Shock and Awe(nnoyance)

When I got the first iPad the morning it debuted, I took it home and almost had several heart attacks because the ridiculous background image had star trails that looked every time like deep scratches in the glass.

Why, Apple? Fucking why?

The first real thing I did on that iPad, that very morning, was create a new deep-gray background image to replace Apple’s. That gray image has been the background on every iOS device I’ve had in the damned-near-decade since. (Except for my OLED iPhone X, which I gave an all-black one.)

Update: When I posted this last night, I lamented that the background picture I made was lost to computer moves and history. But I’ve been trying to take advantage of this time off by doing some things I’ve been meaning to do for ages. Sorting through all my pictures – trying to organize and compile them – I found it.

–––

As I said earlier, I've been trying to read more, and, as I also said, I now have some time off to do so. I recently picked up a very-cheap used Kindle Paperwhite that’s in remarkably good condition. I’ve been carrying it around in my bag and kinda-sorta worrying about damaging its screen.

Today, this screensaver appeared:

jfc, Amazon

Hey device makers! Stop including images that look like screen damage! FFS.

A day or so later, another one appeared that also freaked me out. (Update: Perhaps I should clarify that I have no idea at all what happens to an E ink display when it breaks. The photo here looks, at least, like what happens with a broken LCD. I suppose I could/should mollify my concerns by looking at online photos of damaged E ink screens. ~one minute later Okay, they just look like computer glitches – like something from the r/glitch_art subreddit.)

–––

After that momentary oh-fuck shock, I looked online to find out how to install my own image and delete Amazon’s – let’s-face it – not very good variety. It’s a hard no on that score – Amazon doesn’t allow it. It’s impossible without jailbreaking.

Pfft.

–––

For what it’s worth, this was gonna be my new screensaver....

終

2020.February.Watched

Continuing my demi-trend of sequential monthly posts, here’s my list of all the movies and TV shows I watched in February, and the ways in which I watched them. As in January, YouTube, etc, isn’t included – which is turning into a godsend, because I watched a ton of videos on YouTube last month….

I didn’t say this in my January post, but I should have: altho the items in the lists are in the order I finished each one it is slightly misleading: movies are added to the list upon completion, and TV seasons/series are added upon completion of the first episode. They are not in the actual order I watched each and every episode. For example: below, I have season 4 of Better Call Saul preceding The Young Pope. This means that I began watching BCS before I began TYP. It doesn’t mean I finished episode 7 of BCS before starting episode 1 of TYP (I didn’t).

This system, while less precise, keeps the lists from becoming repetitive and unwieldy. Take it as read that I skip around a lot.

–––

Don’t Fuck With Cats (S1E2 & 3) (iPhone)
The Mandalorian (S1E8) (iMac)
Pandemic (S1E1) (iPhone)
Better Call Saul (S4E1-7) (iPhone)
The Young Pope (S1E1-5) (iMac)
Kevin Hart - I’m a Grown Little Man (iPhone/iMac)
The Pharmacist (S1E1) (iPhone)
Parasite (iMac)
Vision Quest (iMac)
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (iMac)

–––

Here’s January’s (substantially longer) list.

終

2020.February.Sneezes

As I posted last month, I've been counting my sneezes so that, over time, I can figure out what my average sneezes-per-day number is. I’ve wondered this for years. I know this is weird, but it’s where we are.

January’s total, as I said, was flu-shortened. February’s wasn’t, but, ever the shortest month, it did have two fewer days. After two months, February leads all categories.

–––

January’s total: 51 (1.6451 per day)
February’s total: 69 (2.3793/d)

Total so far: 120 sneezes in 60 days: 2.0/d.

終

Well, Fun. – No, wait: Well, Fuck.

Taking time off of work late last year, six months after an expensive emergency trip back to the States, pretty much wiped away all my meager savings. This year, the last in my current visa, my plan (and need) has been to save, each month, a chunk of money – which is to say, to purposefully focus on saving and to do so now. After January and this month, I've been about as successful as I hoped (the first 10 days of January, which I missed because of the god damned flu, notwithstanding).

My asshole company just announced that it will be closed from March 2nd through the 15th – two damned weeks – following the government's somewhat-hair-on-fire recommendation, and will do so without any compensation to employees on, as I am, a per-lesson payin' basis. So... there goes my savings! And, quite possibly, more than that. So, while I figure out how things will work, etc, I'll just be over here panicking for a while.

Carry on with whatever it is you're doing.

–––

UPDATE: Later in the selfsame day (night), but after I’d had a really long existential panic (and I was surely not alone), they seem to have relented and will provide us some approximation of the money we would have earned. I use seem to because they either actually relented, or they did a horrible job communicating in the first place and allowed us all to wonder, and worry about, what the hell was going to happen.

Anyway, there’s something like relief.

終

Late-February Omnibus Post

I've settled into a boring, and perhaps financially unwise, pattern on my days off: I go to Starbucks, get a donut and a latte, and sit and correct English writing. It gets me out of the house – and walking, which is its primary benefit – but it's otherwise rote and uninspiring. And it itself is becoming depressing.

–––

I responded to an aunt of mine a week or so ago, and she hasn't replied. I resisted her desire to entomb some of my dad's ashes. The family also wants to create a physical memorial which I have no fundamental problem with. He'd find it perplexing; I just find it unneeded.

I do understand the impulse and tried to convey that. I wrote:

When I was a small kid my mom told me she didn’t want to be buried or to have a grave (the specifics don’t matter here), and I remember thinking how sad it would be to have no place to go. No place to sit and talk, to lay flowers, like my father so often had for [his own father] John. Because I loved her. It strikes me as less sad today, 300 years after that conversation.

The anecdote I used was probably bound to be misinterpreted and almost certainly was (and perhaps it should have been) as me calling them childish. I don't fully believe they are, but I also don't get why they won't just do what he wanted. I've already conceded to giving them some of his ashes to spread (something he actually resisted when I once brought it up, altho I suspect he wouldn't really mind).

–––

I miss the shit out of him.

–––

Sometimes – seemingly more and more often as the shock from the pain blurs into the background radiation of life (and loss) – I'll think of something he did or said (the way he would adorably announce "I gotta poo" each time he, well, needed to poo; when something happens that he'd enjoy hearing about; when a song he loves plays; any memory; and on and on) and it'll arrest me when reality interjects to remind me that he's gone. It still seems impossible; it remains a meanness, a cruelty, a deep – the deepest – cut.

And I still don't know how to cope with it.

–––

It's been 5 months and 4 days.

–––

Today, in America, is my mom's birthday.

I learned recently that her second husband, the asshole she married after she and my father divorced, also died last year. He was an abusive piece of shit, a lifelong alcoholic who lived entirely too long, and caused entirely too much pain. I only just learned of this; for me, it would've been damned near 2019's lone highlight. (So far, it is 2020's.)

But I feel badly for her: she was married twice and both of her ex-husbands died within months of each other, in the same calendar year. Even 2019's bright spots are occulted by suck.

–––

Trying to read more, I bought a used Kindle. I can't rationalize the cost of a new one – but I'll likely upgrade sometime next year, if I actually reestablish the habit. I like the way reading feels – especially how I feel after having read: more thoughtful, less emotional, calmer; my broken places slightly mended. More thinky; less ouchy.

We’ll see if I keep it up. I’ma walk home a long way and read for a little while. Then I gotta go meet a friend who’s passing thru town. Should be fun.

–––

It's been 5 months and 4 days.

終

2020.January.Sneezes

After not sneezing for the first 9 or 10 days of the year, because I had the flu, I resumed my regular pace of about two sneezes per day. Or that’s the rate at which I think I sneeze. Hence this entry.

–––

January’s sneezes: 51 (1.6451 per day).

2020’s subtotal: 51 sneezes (1.6451/d).

–––

Here’s February’s result.

終

2020.January.Watched

I love so many of the yearly roundups people post in Decembers – including, especially, the Jesus Christ! one annually posted by Steven Soderbergh. Mainly for my own curiosity (and memory) I decided to do one of my own – but monthly.

I think this is the complete list from January. But I started the month with a full-on flu, so the list, and its hopefully-chronological timeline, may not be 100% correct at the beginning. (If it’s off, it’s not off by much.)

A notable note is that this list absolutely does not include YouTube videos watched – or anything else from similar sites like Vimeo. It’s just a list of proper TV, miniseries, documentaries, and movies. The why of that is tradition more than anything. Baselessly, I still think of those as being more substantial art, even tho there are many YouTubers (and such) doing truly impressive work.

Anyway, here’s January’s.

–––

Dolemite Is My Name (TV)
Kevin Hart Don’t Fuck This Up (S1E1-6) (TV)
For All Mankind (S01E09 & 10) (TV)
The Morning Show (S01E09 & 10) (TV)
The Laundromat (TV)
Inside Bill’s Brain (Parts 1-3) (TV)
Molly’s Game (TV)
Ugly Delicious Does Breakfast Lunch & Dinner (S01E01-4) (TV)
GoodFellas (TV)
The Degenerates (S02E01-3) (TV) (iPad)
The Operative (iMac)
Unstoppable (iMac)
Inglourious Basterds (iMac)
The Mandalorian (S01E01-7) (iMac)
King of New York (iMac)
Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez (S01E01-3) (iPhone)
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (theater)
The Devil Next Door (S01E01-5) (iPhone)
Don’t Fuck With Cats (S01E01) (iPhone)

–––

February’s is 27 days away….

–––

Update: Here’s February’s list.

終

Shorter of Breath; One Year Closer to Death

I’m 43.

Somehow.

終

It's Full of Stars

Tomorrow, here and in America, is my 43rd birthday. My first without my father. On clear, and cold, January nights, overhead in the sky, Orion sits prominently, drifting slowly westward – Earth’s attention wanders.

On a January night 43 years ago, after I and my mom were resting, my dad stepped outside into the frigid Nebraska air, his first time as a father, and looked up. Years earlier, around the same time, he was working late and looked up to see the very same Orion, and wondered what each star was called. He walked to his college’s library (perhaps late that Winter evening, or the following day) and looked them up.

Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix, Saiph, Meissa, Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka.

These are names I heard countless times in my childhood, around my birthday, always in the order in which he learned them, ending, at least, with the final three as listed here.

Now it’s January again, which happens around this time most years, but he’s gone. Orion’s still there – once his reminder of me; evermore, my reminder of him.

Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix, Saiph, Meissa, Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka.

終

Flu, Fluish, Etc., and Death

I’ve worked at my current company for 7 years, 11 months. This New-Year break was my longest-ever, a full 8 days. The day before it started, I got the flu and effectively slept through the entire thing.

On the one hand, fuck 2019, of course this happened. On the other, I felt so fucking terrible, that the sadness I expected to experience didn’t actually happen. And that’s just about the best I could hope for.

–––

My dad’s favorite-ever employee, whom he hired and always, always spoke about with pride, sent me an e-mail last night to say that my father’s favorite colleague, effectively his best (work-)friend, died on December 20th. She said my dad would’ve seen humor in them both dying in the same year, and perhaps he would’ve. I’m not sure if my dad knew he was sick; I don’t recall him mentioning it to me. But it shocked me. He always seemed hale and hearty, big and full-of-life. I met him only a few times, but in my dad’s stories he overflowed with motion.

After my dad died, he was one of the few people I notified and he had nice comments. It was to him that I wrote a couple comments I think I included here as “I just sent an e-mail” excerpts.

I didn’t know he was sick. It’s sad. Fuck 2019.

終

Happy New Year

Let’s change some shit for the better, this year.

終

A Rinse, A Wash, and A Dry

It’s been a few days over two months. Time keeps on slippin’ (slippin’, slippin’) into the future. And, not a writer by habit, I'd forgotten to keep this blog alive.

I’ve been trying – sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, generally struggling – to slip back into the stream of life, get my feet below me, regain my balance, and move on. For the most part, it’s going about as expected: if I don’t think about the future, or the past, if I keep my eye (as it were) on the ball, getting thru the day isn’t entirely impossible anymore.

–––

My lifelong reaction to waking up has been to fight it, to try to extend my sleep until it becomes untenable. For the last couple months, nearly entirely, I’ve gotten out of bed shortly after I’ve woken up. Now, when I wake up, the thinking starts, forcing me out of bed – to get up, get showered, and fall into the distractions of life. The alternative is becoming overwhelmed with the deep, abiding sadness I'm subject to. But today, because of this cold, I managed a couple more hours of sleep and it felt truly good. But my bones started to hurt, I increasingly desperately needed to pee, and my clothes needed washing. I got up.

The last couple months have changed me.

–––

I’m sitting in a laundromat waiting for my clothes to finish washing so I can transfer them to a dryer, then take them back home, change, and, in time, head off to work for my, probably easy, three lessons. The caffeine I had a little while ago (from Lipton’s milk tea) has started to kick in, increasing my heart rate to a level about matched by normal people's. This is Day Three of my cold. I’m exhausted. I have work later, but no clean clothes, so I’m remedying that, at least, by being here. I'm seated on a bench, my backpack, and a bag containing a box of Kleenex and various cold-related implements, to my left. To my right is an unopened apple juice; behind it, a plastic bag containing the wrapper of a danish I just inhaled, an empty milk container, and some used Kleenex. (The bag is free if you want it.)

I have no energy. Hopefully the sugar-and-caffeine double-punch gives me just enough of a nudge to make it through the day. I should be okay.

–––

I've opened the apple juice.

I don't typically drink juice. Once, in a conversation with my paternal grandmother (now deceased), she obtusely talked about not knowing which foods are recommended for/to be avoided by diabetics. This was of course untrue, a way she rationalized eating ice-cream. But she asked if I could find and print lists of foods she, as a diabetic, should/shouldn't eat.

I did so. Orange juice and white bread topped the list. I stopped having either. Juice, being primarily suspended sugar (and little else) isn't something I've really had since then. Except when I have a cold. So yesterday I had some apple juice, and I'm doing so now.

It's delicious. But I’m tired.

–––

It’s been two months and three days.

終

The Footpath is Slippery and the Rocks Cause Stumbles

A friend of mine asked how I’m doing. I replied: “The sensitive areas are still no-go, but I’m starting to locate a path between them.”

That’s about as well as I can phrase it. The pain remains, but, when I can ignore it, I can function, give or take. I’m still blending back into life, slowly where speed is manageable; unhappily where breathing is required.

終

Time Advances, Punishments Accrue

It’s been more than a month.

–––

The pain is still real, but life seems to be plodding along. When I think back, or forward, little has changed. But the now is a little easier to live in.

–––

The less said about the Astros, the better….

–––

Two of the days I missed were classified as unexcused absences. I knew one would be, but the second merely blended in with all the days I missed. Then, halfway thru the meeting with my boss, I remembered why I’d missed that day.

They can’t have known that the day I missed was my father’s birthday, and that night was so bad, so low, so painful, that if I could have killed myself I would have. That it was the lowest I’ve ever been - so low that just returning to it in my mind brought extreme pain. They couldn’t have known this. But they also didn’t ask; they summarily determined my missing of work to have been so frivolous that I should be given a formal warning for it.

A moment of realization in the meeting brought it all back, in a quick but moist stream of pain so strong I asked (or he asked and I accepted) to end the meeting. Adding a punishment to that day, retroactively making it even worse than it had been at the time, was an almost delicious insult.

They couldn’t’ve known. But they could’ve asked.

–––

I’ve stopped counting the days, but it’s over a month (it’s Halloween) and I dunno how to process that. I still cannot process that.

終

A Walk, A Hit, Some Hope

Day 28

———

It’s been a couple days since the last update. Today was Monday, which I didn’t think about until just now: it’s been four weeks.

On Friday, which was Day 25, and the next day, the day of my last update, the nights were hard. Saturday night was a regression. I absolutely couldn’t sleep. At all. Partially because of all the caffeine I drank to make it thru the day; partially, the pain.

I had to wake up at about 8am on Sunday. (Actually, I realized sometime mid-afternoon that my first lesson started 45 minutes later than I remembered, so I didn’t have to wake up until about 8:45, but that barely changes the math.) At about 5:45, when it was clear that sleep wouldn’t come, I realized I could just call in sick. I felt guilty about that (I feel guilty about it when I’m actually sick), but after maybe 20 more minutes, I realized that I didn’t have much of a choice. I’d either work on about an hour of sleep, at best, or I’d skip it and try again the next day.

I tried to make it Sunday,
but I got so damned depressed,
that I set my sights on Monday,
and I got myself undressed.
—America, Sister Golden Hair

———

My parents divorced when I was little, and never really spoke about each other. Their relationship wasn’t off-limits, but the conversations never really happened. There’d be the occasional comment or data point dropped into other conversations, but they avoided talking about it and I avoided asking.

Even fewer, were the happy-times anecdotes, but that song was one of them. One night, my parents, just dating then, were out at a bar or a nightclub or something. (They met and married in a small midwestern town, so it was likely just a bar; regardless, the place had a DJ and the ability to make requests.) Between songs, as my parents enjoyed their night, an incredibly drunk woman (this was the late-’70s) yelled, “Play Sister Golden Sister Hair!”

———

Sunday didn’t end up so bad. It was started (again, after very little sleep) by Game 6 of the ALCS — its final game. The Astros held a 4-2 lead for most of the game but left baserunners on base in far too many innings, remaining seemingly a base-hit away from breaking the game wide open, but never getting there — or a bad pitch away from losing it. The Yankees hung on, down just two runs, and, in the top of the 9th, because this is how baseball works, tied it on a devastating, crowd-silencing home run.

The Astros started the bottom of the 9th with back-to-back strikeouts. Not a good sign. George Springer then walked. Jose Altuve worked his at-bat to a 2-1 count. Then hit a high slider extremely hard… over the wall to left center.

Home run. Walk-off. Penant.

I looked at my iMac for a moment absolutely incapable of understanding that what I just saw happen really just happened. And, dumb as this may sound, it substantially altered my emotions. I got up and showered, smiling over the holy-shit-baseball!-ness of it all: an all-time ALCS moment by the Yankees, an at-bat we’ll be talking about in a generation, being nearly immediately wiped away by an even bigger one by the Astros, altering not just future baseball history, but rewriting the home run that happened just 5 batters prior.

I also managed to talk a bit with a friend on Sunday, the first actual, adult conversation I’ve had in over a month. And to drink a pretty-fantastic bubble tea, too. I moved around a bit, as well, including a long walk to a home store while listening to some funny podcasts. Each of these helped, and made the day remarkably better than Friday night or Saturday had been.

———

It’s Day 28. Four weeks since he died; four weeks of this. Yet there are moments of light. The lightness brings its own pain, and guilt, and it’s difficult to look at because my eyes are also sensitive, but it’s there. And that’s new.

終

Little Red Mor-bid

Day 26

–––

As I said, the day started hard; included a carryover funk; the Astros lost; I did a small amount of in-Starbucks work and ate a root-veggie wrap.

–––

I returned home after the Starbucks, after wandering a little, kinda aimlessly. Listened to some ancient tech podcasts I’ve been working thru for a few years whenever I catch up on current podcasts. Because of this, I again looked into using Pinboard and again decided it doesn't serve a need I have; I just don’t think I use the Internets the way its users do. But I did look at its “popular” page and read several articles from it.

–––

At home, I forced myself to take a nap. For the first half-hour, I woke up every 10 minutes, but I did manage to sleep about one hour, all told. I’m still awfully tired.

I also walked to a local store afterward, and bought a few small things to eat. And now I’m sitting in a nearby laundromat, washing clothes, doing this, waiting for work to appear (spoiler: it won’t). Later, I may walk back to Starbucks and do something else productive.

Gotta be up early for work tomorrow.

–––

Day 26. A lack of progress after yesterday’s reversion.

終