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It's been a long hard day physically. The old gray mare she ain't what she used to be, many long years ago. My brother and I have been running some underground cable to set up a network between our houses. They're about a hundred yards apart or more. My brother is sixty-three and I'm seventy-one.
This wouldn't have been much for us to do in our youth. Our father brought us up learning what hard work is like. We worked together doing industrial construction fitting and welding pipes to help build refineries, pharmaceutical, and chemical plants. We worked as journeymen in skilled labor, with an emphasis on "labor".
We grew up thinking we had no choice but to go to college, get a masters degree or better and live a middle-class lifestyle. Our two older sisters did that. They're both retired school teachers that had masters degrees. They have a fairly comfortable life. Neither me or my brothers graduated from college even though we all have more than enough credits. I can't speak for them, but I guess I refused to get a degree because I knew how to work. Both my brothers have done well in business.
Actually, I'm the only one of five children that has wasted his life. I wanted to live an adventurous life and I did. I hurt a lotta people to do it. I didn't intend to treat people so shabbily, and I certainly didn't mean to. I really thought I could and would live up to my promises to my parents and ex-wives and children. It didn't happen that way.
Never the less, I ain't dead yet. When push comes to shove, that's about all can claim, and some people don't exactly agree that I'm alive. They claim I'm one of the walking dead because paying for my wayward sins is gonna take hundreds or thousands more lifetimes.
I haven't slept for two days because I've been working unusually hard lately. I feel like I have to because even though the rheumatoid arthritis is going pretty good right now, that could come to a screeching halt any old time.
The time change has fooled me again. It gets dark so early now. Sometime I write about how spring catches me by surprise each and every year. When I first see the red bud maples down on the edges of the swamps its always the first sign of spring, but what surprises me each year is how the green just keeps getting greener for a long time before the temperature gets warm and stays that way for a while.
Now it's fall and the world is turning brown and black. Soon all the leaves will have fallen and the skeleton-like limbs will be seen in their entirety reaching for the azure blue sky. At least sometime it will be nippy cold and blue skies, but when it ain't it's really why winter can be so dreadful.
The hope I entertain presently is that when I finally go to bed that I will get a full night's sleep, and wake up feeling chipper manana. The truth is that for the last month or more I've felt fairly healthy. I may have pushed too hard and caused a relapse, but for some reason I don't think so. I just need some sleep.
I hardly ever have any problems sleeping. I may get into cycles when I only sleep for about six hours, but since I lead a sedentary lifestyle of the poor and unknown I don't need a lot of sleep. I meditate frequently, and that makes up for a lot of it.
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