It’s fair use if i find inspiration from the miscellaneous posts people put up on Sincerely, and more than worth the yearly fee.

Maybe the best companions for single folks in their 50s are dogs and/or cats; certainly they’re lower maintenance than humans, and you probably won’t fight with them as much.

In The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt gets to be honest about romantic relationships, and how they’re not all that they’re cracked up to be; and that a lot of people are just getting by with behaving appropriately enough that it passes for a marriage … that spousal love is going to change with time. Social inertia and expediency. Survival.

Inspiration from a House, MD episode: yesterday i saw the show where the previously-genius patient is basically giving himself a chemical lobotomy so he doesn’t have to suffer because he’s too smart. Am i better off because i lost a bunch of IQ points? Was part of my perpetual misery because i was smart? I am better off, but i seriously doubt that’s the reason. But it was still a good episode.

By this point in our lives, maybe we thought we’d have some great job and a great spouse, but it didn’t always work out that way. Jobs come and go, as do spouses sometimes. We don’t end up controlling as much as we wanted to in our lives, a lot of the time.

Sometimes i get overwhelmed easily.

Or overly frustrated.

Some of it is the TBI; some of it is just life.

I have to not take on too many things at once. If i stick to small tasks, then i can get through the day.

Bicycle across town to pick up a prescription and get the flu shot & COVID-19 booster? Yes, but then i’m done for the day. Maybe a walk later on, or take trash & recycling to the dumpster.

Every day does not have to be a meaningful journey, but there are still peaceful moments to be experienced and beauty to be in awe of.

Relax. Enjoy yourself.

You cannot, in the end, accurately assume much about anyone.

Sexuality.

Intelligence.

Love.

Discipline.

Joy.

Grief.

So you play this game where you assume people’s reactions are basically the same, even though they’re so not. Most people, we really don’t have any idea who they are, or what they’re going to do. Some people, yes; but most people, no.

Stories are about people, but people are too complex to pin down to mere words. So all stories are inherently at least somewhat fiction, even the ones that we intend to be non-fiction.

Nuance is everything.

Be skeptical.

I wonder if anyone has pushed the thesis that Christianity is really just an abstract version of Judaism and the Judaic beliefs.

I mean Judaism to me seems more founded in plain reality. Jews don’t have to wonder whether they’re the chosen people they know they’re the chosen people; but Christians have to earn their way into heaven, a sort of quid pro quo with God.

Big Catholic guilt, my brother would say.

Judaism was supposedly waiting for a messiah, but what it got instead was an abstraction of one. Judaism was fine by itself; it doesn’t need anything.

For whatever reasons, Christians resurrected this ancient tradition of blood sacrifice as a way of making some sin OK with God; but instead of killing an animal and offering its blood to God, Christians drink a glass of wine and pretend that it’s the blood or they eat the piece of bread and pretend that it’s the body of the martyr Jesus.

This is a substitute for the blood sacrifice. Christians still do it, just in a more abstract way. I don’t think Jews worry about sins in the same way the Christians do. Maybe the Jews just look at sins as part of life … stuff you should say sorry for, but don’t sweat it too much. Christianity seems to have a long history of guilt associated with sin.

I’m glad that i’ve gotten to have the range of religious experiences, from evangelical Protestant Christianity with lots of Jewish friends, atheism, Tibetan Buddhism, and finally ending up with Unitarians. Nothing to lose as keep over.

I go back-and-forth in thinking, am I doing better? Am I better off? No easy answers.

I need a project to work on. Whether it’s computer stuff, or…. I don’t know anything else except for computer stuff. I haven’t even been doing my programming stuff for a while, but I could start that back up again.

I’m going to try an app where you read other people’s little bits of writing and stories or something and i’ll see if i can get some inspiration from that. I have three days to try the app for free and i’ll see if it’s worth continuing. I’m trying not to be skeptical.

I guess i don’t have much faith in people, especially people i don’t know. Why should i? I should be more specific — faith that you’re going to have something interesting to say.

Wow, i really am a misanthrope, aren’t i.

So i tried the new app, Sincerely. It’s like an emotional ponzi scheme, with people sharing random stuff, and you can respond if you want. Brings out the misanthrope in me, is what it does.

“It probably won’t get better. Life kinda sucks; get used to it. Work will probably be unfulfilling. You might get lucky with a romantic relationship, but it might not last. But try anyway, because there’s not much else to do in life.”

Maybe i don’t need it. Brings out the worst in me.

“There’s no character limit — no limits to how you can build (or destroy) character.
Life is essentially meaningless; don’t beat yourself up over not finding meaning. Nothing matters. That’s what life is about. It’s all interpretation.
Don’t sweat it.”

I do not think people will like that.

All right; that is enough for tonight.

[OK, one more:

People on this app don’t actually say much. Me included. Brings out the misanthrope in me, reading other people’s bits. Mostly i’m tempted to write sarcastic things in response. Most of the letters i’ve read so far are pretty boring.

No inspiration yet.

Life is boring, if you hadn’t noticed.

How do you pass the time? (I mean, legally.)

Does humor help? A little. Sometimes.

Learn to laugh at life, i guess. It’s not that important. As long as you don’t take it too seriously. Don’t take anything seriously; it’s not worth it.

Blah, blah, blah.

Let’s see what happens.

]

OK, i’m getting a little tired of cranking out a new blog entry every day. Maybe i should allow myself to skip Sundays, or perhaps both Saturdays & Sundays. Why not.

My reader(s) will understand. I don’t want to write because i have to; i’d rather write because i want to. For me, part of writing is because i talk to people IRL so seldom. I don’t talk to myself much because i usually know what i’m going to say. And i don’t talk to Ojo much anymore since he died; nor Sandi.

So i try to write only when i have something to say. (Something beyond angry vitriol.) My emotion-space is so chaotic that sometimes writing can ground me and keep me stable. So i write for myself, and not for a particular audience. And i certainly don’t write for money. So i am very privileged, i’ll be the first to admit; and i have the tremendous luxury of not caring what people might think of what i write, so i feel incredibly free.

I’ve been “retired” so long now that i hardly remember working. My first job was on a farm — low man on the totem pole — and i mostly carried the bushel baskets that the skilled workers picked corn into (or whatever we were doing). The only things i was qualified to pick were strawberries and tomatoes.

Then i was a lifeguard for five summers, at various local apartment pools. During those summers i had all of one save — a toddler running a fever who stopped breathing when his mother brought him into the 60 degree water; the hard part was prying the kid out of his mother’s arms so i could start CPR.

Then onto college — the peak of my working career as a research assistant to a Post-Doc doing photometry research on Neptune’s big icy moon, Triton, which Voyager 2 had just swept by. During my sophomore year, i had taken a graduate seminar on Neptune and helped with the computer work on the Triton flyby for my class project — photometry is how the light reflected from an object like Triton changes at different angles.

My professor (and the post-doc) appreciated my computer work enough to secure for me a National Science Foundation summer grant — so no more lifeguarding for me. The value to my computer work is that i would come in at about 10pm and work till 2 or 3 AM; that late, i was the only live-user of the Vax mainframe which during the day was quite slow, but at night zipped along quickly, doing complex mathematical transforms on the digital images under my direction (slightly delaying other people’s batch jobs which they left for the Vax to grind away at when everyone had gone home).

In those days, i was still a Physics major; but a couple weeks into my junior year, i switched all my classes to English and transferred my interest in mathematics to language.

My big turning point. And here i still am, paying attention to words in addition to equations.

When you find something good in life, don’t let it go! Enjoy it while it lasts! Life has a limited number of such things.

We are all going to die — every single one of us. There’s no escape; but it’s not a bad thing. Living forever would be such a curse! Living forever would be Hell! So be thankful you’ll have to let go of existence at some point; that’s just a basic part of life.

Since i helped Sandi, my wife, get through her last year of life, my perspective on death has changed a little. I was never afraid to die; it was always living that i had some trouble with. But i am perhaps more comfortable with both living and dying than i was before.

Sandi was already comfortable with death, too. That was an early bond we had. We’d each had an unsuccessful suicide attempt. She got over hers; me, not so much.

I wrote a book about it, twenty years ago; but that wasn’t enough. I’m still dealing with it — why else would i still be writing about it? Thank you for your patience.

I’ve written before about maybe not having any more romantic relationships. I don’t know. I don’t think so. Or not for a long time. I’m not sure i could handle it, or that i’d even want to handle it; maybe i just don’t have the heart to love anymore.

I’m also probably not going to get to ever write professionally. This is likely as good as it gets. Writing is just something to do to pass the time … like reading … like life.

Am reading The Goldfinch again. It’s been a few years since i read it last, and a lot of things have happened; so i’m curious how it seems now.

Stories are like mirrors, and i like to see how reflected things look when i look — how my life and the world around me appear, and how that’s changed over time.

And i’m haunted by the ghost of my wife’s last cat, Ojo. I have these recurring feelings of guilt (like when i get home from being out, or when i wake up) that i’ve neglected him — not fed him, cleaned his litter box, etc. Or i have a generalized guilt, that somehow my getting tired of feeding him through the night and cleaning up after him year after year — guilt that it contributed somehow to his death. I know it really didn’t contribute; but i still come home and go to check on how he’s doing, or i say good night to him when I’m turning out the lights at night. I miss the little guy.

I guess that by writing about it, i don’t feel so bad. Maybe misplaced feelings of guilt over Ojo are just my way of feeling guilty over Sandi dying.

Could be.

The Goldfinch is clearly a post-9/11 novel, with a lot of existential guilt & self-questioning going on throughout the story. Maybe my own feelings of guilt for being the only survivor of the “Cornell Gorge Suicides” phenomenon make the story particularly appealing to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_gorge_suicides?wprov=sfti1#

Everything ends.

And things begin again too.

It’s a bit repetitive, but i don’t know another way. You look at your life and you try to find some meaning. There is no inherent meaning; there is only meaning we assign.

So our mission in life is to assign meaning, even if it only has that meaning to ourselves. You can’t make other people see the meaning you see, unless they chose to — unless they want to.

You started off alone. You’ll end up alone. But in between, there may be some other people with you. For a while at least.

Even if it’s just someone you pass in the hallway and say hello. It’s better than nothing. Because we know all about nothing, don’t we?

Just say hi. What could it hurt?

(Don’t forget to add a title, to complete the meaning.)

Sandi kept fighting, even though her cancer diagnosis came so late — 2024 instead of 2020! Once diagnosed, she kept the treatments going right up until the end.

Lahey Hospital in Burlington MA completely botched her cancer diagnosis. She had what turned out to be a big fat uterine carcinoma, which they first saw on scans in 2020.

2020!!!

They did an MRI of it and concluded it was just a uterine fibroid — a supposedly benign fibroid — but turns out it wasn’t. Instead, it would eventually kill her.

And even if Lahey had gone to the trouble of biopsying the “benign” fibroid, the results probably would not have been conclusive. Lahey did NOT do well detecting cancer, even when they took biopsies of it directly from her uterus. “Oh, results inconclusive…” they would say, not willing to commit to a diagnosis.

Uterine biopsies (and bone biopsies) at Lahey were completely useless. And worse than useless, since they delayed treatment.

It’s difficult to tell what led to Lahey’s gross medical incompetence. Why they wouldn’t have started Sandi IMMEDIATELY on radiation therapy to stop uncontrolled bleeding from the uterus — especially when they already suspected Stage 4B cancer — is 100% beyond me.

So her cancer spread and worsened from 2020 until….

January 2024: pelvis MRI full of suspicious masses, but Lahey does nothing. CA 125 (cancer antigen) level in her blood was high — 71.7 — but Lahey decides to wait.

February 2024: Full-body PET CT, from skull to mid-thigh, shows all kinds of suspicious stuff; but Lahey won’t pull the trigger. Instead, useless bone biopsies — they’re just scheduling redundant tests to pad their budget and put off starting treatment.

Then Emerson Hospital in Concord MA on 29 Feb 2024: Mass. General Cancer Center at Emerson Hospital doctor orders radiation to begin treating Sandi’s cancer THE NEXT DAY.

About time.

Five consecutive days of radiation at Emerson. Symptoms are finally controlled, after Lahey did nothing — no treatment whatsoever — for FOUR MONTHS.

Three more days of radiation later in March.

March 26, 2024: chemotherapy port installed.

April 2nd first chemo appointment.

Groton Hill Music Center concert!

April 20 shave off hair.

April 26th second chemo appointment.

April 24 Ben Folds concert, The VETS, Lowell MA!

May 9th Sandi’s last trip to WICN in Worcester MA for live performances on The Folk Revival, hosted by Nick Noble!

May 13 third chemo appointment.

May 18th The 2024 New Hampshire Renaissance Faire!

A trip to Wells ME for a vacation with friends!

May 28 fourth chemo appointment.

May 31st an old friend brought fancy tea & all the fixin’s!

All this was interspersed with visits from friends, visits to Fancy That in Walpole MA, and whatever concerts & events we could find.

June 10th fifth chemo appointment.

June 17th sixth chemo appointment.

June 22nd Ben Folds VIP package & concert in Great Barrington, MA!

June 25 seventh chemo appointment.

July 4th party with friends!

July 5th fire pit party!

July 8 eighth chemo appointment.

July 11 breakfast with friends!

July 17th more radiation.

Spine MRIs.

July 13 lunch with friends in Lunenberg!

July 15th ninth & final chemo appointment.

Visits from friends.

July 20th House Concert at a friend’s.

July 22nd chemo CANCELED.

More visits from friends.

July 24th more radiation.

July 25th more radiation.

July 26th more radiation.

July 29th more radiation.

July 30th more radiation.

July 31st more radiation.

August 1st more radiation.

August 2nd more radiation.

August 5th more radiation.

August 6th more radiation.

August 7th more radiation.

August 8th more radiation.

August 9th more radiation.

August 12th chemo CANCELED

August 13th EKG & Echo

August 14th Fancy That!

August 17th FPC Jazz Band, 5pm Hudson Town Hall!

August 21st blood draw & rehydration infusion.

Visits from ministers.

Visits from distant friends.

Canceled a visit with friends. Canceled a Lake Boone event.

Oral medication Lenvima to supplement immunotherapy infusions.

September 13th 1st immunotherapy infusion.

Sandi had basically stopped eating regular food by the end of August, except for a spoonful of ice cream to take pills with, a few sips of Pedialyte and an occasional popsicle.

October 4th 2nd (and final) immunotherapy infusion.

October 18 the Tufts at-home Palliative care nurse came and quickly saw that only Hospice care was appropriate for Sandi at this point. She should have been getting Palliative care all this time, but stupid insurance was too cheap to check!

October 19 Hospice care officially started.

October 25th 3rd immunotherapy infusion — CANCELLED.

October 27th Sandi slid out of bed and required help from EMTs to get back in.

October 31st Samhain celebration with friends & ministers crowded around Sandi’s bed. Sandi was somewhat aware; this was her big pagan farewell.

November 6th Sandi was moved from her bed into the hospital-style bed in our kitchen, with the help of EMTs.

November 7th Sandi died, around 7:30 PM, after a day of help from minister Stephanie and then later from the Hospice nurse.