Category: Summer Writing

Writing again because, well, this was something I could do to slightly quash my racing mind.

I think we might be past the peak on summer heat, but it’s been a very uncomfortable summer so far.

I still have an irrational resistance to eating oysters in a month that doesn’t have an “R” in the name, but, I dunno, just feels like something you do when you’re not sweating through your clothes.

Speaking of comfort, I’m actually wearing basically business-casual stuff today. Nursing just ice water as I wait for my ride into the District to go be a lab rat for a few years.

I took a quick glance at what it’d cost me to get rides to/from Biloxi and New Orleans. Um. Okay. I’ll pass.

Let’s get into it.

I don’t remember if i mentioned it, but these where from a deck of writing prompts I got, I think, for Christmas last year.

I scanned them using the Google App, and copied-and-pasted them using the inbuilt OCR.

That this can happen now is fucking awesome.

I anticipate it’ll have as much problems understanding my chicken scratch as my teachers and professors did, but I’d imagine there might be something in my mother’s garage that’d be worth trying to capture.

How do I listen to my body, and when do I tend to ignore it?I

The short answer to this one is, “I don’t.” The longer answer is, “I don’t, because what my body tells me is so often just complete nonsense.”

Am I uncomfortable? Pretty much all the time.

Am I hungry?
Am I nauseated?

The psychologist I’ve been seeing has helped me a lot with those, but I still have problems from time to time.

Am I exhausted?

Yes, but I’ll ignore that until I collapse, which probably isn’t a good thing.

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I think we’re running. Back tomorrow.

Time to wrap up.

Once again didn’t sleep well thinking about what the company’s done to me with its wise policy update (to a policy they haven’t finished, but it’s happeneing 1 September).

I should not be feeling this way.

It’s unfair.

I wish there was a better way to describe it, but that’s about all I can come up with.

To really needle their self-styled progressive nerves, the new policy actually does steal equity from me.

I could spend a ton of time really dwelling on it, but I’m not going to do that. I’m going to try to enjoy my couple days off.

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Interesting back-and-forth over SMS with someone I’ve had fleeting interactions. He was from the town neighboring where my parents retired, and our mothers worked together at a couple of elementary schools.

He’s doing okay in hte midst of his divorce from an acquaintance of my iwfe an mine….odd situ.

A bit of amazement at my yet-to-be-finalized investment idea.

But it was nice to get some positive feedback.

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But another summer compulsive streak in “the books.”

Am I spreading my weird burbles across the Intertubes to be preserved for posterity?

Or should i buy one of the Selectric IIIs I was looking at yesterday after writing that entry….?

I don’t really have a place to put it.

Privatized yesterday’s entry on the public blog. Given the number of people reading, I’m not really worried. No, I’m not going to make the OD cross-post private.

Still trying to figure out next steps on that.

Keep going back to maximum effect for the drones; you’ve stolen my equity already, now you’re stealing part of what I bargained for taking the job.

(And Microsoft’s in-browser checking doesn’t like the double-space after the semicolon. I think I’ve written about it before, but I learned to type on an IBM Selectirc III. The teacher for the class also taught Shorthand I kinda begged my parents to buy one of the typewriters the school district was selling off after they transitioned to keyboarding, but… Two spaces between sentences! Space prepending digits in lists so they line up!)

One more day of this

I think it’s showing to myself that I can keep at at something.

But which things do I want to do?

Without your knowledge, a customer rep keeps you on hold for half a day as a part of her company’s study to see how much you can take.

This actually made me chuckle. A not-insignificant part of my time is spent doing this sort of thing.

The med school students have me doing some years=long study about my condition. I really don’t anticipate there being a problem. Anything I can do to help, I will.

My intention when I first went to Georgetown in whatever it was, 2016, maybe, that I was throwing myself to them in the hopes they could use me to further research to deal with this disease.

I will be forever grateful to the docs who’ve treated me there.

That kind of feeds into the issues at work. I appreciate that you think it’s important for people to live “whole lives.”

I can’t enjoy many of the things that I would be typically expected to enjoy. There’s not a ton of things I really do enjoy at this point. If you cared, you might handle me with kid gloves?

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I’m wondering what’s up with some of the headlines Microsoft is pushing my way. Maybe too much The Fifth Column attention, but what the hell is with these stories where they don’t get into the things contained in the headline until ¶ ten?

Or show the photograph of a player who really has no relevance to the team anymore?

One of the many things I fail to understand.

I should go get some coffee, and decide what I should capture in the last entry tomorrow.

Another terribly long day.

Not really sure what I can say aside form the fact that humidity has creeped back in in NoVA.

My diaphragm really does not work well when it’s hot. Same goes with what little bit of my vision is left.

I thank the coworker who gave me a ride, as the busses and Metro shop aren’t really close.

A key is missing on your keyboard

I don’t have any missing off this keyboard. But there’s several where the lettering is gone. Thans, EMACS!!1! C-x C-s.

Am dreading cheerleader-led pep rally tomorrow telling me that I really don’t have any vacation anymore.

Why am I still doing this?

Because that’s what I do.

Just like writing in streaks.

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I looked back to a few summers ago to see what I’d written about then. The year I checked, I actually didn’t have an entry for this date.

So what happened this day?

Lots of stuff about old Christian churches.

They were good about keeping records.

You know who else was good at keeping records? /Godwin

Another day of this week. I’d planned on not working Monday, but I may have to repeat my somewhat-futile task of today. We’ll see.

Another insane day. Tomorrow will be similarly strange. I had a nightmare last night about not being able to do what’s been asked of me.

There’s things I’ve gotta remember, and I’m nervous that I won’t do everything correctly. Some of this is stemming from some of this stuff being so distant from what I’ve done recently.

But I’m okay. Comfortable, even. I’ve gone through so much, and….whatever happens, I’m okay.

Pecans, Peanuts and Pistachios.

Um. Do I have to pick just one?

But it goes along with a Tweetpost I was pondering the past few hours…\

I’m really bored of all my rotating veggie side dishes, pls drop your favorites 🙏

— Inez Stepman ⚪️🔴⚪️ (@InezFeltscher) August 16, 2023

Hm. Rotkohl.

I’ve also been thinking lately about greens — collards, mustard, turnip.

Fried okra.

Succotash.

I would like to cook something. But what?

Once things settle down a bit, I think I’m going to do that.

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Maybe part of the reason I do things like these writing binges is the sense of completion that comes towards the end. Do I crave it? Maybe.

I think that’s probably a big part of the NoJoMo process.

Who knows?

Yeah, completely out-of-sorts today.

Another incredibly busy day.

I promised on TwitterX that I’d expound on what I’d written on Lions of Liberty Locals about this Rich Men North of Richmond song.

Not sure what to do w/ Rich Men North of Richmond. I guess I get part of it, but, really for the Byrd Organization-supporting Keep-Virginia-Blue types, the Commonwealth ends where the HOV lanes stop on 95. And, no….those aren’t RON PAUL voters. They’re Jim Webb, Doug Wilder, and Ralphie Northam voters. DPVA has gone full re^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^Hbatshit crazy.  Living in Democrat-since-the-Yankee-occupiers-left-in-1877 localities, I often vote in the Democrat primary….and it’s often to vote against whichever nut the DerpProgress crowd has rolled out. I did that in 2020, too, specially to vote against Liz Warren (who’s a hell of a lot whiter than I….)

The RON PAUL fans were trying to make this guy sound like a RON PAUL fan. No, I’m thinking that’s not it, even if he’s talking about the dollar not being worth shit.

I know they’re hated by both the Keynesians and the Austrian acolytes, but a lot of folks from the Chicago School explain that price is a function of supply, demand, and available circulating money.

That last element has been in an overabundance, certainly since the pandemic pump priming, but I would say that it’s been going on since about 1995.

Interest rates have been held far below i9nflation since President Clinton, et. al., kept interest rates way below where they should be.

What goes up in price? Equities (so stocks), and Real assets (Housing).

Apologies for the brief interlude into this, but it’s the same in many areas.

Look at how back higher education is. You have a slack demand, now, because people my age didn’t form babby because we were worried about getting AIDS after there weren’t many of us to begin with.

The loans are completely guaranteed by the Federal Government.

When there was a peak in demand about ten years ago, now it’s nothing.

What can you do?

Reviewed the prompts I have left, and nothing is really catching me.

I’m going to go watch the news, sip a Godfather, and try to recoup for tomorrow.

Really tacking back to pre-9/11 entries to see where I was, mentally, back then.

Holding Everything Together
I sometimes wonder why, exactly, I’m the only one I know who totally seems to have things together….why I don’t have any devestating problems….why my issues are less significant than other people’s. It all seems so improbable…that I’d make it this far without majorly fucking something up…being in a situation where things have gone totally wrong, and there are questions about whether I’d ever get out of the situation.

And going back to my little advice problem (that it always seems like everyone I know is coming to me for advice, and I’m never going to them…that I’m constantly solving problems, while never wanting to burden anyone with even the tiniest thing)….

Maybe my time just hasn’t come yet? What a dreadful thought. FUD speak. But then again, I can’t foresee anything….

Confused?

You bet.

But then again, I’ve been shit on a fair amount. I can’t imagine dealing with Spring ’99 again. Hmm.

Off in space…excuse me.

Yep. That’s pretty much me, still, even after all of my problems. I try to help other people with their problems while acting like mine aren’t there.

Was I having symptoms back then? Um, yep. You bet.

In a hall of mirrors where each mirror reflects a character trait, you see yourself as you really are.

I’m trying to hide myself as best I can? With that one, my oft-repeated mantra of “you can leave” is tougher. Every attempt you make to disguise yourself gets tougher.

Maybe that has something to do with my odd attraction to houses with a basement?

If you can’t leave, make yourself as invisible as possible.

And my initial response is to say something about how I shouldn’t worry; I’m not that interesting, anyway. (Yes, doc, I know I’m not supposed to say things like htat..)

Oh well.

Up very early for a dentist appointment. What had been a roundabout at the end of the street that leads to Old Town was replaced with a more conventional intersection in the past two-and-a-half weeks. My wife, who was going for her cleaning, noticed. I did not, immediately, but I think I would have.

One of the biggest things I’ve noticed in places other than Tidewater, is that roadways change pretty quickly.

Maybe that pairs with some of what I’m dealing with work.

There’s just such reluctance to do anything different.

We have our way of doing things, and they’re correct forever.

Looking for something to write today, I stumbled across this. This thing I’m dealing with as a temporary fill-in is really setup that way. We work this way. We’ve been working this way for twenty years. Whatever you might want to do to change it is wrong. We don’t know why we’re operating this way, but it is the way.

Which kind of natural disaster would you find the most terrifying to experience?

The fire in Maui does kinda fit the bill. My wife and I were watching some of the BBC coverage of it last night. Geez. And, thinking about it, England might be about as far away as you can get on the planet from Maui.

Much as I dislike linking to Space Cowboy Jeff’s sewer, they do have the story about how the government power company didn’t shut off the lines to prevent more fires from being sparked by downed lines.

See, we have a process for shutting off the service. You didn’t have a Form E-193 signed by five people that we need to shut off service….

Now my debate is whether I want to try to stay up, and watch the Saints’ preseason game….or take a nap.

I think the latter option is going to win.

After the past few days’ marathons, back to the disturbing dreams. Yes, it’s on the to-talk-about-list with my psychologist when I see her next.

I couldn’t resist writing that down, and it ended up with me being awake for several hours.

But it was something so, um, noteworthy, that I had to get it down for memory.

From this day in 2001….

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Cat Mutilations
Heard about it on Dreamland the other night. I suppose the aliens have gotten bored with cows.

This weekend was a loser. Friday night was beer and burgers at the pub. Saturday night was tequila and wings in Norfolk. Had a hangover on Sunday and I didn’t even get drunk. How much does that suck?

Anyone heard “Clint Eastwood,” by Gorrilaz? I’m not sure I get it. Is it like a white-boy takeoff on Puffy? What is with these people?

My annoyance has once again delayed his departure. He was supposed to be gone this past Monday. Now it’s wednesday night at the earliest. And he’s got company until he leaves. Wonderful.

It’s 4:35, and I’ve been here since 7:30 last night.

I need to find something fun to do tonight.

Or else.

Bleh.

Work.

At this moment, I have absolutely no motivation to do anything, yet my productivity at work tonight has been stunning. I’ve said that I’d be totally unproductive and I wouldn’t care about anything if I had a girlfriend…but I feel totally unproductive and don’t care about anything while I’m single. Yet I get things done. Explain that one.

Want a laptop, damnit. I’m wondering if I’ll get anything for my birthday. Maybe a stripper. No, I take that back. Don’t need to deal with the ex on my birthday. For those of you who care, that’s a week from tomorrow.

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Even back then I was working. I really don’t know that I’ve had a period where I just didn’t do anything for a long time.

Oh well.

My brain is always plugging away at things.

That is a problem.

Write about getting lost and finding an alternative way – it can be literal or metaphorical

This kinda fits in with some of the strange drams I’ve had in the past few months….being stuck in a place, not being able to find a way out, and running out of the energy to search for new ways.

But when can I take a break to get away from everything? I have the financial means, but there’s still responsibilities I can’t bring myself to shirk.

Maybe that should be my focus for a while?

Next milepost is next May, I guess. Keep chugging until then.