more on acceptance

I think acceptance in no way means resignation. I've been fighting what I'm experiencing. I just keep trying to live a life I cannot live. I hope to get better and be able to do the things I want, but that is not today. Accepting that doesn't mean I'm resigned to it. I just means I've got to quit feeling badly over the fact that I am disabled and cannot live the life I had before.


My way of dealing with adversity is to analyze my responses to the context in which I find myself. My response is what drives me crazy, not the context or new situation. I mean life can suck beyond the telling, but sometimes that cannot be changed. The only thing left is how I adapt. I've been driving myself crazy trying to hold on to the old life. I liked the old life. I have a habit of letting go poorly, claw marks on everything I've ever lost. It's easy to see this intellectually, not so easy emotionally.


I am accepting this new life full of post cancer and post cancer treatments issues. Like everything in my life, not fast enough. I was hoping to be in better shape (than I am) by now. I've made great strides so far, but it is a slow, slow, slow process. As is my acceptance.


On a more positive note. I've made an appointment to visit the puppies June 9. Maybe someone new will come live with Russell and me.

another day

Not much to say today. One day I feel pretty good, the next not so much. It seems impossible to predict and therefore to make plans. Trying not to think of all the fun things I could be doing if I only felt like doing them. Oh well, hoping to get better. It's only been 3 months since the final burst of radiation.

Watch word, acceptance.

I just sent a note to the woman in with the puppies and the 3 year old for sale asking when I could visit.

No plans for the Memorial Day weekend.

just stuff

Hello to everyone in cyberspace. Jacked in? Good.

My day just changed. My brother called asking my to fix his computer. Appears that his computer has become infected. That ought to take a while to repair. Naturally (as with most if not all casual users) he doesn't know what he was doing at the time of infection, nor has the installation disks. As with so many users who does not use many locally installed programs, he should keep everything in the cloud. If he did, I could just wipe the drive and reinstall the OS. I wonder why his AV software didn't catch it?

I've not been feeling well lately. Headache, sinus pressure, dizziness mostly. Poor sleep. My return to physical health is going more slowly than I'd like. Still Russell gets his walks every day. Davidson College student are taking exams and will leave after the weekend.

Working on breath control while singing. I am amazed at how differently my singing sounds when I concentrate and relaxing my throat and left arm.

Still reading the Baroque Cycle, on the third and final book of the series. Took a break to read, " Laurel Canyon : the inside story of rock-and-roll's legendary neighborhood," Not all that well written but certainly an interesting topic of what can happen when amazing folks network through proximity and social contacts.

Made it to the show Friday night. The band did not start until after 11pm. As much as I want to make it to live shows, it is still just too hard. Even if I make it to a late show, the next two days will be harder. I do have tickets for Gov't Mule (earlier show) and Phish. Not so hard to make it to a show that starts around 8 and is over by 11:00pm.

I'm doing better with the whole guilt thing about not working. Targeted  self talk can be very effective. Three days of rain is past and now sun, sun, sun through the weekend.

Guess I'll go pick up that computer.

nothing much

Good morning readers and friends. Big weekend planned. Tonight Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band at the Neighborhood Theater. My brother and his girlfriend are taking me. Saturday is a local bluegrass and beer festival.

I may have found a way to discharge my remaining college loan debt. I'm taking the paperwork to my Oncologist to complete, attesting to my past. present and likely future health. That would be sweet. I was not easy to find the program or forms for this. No big advertisements that's for sure. Wish me luck on that.

My guitar practice continues. I've changed my focus to my body mechanics, posture, muscle tension, and breathing. Coming along slowly as this requires re-learning pretty much everything. My goal is to be a better musician/performer and my intent is to working on my broken mind. Complicated tasks are the most challenging for my brain and therefore most useful. Having several great guitars makes the complexity of matching instrument to song interesting. Be jammin' on the H'Bird this morning. Then off to the store and then Russell's walk to campus. Some light cleaning in the afternoon.

Well better get to it!

errant thoughts and strawberries

Hi Friends,

Off to pick strawberries this morning with my friend Marsha.

Had the strangest dream Tuesday night. I dreamed I was sick, like with the flu. Awoke thinking I was going to feel horrible and after the headache abated, I felt pretty good. All of my symptoms, mostly from the various treatments for the cancer, are lessening. I am feeling better, less pain and more energy. Walking everyday with Russell, who is getting better on-leash. He is naturally good off-leash being a herding dog. Waiting to hear from Fairwyn farms about new puppies.

I missed two shows this week. I hope I can get back into a place where I can make shows without a lot of effort. I wish that when I get to a show, that I know somebody there.

I am still trying to find my new life. I am so reminded of my childhood and adolescence. When we, Russell and me, are out walking, the sounds and smells and sights take me back to those days of being amazed by everything. I walk around town seeing the same houses and buildings as when I was 6 years old, taking the same paths as when I was walking to school in the 1st grade. I haven't had the free time I do now, since I was in high school. I drive the same roads, take the same walks and, on occasion, listen to the same music.

Who I am is a more fluid concept than I've experienced in a while. After all this life, you'd think I'd be better at adjusting to life's changes. In developmental psychology, there are normative and non-normative events. Normative events are those life events that are common to most people, graduating high school, getting married, having kids. Non-normative events affect life but are not predictable, as serious illness, being hit by a bus, divorce. It is these non-normative events that are hardest to integrate back into life.  These are the unexpected events and thus, hard to plan for whatever comes.

I like to plan. I like to cover any foreseeable events. Like they say, "you never expect the spanish inquisition." You never expect cancer and never expect both the damage from the treatment and you never expect to live through it.

Hard to plan for all of these events. I've found it hard to anticipate the psychological changes that occur. Much less figuring out who I am. A serious lack of meaning, as I have always defined it. Piaget once said, "Intelligence is the ability to adapt." So I'm adapting. Slower than I'd like, faster than  I should expect.

Just got back from a small adventure with Marsha. We headed out in the Z3 (top down) without functioning GPS and spent an hour driving around the country roads of three different counties. We did find the farm and picked 2 gallons of red strawberries apiece. Marsha could taste the difference in this part of the row and further down. Our little unskilled labor experiment. Just finished putting up 8 quarts.