I just opened an e-mail from my alma mater, The University of Virginia, telling me about the crackerjack professors they just hired. And there in the newsletter is a grammatical error that should have been caught before some bozo hit the send button. Maybe they left it in there so we’ll think they really can’t do without us (and our money).

A large nonfunctioning microwave oven took up precious counter space in our galley kitchen, the kind of kitchen where open work surfaces and functionality reign. So after four months of sitting there, haunting me in its techno-morbid state, J and I took it to Best Buy, from whence it will go to the old electronic devices graveyard. It’s a relief and more space will be freed up by its removal. When I relocate an antique glass flour canister, I will fill it with bread flour from an old coffee can, repurposed to hold said flour. This opens space in a cabinet. Our kitchen is really just a big three dimensional puzzle.

I am retired. I can go to bed anytime I want to. I can wake up anytime I want to. I can have a chili dog and a bag of chips (crisps, to you Brits) for breakfast. You get the picture.

But today, I woke up after what proved to be an inadequate amount if sleep 6 hours, had coffee, a chocolate biscotti, and a cup of porridge made with McCann’s steel cut oats, with a bit of cinnamon, heavy cream and sugar. As I sit, allowing my brain to get the message from my stomach that it is full and satisfied, I contemplate going back to bed. I’m tired again. I want a wake-up do-over. I want to sleep a little more, awaken again, and revel in the knowledge I can go back to sleep again should I so choose.

Maybe I will seek the Democratic nomination for President after all. Everybody else is.

I think human beings have an unlimited capacity for loving other people. That doesn’t mean they should have sex with someone, or any one, just to express their love for them. Seems kind of obvious, but then again, it isn’t for an awful lot of folks. And I have the divorces to prove it.

I can’t remember what it was that would upset me 20 years ago. I guess we should all accelerate the letting go process, even though I know for many people this is difficult, if not impossible. That’s OK, too.

Going back to bed.

Later, loves. 💘

Today I feel like crap. Seems like the bronchitis isn’t over and my Friday/ Saturday sleep deprivation did not help.

So today has been a necessary re-set. That doesn’t mean I am happy about that. I want to be swimming. I am so tired I can’t even have a good fantasy.

J and I ended up going to Bob Evans for a late lunch. I had a turkey sandwich. We were reticent to spend the money for Maggiano’s when we were both too tired to even enjoy the experience.

A little while ago, I piled up a lot of my clothes tee-shirts, logo tee’s (mostly from Ebbett’s Field Flannels), long sleeve tee-shirts, underwear (both briefs and boxers), dress shirts, cotton sweaters, and pyjamas.I haven’t started on jeans, trousers, the shirts on hangers in my closet. I also don’t know what fits and what doesn’t. It is daunting. Most of this represents good money spent.

A lot of this clothes buying represents me trying to create a character for myself. I can make a fashion statement, instead of doing hard work like writing or losing weight or swimming. In other words, doing stuff that matters more.

Note To Self: Forgive Yourself (it ain’t booze or dope n which you spent the money.)

This needs to be done. It’s like an enema for the house.

I just saw two Amtrak trains pass each other going through Ashland, Northbound #92 Silver Star and Southbound #79 Carolinian. I had a double whammy to take a train trip.

Here they are folks, blooming in Richmond, VA

A teaser. Where should I go with this?

Desire is a quirky funny thing, he thought. He had seen her every work day for what? A year. Without a second thought he passed her cubicle, until he noticed the picture of that guy was no longer on her desk,the one of the two of them at Cancun or Negril or some other Drink Served In A Pineapple With A Tiny Paper Umbrella Resort Place. His antennae perked up, more than those fictional antennae, frankly. It was her look that attracted him, but would she surrender to him, or he to her?

He felt completely awkward because he had always assumed she was unavailable. Now, he wondered if he had enough small talk left in him for flirtation, let alone seduction. So he pondered his new dilemma in between his rather near automatic attention to the annual audit of a paving contractor that occupied his professional time. He knew the business like he knew the ruts and divots of his boringly verdant backyard he dutifully mowed every weekend from April through October.

The following day he greeted her as he strode by her cubicle on the way to his office.

“Good morning, Ms. Higginbotham.” Better than ignoring her, thought he.

“Please call me Artie,” she replied. No need for too much formality, Mr Albright.”

“And you may call me Dwight.”

“Either your mother liked rhymes or your Father liked Eisenhower. Which is it?”

“Both, actually. I’m twice blessed with embarrassing parents.”

“Aren’t we all? That’s the only way they come, is it not?”

“Where there’s banter, there’s hope,“ he reasoned silently. Perhaps she wants to play.

I grew up Presbyterian, Southern Presbyterian, in the Fifties and Sixties. The Catholics were the figurative “bad guys” in those days. Lent was a time that the Catholics, but nobody in their right mind, (Presbyterians) would observe.

So now, after fifty plus years, seems like everybody has a little skin in the Lenten game. As an Episcopalian, I noted the Lenten observance had some degree of rigor.

Now, as a Catholic, I am more than eager to deepen my relationship with God, God expressed in The Most Holy Trinity.

So giving something up is bandied about these days. No candy bars, coffee,alcohol, meat, tobacco, whatever. But simply giving something up, in itself, does very little to deepen that bond of love.

What is apparent to me is my attachment to stuff, also known as “material things”. Clothes, for example, or books, DVD’s, CD’s, furniture. Stuff takes up a lot of space. Somebody might make better use of my stuff than I have or would.

So it is time to give stuff away, and also not buy anymore. That’s Lent for me. Me and Detachment, really? Here goes.

I’m going to bed soon. And yet…. The world in my imagination offers little real world solace.

“To every thing there is a Season. And a time for every purpose under Heaven.”-Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8