This sense of ennui that comes over me is associated with some idealized activity. I’m in the now. This is a good place. I’ve just walked Gilbert the dog in the woods and enjoyed watching the river. When I woke this morning late I sat and meditated. I rue the busy structured week because my mornings are a hustle with dog walk, hygiene, dressing and commuting. This morning I didn’t make it to church. I didn’t want to drive into the DTES. I miss church when I don’t go. I notice the absence of church in my life in the week after I miss a service. It’s the fellowship. It’s the shared worship. It’s that feeling of doing something good.
I haven’t swum. I meant to swim today. I thought too to clean up my garage. It’s a horrible mess. I’ve never got my summer clothes from last year or the autumn clothes to the storage locker. I’ve got to prune my wardrobe too. Just last week I was telling someone how I could easily get rid of jeans, not just the two size smaller jeans but the one’s made without the expandable stretchable material. I envy women their tights. For comfort I’d be a nudist. Part of my not going out when I’m at home is the unwillingness to put on pants.
When I was on the sailboat I spent days like this but I’d first drive the boat to some anchorage and feel like I accomplished something. Today I’m reading. I’ve been reading Fields of Blood which I erroneously called Rivers of Blood as if geographical constructions are interchangeable when it comes to blood. I am enjoying Karen Armstrong. I’m also reading Duncestan or Dunscefield, the WWI English colonels dispatches and journal from his time commanding a unit in the middle east. It’s been months now, actually since being in Istanbul or Moscow before that, in which I’ve been trying to educate myself regarding that whole area I thoughts was vaguely Eastern Europe then India and China. I really didn’t know much about Afghanistan, Iran, Bagdad, Iraq, Kurdistan, Armenia, or any of the newer stan’s and couldn’t pass a geography test on the seas. I’ve read the news and repeatedly looked at the google map to see what people are talking about but it’s not been very well established in my mind. I am like the american who asked me where I was from and when I answered Canada, said ’that’s to the north, mexico is to the south’. Part of it too is my visual memory. I seem to have lost the capacity to remember and see things easily in 3 D. Throughout medicine and surgery I had an uncanny mind for that sort of thing but now I’m more prosaic though do see relationships and understand things in a peculiar way that seems easy to grasp to me but to others seems befuddling. I miss the 3 d memory. I used to love seeing chemical molecules with all their bits floating in the air. It’s probably a muscle. If I would work it more it would come back. I’m fat in my gut for lack of sit ups and other parts of me including my mind are sedentary.
I need a road trip. It’s too early to get the bike out of Trev Deeley. I had this weekend and could have gone snowshoeing or skiing or fishing. I see these days off as precious and then so much recently all I find myself doing is laying about . I shopped for essentials at Walmart yesterday, got myself a couple of new shirts and a pair of rubber shoes. I really should cull the old stuff. I threw some underwear out because there was a hole in the side. I think a moth got at one of my sweaters. I’ve had to put my kilt away since last week. It’s all hanging in the garage but I’ve just not put it in its bag. I keep waiting for my Mother to return. I want to hire another cleaning lady but I don’t like having people in my place. I like my privacy and go years between times when I’ll actually trust someone in my home. I think if the wives had lived elsewhere we would have lasted longer. Gilbert is the best of company. He’s a dog.
Right now he’s curled up on the comforter I got cleaned with the view to changing the one on the bed, for no reason other than it seemed timely. In the meantime I’d moved the comforter to beside the bed and Gilbert has made it his bed. I don’t think the original plan is going to fly.
There’s just a whole bunch of ‘should’s’. Like shaking out the rugs. I did clean the stove and microwave this weekend. But I’m mostly psyching myself up for another week of work. It’s a lot like war. Frontlines. I cringe at the yellers and the threats. I worry I’ll lose it when I’m talking to the happy happy government people. I have to get over my self pit and martyrdom. It’s really a pretty good place I’m at. I’m really thankful for all that is happening in my life. I guess I have a bit of that waiting for the shoe to drop. There’s always these lulls and then the storm but mostly it’s the weather. I felt worse in November. It’s already February and the spring is spectacular. I always feel great when the light returns but the taxes and the deluge of license fees is just overwhelming now. I find myself worrying about how I will ever take a break because everyone wants more and more money. All the ‘takers’ have increased their fees and my income just decreases like the canadian dollar. The government is the worst.
Boohoo. Thank you God for my health. Thank you god for this safe cozy place with warmth and heat. Thank you God for Gilbert and his healing back. Thank you for this computer. thanks you for an income. Thank you for this day. Thank you for friends and family. Thank you for the books I get to read. Thank you for history and spirituality. Thank you for prayer and meditation. thank you for the refrigerator.
Really I probably am just needing another coffee. I was morose there earlier and I just needed a sandwich. Then I napped. I was a bit off and had a bowel movement. These are things I rarely notice in my work week. I’m lucky to get to sleep. The weekend comes and I’m on the couch. Gilbert is snoozing. He’s has no guilt or shame about anything.
I do the dishes. I swept the floor a month or so ago. Gilbert’s toys are everything .I vacuumed centrally yesterday. I have a new bathtub. Things are getting done. I have the most unrealistic expectations. If it’s not failure to be taken by the aliens I’m pissed because I didn’t make the cut for the rapture. Even if I was taken to a different galaxy I’d probably still have to clean my room. l just don’t have room for the stuff. I think of buying another house but remember the last one with the basement and the increasing hoarding of ‘stuff’. Stuff expands to fill the space. That’s what I liked about the boat. Everything was there. Right now I think of playing my guitar but it’s under the clothing in the garage. I suspect I’m not wholly alone in this experience. On Facebook the other day some one asked about who made their beds and several of my friends took pride in their OCD. I throw the comforter over the bed solely because if I don’t Gilbert will jump up when he’s wet and muddy and lie on the sheets where I do. If the comforter is there it’s less a tragedy to have his wet dirty little body on the bed. I like to get into relatively clean sheets.
I bought a couple of shelves yesterday to add to the collection of shelves I have for the express purpose of reducing the chaos. I have this one shelf that will take care of the books I have around with the express purpose of reading immediately. there’s about a dozen. They’re ‘urgent reading. They re on the floor beside the couch. I’ve downloaded 5 science fiction kindle books about earth being attacked and the defenders fighting off the fleets of aliens. I read these like candy several over the last couple of weeks. Meanwhile the ‘real books’ the ones I have to read are cluttering the floor beside the couch. There’s an addiction textbook , four voluments at the office I had intended to read by Jan. I’ve read few chapters. How did I read all those textbooks on brain injury in the last couple of years and all those theological textbooks. I’m just plodding my way through this Fields of Blood. It takes me an hour to read 10 pages and I keep cross referencing bits with the encyclopedia.
I’m a whiner.
I hate that I’m a whiner.
I want to sail across the atlantic but fantasize about barging down the nile with fans and people feeding me grapes. There’s two sides to me at war, one industrious and the other very very lazy. It’s amazing I’ve got this far. I could die soon too. I’m of the age when people do that sort of thing. I can see the advantageous. Right now death would solve the whole cleaning issue. I stay around though for my dog. I also have obligations and concerns about people. I figure to I must eventually do something with my life. Mostly though I feel I’m on the bench waiting to be called by God. A part of a back up plan. I saved a life last week. The rest of the week ws coasting but there was one person who if they’d not seen me would have likely been toast. I’ve found it quite amazing that just having age and seeing tens of thousands of people I know things that others don’t. It was that sort of thing that others would have missed. I’d have missed it a decade ago. But I’ve seen it ow several times so recognized it before it caused death. Death is that close at times. So I was useful, not just the usual waste of flesh that I feel at these times.
There really should be a place on a mars shot for a fat old white guy. The world is tired of fat old white guys. Everywhere I look I hear anger and abuse about what my great great great grandfathers and grand mothers did by climbing down from trees faster than the neighbour and developing a better club because they got up earlier in the morning. I’m thankful that my ancestors were quicker on the draw but I’ve been relatively slow and today I’m just really tired of all the abuse. This divide and conquer of course is what the 86 world leaders want. They want us scrapping about crumbs and fighting over who has freckles and who doesn’t so that they can keep more to themselves. Maybe they’re managing things better though I don’t know. I, like all the other critics, can’t manage cleaning my room but I think I should be in charge of NASA if only I want to get off this planet before the grim reaper takes me.
Really I don’t. I want to be in Thailand or Cambodia or Ethiopia. I want to be somewhere I’ve not been walking around learning. I know too that when I’ve done that for a bit I want to be right back here where I am. Indeed this weekend I’m really enjoying being in this place I pay rent for but rarely use. I’m thankful that I can hang out with my dog. That’s a real treat. I am really very fortunate. I’ve enjoyed the mush mind netflix run I’ve been on this weekend watching a half dozen shows of Jessica Jones and Occupied. In one a superstring woman with amazing sexual energy fights a mind controller while in the other Norway is occupied by Russia.
I was glad to talk to family. That’s enjoyable always. Good to hear they’re okay.
God thank you for this down time. I know it’s better in the boat where I’m bouncing up and down and doing the very same thing, reading, writing, watching tv but this is pretty good. I’m very thankful for my back yard. I like that I have a back yard. I liked the balcony on the apartments but this backyard is so much better. I am thankful I had chickens and geese. I ‘d like to have chickens again. But I’d rather travel. Travelling is something I want to do more of as part of the research I continue but there’s Gilbert and I have to consider where he would stay when I travelled. I like to visit churches and cafes. They don’t particularly welcome dogs in churches and cafes. A road trip he can come on. Either on the motorcycle or in the car.
We may have to go to the US for a weekend. That’s always a great break. Overnighting a cross the border. Bellingham Seattle. I worry about the peso like value of the dollar. But then I could go to Bellingham rather than Seattle. That would half the cost. Yes that’s a possible plan. I have these vague ideas that get me week to week. Something in the future that seems interesting. Anything to break up the routine. I admire the god kids for their ‘outings’ to the woods and streams. I could have gone looking at sea dos and wave riders. Maybe a second hand one but where to store it. But if I had one maybe I’d go up the river. I’ve got my boat and could get out in the little boat and go up[ the river.
No i think I’ll have another nap.
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