YADDA YADDA
Some sort of explanation is probablly in order vis a vis my longer than usual absence from these environs, and the usual "well I went on a three day bender and had to recover" bit ain't gonna suffice as an excuse for more than a month long absence. Sure, there's the technical problems I've
mentioned, but those could've been solved a month ago if I'd had the desire to do so. Basically, watching my dog Shiva slowly die over the
latter half of last year drained me utterly, psychically and physically (as if we can separate the two). I didn't realize it while it was happening since I was focused only on doing everything I could to prolong her continued comfortable existence and my not at all unrelated continued absence from crushing grief. Over the last few months (until we put her
down on the Monday before Thanksgiving) she was waking me up two,
three and even four times a night to try to poop, an act that got ever
more difficult as both the anal sac tumor and the related lymph node tumor got larger and served to increasingly block the passage of her waste. I got used to it and didn't really even notice it, but someone else was keeping track and told me after the end that while she didn't enjoy watching me slowly disintegrate, she knew I was doing what I had to do and would only interfere if a catastrophic situation arose.
Amongst other things, I also let my physical conditioning slip in the latter half of the year, which led to some very painful knees from my continued attempts to play ultimate frisbee with people half my age at
age 43. A draining situation with a family member also popped up towards the end of the year. Basically, it's the old tale of the snowball,
er, snowballing.
There's a happy ending to this tale of woe, though. Fortunately, the few marvelous people who've managed to make inroads into my crass and egotistical solipsistic universe are uniformly and unconditionally
supportive, especially one who jumped on board during my immediately previous crisis despite Cap'n Solipsism's dire warnings of disaster and dragons ahead. She made me realize, amongst other things, that an increasingly nasty shortage of serotonin isn't the end of the world, but rather a chemical imbalance that can usually be easily handled, as it indeed has been.
I've also embarked on a brutal conditioning regimen since returning from the frozen north on Jan. 2. Why? Well, such things serve to increase one's serotonin level without external aid (which I assume will become more and more necessary as I shuffle further down the road so I'd rather build up a tolerance later rather than sooner). Also, I'm not at all ready to give up ultimate frisbee. An additional boost is provided by a dietary supplement consisting of glucosamine and chondroitin, a combination which has worked for several friends and which seems to be doing some good for me as well.
The upshot? I'm back, at least until the next personal crisis knocks me off my pins. I don't plan these things. As the buddhists say, shit just happens. Everything should be back to whatever the hell passes as normal hereabouts, although I'm pondering what to do about the political content. I've spent most of the evening reading sites I've not read in over a month, seeing how I've been reading no more than I've been writing. There are so many others currently more dedicated and energetic about such things than I am. And did I mention talented and diligent? Geez, I'm getting an inferiority complex. Not to worry, though, I'm sure the outrage will keep me going as it always has, although the political quantity may wane (and wax). I'm thinking of returning to the mix I had in the early days of Ethel (way back before the milllennium) for a while, and then letting the internal daemons take me wherever they may.
Shit will happen is about the only thing I can say with certainty. Other than that, all I can do is thank those who've expressed concern about
Ethel (and its proprieter) over the last couple of months, and promise that something will most likely keep appearing here, at least until something happens that neither me or my handlers can fix.
posted by Steven Baum
2/11/2003 11:15:01 PM |
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