She surprised me. I never would have thought that she would have said it. And while I don’t remember the exact words, the idea is worth ‘putting to paper’. “You are just as black and white now as you’ve ever been.” How could that possibly be? I see way, way, way more nuance in the world than I ever have before. I know that I know less than I ever appreciated before, and I say so often. When she asks me a question, I answer, “I don’t know,” or, “I couldn’t say,” more than 95% of the time. But those moments don’t resonate. What resonates with her are the times that I take a stand; when I have read about, or have sufficient knowledge in, an idea, concept, or subject that is empirical to defend a defensible position. Those are the moments when I am unwavering. Those are the moments […]
There was an unexpected finality to it … an anxiety an moment of doubt that I hadn’t expected. After all, I had spent the last 6 weeks preparing for this moment. I had already downloaded all my private message conversations from 2 different accounts over the last 13 years. I had already downloaded every post that I had made over that time. I had printed PDFs of every meaningful ‘note’ that I had published. Still, there was a brief moment of hesitation when I received that final warning. I clicked the blue button, despite the hazard sign: the warning that I will become disconnected from everything that is going on in the world, experience FOMO, and inevitably lose touch. I clicked the blue button, because the benefit no longer outweighed the risk; the negatives had begun to exceed the positives. Now the experiment begins in earnest … (Wish me luck)
Victoria has pains. Perhaps there is a reasonable explanation for each one. Maybe each abdominal pain, each migraine, each painful experience without apparent injury … maybe I am wrong and perhaps there is something there that we don’t have the fidelity or understanding to identify as a source of nociception every time. Maybe not. This afternoon Victoria had her annual physical. Her pediatric physician had an uncanny ability to blame the stomach complaints on stress, foot pains on soft-tissue strains, and – most annoyingly – headaches on dehydration. You see, Victoria probably doesn’t drink enough water. No one drinks enough water. Her physician doesn’t even drink enough water. By her physician’s account, if Victoria drinks more her headaches will disappear. Perhaps they will; they probably won’t. I wanted to inquire how she reasoned that everyone drinks too few fluids, yet only a small group of people get headaches, and how […]
I enjoy FB; it shows me what is going on in the lives of so many friends, some I’ve met in person, many I’ve not. Messenger has been indispensable while helping me establish meaningful, deep-friendships with a variety of folks who I will likely never meet in person (but I’ll be damned if I’m not gonna try) Instagram has offered me an opportunity to (virtually) meet a great many people, many in my own community who share a passion for landscape/outdoor photography. Twitter has exposed me to a variety of people and ideas that would have eluded me otherwise. Google makes my computing life exceedingly simple. My bookmarks sync between devices as do all my word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation files. My photos are backed-up on Google’s cloud. Many of the PDF files I’ve hoarded along the years are accessible across all devices as well. Amazon has almost anything that […]
I talked in front of a group of folks in February and tried to convince them not to be accidental assholes. It took me less than 2 months to become one myself. Last night, Victoria brought home some classwork that she had completed; some of it needed to be corrected and brought back to her teacher. They were math papers – double digit addition and subtraction. Christine had already looked over the papers earlier in the evening while I was cleaning the garage; now she was at a tri-training event and I was looking things over. “What did your mother say about these?” I asked. “She told me that I needed to start dong better or there would be consequences,” she said. “Well, she is a lot kinder than I am,” I replied, “because I am taking your dessert from you now. That is your consequence – no more dessert […]
March 27, 2019 – When I started a photo-project last year – which I confess to immediately halting after I began – she was supportive and let me spend the afternoon in her restaurant; she knows that I own a camera. As a gesture of appreciation when she let me take those photos, I gave her a photo-book of the best images that I had collected; she knows that I can occasionally capture a nice image (the trick is to never let anyone see all the shit that gets discarded). So, when this humble woman who runs a cash-based breakfast and lunch counter in a small town in Upstate NY was asked to provide a head-shot to the the state so they could feature her on their website (after she received recognition for service to the community and our schools) she came to me for help. “Can I ask a […]