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The Ben Franklin adage applied to me last evening and this morning. "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." At least the first part of it did. I haven't checked the lottery results from last night to find out about the last part.
I dreamed continuously about some place that seemed near to here. A couple of wooden houses in an older section of town that had been converted to studio apartments. In the dream I met a friendly man who lived there, we went for a walk, and returned to the area. I took several adventures in the dreamtime later on, but I kept returning to this group of apartments.
This dream sequence may have something to do with not having much going on in my life to write about now. I'm not subscribed to any e-mail discussion groups for the first time in years. The ones I did subscribe to either ran out of steam or never became something I could get interested in. A lot of this has to do with my age and my disinterest in unsolicited advice.
Topics and subjects that become interesting to me eventually run the gamut of my fascination, and then I get bored with the whole deal. The people who want me to stay interested in what now bores me sometime want me to stay interested for their sake, but that's impossible, no matter what.
This is true even with what's on TV. I cannot abide watching the various cop shows, lawyer shows, hospital and doctor shows. Sitcoms bore me to tears because the outcomes are so predictable. That sort of entertainment doesn't entertain me any more, so I watch PBS documentaries a lot.
I'm more than likely to endure travel shows than any other sort. I have watched hundreds of them hundreds of times. Europe has to be one of the most boring places in the universe, in this regard. They observe traditions that inevitably cause wars between them. The old world is about war and all the atrocities that come with it, and they glorify it as their chief something to do.
The end of my participation in e-mail discussion groups has affected the way I write blog entries. I used to get material for writing from the interchanges on these groups, but when my interest in the subjects the groups went south I couldn't force the issue and make it last longer for the sake of writing blog entries.
About the only topic that draws my attention currently is my health issues, and I'd love to be bored with them. I still have a sore spot on the left side of my tongue that burns like crazy when I put anything spicy in my mouth. I wake up with this spot actively letting me know that all is not well. The swelling of my lips has gotten down to occasional reminders that whatever it is that is causing these dis-eases has not gone away, and may never.
In effect, I was prescribed prednisone to deal with the side-effects of prednisone, which, of course, made things worse. I stopped taking all the prescribed medicines one at a time to find out what the culprit was. This pissed off the doctors to the point that they were changed.
As a result of me pushing to find out if what I'm experiencing is an infection that could kill me, I got a new doctor. The new doctor was not happy to have me assigned to her because I am considered "difficult". Her supervisor was the one who malevolently prescribed the long-term use of prednisone to show me who was boss.
After a few visits my new doctor suddenly realized I wasn't trying to make trouble for her, and warned me that I needed to get off the prednisone she had prescribed for me because of her supervisor's instructions. Her compassion caused me to look up the side effects of prednisone, which has gotten me to here.
Unless you're rather old yourself, you might not understand how being old is used as an excuse for the medicos to dismiss any and all symptoms of discomfort by their saying, "After all, you're in your seventies now. You gotta expect these aches and pains to show up. There is not much we can do."
Thus, the pills. Pills for this. Pills for that. Kindness, compassion, and a bedside manner might help, but they deal with too many people to make a special effort unless they can make more money for going out of their way. These are harsh realities, and an old, old story. If you should live so long, you'll see for yourself. What a drag, man.
I'm probably reaping what I've sown. I haven't exhibited kindness and compassion as often as I maybe could have. It's not my fault, of course, but the side-effect of my chief feature, avarice and greed. More recently, I've realized that the term "hoarding" is applicable to my unruly behavior. I understand how I hoard certain things better than simply labeling myself a miser.
It's been fairly easy to avoid admitting that I'm a miser, because I give stuff away left and right. It's not so easy to avoid admitting that I hoard certain things when I live among those things. In my house I can barely turn a corner without encountering objects I don't need, but keep around anyway. I have a thick, uncomfortable sweater I never wear, that I bought in 1961, just previous to my first discharge from the Navy, that I keep around "just in case."
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