Medical Update

So this morning, my doctor told me that I'm "good to go" and I'm looking much better than when this all started seven months ago and unless I have something unexpected come up, I don't need to return for six months. As much as I've felt apprehension before each visit, I felt a little letdown at this development. I guess I've found a little sense of security in these regular tests, test results and updates and watching the steady improvement in my numbers taking place. I actually feel much younger than I was feeling last May when I was constantly worried that maybe I was dying. Much younger in fact than I had felt in the previous five years. Not quite back to feeling immortal yet but working on it. I don't want to get too cocky. Maintaining a little humility is important.

What This Town Needs

What this town needs is five more record stores for myself to frequent. Ten would be even better!! Places of endless culture, wonders and discovery. Places to get lost in for incalculable hours on a chilly, foggy Saturday. Places to cross paths with and hear the stories and tales of other record collecting fanatics of all ages. Where everyone is equally fascinating, cool and hip.

A record store for each corner of downtown. A few in other neighborhoods. Like in the 1970's as I seemingly recall. The present day reality is not progress.

If I were granted three wishes ,,,,, after everlasting love and eternal youth, there would be a difficult decision for the final wish between having several billion dollars or five more record stores in town.

Another Passing

I see that another longtime co-worker has passed away. Makes you stop and wonder about that person's life and final days and things between you that you wish had played out differently and think about your own remaining time.

I know a little of the person's lifestyle situation and find it all so sad. I pray that he didn't pass away alone and feeling fear. If his passing is true, I feel sad to say that it's not a surprise. He's been retired for a few years but stopped by work a few months ago to visit and looked frighteningly frail and in poor health.

It seems like just a short time ago when he was full of life, humor, and some anger and sarcasm. That was just his personality. It became expected. Charming and enjoyable to be around one minute, the opposite the next. Someone told me years ago that he was diagnosed as bi-polar. He had his issues, conflicts with others and quirks but then we all do. But even anger and sarcasm are being alive!! It amazes and frightens me how a person declines and fades away so quickly. I guess it wasn't truly a quick process but when you picture how you always knew the person, then two or three years pass and you compare that visual to the final time that you saw him a few months ago, the image and process ..... for lack of a better term, is shocking and seems to have happened overnight.

________________________________________

So it's several days later and I've heard that he was found unconscious in his house by neighbors who went in after not seeing him for a few days. He was in the hospital for ten days where he was asked if he wanted the needed care to prolong life a little longer and he declined and asked them to "let him go." (to let him pass away not go home.) Sounds like he was just weary of the fight that his later years had become.
(1-26-19)

Three Point Mania

I wonder if whoever came up with the idea of the three point shot, looks at the present day game and regrets it now? I'm lacking actual research and statistical numbers but it 'feels' like it's about 50-75% of the game. Sometimes it feels like I'm watching a pinball game instead of a basketball game. It's certainly a much different game than what I grew up with and most of the time, that's not a good thing. I'm all for a rule change limiting the number of attempts. Maybe five or six attempts per half.

Notes

• In basketball, since when did the hand-off become an assist?
• A guy walks into the donuts shop, gets angry when they don't drop everything .... (i.e., preparing my order) .... and come running to help him, so he walks out after a forty-five second wait while mumbling obscenities under his breath. Everyone wants immediate gratification these days.
• Likewise, everyone wants early retirement as well.
• Do recurring dreams stop when you have one where a resolution to the recurring problem was reached? I guess I'll find out. It was a welcome change to wake up with the feeling that an ending to the occasional strife in my sleeping world had taken place. Because bad dreams don't just end when one awakes shaken and afraid. There often times are lingering effects afterward.
• Kind of proud that I went an entire day abstaining from sweets and soda. Imagine that. Maybe I can make it consecutive days? Or how about a lifestyle?
• Each day gets just a little closer to another birthday and I'm like: "What the hell! Bring it on!!" Not sure though, if I have the great fortune to make it through a few more years, if I'll feel the same defiance about bringing it on when seventy looms directly over me.

Plan Z

Had so many grand plans for the evening. Things I was planning to do from the moment I left work. Ended up sitting down, thinking at length about a friend who's going through some things and listening to music. Possibly the best alternative and it wasn't even in the faded margins of the ultimate grand master plan .....  And then suddenly the evening is nearing its end, about to transition to late night and sleep is needed if there's any hope of functioning in the new day.

More Than Hello

I hate to admit it but I suspect that I've become socially inept. I cross paths with new people ..... random encounters where they might smile and say hello and I freeze up when it comes to replying with anything more than hello and then looking away. A moment later, I'll kick myself for the missed opportunity, a process that lasts for the remainder of the day..

End of Vacation Blues

I go back to work in the morning after being away for more than a week. It feels though, like it's been ten weeks. I've been there over forty years and I suddenly feel a little like I'm a new hire. Hopefully I'll lose that feeling as soon as I walk in the door. Hopefully I'll be welcomed back with "Hey Mike, No time for exchanging good mornings, we have this issue needing your attention right away." That should jolt me back to my usual reality!!

And hopefully, no one will ask me when I'm planning on retiring. (See previous posting here.) Once you're over sixty, it's like people wait in line to ask you that question. I'd rather be asked when I'm going in for my next colonoscopy. At least I could provide a rough estimate for that question.

2019!!

2019 is here!!! I'll celebrate with a book, a little music and a movie!!

Once again I'll say, I never could imagine this year arriving when I was a teenager. 1974 to 2019 ….. Isn't that like seventy or eighty years of time? OK I guess it's obvious that I wasn't a math major. But those years in between do seem like an eternity while also feeling like yesterday.

Around 8:00pm last night I found myself wishing very badly that I could at least make it another four hours. Who the heck wants their time to end in the final minutes of a year about to change? I wanted to be able to say that I made it through the transition!!! Especially this one because of health issues I was presented with earlier. Now I can look to 2020!!

I still struggle with the question: Does God exist? But for what it's worth, I do believe in the power of prayer. For whatever reason it does ease my mind from what's causing tension.

I seem to get asked about once a week, when am I going to retire? People my age get obsessed with retirement. "When are you retiring?" has replaced "Hi, how are you?" on the list of most often uttered conversational topics. Am I the only person my age that doesn't feel excitement about the R-word? I've always figured that I'd just KNOW when it was time and maybe I need someone to hit me over the head with a board but I don't feel that knowledge yet.

So tonight, I'm in my annual state of extended holiday confusion where I'm thinking it's Saturday and where in fact it's actually Tuesday.

Regarding the ongoing struggle, complexities and contradictions that come with being 60-something ….. I think that it's both funny and frustrating how at midnight, getting up at 6:00am and going out to breakfast seems like such a great and stimulating idea but a few hours later at 5:00am, that same thought feels like the dumbest idea that any single person has ever formed.

My resolution for the new year is to clear out the saved content on my cable box dvr and I've managed to get it from 22% of capacity down to 3% so I'm feeling pretty proud about that.