Hello everyone. It's sunday morning. I've still got the cold which sunk its teeth into me early in the week. However, I believe it's on the retreat as I've been feeling much more energetic and less stuffed these past couple of days.
It's been a fairly uneventful week as I've rested and fought off the cold. I had my last mobility lesson for the next while on wednesday. There's too much snow around and it's too cold to learn much more. I knew we would reach that point eventually. Harpal has been a terrific instructor. The latest update to my Trekker Breeze seems to be a particularly helpful one. It took a while to lock onto me but then proceeded to call out landmarks quite well. I've backed up all my landmarks onto my pc and will copy them over to my external hard drive. Winter travel is still definitely to be avoided, but it's nice to feel a little less likely to end up disoriented and lost out there thanks to the Breeze. If I have to, I can get to the Meadowvale Town Centre or the Dam even through the snow provided I take it very slow and careful and leave lots of time.
The year really seems to be winding down now. Most of my Christmas preparations have been made. I guesss the cold has forced me to slow down. It actually came at perhaps the most proficious time it could have. I had just gotten my latest grocery order and so was very well stocked. While it's always disconcerting sleeping through odd chunks of the day, it's a real comfort to me to be able to know where everything is and take care of myself. My internal clock seems to have been reset by my illness. As a result, I was up and cheerful at around seven for the last few days just as I like to be. What's more, I've been able to stay up and alert through the entire day. I've got nothing at all planned for this coming week, but feel once again like life is full of possibilities. Seeking mark and Wendy yesterday for an excellent dinner certainly helps. They decided to bring a very tasty chicken and rice dish to go with my potatoes. Wendy made a delicious apple crisp. After dinner, we watched an episode of Life After People on History Channel. It provided fodder for some thoughtful conversation. Those two are always ready to sink their minds into something or other. I look forward to seeing them on New Year's Eve.
My two main goals for this next week are to pull out Enchantment's Twilight and perhaps make some small progress somewhere with it. I haven't managed any of that in quite a while. Also, I've got to make another attempt to start conversation in my Silver Smiles group. It has been absolutely silent over the past while. Amazingly, nobody has left the group. There has to be some way of really getting it going. I'm not remotely ready to walk away from the idea for the group yet. Other than that, ditching the rest of this cold would be very nice indeed.
Over the past while, I've been getting to know a friendly lady via email. We're pretty far apart for anything serious to start up but both find some comfort in exchanging email about our lives. She may even be able to stop by and seem me when she's in the area. I thought I'd be merely more frustrated at yet another lady being interested in knowing me but too far away to do much more than email. However, this hasn't been the case. I find that I'm at least a little more hopeful that at some point in the future, a woman who's closer at hand and available may possibly take an interest. Meanwhile, this lady seems sincerely keen to develop an actual friendship. It's a nice new addition to these solitary days.
Showing posts with label illness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label illness. Show all posts
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Time Flies... Away When You're Not Looking! No Fair!
Hello everyone. I guess I've left you all hanging for a while. Life has been pretty placid this past few weeks. I'm pretty much over whatever I caught at Lake Jo. However, it has unfortunately left a legacy of sleep irregularity. It'll likely take a while for that to sort itself back out. I have to try to keep more occupied during the days and stack things so that there's interesting stuff to listen to when I most need it to keep awake. Thankfully, the BBC and CBC plus TV has provided well in that area.
A number of interesting things have happened which I fully meant to blog about but never got around to. My father had an enjoyable sixty-second birthday. We went out to a Firkin pub along with some neighbours. I had an excellent chicken currie and enjoyed it thoroughly along with the easy friendly banter indicative of the long and healthy friendship my parents and I have had with them over the years. Earlier that day, they had an openning event for a bunch of exercise equipment which was installed around Lake Aquitaine over this past Summer. For the very first time, I was able to get to and from a community event completely on my own terms and time. Despite still being under the weather, it felt fantastic to finally have acomplished that cherrished milestone. Doug and his kids were there for a brief while as well. It's always good to see church friends outside of church like that. I spent a good three hours out there walking around. I met a nice Chinese man and his wonderfully curious six-year-old daughter who spent quite a bit of time walking and chatting with me. It made for a very pleasant experience. I'm not certain how motivated I'll be when it comes to actually using the equipment but I'll give it the old colledge try now that I'm finally on the mend. A day earlier, I also attended my friend Nan's 40th birthday gathering. It was a very full and happy house indeed. That family has obviously had a tremendously positive impact in the church community. It felt good to be a part of that celebration.
Earlier last week, I went to se Dan, Ava and Amia when they came over to my parents' house to be out of the way as potential buyers examined their house. We went out on a stroll to two different parks with play equipment. I got to push Amia on the swing and hear her laugh with utter joy. She kept wanting me to push her higher. I don't think I've ever heard her sound quite so happy before. I was also able to lift both of them up to bars they wanted to hang from but couldn't get up to on their own. It was quite enjoyable for me to be the helpul uncle I hope always to be for them. They seem to be enjoying school so far.
Last saturday was nice and busy. I had my groceries come in and everything's all stowed away where it ought to be. I also went out with Shane to Playdium. I've been curious about the place for years now and it was good to finally get to find out what it was like. It's not all that blind friendly. The noise level is tremendous and it's hard to pick out individual attractions or even hear who you're with in there. I got to try the hurricane simulator which was lesss spectacular than I expected but still a neat sensation. They also had a rollercoaster simulation. They did loops wonderfully but somewhat failed when it came to rendering the sensation for forward motion or vertical movement. We ended the evening with a nice dinner at Scores restaurant. It's good to have a friend who's willing to go to things like that with me so I can experience these places and not spend life wondering about them with no way to get there. Whether or not such trips are as fully successful as I might hope, it's just great to have someone around my age to try this stuff out with once in a while. Shane's much more a man of action than conversation and contemplation so I'm going to try and keep an ear out for events which would suit that disposition.
This certainly hasn't been how I hoped my first summer here would end. I've spent most of the past three weeks in here sleeping through large odd chunks of days. I thought I'd be walking around the lake, meeting people, and perhaps going down to Symposium Cafe now and then. Strangely though, I feel somewhat better able to cope with the countless solitary days I know are ahead. I foresee a long slow Winter in store for me this year. Perhaps, in time, I'll form the social framework or find something to volunteer at so that time doesn't drag as much. The past three weeks certainly didn't drag since I slept through an unusually large amount of them. Also, being as prone to nodding off as I found myself to be, I was glad not to have too many obligations. I had a bit of a break from that normal state of feeling like an engine with tremendous unused potential due to a lack of both fuels in the form of life experience and of there being any need for my optimum output. I can't count the number of days I've spent like that over the years wishing for *someone* my age to be with or *something* almost *anything* short of criminal activity, to be involved in. It was good to simply be able to enjoy the time in which I was conscious. I can't remember any of my dreams over the past while so I have no idea how much I enjoyed my time sleeping. Once my sleep pattern is back to something approaching normal, I expect some of that restlessness to return. However, I've learned a bit more how to better marshall the resources I have at hand. I let a lot of stuff slide while I was fighting off this illness. Normal things like, err, cleaning the apartment. That has been put to rights over the past few days. Feels damned good to have things shipshape again. Also, other less tangible things have been neglected. A prime example is the CBC Radio1 show called Tapestries. I've apparently missed three episodes since the new season started. Thank goodness for the podcasts. They're looking at some interesting stuff I've been thinking about lately. Little things like hope, loneliness, and death. There's also last week's DNTO episode to listen to. I've done a little better with Spark. That crew is certainly batting a thousand so far this season. As with DNTO, however, I have last week's episode waiting for my attentive ears. The BBC was commemorating the battle of Brittain over the past while. That has been utterly fascinating, heart-rending and awe-inspiring to listen to. I can't imagine trying to carry on with life while bombs were obliterating neighbourhoods. Mike Walker was up to his usual excellence producing a fabulously poignant audio drama about the conception and building of the Spitfire interwoven with the experiences of two trainees and all the surrounding men and women who took part in the effort. It really makes you think about how lucky we Canadians are never to have faced a modern attack on our country.
I'm a member of an email list called ODSP Fireside. It's for people who, like me, are living on the Ontario Disability Support Program. Unfortunately, I can only stand that list in small amounts. It's just so negative most of the time. While I whole-heartedly agree that the ODSP needs some major changes, I don't believe in dismissing the good intentions of the people who created the system and those who work within it on our behalf. At least they don't presume, like most people seem to, that the CNIB does absolutely everything for us thereby excusing everyone else from having to make any effort in order to allow us to participate in life meaningfully. I certainly resent how you can keep up to $6000 extra per year if it's given to you as a gift but would lose half of thatif you got a job and earned it. I also think it's criminal how those kind souls who take a chance and marry one of us has to risk their disabled spouce having to sue them for income before being let back onto the system should things go bad. There's also no way of finding love within the community of those on ODSP. We all seem to be pretty isolated from each other. There's a lot of talk on the list about how you get less money as a couple on ODSP than if you remained two single people. However, what seems to be overlooked there is that you would be paying less rent if you shared a place. There was a big argument on the list about whether one's choices in life put us in the place where we find ourselves or whether there are other causes. In my view, life just isn't that simple. It's a combination of both. Sadly, due as much to peoples' attitudes as to our disabilities, our life choices don't always carry the same weight as do most people's. It can be all too easy for people who haven't faced life with a disability to dismiss us as lazy or worse. I suppose I shouldn't have been as shocked to find that tendency as prevalent within our community as it seems to be. Only days before this whole discussion came up, I was joking with a younger blind friend looking unssuccessfully for work that perhaps some criminal experience would look good on his resume. I had found my own attempt to find employment so utterly discouraging that I was honestly only half joking. The next thing I knew I was reading the distressed messages from people on ODSP who had actually been convicted for crimes and now found that they couldn't find honest work since nobody would trust them. Ten years ago, I believe I would have felt nothing but a mild exultation that crime indeed didn't ultimately pay off, that there was in fact a kind of universal justice. Of course, back then, my first marriage still had some fight left in it. I hadn't had a near second chance at marriage evaporate during less than an hour after a great two-year relationship. I also hadn't encountered Sandy. He certainly didn't choose to be where he is in life now. Despite having worked for a well respected company for something over twenty years, he finds himself in even worse circumstances than I'm in. They would have been more identical to mine but for a few well-intentionned choices made while he was working. Rather than exulted, I'm left more haunted than anything else by my words made in jest. What happense when loyalty, patience, honesty, and optimism count for nothing but shallow encounters and best wishes? I can't count the times that women I've spoken to have been surprised to learn that I was unattached. They, of course, were already spoken for. Similarly, I meet all kinds of people who are just floored that a positive smart young fellow like me can't find a job. None of them, however, have been in a position to actually hire me and do something about that situation. When it comes to the point of real life-changing commitment, the buck certainly seems to stop in a heeping hurry.
For all that though, my life does have its bright side. My choices have certainly made a positive difference even if they haven't lead to happy married life. They've earned me the respect of my family and made me some great friends. Earlier in September, I found myself wide awake at around quarter to four AM. I knew to the core of my bones that there was just no way I was getting back to sleep for a number of hours so I got up and dressed. Making myself some Chai tea, I went out with it onto my balcony and sat at the table. It was very peaceful at that hour. Due to the blockage of my ears, things were even more distant and muffled than they otherwise would have been. It was as if I were three or four times higher off the ground than I actually was. Along with a cup of splendid Chai made all the better by my recently unplugged nose, the effect was utterly sublime. Other times, it's a piece of music randomly picked by Winamp that'll sweep me up and away. Pieces like Kevin Kern's Touched By Love, Era's I Believe, Watchman's Ease from the score to the game Oblivion or James Newton Howard's The Healing, which can be found in the score to the film Lady In The Water. There are so many unappreciated things like that out there which I've thankfully had the time to find over the years. Had life taken a less slow and solitary turn, I may never have come across these things I try to include in my blog entries. Recently, I was able to enjoy Raymond Feist's Rift War Sauga for the second time and to complete my collection of all the books in that sauga. I'm also going through the Dream Park Trillogy by Lary Niven and Stephen Barnes. again. There's so much to be found in those books. Apparently, a new book whose story takes place in the Dream Park universe is going to come out soon called The Moon Maze Game. God knows how I'll get an accessible copy of that one but I'll absolutely try. While I greatly enjoy books, it's a more distant and thoughtful enjoyment. I may lose track of time but you never foreget that you're reading even if, as in my case, you're being read to. Music and audio are what can more utterly transport me. They're what often pass for the equivalent of colour in my life. Every now and again, they let me forget that I've spent days alone. Audio dramas and described movies are wonderful for that also especially the first time you hear them. You can get swept up in the ficticious lives coming from the speakers and be carried along by soundcraft for a few hours. I sometimes even revel in the fact that there's nobody around to be disturbed. Thankfully, that only goes so far. You can't help but realise that the conversations don't include you, your asss gets uncomfortable, you need a drink. Talking online to people is somewhat the same. It can definitely be meaningful and can take the sharp edge off the long hours. However, there's the realisation that you'll never go out for coffee with them, shake their hands, have them over for an afternoon. It just isn't the same. Not for me at any rate. Given a choice, you'd find me in a coffee house or some other place where people actually go to talk to each other rather than empty bottles of alcohol.
Eventually, the artifice hits home to the sound mind and you're brought back to more humble reality. You get on with the dishes that need washing, the food that needs cooking, the project you're working on, the sleep I really ought to be getting this damned far past midnight. Good lord! Thank god my mobility lesson isn't until this afternoon. I trust you've found this latest look at life on Blink Row to be illuminating. If I'm at all correct about a universal justice, given the twelve hours of sleep I got last night and the good sleep I hope to get now, I'm on the way to a more normal routine again. Have a good day, everyone. I'll try not to disturb you with my snores for the next part of it.
A number of interesting things have happened which I fully meant to blog about but never got around to. My father had an enjoyable sixty-second birthday. We went out to a Firkin pub along with some neighbours. I had an excellent chicken currie and enjoyed it thoroughly along with the easy friendly banter indicative of the long and healthy friendship my parents and I have had with them over the years. Earlier that day, they had an openning event for a bunch of exercise equipment which was installed around Lake Aquitaine over this past Summer. For the very first time, I was able to get to and from a community event completely on my own terms and time. Despite still being under the weather, it felt fantastic to finally have acomplished that cherrished milestone. Doug and his kids were there for a brief while as well. It's always good to see church friends outside of church like that. I spent a good three hours out there walking around. I met a nice Chinese man and his wonderfully curious six-year-old daughter who spent quite a bit of time walking and chatting with me. It made for a very pleasant experience. I'm not certain how motivated I'll be when it comes to actually using the equipment but I'll give it the old colledge try now that I'm finally on the mend. A day earlier, I also attended my friend Nan's 40th birthday gathering. It was a very full and happy house indeed. That family has obviously had a tremendously positive impact in the church community. It felt good to be a part of that celebration.
Earlier last week, I went to se Dan, Ava and Amia when they came over to my parents' house to be out of the way as potential buyers examined their house. We went out on a stroll to two different parks with play equipment. I got to push Amia on the swing and hear her laugh with utter joy. She kept wanting me to push her higher. I don't think I've ever heard her sound quite so happy before. I was also able to lift both of them up to bars they wanted to hang from but couldn't get up to on their own. It was quite enjoyable for me to be the helpul uncle I hope always to be for them. They seem to be enjoying school so far.
Last saturday was nice and busy. I had my groceries come in and everything's all stowed away where it ought to be. I also went out with Shane to Playdium. I've been curious about the place for years now and it was good to finally get to find out what it was like. It's not all that blind friendly. The noise level is tremendous and it's hard to pick out individual attractions or even hear who you're with in there. I got to try the hurricane simulator which was lesss spectacular than I expected but still a neat sensation. They also had a rollercoaster simulation. They did loops wonderfully but somewhat failed when it came to rendering the sensation for forward motion or vertical movement. We ended the evening with a nice dinner at Scores restaurant. It's good to have a friend who's willing to go to things like that with me so I can experience these places and not spend life wondering about them with no way to get there. Whether or not such trips are as fully successful as I might hope, it's just great to have someone around my age to try this stuff out with once in a while. Shane's much more a man of action than conversation and contemplation so I'm going to try and keep an ear out for events which would suit that disposition.
This certainly hasn't been how I hoped my first summer here would end. I've spent most of the past three weeks in here sleeping through large odd chunks of days. I thought I'd be walking around the lake, meeting people, and perhaps going down to Symposium Cafe now and then. Strangely though, I feel somewhat better able to cope with the countless solitary days I know are ahead. I foresee a long slow Winter in store for me this year. Perhaps, in time, I'll form the social framework or find something to volunteer at so that time doesn't drag as much. The past three weeks certainly didn't drag since I slept through an unusually large amount of them. Also, being as prone to nodding off as I found myself to be, I was glad not to have too many obligations. I had a bit of a break from that normal state of feeling like an engine with tremendous unused potential due to a lack of both fuels in the form of life experience and of there being any need for my optimum output. I can't count the number of days I've spent like that over the years wishing for *someone* my age to be with or *something* almost *anything* short of criminal activity, to be involved in. It was good to simply be able to enjoy the time in which I was conscious. I can't remember any of my dreams over the past while so I have no idea how much I enjoyed my time sleeping. Once my sleep pattern is back to something approaching normal, I expect some of that restlessness to return. However, I've learned a bit more how to better marshall the resources I have at hand. I let a lot of stuff slide while I was fighting off this illness. Normal things like, err, cleaning the apartment. That has been put to rights over the past few days. Feels damned good to have things shipshape again. Also, other less tangible things have been neglected. A prime example is the CBC Radio1 show called Tapestries. I've apparently missed three episodes since the new season started. Thank goodness for the podcasts. They're looking at some interesting stuff I've been thinking about lately. Little things like hope, loneliness, and death. There's also last week's DNTO episode to listen to. I've done a little better with Spark. That crew is certainly batting a thousand so far this season. As with DNTO, however, I have last week's episode waiting for my attentive ears. The BBC was commemorating the battle of Brittain over the past while. That has been utterly fascinating, heart-rending and awe-inspiring to listen to. I can't imagine trying to carry on with life while bombs were obliterating neighbourhoods. Mike Walker was up to his usual excellence producing a fabulously poignant audio drama about the conception and building of the Spitfire interwoven with the experiences of two trainees and all the surrounding men and women who took part in the effort. It really makes you think about how lucky we Canadians are never to have faced a modern attack on our country.
I'm a member of an email list called ODSP Fireside. It's for people who, like me, are living on the Ontario Disability Support Program. Unfortunately, I can only stand that list in small amounts. It's just so negative most of the time. While I whole-heartedly agree that the ODSP needs some major changes, I don't believe in dismissing the good intentions of the people who created the system and those who work within it on our behalf. At least they don't presume, like most people seem to, that the CNIB does absolutely everything for us thereby excusing everyone else from having to make any effort in order to allow us to participate in life meaningfully. I certainly resent how you can keep up to $6000 extra per year if it's given to you as a gift but would lose half of thatif you got a job and earned it. I also think it's criminal how those kind souls who take a chance and marry one of us has to risk their disabled spouce having to sue them for income before being let back onto the system should things go bad. There's also no way of finding love within the community of those on ODSP. We all seem to be pretty isolated from each other. There's a lot of talk on the list about how you get less money as a couple on ODSP than if you remained two single people. However, what seems to be overlooked there is that you would be paying less rent if you shared a place. There was a big argument on the list about whether one's choices in life put us in the place where we find ourselves or whether there are other causes. In my view, life just isn't that simple. It's a combination of both. Sadly, due as much to peoples' attitudes as to our disabilities, our life choices don't always carry the same weight as do most people's. It can be all too easy for people who haven't faced life with a disability to dismiss us as lazy or worse. I suppose I shouldn't have been as shocked to find that tendency as prevalent within our community as it seems to be. Only days before this whole discussion came up, I was joking with a younger blind friend looking unssuccessfully for work that perhaps some criminal experience would look good on his resume. I had found my own attempt to find employment so utterly discouraging that I was honestly only half joking. The next thing I knew I was reading the distressed messages from people on ODSP who had actually been convicted for crimes and now found that they couldn't find honest work since nobody would trust them. Ten years ago, I believe I would have felt nothing but a mild exultation that crime indeed didn't ultimately pay off, that there was in fact a kind of universal justice. Of course, back then, my first marriage still had some fight left in it. I hadn't had a near second chance at marriage evaporate during less than an hour after a great two-year relationship. I also hadn't encountered Sandy. He certainly didn't choose to be where he is in life now. Despite having worked for a well respected company for something over twenty years, he finds himself in even worse circumstances than I'm in. They would have been more identical to mine but for a few well-intentionned choices made while he was working. Rather than exulted, I'm left more haunted than anything else by my words made in jest. What happense when loyalty, patience, honesty, and optimism count for nothing but shallow encounters and best wishes? I can't count the times that women I've spoken to have been surprised to learn that I was unattached. They, of course, were already spoken for. Similarly, I meet all kinds of people who are just floored that a positive smart young fellow like me can't find a job. None of them, however, have been in a position to actually hire me and do something about that situation. When it comes to the point of real life-changing commitment, the buck certainly seems to stop in a heeping hurry.
For all that though, my life does have its bright side. My choices have certainly made a positive difference even if they haven't lead to happy married life. They've earned me the respect of my family and made me some great friends. Earlier in September, I found myself wide awake at around quarter to four AM. I knew to the core of my bones that there was just no way I was getting back to sleep for a number of hours so I got up and dressed. Making myself some Chai tea, I went out with it onto my balcony and sat at the table. It was very peaceful at that hour. Due to the blockage of my ears, things were even more distant and muffled than they otherwise would have been. It was as if I were three or four times higher off the ground than I actually was. Along with a cup of splendid Chai made all the better by my recently unplugged nose, the effect was utterly sublime. Other times, it's a piece of music randomly picked by Winamp that'll sweep me up and away. Pieces like Kevin Kern's Touched By Love, Era's I Believe, Watchman's Ease from the score to the game Oblivion or James Newton Howard's The Healing, which can be found in the score to the film Lady In The Water. There are so many unappreciated things like that out there which I've thankfully had the time to find over the years. Had life taken a less slow and solitary turn, I may never have come across these things I try to include in my blog entries. Recently, I was able to enjoy Raymond Feist's Rift War Sauga for the second time and to complete my collection of all the books in that sauga. I'm also going through the Dream Park Trillogy by Lary Niven and Stephen Barnes. again. There's so much to be found in those books. Apparently, a new book whose story takes place in the Dream Park universe is going to come out soon called The Moon Maze Game. God knows how I'll get an accessible copy of that one but I'll absolutely try. While I greatly enjoy books, it's a more distant and thoughtful enjoyment. I may lose track of time but you never foreget that you're reading even if, as in my case, you're being read to. Music and audio are what can more utterly transport me. They're what often pass for the equivalent of colour in my life. Every now and again, they let me forget that I've spent days alone. Audio dramas and described movies are wonderful for that also especially the first time you hear them. You can get swept up in the ficticious lives coming from the speakers and be carried along by soundcraft for a few hours. I sometimes even revel in the fact that there's nobody around to be disturbed. Thankfully, that only goes so far. You can't help but realise that the conversations don't include you, your asss gets uncomfortable, you need a drink. Talking online to people is somewhat the same. It can definitely be meaningful and can take the sharp edge off the long hours. However, there's the realisation that you'll never go out for coffee with them, shake their hands, have them over for an afternoon. It just isn't the same. Not for me at any rate. Given a choice, you'd find me in a coffee house or some other place where people actually go to talk to each other rather than empty bottles of alcohol.
Eventually, the artifice hits home to the sound mind and you're brought back to more humble reality. You get on with the dishes that need washing, the food that needs cooking, the project you're working on, the sleep I really ought to be getting this damned far past midnight. Good lord! Thank god my mobility lesson isn't until this afternoon. I trust you've found this latest look at life on Blink Row to be illuminating. If I'm at all correct about a universal justice, given the twelve hours of sleep I got last night and the good sleep I hope to get now, I'm on the way to a more normal routine again. Have a good day, everyone. I'll try not to disturb you with my snores for the next part of it.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Viral Vexations and Ruminations
Hello everyone. It's a somewhat dreary friday afternoon. I'm not quite better yet but am now clearly heading that way. I haven't coughed nearly as often today as I have over the past while. It doubtless helps that I haven't actually said more than perhaps two thousant words this week even counting commands to my voice-controlled talking alarm clock. My nose is unblocked and not running all the time. My head is still not back to normal but there's less pressure inside. My hearing isn't back to normal yet but things are sounding less muffled and distant. I wouldn't want to venture out onto the sidewalk or cross a street, but indoor navigation is alright again. For the first time this week, I believe I'll be able to stay up all day today. There's still a kind of lethargy hanging over me. I'm glad I can just stay here and relax.
I started the morning listening to the last summer edition of the Current on CBC Radio1. Apparently, Marc Garno is going to be commanding the international space station in late 2012. That'll certainly be a nifty six months to follow. He sounds so deserving of that responsibility and eager for it as well. Of course, the world might end pretty early on in his tour of duty if there's anything to that Mayan calendar. Wouldn't that royally suck? Personally, I think 2012 is going to come and go like any other year. However, if enough misguided souls take all the 2012 crap to heart, I should probably check into Ebay during that span of otherwise doubtless dull days two years hence.
TV turned up aces this morning. I caught two episodes of Urban Legens on History Channel followed by an episode of Mythbusters on Discovery. Not too shabby at all. A couple of nights ago, I actually managed to stay up and caught a new show on History Channel called Weird or What. William Shatner is the host and it's actually something I believe I'll try and catch regularly. It's been quite a while since TV has come up with anything to make me try to do that. Perhaps, this bodes well for this Fall tv lineup. I just wish I could find someone out there who was close enough to visit and liked the same sorts of shows. Preferably, of course, a female around my age who wasn't otherwise hitched. I really miss having a girlfriend. There's just no getting rid of that sense of incompleteness to life as a single guy.
Even with no background music or anything, I barely heard that knock at my door. The upper hand and forearm technique taught to me in grade school served me well on my rush to answer. Could have easily bashed my nose or given my cranium a good thump. Even indoors, it looks like more sonic recalibration is in order as whatever this virus is startes to withdraw from me. It seems the postman couldn't find my entry in the outer lobby buzz directory so he simply came up. It's good to know that's at least a possibility for them to come up to the actual door in such a circumstance. My new custom-built cane from Ambutech has arrived. Wasn't quite certain which of two length choices would be right but I'm very happy with the 135-cm length that I went with. I'm also happy to have chosen five sections rather than four as this new cane fits my holster far more neatly than what I've been using. The grip and joints are identical to the older Ambutech cane I got as a spare and have been thankful for this week despite it sticking out of said holster. It'll take a bit to become fully acustomed to the roller tip I thought might work well. However, it should handle touch-and-drag situations far better than my older cane did. There's certainly something to be said for ordering one's own cane to specifications. If it lasts as long as my previous grafite cane has, I'll absolutely get my $62 worth. Presuming the cane renewal kit lets me fix the cord in my old cane, I won't have to think about buying any for God knows how many years.
It's so damned good to be able to sit at this desk again and not start to nod off within a few minutes of starting to do something. I begin to feel hopeful that I'll actually enjoy this last long weekend of summer whether there's rain or not. If I'm supremely lucky, tonight's rest will complete the getting better process and I'll enjoy a supercharged saturday. That's probably too much to seriously hope for, but I'm confident that I'll feel better than I do today. With the prospect of enjoying my first big dinner in a while this evening, that'll definitely do for the present. I'm cooking up a couple of beef grilling medallions, some potatoes in the oven, and some zucchini with garlic and olive oil on the grill. For the past few days, I simply haven't had the energy or apetite to eat all that much. Gone through a number of soup cans over the last while. Fortunately, Grocery Gateway has sent a ten-dollar-off coupon which I can use to restock items next week. Being sick certainly alters one's eating patterns.
That pretty much brings us up to date. A couple of BBC Radio offerings worth mentionning were a show about a school in England built to try to bring the Asian and white communities closer together. That was an interesting show. Another was about the scientists who advised or consulted with film or TV and how the worlds of science and art interacted. That was easily the listening highlight of the week. As usual, I'm pretty much garanteed to be the only guy who heard it within half a fucking continent. Is there nobody out there? Has my quest to find my in-crowd or at least one special lady on the same wavelength as me been utterly hopeless from the start? Intellectually, I seriously begin to wonder. Emotionally, I know that I simply can't aford to give up hope. If I do, I pretty much garantee a negative outcome. It's that simple.
This past week has set things in quite a solitary light. Doubtless, next week will see me out there more presuming I'm truly putting this bug behind me. I'm quite optimistic that all this rest and sleep plus pills has turned the trick. It's around a quarter past five. Presuming those medallions are thawed as I expect, it's time to start working on some taters and zucchini.
I started the morning listening to the last summer edition of the Current on CBC Radio1. Apparently, Marc Garno is going to be commanding the international space station in late 2012. That'll certainly be a nifty six months to follow. He sounds so deserving of that responsibility and eager for it as well. Of course, the world might end pretty early on in his tour of duty if there's anything to that Mayan calendar. Wouldn't that royally suck? Personally, I think 2012 is going to come and go like any other year. However, if enough misguided souls take all the 2012 crap to heart, I should probably check into Ebay during that span of otherwise doubtless dull days two years hence.
TV turned up aces this morning. I caught two episodes of Urban Legens on History Channel followed by an episode of Mythbusters on Discovery. Not too shabby at all. A couple of nights ago, I actually managed to stay up and caught a new show on History Channel called Weird or What. William Shatner is the host and it's actually something I believe I'll try and catch regularly. It's been quite a while since TV has come up with anything to make me try to do that. Perhaps, this bodes well for this Fall tv lineup. I just wish I could find someone out there who was close enough to visit and liked the same sorts of shows. Preferably, of course, a female around my age who wasn't otherwise hitched. I really miss having a girlfriend. There's just no getting rid of that sense of incompleteness to life as a single guy.
Even with no background music or anything, I barely heard that knock at my door. The upper hand and forearm technique taught to me in grade school served me well on my rush to answer. Could have easily bashed my nose or given my cranium a good thump. Even indoors, it looks like more sonic recalibration is in order as whatever this virus is startes to withdraw from me. It seems the postman couldn't find my entry in the outer lobby buzz directory so he simply came up. It's good to know that's at least a possibility for them to come up to the actual door in such a circumstance. My new custom-built cane from Ambutech has arrived. Wasn't quite certain which of two length choices would be right but I'm very happy with the 135-cm length that I went with. I'm also happy to have chosen five sections rather than four as this new cane fits my holster far more neatly than what I've been using. The grip and joints are identical to the older Ambutech cane I got as a spare and have been thankful for this week despite it sticking out of said holster. It'll take a bit to become fully acustomed to the roller tip I thought might work well. However, it should handle touch-and-drag situations far better than my older cane did. There's certainly something to be said for ordering one's own cane to specifications. If it lasts as long as my previous grafite cane has, I'll absolutely get my $62 worth. Presuming the cane renewal kit lets me fix the cord in my old cane, I won't have to think about buying any for God knows how many years.
It's so damned good to be able to sit at this desk again and not start to nod off within a few minutes of starting to do something. I begin to feel hopeful that I'll actually enjoy this last long weekend of summer whether there's rain or not. If I'm supremely lucky, tonight's rest will complete the getting better process and I'll enjoy a supercharged saturday. That's probably too much to seriously hope for, but I'm confident that I'll feel better than I do today. With the prospect of enjoying my first big dinner in a while this evening, that'll definitely do for the present. I'm cooking up a couple of beef grilling medallions, some potatoes in the oven, and some zucchini with garlic and olive oil on the grill. For the past few days, I simply haven't had the energy or apetite to eat all that much. Gone through a number of soup cans over the last while. Fortunately, Grocery Gateway has sent a ten-dollar-off coupon which I can use to restock items next week. Being sick certainly alters one's eating patterns.
That pretty much brings us up to date. A couple of BBC Radio offerings worth mentionning were a show about a school in England built to try to bring the Asian and white communities closer together. That was an interesting show. Another was about the scientists who advised or consulted with film or TV and how the worlds of science and art interacted. That was easily the listening highlight of the week. As usual, I'm pretty much garanteed to be the only guy who heard it within half a fucking continent. Is there nobody out there? Has my quest to find my in-crowd or at least one special lady on the same wavelength as me been utterly hopeless from the start? Intellectually, I seriously begin to wonder. Emotionally, I know that I simply can't aford to give up hope. If I do, I pretty much garantee a negative outcome. It's that simple.
This past week has set things in quite a solitary light. Doubtless, next week will see me out there more presuming I'm truly putting this bug behind me. I'm quite optimistic that all this rest and sleep plus pills has turned the trick. It's around a quarter past five. Presuming those medallions are thawed as I expect, it's time to start working on some taters and zucchini.
Monday, March 9, 2009
illness and idleness
Hello everyone. The past month or so has been fairly uneventful other than a nasty cold or flu. It started out as a mildly annoying cough which I didn't take very seriously. However, it has since turned into quite a monster. Sadly, I gave it to Janene and pretty much wrecked her week's vacation. She seems to be getting over it now but it certainly took a while. For me, it stayed mild for longer and gradually transformed from a cough into a more orchestrated campaign to make me miserable. I've generally found myself fairly lethargic and unable to get very much done. My nose has been quite plugged over the past week and a bit to the point where I couldn't even taste what I was eating. My head has felt absolutely stuffed at times and my hearing has also been effected. Everything sounds more distant and fuzzy. The cough has also returned so that now I have the plugged nose and cough in tandom. You'd think whatever this bug is would have gotten bored with me and moved on by now. Mom has also gotten a cold. Thankfully, she still had a good vacation. Dad also thinks he has the flu and stayed home today. I guess it could be the varient the flu shot didn't protect against.
Not being able to muster a lot of creative energy, I've been doing a whole lot of listening lately. All sorts of shows, documentaries, podcasts and speaker reviews. I'm looking at purchasing a good set of 2.0 or 2.1 speakers if the sub-woofer is small enough. The only 2.1 system I'm considering at the moment is the Bose Companion 3. Dad took me out to Futureshop last Friday and I was at last able to feel the speakers I had been reading about. The Logitech Z2300 has a very large sub-woofer. That was disappointing as it had come out very well in the reviews. Currently, I'm thinking of either going with that or with the Creative Gigaworks T40. The TV highlight of the past while is definitely History Television's Urban Legends show. Having to figure out which of the stories is true has proved to be very entertaining indeed. Another show on Spike called 1000 Ways to Die appeals to my darker side and to the part of me which values the bizarre events of the world. Voiceprint has gotten some of my time as has the CBC and BBC.
Janene came over yesterday and we went to a place called Score's which my father originally told me about and took me to last Friday. The service and food were just as good the second time. I could only taste my food some of the time but it was certainly good. It'll be nice to go back when I'm fully healthy and can more thoroughly enjoy it. They do excellent chicken and the service was fabulous.
Not being able to muster a lot of creative energy, I've been doing a whole lot of listening lately. All sorts of shows, documentaries, podcasts and speaker reviews. I'm looking at purchasing a good set of 2.0 or 2.1 speakers if the sub-woofer is small enough. The only 2.1 system I'm considering at the moment is the Bose Companion 3. Dad took me out to Futureshop last Friday and I was at last able to feel the speakers I had been reading about. The Logitech Z2300 has a very large sub-woofer. That was disappointing as it had come out very well in the reviews. Currently, I'm thinking of either going with that or with the Creative Gigaworks T40. The TV highlight of the past while is definitely History Television's Urban Legends show. Having to figure out which of the stories is true has proved to be very entertaining indeed. Another show on Spike called 1000 Ways to Die appeals to my darker side and to the part of me which values the bizarre events of the world. Voiceprint has gotten some of my time as has the CBC and BBC.
Janene came over yesterday and we went to a place called Score's which my father originally told me about and took me to last Friday. The service and food were just as good the second time. I could only taste my food some of the time but it was certainly good. It'll be nice to go back when I'm fully healthy and can more thoroughly enjoy it. They do excellent chicken and the service was fabulous.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
bumps in the road
Hello everyone. This is the first writing I've done in days not counting the odd email. I'm just recovering from an illness which struck just after my birthday. Before my birthday, I went to a presentation where a group of forty interested blind people and some mobility instructors had an opportunity to try out four of the GPS devices made for blind people. The woman who I've been teaching learned about it and thought I would find it interesting to go. Yet another reason to be glad I took the time to write the guide. The day wasn't exactly made to order for such a presentation which necessitated outdoor travel. The wind made it hard to hear what was broadcast to the fm transmitter we each carried. Wearing an earpiece in order to hear what we could also effectively robbed us of half our hearing so I was glad someone sighted was there to act as sighted guide. Trying to keep up with a group navigating with one ear only in an unfamiliar environment just isn't very smart. Still, despite all this, I was able to get a good first impression of the kind of information each of the alternative devices would present one with while in use. Ironically, the only one of the devices which truly impressed me was the Trekker Breeze, the cheepest option available unless you already needed or owned a cell phone and special screen reader for it. That was the real problem with most of the other options. They were either too bulky, costly, or required you to get a ton of extras when all you truly wanted was something to help you get around. I don't yet see much use in my getting a cell phone. Even if that changes, the only thing I want it to be able to do is act as a damned portable phone. The only time I want to pay for it is on the exceedingly rare occasion that I choose to use it. If you go the cell phone route with this talking GPS stuff, you then also need to pay for internet connectivity. The Trekker Breeze can't do everything that more expensive solutions can. You can't browse different cities with it or anything like that. It's for right around wherever you happen to be. As you travel through an area, it can help you explore it by telling you points of interest within a given range. You can also save points of interest as possible destinations and record your own landmarks. Updates to its maps and software are free for the life of the product. You pay for the unit and that's that. No further costs other than additional maps if you need these are forthcoming. I've arranged to have a more extended chance to examine the Breeze in a couple of weeks. This is one kind of product where you truly need hands-on experience to figure out whether it's worth the cost. I want to try out most of its features first-hand on the route I've been learning and in my neighborhood. Even with some financial help, it's still quite a major expense for me. Taking the long-term view, I believe it would be worth it as it would make me more able to walk around independantly in whatever new area Janene and I end up in after we marry. The directions I heard it give as we went around the block of the hotel where the workshop took place were quite good and precisely what I would need to know. However, I don't know how much was a pre-recorded route, recorded landmarks, or coming from its initial map and database of the area. Getting to try it out in my own area will help me be a far better judge of whether now is the time to jump on the GPS band-wagon as I suspect it might be. I came into the workshop somewhat doubtful that I'd find anything which would be of immediate interest. Less wind and warmer conditions would have made the whole experience somewhat more attractive. However, I've certainly left with a new respect for what a liberating change this technology can be for blind people.
My birthday was quite a good one this year. I relaxed during most of it and finally got around to hearing a nifty horror podcast called Psudopod which I had wanted to check out for quite some time. I also listened to some of the terrific Sherlock Holmes stories that I was able to purchase thanks to birthday money from my parents. It's definitely a posession I'll want to hang on to for life. The BBC has done wonders bringing the whole collection of stories and novels to audio life. Later, I went out to the Keg with Janene and my parents for an excellent meal. Nothing beets a Keg steak. All of us enjoyed ourselves. We went back home afterwards for cake and watched some TV. Unfortunately for me, my birthday happened to coinside with the final game of the World Series. Baseball just isn't something I have any interest in at all. I believe we saw the last four innings of the game. Conversation was pretty much brought to a stand-still as everyone else watched the game. Time just seemed to drag like dead weight. A floor up, I had plenty of interesting audio to listen to, games to play and/or TV to watch assuming that something more interesting was actually on air at the time. However, I knew Janene was interested in seeing the game ending and I felt somewhat socially obligated to stay there with her and my parents. It was an unfortunate sour note ending off an otherwise excellent thirty-fourth birthday. The kind of thing I take pains to avoid. In normal circumstances, I realise that there will be occasions where I'm with a group of people who will take an interest in things that I won't share. In those circumstances, I tend to take the longer view and willingly go along with or sit through whatever everyone's up to which doesn't appeal to me. It's just part of the give and take of being social and outgoing even when you're not dealing with a sighted person's world. Not taking an interest in sports puts me even more in line for this sort of drag time. There are countless blind baseball and hockey fans. I understand, while attending a party, that it doesn't revolve around me. There's bound to be some down time. However, on my birthday, I don't think I ask too much not to be put in such a situation of boredom. Everything necessary was there already. I hinted a couple of times that we should go off and do something else. However, all I could think of at the time were the audio dramas I had at hand. Janene tipically doesn't want to listen to those particularly at the end of a long day. Eye candy always wins in such circumstances where fatigue is involved. That is, I think it fair to say, true of sighted people as a general rule. I was sitting down there bored out of my tree with literally two days worth of fresh new never-heard-before adventures just waiting for me. None of which, however, would have appealed to Janene just then. I would have loved to share my gift with her but she was in no frame of mind to appreciate it. Had I suggested we go up and watch a movie or, more appropriately given the hour, a shorter show of some kind before she headed back home, I would likely have had better luck. Because I watch so little TV, however, I had no alternative suggestions to offer. I don't tend to look over the TV Guide anymore and would doubtless have to search out an accessible site again unless Zap2it.com hasn't changed for the worse since I last used it.
Later, I tried to explain this to Janene. I wanted to avoid that relationship deathtrap of withholding discontentment until well past when expression of it is at all rellevent. I saw it as a pretty simple small fix to avoid similar things happening on future birthdays. She saw it as an indictment of her and thought I was also tired of being bored when we spent Sunday nights watching TV with my parents. That experience, although sometimes boring in part for me, is what I regard as part of family routine. It gives my parents some time with Janene and I as a couple. Also, we normally end it with a show that Janene and I are interested in. Mythbusters is a nice and engaging way to see a weekend out. Something I can get my mind into. It's a lot more balanced and doesn't leave me as completely in my own world of boredom as that World Sieries baseball did. Also, they're just ordinary days for me. It took around three tries for me to be certain she properly understood this and wouldn't go off feeling overly guilty or thinking that everything had to change. I was pretty tired by that point and very well may have been already coming down with the illness which I'm still recovering from.
The next morning began with a slightly sore throat and a stuffed head. I was feeling more tired than usual and figured I'd better warn Janene. What I had hoped would be a 24-hour thing proved far worse than I expected. Basically, I lost most of thursday and Friday completely. Janene and I were going to go down town and watch the Rick Mercer show live. It would have made a great evening out. We also had planned a lunch with a couple of friends for the next day. Thankfully, I was actually up to having lunch but it ended up being with Janene only. That was probably for the best as I don't think I was anywhere close to being at my best. I seriously couldn't have navigated sonically to save my life. Everything sounded puffy and misplaced around me. I'm finding that Dayquil and Niquil are helping out quite a lot. They don't completely eliminate the symptoms but definitely reduce them to more manageable proportions. Hopefully, I'll be rid of whatever this bug is by the end of the week. I'm finding I have more energy now which is a good sign I think.
On Sunday, I got to meet Adam's new girlfriend for the first time. They certainly seem smitten with each other. We all got a long quite well. She seems prepared to cope with Adam's being a gamer in much the same way Janene copes with me being into games and audio stuff. She's willing to tollerate it and dip her toes in on her own terms. I hope things work out for them over the longer term when the work of relationship maintenance starts and the novelty and some of their physical passion wares off. I can't say that I'm convinced that they actually have enough in common. That kind of thinking strikes me as being damned jaded even as I so naturally think it. I hope I don't wake up one day to find that I'm a grouchy old bastard who wouldn't recognise goodness if it thwacked me with my own cane. You'd think first-time loves never lasted at all. I catch myself thinking more cinically more often and it's certainly given me pause given the drastic improvement of life I've enjoyed over this past year. It was amusing to hear how their overt displays of affection impacted Janene. She doesn't think we were ever that physical with each other in public. Perhaps she's right, but I can't help wondering what the staff at our favorite restaurants would conclude having seen us in our days fresh in love. Youch! Does love go sour? That sounds aweful! If handled with care and attention, I believe love ages gracefully and becomes better much like wine is supposed to.
That whole area of having separate major interests is something both Janene and I have certainly given some thought to in the past. Despite the growing popularity of podcasts and audio books for sighted people, when the chips are down, they just flat out prefer to see things while being entertained or stimulated. They tipically listen to these podcasts and audiobooks when they're either commuting on busses or while they're hurtling down the road in control of a thousand pounds of their own personal steel in order to stave off boredom. At best, they're doing dishes or something which won't result in carnage should they get too engrossed in what they're hearing. Eyes dominate in a truly different way. When I used to read books in Braille, I would always do it in silence even when that was purely optional. My ears didn't start jumping around for lack of things to focus on. Eyes do that though. They need things to look at most of the time.
Both of us have aspects to contend with like that. For her, it's pictures and visual art of all kinds or sights in nature wile we're driving around that she wishes I could see. I'll be able to read her writing since she tends to do that on a computer. However, her drawings will never amount to more than words when they're described to me. They strike her emotionally but are merely points of a moment's conversation for me. The real trick is finding things to enjoy together to keep a relationship going and fresh while satisfying both our separate needs. She can enjoy the scenery and presumeably some interesting sights on the road during a long drive somewhere. On that same trip, I enjoy conversations or hearing something interesting on the radio or merely being with her. I also tend to enjoy wherever we end up going. We both get a lot out of going places together. We can also add some different observations to each other's interests when we talk about them. We both enjoy good food and good conversation. We have a shared interest in language and words. Our overall moral outlook on life is very similar. We talk a lot about our friends and their lives. Both of us share an interest in keeping up with world news and discussing it. There's enough drawing us together that our different worlds give us more to tell each other about and spark conversations. While it can indeed be frustrating when your lover isn't as thrilled with what you care about, it's far easier to keep things fresh than when both people share all the same interests and have had too much life experience in common. Janene has said on more than one occasion that she wouldn't have been ready for me if she hadn't gone through her failed marriage and subsequent experiences first. I can see more clearly after thinking all of this through that I wouldn't have been ready for our life together had I not gone through my own lesson in what lasting love has to be based upon. I simply wouldn't have had enough of a sense of the give and take of life. One of our real strengths as a couple is going to be how important our friends are. Both of us share a keen desire to help where we can and to share our blessings with good friends. They'll keep us two from becoming too inactive and give us places to go to paired with good reasons to go there. We can also relax together while doing our own things.
It's tuesday now and things are going alright again. Janene and I went through a little tention over a fairly substantial paper of hers last night. She occasionally gets into a panic over things outside of her control. The only thing you can do is just hunker down, shut up and wait for the storm to pass when circumstances prove conclusively that her worst fears aren't going to come true. That's an extremely tough thing for a guy to do. I hope I get better at dealing with that over time. I seem to have the majority of my energy back now. The head, however, is still a little stuffy. My ears are ever so slowly returning to normal. Perhaps, in a couple more days, I can play a sound-based game with some hope of doing well at it again. I got a bit more work on the game design document done today. It was good to get back to that. It'll be my main focus for this week. The week after, I have another teaching cession as well as a mobility lesson. A delicious sign of the times comes in the form of those small holiday oranges. I had a couple today and they were quite good. It seems that the instant Halloween's over, thoughts turn to Christmas. There is no pause for a collective breath. The impact of the holiday season on retailers was all over the news this afternoon. Would people still be interested in gadgets despite the economic uncertainty, etc, etc. I'm all for the holidays, but might I have a moment to get the gore makeup cleaned off before people think it's the result of running into a Christmas tree?
My birthday was quite a good one this year. I relaxed during most of it and finally got around to hearing a nifty horror podcast called Psudopod which I had wanted to check out for quite some time. I also listened to some of the terrific Sherlock Holmes stories that I was able to purchase thanks to birthday money from my parents. It's definitely a posession I'll want to hang on to for life. The BBC has done wonders bringing the whole collection of stories and novels to audio life. Later, I went out to the Keg with Janene and my parents for an excellent meal. Nothing beets a Keg steak. All of us enjoyed ourselves. We went back home afterwards for cake and watched some TV. Unfortunately for me, my birthday happened to coinside with the final game of the World Series. Baseball just isn't something I have any interest in at all. I believe we saw the last four innings of the game. Conversation was pretty much brought to a stand-still as everyone else watched the game. Time just seemed to drag like dead weight. A floor up, I had plenty of interesting audio to listen to, games to play and/or TV to watch assuming that something more interesting was actually on air at the time. However, I knew Janene was interested in seeing the game ending and I felt somewhat socially obligated to stay there with her and my parents. It was an unfortunate sour note ending off an otherwise excellent thirty-fourth birthday. The kind of thing I take pains to avoid. In normal circumstances, I realise that there will be occasions where I'm with a group of people who will take an interest in things that I won't share. In those circumstances, I tend to take the longer view and willingly go along with or sit through whatever everyone's up to which doesn't appeal to me. It's just part of the give and take of being social and outgoing even when you're not dealing with a sighted person's world. Not taking an interest in sports puts me even more in line for this sort of drag time. There are countless blind baseball and hockey fans. I understand, while attending a party, that it doesn't revolve around me. There's bound to be some down time. However, on my birthday, I don't think I ask too much not to be put in such a situation of boredom. Everything necessary was there already. I hinted a couple of times that we should go off and do something else. However, all I could think of at the time were the audio dramas I had at hand. Janene tipically doesn't want to listen to those particularly at the end of a long day. Eye candy always wins in such circumstances where fatigue is involved. That is, I think it fair to say, true of sighted people as a general rule. I was sitting down there bored out of my tree with literally two days worth of fresh new never-heard-before adventures just waiting for me. None of which, however, would have appealed to Janene just then. I would have loved to share my gift with her but she was in no frame of mind to appreciate it. Had I suggested we go up and watch a movie or, more appropriately given the hour, a shorter show of some kind before she headed back home, I would likely have had better luck. Because I watch so little TV, however, I had no alternative suggestions to offer. I don't tend to look over the TV Guide anymore and would doubtless have to search out an accessible site again unless Zap2it.com hasn't changed for the worse since I last used it.
Later, I tried to explain this to Janene. I wanted to avoid that relationship deathtrap of withholding discontentment until well past when expression of it is at all rellevent. I saw it as a pretty simple small fix to avoid similar things happening on future birthdays. She saw it as an indictment of her and thought I was also tired of being bored when we spent Sunday nights watching TV with my parents. That experience, although sometimes boring in part for me, is what I regard as part of family routine. It gives my parents some time with Janene and I as a couple. Also, we normally end it with a show that Janene and I are interested in. Mythbusters is a nice and engaging way to see a weekend out. Something I can get my mind into. It's a lot more balanced and doesn't leave me as completely in my own world of boredom as that World Sieries baseball did. Also, they're just ordinary days for me. It took around three tries for me to be certain she properly understood this and wouldn't go off feeling overly guilty or thinking that everything had to change. I was pretty tired by that point and very well may have been already coming down with the illness which I'm still recovering from.
The next morning began with a slightly sore throat and a stuffed head. I was feeling more tired than usual and figured I'd better warn Janene. What I had hoped would be a 24-hour thing proved far worse than I expected. Basically, I lost most of thursday and Friday completely. Janene and I were going to go down town and watch the Rick Mercer show live. It would have made a great evening out. We also had planned a lunch with a couple of friends for the next day. Thankfully, I was actually up to having lunch but it ended up being with Janene only. That was probably for the best as I don't think I was anywhere close to being at my best. I seriously couldn't have navigated sonically to save my life. Everything sounded puffy and misplaced around me. I'm finding that Dayquil and Niquil are helping out quite a lot. They don't completely eliminate the symptoms but definitely reduce them to more manageable proportions. Hopefully, I'll be rid of whatever this bug is by the end of the week. I'm finding I have more energy now which is a good sign I think.
On Sunday, I got to meet Adam's new girlfriend for the first time. They certainly seem smitten with each other. We all got a long quite well. She seems prepared to cope with Adam's being a gamer in much the same way Janene copes with me being into games and audio stuff. She's willing to tollerate it and dip her toes in on her own terms. I hope things work out for them over the longer term when the work of relationship maintenance starts and the novelty and some of their physical passion wares off. I can't say that I'm convinced that they actually have enough in common. That kind of thinking strikes me as being damned jaded even as I so naturally think it. I hope I don't wake up one day to find that I'm a grouchy old bastard who wouldn't recognise goodness if it thwacked me with my own cane. You'd think first-time loves never lasted at all. I catch myself thinking more cinically more often and it's certainly given me pause given the drastic improvement of life I've enjoyed over this past year. It was amusing to hear how their overt displays of affection impacted Janene. She doesn't think we were ever that physical with each other in public. Perhaps she's right, but I can't help wondering what the staff at our favorite restaurants would conclude having seen us in our days fresh in love. Youch! Does love go sour? That sounds aweful! If handled with care and attention, I believe love ages gracefully and becomes better much like wine is supposed to.
That whole area of having separate major interests is something both Janene and I have certainly given some thought to in the past. Despite the growing popularity of podcasts and audio books for sighted people, when the chips are down, they just flat out prefer to see things while being entertained or stimulated. They tipically listen to these podcasts and audiobooks when they're either commuting on busses or while they're hurtling down the road in control of a thousand pounds of their own personal steel in order to stave off boredom. At best, they're doing dishes or something which won't result in carnage should they get too engrossed in what they're hearing. Eyes dominate in a truly different way. When I used to read books in Braille, I would always do it in silence even when that was purely optional. My ears didn't start jumping around for lack of things to focus on. Eyes do that though. They need things to look at most of the time.
Both of us have aspects to contend with like that. For her, it's pictures and visual art of all kinds or sights in nature wile we're driving around that she wishes I could see. I'll be able to read her writing since she tends to do that on a computer. However, her drawings will never amount to more than words when they're described to me. They strike her emotionally but are merely points of a moment's conversation for me. The real trick is finding things to enjoy together to keep a relationship going and fresh while satisfying both our separate needs. She can enjoy the scenery and presumeably some interesting sights on the road during a long drive somewhere. On that same trip, I enjoy conversations or hearing something interesting on the radio or merely being with her. I also tend to enjoy wherever we end up going. We both get a lot out of going places together. We can also add some different observations to each other's interests when we talk about them. We both enjoy good food and good conversation. We have a shared interest in language and words. Our overall moral outlook on life is very similar. We talk a lot about our friends and their lives. Both of us share an interest in keeping up with world news and discussing it. There's enough drawing us together that our different worlds give us more to tell each other about and spark conversations. While it can indeed be frustrating when your lover isn't as thrilled with what you care about, it's far easier to keep things fresh than when both people share all the same interests and have had too much life experience in common. Janene has said on more than one occasion that she wouldn't have been ready for me if she hadn't gone through her failed marriage and subsequent experiences first. I can see more clearly after thinking all of this through that I wouldn't have been ready for our life together had I not gone through my own lesson in what lasting love has to be based upon. I simply wouldn't have had enough of a sense of the give and take of life. One of our real strengths as a couple is going to be how important our friends are. Both of us share a keen desire to help where we can and to share our blessings with good friends. They'll keep us two from becoming too inactive and give us places to go to paired with good reasons to go there. We can also relax together while doing our own things.
It's tuesday now and things are going alright again. Janene and I went through a little tention over a fairly substantial paper of hers last night. She occasionally gets into a panic over things outside of her control. The only thing you can do is just hunker down, shut up and wait for the storm to pass when circumstances prove conclusively that her worst fears aren't going to come true. That's an extremely tough thing for a guy to do. I hope I get better at dealing with that over time. I seem to have the majority of my energy back now. The head, however, is still a little stuffy. My ears are ever so slowly returning to normal. Perhaps, in a couple more days, I can play a sound-based game with some hope of doing well at it again. I got a bit more work on the game design document done today. It was good to get back to that. It'll be my main focus for this week. The week after, I have another teaching cession as well as a mobility lesson. A delicious sign of the times comes in the form of those small holiday oranges. I had a couple today and they were quite good. It seems that the instant Halloween's over, thoughts turn to Christmas. There is no pause for a collective breath. The impact of the holiday season on retailers was all over the news this afternoon. Would people still be interested in gadgets despite the economic uncertainty, etc, etc. I'm all for the holidays, but might I have a moment to get the gore makeup cleaned off before people think it's the result of running into a Christmas tree?
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