The Chair: A Documentary

I had this idea a few years ago. It will remain one of my many unrealized notions. I have offered it to others and you, dear reader, are free to purloin it, too.

It would be a documentary film. It would be called "Chair." One would interview people of a certain age or those who are disabled and must spend time in a small space with things within reach.

The interviews would be cut up and interspersed with others as the participants explored similar things nearby. Imagine me, in the red chair to the left, and my husband (the long-suffering FFP) in the yellow chair at the right.

Yes, I read a lot of newspapers in my chair. I will leave the days' papers on the dining table to my right until the evening although I'll often bring them to my chair, get the lap board down there between the couch and chair and work a puzzle. The ones I haven't read pile up on the little rolling end table to my right. I also have my water or coffee there a lot of times. Or, in the evening, maybe a Manhattan mixed by FFP. As I read them I toss them on the couch. We don't have a lot of company so we use the couch arms and couch for piling things up to have them nearby. Our lap blankets are there in the winter. (They go inside the rolling end table in the warm weather.) When the pile of papers on the couch gets voluminous I take it to the bin we use to recycle paper. On the arm of the couch, I usually keep a paper notebook, various pens, an iPad. There is a Flash connector charger plugged in behind the couch and I can easily reach the plug. I usually put my iPhone here when I'm in the chair. Shoes come off when I go into the chair so there are sometimes one or two pairs on the floor. When this picture was taken, there were a book and a magazine on the couch arm. I think FFP offered these as ones I should read. We have a universal remote for the entertainment center across the room. It is usually by one of our chairs. I often keep a box of Kleenex between the couch and the chair as well as a trash can.

Imagine FFP in his chair. Quite a selection of books queued up or in progress. Magazines, too. He has a lamp, a lapboard, Kleenex, and will often have a cup of tea or coffee.

We really don't spend all our days ensconced in our chairs And the people in the movie who spend more time in their 'nests' will have even more things, won't they?. Prescription drugs, for example. A land line phone.

And it all tells a story, but, admittedly, not a very interesting one!

Datebook

Going through my dad's things yielded some surprises, some tears, some real finds. OK it was mostly trash and moderate treasure headed to the thrift store without regret. A few things were saved for me or my sister, a few other things judiciously given away. One thing I immediately moved to toss and then didn't was an Austin 2004 date book. Apparently someone gave it to him, maybe for Christmas. If so, he didn't write who gave it to him inside. Maybe he'd bought it for himself. After I retired, I taught him to go to Barnes and Noble, prowl around, read their books in the coffee shop. Sometimes he would buy things there.

Anyway he used it throughout the year to jot down his appointments and in a few cases who he visited with and what he had to eat. Pretty mundane stuff. I read through it all and moved to throw it away and then didn't. I trotted it out again and read all the mundane entries. The name of the urologist he didn't like and later fired. A bunch of appointments to see about a large goiter we'd just discovered. Appointments with a GP I later fired. A note on one day that he spent $14.35 on food. Indications that he planned to attend water aerobics, later abbreviated to H20 Arb or W-A. On January 17, 2004 he wrote 'Rain 5 inches over 3 or 4 days.' Emptied his rain gauge, I guess. This was back when he drove himself lots of places. Not everywhere. The surgeon considering his goiter was in St. David's big medical complex and he wanted me to take him there. He noted cards he mailed to his grandchildren and calls he made to his sisters. The gate code for an apartment where he picked up a woman and took her to church activities. Dates were noted for parties for a friend's 90th birthday and a couple's 50th wedding anniversary.

On June 2, he noted 'Linda and FFP to France.' On July 20 he wrote 'Fly out 12:30P to Frankford [sic].' He meant Frankfurt. Germany. He was eighty-seven years old and headed on an almost thirty day trip to Germany, England and Iceland with a friend. On August 17 he wrote: 'Return from London.' On the 18th: 'From Chicago at 1:30AM No luggage.'

The last six years weren't kind to my dad and he had some difficulties even back when keeping this datebook, but somehow these few scrawls show me just how in control of his life he was then and how much he was enjoying it in spite of everything.

I still haven't managed to throw it away.

Lost Me

Normally I have a real good idea who I am and how I am feeding my own selfish desires. The last three months have been trying in this regard however.

My dad died. My husband needed medical care. My dad's affairs needed to be concluded. I began to worry about my in-laws more because, after all, they are 90 and 100.

So lately I keep asking myself: Where am I? What am I supposed to be doing? Why didn't I get to do the things I dreamed about when I managed to retire early and not completely broke?

I am selfish. I know I am very, very lucky. I have resources both physical and monetary against the onslaught. My husband is going to be fine. For now. One day we will all not be fine. The problem is that that day seems all too imminent of late.

And so....while others are shopping, decorating and celebrating...I'll be helping FFP through a surgery and recuperation and perhaps reading and blogging and pondering the rest of my life. I have made one or two momentous decisions: I won't do a holiday card for the first time in a very long time and I will blog in this space every day until the new year. I will write complete sentences. I will punctuate as well as I know how. I will complete thoughts and write my demons off in pixels.

Back to Our Regular Programming

"Hullo!" My dad said strongly.

"How are you this morning?" I asked.

"Better. I haven't got my paper, but it's time. I'll go get it."

"Do I need to come over there and tidy things up before the lady comes to give you your bath? I'm going to play tennis at nine."

"No. I have it all in good shape."

If you saw him bending over his fancy walker (seat, hand brakes, wheels, grabber at the ready), you'd think he needed help. But he says he doesn't. Says he doesn't even have a need for any groceries or supplies.

I'm proud. I'm a little dubious, too. Of course, we had to go over yesterday to get the garbage can put up. He can't handle that. He'll have to be driven to the doctor. He can no longer handle all the check-writing, organization, paperwork. He will need groceries soon enough, phone calls made and, sadly, even some physical help again in the future. But he is making a valiant attempt at independence, such as it is.

This must be what people feel like when the kid goes off to college and moves into an apartment and says, "No, Mom. I'm fine. My roommates and I are making dinner. I opened a checking account. I got the oil changed in my car."

My dad used to take care of many more things than he does now. He will probably never drive again. (Although I'm sure he's dreaming of being able to do so.) He probably won't be gardening outside or even repotting giant ferns on his porch or filling bird feeders.

But he is grasping at his independence. Managing his medical needs complicated by his illness. Taking his own drugs. So many of the Medicare home health people asked "do you have a pill sorter?" And I had to laugh because we had one because it helped my niece and I organize his pills. He used to dose himself and write it in a little notebook. When we were 'responsible' he kept saying "aren't you supposed to get me my pills?"

Don't get me wrong. It's been a rough couple of months. For one week he was home and I was afraid to leave him for even a second because he couldn't safely go to the toilet or empty his catheter or clean up or change his clothes. Four and a half days of that week, I was there except for an hour or so and then Forrest hung around for safety's sake, vacuuming for something to do. My aunts came to relieve me at night for a few days and then my niece and her family drove a thousand miles to be there so he didn't have to be alone.

Maybe now that he can be alone, he's reveling in it. He was always an independent guy who didn't mind some alone time and said so. We aren't out of the woods yet, as they say, because at 93 you are lost in the woods no matter what, but we have entered a new phase. I might be able to start planning a vacation. Of course, you never know the interruptions you'll have from the old folks' needs. (FFP has his parents, too, 90 and 99.) But we'll take it day-by-day. And I have to figure out what to do with my time with myself and my activities taking the front row for the moment.

[Took the photo at Let's Dish on South Lamar when FFP and I went there yesterday. We were taking in a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse. In the afternoon. Just like retired people are supposed to be able to do.]

My Point of View

Looking for inspiration this morning I looked at Holidailies prompts and one was 'five years ago.' I didn't get too inspired about old journals from 2004 so I went to 2005 and was paging through December when I came across this:

I realized that I had a conversation snippet with my dad that he's repeated several times lately. After he said he wouldn't go to water aerobics, he said, "You go get some exercise and stay in shape. You have to outlive me so you can look after me."

"Yeah, after you're gone you don't care."

"Ha. No."

Is that just a conversation thing he sticks in or is he really worried something will happen to me?

That Christmas four years ago I was just worried about Dad not being lonely. He could take care of himself mostly. He drove. He had problems I'm sure but he dealt with them without a lot of oversight from me. Things are different now. I'm four years older. I haven't taken care of myself that well and show no enthusiasm for doing so. My dad and I are somewhat at odds over things in this new era where he needs a strong, available caregiver and I don't feel strong and I resent being available. The last four years have been very unkind to Dad and they haven't treated me all that well either! It will be interesting to see how I feel on the day after Christmas, 2010. Perhaps Holidailies will return and I'll remember to check in with my feelings then.

[Photo is me reflected in the window of the sales center for the W condos, with part of the model building.]

The Cure

The picture? The window of a tanning salon in France, 2004. The subject of the day? Medical care, medical insurance, reform, cures, old age.

There has been massive talk of 'health care reform' for months. It has mostly been about insurance and not so much about care. Except that to pretend pay for insuring more people they are planning to slash reimbursements for things like Medicare home health. Which will allegedly make the deliverers of this care more efficient. Only it may drive them out of business, drive the elderly into homes and put the people employed by these services out of work. But maybe they'll have insurance. Each little bit of legislation has its consequences. It's a messy machine of moving parts.

I'm unsure what Nebraska has been given to insure one Senator's vote, but I'm pretty sure health care is different in every state but shouldn't be legislated that way.

After almost two months of Dad's latest health crisis I have some opinions about the delivery of health care and Medicare. I think the doctors have done a pretty good job saving Dad's life. The quality of his life is compromised by side effects and old age. But he has come back miraculously to the point of doing a pretty good job of chores, cooking breakfast, reheating other meals. He even worked some laundry although he wanted me to fold. Everyone, though, comes to their job in his recovery from a different angle. Some nurses see a shift at the hospital as a series of chores...start an IV, find another nurse to verify starting a blood unit, etc. Some nurses see a patient and try to anticipate what things they can do to move the patient toward a better outcome. Some doctors edged away from a patient threatening to die despite their best efforts. Others stood up with the patient and hard choices. Everyone involved asked what drugs he took a thousand times. Some nurses would condescend one minute (acting like you knew nothing about the patient or health) and expect the family to perform nursing duties perfectly the next. Home health from Medicare was helpful to a point. The occupational therapy evaluation was unnecessary but by the book. The bathing assistance was very helpful. The home health nurse covered the same ground over and over (by the book). Honestly, my dad is now capable of living alone with intermittent assistance. If the paper boy would put the paper on the porch and someone brought food and supplies occasionally and did a few chores that hurt his back, he would survive between times to be driven to appointments. For now.

What will the 'reform' wending its way through Congress bring for us? Will some of Dad's providers quit seeing Medicare patients? Will home health disappear sending him into a facility should there be another crisis? Will my high deductible insurance that we currently just use to wangle lower prices from providers disappear? Or cost lots more?

I don't know any of these answers. But I do know three things. There is no cure for old age and death will come for all of us. And, for now, my dad is perfectly capable of soldiering on...with a little extra help, not a lot. And this health care reform might get more people insurance but the care they receive? It won't be reformed by this legislation except due to unintended consequences.

You Don't Know What You've Lost

Take something away and then you appreciate it, right?

Actually, I like to think I was appreciating things right along in the moment.

I was happy to wake up every day without my hands stiff and aching. I didn't know what was coming with the hands, I guess, but I woke up feeling good and I appreciated that. My dad used to say "If people don't drink then when they wake up, that's the best they are going to feel all day long." My drinking hasn't caused an unpleasant awakening in a long time. But the hand thing has made the first thing in the morning a hangover for my fingers.

When Dad was taking care of his own needs (apart from the help we'd arranged for yard men, cleaning, handyman, errands), I appreciated that. I appreciated that other people with parental units as elderly as ours had more demanding responsibilities. (FFP's duties still center on shopping and errands, amazingly, since his folks are 99 and almost 90.) Dad is working hard after a bad six weeks to get back to virtual independence. He spent 13 days of the last six weeks in two hospital stays and had four procedures and lots of intervention and tests. He's been to doctor's offices three times and to a pre-opt visit to the hospital and another emergency room visit. He's had several visits from a home health nurse, several from a PT specialist, etc. He has an evaluation from Occupational Therapy on Friday. I figure his ability to dress himself, go to the toilet and even cook is proof that he's getting back some facility. He's dealing with a lot. And I would be lying if I didn't say I long for when he was more self-sufficient. He told me yesterday that he had his last car wreck (and subsequently gave up having a car) a year ago. I admit that when he could still safely drive a few places and do his own thing that I appreciated that. I knew it might end just as FFP's Dad gave up driving (his mother never drove) because of his poor vision and that ended a lot of their independence. (Although his parents took cabs for a long time before they felt that was too onerous after a failure to pick up at the grocery store.)

This is where we are now. My health is good if my hands are trumpeting my age. My dad is improving after the latest interventions have halted a rush to possibly fatal anemia. And I don't really know where he will land. I'm going to monitor it until after the holiday and then, if necessary, get him additional help to stay at his house as he wishes. It would be easier to go to assisted living where meals and other services would be more straightforward. But he resists it. He knows how he would feel if he lost the ability to be in his own private space. I think he felt that during his recent hospital stays.

Somewhere Out There

Out where dreams come true.

Feeling vague and unsettled. No one knows the future, of course, but we can put this nice spin on our own planning when things are not going down fast. Watching my dad reach a nadir of as yet unknown depth has been a bitter experience. There are things with no fixes. You know that. And yet.

My dad's uneasy relationship with his own health right now and the fact that we are still doing the family care-giving 'wait and see' means we are focused on him in a probably unhealthy way. I know people give this kind of care to their relatives day-in and day-out for years and years. I won't being doing that regardless of the cost to my dad and me. Arranging for care will be challenge enough. A care facility might be an easier choice. For me anyway. But he adamantly wants to stay in the house he's been in for nine years. Of course, we bought it with the possibility that my parents could stay in it in old age and infirmity. It is handicapped accessible. My dad likes it. Perhaps too much.

It means I have trouble focusing on joyous things. Like the brief sunshine out there on a cool day. Like reading the paper. Or just editing a shop window picture and writing something. Like having a drink and some good food and visiting with friends.

It's only a couple of weeks until Christmas. My lack of festive feeling is pretty complete. If I get to go to the ballet tomorrow night to see "The Nutcracker" and maybe go to a couple of holiday parties, maybe that will change. But I'm pretty sure it won't. This holiday is a wash for me. Not that I need a holiday. I'm not religious and I'm retired so I don't need a vacation.

Except I do. I need a vacation from responsibilities. But no one gets that. Maybe next year at this time I'll feel festive, though.

Growing Old

My current age finally seems old to me. In the past I've been startled at my age but never thought it was that old. Perhaps my current age would seem young and frisky, too, if I felt more young and frisky.

It's not that my health isn't good. Oh, I have aches and pains. I get little injuries and illnesses which I nurse along certain that time will cure them and it does. That's sweet. I can still walk a pretty long way and climb some stairs. Theoretically I still have some percentage of my mental capacity.

What I finally have lost is that sense of endless possibility for things I'll achieve, the places I'll go, the things I'll see happen and the better, stronger, smarter (and yes, thinner) person I'll become.

I feel boxed in. Trapped by how old I am and what will and won't happen.

Of course, I know how it ends. But not when. And there's the rub. Or, one of the rubs.

I once dreamed I would learn many things that I have not mastered. I once dreamed of traveling to many corners of the globe. Now my dreams are circumscribed by the certainty of dangers and lack of bathrooms in many locales.

Ah, bathrooms. Old enough to be out from under the proverbial 'curse' of womankind, the bladder and bowels are aged and not what they once were. Sadly, even the spouse needs to carefully regard bathroom locations these days.

We sometimes imply that it is the three elderly parents which keep us close to home. And this is, perhaps somewhat true. However, they show great independence and we have found others to fill in for needed duties. Maybe the truth is that as we see their worlds shrink it is hard to escape our own feelings of being boxed in. None of the old folks can drive now and none would sign up for a trip further than about ten miles, I don't think, even being driven. My in-laws have never flown and my dad doesn't think he's up to it any longer. I'm definitely up to road trips, long plane rides, etc. But somehow find the idea of going far a bit tiresome myself. Still I enjoyed the last trip and must just plan another.

It all seems a bit futile sometimes. I know life is ephemeral, but this has never stopped me from wanting to improve, learn, grow and go. And it isn't now. It just feels different. Less open-ended, more final.

This feeling is reflected in my acquisition and desire for things. I remember when I was a kid, late teens, early twenties. I was just stopping growing and so had started to actually wear clothes out. I clung to disastrously worn old tennis shoes and jeans, proud to have actually owned them long enough to make them well-used with a few holes and some character. Then I went through a long period of acquiring clothes. Now I find myself loath to buy anything new even though my wardrobe is ancient and starting to wear a bit thin and shiny in places. I remember wanting to expand my living space, buy more real estate, own more gadgets, books, CDs, movies. I wanted to acquire art and build new space to have walls to display it. Now I want to have just what I need, no more, less complicated please! (Although I still get a bit of pleasure from looking at the books we saved last year and those added in since then on the shelves we built into this condo.)

I have also reached a point where I realize that I have already been here a while. I reflect on places and people. On the dead and the living. Heck, as I look through my contacts data base or even my facebook friends I often think "who is that anyway?" I've known people and forgotten them, left them to meteroic success or maybe dismal failure. There are stacks of events poorly remembered, distorted images, hoarsely-pronounced lines from the dull yet surreal play that is my life. I have known people, tried things, read books, seen art and it's all stuffed deep inside me and hard to find.

I have reached an age, I guess, where I realize that one day, possibly not far off, I won't walk in this realm. I don't just know it, as I feel I have for most of my life, but realize it in my bones. Which the young cannot do, nor could I when young. And that, that feeling more than the knowing, makes me old.

I think, though, in my old age, that I should release myself frequently from duty (from financial head-scratching, domestic duty, volunteer work, exercise, worrying about the parents and socializing) and just read and write and think freely, with no guilt about what has or hasn't been done. Thus today I will leave dust and the need for exercise and the call to pay attention to other exigencies of my little life and do a small amount of reading and thinking. You can never really get those duties truly done anyway. And I won't worry that what I pour into my brain from reading or my own creations will merely disappear with me when I am, inevitably, gone.

[Today's photo is a NYC shop window reflection. The title of the piece is "I Have a Book in Me." Ha.]

Bits and Pieces

Tuesday I read a review of Diana Athill's new book about growing old. Old age is much on my mind and, in my random reading, it happened that I was reading another book by Diana Athill. (This book, Stet, I bought in London at some point and it discusses her experience in the publishing industry. At some point it came to rest in FFP's car and, when I happen to be in his car, I read a few pages.)

I've been thinking about death and old age a lot lately. (Yeah, I know. I think about those a lot. See labels on right.)

But, anyway, life and death reminds me of a random collage, kind of like the wall above. We deal with this, decide that, go back and forth and there is all this random stuff and then whammy...this one certain end.

My dad has been going through a period of adjustment since his car wreck. He has been getting rides places and getting errands run by folks, including me. It's obviously disconcerting for him not to have a car, but with his vision problems driving at night is impossible and he already didn't like driving to certain places because of parking issues or traffic. He has had some interesting reactions to it all. He has threatened to call a taxi a few times, but has, in fact, not done so. He has called friends to bum rides. He declared that he was going to "go a month without a car." (Tomorrow that month is up.) He has declared different amounts he estimated that it cost him to own a car, how much to insure it per day, etc. And, in a possibly unrelated train of thought, he told me the other day that he was "going to live to 112." I could see myself, 80-odd years old, trying to see after him. He revised this downward a decade a few days later, only to reassert 112 yesterday. He manuevered his own giant recycling container back up the steep yard to his garage to "see if he could do it." I don't know what's going on with him except that giving up owning a car (or at least considering it) is a big step and he's adjusting to it, thinking through possibilities.

The review for the Diana Athill book quotes her on the car subject:

“Your car begins to represent life. You hobble towards it, you ease your unwieldy body laboriously into the driver’s seat — and lo! you are back to normal. Off you whiz just like everyone else, restored to freedom.”

But we never know when death will come. A few minutes ago I heard a plane had landed in the Hudson River but it now seems that everyone may have survived. They live. But to die another day.

Because death never gives up. To quote the book review above, quoting a Julian Barnes' book:

In his recent meditation on death, “Nothing to Be Frightened Of,” Julian Barnes wrote, “Artists are unreliable; whereas death never lets you down.” He added, “You would buy shares in death, if they were available.”

Yeah, death. A sure thing. It's life that's puzzling.

Enough With the Holidays

OK, it's Christmas. I'm resurrecting an entry I started last Friday (the 19th) and abandoned because it was too down. When I was writing the paragraphs below Christmas was less than a week away.

So here we go. This is what I wrote last Friday. I'll quote it and then continue.

A lot of the writing prompts at Holidailies have been about, well, the Holidays. Understandable, I suppose given its seasonal nature.

Enough with the holidays, though. Christmas is less than a week away. Yes, next Thursday is Christmas. And then there is New Year's Eve. We don't have a plan yet for New Year's Eve. We may watch the downtown festivities from our tenth floor balcony.

Today's reflection, showing me still in sweats from a tennis game in the cold and holding a bundle (Texas pecans bought at the Farmer's market) makes me look like a homeless person. The reflection is in a design shop called Kirk (only one or more letters is reversed or something) and the white things are rubber trinkets on a tree. The peace symbol. Yeah. The guns and bombs? (I'm assuming, the bomb like thing could also be something else.) Those aren't so festive.

I'm not homeless. Far, far from it. It must be pretty horrible to face the holidays without necessities like a roof, let alone money for festivity. And here I sit, with two Action packers full of decoration (one entirely filled with bendable, posable figures of Santas and such) locked away in the storage cage. I'm not feeling it, I have to tell you.

Today I'm going to buy a few presents. Perhaps. I'm going to exercise, read the paper, get outside and walk. I have a pretty free day and I'm retired and we may survive the financial crisis. The old folks are snug at home. My dad had a great adventure with a friend who was visiting yesterday and may have to 'rest up.' FFP stocked his parents' pantry yesterday. All should be right with them for a day. I can spend the day however I like.

Why don't I feel more excited about it? What is dragging me down?

Well, it's nothing I can put my finger on so I'm going to just blast on through it and embrace the day. The fog is burning off outside and maybe it will burn off in my brain soon enough.

And here are some more paragraphs I ditched yesterday (and started a completely new entry):

It's Christmas Eve. It doesn't feel like it to me. I have a few presents piled on the desk in the living room, no other decorations. I've been taking FFP's picture in front of decorations at other places. Yesterday we went to the annual party at the Headliners Club. I posed him in front of one of their trees and in front of the tree in the lobby of the Chase building. I haven't co-oped any Christmas spirit, however.

A few things are bothering me. I could articulate them in this space, but I'd rather not. Because by the time I did then the things bothering me would morph, I think. It's those sorts of things.

We are going out tonight with friends and spending tomorrow with our parents. The friends are going to be festive, I think. Most of them. It's a large group. Our parents will not make me feel more festive. Entertaining them isn't too bad, but it makes me feel old. I have been telling people that when we get together with them the average age is 80. It's true, too. The total age among us is 400 exactly at this moment.

When people ask us what we are going to do for Christmas, I say we are taking our parents to Threadgill's for a meal. Some are shocked. Some think it's a great idea. I mention what a production it is to get them all in and out of cars and into the restaurant and get the food ordered. Often they say, "But you are so lucky to still have them."

Perhaps these people are missing their own parents. If they saw their parents suffer old age, time has softened that. I have one friend, fifteen years older than I am, whose mother is still alive. She is 106. She is in a nursing home. I think she is officially on hospice care. Perhaps has been for years. My friend is still in good health (plays tennis amazingly well) although she has some complaints. Occasionally the doctors think her mother is at the end of her life. Then she rallies. Perhaps, after all, living well isn't the best revenge. Perhaps living long is the best revenge. But you have to have some children (preferably daughters or daughters-in-law statistically) to exact the revenge from!

Yeah, so. I haven't been feeling the holidays. My old relatives filter it for me and, while they (or us as people would have it) are lucky to be doing as well as they are, life with them is covered with a constant layer of infirmity. Their minds are sharp, but they still repeat themselves. My dad can't quite deliver the punch lines of his many jokes like he once could. The things they are interested in and capable of doing are boring for us. This morning my dad informed me that his blood pressure took a drop and it took him a while before he was able to go to the curb for his paper. (He takes medicine to lower the blood pressure and sometimes it works too well.) He doesn't want to go on an outing today to lunch. He recently had a car accident and the insurance company has decided to total the car. He wants me to help with the paperwork. He also wants to buy another car. But he has already restricted his driving to day time and certain places. I think cabs and/or paying someone to drive him is more reasonable. I will be driving him more places, at least in the short term.

When people say how lucky we are to still have parents, I think of how I miss my mother sometimes and agree. But sometimes I think, "Well, you can take a turn doing their errands and explaining things in our modern world to them and worrying about their future. No problem. We'll spread the luck around." I think I know how people with children feel. How our own parents were feeling when we were young, needed help. But they had the hope that we would grow up. The only thing we can hope for is that we stay healthy enough to help them and that they stay reasonably happy and pain-free until the end.

Yeah, it's hard to be festive and that's why stuff like the above accumulates in my unpublished blog entries. But I must shower. Because I think that FFP's parents still want to go out to lunch. And I don't think we've gotten them out of the house since Thanksgiving. And I need to take my dad his presents. And see about the paperwork on his car wreck. And see whether his episode this morning is anything to worry about.

I'll leave it to you, dear readers, especially those who still have kids who are visited by Mr. Claus and those who have sincere religious feelings for the day, to feel festive.

Sense Deprivation

The seemingly strange decor on this tree in which I'm reflected? Hands doing American Sign Language. The tree is in the Scarborough building windows, decorated by deaf students.

I was depressed yesterday. Not clinically. People always talk about clinical depression and I don't think I have that. I get up in the morning. I get over it. I think it has a cause. You know it's OK to feel bad if there is a reason, right?

In most things I'm lucky, but I can't stop the march of time. And it occasionally gets me down. Not so much from my own point of view. Being sixty is odd because you feel some age-related syndromes but you still amaze yourself being able to walk a few miles, do exercises, play tennis, climb a ladder, lift things. That's me anyway. Your hearing is going and you have to wear glasses, but you can remember what stories you've told sometimes and have an interesting non-repetitive conversation with friends.

What depresses me? The parental units. When I'm in my condo I revel in the fact that I was able to simplify things a little, get rid of some stuff, get things like I want them. When I'm in their houses and see all the stuff collecting dust, when I'm trying to do something to bring them into the late twentieth century if not the current one, it is depressing. Because I know that at some point we quit changing and things sort of close in around us and can't be budged. While we may have avoided that for a few years by busting out of that too-big house and its baggage, I know it will come for us, too. We'll forget who we have told our few sad stories, we won't be able to walk and drive around and expand our field of view. FFP's folks were always a bit closed in but the inability to drive and walk very far finished off any trace of adventure. My dad is happy to sit in his house, changing nothing, maybe giving away a few things. He likes to get out more than the in-laws but increasingly it takes a toll for him to do it and he resists and isn't that sorry to not do one thing then another.

I love the folks and while I roll my eyes at their repeated stories and misunderstandings of the workings of the modern world, I enjoy being able to have them around and their connection to our past.

But I don't want to be them. Oh, sure, I know people ten, fifteen, even twenty years older who still seem much younger, physically and mentally. I wish I thought I could be one of those people. And I'm going to try to be. But. I worry. Not about death but about infirmity. And a narrowing of the world. (Although all the parents stay well in touch with the world according to CNN, it's not the same.)

We took an overnight trip to San Antonio this week and that made me happy, to get away and see something different. Maybe I'm feeling closed in because that was the first time we got away from Austin (unless you count those two days at the spa in the northern reaches of Lake Austin) since February.

I shouldn't be depressed. I should be happy. I have the lifestyle I want, things are simpler in our household so that we can do and see new things without too much baggage. Sure the world is falling apart financially and otherwise, but luckily I doubt Madoff would have given us the time of day so we have some of our money left. We can continue to live our profligate lifestyle as we like to say.

Where is all this coming from? Yesterday I was trying to install the phone with the Phillips Lifeline capability for my in-laws. The buttons and the phone that was just a phone until you pushed the button around your neck was overwhelming to them. A major mystery. My mother-in-law seemed mesmerized after the beep test when we had her push the button and the voice came over it and identified her by name. She gawked as the call center asked if she needed help and had to be prompted to say that she was testing it. I hope we can succeed in this great technological leap where we failed with VCRs and answering machines and such. The house has no clothes dryer or microwave and FFP, Sr. listens to cassette tapes on a machine sent to him by the Blind Commission. We have offered a CD player or even an MP3 so he could catch up to audio books now so widely available in those formats, but we know it's futile. Innovation time has stopped. But the scary part is I feel it happening to me, too. I don't want a new piece of software to replace some ancient one I use or I resist the iPod. (Although I finally got an iPod and was pleased.)

What is it that makes us, sometime before we die, just refuse to go further in some ways? It seems that we say "I'm stopping here, go on without me." It isn't just infirmity that makes it happen. No. Sometimes it happens to people who are healthy, mentally and physically. We seem to shut ourselves off from new experiences or ideas as if we are blind and deaf to them or unable to grasp them mentally. Or maybe, just maybe, this resistance to embrace where the world is going is a sign of decline itself. Maybe there is a seventh sense of adventure and openness to change that we lose.

My depression lifted slightly last night. We went to a basement jazz club and heard some twenties and thirties influenced jazz with the Jazz Pharaohs and Liz Morphis. Enjoying old stuff isn't a sign of decline. Shut up. Who could like rap? We had a friend along who helped us have a lively conversation. We went to the Ruth's Chris bar, bumped into other friends, had some good food and driink. Yes, we drank. Then we returned to our place with our friend and had some 1995 Pinot Noir from our cache that was still tasting good while watching "Friday Night Lights." Yeah, we were engaged with a changing world, we were out and about, even if we were sort of doing our 'usual' things. And, yes, OK, we were drinking. Maybe that is propelling me all the faster toward decline.

I think I'll go exercise now. And read the papers about all the big boys falling from grace in Ponzi schemes. That will cheer me. No doubt.

[Note: My tendency towards being down in the dumps is not helped by a fog outside that is so thick we can't see past one block. When we got up, we could see the buildings on Guadalupe and no further. Now we can't see even the AMLI one block away. I hate it when my brain is fogged and so is the world. Or maybe it's better this way. Maybe a bright sunny day would be offensive.]

In The Pink

I dug around in old pictures and this one from last March gave me the title of this post. Now. What words am I going to put with it? The Holidailies prompt today is another about Holiday celebration. ("Tell us about your unique/beloved holiday traditions in your part of the world"). Yesterday, while trying to 'celebrate' my in-laws 70th wedding anniversary, I suggested where we might go for lunch on Christmas. It seemed to overwhelm them a bit, but they were game. Anyway, no more entries about holidays for a few days.

I guess I am "in the pink." I don't have much pain or discomfort. Little aches and pains and afflictions I suffer from...I have learned to put up with them. Best not mention them or they will get worse. When I see the old folks, when I see them complaining about their back and knee pain, I feel young and strong. That fades when I leave them and I am around my young friends while I ponder what will happen to me in my seventh decade.

I'm behind with things I should be doing and I should have lots of time for things now, really. I got through the move. I got this place fixed up so that workmen are no longer having to be called, cajoled and accommodated. But the paperwork, tidying, organization, etc. I promised myself I'd do "when there was time" is languishing. Oh, I'm getting to the things that have to be done. One does that. And I'm spending a bit of time reflecting over coffee and editing pictures and typing into blogs.

But where is the organized and manageable existence I promised myself when I owned one less house and this one was the way I wanted it? Where is the time to tidy cabinets, get the files organized, catalog the books (let alone read those four I'm in the middle of), get control of the piles of newspapers and get a proper amount of exercise?

I don't know. But this minute I'm going to get up, dress in some sweats and go with FFP to the club. I should work out here because the trip to the club will waste thirty minutes, he will be done exercising before I am ready and, if I didn't go, he'd make the emergency trip by the Randall's to get yogurt and coffee by himself. Leaving me some time to...to what? To get my stuff organized? Write? Read? Yeah, right.

One wonders how when I worked I managed to get anything done except for showing up there and doing that. But I did. Sometimes it seems like I got more accomplished outside work. But. I was younger.

Holidailies is Open For Business

A big shout out for Chip and Jette for creating a portal for the Ninth Year for bloggers and online diarists and journalists and various hangers-on. Holidailies is officiailly Open for Business.

It has already allowed me a big laugh by directing me to a report on YAPPIR (Yet Another Pop Phenomena I Refuse). There are things I read about and marvel at but about which I never catch the fever and climb on the fan train. "Twilight" (books, movie, buzz, possibly merchandise) is the latest of these. Like "Harry Potter," various rappers, several TV shows about paranormal politicians (OK, I made that up) I will marvel from afar at book sales, movie weekend numbers, etc. reported in The New York Times. To further my appreciation, I now have this blog entry. I know nothing about the blogger but I really got a laugh. Permit me to quote:

The movie was exceedingly cheese-ridden. Fromage extraordinaire. Aged cheddar. Blue cheese with extra bleu. Squeezie cheese from a tube. Cheese with a nozzle. Cheetos. Doritos Blue Cheese with Buffalo Wings. Monterey PepperJack.

Yeah, I was drawn by the blurb on the portal or I would never have ended up there. So, Holidailies is open. Let the wonderful accidental stumbling into others' lives begin. It's not unlike City Daily Photo only more emphasis on words. Much as I love pictures I love words more.

In other news: we went to a big charity event at the Monarch last night. It was very well done and I hope they raised a lot of money for Equality Texas. I talked to so many people, made introductions. I also got to see Oliver and Craig's apartment decorated. I think they have six trees, maybe more. Our decoration so far? A handful of Christmas cards people have sent. There is a mild threat I've made to get the Bendable, Posable Christmas figures, mostly Santas, out of the storage cage. Anyway, I need to get another invitation over there when I have my camera in tow to get some pictures.

In still other news, my relatives (two aunts and an uncle) are visiting my dad from Dallas. They went off to Luby's (a cafeteria) to eat last night when they were left to their own devices. The car they were driving refusted to start for their return trip and a circus ensued until they got a new battery for the car, my dad got a ride back to his place and then got his van and went back to guide them home because they didn't think they could find it. They didn't call me for help which is both disturbing and heartening. Most of my day will be spent with them. After some chores and a little exercise. And so the days of our lives as it says in the soap opera. Yeah, Soap Operas. Except for a brief fling with "Dallas" back in the day, soaps are also YAPPIR with me. Even six years of retirement haven't driven me to daytime TV. Although there is a small "Jeopardy" addiction I'm now kicking due to lack of time to consume all the stuff on the DVR.

So, OK Holidailies is open for business and I hope everyone enjoys the spill of words. I know I will.

[Shop window photo is Tesoros Trading on South Congress.]

I AM 60

Apparently so is Puma. They have a store at the Domain. I was surprised to see all this "I AM 60" decor in their window when we were out there the other day. Before I started wearing New Balance some years ago I always liked Puma tennies.

I am 60, but I still don't have my life figured out. What's up with that?

This morning I had a conversation with my dad. We were talking about something and I said it was so far in the future I didn't care, I wouldn't live that long.

"You will live as long as I have," he asserted.

"You keep going and you are going to make another Christmas and make 93."

"I'm planning on it," he said. "Christmas is almost here. I haven't even decided what to buy for myself."

Which is hilarious. He buys almost nothing for himself but gas for the car, groceries and the occasional article of clothing which he grudgingly gets to replace something ancient. The other morning I was over there and it was cool and he'd grabbed a corduroy shirt out of his closet.

"You know where I got this shirt?"

I didn't.

"Deedy [our affectionate name for my grandmother on my mother's side] made it for me."

I have no idea when the shirt was made, but my grandmother died in 1978 and she'd been too infirm to sit at a sewing machine for a while before that. So, I don't know, maybe the shirt was forty years old if a day. He never gives up on a good thing. I wore out my last article of clothing that she made me in the '60's about a decade ago.

Compared to my dad, sixty is young. And I do feel young. Immature even. When will I grow up and figure stuff out?

And I'm still laughing about my dad's Christmas comment. He doesn't buy presents for other people either and only sends money.

The March of Time

I was in a fog on my sixtieth birthday and, honestly, while I always sort of adjust my age to be plus two more years to catch up to FFP, I'm not used to him being 62 and eligible for a social security check. While the young people have zoomed by me in so many ways (technically, culturally, etc.), I feel so comfortable with them, but then it is weird to find out their parents are younger than we are.

When you live to be as old as my dad, time has really swept you away. This morning he said "people say things are better now, but I don't know." I point out that they also say things are worse than whenever (or ever) and they weren't alive in their time of nostalgia or they weren't paying attention and they really have no idea. He agreed. He is halfway through a book I bought him. He mentioned to me one day that he read a book in high school that was about a trip around the world a guy took in the early twentieth century. He remembered accurately the name of the book (A Vagabond Journey Around the World: a Narrative of Personal Experience) and I figured it was one I found by Harry A Franck. I found a clean copy online (though published in 1910 it had a pretty good dust jacket) and it was in the mail to me in a few days. He said he remembered a few things from the first reading. He seemed to be enjoying reliving the wanderlust (never completely satisfied) the book engendered. He doesn't feel up to going to Dallas now. It's hard to believe he's rereading a book he read in high school that was published six years before he was born.

If you aren't careful, time will be the ruler of you. It's our most precious commodity and I guess it's our most-squandered one, too. (With the possible exception of crude oil.) Although I always wonder if people are 'wasting' time if they are really doing exactly as they please.

I am starting to feel old. While I feel great most of the time, I do have my aches and pains. My knee (strained in an almost fall during the move) still twinges now and then and I feel like I need my neoprene wrap to play tennis. Even with it I find playing two days in a row a little hard on it. I feel strong when we walk here and there and feel we've started to walk faster now. When I get up in the morning, I feel like an old woman, shuffling on creaky legs. Then I seem to work into a younger state on my pins after I've been up a while. Occasionally I feel a little dizzy in the morning, a combination of an assault on my equilibrium by allergies and a low blood pressure on rising, I think. This morning it came back when I got to the tennis center and part way through trying to play some California doubles I had to stop and get some coffee and let it pass.

Is sixty old? Actuarial information indicates that I'm supposed to live until 2027 when I'll be 79 years old. That sounds old until I realize that my dad and in-laws have cruised well beyond that. My mother died a little shy of 81 and her parents lived about that long, too. (I think her father actually lived to be 84, but he died long before her mother who was twenty-one years his junior.)

So no. I'm not old. And yet I am. I took my dad to IHOP the other day. We both ordered a senior breakfast. The young (not yet 21?) waitress demanded my driver's license. She seemed unclear on how old I needed to be, but learning I was sixty seemed old enough for anything.

I can't decide whether to feel old or young. Whether to feel betrayed by my body or grateful for how well it works. I know one thing: I feel guilty that I have accomplished so little in sixty years. There is still time, I suppose. But I do feel old. When I'm not feeling young.

Disappearing Dad

In some ways my dad is so much more in my life these days. Every morning, first thing, before or during my first cup of coffee, I usually call him. We joke and I check on a few things and see what he's doing and planning. If I forget to call, he will often call me so I won't call when he's in the bath or busy making his breakfast. If he needs anything serious, I'm there for him. I take him to doctors and surgery and do errands when he isn't up to it. These days a trip to the grocery store is usually too much for him. He is shrinking and one shoulder seems dipped down.

This picture was taken a bit over ten years ago, in August 1997. Dad is toasting something on board a small ship that we (my parents, two aunts and an uncle) took through the waterways of Russia. (That's my late mother in the background looking pretty good herself.) My dad wasn't exactly moving fast then, but he stood stronger, straighter, taller. I was watching out for all these old folks and pointing out the many uneven pavements and step ups and other hazards. He wasn't the one I worried about the most since one of my aunts had injured her arm before the trip started and the other one fell at the airport in Russia and pulled up a bit lame for the trip and my mother had a history of blackouts and falls.

I was taking Dad on an outing on Wednesday and I was thinking how small he seemed, how I seemed to tower over him now as he wheeled his walked along at the mall where we were going to get him a haircut.

Will he just shrink until he disappears? It is sad. I remember this feeling of towering over my grandmother as she shrank, but I was taller to start with. Then the feeling of being taller than my mother when actually I had been shorter until her spine started to compress.

My dad had a world class wanderlust. It is a gene, I think, and there are lots of people in areas like Texas that were fairly recently frontiers that have it. Unfortunately, he didn't have much money with which to scratch the itch to travel. So we patched together road trips on cheap gas, relatives' extra beds and campgrounds. As he gradually had more money there were motels, hotels, even airplanes. At some point in the '90's my parents realized that they had driven through or visited all 48 contiguous states. They took a cruise to Alaska and then, of course, Hawaii loomed. Somehow they talked me into booking a cruise around the islands for their 55th wedding anniversary in 1996. I joked that soon they'd be getting passports and filling in the countries. Sure enough, they did get passports and went off on a tour of the England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. My dad loved beautiful, green Ireland and thought he could live there. Or maybe it was the stout and whiskey. So it wasn't a huge leap for them when my aunt suggested they go along on a cruise on the Russian waterways.

My parents had a friend living in Germany and she was urging them to come visit while she was there, but they never got it done while my mother was alive. They continued driving to Colorado and having adventures and they participated with me and two friends in a great road trip in 1998. They put a lot of energy into moving in 2000. It took a lot, too, with 33 years worth of my dad's pack rat, use everything depression era ways and my mother's stuff magnet hobbies (miniatures, spinning, weaving). My dad was energetic during that move. I went back to Mesquite with him one last time with a trailer so he could transport back here rocks, fossils, plants, one pet box turtle living in the yard and some sad lawn furniture. Dad had energy then and he was standing tall. He hung bird feeders in his yard, had an outdoor shed built for seed and yard things, planted and poked about. There is no energy for this now. The giant ferns he has cultivated on the glassed-in porch no longer get re-potted and it is usually the maid who waters them.

My dad is much more of a presence, more of a concern to me. But physically he seems to be disappearing, shrinking, leaving me a millimeter at a time. On the phone, he occasionally sounds like my strong dad of old. The one who rescued me in cars that broke down, throwing on a tow chain around my bug's bumper or who handled tasks requiring strength and agility well beyond anything I ever managed. Now if he drops something on the floor, he has to maneuver around with his 'grabber' on his walker to get it up. In the morning he makes a trip to the curb with his walker that has brakes and a basket and gets his paper with the grabber. His world is shrinking, too. He does get out for activities, but it wears him out to do so and long trips are out of the question. He did renew that passport he got in the late nineties, but only for an extra form of ID. He doesn't really see himself leaving the country again. In fact, his granddaughters and their four small children are coming for a visit because jumping in a car and driving to Colorado is no longer an option. He and mom used to do this even in the winter. Getting on a plane seems daunting, too. After my mother died, Dad and I managed several car trips to Colorado and Dallas. He made that trip to Germany and then went back a few years later with a friend and they also visited Austria, England and Iceland. He checked off a few more countries than my mom ever made. He said of the younger (my age) women who took him on this trip: "Everywhere those girls wanted to go was uphill." But he made it. Now it is clearly out of the question. It's hard to say when the corner was turned.

All of us Boomers (the ones who haven't already been consumed by stroke or cancer or diabetes or heart disease or something) think they we won't shrink. That we can be larger than life for all time. That we won't diminish, disappear, sag into gravity and finally return to the earth. But we will. When we look at our shrunken parents, we are looking into the future. A smaller and smaller future.

One Last Time

No, it's not my last post on Visible Woman. In fact, I seem to have become rather addicted to posting every day. (Displacing from downsizing, I suppose.) I shot this Sunday, a detail in a thrift store window of mannequin feet and my friend and I reflected. And, no, it probably won't be the last time you see a shop window here reflecting the not so mysterious photographer.

But I've been thinking of the phrase "one last time" a lot lately. As I clean out a closet I think "this may be the last time I clean this out before I move out forever." Or as I look at the winter-bare backyard I think "this may be the last time I wait for the blooming, budding, leafing out of spring." Certainly as I schedule things to be fixed and maintained I think "this may be the last time we have to take care of this particular thing." When we put something in 'curbside mall' or take it to the thrift store I think "I may never see that object again." (Usually followed by "thank goodness!")

I found it all a little depressing for most of yesterday. I'd spent the day with the elderly and in my own not-so-young head. First trying to get a stopped-up sink fixed at my dad's house. Watching the seventy-year-old handyman try to do it and my dad, weary from his 'chores' sitting on his walker seat, everything and everyone seemed old and broken. Then, after giving up and calling a professional plumber and worrying about my dad just supervising them, I had to take my ninety-seven-year-old father-in-law for a haircut. I mean he's amazing. But still. Everything you do with the old folks feels like it's in slow motion and it might be the last time. When Dad had me stop for provisions, he mentioned that I should get a gallon of milk. "It's a little heavy for me at the store, but I can lift it from the refrigerator." What a winding down of capability life is, I thought, curling the grocery bag with the milk in it as I went to the car.

Later my computer guru stopped by to haul away an old external hard drive, a printer and a fax machine. (He not only consults on the new stuff but hauls off the out of commission for recycling.) He is a former ballet dancer and IT guy and now a student finishing a computer science degree. We were talking about my desire to get a new computer setup (it's been quite a few years around here) and he pulled out his Mac Book and started showing me how he ran it with VMWare and XP and Apple windows. He is so young and eager that it made me feel better. Not that he's that young. He's in his thirties, having fulfilled his dream to be a professional ballet dancer before going back to school. I told FFP later that I would pay him just to come over and cheer me up.

FFP and I went back to a place that's recently reopened after a fire for dinner. Mother's Cafe in Hyde Park. We've probably eaten there a hundred times, enjoying the vegetarian fare even though we are omnivores. The menu is still very similar. I wondered how often we'd make it there when we lived downtown instead of North Central. At least I made it there 'one last time' for a Mom's Reuben (an open-faced sandwich where the rye and kraut and cheese have never seemed to miss the meat).

Favorite Aunt

I like my dad's youngest sister and the man she married. Because of their fierce independence and their willingness to keep going and come back from accident and illness to reclaim that. This is a picture of lobster pots on the dock in Maine when we visited their (summer) home in 2005 and went to the coast for a lobster and steamer clam feed and a look at the scenery. I wish they wouldn't maintain two homes. One in the middle of nowhere Maine and a rented apartment in the Dallas area. It's too complex, I think, when you are getting older. I mean we are almost two decades younger and we are simplifying. But still. I love the way they embrace life, the way my uncle hints that we need to go eat a bunch of raw oysters and exults when we do it, the way they have their cocktail at 4PM, health and situation permitting. When they are in Texas they sometimes manage a trip down here, but they always seem to manage a trip to Memphis to gamble. You have to love it. But I worry, yeah, that one day they won't be able to manage it all.

The Ravages of Time

Well, that's that...2007. Gone. Time changes everything. This is the last of the 'required' Holidailies entries. I suspect the 'every day without fail' Visible Woman will drift away again. Today I'm showing a photo of a shelf in an artist's studio I took in May 2004. As opposed to fireworks or champagne bubbles. I didn't take pictures like that last night because we slipped out of the party circuit at a reasonable hour to sit and watch Dick Clark's special. Uh, yeah, the ravages of time. I guess I hadn't been paying attention to Dick. When did he have that stroke? Anyway, he's fighting back. That's all we can ask of people in the battle you can't win. Life. The battle you can't win. Ha. I'm in a good mood on this first day of 2008, huh?

I always feel bad about time slipping away on the first day of the year. See here from last year.

Well, let's see, I'm not making resolutions. And I'm not doing anything to get a jump start on the year. Maybe I could reprise something I wrote before. Yeah, how about this...I made resolutions for other people a couple of years ago. Yeah, January 2006. I refused to resolve then and preceded to resolve for those near and far from me the following:

• Whatever your political affiliation is, do not act like your party is good and the other is evil. All politicians are evil. In direct proportion to their power. With exceptions of course. But they cross party boundaries. Think independently about people and politics. It would do the country a world of good. It would do the world a country of good. Whatever.
• Don't expect me to jump when you are ready to do something. I'm happy to make plans with people and I reply to social invitations, commit to them and attend if death or serious events don't detain me. Mr. Morris complained about people failing to RSVP and to attend to invitations. I know this isn't going to change. I deal with it with statistical analysis (large events) and frequent reminders (small events). But don't expect me to be on a string for your last minute activities. Sure, call and let's do something. But don't be surprised if I'm not in the mood.
• Take fifty percent of the responsibility for keeping up our friendship (if, you know, we have one...otherwise ignore this or apply it to your own friends). I'm happy to be the instigator some of the time. But if it's always me writing, calling, planning and always you hedging, equivocating, waiting for a better offer then one day I'll get tired. There are exceptions, of course. Some of you I will keep seeing even though I know I'll always be making the call. You know who you are. (Only I don't think any of them read this!) [Ed. Note: Some of the people reading this are the best at holding up half or more of the relationship. You know who you are. Thanks.]
  
• If you read my journal, remember a few things about this means of communication. Don't be smug because you know all this stuff about me. (I wrote it for the whole world after all. Duh.) Don't corner me at a party and act like you are a brilliant researcher who uncovered things about me on the WEB. If you want to talk about something in the journal, admit that you read it in the journal. Don't act like we had a conversation about it. I'm forgetful and it makes me crazy. And if you are my friend and are reading this, remember that you may be getting all you want of me but I may not know what's going on with you. It's a one way street. We aren't really keeping up with each other. And it's kind of spooky in a way. I know all about it because I read journals that others write. I know some of them personally. But I know that I feel way closer to them than I have any real right to feel whether I've met them or not.

Yeah. That still feels good. Not an accomplishment exactly. Just some recycled words. I am feeling a bit of a failure today, but it will pass. And I am inordinately happy with a few things. Like the fact that my health seems good and, unlike last year, my dad's health, while not great, is good enough that I don't have to go over there and take care of him today. And FFP was cleaning out his sock drawer and he didn't want a couple of pairs of socks that I kept and wore the last two days and they are very cool. Being inordinately happy is what it's all about. Maybe that should be my resolution: be happy without reason! Not that we don't have many, many things to be thankful for. Really we just have to embrace the things that are good.