Category: NoJoMo

Write about your biggest fears (reach-back to 2010).

This is what I wrote back then:

---

Day 15 — Facing Fears – 11/15/2010

I am not a corageous person by any means.

That said, I’ve had to face down many fears over the past year. I just can’t be afraid of little silly things anymore.

For example, look at some of the later pictures in Day 13. I hate needles. No tattoos or piercings here. Even more than that, no tracks on my arms…..

But I have to take an injection every single damned day. Having the gun helps somewhat, as I don’t actually see the sharp until after I’m finished.

I’m trying to come up with something else, but falling way short. There’s so many things I was uncomfortable about before that seem just nonsensical these days. And I have more than just me to worry about now. But I have someone with whom I can share those things. Never once has she ridiculed me, or thought I was being a baby. I don’t make this stuff up. Do I worry more than I ought to? Sure. Is that fear? I don’t know.

But with that, and I’m not sure if this is fear or pride, I’m much less uncomfortable asking for help these days. I’m not Superman. There’s shit I can’t do. Maybe at one time I thought I could do most anything……

Fear of falling…
Fear of failure…
Fear of losing my hair…
I’ve got to get it together, man…
It hasn’t happened yet….

---

So much has changed in nine years.

One of my biggest complaints nine years ago was about needles. Today, I don’t give a shit.

Hurt me/hurt me/I know, right?/as if!

Thank you, Zappas.

Anyway, I’m in a very strange place. It could be attributable to many things, but I rarely fear any consequences. Where I am now, certainly there’s things I’m concerned about, but I rarely get too wound-up about anything.

Going back to the last, however, I know there’s a lout less I can do now than I could do then.

Understanding my limitations, both physical and emotional, does definitely affect what I attempt. Back in 2010, I would have said I can’t run a marathon, but I could do a few miles. Now, I can barely walk a block. Consequently, I wouldn’t frustrate myself even planning to compete in a marathon.

The past decade, however, I’ve dealt with prosperity, as well as incredible hardship.

But I’ve survived.

And don’t really think there’s anything I would enjoy. So I don’t want much, if anything.

My wife’s family was asking what I might want for Christmas.

Socks. That’s about all I can think of. Seriously.

Do men or women have it easier in our culture? If so, why do you think so?

The original draft of this said, “two men, or women.” I literally can’t even.

I think that I had something in mind. I probably wrote something about this at some point in the past, but I’m too lazy to go look for it. Was that mansplaining?

Snark aside, how relevant is this when anyone can choose his/her/its own gender, and it’s nearly child abuse to point a young person towards a particular identity?

I’m not sure where I’m going with this. I have to go get my infusion.

Veterans’ Day

101 years since the Western Front went quiet.

I can vaguely recall my dad taking us driving around The Somme battlefield. I would have been something like seven or eight years old, and the concept that a million people died there was just incomprehensible.

As I’ve gotten older, I think I’ve come to recognize just what a disaster for Europe, and the entire world, World War I was.

As I dressed for my appointment this morning, the local NBC affiliate had video of vintage planes dropping poppies over Dover.

I worry that the history of it is lost on most Americans. OK, Boomer, I get that you knew more people who fought in World War II. Bubuhbut Tom Brokaw said they’re the greatest generation!!1!

Understood.

That you didn’t learn, or teach, anything about WWI is completely on you.

I do distinctly remember my great-grandmother telling the story of marrying my great-grandfather during the break between basic training and deployment. This was despite the company commander’s direction that they not go get married.

So much of what’s happened in the world since, I think, can be traced to that war.

As for the veterans, my father was career Army. My father-in-law was career Navy. Much of what I do, now, is in support of the Army and Marine Corps. Previously, I, personally, have supported the Navy and Air Force.

One of the cooler things I’ve happened across in the past few weeks is ABMC. Yes, I saw a few of those as a kid. (And I’d really like to work for them if any recruiters come looking….)

Describe how you would manage your own radio or TV station.

I started in on a list of things, but, you know, I do understand that I really don’t know where I’d even start these days. On the rare occasions I’ve been in a car lately listening, I’ve heard the music stations going to something like twelve-minute stop sets. How the hell do you keep people around at all with that?

I seem to remember the goal of a commercial broadcaster being enticing the listener to stay around long enough to hear some commercials.

Whenever I’m listening to a podcast of a radio show, there’s normally a live read in the first segment, a break at the bottom half, then maybe two spots in the second half of the show.

I still do make it a point not to go out of my way to avoid commercials.

I can remember the big thing with MythTV was that you could actually automatically skip commercials. I never did that; selling spots is how broadcasters (and podcasters) earn their money. Recently I’ve bought things ranging from a security system, to socks, to fruitcake.

I guess, though, one of the big things that’s changed is the nature of audiences, who are more likely today not to worry so much about things being in real-time. I know people who watch most sporting events hours, if not days, delayed.

Would watching the Failcons fail to fail at the Superdome be any more disappointing if it was delayed? Or, since it wasn’t on here, than watching it live?

But the Redskins didn’t lose today, so there’s that, I suppose.

I’m really not feeling this today, for a variety of reasons. That we’ve not finished unpacking is probably a major consideration.

Tomorrow’s prompt might prompt me to write more.

Write about what you think you will be like and what you will be doing 10 years or 20 years from now.

Given my paternal history, combined with my physical condition, the answer is probably, “dead.” My father’s father was 54 when he died. My dad was 59. Given the pattern you see there, you’d say 64 for me, which is more than twenty years later. But when you calculate in the average ten years of life that MS normally takes off, I’m back to dying at 54. But if I can make it to 71, there’s a chance I’ll live forever.

The longer answer, and more to the question is, “I have absolutely no idea.”

I probably won’t have any kids. I hope I’m still married. I hope I’ll have been able to work to retirement, but who knows? I think now, at 40, I’ve lived long enough to know, ultimately, who I am, and what my character is.

I retreat. I get lost when htings are going wrong. To me, there’s nothing wrong with declaring defeat, and moving on to something else.

Have there been exceptions? Sure. (see: staying with the same woman for thirteen-plus years, almost ten of those as a married couple.)

I apologize; I’m distracted. We just moved in to our new place. I am now residing inside the Capitol Beltway. So I’m really not focused. Hopefully my residence, here, will let some of the innovative folks at Georgetown SOM use me as a guinea pig.

Birthday Tres

Today is my mother’s birthday. Yes, three days after her father, two after my younger brother.

When it comes to the date, it’s almost as if there was some sort of event in February that might prompt people to form babby.

She’s still down visiting her dad for his birthday on Monday. So what to write about? I don’t even know, really. I’m kinda spent after my missive about recruiters earlier on control-h.org.

I think the guy who I called after writing that called me back, but I was too busy to answer.

Apology delivered, or something. Whether it was accepted, I don’t know. It’s like my parents taught me something, or something.

At the same time, I really don’t care whether it was accepted. I did feel bad about upsetting him, but he’s making money off what I view as an unconscionable system.

I’m taking tomorrow off to help pack for our move on Saturday. I’m still very much of the let-someone-else-do-it, and sort everything out later mentality. Part of a life spent with the Army. My mother had likely never been east of Pensacola, or west of Houston when she got on an airplane to go be with her Infantry 2nd Lieutenant husband whose unit had been moved out of Vietnam to Japan.

Fingers crossed that we should be finished with pretty much everything by a week from now.

Travel recap.

I’d initially typed, “[t]rip out was uneventful.” Then I remembered fucking Atlanta. If there’s one thing in that city that routinely fails more than their football team, it’s the airport.

Since I’m barely able to function these days, I requested a wheelchair. The United pickup coming out of IAD was simple enough. When we got to ATL, I got a chair just coming off the plane. The airport employee ferried me seamlessly through to a different terminal, and right past the security checkpoint, headed towards the baggage claim/ground transportation.

Uh. We had a connecting flight. Oh. So back through the TSA checkpoint.

(And this is where I tried to find the South Park clip where the Toilet Safety Administration was telling people she need to “check ya asshole.” But my computer crashed, and I don’t feel like going back to find it again….)

But after that, we still had enough time to grab a bite to eat, and get on the flight to Gulfport.

Time on the coast was, for the most part, okay. As I wrote yesterday, my body was really giving me issues by the end of the day on Monday.

Tuesday morning we made it to Gulfport without any real issues. The folks at the screening there were okay. Being that it was a Tuesday morning, things were pretty slow.

Until we got to Atlanta. Again. They wouldn’t pick me up from the gate. I really needed to use the restroom. After a bit of negotiating with the gate troll, I gave up, and ambled to the bathroom. After I finished, I just sat down to try and compose myself. My brother and his wife found me, and my SIL went and fetched me a chair. No airport staff helped. My brother pushed me through the airport to and from where we needed to go.

Other takeaways?

I’ve long been a big critic of the 737. Our last flight, from ATL to IAD, was a two-class 737. Compared to the CRJs we’d flown previously, it was incredibly comfortable.

Didn’t hit Waffle House. Just ran out of time. I’m also not sure what effect smothered, covered, chunked hash browns might have had on me.

But it’s good to be home. And I got a full day of work in today, even though I hadn’t planned to do that.

So to look forward to Thanksgiving, and a bit of a real break. Maybe. This coming weekend, it’s all about the move.

Birthday Part two — my brother

i don’t really know how it was for him, as we were travelling back to the District of Suburbia.

I ordered dinner, so there’s that, I guess. His choice.

Seeing family for my grandfather’s birthday last night was pretty good. My body held up, for the most part, until the very end of the evening. I’m tired, but I’m “home.” (Home, of my own, starts late this week when we finally move in.)

Otherwise, I’m checking the election results. No. I didn’t vote absentee. One of the things that’s been running through my head lately is that maybe, if you assume that government power is derived from the consent of the governed, that by choosing not to vote I am withholding that consent.

For Virginia, though, having the fucking Byrd Organization back in charge is going to mean chaos.

*shrug*

So kill me. That’s what the plurality wants, anyway.

Information about my trip for my grandfather’s 90th birthday.

Almost forgot to write in amongst all the um, fun, today. We were there, and that’s what’s important. Nice meal, some time spent with aged relatives, including my grandfather. While there’s familiarity here, it is different than I remember.

That said, seeing my mother with that look of accomplishment on her face; this is probably where she ought to be. My brotther and I discussed some both on the drive back to the hotel, and again when we had a nightcap in the hotel bar.

Good food today. I am feeling the strains of overexertion. *shrug* Things will be more relaxing after this coming weekend.

Now ot unwind, and prepare to head back north in the morning.