-cochlear implant report - three months have come and gone and i went to iowa so they could examine my progress. they measured my hearing, both with and without, and said i was doing as expected and all was well. researchers did a number of tests and actually provided me with a hotel room in coralville so they could do more tests. at one point one researcher asked me how it was going, and i said, pretty well, and he said, i was nervous about asking because i asked one person and they broke out in tears.

so here's a more accurate overall picture. this device connects to my head by magnet and sometimes comes loose when i take off a sweater or brush my arm against by head. the device has a battery that i charge every night and that lasts almost fourteen hours; it's kind of a pain if my day lasts fourteen and a half (which it does) or fifteen, but the alternative is charging it during the day or switching over to another battery midstream which is difficult but not impossible. when it runs out of battery it makes annoying beeps and then simply dies. i have to get used to this.

there are plenty of times when i am using only the CI (on the left), or only the old hearing aid (on the right), and therefore know how much i catch with only one of them. in general my brain is becoming more accustomed to relying on the CI because it's better for picking out exactly what people say. the hearing aid is simply an amplifier for what is already unclear. they told me that in a year the right will probably be ready too but they'll take it as it comes and not make plans; also, that it takes about a full year for me to adjust completely to using and relying on a CI but that I am on the path to doing it.

deep under my skull an implant is picking up electric signals from the device and transferring them to my brain which is now responding to electric signals as opposed to just noise. the part deep inside my brain actually responds to other things too which means i get some signals from moving my hand near my ear, pressing on my ear lobe, etc. it's kind of like picking up radio waves in your fillings. these signals used to scare me in the shower because i was afraid my CI was still on, but it wasn't, wasn't anywhere near it. these sounds are not too bothersome but they couldn't explain them and said they would do their best to find out. i'm just curious - how can simple air movement, for example drying my hair with a towel, or pressing my hand on my skull, activate that little electric prod down there. it doesn't affect my daily life that much though, so i'll drop it.

as a door dasher i'm often in the situation when i'm in a crowded room and still have to hear what somebody is saying to me. often it is, "there's a drink with this too," or "don't forget the barbecue sauce," but whatever it is i need to hear it. i do better with the CI than with the hearing aids. i'm back in the game, so to speak. which was the point.

it's cold, very cold. like ten, or less, and i don't think it will last long, but it has lasted a while and i think some people are becoming a little loopy. it's hard to live with this stuff. for example, when i woke up this morning, there was a brand new inch of snow on the ground. it was hard to tell how badly it messed up the drivers outside my front window; they seemed to be going their usual 35 in spite of it, and in spite of the fact that it's a brick street, sometimes quite slick. i watched them for a while. finally i got out in it. the driving wasn't all that bad; most of the main roads are pretty clear, hard-salted. but it was unpleasant. cold, slippery, iced over in many places - especially the side streets.

the sun came out and gave us a hand - it melted and dried a lot of the snowy fluff on the street that would have otherwise frozen into ice. another day or two of sun and it'll be back to normal.

but what is normal? here we are in mid-january. normal is bleak. it's winter.

i'm about to put the beginnner's guide to quakerism out into the world. it's a pamphlet; actually i have been printing it for four years. it was written primarily by maurine pyle, an old quaker friend of mine who died, maybe two or three years ago. i printed it at home for a while but my printer got worse and worse. finally in frustration i put it on amazon, but then i found a printer who would do them for cheap. other printers ignored my inquiries or have just sat on it for a while. that's how you can tell they don't really want to do it. it's radical religiously - they already know that without reading it - and maybe in their hearts they just don't want to be cranking that kind of thing out. but a press i found was willing to do it - and ship it from oregon. i'll work on setting it up tomorrow.

in the bitter heart of winter, i think of my parents. both died in january. i'm not even clear on the exact dates - my father, i think, on the 20th; my mother, a few years earlier, on the fourteenth? not sure, but that would make my mother's date tonight. we were there when she took her last breath. her mind had preceded her. she no longer knew who we were. she heard a car just outside, waiting to take her; she wanted to go with.

las cruces at that time, mid january, is actually quite pleasant. that's whhy people go to live there. at night it's cool, maybe a nice breeze. didn't matter, we were in grief. my father at the time was actually angry. how can you be married fifty years and have somebody not know who you are. well it happens, it happens in nature, that's how it happened. he got over it; he even had a girlfriend, but i think he was still angry. you can't take it personally; i tried not to.

went out to drive out to my son's trailer; it's three miles. sooooo cold. i didn't feel like hanging around. one of the kids wanted a ride somewhere to pick something up. sorry, it's after ten, i don't want to make one more trip out here. it's toooooo cold. the street was solid ice. it was still; nobody outside or around. not sure my son likes it out there. but it's really hard on us when he's in here. everyone is trying to figure out how to make it in this world. it's not easy when it's ten degrees. saw one lady walking; another was homeless, at the caseys. ouch. i'm glad i'm not them.

it sometimes seems like a cruel world. more accurately, it's just a world where if you don't know anyone, it seems really cold. slowly we've come to know the place. it's just a town. it will hopefully feel warmer, as time goes by.

i've been a bit sluggish. the new year came and went, and cold weather just got grimmer, greyer, colder, and finally snowier. i don't mind the snow on some level; it's what winter is all about and if you go a winter without it that's really bad. but the combination, snow, ice, slippery roads, and bitter chill - it makes me want to take a break from door-dashing.

the dashing itself isn't so bad. people tip well, and they keep you busy, and they pay well, or at least well for door-dashing. i can get the money i need in less time. but i enjoy it less and it takes intense concentration. sometimes the walking - from the car to their doorstep - is treacherous. the main roads are not.

at home i finally wrote out the things i am trying to do a little bit of every day. writing is among them but one of the things that is getting moved to the bottom of the heap constantly. maybe that's my problem - that i am feeling sluggish because i'm not being a writer. instead i'm stalling or doing just about whatever else demands my attention.

beyond door-dashing there's grocery shopping, laundry, running out to c's house, running around from here to there, getting prescriptions or whatever. we're lucky - the cars are running - and it is temporary - eventually february comes along and it's all in the past. if only i can make it that far.

i think of the people who won't. there are actually quite a few. both my parents died in january and that alone gives me a kind of gloom that it's a tough season to get through. i can't think of a january that was easy but they all passed into february eventually. there's a kind of inevitability about it. we know trump is coming. that's chaos, trouble, hard times for most of us.

on that score i will say this: most of the world has despotic, corrupt rulers. it's depressing to see our government for sale and to see the wealthy moving in to take advantage of a leader who basically just wants to clear his debts and to buy off forgiveness of his assaults and treachery, but sorry, i for one will never forgive, and i'm not for sale, as long as they let me vote i'll vote no. and i'm not holding my breath for the midterm election or any other, because i don't believe that he won't use "loyalty" to buy off county clerk offices and make sure he doesn't lose again. he will lose at least here but that's not saying much. apparently everyone else is ok with his thievery, lying, fraud, etc.

it's just a little bleak to see. it's like the dying of democracy, along with the bugs and the birds that have finally given up and gone down south.

i survived christmas and it wasn't easy. i have increasing hostility toward engaging in complete indulgence for kids who have basically been indulged all year; they're entitled; they usually work through their mom to get the priciest things; and then mom, exhausted, wants me to do the stockings. it's not like she restricts the money, as last year, we just plain didn't have it. this year we had a little more, but the principle was the same. almost nothing i buy for them would make any difference or be anything but a disappointment. last year i bought C a baseball and baseball glove in hopes that we could get out and use it sometime, and it still sits on my shelf; he never even took it with him. they did however take the basketball; it's the one thing that works. candy works. this year, she said, she's buying nike hoodies for six, a slightly warmer version for the older boy coming back from chicago, and nothing else. not everyone was happy. so what. stockings were almost 100% candy.

i mourn the days when there were books, games and puzzles under the tree. it was like a feast for the mind, christmas day, you could start a new book and then take a break and play some risk or read a magazine. this year i couldn't buy a single magazine. was there even a magazine these kids would read? in my experience, it was close enough to "no" to not keep trying. if it had pictures they might look at the pictures.

i don't know how to buck this trend. indulgence of kids goes all the way back and worked fine for the first seven, all of whom naturally grew into wanting to take care of themselves, and fully able to learn things they needed to learn in order to do it, like getting a job, doing laundry, doing dishes, etc. two of the last three, indulgence will spread out into adulthood and be all there is until it's all over. then what, a place where they do dishes for you? if we are a place where all they do is watch tv they might as well be in an institution because we won't be around much longer and we deserve a break.

so this grumpy santa goes around thinking all this mean stuff and buying candy, tons of it until the stockings are literally bursting with it. and nothing else but a basketball. there's a scene at christmas anyway as the boy wants a car really and is so frustrated that he's not on the road to getting a car, that he literally can't take seeing other stuff, like six hoodies, instead of a car. like we're going to just produce a car for a kid who can't control his impulses. Speakinng of impulses he breaks a gate and pulls out a knife at some point, and also walks off with my wife's phone which as far as we can tell he didn't steal money directly from. it's scary though. he scares her and she just gives him money sometimes. kind of like, just take this money and go leave me alone. even on christmas.

it's a bleak picture of a dysfunctional family, though the older boy came home for three days, slept sixteen hours on a recliner and another thirteen on a futon, and went back full of good food and apple pie, happy with the jacket he'd received. we talked politics with him and other things as adults should be able to do. there were christmas cookies as well as pie and all his favorite foods were produced and put in front of him.

i myself got a couple of shirts, both very large, one significantly heavier than the other, both blue. large enough so that when my pants keep creeping down my butt i don't have to be shy about leaning over and showing too much underwear, the shirts will just cover the slack. thus i can function comfortably in this world though i still should put extra holes in my belt just to prevent that kind of pants-falling which is all to common in this world.

meanwhile in the new year i will continue to be a gopher for this kind of pointless indulgence until the sun goes down or somebody figures out how to get out of this vicious cycle of more indulgence leading to only indulgence with no such thing as getting things for oneself. it's ablility that's lacking, not desire. somehow they just don't wake up wanting to learn a skill that will support their independence. and this is what has to change.

 

it's a bitterly cold day, but i just went outside with the dog and that seemed to make me feel better. i need to get up and around more as my lack of activity has just about made me rust up.

the dog has two balls, one which he refuses to let go of, and the other, as a result, i can kick and he can chase. and that's what we do, only with the first ball in his mouth the whole time. i walk around to where he's struggling to pick them both up in his mouth (he can't do it), and i get the second one out from under him, and i kick it. that was good for about ten minutes. it felt like an hour, it was so cold.

i have to get some of the exercise machinery going. there's one in the garage, but the garage is as cold as the yard. there's one in the basement but you about have to go outside to access it. the stairs are all blocked and in fact i don't like that, i might have to move some water stands out of the way. what if we needed our tornado shelter?

even the ten minutes, in the cold snowy windy grim day, filled me with some kind of oxygen. i am now feeling like i have some choices, like i can do some of the things i want to do.

every day i have a list of way too many things to do. many of them are routine, everyday: read marketing; i'd like to read about 150 pages. one is listen to audiobooks; i'm falling behind on this one. i have to listen as a process of getting used to my cochlear implant. i have things downloaded, and i have favorites, and often i just listen to my own narrators reading my own books. whatever, i need to get started again.


where do you see my writing in here? often i get through the day without doing any. i've gone a few days already without. this is not good. i could be writing here (on one of many blogs), or in my journal (where i chronicle the problems of raising a dmdd boy who is very manipulative and has nothing better to do than get take-out off of his parents, even on thanksgiving) - and believe me i've been mad enough recently to have plenty to say. but unhappily, there is no easy solution. he has nowhere else to go, and the trap we're in, we set it ourselves, and you can't make a sick kid, especially a mentally ill one, just grow up and not be bound up in his mother anymore. it's frustrating but i don't know what else i could do. i give rides. i go get take-out. i try not to get angry. i write in my journal (the journal of anger) - this blog is a little more general and protects his privacy a little better.

but there's more, besides door-dashing, and i'm taking a little break from dashing while he's unstable, my wife needs me, and there's too many other dashers out there anyway. there's work on the various houses - this one, the academy house, and whatever new one he's about to occupy.

back to writing, i have to say that i did finish one book of short stories, and i got a short story into an anthology, which was published yesterday or the day before. that anthology deals with shelter pets and its profits will go to shelters; i like that. things are not all bleak. i'm working on a novel. if i get time i can finish it.

i'd like to do quilting. i'd like to get into my stamps. not sure if i'll ever do these, but it's worth mentioning. it may happen. and then, on saturday, my trip to the new library. see post above. ciao

a fantastic spread downstairs; my wife prepared everything a person could possibly want. i remain as her most appreciative audience. we ate together along with my daughter; two boys slept through it, having stayed up until 4 a m. we don't wake them up, because historically that doesn't end well, unless they asked us to do it or they have school.

i'll let you picture the spread; it was everything a thanksgiving is supposed to be. there is pie too which i have not cut into. they (my wife and daughter) have left for brimfield for a larger thanksgiving with stepdaughter and family. i remain with the pets and the boys.

quiet, cold, grim, windy out there, but i kind of like it. i might get something done later.

it's a little dysfunctional - very dysfunctional - to not have thanksgiving together, but that's been going on for a while, and i've given up trying to get everyone at one table. i might try to get the boys at one table later. i might even sit with them.

more later...

Have a Magical Day

These are not feel-good, happily-ever-after stories like Disney movies, nor are they dark or violent. Each story is from a different perspective (tour guide, PR staffer, detective, fantasy author, housewife, state patrolman, and businessman among others) and gives insight into life in 2024 at a huge theme park and large entertainment corporation. It is not adoring of Disney, or scornful, but the stories include a variety of characters you might meet if you spent a little free time in the park, and they offer a variety of perspectives about the role of fantasy and of Disney in modern American culture. Stories included are Have a Magical Day, Space Mountain Getaway, Stealing his Heart, Slapping a Mickey, Afternoon Snake, Detective's Tale, Garbage Duty, Downpour, Attic Bride, Just Ashes, Cocktail Party, Small World Problems, If the Shoe Fits, and It is what it is. All were written in 2023 or 2024. It is the author's eleventh volume of short stories.

$4.79 + shipping, Amazon paperback
$1.99 on kindle
free on kindle unlimited

late in the afternoon, and i've had way too much coffee already. once again i didn't sleep well, because a son living here was grievously unhappy late at night, and i was unable to do anything about it. never mind that it was his fault, and it was way past my bedtime. now i have a line-up of things i want to do and literally no energy to do it.

i have however been doing a lot of dashing. the way dashing works is that at the beginning of the week you never get enough, so you're primed to take all this work on TH/FR/SAT to make up for the work you didn't get MON/TUE/WED. if you just have faith that the late week will balance out the early week (it generally does) you have a more relaxing week, knowing you'll be ok. i have no faith. and i'm sometimes called away by circumstances, and lose FR or SAT or some other valuable time.

the schedule wears me out in another way. generally i work until done, at about 9 30 or 10 at night. it's not a bad work hour and i should be in ok shape when i get home. however there's still a lot to do, namely, getting and delivering my son's med, and walking the dog. these can be harder than appear. 11 30 i need to be done, and i'm not always. in the morning i'm literally grogging around while people pull me into daytime responsibilities. i still haven't downloaded from work yet!

if i have to do stuff mornings, i do, and then here i am in the afternoon - i have time, i have the house, i have my typewriters and puppies here, and i can't budge.

nothing is written. goosegg. dogs are barking. will check.

i went to the walmart here in galesburg, and it actually made me feel better. i know that the vast majority of the people in there are quite conservative, maybe most are trumpers. i can guess that. but among the trumpers there is more than just the usual joy of victory. it's almost like they feel they've righted a wrong, as if trump's declaration that the last election was "stolen from him," is something they bought hook line and sinker.

if anything the election shows that the system works. everyone counted their votes, and they came out in a logical pattern nationwide, i.e. he won the same amount proportionately in each state. there was no state that was out of its pattern, no place where massive fraud could be said to be clear. same as last election, it was counted fairly and accurately by very careful neutral counters.

that shows that he's total bullshit, because remember his whole claim is that he should have won. well yes he would have won if blacks and women weren't allowed to vote, but he didn't, because we have a free and legal system for every adult to vote. this time, americans voted in a total fraud, liar, rapist, pedophile, etc.

my explanation is 1) very high inflation hurt very badly in what were already bad times; 2) we're tired of endless wars that seem to be our responsibility; and 3) racism and misogyny, which i suspect is the main reason. they just don't want to elect a woman who is not only a woman, but also not quite white. let's face it, they knew about the fraud/felon/pedophile thing. the reason i say racism/misogyny is that look at the south, where biden made some ground - georgia, north carolina, missouri - even look at appalachia. it wasn't even close.