Monthly Recap

I'm a day late with my recap of last month, but am backdating the post to yesterday, as it belongs with October .... a month of three blog entries.

I'm trying not to lose my enthusiasm for blogging, but it's waning. I'd like to blame it on a long recovery from the accident, which may be partly to blame, as I'm still not back to normal and feel tired much of the time. I've spent days just lying about the place, giving me plenty of time to blog, but not much to say.

I've been feeling a little better this past week, and have ventured out a few times, largely to get supplies and then come back home. But all things are relative. Last week, I didn't leave the place at all, and ran out of real food. I ate canned vegetables for four or five days straight, then at some stale club crackers with mustard because it was the most edible thing in the kitchen.

I'm fairly certain that's a sign that something is wrong ... and the fact that I recognize that something is wrong gives me hope that I can begin to put it right. And so, this week, I'll make a point of going out at least once a day, whether I need to or not, and will try to get back to blogging on a more regular basis.

And in the end, this hasn't been much of a "recap," except that it's fairly typical of the entire month.

Fading

I've seen this happen to a handful of the bloggers I read: they'd been going strong for a year or two, then suddenly seem to fade. Posts go from twice a week, to once a week, to every few months, then stop. And I have the sense it's happening to me.

I'd like to blame the accident I was in - though the injuries weren't that serious, I was bedridden for a month or so, and I still feel a complete lack of energy and motivation to do anything at all, including this. But I don't know if that's the cause, or just coincidence.

I'd like to say that I'll muster the resolve to get back in the swing of things - but I've seen those posts, too, on the blogs that I follow that have also faded. There's the realization that "I'm not posting as often," followed by the resolution that "I'm going to get back to it real soon," then nothing. I hope it doesn't go that way for me as well, but then, that was probably their hope as well.

It's not that I'm using the example of others to justify my own actions, just that I recognize this is not unusual, and as much as I hope to avoid falling into the same pattern, I have a sense I just might.

Run Down

I haven't been keeping up the blog very well over the past few weeks. I'd say it was because there's not much going on that seems remarkable, which is true enough, but "routine" is just the nature of life and I can typically find something to write about. It's probably that getting back to normal after a month or so of convalescence is harder than I realize - I find I'm not noticing as much, and am often physically tired and mentally numb. It's going to take a bit longer to get back to normal.

I suppose the bright side is that there's a "normal" state I can get back to. It occurs to me that the majority of people probably exist in a perpetual state of being tired and numb, stumbling through their daily routine without noticing anything that seems worth thinking or remarking about, living a life that's a procession of beige days, one much like the next.

Perhaps it's just the fatigue taking, but the more I consider it, the more true it seems that even the people I find interesting tend to tell the same kind of stories, or even the exact same stories, over and over - and the vast majority of people have a much shorter loop before they've said "it all" and begin to repeat themselves.

Which has be beginning to wonder: how long is my loop? It's been about three years of blogging ... have I begun to repeat myself yet? While the particular details have changed a bit, is it essentially the same story, told over and over, with a few inessential variations on the same theme?

Passport to Nowhere

My passport came in the mail today, a reminder that, before the accident, I was thinking about taking a trip to Europe. Given that I've been out of commission for several weeks, it's probably not going to be soon. Boris would probably be OK with it, even though I've been out of work for a while. Jackson decidedly would not be OK with doing my job for another month or so.

In my absence, he has been covering pick-ups and drop-offs of vehicles, and he absolutely hates it. I find it inconvenient and annoying, but that's the nature of working for a living - if it were fun at all, they wouldn't have to pay you to do it. And yes, I get road-weary at times, and am generally cranky when I'm away, but it's really not that big of a deal.

My guess is that Jackson finds it unbearable because he's a much more social person than myself, so being stuck in a hotel on the edge of nowhere, where you don't know anyone and the people you meet seem mildly hostile at best is probably a major problem for him. I always figured it was an easy job, but maybe it's just that I'm well-suited to it.

And so, he's been pissing in my ear about it incessantly. I'm trying to catch up on the repossessions, which is something that wasn't being handled in my absence, which means a lot of time in the chase car with Jackson, listening to him complain. I'll give him another three days before I tell him to shut up about it, if he doesn't run out of steam before then.

Anyway, back to the passport and Europe and all ... I'm no longer debating about whether to go overseas on a vacation. I'm going to do it, just don't know when. Winter is coming up, and that's probably a bad time, so maybe this spring I'll take an extended break from things and just bum around the old world for a while.

I'm going to mention it to the guys at the Icehouse this evening, on the off chance it was anything but a passing fancy. I seriously doubt anyone else bothered to get a passport, but if they did, it would be better not to have to go it alone. If they didn't .... well ... fuck 'em. If I don't mind gadding about the USA all alone, I'm pretty sure I can stand a solo trip abroad.

It might be better to go alone anyway, because my traveling companions would be much more likely to get me into trouble than out of it.

Monthly Recap

This past month, it's all been about recovery and change, which is kind of what I was looking to happen in this blog, but in a more subtle way over a longer period of time. The fact that so much has happened so quickly, as a result of the car accident, is a little overwhelming.

My body is largely back to normal. The scars are still pinkish and not quite fully healed, but I've gotten used to them, and the feeling like having masking tape across my back is no longer as annoying. Maybe in time I will stop noticing it at all. I've got a consult with a plastic surgeon next month to see if there's anything for it, but I'm thinking he will be more interested in the superficial appearance and less in the tactile nuisance.

I've also got a new car (new-to-me, anyway) out of the deal, and have moved from my apartment into one of the houses in my neighborhood. The phrase "my neighborhood" is something a lot of people toss about, "my neighborhood" is the neighborhood in which they happen to live. In this instance, "my neighborhood" is a housing subdivision I created from an empty field - though that's a bit egocentric to imply that it was my own effort, as all I have done is coordinated the activities of others and taken on the financial risk. Still, it's kind of cool to think that, but for me, this would still be an empty field.

But back to the "new house" thing, I'm nesting at time-lapse speed, with things being delivered and unpacked and set up and put away, doing over the course of a month the same thing that most people probably take several years to accomplish: furnishing every room, buying all the little bits and pieces, etc.

And all of this is strange to me. Even before the house burned down and I went totally Spartan for a couple of years, I was never much for nesting: lived in a cheap place, bought what I needed as I came to need it (or replaced what was worn out), and didn't consider my home as anything but cold storage. So all of the hubbub now is focused on things that I figured "other people" did, but that I never would.

Much of this seems like an epilogue to me - one of those rare times in life when you come to realize that the future is going to be significantly different than the past. But at the same time, that seems a bit facile and superficial. All that's changed are the material things, and those are the things that matter the least.

I'm still estranged from my family, no prospects for a relationship, and still hanging out with the same bunch of miscreants I've known since high school. I don't see any of that changing soon, and I'm not sure that I want it to change. It's abnormal, granted, but it's comfortable for the most part.

I guess the question is: "what do I want to change?" I don't have an answer just now. There's still something missing, something not quite right in the life of John Finn, and he doesn't know what it is.

Plastic Surgery?

I've got a decision to make, and am getting oppressed to make it soon: whether to have plastic surgery done. It's not something I expected I'd ever be thinking about, and it's got me feeling very weird. But given all that's happened lately, "very weird" is becoming a little too familiar.

I'm not talking about a nose job or a face lift, but dermabrasion and skin grafts on a part of my body that I never see and few other people ever do: my back, to reduce or eliminate the scarring from the cuts I got in the accident. Apparently, the insurance company is going to foot the bill, if I want to have it done ... but I'm just not sure if I want to have it done.

Because it's just my back, it seems patently unnecessary. It's not a part of the body that most people see - so it doesn't seem to matter at all. I've never overheard a woman say "check out the back on that guy", and I don't have the sense that it's a feature anyone cares about. Besides, if things have progressed to the point I've got my shirt off, it's probably past the point of no return anyway, and I doubt that a few bumps and ridges would be a show-stopper.

At the same time, maybe it's something that will trouble me in a more practical sense. I'm already getting used to sitting upright, even though it doesn't hurt to recline against the back of a chair, though I can still feel the areas where the wounds are, or were. It's like having masking tape on your skin. In time, I'll probably get used to that, but it's annoying.

I also imagine the procedure is something like removing strips of skin with the surgical equivalent of a potato peeler, scraping out the excess tissue, and grafting on strips of skin over the top of them. Maybe skin from somewhere else on my body, which would turn half a dozen ugly wounds into a dozen less-ugly ones, or maybe using cadaver skin, which is simply gross (walking around in a dead man's skin).

Anyway, the insurance company wants to close the book on my claim and is asking for an answer soon, and I'm not sure what to tell them. Maybe I'll go in for a consult and see what it's really going to involve rather than just guessing at it. If it's just a matter of physical appearance, then I will probably pass, especially if it means more time face-down in a hospital bed. If it can reduce the discomfort and the recovery isn't too bad, maybe so.

New Digs

Internet service just got turned on at the new place this morning. And by "the new place," I mean a completely new house, straight from the factory (or whatever facility makes manufactured homes). I've got to say: it's a lot nicer than I expected.

Strictly speaking, it's a double-wide trailer that qualifies as a "house" only by virtue of its being put on a permanent foundation. The quality and construction are better than I thought they would be, and everything is shiny and new. I expected to hate that, but I don't.

I've also bought furniture, which is something else I didn't expect to want to do for a while, but I suppose that after living like a Spartan for almost two solid years (and it surprises me it's been that long), it's probably time to get back to some semblance of a normal life. Sleep on a mattress, sit on a couch, eat at a table, that kind of thing.

And while I'm nattering on about shiny new possessions, might as well mention the car, as I skipped that detail last time. Boris was insistent on giving me one, and the most practical and least upscale option was a 2005 Mercedes, which still seems a bit foo-foo to me even though the brand has lost its air of exclusivity in recent years (don't recall exactly when that happened, probably when they started producing the C-class, "c" meaning "cheap" I believe). Boris has a lot of sports cars and exotics in stock at the dealership, not much it the way of sedans, so I picked one that wasn't the absolute cheapest, but on the low end of the scale.

I don't have to remind myself that all of this is just superficial - the trappings of our modern material culture that values style over substance and things over the less tangible qualities that are far more important to having a proper life. I'm very much aware of that, and less comfortable about this lifestyle change than you might think. It just doesn't seem like "me," if that makes sense.

What bothers me most of all is how easily it is to slip into the role, of looking through catalogs and showrooms, picking out a "thing," and feeling this misplaced sense of satisfaction when it's delivered and set up. As much as I'd like to look down my nose at the moral bankruptcy of material culture, it's strangely gratifying. And that upsets me somehow - though it comes as something of a relief to be able to feel weird about it.

I think that if I just went through this process of a lifestyle makeover, without feeling awkward and wrong somehow, that would be even worse. Or perhaps I'm just trying to curry up a bit of self-respect as I find myself doing and thinking things that I previously thought were so out-of-character?

Moving Out

I've finally been released on my own recognizance, and it feels good just to not be bothered. Of everything I've been through after the accident, one of the worst things is not being able to be left alone for any length of time. Always someone checking in, just to make sure you're OK - and they mean well, so you can't get too testy about it.

What I'd really like at this moment is a few days of normality - which for me, means sitting alone in my apartment with not much to do, maybe read, surf the Internet, and just pass the time. It sounds thoroughly boring, and some days it is, but I've come to miss it over the past month or so.

Unfortunately, I can't do that just now. I've got to get out of the apartment and into the new place, which means I have to pack up tomorrow and stand around and watch the movers. Normally, I'd be packed up in two hours, but I'm still moving very slowly, so I expect it will take more like four or six. And I'm hiring movers rather than calling on friends for much the same reason: it's one thing to ask someone to help you move, quite another to ask someone to move your stuff while you sit and watch. Even though I've got a good excuse, I can't stomach the idea.

It also means I'll be offline for a while - maybe a week - as it will take a while to get service in the new place. Figured that was worth mentioning, as going "dark" for another week might lead you to think something else went horribly wrong. I can probably find a hotspot if being offline gets to be too much of a nuisance, but there's a lot of things I should be doing other than frittering away the time like this.

One More Week

It's been about a month since the crash. I'd say exactly a month, but I've lost track of the exact date when it happened: the ninth, tenth, or eleventh. Seen that way, I guess I should feel better about progress. But since I'm still dealing with it, it seems like it's been too long a time.

I'm ready to be through with this situation. I feel like I'm healed enough to go back to my normal routine, but the nurse is being fastidious about the recuperation time, and I apparently have six more days of being restricted to the indoors. The cuts have healed, but she insists that the skin heals more quickly than the tissue beneath. I have no reason to doubt her, just my own impatience getting the better of me.

I probably shouldn't have been in such a rush to wean myself off the medication. The stupor was a nuisance, but it made the long hours of nothing a lot more tolerable. Probably just as well, because my life for the past few years has consisted of a lot of "long hours of nothing" and having something to numb myself could get to be a habit. I suppose that I've been clutching at straws and the meds were the only thing I felt I could control in this situation.

I have to resign myself to being a good patient for one more week. It didn't occur to me before that we use the same word, "patient," for a person who is sick or hurt as well as controlling one's own anxiety and calmly waiting for things over which you have no control to happen at their own pace. I don't know if one word was derived from the other, or if it was a clever metaphor. Whatever the origins, it certainly fits.

I tell myself that things could have been worse. There are people who get into car accidents and end up confined to a hospital bed for several months of recuperation time. I can't go so far as to say I'm lucky - a lucky person would never have been injured, probably would never have been in an accident - but I can accept that I should be grateful it wasn't worse.

Pain Today, Better Tomorrow

I went out to the physical therapist today, and am going to take an extra pain pill very soon and disappear into the mist. Right now, I hurt quite a lot. The good news is that there's no permanent damage to the muscles that were sliced in the accident, and everything appears to be healing nicely.

The downside is that, to diagnose me, the therapist had me bend and twist and turn and pick things up and put them down. It was probably only half an hour, but it was a very uncomfortable and nervous half an hour. There were even a few moments where I could have sworn that I tore my wounds open again (but didn't).

I'd say more, but I can't. As much as I hated the drug-induced stupor of my hospital stay, I very much need some relief right now in the form of a four-hour twilight nap.