This chainsaw is me

  
So my shoulder is still healing and I have become a master of speech to text techniques on various devices. I tell myself this is just me getting better at my job, but I am a little sick of it and I wish my shoulder would heal more quickly. I am doing more or less all the stuff, exercising, not doing the things that bother it, trying to sleep in the right way, leaning on the hot water bottle when I can. However, the thing that’s probably really going to help, jumping into the pool and getting some exercise, has been a little out of reach because I came down with the two-week cold thing that everyone has. 

And really, I like to think of myself as resilient, but the last two months have really been trying. I’m writing this now, or rather dictating this now, because I finally feel like I’ve turned a corner in a meaningful way maybe for the first time in months. After a few weeks of occasionally canceling class, and occasionally missing out on sleep because of coughing and other various maladies, I’m happily back in the classroom and happily sleeping at night without the assistance of 3 to 5 types of cold medicine. Everyone who has had to interact with the walking zombie that has been me over the last two months, thank you for your patience and your kindness.

On the bright side, I have gotten an awful lot of reading and movie watching done. I’ve been interviewed for two really interesting podcasts that have been transcribed that you might like to read (rumblestrip, circulating ideas). I put a new and improved daybed in the living room just in time to go spend a lot of time in it with a hot water bottle watching the birds while drinking a lot of  tea. I’ve given a few short talks, even with my hoarse voice, to the Rotary club and the New England Library Association and both went great. More to the point, I’m remembering what being me is like. I’m aware that the aging process means I’m not gonna wake up every morning feeling pain-free and full of energy and vim forever. I’m just hoping that as things decline they’ll do so gradually and not all of the sudden during my most favorite season for basically no reason.

Got home from work today at about 6:30 and was like “When did it start getting dark so early?” And I know this is a thing a lot of people have been thinking, but except for the lunar eclipse, I just haven’t been paying much attention to the outside world and I’m looking forward to being more present in my own life and the lives of others real soon now.