Quit Whining and Pay Attention

It's been a surreal fall. Tomorrow I go to court for my dad's will probate and I was thinking "Life will somehow be 'normal' when I've gotten all that taken care of." Yeah, sure. Life is never 'normal.' It's always FUBAR. Anything else is an illusion. You just have to take the blows, feint left or right, dodge, go on.

FFP sent out an e-mail saying his latest surgery didn't find cancer. Yeah, we are happy and thinking about being festive and such. Someone replied that their journey was taking a different turn, toward hospice. And then we saw in the paper that our friend died on Sunday. I heard that my aunt had a fall. Don't know where that's going but they took her to a big hospital in Dallas from the suburb where they are living. Fortunately she's near Dallas, near my cousin. She doesn't have children, just nieces and nephews. So I'm glad my cousin's wife is there to help her husband. And her.

I have a feeling that I have got to quit whining and pay attention to things. But, of course, I feel like celebrating FFP's good news of the day. (The permanent sections confirm: no cancer in the thyroid. Turns out the tumor on his eyelid was the only thing that was cancerous.) I told him that for Christmas I wanted to dine in nice restaurants and he made a reservation for tonight at one of the best. Now, of course, I'm worrying about other people. Those not so lucky. But you just go on. You do. Grabbing what joy you can. Whining when you have no right and not paying proper attention to your duties. Fact is, we walked to a place for breakfast this morning and while crossing Congress, solidly in the crosswalk with a walk signal, a guy ran the light, managing to stop only after getting well through the intersection. FFP alertly grabbed my arm and we halted as he passed a few feet in front. I really, really have to try to pay attention even as I keep whining.

We took cabs back and forth to Jeffrey's last night so we could both drink and had delightful food and wine. We are lucky. No whining. Awareness.

Embrace the Chaos

That's my motto for the day. For the coming days. (The photo is a shop window reflection photo of my nieces taken on South Congress of the window of Off the Wall, a weird little place with a combination of vintage and new mostly unnecessary items.)

I lost my favorite commuter cup yesterday. I probably left it on the tennis court. Not turned in, though. Have you ever noticed how lost and found deals are full of good stuff but never your stuff?

I worked out today a little. As I was using the recumbent bike and some weights I realized that I will probably be using the gym at the country club far less now that I have a gym at my building.

I have been moving stuff from room to room, trying to get things out of the way of the movers, collecting all but the bigger pieces of furniture in the living room, stuff we plan to carry ourselves in another room. I have possibly packed the last box for the movers although I may pack one more. FFP cleaned out the cupboards in the galley kitchen in his office (sink and small fridge with cabinets and a counter top). He finished a job I started a few weeks ago. We found stuff for the thrift store (almost two cubic feet), stuff to take to the condo, a basket full of garbage, etc. He said, "I've been in this office eleven years." Yikes. It's true, we finished this renovation in January 1997 and he moved here from a building we owned and leased the building out. Hard to believe.

So why am I blogging and not getting my act together? I believe it's ye old paralysis in the face of an overwhelming bunch of stuff that needs doing.

Chaos, Entropy and Inevitability

Actually the full title of my credo is: Chaos, Entropy and the Inevitability of Death. But just inevitability is OK, too.

Yesterday when I got up and came upstairs to do my computing of the morning the iMac I had been configuring for FFP was giving errors in the software that allows the computer to run Windows. Distressing because the error was on the big file that really is your windows 'disk.' Worse it was locked up even for Apple functions. It gradually responded a little but getting Windows going again was no-go. If I'd taken a Snapshot somehow it got corrupted, too. FFP hadn't started to use the computer, but I'd invested a lot of time installing and configuring software and moving snapshots of the files. I'd also been working on scanning in business card stuff he used to keep in an old-fashioned Rolodex. I'd backed it up once but not my most recent version. (Rule of computers: If there is a crash, you will lose one file's latest version no matter how meticulously you back things up.)

Now the scariest part of this is that, essentially, the computer and software I'm typing this on is identical to the one where the Windows went away. That other computer seems to be running OS X fine (although there are some weird messages so I'm not so sure), but, of course, we are far from evolved enough to rely solely on Apple. Yeah, so the really scary thing is that this (mostly identical) setup that I am, in fact, typing this blog on, has been not only configured and stocked with files. But I've started downloading pictures, updating spreadsheets, refining my environment, updating my journal, etc. Now I also started backing up a bunch of essential files to the Time Capsule and to an Internet backup service. But my last computer, a big ugly slow and low on memory five-year-old (or more) Sony seems as slow as a caveman. Plus, of course, it is now a bit behind on the latest versions of files.

We should expect it, though. Computers are complicated mini-reflections of our lives with lots of tweaks, preferences and files we've created. And there is the inevitablility of the tumbling down. The falling away and erosion until the shiny computer and it's brain that is a mini-you is only and oozing pool of toxic waste.

Death is inevitable, too, but regardless of our situation, whether we are gravely ill or old or seem to be in fairly good shape, we don't know when it comes. And until it does, we are updating files in our heads and making calendar entries planning for the future. Knowing that all is chaos, entropy and inevitability doesn't really buy us anything except a kind of peace, knowing that really we can only keep it together for so long. Hmmm...I was a little disturbed to find that I already had labels for 'death, chaos and entropy.' But you don't come here for the cheer and joy, do you? I didn't think so. Now you can turn away from the computer and go confidently through your day, knowing you have it more together than someone. Me, I have to go play tennis.

Missing

No, I'm not missing. But I am feeling a little lost. And this is likely to persist for a while. I remember when I was a small kid, maybe seven and eight. My sister and I had shared a bedroom in this little two bedroom house we had. There was a tiny screen porch, though, and it had been weathered in and my grandmother and mother were fixing it up as a room for me. They'd moved in a twin bed. There wasn't much room for anything else except there was a closet. Maybe they'd moved in a chest and a lamp or something. Anyway, they were trying to fix it up and I was impatient and wanted them to get out of my room. I wanted to have my space fixed up and use it and be alone in it. I've been feeling a similar way for a while. With the fix up that's going on and the ongoing mess and trying to move to FFP's office, organize a new computing environment, etc. I sometimes feel that I just want some space, fixed the way I want and to be free to be alone in it. Alone means just me or me and FFP. I never feel he's crowding me. We can be alone together is one reason we got married and stayed married.

The picture? It is the construction going on yesterday at the main lobby entrance to what will be our new home: the 360 Condos. Does it look like it will be ready for a grand opening in a little over a month? Even if this gets done and we get closed in early summer, the chaos will still reign. We will have painting and custom built-in furniture construction in the unit. We will still be trying to empty the behemoth that is our current abode. One day, all downsized and decorated, I hope to take a breah and, typing on this little wireless Apple keyboard looking out at downtown, I hope to declare that I have things pretty much ordered the way I want. I hope to be reading books instead of sorting them and managing my finances instead of shredding decades old documents. But you know how that goes...some disturbance comes in from left field and your life is moving toward entropy again. What can you do? Nothing. It's stronger than you are and you just have to make some forward progress to make up a fraction of the inevitable slide.