What I am doing here

Looking through some of what I have said on here it occurs to me that it might lean a bit too much to the dark. That is not my intent. I just gave someone a quick update on myself and then a couple of hours later realized that all I really needed to say was that I was doing OK, all things considered. But that isn’t what I did. Why?

One reason is that I post here so that people who know me can keep up, whenever they like, with my condition without me sending out long, boring emails. While I’ve made progress over the years I really don’t have a lot of great news to post. I also post so that other people in a similar situation can see that they aren’t alone. When I first found an ARDS web site it was very helpful to learn that I was not the only person who had gone through some of what I had gone through. You can feel very lonely and like an outsider when you have a serious illness that you never heard of before.

So I write about my health and other conditions to share them with the world in the hope that I might be of some help.

I also post for my own sake. It helps me to write things out. It’s a way I work out my feelings and ideas and problems and yes I am making that public, but I am doing that for the above reasons. There are a lot of things I write down that never make it to this blog. I post what I think is more general and not specific just to me, with the exception of when I am just letting people know how I am doing.

Comments are screened at the moment because even I get spam, not because I want to limit participation. Please comment on anything you want. I welcome any advice since that’s another reason to post here. I share with all of you, whoever you are, and you can share with me.

So I will keep doing what I am doing, but since the stuff about me has tended to be something less than uplifting, I will try to be less dark. I will try to post, when I can, things that are positive or entertaining.

Since I do sometimes write things in advance – since I am not the fastest at this – you can expect some things that I have been working on already to show up here and those things may not be all blue skies and sunshine. I hope they are enlightening nevertheless. One post in particular that I have been struggling with is about how I am trying to change things. Another that I have been trying to get right for over a year now is less progressive, but in working out that answer I am trying to change things and make them more positive.

That’s why I am on here. I want to be more positive. Sometimes that means posting about the negative because that is what I need to overcome. If I am lucky I will be able to do just that. If I am very lucky I will be able to help somebody else do the same thing.

Almost a whole week

It’s January 6th and I haven’t accomplished everything that I wanted to do in 2012.

Oh well, I might as well give up.

Just kidding. I always feel a little less than productive at this time of year because I am still recovering from the holidays. In truth I got a lot more done than I usually do during the first week of the year.

The holidays were pretty good and also more active than usual, so I don’t mind the recovery as much as I might otherwise. I still need more rest, and I have to beat back that part of my brain that says that I need to do more even when I know that I am unable to. Yes, in some ways I am messed up. This year I’ve managed to keep that part of my head in check, so far at least.

I hope everyone had a good end of the old year and a good beginning to the new year. If you have the opportunity, relax for a while – next week is soon enough to start breaking resolutions. That’s my plan.

New Year's Eve

Oddly, since we really got started as a couple at a New Year’s Eve party, my wife and I do not normally go out for New Year’s Eve.

There was one year we were on vacation on January 1st and we spent the day at EPCOT. I know that sounds crazy and it was crowded to the point where they stopped letting more people into the park. Each represented country handed out noisemakers and when the hour reached midnight in that nation there were kids running around, well, making noise.

At midnight local time everyone was crowded around the lake in the middle to see the fireworks. My wife and I found a spot with a good view that was a little apart from the throng just by virtue of landscaping. It was a good crowd, a good show and everyone was excited and the atmosphere was festive. Things were noisy and colorful and crowded and crazy. It was a rare and raucous occasion and it was fun.

All around it was a fun New Year’s Eve with good fireworks, and it would have been worth dealing with the mass of humanity if for no other reason than that we got to see several hundred people dancing the Macarena.

I told you it was crazy, and that should give you some idea of when this happened.

I don’t oppose the idea of going out for New Year’s Eve, it’s just never been a tradition for us. I don’t really care where I am or how loud or quiet the celebration is as long as I am with my wife. That’s where I’ll be spending this New Year’s Eve.

However you plan on celebrating I hope you have very good New Year’s Eve and a very happy New Year.

The end of the year already

This year really was a strange one. Not in any sense that previous years have been, in any but a minor way, but strange nevertheless.

The main thing is that it went too fast. I know that that sort of perception is always an issue. You get older or more stressed or busy and the time just seems to fly. I got sick twice and that ran into about 6 – 8 weeks overall if you include recovery time, but that wasn’t the problem. Too many other people have said the same thing: where did this year go?

Think about it. Didn’t you say, more than once, how did it get to be this month? Didn’t days and weeks pass and you couldn’t really remember what had happened or how it had become a new season? I’m not saying there were mass alien abductions or experiments on the human population, but this year was just not normal.

Now, I could come up with some sort of explanation that ties into my current physical condition, but again, too many other people have had the same experience and besides, it wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as blaming it all on some mysterious force. So I’m going with the mystery on this one.

So one more time before it’s over, I will ask the question: where did this year go?


Now it’s time to plan for next year, which may involve lists.

Early AM Radio – Ante Meridian that is

You can hear some really interesting music on the radio in the wee hours of the morning. Not bad music, just the they’re-playing-that-song-I-haven’t-heard-in-decades-and-not-much-when-it-was-new kind of music.

Sometimes, when I am awake in the middle of the night, I will put on the radio in an attempt to distract my brain so that it will do whatever it needs to do so that I can fall asleep. It doesn’t really work that well. Sometimes it does. Not always.

What this means though is that I occasionally hear what is on the radio at 4 or 5 AM. There are a variety of music stations, and sports talk radio, and the BBC, and – other – things. One local FM station plays modern rock and folk and indie and progressive rock – not all at the same time and not at 4 in the morning, but it’s what would be a college radio station if it hadn’t been taken over by professionals decades ago. Technically it is a university station, but there’s that issue of non-student DJs, and producers, and everything else.

But that’s not my point. My point is what the DJ likes to play at 5 AM. Hearing Devo isn’t that strange. I don’t think. But besides The Girl U Want, I have also heard The Village Green Preservation Society, twice, and Inagodadavida – with the whole drum solo.

This is not normal. It’s not normal, is it? And no, I was not dreaming.

Happy Merry

I have been absent during the holidays. My apologies.

Please allow me to take this time to hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas and is having a Happy Chanukah.

Things went well around here but we are exhausted. As it is the end of the year and the time for examining things and looking forward to the New Year there is likely to be at least one more post in the near future.

I would also like to wish everyone a speedy recovery from the exertions of the holidays and a smooth return to whatever your daily routine involves.

November

November is over and my hands hurt, my brain is numb and I am totally exhausted.

Part of the exhaustion comes from family medical issues, in-laws not me or my wife, which resulted in lost sleep and stress. Things are going well now but the recovery continues.

Then the washer decided to die after 24 years which meant making room for the repairman – the basement has accumulated a lot of stuff since I got sick. Then making more room for the new washer and dryer – the dryer was also 24 years old and showing signs that it was going as well and the washer was beyond worth repairing. Modern appliances do not easily fit into an old house. There was plenty of room to install them, it was just getting them into the house that was a problem. If they make those things an inch wider they won’t fit through the doors.

And of course there was the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s not that I don’t like Thanksgiving, it’s just that it takes a lot of energy and hence recovery time.

Plus the tree in front of the house came down at 2 AM Thanksgiving morning and they came to do the clean-up with chainsaws at 7:20 AM yesterday.

Then we come to NaNoWriMo. A lot of words made there way from my confused brain onto the computer screen. They are only somewhat coherent, meandering, contradictory and readable only in the sense that they are mostly spelled correctly. The energy required to do this isn’t really worth the final result this year but I just can’t seem to resist trying and it did make for an interesting exercise. The mess of letters that came out of this year’s effort is definitely going in the drawer for a while – or it would if it was on paper, as it is it will go on a flash drive and sit there for now.

November was a busy month. Now I will try to keep some level of productivity going on the writing front as I deal with December. I really like December, it tends to be a busy and difficult month as well, but I really like it.

Oh, and I’m waiting for them to show up at 6 o’clock some morning to grind down the tree stump that is still there.