On the ‘Post-Cusp’

Well, I missed it, so it might not be as significant as I thought: Nov. 11 was the anniversary of the day I posted my first blog entry.

I launched the blog the day before, when WordPress thoughtfully provided my first entry for me (“The Journey Begins” with a picture selected from what I’m sure are vast archives). WordPress likes to tout that it powers 34 percent of the internet, notably (I’m sure) including this blog and the Pat’s Screen Printing website, which desperately needs updating.

[Why is it sepArate but despErate? This is a question that has bedeviled me lo these many years.]

I think mostly what this blog has done is make me late(r) on a daily basis for work. I started this particular post yesterday and right now it’s 9:15 and I’m just sitting down to continue with it. But in order to have any hope of being on time for work, I have to be out the door with Oz on our walk at 9:30, so I either let this go yet another day, or post not much of anything. Less much of anything than what I usually post.

This was just not a good week, and I assume this is hampering my enthusiasm. Too many people in hospitals; too many appointments; more good money thrown after bad for house stuff . . . Sorry, my heart is not in a self-reflexive piece about how my blogging is going one year in.

[Hospital report: Bob is now in intensive care, with his friend Dave making the decision on whether or not to authorize a Do Not Resuscitate order. His cousin reported yesterday Bob is having trouble breathing and is confused. And now our friend Sue has gone from thinking she had the flu over the weekend down to St. Mary’s in Grand Junction, where she is passing all her tests but still spiking a fever. One daughter is with her, and the other two are lined up to arrive over the new two weeks.]

Except that I will say the initial focus was intended to be a report on progress of the new house, and now that the new house is just the house, I find myself reaching for topics that are hopefully not too politically offensive (yet another school shooting, I see) but also don’t always become diary entries of how my day went yesterday. Mid-afternoon I can think of many topics that might be of interest; even if I write them down they are just that much harder to discuss the following morning.

What I ought to do is dictate them in between huffs and puffs if I am riding my bicycle on my new, longer, unloved commute. I’m very productive in the thinking department then. When I’m not thinking how much longer I’m going to be on my bike.

But by the time I get home, summoning cogent words is hard, and I default to the television, which rarely expands my universe because all I watch are reruns and house-hunting shows. I did catch, in snippets over the three times it aired in one evening on some quasi-educational channel like Science or National Geographic, a new discussion of the literal fall-out of the 79 (CE/AD) eruption of Vesuvius. They have determined that people’s skulls shattered, exploded by their own blood as it boiled inside their heads. The scientists were quick to assure us death was so swift these people felt no pain.

Of course, then they always go to the commercials for the ASPCA, which I can’t even watch, because those neglected dogs are definitely feeling pain.

It is now 9:30, so I am going to take my leave of you today (and yesterday), and see if I can’t do better (can I be on the “post-cusp” of an anniversary?) tomorrow and going forward.