One can easily infer from the title that I am listening to Russian Orthodox Chant at three o’clock in the morning. I missed Mass on Sunday. Shoulder pain was raging and sitting in a low-backed pew would have been difficult. Still I should have gone. Recovery is never easy, as I have written before.

I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with chastity. I want to think I am entitled to have sex in whatever iteration of sexuality I choose, such as sex with any partner who will have sex with me. Every sexual fantasy I have or write about is OK to act out. I can write erotica that contradicts Catholic teaching on sexual conduct. And I can point to the moral sexual decay of the Catholic clergy and religious, brothers and sisters, to rationalize my own sin. Let me make it clear. I don’t commit adultery, but I am a rat’s nest of impure thoughts. If I walk away from my current state, I will walk toward God.

Poverty. Choosing poverty is absolutely counterintuitive to how we live our lives. Yet John The Baptist chose poverty, for starters. The Dominicans and Franciscans are mendicant orders. They ask for money from us to get by. Choosing poverty in our culture is even more of a contradiction of its values than choosing chastity.

Obedience. This is the hardest thing to ask of a human being. Obeying authority figures does not come naturally

OK. I’m tired again. I’ve probably lost a few followers of this blog. If that is the case, so be it. I will be sorry if you leave.

I never that I would become a cricket slug, but here I am. Bangladesh and South Africa are going at it. Bangladesh has the lead and South Africa is playing catch-up or whatever they call it in cricket, Knowing what SA has to do to win is giving sense to the game.

Brits dressed in white in the country, say Kent, on a Summer’s day playing on a Sunday is the idyllic picture of the game. That certainly is a lovely, if incomplete, image of the game.

The fans are, well, fans. They remind of American baseball fans, rowdy, flamboyant, yet law-abiding. They don’t appear to be hooligans. Then again, if you can afford to go from Johannesburg or Dhaka to London, you probably aren’t a rowdy.

The South African team and its fans attest that the apartheid era is over.

Yes it is unofficially Summer, still no Solstice, but outside the temperature is 91° (F), 32°(C), so I am wearing shorts, sandals and a short sleeve shirt with a Madras print in Indian cotton.

I have been waiting for this like a sailor for shore leave. Unfortunately my skin is untanned.

So this little fellow was on the walk way.

Cuteness never gets old.

The homage to Whitman was irresistible.

Most of the time, we want to kill these little buggers, but I decided to leave this one alone. She is building some sort of web.

But I want to see what happens.

I dunno. I got all wrapped around the axle responding to a blog from someone whose take on Jesus is different from my own. Not that I’m right, just orthodox. But this spider in the bathroom sink is something one can hardly argue about.

The drama of The Pinched Nerve has consumed my life for what seems forever, but is only about six weeks.

I’ve done a lot of stuff. Physical Therapy, alternating between ibuprofen and naproxen for pain management, stretching. I told myself I hurt too badly to swim. Finally last Thursday, I went swimming. Friday I swam. Sunday I swam. After some initial discomfort, I started to feel better. I finally began to feel almost as I did before this little episode began.

Another part of the recovery is posture awareness, as I wrote earlier, Stand Up Straight.

I’m in my chair, waiting for the last passenger train, #97, Southbound Silver Meteor, destination Miami, to pass through. 21:16, it’s going through Now. All of the interior lights are on, especially the dining car.

My erotic mind is still in hibernation. That is stirring however.

Sleepy. Later y’all. ❤

We went to brunch at a favorite brunch restaurant. I had huevos rancheros, my usual selection.

After that I got to the Y for a swim. Then to the 5:00 PM Mass at St Bridget’s. The annoying music wasn’t as bad, most likely because I was concentrating on the lessons, the homily, and the Holy Sacrifice that is the Mass itself.

After Mass I went to BJ’s, bought our go-to comfort food, Stouffer’s Mac & Cheese, Colombian coffee (whole bean), pineapple, mangoes, and apples.

Now I am tired.

It is past noon. I woke up around Three AM the first time, brewed some decaf, fully intending to go back to sleep after just a brief time. But no. I stayed up. I can’t explain why. The night quiet is down right seductive.

Yesterday was J’s day. She needed the trip, the ongoing catharsis after her loss. That it is Memorial Day Weekend and Dan’s death was a battle death fifty years in the dying only compounds the grief.

But we came back home, had dinner at our favorite restaurant, watched our separate television shows, and I cleaned up and tried to sleep. That brings us to Three AM. I was awake for three hours. I had breakfast of beef brisket and eggs over corn tortillas, and some cherries. Oh and a peanut butter cookie. I washed dishes and went back to sleep.

I had a strange dream that featured a crumbling industrial neighborhood, a bake sale for a Worthy Cause, an ex-wife, and a former therapist. It was a proper jumble of a dream.

Now I am awake again, watching trains, feeling pain in my body, lonely pain in my soul.

We shall see what our day holds.

Seemed like a long day.

We drove down to Williamsburg and back. It was J’s late brother’s birthday, the one who passed away on 29 March. He would have been 73. He went to The College of William and Mary, Class of 1968. So J wanted to go to honour him. She bought little packets of Forget-Me-Not seeds for his widow and children.

It was a lot of riding for me.

Then we had dinner. Now I’m tired and am lying in bed after a shower and a shave.

I just wish Lifetime Channel’s Nightly Psychopath Out To Kill Our Plucky Heroine Movie was off the air.

Night folks