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89 Seconds to Midnight

October 30, 2025 //
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I left work early yesterday (by a few minutes) with a wicked headache. Not my usual headache, this one felt…viral. By evening I was definitely not feeling well. I crashed at 18:30 and slept through the night waking only twice for one biological need or another, and quickly returning to sleep. I woke at my usual time, and went back to sleep, waking later to make coffee and slowly start getting myself together for the day, figuring I’ll work from home, at predictably lower productivity, but “being there” for my team and still getting needful things wrapped up for October. A reasonable plan.

The first notification to reach me this morning is a DM from a friend. “Are you worried?” Well, damn, yeah, honestly, more often than not lately – at least any time I step outside my safe-seeming home. But, I feel certain she means something specific, and I ask. I immediately wish I hadn’t, when she replies “he wants to re-start nuclear testing”. I know which “he” she means, and my response is… to make a cup of coffee. I mean, damn, even if the end of the world were literally upon me, at this hour of the day I’m definitely going to want to face that shit with a fresh cup of coffee. lol I’m not meaning to make light of something that is truly horrific, but I honestly don’t know how else to take it. The notion is completely fucking ludicrous – what is there to test? What don’t we already know about the profound destructive power of nuclear weapons, and the lasting damage to this one planet we live on that inevitably results? Have we forgotten all the other nuclear tests that have been done? It’s an ugly dick measuring contest. A toddler’s demonstration of power (that they clearly should not have in the first place). Renewed nuclear testing achieves nothing good and protects no one. It does nothing to improve the stability of global trade or diplomacy. It’s also fucking expensive, which seems odd from a guy who campaigned on how good he was going to make America, and how much he would bring down the debt, the deficit, and the cost of fucking groceries. I’m annoyed by all of it, so I…

…Take a breath, followed by a sip of my coffee, which is exceptional this morning. I get my work tools set up. I seem to manage to avoid waking my still-sleeping Traveling Partner, which pleases me (I hope I’m right!), because I’m fairly certain he will have slept restlessly, worrying about me during the night. Then I check The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to see if the clock has changed since January 28th… it hasn’t. I let it go, with a sigh. Not relief, just… I don’t know. The madness of renewed nuclear testing is not something I can change, or fix, or act upon, really. I’ll write letters to representatives later.

It’s not that I’m ignoring the crazy going on around me, nor the costume ball of assholes, douchebags, and clowns in Washington haplessly proclaiming that this or that new horror is somehow not their fault. I’m not ignoring any of it. I am refusing to let those fuckwits camp out rent free in my consciousness full-time, though. I will continue to live my life as well as I am able until the world actually ends. I’ll do my own best to be kind, to be a good neighbor, to be compassionate, to make wise choices, to care for home and hearth, to love with my whole heart, and to refrain from making shit in the world worse – for anyone – if I can. I’ll continue to call genocide “genocide”, when I see it. I’ll continue to speak truth to power. I’ll continue to refuse to laugh at “jokes” that hurt people. I’ll turn my attention away from the click-bait headlines, sponsored content, and AI slop. I just don’t have time for attention-getting bullshit.

I dislike being sick, but compared to some of what is going on in the world, a headcold isn’t that big a deal, is it?

I sip my coffee. I meditate. I run a brush through my hair so that on my calls I don’t look like a muppet does my styling. I move my keyboard a litte more to the left… Then after I shift my chair, I move it back to the right some. After a couple of repeats, I realize I’m just fussing, and willfully stop my restless fidgiting. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and let my lingering stress and irritation go with my exhalation. I feel my posture become more relaxed, more upright, more “easy”. Feels better. I don’t always easily recognize “discomfort” for what it is, at least not immediately. I take a moment for a “body scan”, feeling various tight spots, and letting myself relax further. There is endurance, resilience, and comfort in self-care. I take my time with myself, and my coffee. I’ve already set expectations that I’m not at 100% this morning, and that I may begin the day a bit later than I generally do. Clear expectation-setting and managing healthy boundaries is also self-care.

What matters most? The moment of panic over a madman’s idiocy – or how I live my life, moment to moment? I realize that I hadn’t sent my friend a proper response to her concern. Am I worried? Of course I am. Am I letting that worry take over my experience? Nope. Not a chance – there is nothing whatsoever about the terrible crap in the news that requires that of me, or over which my reaction in this moment would be some sort of catalyst for change. I tell my friend I am taking a wait-and-see approach, and staying prepared for disaster, but that I won’t be allowing such things to wreck my day-to-day experience. I send her laughing emojis and tell her I have too much “real stuff” to do. She laughs, too, and tells me she appreciates my practical level-headed perspective. I’m grateful that she sees me that way, and I let those words remind me that this is who I am – with practice.

I remind myself to sit down with my Traveling Partner and the Anxious Adventurer, and have a conversation about cold-war era fears of nuclear disaster, and ensuring that together we have disaster plans that are appropriate, and that our level of preparedness for the “come what may” is sufficient. It’s a conversation for another time, and needs no further thought from me now. I set it aside for later, along with my general disappointment in humanity that we’re even in this predicament in the first place. We could do better. Honestly, it’s such a simple thing; it begins with electing people of good character who have the necessary skills and willingness to govern accountably and ethically. Without that, we just end up right back here. I sigh to myself, and let that go, too.

I glance at the clock… It’s time to begin again. There is no time to waste. The clock is always ticking.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

Discipline and That List I Made

October 28, 2025 //
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Each day as I begin the work day, I make a short list of my highest priorities. It’s generally a combination of items from the team’s project board, and items I have tagged for later from emailed requests and things communicated over messaging apps. Easy. My list is intended to help me focus. I follow a similar practice on weekend days, and on vacations. I make a list. I get things done. I check them off the list. This is a practice intended to limit distractions, and keep me focused on the things I want most to accomplish on a given day. Seems simple enough, and over a lifetime of practice (with making lists), it has generally served me well…only… there are some exceptions.

… When the list is too long, I sometimes find myself stalled, feeling overwhelmed. I don’t end up getting much done, at all.

… When the items on the list are poorly chosen in some way, I sometimes feel as if I’ve “gotten nothing done” that needed doing, in spite of possibly having worked down the list quite efficiently. I may have gotten things done, but the things I got done weren’t what most needed my attention that day.

… When I become distracted in the moment by some conversation or task that seems more interesting, I sometimes find that I’ve entirely failed to get the things I had identified as important completed at all. Maybe I still get things done, but likely not the things I intended to focus on.

I guess my point is that making a list isn’t enough. There’s a measure of discipline involved in staying focused on priorities identified in advance. There’s a matter of will (even just to keep going at all some days). Then, too, there’s the matter of boundary setting and preserving capacity to do the things that most want doing, and limiting distractions by maintaining strict focus on the task(s) at hand. There’s just more to it than a list.

Yesterday, my day quickly skittered sideways. This morning, my plan as I begin the day is quite precisely what it also was yesterday, because yesterday the items on my list sat untouched and unnoticed all g’damned day. I’m more than a little irritated with myself. I breathe, exhale, and relax. Wasting time being annoyed by a moment in the past that can not be changed in the present is pretty silly and pointless. I made choices. Like it or not, that was in my hands, entirely. This morning, I have a new day ahead of me, and a new opportunity to work down yesterday’s list – all of which is now ever so slightly higher priority even than it was yesterday. lol I sigh to myself and look over my plan for the day. I’ve got this – if I stay focused, and work with purpose.

…Discipline is a practice…

Funny thing, the discipline I bring to simply working down a list of projects and tasks on a work day is the same discipline I may need to fall back on in some moment of chaos. Practicing that discipline is multipurpose: it gets work done today, in the moment, and also builds both resilience and further discipline for those moments ahead when I may earnestly need (and value, and benefit from) that long-practiced discipline. Handy. Here’s the thing, though, we become what we practice. If I fail to continue to practice that small amount of discipline it takes to stay focused on a selected priority on a given day, over time my ability to be disciplined, at all, ever, will diminish, until I find that I lack the discipline to follow a list, to stick with a commitment, to complete a project that needs to be finished but isn’t very interesting, to run errands purposefully without detours, or even to answer a simple question with a simple answer. Fuck. Being human is complicated sometimes.

…Have you noticed that you have less discipline, yourself, since you began using a smart phone, or relying on Alexa, or using an LLM like ChatGPT, or spending hours on one feed or another that pumps mindless repetitive slop into your staring eyes? I’m asking because it definitely seems like a common complaint these days, and I feel it myself. I personally don’t have the attention span to waste. I have so much to do, and so much life to live. I’m thinking about it this morning, because I’d like to avoid repeating yesterday’s reduced productivity, today, and that list of shit to do? It’s only going to get longer if I fall behind. Another common complaint is that it’s a busy world, but a considerable portion of what we think we’re busy with is entirely a waste of precious mortal moments. (That is something worth thinking about – are you spending your time the way you want to?)

That’s an entirely different question. I put it aside for another morning.

I’m not even sure, right now, what it is I do want to be doing. Probably not working. I’d like to take off for a few days on the coast to watch the king tides from the balcony of a beachside hotel, or pick a highway and drive for days until the view is so substantially altered it feels truly new. I’m not so deeply fatigued as I have been (it helped to take it easy for a couple days over the weekend), but I yearn for… something. Something new? Something different? Something… effortless? Something distracting. I laugh to myself; human primates reliably make a lot of their own problems, and then seem to complicate those problems quite deliberately. So weird.

I sip my iced coffee and think my thoughts. Making my plan for today was pretty easy; I copied it from yesterday, and then set myself an alarm. When that alarm goes off, I will get to work. One task, one project, one experience at a time, until the list is completed, and the day is at an end. It’s not fancy. There’s nothing mind-blowing about this approach. No novel buzzwords to market it with, it is what it is; discipline, and it requires practice. I sigh again in this quiet space. No distractions or interruptions to be found here. I think that makes it a good time to begin again. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being

Breeeeeathe…

October 23, 2025 //
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I get it. Maybe I even read that same headline and had the same astonished, frustrated, dismayed, disgusted, horrified, or flummoxed response.

Was it billionaire cash grabs? Was it DHS blandly disavowing any knowledge of pregnant women in custody being mistreated? Was it another report of masked agency thugs harassing citizens? Was it the thoughtless narcissistic destruction of a historical treasure to build a monument to a tacky tasteless display of personal wealth? Was it news that yet another powerful crony of Trump is directly profiting from flouting ethical rules? The high cost of healthcare and groceries? The government shutdown? Corporate data centers driving up the cost of residential consumer power bills? I get it. It’s all pretty g’damned horrible and disappointing (and worse)… but… we’ve got to breathe, and we’ve got to practice skillful boundary-setting and good self-care to get through this absolute fucking disaster. No kidding. Breathe. Please. (And I remind myself, daily.)

…Take a moment, and do the best you can to calm yourself, and find perspective…

…Maybe put down the news, or your doomscrolling device of choice…

Don’t mistake me for saying “be silent and endure”, that isn’t my message at all. Protest. Resist. Write to your elected officials, even if you suspect no one is listening. Take action, when there is action to take. Speak truth to power. Don’t let the enemies of democracy win because you forfeited the game! But… take care of yourself and your loved ones, and be kind and considerate to your fellow travelers. We’re all in this together. A lot of people are suffering needlessly, all around us. Don’t add to the misery.

Self-care and good mental and emotional health matter even more in difficult times.  Practice the practices that nurture and heal you, lift you up, and spread joy in your circle of influence! Share what’s going well in life at least as often as you bitch about everything going wrong (more would be good). Maintain balance and perspective, and stay mindful that change is, and we are mortal creatures. All of us are mortal, including the monsters among us. Nothing is permanent , not even this freak-show shit-storm of hate and incompetence that is the current US administration. This too will pass. Do what you can to get through it with your soul intact.

Take a moment for something beautiful.

Sometimes when things are hard in the world, the stress seeps into my consciousness from all around me, and the tiniest details of my own experience become subtly tainted with it. My PTSD symptoms, generally pretty well managed these days, flare up unexpectedly. My sleep becomes routinely disturbed as if I’d never had the years of therapy, of practices, of healing, and of good sleep hygiene that once resolved that problem almost completely. My degraded sleep leads to cognitive impairments due to fatigue, and emotional volatility increases with my frustration with myself, and my dread of conditions in the world at large. The stress piles up, each moment of panic, of dread, of frustration, of sorrow, of anger, adding to a haystack of poor mental health and degraded cognitive faculties that leaves me even more vulnerable to spiraling out of control into despair or rage. Yeesh. Human primates are fucking complicated. (…Where is that damned owner’s manual… Maybe a handy user’s guide…?)

I breathe, exhale, and relax. A single glance at the news headlines was enough, and I set that shit aside. The blend of regurgitated outrage, sycophantic dick-sucking, and sponsored content is more than disappointing enough viewed through headlines – I surely do not need to read further. Not today. Today, I’ll take care of this fragile vessel.

I slept through the night last night, and woke feeling more rested than I have in days. I’m not in as much pain, either, though enough to signal coming rain, probably in the next day or two. I allow myself a moment of amusement that my aching bones predict the weather. I made a point of bringing a bottle of water along with me this morning, rather than allow myself to drink coffee all day long. I make a point of taking my medication on time, and also my vitamin supplement (which I probably skip too often). I didn’t rush through the morning, taking my time as I dressed, and allowing myself to be less ludicrously vigilant about small noises (which often results in some moment of clumsiness and much more noise). I breathe, deeply and exhale completely. I check in with myself… jaw clenched? Relax that. Shoulders tight? Relax those too. Detail by detail, I make room for self-awareness. I breathe, exhale, and relax. The day begins in an ordinary enough way, and the commute was easy.

I stretch. Yawn. Sip my coffee – and begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, breathe, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, joy, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

It’s Like That

October 22, 2025 //
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Sometimes life feels easy. Mostly life does not feel easy, at all (for me). Stress comes and goes. Uncertainty. Doubt. Worry over this or that new challenge. Circumstances that are a poor fit for the life we want to live. It’s not always a money thing. Sometimes it is. It’s not always about trauma, chaos, and damage. Sometimes it is. One thing I’m pretty clear on, these days; we’re each having our own experience, colored by our expectations and assumptions, filtered through our experiences, and understood using an internal dictionary it is highly likely no one else really shares. We bitch about left and right, about right and wrong, ignoring the likelihood that whoever is listening means something a bit different by those terms than we do, ourselves. We default to speaking in sound bites and slogans, even when we know how empty those may be. Human primates are weird. We treat each other poorly, even though our relationships with each other are the single most important thing about our individual experiences.

I sigh to myself. I’m in the co-work space getting settled in to begin the work day. The commute into the office was easy to the point of being surreal; I hit all the traffic signals along the way green, and there was never a car ahead of me going slower than I was, nor anyone creeping up on me from behind wanting to go faster. I hope the entire day feels like that. Seems unlikely; I slept poorly, and I’m already feeling signs of fatigue (or, perhaps, not quite fully awake, yet).

If someone asked me, right now, how I’m doing, I would say “not bad”, and the realization that such a conversation would go that way makes me roll my eyes and sigh softly with some measure of impatience and frustration. That sort of negative turn of phrase suits me, creatively, but isn’t ideal for communication. It was one of the first things my Traveling Partner ever asked me to consider changing, when we were getting to know each other. Hilariously, I misunderstood that request so thoroughly, I proceeded down a path of personal growth that wasn’t the intention, and became someone far more positive in general than I’d ever been previously. I have no comment whether this is – or was – a change for the better. I suppose, probably, and I am more content and joyful in life, but I don’t know that there is a causal relationship between that change and this experience. It’s just an interesting, mildly amusing recollection, as I start my day.

…I’m tired, and my mind wanders…

No walk this morning. Maybe later? It is a lovely autumn morning, and daybreak is just beginning. I smile and stretch, and think about recent other walks, and other mornings.

The colors of fall inspire me, and I think about paintings I have not yet painted.

I think about walking my path, as a metaphor for progress, growth, and forward momentum – changes over time, step by step, along a journey without a map. This life thing has so many options, choices, and “side quests”, it is sometimes difficult to imagine it as a single path. It twists, turns, and detours through experiences I hadn’t considered, or even imagined. The menu in The Strange Diner is vast.

I enjoy the routine of walking a familiar path, but change is often waiting for me somewhere along the way.

I find myself missing the library desk from which I most often work, these days. My “happy place” is not some fixed point of geography. It is my office & studio at home. It is in my garden. It is on the trail at dawn, watching the sun rise. It is in a quiet moment with my Traveling Partner. It is in a library, perhaps most of all. The library was one of the first places where I felt truly safe, surrounded by stacks of books, and rows of shelves, the air still and quiet and smelling of… history? Smelling of stories and narratives and the printed word, and seeming almost infinitely grand and somehow limitless. I love libraries. Small libraries in modest homes, big university libraries, legendary libraries that have stood the test of time over actual centuries – they each have that “library quality”.

How can someone be bored, in a library, when every shelf holds unexplored knowledge and infinite adventure?

I let my mind wander awhile longer. I’m okay for most values of “okay”. It’s an ordinary work day, in a fairly ordinary life – and that’s entirely fine. It’s enough. I glance at the clock, and notice the time. I breathe, exhale, and relax, before I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, Words

Sirens and Rain

October 19, 2025 //
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It is the wee hours, before 02:00, but after midnight. I’ll get back to sleep shortly. Noisy neighbors, rudely partying outside, in a rainstorm, well into the “quiet hours” indicated by the local noise ordinance. To be sure, a Saturday night, and they don’t do this often, but…they’re sure as hell doing it tonight, loudly. Fucking hell. We’re generally pretty chill about such things, but it’s too much, and quite unreasonable. I go out on the deck and ask them to keep it down. My Traveling Partner, still vexed by continuing noise some minutes later, finally has enough, and yells out the window, audibly angry.

… The noise finally dies down, some 15-20 minutes after we said something. I commit to bringing it up tomorrow, directly. Boundaries, people, consideration. Damn.

I hear my Traveling Partner turn in, again, in the other room. I prepare to do the same. The rain continues. Somewhere in the distance I hear a siren. Tomorrow is soon enough to begin again…

I went back to bed, and slept soundly and deeply, and woke later than usual by more than an hour. I dressed and managed to slip away quietly, without banging, clanging, sneezing, or dropping something to the floor with a crash. Win. Due to the time of year, and the dense storm clouds, it was still dark when I got on the highway, headed for this morning’s trail. The drive on a Sunday morning is reliably pleasant, no traffic.

I reach the trail at daybreak, boots already on because my casual wear soft slip-on shoes – an Allbirds knock-off – gave up on life a few days ago. I haven’t replaced them (yet?). The storm clouds overhead are beginning to break up along the eastern horizon, but it is also sprinkling. I chuckle to myself, thinking it might be nice if the weather would make up its mind, although I’m not actually bothered at all, I simply put on my rain poncho.

Actually, as I walked along contentedly to my halfway point, I noticed that nothing much is bothering me, presently, which is a nice change. I’ve been struggling a bit with my PTSD as the world seems to go crazy in a daft orgy of authoritarian cruelty and ignorant douche-baggery. I do my best to manage my symptoms when they flare up. It’s a lot of work, but I have better tools these days, and a more resilient, healthy partnership with a human being who loves me enough to give a shit about my mental health. I am emotionally supported, and more.

Yesterday was, as it turned out, the kind of day built on love and consideration, and my Traveling Partner and I moved through the challenges created by my bullshit with love and gracious good nature, generally. The evening ended with loving intimacy, and I felt profoundly cared for and nurtured, and thoroughly loved. I hope he did too. I sit on the fence rail swinging my feet like a kid, grinning to myself happily. Today has the added fun of brunch with a colleague who is local to me, and who is becoming more a friend than purely a professional associate. More reasons to smile, brunch and friendship.

My thoughts wander to my beloved Traveling Partner and his progress with healing and regaining more and more of his capabilities. G’damn I am so impressed and proud of him. He works at his physical recovery with dedication and diligence. He continues to make progress, and as he does, he continues to begin to do more and more of the day-to-day practical stuff he once took care of. Slowly the weight of the added workload that had fallen to me is being lifted, along with the stress that came of being unable to do all of everything every day. It’s not “about me”, though – I’m grateful to see him really doing better. I can’t describe my feeling of gratitude – and relief.

And it’s not raining! Small wins count, too.

I sit gazing out over the marsh, or the oaks that dot the hillside, listening to the wind blow, watching the trees bend to it, and observing the ripples that stretch across the pond (lake?) nearest to me. Migratory birds float on the water in small groups. Out in the marshy meadow I see a dot of color, as daylight comes. A tent? There is no camping permitted here, but this is a federal asset, and with the government shutdown, the gates are open 24 hours, and there are now two cars that seem permanently parked in the parking lot, one appears abandoned, the other, lived in. I feel annoyed by the cars, the tent, and the stupid shortsighted partisanship of our government.

I sigh and let that bullshit go; it’ll be there to consider some other time, and there is no reason to sacrifice my merry morning to it. I breathe, exhale, and relax, taking my time with meditation, so still and relaxed that a chipmunk climbs the fence to get closer with her curiosity, creeping up near to me, as I sit. I don’t have any of the sort of treats in my pocket that might interest a chipmunk… and anyway, common wisdom is that it is a bad idea to handfeed wildlife, or to take steps that could interfere with their natural routines. With that in mind, I just sit, still and quiet, enjoying her hesitant proximity. Delightful! An enormous Great Blue Heron flies past, low to the ground, heading to the water, startling the chipmunk. She darts away.

I think about brunch, and wonder whether it will go as planned? My new friend and I are both comfortable with change, and share very realistic expectations of such things. Either of us could cancel without causing hurt feelings, and we both deal with chronic conditions that make it likely that we might choose to, any time we plan something. lol I’m very much looking forward to brunch, but prepared to pivot to other things, should plans need to change.

I breathe the rain-fresh marsh air, deeply. It’s a lovely morning in spite of the rainy weather. The sprinkle begins to become something more like rain, and I’m grateful for my rain poncho. I get to my feet, ready to begin again.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words
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