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mdlbear

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River: In Flight +8 comments
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River, pc: State of the Bear: +5 comments
River: Colleen: Two Years Later +13 comments
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Part 1.

Well, we're on our way to the Netherlands. We're somewhere southeast of Greenland as I write this. After a somewhat disorganized day of packing, during which I decided -- correctly, as it turned out -- that my nice new Travelpro backpack wouldn't fit under a seat, so I re-packed my drugs, headphones, charging gear, laptop, and shoulder bag(!) into my old red REI backpack (nicknamed Red, of course). Where they fit perfectly. And realized that the stuffable Eddie Bauer dufflebag I was using for my CPAP, jacket, etc. was going to be too awkward, so I re-packed that into my old MEI convertible backpack/suitacase, where it also fit perfectly.

That backpack is old. Older than my kids, I think. It holds about as much as my Travelpro 21" (or is it 22) carry-on. Which I checked. But it's a lot less densely packed, so it's manageable without wheels.

For some reason my laptop won't connect to the onboard WiFi. And N is borrowing my phone because she left hers charging in the car. So I'm getting by perfectly well on some preloaded DW posts, onboard entertainment, and emacs. I watched Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, which was just the right sort of madcap action and heartwarming ending that I think I needed just now. I decided on music rather than trying to break the mood by watching Dune. Maybe on the way back, two weeks from now.

The plan is to deliver j to his apartment in Leiden, where he will be attending University in the fall, spend the night with N in the Golden Tulip (where we stayed last trip), then spend the rest of the time in the Cove Centrum/Passage in Den Haag. (That's Dutch for The Hague; despite speaking less Dutch than a toddler at this point it's still easier to use Dutch for place names. Saves time in train stations.) We will be going back to Leiden occasionally -- j needs a new computer for school, among other things -- doing paperwork, and looking at houses. It's rather unlikely that we'll find anything this trip; we're booked into short-term housing in Den Haag starting in October.

Part 2

It's weird. As I mentioned last week, my brain seems to have turned a corner somehow, a couple of weeks ago, and a great deal of my depression seems to have lifted. I don't know how long this will last, but I'm not complaining. I don't think I know how to even talk about it. (See also, alexithymia.)

My cancer diagnosis and ongoing treatment may have something to do with it. I don't know long I can expect to live -- it could be anything between five and twenty-five years. Or I could get hit by a bus a week from now. But I've gotten used to the fact that I'm mortal. And, perhaps not entirely unrelated, non-binary.

We'll be flying over Ireland in a little while.

Part 3

... and now we're in Leiden, after a very long day. It's 10:30 am here. I'm going to post this and try to take a nap.

Mood: oddly cheerful/apprehensive
Location: Between Seatac and Schiphol
Music: engine noise and classical music

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

It was a week. Not as emotionally taxing as last week, but physically just as difficult if not more so. With five of the seven days spent at or traveling to or from the Whidbey Island house. It isn't home anymore, though it may still be called Rainbow's End. Right now it's still a mess; hopefully Habitat for Humanity (scheduled for tomorrow), the junk haulers (scheduled for Friday) and the cleaning crew (sometime in the following week) will fix that. The new owners, who will start moving in March 1, will appreciate that. Our cats will appreciate having us back.

N has been going up with me; it's very difficult for her, but the project needs an on-site manager, and she's the only one the family has. My back isn't all that happy with me, but (so far) no lasting damage.

I haven't been very consistent about exercise (five days out of seven, and not necessarily a full set (whatever that means)) but I got in three walks and there was only one day during the week where $G logged less than 4000 steps. I had bloodwork done Monday; results look good except for iron; presumably I'll be taking supplements of some sort. Genetic results came in Wednesday, also very good. No music, and not enough sleep.

I should say, no active music-making -- here's a link to Kathy Mar's excellent recording of The World Inside the Crystal. The next track is "Little Green Eyes", which brought me to tears -- it's a beautiful song, but so sad...

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: melancholy
Location: The Rainbow Caravan's South End in Seattle
Music: The River Where She Sleeps

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

Not a bad week, as weeks go these days, but not all that good either. There is reason for optimism, but also a lot of things to be pessimistic about, which are making it hard to get to sleep.

My sphincter control seems to be almost back to normal, as of Wednesday or so. I was feeling normal enough to start taking walks again, including almost a mile and a half with m and j. I read somewhere that every mammal from the mouse to the elephant can empty its bladder in 20 seconds except for elderly male humans with enlarged prostates. A category which included me for the past several years, but apparently no longer does.

And I attended E's Yule celebration Thursday. (The Yule ritual on Whidbey was last night, organized by G and with me, g" and k attending. We had cookies and a bottle of 10-year-old mead. I don't remember who gave us that, or whether we perhaps acquired it at an Interfilk auction.)

On the other hand, the place we had (Subaru)Stacey towed to does not do body work, despite what it says on their website. We were unable to find a body shop willing to accept it on short notice, so it's going to sit in front of our house until we do. Then it will almost certainly be totalled. That plus the fact that I should have started on selling Colleen's medical equipment two years ago mean that emptying the house out by the end of January is going to be a stretch.

On the gripping hand, I also had my first (of eight) accupuncture treatments (which was fascinating), and made an appointment with one of Fred Hutch's "spiritual health" providers (there must be a better word -- chaplains?), after a delightful conversation Monday. (See also, Wednesday's " State of the Bear" post.)

Good links for the week include The Future of Web Styling: Classless and Class-Light CSS | by Shalitha Suranga, and What Makes LISP Unique? | by Erik Engheim. Most of the others are discouraging.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: very mixed
Location: The Rainbow Caravan's North End on Whidbey Island

Fred Hutch takes a "whole person" kind of approach to patient care, which isn't something I've experienced before. My "care team" currently includes three oncologists, a social worker, a "patient navigator", an "integrative medicine" specialist, and (added only this week) an accupuncturist and a chaplain. I would never have thought of looking for help with "Spiritual Health -- they came looking for me based on some of my answers on the mental health section of one of their many questionaires, but from the brief conversation I had on Monday it sounds as though it will probably be better for me than most of the previous counseling I've had. It's a strange feeling, and a strange position for an atheistic Reformed Druid to be in, but there you have it.

Physically I seem to be doing better this week, as my shrinking prostate releases its grip on my urethra, and my current mix of laxatives deals with my arse. It's all still annoying -- I'm nowhere near being back to the way I was, say, a year ago, but I'll take whatever slight improvement I can get. And today I got a referral to a physiatrist specializing in pelvic floor rehab. (I only encountered the term "physiatrist" a few months ago, but apparently the term dates back to 1938. TIL!)

This is turning out to be a long, strange trip indeed.

Mood: hard to say
Location: a car charger in the QFC parking lot
Music: Truckin'

Colleen died two years ago today. Some people say that the second year can be as hard as the first (in different ways). I wouldn't know. I've never been much good at tracking my moods. Also my memory is unreliable. So...

...So I've survived another year without my best friend of fifty years, learning to step around the gaping hole in my life. (That's a metaphor that's come up a couple of times in one of my support groups -- the hole never goes away, you just get better at not falling into it.) On the whole think I'm doing as well as can be expected. Or as well as I can expect, meaning I'm not noticeably more dysthymic than remember being before. See above about moods and memory.

Colleen was the one who kept track of all our friends, and stayed in touch with everyone. Our kids are doing some of that, but I'm mostly out of the loop now. Most of my social life is on Discord and the occasional convention, but it works. I miss going to Sunday brunch with Colleen, and the long drives we often did afterward. Our favorite brunch place, Charmers, succumbed to COVID, but I keep driving past its replacement, and another restaurant that we meant to try but never did. Oh, well. Too late now for a lot of things.

I feel as though I ought to have more to say. Maybe later.

Mood: hollow
Location: The Seattle end of the Rainbow Bridge
Music: Big Yellow Taxi

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

Not a good week. Certainly not in US politics, at any rate, and not so good psychologically either. Also, It's Time for Foreigners to Leave Russia (see Wednesday). Following on the heels of siderea's suggestion last Wednesday to leave coathanger states if you're in one of the populations under attack. And these reminders that the "S" in "IoT" stands for "Security".

Completely apart from the obvious outrage fatigue impied by the above, I was hit Friday evening by a sudden wave of something that might have been depression, loneliness, low blood sugar, or some combination. This was after... let me back up a little. N and G left for a week in NYC Thursday evening, and the kids were picked up by their stepmom J Friday evening to spend their spring break with their other parents. Somehow it feels different from spending a weekend by myself on the Island, or isolating with my cats in the Lair. I'm okay now, but Friday evening was a bit rough.

Meanwhile I have five cats to take care of and to keep me company for the week, and I've started working on my taxes (which is going more smoothly than usual for once). Determining yesterday afternoon that I'm likely to get a refund for once certainly helped my mood, as did spending the evening with J, M, and the kids for Seder.

I might even get some singing and writing in this week.

Also, quote of the week, from RFC 9402: Concat Notation (this year's April 1 RFC, which proposes a standard notation for describing cats and containers):

A cat might find themselves in a container smaller than the perceived volume of the cat. While this might seem to be a dangerous situation, it's actually a natural occurrence when the cat is in its liquid form.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: dysthymic?
Location: The Rainbow Caravan's South End in Seattle
Music: current earworm: Bill Sutton's "Do It Yourself"

Colleen died one year ago today. By an odd but wellcome coincidence, my grief support group meets the second and fourth Tuesdays of every month, so there's that. (It runs from 10:00 to 11:30; I will probably post this sometime in the afternoon. I started writing this post two days ago, so please ignore any temporal confusion or calendrical parallax.)

My life seems to have been torn in half -- in part literally, shuttling back and forth between the houses in Freeland and Seattle. But also metaphorically, because so much of it revolved around Colleen. That includes nearly all of my social life.

I haven't gotten anything done in the last year. I've been reading, as usual, taking refuge in group theory and other rabbit-holes, but I'm just now getting back into singing regularly, and as for sorting and packing,... Actually, I've never sold anything on Craig's List or anywhere else online, and things that I could easily get wrong worry me. My daughter, E, is coming up to the house week after next to help with the sorting.

I've had plenty of support, mostly low-key, which I think is what I needed. Need. I haven't been left alone for more than a day or so, which is probably what I've needed even though it's not what I would have asked for. And I have the cats, who are also taking care of me in their own way. And a grief support group that meets via zoom on the second and fourth Thursday of eacy month, so they/we met this morning. There's also a Facebook group.

I don't actually know much about support, either asking for it, getting it, or giving it. Which makes being in a peer support group kind of problematic? Basicaly I'm faking it.

It's like object-oriented programming -- if a simulation is good enough, you can use it in place of the thing you're simulating. Or as Alan Kay famously said about Smalltalk, "If it quacks like a duck and it waddles like a duck, you can't tell that it isn't a duck." I just have to hope I'm waddling well enough.

Aside: the next post will be a signal boost for the James Webb Space Telescope's first images, released earlier this morning. A day that starts with that much beauty and wonder can't be all bad. And after that a boost for this morning's GoingSideways post.

Mood: grieving
Location: The Rainbow Caravan's South End in Seattle
Music: Eyes Like the Morning

Twenty-two years ago yesterday I wrote a song for Colleen. I sang it this morning, and got to the end without falling apart too badly to keep singing. Close, though. I've posted about it before, so go there or the song page for lyrics. I finally did get some audio up; see the song page for that, too.

So here's Eyes Like the Morning again. You'll probably be seeing it a few more times this year. Not sorry about that.

Mood: fragile
Location: Rest Stop, Seattle
Music: Eyes Like the Morning

So this is my first Christmas without Colleen. I've already gotten through Halloween and Thanksgiving, but this is different. We stopped putting up a tree in the last few years, but we put out garlands and a few ornaments. I put a garland with lights around the TV last year -- never took it down because Colleen said she liked looking at it. It's also the first year in a long time without the traditional marzipan and glass of Scotch we put out "for Santa".

I'm spending the weekend down in Seattle with N and G. Normally I'd have driven up to the house on Whidbey, but I have an appointment on Monday and there's snow predicted for tonight and tomorrow, and I don't want to get stuck. I keep three days worth of extra meds in my suitcase.

It occurred to me a few days ago, looking at the tree in E's house, that I ought to go through the boxes of ornaments and take out the few with special memories attached. No idea what I'd do with them, but I don't want them -- or the memories -- to get lost. Another writing project.

I have several writing projects started, and I'm not making much progress on any of them. Grump. (And of course I just started this one today! Maybe it will give me some momentum.) And that's not counting my usual pair of New Year's posts. Which I've hardly thought about yet.

In spite of everything that's happened this last year, it seems to have gone by very quickly, and it feels as though I've gotten very little done.

Mood: sad
Location: Rest Stop
Music: Eyes Like the Morning
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1800693.html

As the title says, this was my first Thanksgiving without Colleen. Not the first time we were separated for Thanksgiving -- there have been several when she was in the hospital or otherwise too sick to travel. The first was 2008 -- she was in the hospital after having been diagnosed with Crohn's, and I spent the day driving down to LA from San Jose for Loscon with the kids. But she was part of our family's Thanksgiving even if she wasn't physically present at the table. It didn't feel anything like this year.

I'm not sure how to organize this. Let me start with the chronology. We started making Thanksgiving dinners together before we were married -- we had the two of us plus Colleen's mother, who couldn't cook worth a damn. Once we'd moved to San Jose the feast naturally moved with us, acquiring additional household members along the way. People brought appetizers or side dishes; we roasted the bird and made stuffing and Mom's cranberry relish.

After Colleen's mother died in 1999, we started going to Loscon for Thanksgiving weekend. That meant driving down to LA on Thanksgiving Day, stopping at Pea Soup Anderson's for dinner right around lunchtime. They did -- and probably still do -- a good job of it. When we moved up to Seattle in 2012, we went back to hosting it, in whatever house was biggest: N's rented place the first year, then at Rainbow's End, then in the Whidbey Island house.

So this year, down at Rest Stop with N's family and G doing most of the cooking, was just... I'm not sure how to describe it. Wrong? Different? Hollow? More hollow than the others, I think. Something huge that's missing. Which makes sense, I guess. (I note in passing that something making sense to me is not necessarily an indication that it will make sense in absolute terms, whatever that means, or to anyone else.)

This seemed when I started like it was going to be more interesting than it turned out. I was expecting it to be more about my mental state. But alexithymia.

Mood: reflective
Location: The Rainbow Caravan
Music: Over the river and through the woods?
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1798716.html

I appear to have been getting things done this month, but it doesn't feel like it. That's typical for me. Hmm. Let's see: grep grep grep... some cooking, a dentist appointment, flu and COVID booster shots, some reading, $writing-gig-4, canceled two of Colleen's subscriptions... Okay, I appear to have done some things. Many of them should have been done months ago, but I don't suppose I should complain.

As for mood: not bad. I still have a hard time identifying moods, but I'm better at recognizing bad/down/depressed moods, and I don't seem to be in one of those at the moment. Of course it's varied across the month. But for the moment, it isn't bad. I'll take it.

Mood: not bad
Location: Rest Stop
Music: Tiktaalik (Your Inner Fish)
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1797152.html

( Content warning: sad anniversaries. )

A lot of things still need doing. Getting Colleen's name off bank accounts. Tracking down online accounts. Tracking down subscriptions. Finding a new executor for my will, and a health care power-of-attorney (which neither of us ever did because we were mutually next-of-kin). Find a lawyer, which we never did either.

Downsizing and moving is a big one. Deciding what to throw out, what to give away, what to move to Seattle, and when. What I can't bear to part with. What to sell, including the expensive and still-good items like the patient lift and her scooter. Scooters. Actually selling things, which I've been putting off for years.

And that's not even counting the stuff in the garage and scattered around the house that hasn't been done since we moved in, in 2017. (Some of which hasn't been looked at since we left the Starport in 2012.) Hanging artwork. Clearing off the workbench and installing lights in the garage. And the unfinished projects, most still hanging around from previous workbenches I never cleared off.

I think another large part of what's going on in my head is that I haven't yet adjusted to my new living situation. I'm splitting my time between Seattle and Freeland, and neither really feels like home right now. Maybe three months isn't long enough? Very little of my Stuff has been moved; I'm still carting a suitcase back and forth every weekend. I haven't put anything on the walls, or in all but two drawers of the huge dresser that once held most of Colleen's clothing while we lived at Rainbow's End.

There's no damned reason why I haven't done the things except that they're very uncomfortable to think about. Which I suppose is my usual reason for not doing things. Some, like selling stuff, are uncomfortable because I've never done them before. (Have I mentioned that I procrastinate? Or did I put that off as well?) I try to at least do one thing every weekend. It would be nice if I could get that up to one thing every day, but don't hold your breath.

I've been drifting -- going down Wikipedia rabbit-holes, re-reading the Foundation series, puttering around with computers (instead of actually, you know, writing code. Or writing much of anything else.) I guess I've been drifting for most of the last three years, but at least a couple of times a day I'd have to stop drifting and do something for Colleen. Now I'm just adrift. Caregiving was a major part of my life, and it's not there anymore -- there's this huge hole I haven't figured out how to fill yet.

Mood: fragile?
Location: Rest Stop, Seattle
Music: Eyes Like the Morning
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1793405.html

It's been a strange day. ( CW: death of loved ones )

...

I think "weird around the edges" might be a slight understatement, but I've never been all that good at assessing my own moods. Sometimes I feel as though I'm doing well simply to notice that I have moods. I don't think I need to go much farther down that particular rabbit-hole.

I originally wanted to write something curmudgeonly about the problems that the Book of Faces was having yesterday, but my brain seems to have taken a hike. Maybe tomorrow.

You may have noticed that this post is a little disjointed. Or maybe just weird around the edges.

Edit: add CW and cut tag. Need to be more careful, I think.

Mood: see title
Location: The Rainbow Caravan's North End on Whidbey Island
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1791948.html

... so I've been thinking on and off about "Nancy" by Cordwainer Smith. (Go read it. I'll wait.) It still feels a lot like it did during her last few months, except that I can't call to tell her about... It's actually a very familiar feeling; Dad died back in 1999 and I still have to remind myself sometimes.

Some people like to try new things. I don't, usually -- left to my own devices I'll stay securely in my comfort zone. Colleen dragged me into a lot of things (our relationship, for example), most of which I ended up enjoying. So far I'm not enjoying widowhood.

There is a road, no simple highway Between the dawn, and the dark of night And if you go, no one may follow That path is for, your steps alone...

I never enjoyed downsizing and moving, either.

Mood: insecure
Location: Rest Stop
Music: Ripple
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1785426.html

I guess I'm in something like a holding pattern right now. I haven't fallen apart, though I'm still allowing for the possibility, but it doesn't feel as though I'm getting much of anything done either.

That's not entirely accurate; I spent the weekend on Whidbey with N and we did quite a bit of Stuff-sorting, mostly in the garage and mostly not Colleen's Stuff. But my tech-writing side gig is going nowhere, and I'm not journaling much either.

The feeling of unreality is still there -- it would surprise me if it weren't. It's not helping that she was away from the house -- in hospitals and nursing homes -- for so much of her last three-and-a-half months. I spent a lot of time visiting with her, but when I was home she wasn't there. When she was down in Seattle, I spent my weekday nights at N's house. I sort of got used to it. Now, day-to-day, not much has changed. Maybe enough has changed for it to really register.

When I look farther out, of course, everything is different. Unfinished projects that it would be pointless to finish. A house that will gradually lose pieces of our life together. Pieces of her. Her shelves of cookbooks. Her tea cabinet. Her walker. Her scooters. Her bed.

There must be hundreds of our friends who haven't heard yet. I still haven't gone through her address book.

I mentioned the list of "symptoms" in How to Carry What Can't Be Fixed. Here's the list:

   *Insomnia,
   *Physical exhaustion,
   *Time loss,
   *Confusion,
  **Sadness,
    Anger,
   *Clumsiness,
    Sleeping all the time,
   *Anxiety,
    Nightmares,
    Intense dreams,
    Loss of apetite,
   *Loss of interest,
    Feeling like you don't belong,
    Eating everything,
   *Frustration,
  **Sense of unreality,
    Loneliness,
   *Memory loss,
    Stomach pains, chest pains, and other physical sesations,
   *Trouble concentrating,
    Hard time reading,
   *Short attention span,
   *Restlessness,
    Hypersensitivity,
    Phantom aches and pains,
    Interpersonal challenges,
   *Nothing has meaning,
    Everything has meaning,
  **Inability to cry,
   *Numbness,
    Mood swings,
    Crying so hard you gag or throw up,
   *Everyday tasks seem confusing,
   *Dark sense of humor,
    Screaming in the car,
  **Crying silently,
    Feeling differet from everyone else,
    Feeling short-tempered,
    Abandoning your shopping cart at the grocery store,
    Feeling immense love for everything around you

There are 40 lines there, and I've put stars on half of them. I'm sure there are more; those are just the ones in the book. Good to know that I'm not the only one with "crying silently" and "inability to cry". Those were the ones that have always worried me.

Mood: somewhere short of okay
Music: Bells of Norwich
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1783199.html

I suppose the proper term for the state of the bear at this point is "widowed". It's all completely surreal. Colleen was away -- in hospitals and rehab -- for all but three weeks between the end of March and the middle of July. I sort of got used to the way the house feels without her. If I don't think about it everything seems the same, until it isn't. Until something reminds me.

Usually it's wanting to tell her something, or ask her something. She's the one who kept track of all our social connections. Without her I'm adrift, in uncharted waters. I'm sure there are dozens of people I haven't contacted. Maybe hundreds. Many who I don't even know exist. Colleen knows; I should ask... Oh, right.

Emotionally,... Note that the combination of dysthymia with alexithymia makes that a little complicated, and very uncertain. I tend to figure out emotions by backtracking from the environment and physical effects. I mean, I know that I'm grieving, but it's hard to be more specific. I do know that I made it through this morning by curling up with a stuffy (the rhino, Cyrano; I have Colleen's platypus, Platy, down in Seattle) and whimpering, so I guess that says something. No outright crying, though I expected it. The rest of the time I've just been a little more down than usual.

Right now I'm mostly keeping busy by trying to organize things like drugs that need discarding; medical supplies, Desitin and baby wipes that can be donated; and so on. Need to track down some paperwork, too. I'm currently splitting my time between Whidbey and Seattle, so figuring what will go where is another thing. Keeping busy is good -- I can just do the thing and mostly not think too much about why I need to.

I really appreciate your comments and other messages of support. I don't think I have the energy to respond to most of them right now, but please know that the fact that you're thinking of us makes a huge difference, somehow. I'll see everything posted here, and most direct messages and mentions on LinkedIn, Discord, and that face place.

Colleen's memorial will be on Zoom starting at 3pm PDT, August 3^rd, two weeks from tomorrow. I'll post the meeting parameters closer to the day.

Mood: grieving
Location: The Rainbow Caravan's North End on Whidbey Island
Music: Eyes Like the Morning
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1782409.html

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

A . V E R Y . B A D . W E E K .

Colleen died a few hours before dawn on Monday morning. We had been married 45 years, 6 months, 8 days, and 11 hours. The last thing I said to her, when she called Sunday morning before she went in for surgery, was "I'll always love you."

I'm... coping? Not as broken as I expected to be, actually. No real tears except when I tried to sing "Eyes Like the Morning". Somewhere close to tears, anyway. (v.i. 0717Sa)

I can't imagine what this week would have been like if N hadn't been there. She'd promised Colleen that she'd take care of me. The Y.D. is putting together the memorial, which is another load I don't have to carry. I still have the feeling I'm missing something important.

Oh. Right.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: grieving
Location: The Rainbow Caravan's North End on Whidbey Island
Music: My earworm seems to be Desolation Row this morning
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1782242.html

I'm clean out of ideas for a s4s post, so this will have to do instead. Next week's Songs for Saturday will be in my concert at OR-eCon. The set list is still unsettled, and I have not been practicing nearly as much as I should; I'm planning to stick to songs I know well. That's not so hard, since I haven't written any new ones for over a year.

Between Biden's win and L's departure, I was a lot less stressed and anxious yesterday than at any time in months. Maybe years. But it's temporary: I don't think all the damage Trump has done will be repaired in my lifetime. Some of it will never be repaired. And there will be more damage between now and Biden's inauguration. I don't have a whole lot of hope.

Mood: anxious, depressed
Location: The Rainbow Caravan's North End on Whidbey Island
Music: Bells of Norwich
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1748884.html

It's been a long month so far this week, and last week, starting from Monday when Mom died, might have been even longer, but my memory doesn't go back that far at the moment.

Let's not even mention the impending electoral trainwreck; my blood pressure and sleep won't stand it. The thing that told me just how close to the edge I was getting was the way I fell apart yesterday when I couldn't get audio working for Colleen's video appointment with her nephrologist. (That, at least, went well, after they eventually resorted to calling her phone; her kidney function is up a little from her last appointment. She's seen a little improvement in her other medical issues as well.) But my mental state while trying to get the damned thing working was, actually, rather alarming.

Then after that, the water went out. Turned out, after calling the water company, that something has been leaking a lot, and running down to our down-hill neighbor's where it was noticed by a contractor. It's on our side of the meter, so I spent the next hour or so finding a plumber. Then poured myself a double shot of gin. Figure I earned it.

Internet and phone went out this morning. for an hour or so. Which I could handle, but it was just One More Thing, and I'm tired. The plumber came out this morning about an hour later, and went away again to fetch an excavator. The leak is underground, of course, flowing into our gravel-filled drainage ditch, around the house, and out down the hill somewhere. Maybe it'll get fixed today, but I'm not counting on it.

Apart from that, I haven't been getting much of anything done. I think I mentioned that in my last State-of-the-Bear. My mental state has definitely deteriorated since then; some of that no doubt was having to cancel singing lessons, and some is just not being able get out of the house or be with people. Which is kind of odd, because it's not all that different from the way things were in the Before Times.

Plus c'est la même chose? Not a whole lot of ça change this time.

Location: The Rainbow Caravan's North End on Whidbey Island
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1745128.html

Um... it's been a week. I think I actually accomplished a few things -- that's probably why I feel as though I didn't get anything done. Does that make sense? I think so: doing things reminds me of all the other things I haven't done. (Including singing, writing, and posting as much as I wanted to, I suppose.)

But progress has been made, both on getting L moved next door to the room over the garage (AKA the Box Room), on organizing the garage (including putting up another set of shelves, and in the process finding the missing music books), and even a little yard work. What's left is still daunting, discouraging, and depressing.

So are the other (because L's move is isolation-related) aspects of COVID-19. Island county has moved into Phase 2 of the Washington's "Safe Start reopening plan". Not that it makes much difference here at the North End; Colleen and I aren't about to poke our noses out of our hole until phase 4 (when "high-risk populations" can supposedly "Resume public interactions, with physical distancing") at the very earliest. Maybe not until there's a vaccine. We'll see. This item in the The New York Times is only slightly encouraging.

I'm slightly encouraged by the Minneapolis city council voting to disband their police department. But only slightly; because that's another long slog, against people in power (all the way up to the Dumpster Fire on top) to whom #blacklivesmatter much less than their bigotry and greed.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: blank
Location: The Rainbow Caravan's North End on Whidbey Island
Music: Recorded Golden Bough concert, which I missed two hours ago
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1729662.html

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

Well, NaBloPoMo is over, and I succeeded in posting every day last month. Does that mean I won? Unclear.

  16056 words in 30 posts in November (average 535/post)

535 words doesn't seem too shabby until you realize that a lot of it was song lyrics and 11.done log segments. Maybe I'll skip it next year -- having to come up with an idea for a post every day made it harder to work on longer, and presumably more interesting, posts.

That said, November was a pretty good month. Only one "slightly down" in the mood field, plus a couple of "wistful"s and "annoyed"s. Nothing more positive than "okay?" or "accomplished", but that's not unusual. Whether it should be considered a problem is unclear.

echo `grep Mood ../2019/11/*|cut -f3 -d:|sed -e 's/^ *//' -e 's/$/;/'|sort -u`
  a bit fuzzy; accomplished; annoyed at myself; annoyed, apparently; befuddled;
  calm; compassionate?; didactic; geeky and didactic; grateful; indeterminate;
  mellow; neutral; okay?; reflective; sleepy; slightly down; somewhat flaky;
  still confused; thoughtful; tired; unknown; unqualified; well-fed; wistful;

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: thoughtful, perhaps
Location: The Rainbow Caravan's North End on Whidbey Island
Music: some
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1704920.html

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

A lot going on, most of it not good, but not really something I can talk about right now because it's mostly other people's stories.

The financial trainwreck is still going on; the crash is getting closer. I have a couple of job leads, but I'm way behind on personal writing and programming projects. Because reasons, but still. Not good.

One bright note is that the tax hit isn't going to be nearly as bad as I was expecting -- so far I'm only down about $3K. If we weren't in the middle of sinking $80K into building the ADU, I'd be in pretty decent shape except for the negative cash flow. As it is, it'll be coming out of my IRA.

Too many decisions that seemed like the right thing to do at the time, spread out over decades and leaving me with no resources. And it's almost impossible for me to just them let go of them, stop the "if only's". It's one thing when I'm giving that advice to other people.

The other bright note (literally?) is that my singing is improving noticably; there are times when I can actually hear a difference from one verse to the next, even though I can't tell exactly what I'm doing differently.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: scared and depressed
Location: With the Rainbow Caravan on Whidbey Island
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1622234.html

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

Not a bad week, I guess. Right now I'm feeling pretty down and hopeless, partly because of this article about Trump plus the fact that my family's economic future depends largely on Social Security and Medicare, which Trump's government seems hell-bent on destroying; and partly... I don't know what. I don't think depression and anxiety need a reason.

I did manage to figure out approximately what I should have been withholding for taxes; I also found out that the deadline for the second quarter's estimated tax payment was last month, so I'm slightly more screwed than I thought I was. Only slightly. That adds to the anxiety, of course.

N. and the kids have been away since Wednesday morning, with N and g at OVFF. It's been a bit lonely. I have, however, been getting things done, including putting up shelves and a little artwork, and setting up my desk with what amounts to a dual-monitor setup with the external monitor above Cygnus. I'm using the traditional makeshift monitor stand: a ream of printer paper. I actually did find my other Thinkpad keyboards, but with Cygnus on the desk I don't need them.

Our second week of prepared menus has worked out pretty well, though I did end up going out shopping Tuesday for some things that I'd missed on Sunday, and a little bit on Friday. It does seem as though we're spending less. I've also determined that I have to go grocery shopping alone -- it's impossible for me to stick to a list if there's someone else along. I really have difficulty saying "no" to anybody, and it's stressful.

Yesterday Colleen and I went to the Bayview farmer's market after picking up the bike helmet we'd ordered. Bought lunch (samosas) and some jam. See above about saying "no".

I did manage to say "no" to the life insurance agent. Yes, it's great that I was able to qualify for the lowest possible rate, which means I'm a lot healthier than most septuagenarians. But my financial advisor, who I consulted last Friday, pointed out that since my social security, IRA, and pension between them are enough to keep us going; unlike the situation in Seattle, we're not relying on my salary to pay the mortgage. (Colleen's SS payment is half of mine and will go away after I die; it does make a difference but the family would still get by without it.)

The thing that still scares the hell out of me is what would happen if I don't die, but simply get incapacitated, or if either Colleen or I end up needing more expensive care. Then we're hosed.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: ?
Location: Whidbey Island
Crossposts: https://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1608748.html

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

It's been a busy week, with a lot of ups and downs. Question first:

Question: Does anyone in Oregon have the space to put up two or three travelers the night of August 20th, in or near the path of the solar eclipse? (If it's three the third would be Colleen, who needs access via ramp or at most three steps.) Thanks in advance.

Good stuff: We (me, Naomi, and Colleen) went to the Whidbey Island Fair last Sunday - lots of fun. We learned how to identify poison hemlock - see bad stuff below -- and made a couple of useful contacts. The second (of three) pod arrived and was unloaded.

We got kittens! More specifically, Naomi got kittens -- the kids and I were just along for the ride, since the point of the exercise was to get kittens that would be hers. We went to NOAH, in Stanwood, and found two adorable little boys: Bronx, and Happy, who was immediately renamed Brooklyn. The first kitten you adopt from NOAH costs $125; the second is $75. They really want your kittens to have company. Now begins the (hopefully not too lengthy) process of introducing them to the other cats in the household. Followed to re-introducing the two household cats to one another. That will be harder.

We have new floors! Instead of the icky brown carpet, we have nice wood-grained laminate similar if not identical to what we had in the apartment. Good lookingm easy to roll or slide things on, and best of all easy to clean.

I have our laser printer on the network -- it has to be hard-wired, but fortunately it turned out to be easy to set up the Client Bridged configuration of DD-WRT.

The repeal of Obamacare was narrowly averted, so that's good.

Bad stuff: The flip side of Obamacare is that I don't get it anymore -- I have Medicare. I got a call from our mail-order pharmacy, informing me that Colleen's Humira now has a co-pay of over $1000. It was $5 last month, but the free "copay assistance" card isn't available to people with Medicare. Welcome to the American health doesn't care system. There's a "patient assistance foundation", but we're unlikely to qualify now, based on our income.

Also, as mentioned above, we have poison hemlock on the property. Lovely plant, originally imported (by idiots) as an ornamental. Now a Class A (shoot on sight) noxious weed. Whee! There is also something that looks suspiciously like giant hogweed, which is also on the list, but which may not be considering the size and color of the stems. I'm going to have to learn some botany.

... and of course I got distracted making dinner, and never got back and posted this. So it's Monday morning already. :P

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: ok for the moment
Location: Whidbey Island
Crossposts: http://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1604799.html

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

As things become increasingly sureal for me, it's appropriate that the week opened with Salvador Dalí's Long Lost Collaboration With Walt Disney.

It has not been a good week. Naomi found a nice apartment for Colleen and me, in the U District. We will move in next weekend. The prospect of splitting the household, even temporarily, is tearing me apart, especially since we don't know where we're going to end up, or when.

We've continued to look for a new home. The Maple Valley place was magical and lovely, but between wetlands, well, and septic system it's almost impossible -- perhaps completely impossible -- to build anything new on it to replace the mobile home that's too old to be financed. When we eventually move, it would be just as hard to sell as the the present owner is finding it, so we'd be trying to buy a new place with over $250K tied up in the old one. Not good. But it was the only place we've seen that looks as if we could simply move in with only minimal work -- and we'll need to move soon.

The combination of grief, depression, anxiety, burnout, hopelessness, and guilt -- the latter over the incredible number of screw-ups over the last thirty years that got me to this place -- is getting worse and worse. I just want to crawl into a hole, and things that need doing continue to pile up.

In other news, the country I live in is rapidly becoming unrecognizable. Amazon's TV adaptation of The Man in the High Castle is horrifyingly apropos, and Trump Supporters Reaction to Amazon's Resistance Radio is both Sad and Hilarious. Have a billboard.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: bleak
Location: Rainbow's End
Music: "The Rose", in my head; damned if I know why.
Crossposts: http://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1596994.html

Rough week. Feeling doomed at work; things aren't coming together as quickly as they need to, and I'm not seeing things that should be obvious. Getting old, and I don't like it.

I thought leaving the Starport was hard. This is going to be worse. I guess it's like getting old -- I have to do it, but I don't have to like it.

If I haven't grown up by now I don't have to, right?

We've been doing a lot of sorting. Colleen and I have been through our closet (though there's still a lot left) and bookshelves (about half done), and I sorted books in the Great Room with Naomi. We'll probably have to do another pass.

There were a few small triumphs. I managed to track down the lyrics to Naomi's song "Staying Home Tonight", which had gone missing -- we'd performed it back in 2007. Took grep-find on my home directory (including both mail and LJ archives) to find it.

The emacs grep-find function is wonderful. Basically it searches for a pattern in the contents of every file in your current directory tree, and flags every hit the same way it flags compile errors, so that you can visit each one and do whatever investigation or fixing you need to at that point. You can run the same thing on the command line, but then you don't have the convenient integration with the editor.

Back to small triumphs -- Monday we had (new Honda Odyssey) Rosie towed down to the dealership in Tacoma where we'd bought her, to have her blocked fuel line fixed. Got her back yesterday. And I surprised and delighted Naomi last night wth The Pharos Gate, which I'd just finished reading and which she hadn't known existed. Hmm. Should do a review of the series, shouldn't I?

A comment on last week's post has inspired me to write up my journaling system. It looks like what's now called a "bullet journal", but predates the eponymous fad by at least half a decade. Hmm. Should put together an emacs mode, or see if I can tweak org-mode for it.

A Wikipedia dive starting at Irregular Webcomic! #3594 led me to the article on Slouch hat, which in turn led inevitably to the Tricorne and Bicorne hats. Does that make the slouch hat a unicorne?

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: depressed; grieving
Location: Rainbow's End
Crossposts: http://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1593180.html

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

So. Trumped.

I suppose I'll get through the next four years somehow. But the possibilities range from disagreeable to agonizing to desperate. N tells me I'm stronger than I think. I hope she's right.

What the hell can I say? The Joy of Tech comic... National curl up in a Ball Day kind of says most of it. I'm still not uncurled.

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: de{spairing,termined}
Location: Rainbow's End
Music: yes
Crossposts: http://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1587032.html

The only writing I did last week was last Sunday's weekly post. I'll try to do better; hopefully I won't be feeling as harried this week. I did get in some music time -- last Sunday, and yesterday. And some walking with Colleen and Kat, also on Sunday.

Quite a bit of back pain. It's been mostly ok in the morning, but tends to get worse on the way home. Probably something to do with being tired, but also possibly stress. Have I mentioned having trouble identifying my mental state? It's called alexithymia.

The alexithymia also bleeds into problems identifying physical state, because of course they're related. I have trouble distinguishing the physical symptoms of anxiety and hunger, for example. Not to mention distinguishing between wanting food, and needing food. The latter barely registers, and certainly not as hunger, until I suddenly start feeling the symptoms of low blood sugar. Which I have learned to recognize. Or until Colleen notices that I'm starting to snap at people.

Stress is, apparently, another of those states that I don't start noticing until it's been going on too long. And then it bleeds into burnout and depression. (And, no, depression doesn't register as sadness. At all. It's best described as a combination of apathy and despair.) I think I'm noticing a trend here.

I'm getting better at noticing. Look in the notes for an exclamation mark in column 3 -- that means I've actually noticed an emotion while it was happening. They're rare -- the only instance this last week was Sunday.

Speaking of stress, I'm oncall this week. With pages including 6am Tuesday morning -- Prime Day -- and midnight last night. This morning. Whatever. One thing I've noticed is that I don't have enough mental bandwidth. I can't multitask. At all. Period. Things get lost track of.

If a page comes in, I completely lose track of whatever I was doing, including dealing with another page, and it takes me a while to get my context back. Which leads to things like having something like 10 different browser windows open in 8 workspaces, with multiple tabs in each, many of which refer to the same tickets. Because context. And, of course, re-investigating the same thing multiple times because I've forgotten what I was doing an hour ago.

I'm getting a little better at going up to people I don't know and asking for help. But, of course, I'm even worse at remembering names than I am at multitasking, which leads to things like waking the wrong person up at six in the morning. (And forgetting that I had an email in my inbox telling me who the right person would have been. See multitasking.)

(Brief pause -- my desk is being catted on. The absolute best thing I've done for my mental health in years was putting a cardboard box on my desk, attaching it with a couple of screws, and lining it with a towel.)

Back to reaching out and talking to people. I don't think my reluctance to do that has anything to do with what I afraid people will think of me. So, this doesn't seem to have the characteristcs of social anxiety. No, it has more to do with what I think of me, and in particular feeling stupid and at a loss for what to do. Plus total lack of self-confidence, which leads to (or somehow relates to) an unwillingness to "disturb" people.

It's not just at work. Even at home, I take a closed door as a "do not disturb" sign even when I'm pretty certain that the person on the other side (usually N) would be happy to see me. It's hard enough when I know they're expecting me, though I'm getting a little better about that.

In a slightly different direction, some links from ysabetwordsmith about emotional self-care (see Monday, below) proved unexpectedly triggery and anxiety-provoking. So we're talking low self-esteem here, maybe. (Maybe?! Let's get real here.)

It's been a long month this week.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: drained
Location: Rainbow's End, or maybe wits' end.
Music: sometimes
Crossposts: http://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1581067.html

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

I am actually breaking at Friday evening, one day over the month boundary, so as to group all the practicing together here, and the con and concert in the next entry.

So, yeah; this week's big surprise was finding out Thursday morning that I had a concert coming up Saturday evening. I hadn't asked for one, but apparently Colleen did. Um... thanks, I think. (Spoiler -- it actually went surprisingly well, though not quite as well as the run-throughs. Nervous.)

I hadn't asked for a concert or answered my participant questionaire because up until two weeks before the con I was still waffling about whether or not to go. I knew it would be stressful, and I knew it would be fairly expensive (though driving, skipping Friday, and coming back Monday instead of Tuesday helped a great deal). I also knew I'd regret it if I didn't go. On the whole I'm glad I went (especially since I got to meet alatefeline). But I'm exhausted. I must be more introverted than I was even a few years ago.

Made Boeuf Bourguignon on Sunday -- came out quite well, though I think not quite as well as the Stroganoff the night before. I made a stupid mistake with the pepper, but managed to skim off most of it and didn't get anyt complaints. I have not, unfortunately, been keeping up very well with the dishes.

While on the subject of food; Monday around 12:30 I noticed that my blood sugar was getting low. It didn't feel like what I usually label as hunger, i.e. wanting food. Something is definitely miswired there. If there's food around and I'm not deeply engrossed in something, I'll want to eat it. If I'm in a flow state, which I was a couple of times this week (Yay!), I won't notice food, and will eventually run out of energy. The situation is probably not helped by the amount of coffee I drink.

Friday some idiot came within inches of getting herself killed when she started ambling across the street against the light, with her nose in her phone, and in front of the bus I was riding to work in. (It's not exactly a street -- it's a bypass lane on the left-hand side of 4th Avenue. To get to the island where one can board the bus, one has to cross that lane. But, still...) That's one of the reasons I don't try to read -- or text -- while I'm walking.

Only a little writing -- just one day with over 500 words. But two solid practice sessions, so that's good. Put up shelves in N's closet -- that was good, too. I have to keep reminding myself to feel accomplished after that sort of thing. (Like last week, the only emotion I actually noticed while I was feeling it was despair. I'm altogether too good at that one.)

Close enough to 500 words -- I'm going to stick a fork in it.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: drained
Location: Rainbow's End
Music: See Thursday and Friday
Crossposts: http://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1579952.html

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

Not all that good a week. Continued lack of productivity at work, mainly because of meetings this time, but still... I want to take a vacation after Westercon, but I have goals that I can't meet if I do. Bletch.

I haven't done much writing, either. A reasonable amount on Monday, but only a little after that. Grump. Did do more cooking than usual: chicken tikka masala on Monday, and beef Stroganoff yesterday. That was a real win. Lots of shrooms. I note in passing that while Cash and Carry has great prices, it doesn't have a very big selection, and few if any small packages.

On the plus side, I did a pretty good job of noticing and identifying my mood Friday. On the minus side, the mood in question was despair. Cat therapy helps, but not completely.

A fair amount of computer-related work -- got my raspberry pi up and running, with both Raspbian and OSMC (on different cards). OSMC (Open Source Media Center) looks like it would work well as a music and video player. Being one of the original cards, it doesn't have much in the way of RAM, so it wouldn't work as a desktop with my current workload. I also swapped my desktop machine for one of the two that have been sitting behind my desk ever since we moved in.

Moderate amount of house-project work.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Mood: meh
Location: Rainbow's End
Crossposts: http://mdlbear.livejournal.com/1579114.html

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

Not a great week psychologically, on the whole. Frazzled. Burned out? Probably. Lots of random, depressed-sounding self-talk, and practically everything I see or think about reminds me of something I've done wrong. In most cases the mistakes are unfixable, with drastic consequences. Doomed? That's how it feels. Doomed. (Cue Imperial March from Star Wars: doom doom doom doomty doom doomty doom...)

On the other hand, I've gotten almost all of the household computers -- at least, the ones that aren't G's -- upgraded with Ubuntu 16.04. It's a fast, easy install even on modern machines with secure boot, and my bootstrap script for setting up Gnome flashback, xmonad, and the other stuff I rely on is working pretty well now. I've also resurrected Kat's Acer Aspire (which I dubbed "aspie" because, while it's brilliant, it has trouble communicating -- took me forever to find the key combination that brings up the boot menu). And Emmy's Dell, which I'd thought had a broken charging port, turned out to just need a real Dell charger. :P

G is a professional system administrator -- he can do his own upgrades.

I also bought a new washer for downstairs. It arrives Tuesday, which means that this weekend's project is clearing a path to the downstairs laundry room. Also, most likely, putting up shelves in the garage and the downstairs closet, and curtain rods on N's door.

Yesterday's amusement -- high point of the week, actually -- was Ticia waking me up and teaching me how to play fetch. Really -- she batted her crinkle ball off the bed, picked it up and brought it back, batted it off again, brought it back, ... By that time I was awake and had gotten the hint, so I tossed it for her to fetch. Did that a couple of times. She doesn't usually bring the ball back to me, so I suspect that she thinks she invented the game all by herself. And so she did.

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