… some thank yous. Years ago — I don’t even know how many now, though it was back before Amazon made it clear that bloggers with Associate links shouldn’t also have public wish lists — reader BT fulfilled one of my wishes by sending a lovely lavender set of flannel sheets. It was Christmas. Readers sent much bounty. But I especially love flannel sheets and in this climate they’re comfortable and comforting all year long. Only after what, eight years? ten years? did those cozy sheets become so threadbare they started developing holes. And at that point I learned I…
10 CommentsMonth: January 2019
The Internet is a drug with increasingly toxic effects. I’m done with it. On Saturday I filled out Comcast’s online service cancellation form. Comcast being Comcast, their retention department will now call and arm wrestle me to to stay, as if my slow, grandfathered Internet service were a prize they’d do anything not to lose. But I’m done. —– This doesn’t mean I’m going away from blogging. I did think about that. I even had a date in mind; but I couldn’t take my head from idea to plan. It seemed ungrateful, almost traitorous to stop. Not to mention a…
30 CommentsYou know that post-illness brain-death phenomenon, I’m sure. Your body’s recovering from affliction, but whatever intellect or sense of “self in the real world” you previously possessed has abandoned you. You go outside and nature looks oddly unfamiliar. You read (or write) and words on the screen unravel like something from the imagination of a dyslexic five-year-old. You apologize for your conversational failings or try to carry off a dialog, simply hoping no one notices you don’t possess your standard quotient of wit or common sense. Eventually you fake it ’til you make it. Meantime, you hope you don’t trigger…
11 CommentsI’ve been pretty far out of it for most of two weeks. I’m returning to the land of the living now, but don’t know whether I’ll ever catch up on obligations — particularly email. The least I can do now that my brain has decided to move back into my head is say a few overdue thanks. Here goes: To SF and RW for the shipments of medicinals and immune-system boosters. I thought I had an okay immune-system routine going, but this illness really shook me. To Ellendra for patiently and specifically answering my questions about specialized herbals. And to…
5 CommentsSome new ones and a few more I collected over the last 10 days from my sickbed. I don’t recall the sources of some, so please forgive me for any failures of hat tipping. Add the Border Patrol to the list of federal agencies whose unconstitutional powers of snoopitude far exceed what you might imagine. The great Walter Williams asks who has benefited from black v*ters’ extreme loyalty to the D party? Is sunscreen the new margarine? Yet another “health” aid that may actually be bad for us. 32 prep things you can do while bored. Now that’s one cynical…
9 CommentsThe winner of the survival/prep/adventure book contest, that is: It’s T.F., who lost his home and all his possessions to a forfeiture action, and has been rebuilding his life and library. I received a wealth of impressive book-contest entries. You guys made your cases well — eloquently, persuasively, factually, with humor, “gud speling,” and in one case even with a limerick. One clever soul wrote a generally very strong entry (one of the top three), then noted that in addition to eloquence and reason, he was adding ass-kissing, just in case. He didn’t win, but I appreciated his thoroughness. 😉…
3 CommentsI’ve been collecting these links from my sick bed all week. Heaven knows how many of them are still relevant or ever were. But in the name of tab clearing and of rewarding your patience, here they are … In all the coverage of Jayme Closs’s escape from her murdering incel captor, why isn’t this aspect of her rescue getting more press? When I first heard about this, I thought it was some Gwyneth Paltrow-level health fantasy. But apparently it’s a real: The wealthy old are now able to buy they blood of the young. Only in select enclaves, of…
12 CommentsI’m sorry for the continued lack of blogging. The illusion that I was getting better on Wednesday was just that — a pleasant, cheery self-delusion right up there with “the government cares about the little people” or “I’m sure to win the next Powerball drawing.” It was back to bed without eating on Thursday, then apathy-on-the-couch yesterday. Today it’s safer to say I’m on the real road to recovery, but I’m wobbly, weak, and have lost several more pounds. So this time I’m damn well not going to get ambitious and jinx the situation. It’s idleness, soup, Michael Connelly books,…
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