I was able to get a lot done today. More than I even imagined! Got all my laundry and mail sorted out. The best part is that I did it all before heading over to my friend’s house for pot roast dinner. It was so much fun hanging out with her and her family. I am so glad this was planned so I didn’t have time to overthink my surgery tomorrow. I am feeling oddly calm and ready, but I just want to get it over with already.

I went to bed pretty early and felt good about the accomplishments today. Especially knowing I won’t be able to do much at all this week.

Thank you for your message. I am currently out of office — but not for much longer.

First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys. Not that all months aren’t rare. But there be bad and good, as the pirates say. Take September, a bad month: school begins. Consider August, a good month: school hasn’t begun yet. July, well, July’s really fine: there’s no chance in the world for school. June, no doubting it, June’s best of all, for the school doors spring wide and September’s a billion years away.

But you take October, now. School’s been on a month and you’re riding easier in the reins, jogging along. You got time to think of the garbage you’ll dump on old man Prickett’s porch, or the hairy-ape costume you’ll wear to the YMCA the last night of the month. And if it’s around October twentieth and everything smoky-smelling and the sky orange and ash gray at twilight, it seems Halloween will never come in a fall of broomsticks and a soft flap of bedsheets around corners.

But one strange wild dark long year, Halloween came early.

One year Halloween came on October 24, three hours after midnight.

So begins the Prologue of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, arguably one of the greatest American dark fantasy / horror novels ever written.

It's October, time to break out this classic and give it an annual read. I confess, I couldn't wait this year and read it again two weeks ago. Sure, I have it in hardback, but I usually read this gem from my 1979 dog-eared and seriously faded paperback...the perfect edition for such a creepy book.

It is a brilliant thriller. If you've not read it, you're missing out. If you have, you know it's time to read it again. Enjoy!

#Bradbury #reading

(or grasping life's grammar)

You ask me if I might drive and I decline, You drive well with growing confidence. We find the perfect place to park for now and for when we return: So close to the beach, to sea, to sand, sun, wind, shells.

Walking seaward, we see at once The vast well of mediterranean blue. Three generations of mind suddenly one. Present joy, simple joy. Life is good. This one.

We walk, seeking the perfect spot, Or at least as perfect as the present can be, When good, even perfect, options seem infinite. Like which shell to pick up? Which to take home? Which wave to stand in? Or jump over? Or dive into? This one, This one.

Which day to say is good out of so many? This one. Which moment to say 'I am here'?

You talk of a higher power, to guide when you cannot. You hope so. Of so many mindful thoughts, so many heartful hopes, Which thought to pick up? Which hope to dive into? This one.

You look at me. I think I am almost like a son-in-law to you, Because of an absence you heartful fill without pause: Love of your brother and all that was, should be, is, his. You are my aunty now after so many years of ‘in law’ this and that. You are my children’s granny. So, your brother’s absence left no gap: A higher power worked through you, heartfelt, filling without pause. Life is good. This one.

Intractable, present worries of struggles in your future absence, Abstract thought in your heart and mind. Yet more concrete and clear Is today’s answer: Your heartfelt, filling without pause is from a higher power, Who will not end, though all the shells have been picked, All the waves chosen, All the days blessed.

October is my month. The good. The bad. The what the hell just happened?! More often than not, it arrives in October. More often than I'd like to admit, it arrives on my birthday. Not near, though that happens, too. Often enough that I get looks when filling out important details.

I always get excited for October. It is when the air begins to change, and I can unruffle my dusty feathers and preen again.

Usually.

This year, I find myself more hesitant than normal. I am trying to ignore that tingle because I'm not entirely sure it's real or manifested by circumstance.

Yesterday was such a day of high highs and low lows. I allowed myself to get my hopes up. I allowed myself to dream possibility as more than a far-off glimmer of imagination. I dreamed up all the ways life would change for the positive, and I focused a lot on being able to swim again.

I love swimming so much, though I've not had the pleasure to do so in several years. There is just something about the water that comforts me. It envelops. It lifts. It stirs to match movements. It allows me to sink and just be without the need to dive. And when I need the extra push, it resists and forces me to engage and feel every molecule of my being slicing through its hold until once more we tumble to surge forward again. There is a synchronicity.

I have not dove for even longer, but there is something about teetering up high, toes on the ledge, arms spreading wide in open abandonment, just knowing that as soon as you take the plunge, you will be caught. Everything will pause in that glorious brief second or so as you plummet in controlled flight, and then the water is there — opening and embracing. It quenches that need for absolute absorption and understanding.

I should be real with myself. I'm not sure I'd take the leap. Older bones. Softer flesh. It can be a long way down when unsure if you'll go splat or not. I thought about that a lot, too. Did I still yearn to dive, or did I find more contentment in the floating? My spirit, my brain, and my body are not always in agreement with yearnings and capabilities these days.

Yes. I allowed myself to give in to a dream yesterday. Briefly, ever so briefly, life stopped feeling like a climb.

I confess, there was a time when I enjoyed the weight. There was something about the persistence in trekking against the burdening force. Success was sweet as soon as my heel met destination. But that no longer is the case. Now it just feels like a hampering and painful slog when I would rather dance.

I am looking forward to next week. Today, our high is lower than our lows have been. Over twenty degrees lower than our highs have been. It won't stay, but the nights will be cooler. My return to nature is just around the corner, and I feel the thrill of fresh air and singing trees calling to me. I'm also excited because I know how impactful it will be on my weight loss journey. Hopefully, before the sun brightens, I will be back where I wish to be. I have hope in that. I have hope.

This morning, I have ignored all news. I slept in for an hour or so. I stretched. I calmed my mind and centered myself. Yes, I did briefly yearn for completion and I wondered if I would ever feel whole. But mostly... mostly I shook out the dust, reabsorbed my kinks, and I allowed my wings to spread back-crackingly wide to the new day.

It was but a moment, but sometimes that is all we need to refresh and travel onward.

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

I & i ; I aan het werk en i op werkbezoek bij Alphabed.

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Een klant i, nu ga je het zien. \ I i

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i – Weltrusten

7 September 2026

From where I'm sitting on a grassy hill at Olympic Park in Seoul: the knotty bare trunks of four old pine trees, each supported by splints at points of imbalance where limbs have grown too heavy to hold themselves up. Just to the right of these trees, one younger pine bursting with fresh green needles standing on its own (no splints).

Yesterday (S1, D5) was Wednesday 09/30, and found us making two move related trips. On the first trip in the early afternoon, we went to our local Post Office and recorded our change of address. We were told to allow a week or 10 days for the change to take effect. And we stopped by my bank to record the change of address with them. It wasn't a physical trip, but my landlord and I had a very good phone conversation early in the morning putting us both on the same page regarding our move date, etc.

The second trip found us driving out to the trailer in the early evening with two very heavy metal dining room chairs, a small shelf unit, a small table, and a few different sized boxes. That was one full little car, lemme tell ya'.

Today's work (S1, D6) will largely depend on the weather. If it's storming, we're staying here at the house. But if the weather allows, we'll make another trip or two out to the trailer. I've got the Spectrum Internet self-installation kit out at the trailer already, and I plan to take at least one of my laptops with the next trip out there and try to activate the new Internet. Taking my meds out there will be a priority, too, as well as some food to begin stocking the kitchen, pantry, and refrigerator, etc.

And the adventure continues.