it's been a long cold january and it doesn't seem to be going away - today was sunny and fifteen and seemed balmy, but every time i look at the ten-day forecast it never has us going over freezing, and i find that depressing. when i first moved out here they had something called the january thaw, which came at the end of january or late january, and maybe today was it. but it just seemed too cold to me. i haven't gone for a walk in a long time.

january is the month both my parents died, and i've been in a kind of mourning funk. but the threats to people i know are very active. my wife's father is almost ninety, or ninety, and no sooner did he tell her he was doing fine, walking every day, than he ended up in the hospital with something serious. everything is serious when you are ninety or pushing ninety.

The second was an ex, my daughter's mother, who fell and broke her hip; my daughter reported that she was coming up from kansas to iowa (6 1/2 hrs) to deal with it. it seemed to me that i could give her moral support since i'm less than two hours from iowa city and i offered to come up. but when push came to shove i couldn't do it. too many tangled feelings about what happened between us and unwillingness to dredge them up when she's injured and in a hospital bed.

the whole thing left me with a very stressful feeling as if i'll be watching people go steadily downhill from here which is probably an accurate way of looking at life when you're seventy-one. these are just folks older than me - what do you expect? some even in my generation.

i get a peculiar obsession with people who are exactly my age, like annie lamott or that leader of van halen, david lee roth, who just announced one more tour after he'd already retired at least once. one more tour? and he's playing graceland...i guess you've made it, if you're playing graceland. i can only imagine what his band looks like, and how he feels running out on stage in a body like mine, he must be broke, if i were him i'd kick back and enjoy those millions but my guess is, most of 'em are gone. that's the way money is and it gets more that way when you develop habits of spending it.
br> so my kids and relatives are giving me side-eye wondering if i'm going to go next.

i'm the same 220 pounds i've been for about forty years, but i'm getting a lot less exercise because of the cold. i need to get back on my feet. four cups of coffee a day isn't helping me though i enjoy it more than you can possibly imagine. and today i cleared the snow off the solar panels on the roof. it involved a ladder, many times, and using my arms, but not much danger. i was only on the fourth rung. and my balance is ok, overall.

time to do my nighttime runaround. take meds out, pick up a kid, do some shopping, etc.

that and reading is what i do to keep from just lying down and not getting back up.