Every communiqué comes off like a miniature memento mori. I’m sure inside each newsletter there are coupons for quilting supplies and early bird specials at local restaurants… but these encounters are more than a bit humbling.
A sad thing about turning 50 years old: I’m eligible for the shingles vaccine.
It’s one thing to know my birthday is coming up. And that it’s a big number.
It’s something else entirely, to have this large shadow fall over my house. To have time manifest itself in such a direct and aggressive manner. To have the notion forced into my brain that the days ahead may not be equal, or less, to the days behind.
I’m not ready.
Initially, it was surprising to see that there is a Memorialization settings option. But I guess it makes some degree of sense. What was most surprising to me is that this setting is one of three options, under General profile settings… and something at the very topmost level.
So somewhere, somehow, the logic around these emails continues to churn out message after message. And they arrive in my Inbox. But the messages themselves are broken and malformed. And there’s no way for me to stop this process.
The project seems to have been long abandoned, but the rules and logic and infrastructure around the project’s inception seems to continue, unabated.
Let me start this story with an embarrassing fact: a few weeks ago, when I was working on the house, I lost my balance and fell off the top of a ladder.
All is not lost, if things don’t work out. I could always use this newer pair for driving and things that require distance. And use the other pair for closer work, like coding and whatnot. That just feels like such an old person thing to do, switch between glasses. It’s a little disheartening.
“No bad days.
Only good days and wasted time.
Death is coming.”
Apparently, I won some award back in 1992 – the Arion Foundation Award for Outstanding Musical Achievement? And it’s posted somewhere in my old high school: North Central High School, in Indianapolis, Indiana.
After today’s exam, I learned that I should probably get… progressive lenses. Which is a nice way of saying that I need bifocals.
Ugh.
While I was waiting to get my second round of prescriptions at the pharmacy, I spotted a sign that they require identification from anyone under 40. My first reaction was: wow, that’s super old. And then a split second later, I had the stark realization that waitaminute, I’m 40 years old.
Liz rubbed my neck and back a little bit, and I just let it be. The next day, the issue seemed to continue – and wasn’t any better. In fact, the back of my neck was very tender (and hot) to the touch. Taking a shower this morning seemed to help, but it was about the same all day.
Standing in the bathroom, I could feel the sneeze welling up. I grabbed a bit of tissue paper, and at the exact time that I sneezed… I felt something sharp in my back. A small group of my back muscles seized up in an instant. It felt like someone had hit me in the back with a baseball bat, but the area of impact was about the size of a grapefruit.