I need to get out of the house. To further that goal, I went to AA, saw lots of familiar faces, shared how I felt, and they were very nice. Then this afternoon I ordered a pizza for dinner, drove to the pizza shop, brought it home. My wife is home, studying.  I am watching trains on the Ashland, VA webcam. The town has put Christmas lights on the street lampposts. This is Ashland. They are and always have been Christmas lights. Thank you very much.

Having that baseline of despair make its presence felt just plain sucks. This is my day off from swimming. Tomorrow I go back. It is one week before Thanksgiving, five weeks before Christmas, six weeks before the New Year.

The sun will come up tomorrow. Yada, Yada. Yada,

Do you ever just get tired?  Guilty here. I feel tired and discouraged.  Seems like the drudgery is kicking me to the curb. I did video a train passing through Ashland. This is #92, The Silver Star Northbound. Sadly it was involved in a fatal accident at a grade crossing yesterday at a site close to the North Carolina line. Obviously major delays were caused.

This is one of my favorite nights. I get an extra hour’s sleep, the one taken away when we “sprang forward”. My grandfather would say it was as if someone wanted a longer blanket, so he cut 12 inches off one end of the blanket and sewed it to the opposite end of the same blanket. Wisdom from Mountain City, Tennessee.

The weight loss has stabilized where it needs to be. The swimming goes well. I was exhausted today. I did some sleeping on a damp and chilly day. 

Mrs CorC? is working tonight. As she is  leaving, she asks, “Are you going to be a good boy tonight?”, as if I were a randy sixteen year old, picking up his date at the door. That is her code for, “Are you going to look at porn and masturbate while I’m at work?” 

To her, I make no response. Mentally I answer to myself “Uh, no. That doesn’t work any more.” 

Saturday night.

Obviously I’m not because I am writing this from my Smartphone. Still. I realized today how this compilation of nanochips and nanocircuits facilitates my day. And it’s nice mostly, but kinda creepy.

I remember when my family didn’t have a television set. We would go over to my Uncle Ed’s house to watch Milton Berle on Your Show Of Shows. Uncle Miltie. I’m 66. So the incursion of electronic media into all aspects of our lives is relatively new, as human history goes. 

Consider it took a couple of generations for somebody to rig a steam engine to a set of wheels in order that the railroads came about. Then people could travel in hours the distance it formerly took days to cover. People could travel by train from London to Brighton and have a holiday by the sea. Suddenly the diversions of the middle class, the wealthy, and the aristocracy were all becoming commingled. And the wealthy were now richer than the aristocrats.

But what money could not buy, and still cannot buy, is time. Sure affluence buys leisure, but it does not purchase reflection or introspection. What is worth doing? How do we know?

So I have time on my hands in a house whose silence is shredded by the dishwasher,  working its rhythmic cleaning magic. And I’m going swimming in a few minutes.

I will come home and avoid talking with my wife, in any meaningful way, lest she bring home the painful truth that love is not a replacement for passion

Leisure. It’s what you make of it.

I woke up hurting where I usually hurt. There seem to be regular places, e.g. my left hip, left shoulder, right triceps. The pain is mostly from use of the muscles related to swimming. Add in loss of flexibility in my back. I think that loss is minimal. I’m very grateful to be as active as I am.  My buddy, Mike The Swim Coach, told me yesterday that the body needs recovery days. I need to pay attention, but I’m vain. Sometimes I think I’m planning on having the healthiest body in the cemetery. Perspective. Dammit.

I’m sitting in my chair trainspotting. Trains are running late on some lines because of track repair. The lateness spills over into the section of track between Washington and Richmond.  That includes the spot in Ashland that I watch.

Mrs CorC? just texted me apologizing for being angry with me. I had no idea she was angry. She forgot she was dealing with a Male,  an individual incapable of reading subtle nuance. We understand angry when we come home and the locks have been changed. Other signals are murkier.

That’s all for now.
 

I can take the Amtrak app on my smart phone and plot journeys to places I’ve never been to meet women I’ve never met. I can imagine what my new found ladies would be like. Do they like the prospect of meeting me at the railroad station, wondering which stranger I am as they leave the train?

Are they wondering why they are doing this, having an adventure with someone they’ve never met.?