This is what the sky looks like.

The other day, I bought some fresh collards at Food Lion. I have never fixed fresh collards before, but I saw where they can be cooked in the pressure cooker, if I don’t want to cook them on the stove. I’m going with the pressure cooker. I soaked them for an hour to get the dirt and any pesticide residue off them. I once had them in a restaurant in Roanoke where they served them with 💕 of 🌴 hearts of palm. I have hearts of palm and I am always looking for novel ways to serve them. They came with black beans and rice, too. It was kind of a Brazilian vegan place. Roanoke is a surprising city, with lots of artsy bohemian types. That should not be surprising, really. Artsy bohemian types can’t afford to live in places, like Greenwich Village, where artsy bohemian types used to live.

I am on target for my swimming. I missed AA today, but I did meet #1 son R for a cup of coffee. He is recovering quite nicely from the pancreatitis.

R and I were talking about Manhattan. I said the City is losing some of its mystique when prominent in the City are the same stores and restaurants one can find in just about any suburban shopping center. “I wonder if that Olive Garden is any different from the one three miles away from my house?”

There is a cool down tomorrow here. Tomorrow’s high will be 75°F (24°C). Today it was 97°F (36°C). Watching The Ashes, I was consumed with envy for the fans, players, and everybody else at The Oval in London today with their weather and delightful temperatures. Watching my rail cam in Ashland I saw a flash of lightning across the sky. The front is moving in!

J had a busy five days at Target. She got Tate’s Macadamia Nut Cookies for her treat tonight. I saw Snoopy Blue Flannel Sheets at Vermont Country Store. She would never ask for them. That is why she is getting them as a surprise. She loves surprises.

It is Wednesday morning. Train #98 the Northbound Silver Meteor was only 90 minutes late. I slept maybe five hours in toto. I will go back to sleep.

When I go back to sleep, the lawn mowing people will be at work. The recycling truck will drive through the neighbourhood. The Summer heat will build, hitting the mid nineties. Summer isn’t a season in the South. It is an eternity.

J is at work with her lunch, fruit salad, chicken salad, rice crackers, cookies. She will unload a truck, fill her shelves. And sweat.

I will wait at home, wonder about dinner, deciding a slow cooker chicken dish would be fitting for a hot day. I will find a recipe that will call for mushrooms too.

It is time I went back to sleep.

If I could predict when I would fall asleep and when I would just lie there, wondering if I ever would sleep again, it would save me a lot of hours of angst and worry. Such is the situation tonight.

I’m just plain lonely. J and I do stuff together, we love each other. I love her. She loves me. And yet…

If I knew why one minute I think the world is coming to an end and the next minute I realize life isn’t so bad after all, well, I guess you could call me enlightened. This is one of those days.

What was special about today is that I knew I needed to be around people. So I went to AA, just to see and be seen. I shared some thought on the topic of freedom. I quoted a line from Me and Bobby McGee, by Kris Kristofferson. “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” (If you remember Janis Joplin had a hit with it.) so it is with not only our physical possessions but our emotional attachment to things.

We aren’t really free if we have to hold on to our status, our prestige, our fear of losing somebody’s “love”. (Never mind that true love can’t be lost.) But there I was, chillin’ with my drunk peeps. Not. Feeling. Lonely. The moral of the story: Get out the house, to AA, The Y, Daily Mass.

Speaking of The Y, I went right after the meeting. I swam 1800 meters and felt good. I saw my friends Pat, Steve, and Greg. The only exciting news was that Steve had somebody tear the door off his locker and steal his wallet.

Now I am home, waiting for J, reading blogs, getting caught up here.

This morning, as I was getting dressed, I just lay back in bed, beneath an open window and felt the morning breeze on my naked body. It felt incredible! Further exploring the realm of gratuitous sensuality, I went commando this morning, feeling the fabric of the shrink to fit 501’s against my, uh, personal bits. (Note to self, Do THAT more often).

That’s about it.

I don’t really have insomnia. I just find sleep to be so unfulfilling. I sleep for two, three hours, then awaken and contemplate what I could do or should be doing.

I should be crying right now, out of frustration. I should write more often. Right now, I am listening to Glenn Gould perform J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations. What is a more satisfying activity this side of Heaven?

I spent the day recharging my batteries. I feel a lot better. J is home now. It is warm and my jeans feel like they’re holding sweat next to my skin. I was going to write more in this post, but I think I will return to relax mode.

I want to cry, but I’m not sad about anything. I think I just get overwhelmed by….stuff.

By stuff, I mean the things that happen in life, like waking up in the middle of the night, sports scores, fixing lunch, staying busy and everything just accumulates, from physical tiredness, to grief, to sexual frustration, to body pain.

And I can’t bear the thought of going anywhere. Now pain is starting to register in my lower back.

The NFL Sunday regular season begins today. That’s nice, I suppose.

About 830 I asked J if she wanted Stauffer’s Mac & Cheese. She said yes. So we ate about an hour later, because I use a conventional oven. I have no microwave. That is our go-to comfort food.

Then, after sitting a bit, I fixed her favorite chicken salad, and prepped her lunch for tomorrow.

Now I’m sitting some more, winding down. She is in bed. I am not sleepy. Think I will watch something on DVD.

I am watching street scenes of Mumbai filmed in January 1929. It was called Bombay then. Guy Jones is the name of the You Tube channel. I have difficulty in thinking of ninety years ago as the distant past. I have known plenty of people who were alive in 1929. Almost all of them are gone now, but they shared their memories and experience with me.

Today was about getting back on schedule after Holy Hour at 4:00 AM.I slept til 10, about four hours, after I arrived home.

I did some housework. I watched cricket. I went swimming. I swam five times in this first week of September.

Now I am getting ready to put ice on my shoulder. J is doing some administrative work for her job. I will join her in a second.