One Answer for The Quiet

Posted on by

My brother-in-law passed away on Easter Sunday.  In his case, it’s more appropriate to acknowledge that he died on April 1st; when @bhoneydew and I heard the news, we first thought it was a bad joke.

In truth, we’re not sure it wasn’t.

He was 33. He’d moved out of our basement (where he’d been living off and on for the past three years as he bounced between jobs) three weeks prior. He had been at a new job, one that he liked very much, for only a week. He got up to go into his parents’ kitchen, collapsed, and could not get up.  He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

The family has more questions than will probably ever be answered, but that is expected, even if this wasn’t.

Abidness

Posted on by

Put this in shell.
In case you want to feel healthier,
We are your reliable assistant.

-latest #spamadvice

Abidness?  Abidnescence?  Yes, I know neither of them are real words, but I couldn’t find a good one to describe “situation normal modulo armadillo tendencies”.

The medical adventures continue, but there’s nothing dire to report.  My ear continues to ring, and we’re looking at possible causes (my MRI was textbook ordinary, which disturbed me a little).  I discovered that having an ear worm distracts me from the ringing, so I’ve been trying to listen to a lot of catchy music in order to induce one.

I have also discovered that ear worms are less likely to happen when I am trying to induce one.1 Hey, at least the ringing doesn’t wake me up at night.

Otherwise, there is a staggering amount of nothing to say these days. It’s all positive nothing, though, so there are no complaints contained in the current armadillo space. Stuff abides, y’all.

1I suspect there’s a journal article in that, but I’m not motivated to go learn everything I need to know about quantum biomechanics in order to pretend I know what I’m talking about.

Reading the Signs

Posted on by

You are not right.
Let’s discuss.

-latest #spamconcern

The anonymous bot script is correct: I am not right. My left ear has been ringing since the beginning of the school year. It’s not always at the same volume or frequency: at its best, it feels like I’m wearing half of a headset that’s tuned to a white noise station, and at its worst, it’s waves of cicada-song, which would be soothing if it didn’t sound like someone had digitized the sample badly.

I did a hearing test last week. The results pointed to nerve damage (everything’s structurally sound, and my right ear’s in great shape), and I’ve been set up with a MRI for the coming week to see if we can determine where the damage is located within the ear and get a better idea of what can be done about this, if anything.

Yes, I am spinning some, but just some. There’s too much else to do to get wound up over something I can’t do anything about (at least not yet).

The writing accountability experiment is in full swing. The workout accountability experiment continues. The first class of the winter session has started. And there’s work, which generally does let me sleep more these days.  Generally.

 

Preoccupation and Progress

Posted on by

Having all of the alternatives
And a sense of joyful preoccupation,
This coming year will be
A mischief-maker of strategies
To salvage you to improved discern.

-12.29.2017, #SpamFortuneCookie, which doesn’t sound good, and probably isn’t.

Happy Almost New Year. I settled on FocusWriter. It only took me a week of evaluating the pros and cons. This is progress.

Continue reading →

Reflex Action

Posted on by

Suppose that each time you succeed,
you quit all feelings that resemble interest,
walk away with little to show for your joy
and distrust of that remainder.
-12.22.2017, the latest #spampoetry.

Why, yes, I did spend the better part of my non-working day evaluating WriteMonkey, FocusWriter and the latest iteration of Scrivener versus not investing/re-investing in any of them and sticking with random scrawled notes on Post-Its translated into WordPad (though, these days, it’ll more likely be Notepad++ with word wrap turned on), then crammed into Microsoft Word.1

I came to no conclusion beyond that I shouldn’t have bought ice cream yesterday, because there is now ice cream in my house, which means I can stop this spinning and have some ice cream.

Though, it is nearly 11:30, and I have a workout scheduled tomorrow…

Yeah, I’ll skip the ice cream in favor of drinking a glass of water and going to bed.

—
1I signed up for some creative accountability in the New Year. Or accounting of my creativity, that is, stuff WithMyOwnNameOnItAndCrapWasThisAGoodIdea?

 

Escapades in Escapism

Posted on by

Projecting Belief
started an up to date Web project
started an unusual cobweb throw
started to update spider’s web
started…
tried…
tired.
evil seems a completed thought
-12.13.2017, latest #spampoetry

2017GRCThis blogpost brought to you by the letter P, for Pause between Competing Projects That I Need To Get Done Tonight. Pause. Not procrastination. Really!1

As I’ve mentioned, I finished my Goodreads Challenge six months early. So, here’s where I am with my reading at the beginning of December. After I raised the hurdle two whole books from last year, I cleared it by a 150% percent. Holy fish.

Continue reading →

Between Ghosts

Posted on by

Far seeing once meant
The future withholds wonderful things,
Private answers all remarkably admitted.
Now, it predicts breakfast.

-11.20.2017, the latest #spampoetry

My WordPress spam has gotten tedious. It’s increasingly disgusting ads, over and over, sprinkled with admonitions for me to monetize or SEOize this site using some method which must not be very good, else spammers wouldn’t need to advertise it.

However, my Google Junk Mail folder continues to provide useful crap for spackling into poetry.