Once i’d grown up, i realized i didn’t really want to participate in the whole work/life thing after all. And in the end, i don’t have to anymore.

Growing up, i’d always taken advantage of whatever opportunities came along; and it wore me out. Now i can retire for real and not stress over letting opportunities slide.

Bottom line: regular life was kind of a disappointment, especially given the requirement of working some likely-meaningless job for most of your life — no thank you.

So you have to go on and find meaning elsewhere.

~

Sometimes it feels like i’m a split person. Split-brained, that is. Maybe it’s because of the TBI, but i seem to be able to hold contradictory thoughts at the same time. When i ask myself a question, i often come up with more than one answer; and the separate parts of my brain then have to struggle against each other to figure out which one wins.

~

I never wanted to start my story at the end, and then go back to the beginning.

Instead i prefer to tell a story from the beginning to the end, but with memories recalled along the way — more like the actual lived experience.

~

Sometimes i ask myself, “Has education made me happier over the course of my life?”

I grew up learning, and i still like to read; i like to watch the news. But has any of that actually made me any happier, or was i maybe better off not knowing all that stuff? Given that I can’t do a damned thing about any of it, being better informed hasn’t done me much good.

~

Maybe i spend three hours working on writing something and then realize that no one will want to read it for fun; so i have to make it an appendix, or an author’s note.

This whole book may as well be a series of author’s notes. Maybe a lot of books turn out that way. You never know where it’s going to take you, when you begin writing.

~

When you get to get to a certain age, you just don’t care about stuff that much anymore. You know that all causes cannot be saved, and none of it is really worth a damned anyway.

So you just let things happen, because they’re gonna happen anyway.

The hell with it.

Let it go.

My hearing is fading, and i now watch movies with the subtitles on. Difficult to know where the problem is, my ears or my brain. So i don’t hear well sometimes, and i try to speak even less than before.

Sandi faded in the months before she died, and slowly now i am also beginning to fade (or at least that’s what it feels like). My function gradually approaches the asymptote but will never cross it during my own personal infinity.

The light dims, and the sounds quiet. Words lose their meaning; symbols blur into one another. Old age creeps up.

My memory is getting worse: when i pour myself a cup of coffee, i have to remember to take it with me & drink it and not leave it behind on the counter. Recently i got myself a big rechargeable coffee cup that will keep my coffee warm even if I forget it for a while; that helps.

My neurologist tells me that my corpus callosum has atrophied; my eye doctor says that my optic nerves are thinning. What’s left of my brain? Not much, but enough to go on.

Dealing with disappointment is part of life, especially as we get older, and i’m getting used to it.

~

The primary conclusion? Life is a crapshoot; you get what you get. Abilities and opportunities — some people get lucky, and some get screwed. We do the best we can.

Wake up every day and be thankful, that’s the goal.

What if every day you woke up and you didn’t know — you didn’t remember — what you were supposed to be doing.

That’s me, every day.

I don’t remember what i’m doing, or what the big plan was; so i just make it up as i go along, do the best i can. And now that i’m with someone again, some things have changed — i’m having such a good time living that i’ve pretty much stopped writing.

Usually i wrote when i had something to say, and that something was often related to being alone. I wrote from a place of pain. Maybe i also wrote from having no one to talk to; and being with someone again has taken away most of my desire to write, since i can just talk to them instead of writing it down.

~

Sometimes i get a few minutes, in between tasks, to catch up on writing (or whatever). If i do, it’s fine; if i don’t, it’s also fine — no big deal.

The universe is one.

~

My experience writing? The kind of stuff i write, i just want to be finished or get to a stopping place. It’s work.

I write mostly because i have to; because something — some thought or feeling — is nagging at me and won’t let me alone until i process it, either by writing about it or talking about it (and if i do talk about it, it’s probably just a prelude to writing about it, even if it’s just a couple of sentences).

If i can write about something, it means i can stop thinking about it for a while.

~

Just making it through one day at a time with a partner again has become enormously satisfying and fulfilling. Life is good.

Waking up next to someone every morning is a huge reward.

She takes me out of the world that i’m normally in; she gives me variety. My fragmented personality has a new fragment again — love.

In case you haven’t noticed, i don’t capitalize the first-person pronoun when i write English (unless it’s the first word in a sentence or it’s in a capitalized title).

I’ve written this way for decades, and i’m not about to change now.

When i ask Google (in English), it says <Pronouns: Always capitalize the singular pronoun “I”.> But i don’t care.

I also ask Google what languages capitalize their first-person pronoun:

<

English is the only language that requires capitalization of the first-person singular pronoun (“I”). In almost all other languages with writing systems, the equivalent word for “I” is written in lowercase unless it starts a sentence. [1, 2, 3]

While English highlights the speaker, some other languages use capitalization to show respect to the listener.

>

Maybe it’s time to change that.

Google isn’t the boss of me; i choose to respect the listener. I have a degree in English, so i’m making a reasonably informed decision.

~

[I added that bit on capitalization to the beginning of a loose collection of random sentences. It’s time to begin organizing these posts into a book.]

~

In writing, you cannot exaggerate too much: always maximize figurative speech. (As if.)

~

Words cannot always explain biological impulse.

~

Random social media posts that i write when i’m high. Song names. Extracts of lyrics. [Writing doesn’t always have to make sense.]

~

For me, the subject of Philosophy is basically mathematics … in English.

~

“In the corner of my eye, i saw you in Rudy’s, you were very high, …” [Steely Dan, “Black Cow”]

Ambiguity is part of natural language.

Rudy’s what? Rudy’s stash? Rudy’s vagina? It’s open to interpretation. And who is Rudy?

~

When you’re high, anything can be funny. Simply expressing anything, even just plain simple ordinary things … you say them, and they’re funny.

That’s the magic of being high.

~

The real prophets of this age? Song lyricists; their words are heard by literally billions of people, and that’s what history will remember.

~

A family goes to Greece. They just stay at the beach. They never travel. Instead, they get a book about traveling around Greece and read it together — they travel by proxy and get to stay at the beach all the while. [Refer to Susanna Kaysen‘s Cambridge for context.]

~

Storytellers are natural show offs.

~

How can you know what you’re thinking, unless you say it out loud? (Or write it down.)

~

Words are simplifications; they are linguistic representations of a complex real world.

~

[Ok, that’s enough for now.]

I originally jumped off the bridge mostly because i didn’t want to participate in society. The whole girlfriend/marriage thing … incidental?

Maybe not.

Can i maybe find redemption in love again, thirty-five years later? I have high hopes.

~

Every time i start writing a story, it’s like i want to invent the world all over again — it’s that kind of optimistic: a clean break from the old world, with new rules in the new world.

~

Way back in 1992, i wasn’t ready to be a writer yet — i needed to live life first; and that became my primary job. Thirty-four years later, i finally feel like i’ve gotten somewhere.

Sure, i was never going to be a Stephen King; but i could bring my own brand of life to my writing.

~

But some days it’s also hard, life; i don’t really want to do the things that i should. I end up skipping parties that i should want to go to, but i just don’t have the heart to go to by myself — if my new girlfriend can’t make it, i’m not really interested. Maybe i’m just depressed. Maybe it’s part of the grieving process; i don’t know.

Or maybe i’m just being faithful to the new me.

~

Jagged Intelligence is a term used to describe some of the shortcomings of current (2026) AI; but it also applies to my own sometimes problematical mind (and the splintered brain it lives on).

~

Last month (April) was Sandi’s & my 13th wedding anniversary. She’s been dead a year and a half, and i forgot to celebrate it.

Instead i went to Ferry Beach (a UU retreat in Saco, Maine) with my new girlfriend, Cecilia, later in the month — that felt like a big deal, and we’re very much in love.

It seems a little crazy, continuing to live my life; but here i am, doing it. What else is there?

~

My love-life is is beginning to feel full-circle — 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2007, 2011, 2026.

Looking back at serious relationships versus flings — not always easy to differentiate!

It took me a while. A year and a half after Sandi’s death. I was not looking for anyone. Someone found me anyway.

I reconnected with somebody i went to high school with. She is also on disability, so that made it easier. Her kindness and generosity inspire me.

Partly it made me feel bad that i hadn’t seen it in her before. But i hadn’t ever really considered a romantic partner in people i went to high school with — i just wasn’t there yet, socially, in those days. Maybe i should’ve stayed in my hometown after college; maybe that would’ve made it easier.

Sure, i wouldn’t have seen anything of the country. But was it really worth it? It was interesting. But it was also a little sad. (No, staying would have made me miserable. It was worth it, the journey.)

Living life involves experiencing some pain, and i can only take so much of it.

How do i feel about having another girlfriend after Sandi? Finally, i feel good about it.

~

I haven’t written much at all in the last few weeks: i’ve been busy falling in love.

Happiness is more important than writing. Do what you can to bring joy into your life — that’s all i will say about it (for the moment).

Love is always a good plot motivator. You can get a character to do basically anything in the name of love; because people do, all the time — they’re that susceptible.

~

What do i do now that sex isn’t my primary motivator? That’s what kept me going all those years. What am i without it? Is there a non-binary me?

~

Now i feel old.

My sex drive is still going strong, but my body can’t keep up anymore. Maybe that’s why i wasn’t afraid to *not* have another lover.

But maybe i can still fall in love. Not naming names yet; it’s too new. (But my friends know.)

The question is: Can love still motivate me to do crazy, inadvisable things? It probably can; it probably will.

I am now, however, a little afraid of the insane things i will willingly do in pursuit of love. Do i push past that fear and keep living? Yes, yes i will.

(Now i just have to work up the courage to talk to my doctor about adding another medication to my prescription list. It’s no fun getting old.)

~

I did not go looking for another happy ending to this book. The happy ending was supposed to be me finding Sandi, getting married, and having some version of a normal life (with the accompanying loss).

But maybe i was selling myself short; maybe there’s another chapter of life to write — an incredible chapter!

(And maybe i can just live this chapter, instead of writing a lot about it.)

I suppose this is what i get for living my life as a story: a surprise ending. Maybe nobody else is surprised but me, and i should have seen this coming.

Maybe i was happy to be done with the story. Life is exhausting, after all. But part of me wasn’t willing to let it go.

Sandi would have wanted me to keep going. She would have wanted me to maximize joy in my remaining years. And she knew that i was already a little insane in my pursuit of life.

Here’s to crazy times!

Sometimes you can write what you want to write; but a lot of the time you write what you have to write. Whatever comes out, comes out.

I am not a very careful writer. I feel something, write it down, and try to move on.

Writing has become a way of me dealing with things, day-to-day. Call it emotional abstraction; call it compartmentalization; call it what you will. It helps.

But then you get to a certain point in your life, and you don’t know what to do anymore. What then?

~

Think about the smell of pencil shavings fresh from a pencil sharpener; now imagine what flavor of ice cream that reminds you of.

[Go ahead, give an AI that command.]

~

What drives you? What motivates you every day to get out of bed and do stuff? What’s your purpose in life — you as an individual — that’s what i’m interested in.

~

Writing is just words. Talking with someone IRL, it’s an exchange of words and emotions and pheromones and physical presence.

~

You can’t solve every problem; you don’t have to try. Some questions don’t have answers; it’s not your fault.

~

Better Off will probably be a more reflective book than anomaly was: more big picture. The tone should be less show-off-y.

The purpose of writing anomaly was for me to find love again, i suppose. And the point of Better Off will be to underscore the importance of having an optimistic interpretation of life (especially after finding new love!).

I have it pretty good, no question.

But it’s easy to want the wrong things, paths that i’ve already traveled or avenues i don’t need to explore. Mostly it’s not giving in to impulsive desires, fleeting nonsense. Do i really need to live near the ocean, or can i just visit occasionally? (Or better yet, just tune into the Salisbury Sunrises YouTube channel on a regular basis.)

Having money again, i have more temptations. So i have to exercise my limited self-control. I can help some of my friends, but not all of them all the time. I can finally buy some things for myself that i might not have otherwise; but i don’t need much.

It’s not so bad being a widower — i go out on just as many dates as i ever did when i was single (that is, almost none). I was never any good at asking people out; i have no idea how i managed to be involved with as many women as i did. I guess it was all the hanging around at cafés that did it. (Which probably also explains why i couldn’t find a serious relationship for so long — that’s not what people who go to cafés are generally looking for; maybe i just wasn’t ready yet, either.)

Seems i have so much to be thankful for, since i’m happily retired and still in good shape health-wise: it should feel like Thanksgiving all year long! Even if i’m alone now, i still feel like the luckiest person on Earth.

And i was truly blessed to have been married to Sandi; it was clearly the high point of my life. Taking care of a person at the end of their journey — that was my purpose; that’s what i was meant to do. I spent my whole life getting ready to be there for her final year. That was the whole point. We gave each other’s lives purpose and meaning.

Everyone in my life, i am better off because of them. Every single thing that’s happened, i am better off because of it. The good and the bad, the easy and the difficult; it was all necessary.

It just took my whole life going by for me to see it.

Thank you.

I wish i could say it was worth it, but sometimes it has not been. It’s a mixed bag at best, life. I do not personally recommend it.

But it’s not like you get a choice. You’re born and then you have to do something with your life. It’s frustrating at times … and disappointing.

Stuff does not happen the way you think it is going to. You can’t depend on people or anything else long term; it’s all fleeting.

I was fortunate to find love when i did, even if it didn’t last. I got 13 years of the good stuff; and i guess that’s more than some people get, so i’m thankful.

Now, my memory is fading. I don’t remember books i’ve read or movies i’ve seen or not seen. It doesn’t really matter. Maybe after a while i will not even notice.

Sometimes it hurts more to remember something and be able to write about it than it would hurt to not be able to remember that thing at all.

But at least re-watching TV shows is a lot more fun — i’m watching The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon again (both of which Sandi & i watched faithfully), but most of the episodes seem brand new! Thank you, TBI.

As a kid, my role model was the character Ford Prefect (in the Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series). So what did you expect, really.?

Drink a lot. Dance with women.

Ford Prefect’s mantra was to always have as good of a time as possible. Pretty simple.

Hitchhiker’s became my guide to life. My bible. The message? Relax. Don’t Panic.

I was cool with that as a kid. Forty years later, and i’m still cool with it.