arise in my mind only on cold days when the temperatures hover near or below freezing is beyond me. Perhaps a subconscious memory from my childhood, never quite reaching my consciousness, is to blame. Or maybe these images spring from a well of madness within me that becomes almost as solid as ice when temperatures cause liquids to transform into gaseous solids. Only physicists and sorcerers know the causes, I suspect.

***

My wife made a Dutch over full of West African sweet potato soup yesterday. She took the stuff to a “soup party” (perhaps named differently, but that’s what it was), where several women from a “Girls’ Night Out” group gathered to share their soups and, I assume their recipes. She left enough for me to have it for dinner last night. And she brought enough back so we could have it for lunch today. The dish my wife made includes sweet potatoes, peanut butter, ginger, tomato juice, and various other ingredients. I did not expect to be particularly enamored of the stuff, but I was. And am. I jazzed mine up a tad by squeezing some fresh lime juice into the bowl, along with some Tabasco sauce. I believe this soup is now among my favorites. Today, with all the sleet and cold weather, is an ideal soup day. In fact, after having soup for lunch, I thought about making a big batch of lentil soup, one of my specialties.  But I’d have to go out to buy vegetables, which I’d rather not do. Even though the streets are probably easily passable, I’d rather stay in than expose myself to the elements.

***

Tonight, for dinner, we will have leftover roast with horseradish sauce. The roast marinated in a thick, very tasty marinade for 48 hours before my wife cooked it a couple of nights ago. Once again, I wasn’t terribly involved in its preparation, so I do not know the ingredients of the marinade. I do know it was quite tasty. And the meat was rare enough to be entirely to my liking. The roast would make an even better meal if served with fresh green beans (rather than canned “kitchen cut” green beans), but I will not complain. It would do me no good and would, in fact, almost certainly diminish the emotional quality of life in my house for a period. Not worth it, I tell you.

***

My mood is improving, if only slightly. I do not know why it goes up and down and back again. I know only that it does. Knowing that actually helps when it’s on the down cycle; I know it will eventually return to a more tolerable state.

More than half of the month of January sped past without my knowledge or consent. Okay, I knew it was in the process of slinking along, but I am stunned to look back at the speed with which the last eighteen days have flown by. If the rest of the year proceeds as quickly, I might have to force myself not to blink so I won’t miss it. My words suggest this matter of time speeding by is simple silliness. It’s not.

Somehow, I’ve allowed myself the useless indulgence of watching the world go by, rather than actively participating in its motion. Too much of my days are spent sitting in front of my computer or otherwise taking affirmative action to stay out of the fray of daily life. I am not insisting on participating in the process of living. Instead, I’ve been letting life simply happen to me. It’s not entirely about physical motion; it’s about mental engagement, as well.

Habits. Routines. Somewhere in the litter of synonyms for “habit” is the word, “weakness.” That’s what a bad habit is; a weakness that becomes a pattern of behavior. Smoking is a weakness. When I finally realized how much that weakness had damaged my physical health, I was able to quit. And only after I quit for quite some time did I realize how offensive that habit was to virtually everyone around me; the weakness made me stink and gave my skin an almost imperceptible coating that carried with it an awful stench. The same thing is true of other bad habits. The habit of avoiding physical activity, too, tends to leave one’s body more likely to exude odors like musty socks and moist, unwashed nether regions. If I want to smell fresher and look healthier, I need to give up my bad habits. All right, I may be making some of this up, but it’s for my own good. The smoking thing is true.

Back to the matter of time and its flight. I doubt if there’s much I can do to slow the passage of time. But I can improve the sensation of its passage and I can enhance the appeal of recalling what occurred while it was zipping by. Those improvements and enhancements cannot take place simply by changing one’s mindset and one’s habits. They require making physical changes…location, movement, standing versus sitting, walking, picking up the telephone instead of relying exclusively on the keyboard…those sorts of things.

Which reminds me of an odd preference of mine. I am not fond of talking on the telephone, at least with most people. With a very few people, I’m fine with long conversations by telephone. But with most people, no. I’d prefer to communicate in person or via email or text. I can’t put my finger on why that is; but it’s an extremely strong preference. So much so that I get cranky when forced by circumstance to speak to some people by phone. That’s probably a habit, a bad one. Some habits are simply quirks, like this bad one involving a dislike of telephone communication. I don’t think it has much to do with the person on the other end of the phone, either; it’s some sort of strange psychological trigger inside my head. Odd that this matter arises while writing about habits. It is a habit, I suppose. A negative one.

Time to shower and shave and head off to church. Sundays used to be so much more relaxing, before church took a claim to part of the day. I’m seriously going to have to explore the habit of going to church; it’s not that it’s a bad habit, but it’s a demanding one that may not be as valuable as I might have thought. Enough writing for this morning. Off to be active.

Arguments can be made, pro and con, about whether it’s best to get to know someone before or after you know their political persuasion. I understand and agree with both of them. On the one hand, I’d rather know early on that a person is a witless fool whose thought processes reveal stupidity and bias I cannot stomach. On the other, I’d rather know early on that a person’s personality and her core decency is sufficient for me to challenge my own most deeply held biases. It’s a toss-up. Lately, though, my emotion and my biases tend to be in greater control than my intellect. Only after the fact, after I’ve labeled someone a morally corrupt hypocrite unworthy of anything but my contempt, do I question whether my judgment is defensible. Usually, I conclude it is and it isn’t. That’s a big help. Given the ambiguity of my judgments, I wonder whether the process of making them is of any value at all. Lately, I’ve been reaching the conclusion that there’s virtually no value there. But then I change my mind through several cycles of yes and no and yes again until I simply don’t know what I think. And then, in my confusion, I attempt to leave the matter for another time. Wasted mental energy. Energy that could be stored or spent on something more fruitful.

***

How often does the average person think about the impact voluntary standards have on their lives? It’s probably an infrequent occurrence. But I have thought about voluntary standards ever since my first job in association management. I was responsible for managing support for volunteers who developed and published standards relating to corrosion. For example, I worked on standard tests to determine the suitability of metals in various corrosive environments. There were many more. As part of my role, I learned about processes involved in the development and approval of voluntary standards. I attended educational programs offered by ASTM International (then known as the American Society for Testing and Materials), CESSE (the Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives) and others. I learned that voluntary standards were responsible for: the sizes of nuts and bolts used in everyday products; the sizes of and stored power in batteries; the sizes of bed frames and mattresses; window and door frame measurements; etc., etc., etc.

Voluntary industry standards are responsible for the capacity of glasses and coffee cups, the sizes of liquor bottles and soft drink containers, tire sizes; almost everything we purchase has been touched by voluntary standards. Most standards, in my estimation, were developed not out of the goodness of manufacturers’ hearts but because the standards led to greater efficiency, more profits, and more widespread usage of their products. The convenience we experience as a result of standards is, I think, more of a byproduct of standardization than an intentional outcome.

So, there you have it. My thoughts on voluntary standards this Saturday morning.

***

This morning, I noticed an online photograph. It was an elderly Black woman, holding a rifle. There was a dog sitting at her feet, staring at the camera. The photo was said to have been taken sometime in the latter half of the 19th century. The accompanying text told the fascinating story of the woman, who was said to be the first Black employee of the United States Postal Service. But there was no mention of the little black and white dog. We don’t know its name, its age, or anything else about it. Considering how important pets are to many people, it’s surprising to me we don’t have more history about them, on an individual, pet-by-pet basis. We allow them into our lives and rely on them for comfort, companionship, and emotional support, yet in my view we don’t memorialize them properly.

The little black and white dog in the photo probably had a name. It probably had unique habits that differentiated it from other dogs, assuming there were other dogs in its small world. What was the context of that little dog? Who fed it? What did it eat? How old was it when it died? How did it die? Who mourned that little black and white dog? So many questions, but no record (to my knowledge) that would answer any of them. And that’s true not just of the little dog in the photo, the dog who lived in the latter half of the 19th century. It’s true of millions of dogs who’ve lived and died since. It’s a shame we don’t know more about them.

***

Have I mentioned before that shirts should have large, roomy pockets on their upper sleeves? Shirts also should have pouches on both sides, toward the front. And pants should all be made from stretch material that accommodates dramatic swelling and shrinking associated with gluttony and starvation. What this universe needs is a cadre of fashion designers committed to comfort and practicality. Humanity would be the better for it.

Instead of the routine follow-up with the oncologist yesterday, the visit turned into something a little different. After listening to my breathing—more like wheezing—she said she was concerned about that and my persistent cough. She prescribed an intense course of prednisone, coupled with a seven-day course of antibiotics. Then, she scheduled a return visit to see her in two weeks and sent me over for a chest x-ray. After I return to see her in two weeks, she said she will schedule a PET scan. I remember that scan from before my surgery; it was used as a precursor to the biopsy that confirmed my lung cancer. The PET scan assigned a number to the “brightness” of the tumor in my lung; the greater the brightness, the higher the likelihood the growth was malignant.

So, yesterday’s visit brought back unpleasant memories. But the planned PET scan doesn’t necessarily mean she is concerned about the return of cancer. Here’s what I found about the purpose of a PET scan (I knew this once, a year or so ago, but had forgotten…how quickly we forget):

“A positron emission tomography (PET) scan is an imaging test that helps reveal how your tissues and organs are functioning. A PET scan uses a radioactive drug (tracer) to show this activity. This scan can sometimes detect disease before it shows up on other imaging tests.”

I was surprised by her comments yesterday and was not thinking fast on my feet. So I didn’t ask her questions I should have asked. It bothers me when I’m caught off guard and don’t think to inquire why the hell these tests are being scheduled. Oh, well. There’s not a damn thing I can do about what’s going on in my body, other than take the drugs and undergo the treatments prescribed for me, so I’d better just not let it worry me. It is what it is. But, uckfay, anyway.

After yesterday’s immersion in the medical/industrial state, we went out for lunch. My wife suggested we go to Rocky’s Corner, across from Oaklawn Racetrack. Though I’ve lived in Hot Springs Village for almost six years, I had never eaten there; my wife has. We each opted for a sandwich, the “Upper Cut,” a combination of Italian sausage and Italian beef. I ordered extra hot peppers, not knowing that the sandwich came with the equivalent of a pound of chopped peppers (a slight exaggeration). I was impressed with the place and the food. Enough that I would happily return for lunch today if I could convince me wife. It was excellent! To top off our lunch, we ordered last night’s dinner, a large supreme pizza to go. Dinner was good, but lunch was superb. Next time we get pizza, we’ll get the Chicago style, instead of the thin crust (thin crust wasn’t quite what we expected). All in all, yesterday’s meals constituted a glutton’s delight.

My impatience warrants “chill pills.” I’ve been writing blog posts (on another blog) for about seven months and have had almost no success in generating readership and comments. Unlike this blog, which I expect to be ignored and overlooked and otherwise neglected, I write the other blog with the specific intent of posts being read and generating responses. To date, it has been a spectacular failure. I suppose I should place blame squarely where it belongs—with the writer—but I seem to be unable to help being extremely frustrated with the intended audience. I’ve tried cajoling, coaxing, and asking nicely. I’ve attempted to inject guilt into the equation. Nothing. I know I am largely to blame; if I wrote posts of interests to the audience, they would read what I write. If I encouraged, in the right way, dialogue, they would comment. But whatever I’m doing I am doing wrong. And that frustrates me. I’m frustrated with myself and angry with the audience. Hence the need for chill pills. I think I’m going to give up the other blog; that’s probably the easiest way to erase the disappointment I feel with both the writer and the readers. Yep, that’s it. I’m done. Hell, that was easy!

I invested far too much time last night in watching several episodes of a fourth rate television series entitled “American Odyssey.” It’s a military action drama set mostly in Mali, with plenty of simultaneous action taking place “back home” in the U.S.  If asked to categorize the genre, I would have to say it’s military/industrial schlock, tainted with over-the-top greed and unbelievable storyline. But, as I said, I invested a lot of time in it last night; four or five episodes, I think. The series was rightfully cancelled after a single series, but that means there are thirteen episodes in total. After watching so much, I feel compelled to finish what I started. Although it might be easier on me to just read the episode summaries and be done with it. Maybe I’ll try that and see if I can recapture my sense of decency and honor; those seem to have spilled with the blood of unnecessary characters in the show.

My wife plans to go into Hot Springs today to do errands, go shopping, and otherwise engage in behaviors during which I would not be welcomed nor would I enjoy. So, I shall find other things to do, probably right here in the Village. Maybe right here at home. Wash clothes. Vacuum the floors. Twiddle my thumbs. I’m tired of writing. I need a break from it and from the thought that accompanies it. Maybe I’ll take advantage of the time available to me today and will examine my life. No, that would require too much thought. I need to go find a chill pill. None of this lengthy post matters. I invest too much mental energy in stuff that should just roll off my back. Why can’t I just relax? Vegetate? Be smooth? Why, indeed. I’m feeling a little like an empty can. What’s the point of the metal tube when,  after using the can opener to remove the top, there’s nothing inside?

Last night’s brilliant light shows and rolling thunderclaps seem to have disappeared into a silent, dreary, cold, wet morning. I can tell by the shuddering of the few remaining leaves on the trees outside my window that there’s a breeze, but it’s not strong enough to shake even the slightest limbs and twigs. The weather app on my computer screen claims the wind is blowing from the east at one mile per hour; not the fierce gales I heard howling much of the night.

After I have my coffee, I’ll shower and shave and get dressed so I can head out to a meeting at the church. I have begun loathing meetings again, the way I did virtually my entire career in association management. I do not want to grow to detest retirement the way I detested my professional life. That would be ruinous in many ways. So I shall avoid it like the plague. I want to continue to treasure retirement as I have done thus far.

Asserting one’s dedication to enjoying life does not necessarily make enjoyment appear out of thin air. It’s hard to say what constitutes joy when the act of opening one’s eyes seems sheer drudgery. I cannot force a smile this morning, at least not thus far. I haven’t looked in the mirror yet, but I suspect a chance visual encounter with myself would not go well. Even the thought of food does nothing to cheer me; in fact, the thought of food is an unpleasant one. That rarely happens. Coffee has, so far, been all right, but the very idea of food is enough to cause me to wince; I can feel the sneer on my face when food enters my thoughts.

Last night, I watched a documentary, American Factory. It presented the story of a shuttered factory in Dayton, Ohio that was reopened by a Chinese auto glass manufacturer. The promise of rebirth went awry when American and Chinese cultures clashed. The message I took from the film was that American workers compare unfavorably with Chinese workers in terms of steely commitment, willingness to work hard, and dedication to “perfection.” But I also so that Chinese workers compare unfavorably with American workers in terms of commitment to family over employer and commitment to enjoying life rather than simply wading through it. Americans in the film did seem somewhat lazy in comparison to their Chinese counterparts. But Chinese seemed timid and subservient compared to their American counterparts. Interesting cultural dichotomies. But greed on both sides of the world was apparent. When I finished watching the film, I was ready to try another culture on for size; neither Chinese nor American seemed particularly alluring.

This entire writing experience is not going well so far. I think it’s time to stop. Perhaps a shower and some time away from the house will rectify things. We shall see.

I’m on the road route trail footpath to recovery. For some reason, getting over this cold is a much slower process than I expected. Perhaps it’s because my respiratory system was compromised when I had lung cancer and/or the surgery to address it. Or, maybe, it’s a function of age. Or, possibly, the strain of virus or whatever it is that “got me” is more aggressive than I’ve encountered in the past. Obviously, I don’t know why it’s taking more time than I thought it might; but I have ideas. Ideas: the building blocks of both bad fiction and literature for the ages. I think I’ll stop while I’m ahead. I’m improving, albeit slowly. I hope to remain on that footpath until I reach the pinnacle of health. Soon.

***

The sky this morning could have been snatched out of a cinematographer’s toolkit. Dark grey clouds, punctuated by darker celestial blots, form the backdrop for dark, almost black, outlines of barren hardwoods and huge evergreens. Those trees block the sky behind them. The forest floor is dark, barely visible. A cinematographer could use these images in scenes designed to instill fear in the audience and hopelessness in the characters in the woods. When coupled with the right music, the scene outside my window could fit right in to a Stephen King movie. But, even as I write this, the sky is brightening. It’s no longer the scary, dark emptiness; it’s just raw gloom. Ah, what a happy start to a Thursday in the Village!

***

For some reason, I think I’m tiring of my old standby San Francisco Bay French Roast Coffee. I don’t even know what kind of beans are used in the stuff. I used to be more particular about coffee, insisting on a specific type of bean. I wonder whether I ever really knew one bean from another or whether, more likely, I was an uninformed coffee snob.  I might still recognize Ethiopian yirgacheffe beans (both appearance and flavor), but maybe not. I remember thinking (or being led to believe) Mocha-Java was a “supreme” coffee blend. I also remember thinking (or being led to believe) Hawaiian Kona was among the world’s finest coffees. That’s just a tiny sample of the types of beans/blends I once revered, not to mention the variations in flavor arising from different roasts (light to dark).

I remember being surprised to learn that the darker the roast, the less caffeine. Apparently, the higher roast temperatures to get the dark roasts “burns off” or otherwise removes much of the caffeine. So, the espresso I enjoy so much (but so rarely of late) is brewed from very dark roast beans having the very least caffeine. Who knew? I did, once. I still do, I guess, though I don’t remember details.  I think it would be fun to return to my practices of exploring coffee beans, roasts, and methods of preparation. Well, it might be fun to actually acquire knowledge instead of pretending to possess knowledge I never had.  I’ve discovered as I’ve aged that I don’t really care whether my taste preferences correspond to generally-accepted measures of quality; if I like beans deemed inferior by the experts, so be it. If I enjoy drinking coffee the coffee professionals consider undrinkable, then I should be able to use that to negotiate lower prices for my favored beans. This line of thought reminds me that my wife and I, in blind taste tests of Argentinian Malbec wines, favored the cheaper ones, while others in our tasting groups gravitated toward the more expensive wines. Rather than feeling embarrassed at our uneducated palates, we rejoiced at our good fortune at being able to afford more of the wines we enjoyed. I prefer that sense of good fortune over a sense of superiority. Yes, I’ve again veered sharply away from my chief subject and, instead, have entered another conversation. It’s a little like, during a conversation about which cuts of beef one prefers, wandering into a dissertation on the best ways to avoid bones in a salmon fillet.

I have a secret. I believe, without evidence of any kind, that dragons once roamed the Earth. Not (necessarily) the fire-breathing kind. Just your average dragon; big, fleshy beasts with wings like those of a bat (but orders of magnitude larger), huge claws, prehensile tails, and scales like hard polished leather. I have as much reason to believe in dragons as I have to believe in Santa Claus. But my belief in Santa Claus evaporated before I reached double digits in age. My belief in dragons never completely disappeared. I don’t believe dragons continue to roam the Earth, but I think they once did. They were here during the time of dinosaurs, but they survived the cataclysmic events that eradicated those creatures. Dragons lived on for many, many, many years, succumbing only toward the end of the Middle Ages from diseases passed on to them from careless humans. It is a shame they are gone. I believe they would have made good pets, with proper care and training (on both sides of the relationship). There were a few dragons that survived the Middle Ages. Puff, for instance, may well have lived by the sea in a land called Hanalei, where he frolicked in the autumn mist. In actual fact, Puff was an agéd dragon by the time the Peter, Paul, and Mary song hit the charts in the early 1960s. Puff was the last of the dragons, I’m afraid. When he died, a school of killer whales dragged his enormous carcass to the North Pole by where they deposited it under a huge ice shelf. Puff’s preserved corpse has remained there all these years. One day, an enterprising biologist will secure a few cells from Puff’s body and will use them to clone the monstrous beast. Once again, dragons will roam the Earth. I only wish I could witness the return of the creatures.

***

Morality is a human construct. It is no more a “truth” than chocolate milk is a “truth.” It is a byproduct of human intervention. That having been said, and the way I said it, one might assume I find morality an offensive concept. I do not. I think morality is the glue that binds us all together. When that glue begins to degrade, so does humanity. The fact that morality takes many shapes and, in some cases, manifests in competing and conflicting ways between and among cultures and individuals within those cultures, is humanity’s greatest challenge. Solve that challenge and make the world better for humanity, the creatures with which we share the Earth, and the Earth itself.

I am sick this morning. It began a few days ago. Last night, my illness mushroomed into a full-blown cold (if that’s what it is). A flood of mucous filled my sinus cavities and has attempted to escape through my nose and throat. My throat hurts; it feels raw and angry, as if rough sandpaper had been rubbed against the inside of the back of my mouth overnight. My ears ache. My head throbs and aches. I have a hard time breathing. Last night and this morning, as I tried to sleep, I heard whistling in my nose and throat with every breath. When I try to speak, I make croaking sounds, as if my vocal chords have been paralyzed and rubbed raw with kerosene-soaked rags. I hate to feel the way I feel.