I spent Christmas 2023 at home alone. Susan, Leigh, and Anne are in California, visiting family. My anxiety spikes when I’m alone. I worry about all the things that might go wrong because, too often, things have gone wrong while Susan and I were apart. From flooding basements, kidney stones, and…
Tag: cats
Sitting at home, with our cats, is where we will be this holiday season. It beats being out and about this week, as Christmas approaches. I have no desire to be among crowds of people or driving in heavy traffic. Peace and quiet are what my wife and I both…
This morning I awoke to Mimi and Alex purring next to me. It is overcast, which I like, and cool. As I was doing the dishes, I thought about how fortunate we are right now. We have a house, incomplete as it is, the yard is looking much better this…
An acquaintance noted, “I never hear you swear.” Probably accurate. I seldom use harsh language, finding it generally pointless. Generally, I also find it offensive. Some people I find quite funny do (or did) use such language, but I’m not on stage performing like George Carlin or Denis Leary. Language…
I managed one partial day of an academic conference. The conference was from Wednesday through Sunday at noon. I attended four hours in the middle of Friday and that was more than enough for my system. Enough to attend a single presentation and give my own presentation before needing to…
It has been three days since I attended an academic conference. I only attended one of the two days, knowing I was not doing well physically. I’m still “shaky” — the best adjective I can conjure at the moment. It is like my senses are turned up a notch even…
I missed some school deadlines. I know excuses are inexcusable, and being even a week or two off schedule bothers me. But, the last few weeks have been miserable. New Glasses. I’ve never worn prescription glasses before, but I ended up needing them to deal with some strange color separations…
Because I tend to observe the negatives around me, people assume I am a negative person. It probably doesn’t help that I don’t speak about the positives nearly often enough. I sometimes assume the good things are obvious to everyone and don’t need to be said. Who needs me to…