Take it as a given that my brain, your brain, any brain, any person … they seize upon certain spellings, certain words, certain feelings as their own; that’s part of what makes them individuals.

Don’t be ashamed of these choices; be proud of them. Those choices make you who you are.

Of course i’m wary of people who choose hate and anger. Everyone is going to have a certain amount of anger: it’s what they do with that anger that’s important. Do they channel it. into destructive or constructive efforts? It matters where that energy goes.

~

Perfection is another difficult thing, another difficult choice. Most things and most people can never be perfect. But some people get caught up with chasing after perfection, and they waste a lot of time and effort on it.

I used to be more of a perfectionist, but then i loosened up … a little, at least.

Embrace your limitations; don’t fight them. Your quirks are what make you an individual, what make you valuable. Waste as little time as you can on trying to be perfect. Instead, just try to get some stuff done — that’s all we can hope.

Allow yourself to make some mistakes. See what those mistakes are, and see if you can do something with that knowledge. Hopefully being better acquainted with your own mistakes will make you tolerant of everyone else’s.

Basically, i got to have two lives — one before i jumped off the bridge, and one after.

But wasn’t i the same person before and after? Mostly, with some caveats.

On the other hand, i was also very different in some ways (and i felt very different). It was like the suicide attempt killed off part of me, a dark part of me; and the part that survived was a little lighter. It took me a while for me to grow into this new person — sort of like twenty years of growing up compressed into six months. Freaky.

In some sense, the suicide attempt actually was successful — i did kill off part of myself, and that made room for me to change.

~

Thirty-four years old, that’s how old the new me is. Wow, that’s appealing! What should i do as a 34-year-old? Woo-Hoo!

In that vein, i am tempted to take a winter rental in Provincetown; i’ve always wanted to live on the Cape — even temporarily — and there’s a UU church in P-town. Maybe next year.

~

Or, from a different point of view:

In 1991 i had given up on the world; i didn’t want any part of it. And so i killed myself.

This, for me, is merely the afterlife.

Of course i fall back on music from my childhood to deal with my current events; so i inspect Steve Winwood lyrics from the 80s in dealing with a personal problem in 2026. And despite my protestations to the contrary with science and math, i think i turned out to be just a regular old English major. Analyzing text and writing a little about it is my preferred way of dealing with problems.

Steve Winwood’s Back In The High Life should be the theme album, i’ve decided, for this book. Maybe the album seems a lot different, forty years later; but i 100% stand by that choice as i listen to it, song by song.

‘Split Decision’ was the song i wanted to look up the lyrics to, earlier, when trying to figure out how i felt about my friend. But ‘Back In The High Life Again’ really resonates too — it has just the kind of positive & contemplative feeling that i’m looking for.

“While there is time, let’s go out and feel everything …” is just how i feel right now. Maybe that means i’m ready to let myself feel emotions again, gods help us!

Or maybe it’s a reflection of how many (hemp-derived) THC gummies i take these days — the phrase Back In The High Life indicates that not only did i used to get high (illegally), but that i also get high now (legally). My pot-smoking days were actually very few; i bought a half-ounce of some nasty weed that was likely laced with speed or some such (probably to make up for its lack of potency) and a water pipe. Maybe i got high three or four times, with people or alone; one or two hits was all it took to get going with this stuff — boom, boom, boom, … — not a particularly nice high, but everyone has to start somewhere.

The hemp-derived THC gummies are a lot different. Now that i’ve developed some THC tolerance, i can take a (10mg) gummy and take a second an hour later and a third an hour later (or maybe just stop at two) — that keeps me flying for many hours, but not too high; everyone has to work out their own dosing. If instead i took all three gummies at once, then i would get much higher (unpleasantly so, where merely standing up becomes a struggle); but it wouldn’t last nearly as long. I prefer a nice, smooth, & mellow high. To each their own.

Each person deals with life differently — with adversity and with success and with social interactions. Everyone does what they have to to get by in life.

I hope you find things to get through life.

When Trump 2.0 began, many U.S. citizens began to wonder how long it would take to reach a Constitutional Crisis. With the extra-judicial killing of Renee Good, we seemed to have reached that crisis. How long before armed citizens take to the streets to defy rogue ICE actions against innocent citizens? How long until the clash reaches a state of all-out war?

It has become abundantly clear that Trump is no Christian and that he makes zero effort to emulate Jesus — in fact, his followers openly condemn the qualities of mercy and empathy … in a 100% anti-Christian manner & attitude.

What is the solution? Perhaps there is no solution, other than revolt. Unless the rule of law prevails and Trump is no longer POTUS at the end of his term, the United States is in some trouble.

Take the “What-would-Jesus do?” question. Would Jesus work for ICE and shoot people? No, of course not. One could certainly make the argument that no one who works for ICE in the Trump regime could also be a Christian.

I grew up in a very Christian household; i know how Christians are supposed to behave — it doesn’t take a genius to see how far from the teachings of Jesus this administration has moved. Where is the love? Where is the compassion and the mercy? If Jesus encountered ICE agents, they might shoot him too.

Sometime i say something to someone else because i need to hear the words myself.

Maybe people talk because they need to listen.

~

A friend called last night and we talked for a long time — an hour & forty minutes, according to my phone. I first got to know this friend with Sandi; we all met at an apartment complex picnic, where we met her and her husband.

Years went by, and their marriage didn’t last — and it’s difficult for me not to see their relationship as a darker version of ours. Theirs also had a cancer diagnosis & treatment; but instead of bringing them closer together, it led (among other things) to marital alienation. I can’t pretend to understand what went wrong, but it was disheartening to see.

Relationships & marriages: they only work when we want them to work and when we’re willing to put in the time & effort to make them work. I’m certainly no relationship expert, but i’m also not a complete failure. Part of what helped is that i qualified for psychotherapy and had regular sessions from a standout Psy. D. for ten years — that was part of what enabled me to have the relationship in the first place and then also to weather the inevitable storms.

What do we do with adversity in our lives? How do we act? We’re all going to have problems; that’s guaranteed.

Now i’m in a post-marriage and post-therapy stage of life, but it’s still really good to talk with a friend. I don’t know if i’ll have another romantic relationship in my life, but i will definitely still have friends. And i hope that i’m in a better position to help my friends now.

~

If you don’t talk to yourself (or write), then how will you know what you’re thinking?  Or you can talk to somebody else … but unless you say it or write it, then it disappears — it’s gone forever.

Sandi (to me) was Bea Arthur on Golden Girls, the character Dorothy.

20 years ago i would’ve been Blanche, a slut. But now i’m becoming more like the old one, Sophia. Disenchanted.

~

In life there’s always projects you want to do, but that you don’t do because you don’t have infinite time.

Like editing the subtitle files on movies … or even TV shows. Because the subtitles are never 100% accurate. But it’s not worth spending huge amounts of time on minor things. It just doesn’t matter enough to bother. Just let it go.

That’s what life becomes — learning to let go.

~

Pop culture is all about fiction. The people aren’t real. The stories aren’t real. It’s all made up. Everything is designed to sell you on it.

Fiction is the way life is supposed to be, but never is. So take comfort in fiction, because you probably cannot in real life.

The way you think about yourself? That’s probably made-up too, full of somebody else’s tropes and ideas. Give yourself a break.

~

I watched movies with Sandi. That was one of the things we did. It was usually movies about love and romance, Sandi‘s favorite topics. We watched some sci-fi too, and i even knew some Rom-Coms that Sandi didn’t. That was our bonding thing. But i didn’t always choose the best movies. Once i had us watch on the same night, Soylent Green and Blade Runner — not a good combination; but Sandi forgave me. Something like Julie & Julia or Love Actually were better choices.

Sandi was my Julia Child. ❤️

Sandi was my Robin Scherbatski (Cobie Smulders on “How I Met Your Mother”). ❤️

Got in at 1 AM from a big party. Slept till 10 AM. Am watching When Harry Met Sally, an old New Year’s Day tradition. Last year, i watched it with a good friend; this year alone. Very comforting, traditions.

Makes me laugh, When Harry Met Sally. Every time. And cry a little — just a few tears. Echoes of the past. I love the writing. Nora Ephron. Those little red spots some women get on their cheeks after they orgasm — that’s what you can’t fake.

Nora Ephron.
She’d left the story with an ending where Harry & Sally don’t get together at the end.
But in making the movie, the director Rob Reiner meets his future wife and falls in love … so he pushed Ephron to change the ending — at Michele Singer’s prodding.
They both died in 2025.

Sure, i do miss being with someone; but it is easier. And at this point, it’s so unlikely that i’ll ever meet someone again, that i might as well just be content being alone. It’s simpler and more realistic.

Another friend tells me, “Sex is for people in their 20s,” and i tend to agree. Some in my 30s & 40s too, but not so much in my 50s; once.

Sandi and i were great together sometimes; we both loved Rom-Coms. We were lucky … lucky to have found each other, found that magic together, even just the once. It made all the difference.

If only i felt as good about my writing as i do about my romances.