I’m sitting here, thinking of all the stuff I should be doing. I have a Doctor’s appointment at Three PM. It should be brief. I will swim after the appointment. Or not. I could swim between the AA meeting at noon and the appointment. Very doable. Perhaps I could leave the meeting early.

I want to spend more time studying and writing. That was the big discovery for my retirement purpose this weekend.

More later

This is the enchanting art song I featured in the last post.

I skipped swimming yesterday, having put four hours into housecleaning. Today. I started my swim. After completing 2500 meters, I decided I would swim 2 miles. I like the longer swims when I decide one is in order.

The middle school swim team doesn’t practice on Friday afternoon. I got to use my favorite lane, one with a ladder for easy entry. I look awkward climbing in when I don’t use the ladder.

When I finished, I showered, changed, and went home. I’m sitting here now, just relaxing, enjoying the feeling of warm feet.

Nothing really important to write about. Thinking of a story for Jade.

Later Loves. 💘

I was up later than usual last night. I wrote an erotic, sexually explicit story at the behest of one of this blog’s followers. Then I went upstairs, ostensibly to sleep, but my wife was watching TeeVee. I got her to play a Seinfeld DVD, which usually facilitates my dozing off. The episodes serve as bedtime stories for me. I know them almost by heart and the familiar voices relax me. But I don’t just doze off and awaken seven or eight hours later. I woke up around 6:30 AM, roughly four hours later, seemingly alert. Now consciousness makes her demands known. I am watching YouTube, drinking coffee (Colombian), eating fruit and cheese. The sleepiness is working it’s way back. And this half wakeful state is most compelling.

“To sleep, perchance to dream…”

This lethargy has me dreaming, sort of, but I’m still steering this ship of consciousness. So the dreams aren’t really dreams, just puny, willful fantasies. The real dreams are when the monsters, gremlins, and imps within us take the reins. And suddenly I’m re-living horrible jobs and dysfunctional marriages. Suddenly alternative endings take shape.

But the greatest dream is to imagine things being different. And it take wakefulness for that outcome to materialize.

Just when I thought I should just chill all day, I got the idea that I could not put off cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen any longer. They are now clean. We have the washer and dryer in the bathroom. That means dryer dust. I am not happy with how the dryer is vented. Until we fix that, we will continue to be the world’s largest producer of dryer lint. I swear we could export it to a country with no dryer lint, so they would not feel deprived.

I also became skilled in soap scum removal with the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. I was truly astonished at what came off.

We are clean of kitchen and bathroom. Dirty of mind. Still.

Fell off. From time to time, we all need to go into rest mode. This is one of those times for me. My weight loss progresses well. My swimming has been most satisfying. I have been one who, as my elementary school report card would say, “uses time wisely.”

We all know the problem with the prudent use of time. NO FUN!

I don’t think sleeping qualifies as fun. But sitting around, watching unrewarding shows on YouTube does. By unrewarding, I mean that I can’t make any money off the information obtained from the content. Examples would be Die Deutschen Wochenschau or Brazilian Plus Size Fashion Shows.

After watching about twenty minutes of German propaganda newsreels, it is patently obvious why the civilized world hated the Nazis and dedicated their national purposes to stopping them. Revulsion and disgust still come up almost 80 years after these films were made.

As to plus size Brazilian fashions, very attractive women model very attractive clothes and size doesn’t seem to matter. Guess I need to work on my Portuguese.

I woke up an hour ago with the need to urinate. Post-urinating, I checked a soup I was preparing in the slow cooker. The potatoes had cooked til they were soft. I then added a can of crushed tomatoes to a black bean and Andouille sausage soup I was preparing. I was still wide awake.

After a long swim, I sometimes am a little hyper-alert. Adrenalin levels must be elevated. So rather than try to sleep, I will ride this feeling a little longer.

Since I just made a pot of decaf, I feel obliged to stay up. Dumb reason, I know. I think I will learn to like iced coffee.

I will stay awake til Train #98 the Northbound Silver Meteor passes through Ashland. Then back to sleep, I shall go.

Activities:

1. Fixed beef brisket in slow cooker.
2. Swam 3400 meters (2+miles)
3. Fixed black bean & corn salad with cilantro/lime dressing.
4. Did nothing to be agitated unnecessarily.
5. Watched Popeye cartoons.
6. A good day

It’s not everyday you can find a docudrama on YouTube about the battle of Stalingrad in Russian with subtitles in Serbian. At least it says Serbian but the writing is with the Latin alphabet, not Cyrillic. This was made in the 60’s or 70’s. It looks really cheap. The characters look as bored as I am.

So I remained awake. I bought the rose. She was surprised and pleased. Her work day was not too demanding. She was tired. I am not surprised. She was too tired for the 5:00 PM Mass. She took a nap. I went swimming. I swam 2050 meters, same as yesterday.

I felt a bit guilty about swimming and skipping Mass. I watched a Holy Hour on EWTN when I arrived back home. Actually it was quite spiritually uplifting. I will go to Mass during the week.

I am NOT watching the Super Bowl. Zero (0) interest. I am just burned out on Corporate Big Budget Professional Sports. I am quite enthusiastic about people being physically active. We need to be.

I’m feeling tired. Could be bed time.