3768 Back

Saturday, September 28, 2013

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

--Anatole France--

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A little over three weeks ago my back went out.  It's sort of ok now, finally, a bit touchy in the mornings, warning signals not to get fancy, ok by afternoon, but three weeks ago, for more than a week, I was hobbling around all bent over, with a walking stick to pull me upright, wearing the brace, afraid to carry a cup of tea from counter to table.

I've had that almost all my life.  It's a birth defect exacerbated by repeated trauma.  It's been worse.

Things are more complicated now, though.  The urologist I fired last January seemed to think I was careening headlong into full kidney failure.  He was so full of crap on so many other things I decided not to believe that, either.  But, uh, what if he was right for once?

It scares me a little that I can't tell the difference between pain in the kidneys and nerve pain from my lower back.  Actually, there IS no difference, since it's the same set of nerves screaming.  And there is such a thing as being in too much pain to go to the doctor, especially when there's a high probability it is just the pinched nerve and there's nothing they can do for it, except put me through more useless pain figuring that out.

I guess the only way I can be sure I'm not dying is that ... I'm getting better.
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3767 There's nobody home.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

--Sir Winston Churchill--

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Long time no write.  My mind is stagnant.  I am isolated here.  I guess I could try harder to do something about it, but it doesn't seem worth the effort.

At the country house I went out for lunch or dinner with casual friends a few times a month.  I went to bar trivia with friends once a month.  There were occasional movies, museum visits, and so on.

Here, I talk to Daughter, Nugget, and Hercules, and occasionally over the fence to the neighbors to the south, and that's about it, except for the occasional store clerk.  Other than those few, I talk with no one.  Seriously.  I haven't had a real conversation with anyone in ... a year?  I'm going to forget what it's like.  (Well, to be honest, I listen more than I talk.  I love listening to others discuss things.  I'll throw a question in now and then, but mostly I just love to see other people's minds work.)

There is a local Mensa group, but everything seems to be centered around Princeton, and that's a long and annoying drive.  There's a dinner once a month just 15 minutes up the road, but it's an all-you-can-eat buffet, and that particular bunch (mostly obese males) seems to hunker over their plates shoveling it in, and they don't seem interested in conversation. 

The Princeton Mensans seem more interesting, but, oh, that drive!  At the country house I was more than willing to drive an hour north to Albany or an hour south to Walton for dinner, because the drive was beautiful and relaxing.  Here, the scenery is ugly and the other drivers on the road are out to kill me, and it's just no fun.  It's hectic and nasty.  I hate driving here.

I signed up for a bucket-load of local Meetup groups, but having gone to a few events, I am discouraged.  I have not enjoyed any of the meetup dinners I've gone to so far here in NJ.  Those people are just not my kind of people.  It's not me!  I'd been to many many Meetup dinners in Albany that I really enjoyed.  It really IS the people here.  I don't know what it is.  Like a shallowness or something.  A "look at me!" loudness.  Flitting from shiny thing to shiny thing.  There's no depth, no "there" there.

Plus there's an incredible amount of racism and classism here.  

Daughter belongs to a few women's groups, and she has a lot of friends her age.  They are always visiting back and forth.  She seems to think I need a friend or two.  She keeps trying to match me up with older women from her groups or from the Geocache club.  But I don't want a "friend".  I'm not keen on a forced one-on-one kind of thing.  Friends are a lot of work.  I'm not good at social upkeep.  And I guess I'm still smarting from FW and NJKC.  FW chewed me up to the point where she was affecting my health - real poison - and NJKC was fine until she got sick and then she withdrew from everyone.  In my life history, friends either overwhelm me with demands or they get to the point where they know where my soft spots are, and then they attack me.

All I want are some interesting groups that get together occasionally.  I haven't found that here.

Maybe if I did find some groups, there will be some one or two people that will "click", but that would, I would hope, take time, and anyway, it's not something I'm looking for.

In the meantime, my mind is stagnating.  The internet is my only input.
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