I've never been good at staying in touch with people, once I'm not seeing them all the time. I'm lousy at correspondence [what's to write about? I perceive my life as being dull and of no interest.] I don't like using telephones, although I'm getting better with that, having no choice if I'm going to keep in touch with mom and my sister.
So I've gone through my life making friends, good friends, and then dropping out of touch. Someone will move, there will be changes in schedules, staying in touch will require a certain amount of effort, and I just can't seem to make that effort.
Damn. It ties into my disabilities, doesn't it, the inability to work on things unless they grab me, the whole lack of proper adrenaline production, the inability to work on many things unless its reached crisis point and adrenaline production is upped, oh *bleep*. *bleep* *bleep* bleepitty bleep* Jiminy Christmas! Fudge brownies!
Well, that was a lovely thing to just figure out, boy am I slow on the uptake.
And anything I take to improve my functioning results in increased blood pressure, at the least, such as the Ritalin and Adderal that I'm on, or raises the blood pressure and also increases the incidence of kidney stones, such as anything with caffeine. And the substance that seemed to have the best impact, ephedrine, is now a proscribed substance due to it being used in the creation of crystal meth; pseudophed was such a lovely OTC, dealt with my allergies and got me functioning [and sent my blood pressure through the roof, *sigh*]
Actually, I should be impressed with how well I'm functioning just now, I'm getting stuff done everyday in regard to sorting through stuff and disposing of stuff, although the trick is still to come, working on organizing what I'll keep; rather, deciding what I'll keep. I'm really torn in regard to shop stuff, I haven't done anything with the shop in five+ years, and it feels like the drive has gone away, but that also ties in with when pseudophed became unable to be obtained, doesn't it?
Mega *bleep*!
On the flip side, I'm much calmer these days. That's the downside of anything that helps me function, due to not being able to replicate the brain's natural delivery system everything is delivered by swamping the system, it's a hack job, no surgical strike this. Under medicated is very mellow, over medicated is strung out, and there isn't any such thing as properly medicated, or so it seems.
So the shop question is also the sewing question, and the leatherworking question, etc., because at some level the interest is there, but I just don't quite have the oomph to do anything about it. Maybe if I can get to where things are cleaned up and organized, then sewing would become a possibility. Now when did the place really start to decline? Oh, yeah, same time period.
I really need to talk to my psychiatrist and see what the options are which we haven't tried. First I need to write up what the problems are, so I don't have to be functioning during the visit; that's the problem, if I'm functioning I forget what the problems are, if I'm not functioning, well, there ya go!
OK, got my marching orders, need to write stuff up.
Later. Not just now. I don't feel up to it at the moment. Which, of course, is the whole problem.
Me go read stuff now, will feel more cheery afterward.
2010-05-17
Letting go of the past, one document at a time
I have two small accordion files of checks to go, and Tucson and Chicago will no longer exist. There will no longer be documents in my possession, other than resumes and related documents in my disability application file, relating to my having ever lived in either city. By the end of the day I will have shredded the last of them. I've already thrown out all my letters received and all my other mail, newsletters and such; I hadn't looked at any of them since 1994, when I moved back from Chicago, I wasn't going to suddenly start doing stuff with them now, especially since when I started to I just ended up crying. My father and grandmother both died in 2001, and reading their letters would just remind me that they are no longer here, just as reading mom's letters remind me that she is now in an adult group home.
Going through the house, sorting things and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, so little that I choose to keep; I'm not really all that attached to things, I find, which given how much money I've spent on things over the years is unexpected. The books are going to be the interesting project, that and the shop. Deciding which of my books I'll actually read again, and thus might justify keeping, against the ones that I don't see using again, no matter how much I had to have them at another time. Do I see being a reference resource for anyone, as at one time I was, or will my hermit existence continue, with no one using my resources other than myself? And those that I determine not to keep, how to dispose of them to their best advantage? Or can I afford to concern myself with that question, and instead just take them to Powell's and other stores, and what is not taken donating to thrift stores, or just recycling as of no interest to anyone at this time.
We've already given all the jigsaw puzzles, except for a few that my sister is keeping, to Goodwill; I haven't' worked on a jigsaw puzzle in over 15 years, growing up they were a family activity, we had so many 1500 piece puzzles, lovely and complicated, spending hours an evening working on them together, my hording pieces, my sister leaning over the table and obscuring pieces with her hair, mom trying pieces that to everyone else obviously didn't fit, dad being very intense and not happy with pieces being horded or obscured, and Beth and dad insisting we couldn't look at the picture on the box, that we had to put the puzzles together without that aid. There were a couple I might have liked to keep, but before I realized they were going away they were gone, and really, when would I work on them? Jigsaw puzzles aren't something I do by myself, they are a social activity to me as a result of my upbringing. And I wonder about my collection of games, which do I keep on the off-chance that I'll become social again, with folks who would want to play them? And even more important, which of them will I be up to playing?
As we deal with mom, I keep having the thought, "How long until it's me?" My disability claim had to do with my mental functioning, reliability and the ups and downs of my abilities, and my increasing fear of trying, of taking risks, of being able to react appropriately to challenges and stress. Of fear of interacting with people, being afraid that I won't be able to do so at an acceptable level, that I'll be a drag on those around me, which does my friends no little injustice. But I've always been feral, under the surface, insecure, although for many years my success spurrec me on to overcome this, but as I perceive myself to be declining, I draw back into myself, back to how I was as a child, alone because I didn't have the skills to interact, because my mind betrayed my, being damaged at birth. I've done so much better than anyone thought I would, some of my doctors didn't see how I would make it to adulthood without being institutionalized, and it was close, closer than I like to think about. And how much I owe to my mother's persistence, her not accepting the negative prognosis, but constantly searching for other possibilities, wanting the best for me. And now she's deteriorating, memory betraying her, , showing everyday that wanting to help others is central to her very being, as her memory gets worse and she thinks she's on staff at the group home, thinking she's helping when she's a client, they like her, they humor her, I talk to her on the phone and I cry, cry for my mother, for who she was and who she is, my mother, whom I dearly love and can no longer help, other than talking with her and being her son, who loves her very much.
Given typing through a wall of tears, my touch-typing is very good.
My sister is under so much stress, dealing with mom, and me, at this time, as well as having been working on growing her music instruction, trying to get more students, working on a website just before all this started, not having it up as she can't focus on that now, I don't know what we'd be doing if not for my sister, Beth, I couldn't do what she's been doing, I'd just freeze up and break down, now she has to care for her mother, and try to set things up for her brother, and I fear that the day will come where she'd having to look into my care as well.
Not what the heading indicated this would be, this has been very much stream of consciousness.
On a cheerier note, I've gotten quite the collection of bookmarks now, reaching back 40 years some of them, and there are many more to be gathered in from my books, and one can tell, to an extent, where I've lived over the years, based upon the bookmarks, although there are stores that I'd think I'd have bookmarks from that aren't showing up so far, but there are many more books to go through. And some of the stores where I know I had many bookmarks are only showing a couple, but as stated, many more books to go through.
And in a bit I'll feel better. As I've commented before, at heart I'm a very cheerful person, which is a very good thing.
Going through the house, sorting things and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, so little that I choose to keep; I'm not really all that attached to things, I find, which given how much money I've spent on things over the years is unexpected. The books are going to be the interesting project, that and the shop. Deciding which of my books I'll actually read again, and thus might justify keeping, against the ones that I don't see using again, no matter how much I had to have them at another time. Do I see being a reference resource for anyone, as at one time I was, or will my hermit existence continue, with no one using my resources other than myself? And those that I determine not to keep, how to dispose of them to their best advantage? Or can I afford to concern myself with that question, and instead just take them to Powell's and other stores, and what is not taken donating to thrift stores, or just recycling as of no interest to anyone at this time.
We've already given all the jigsaw puzzles, except for a few that my sister is keeping, to Goodwill; I haven't' worked on a jigsaw puzzle in over 15 years, growing up they were a family activity, we had so many 1500 piece puzzles, lovely and complicated, spending hours an evening working on them together, my hording pieces, my sister leaning over the table and obscuring pieces with her hair, mom trying pieces that to everyone else obviously didn't fit, dad being very intense and not happy with pieces being horded or obscured, and Beth and dad insisting we couldn't look at the picture on the box, that we had to put the puzzles together without that aid. There were a couple I might have liked to keep, but before I realized they were going away they were gone, and really, when would I work on them? Jigsaw puzzles aren't something I do by myself, they are a social activity to me as a result of my upbringing. And I wonder about my collection of games, which do I keep on the off-chance that I'll become social again, with folks who would want to play them? And even more important, which of them will I be up to playing?
As we deal with mom, I keep having the thought, "How long until it's me?" My disability claim had to do with my mental functioning, reliability and the ups and downs of my abilities, and my increasing fear of trying, of taking risks, of being able to react appropriately to challenges and stress. Of fear of interacting with people, being afraid that I won't be able to do so at an acceptable level, that I'll be a drag on those around me, which does my friends no little injustice. But I've always been feral, under the surface, insecure, although for many years my success spurrec me on to overcome this, but as I perceive myself to be declining, I draw back into myself, back to how I was as a child, alone because I didn't have the skills to interact, because my mind betrayed my, being damaged at birth. I've done so much better than anyone thought I would, some of my doctors didn't see how I would make it to adulthood without being institutionalized, and it was close, closer than I like to think about. And how much I owe to my mother's persistence, her not accepting the negative prognosis, but constantly searching for other possibilities, wanting the best for me. And now she's deteriorating, memory betraying her, , showing everyday that wanting to help others is central to her very being, as her memory gets worse and she thinks she's on staff at the group home, thinking she's helping when she's a client, they like her, they humor her, I talk to her on the phone and I cry, cry for my mother, for who she was and who she is, my mother, whom I dearly love and can no longer help, other than talking with her and being her son, who loves her very much.
Given typing through a wall of tears, my touch-typing is very good.
My sister is under so much stress, dealing with mom, and me, at this time, as well as having been working on growing her music instruction, trying to get more students, working on a website just before all this started, not having it up as she can't focus on that now, I don't know what we'd be doing if not for my sister, Beth, I couldn't do what she's been doing, I'd just freeze up and break down, now she has to care for her mother, and try to set things up for her brother, and I fear that the day will come where she'd having to look into my care as well.
Not what the heading indicated this would be, this has been very much stream of consciousness.
On a cheerier note, I've gotten quite the collection of bookmarks now, reaching back 40 years some of them, and there are many more to be gathered in from my books, and one can tell, to an extent, where I've lived over the years, based upon the bookmarks, although there are stores that I'd think I'd have bookmarks from that aren't showing up so far, but there are many more books to go through. And some of the stores where I know I had many bookmarks are only showing a couple, but as stated, many more books to go through.
And in a bit I'll feel better. As I've commented before, at heart I'm a very cheerful person, which is a very good thing.
2010-05-11
How many computers do you have?
19. That's how many computers I currently have. 16 of them are in mom's living room, along with 9 printers, 4 monitors, and a number of mice, keyboards, dead hard-drives and a bunch of other computer related peripherals.
2 of those computers run CP/M, they're old Kaypro 2Xs, purchased back in the mid-1980s; one was used in dad's bookkeeping/tax preparations business for many years, the other was used by my sister through grad school. The most recent software they ran was WordStar 4.0, a very good wordprocessing program which dominated the CP/M world, but was sabatoged by the marketdroids when they transferred to PC-DOS; rather than properly develope and support their existing program, they chose to purchase others work and relabel it as WordStar, stabbing their loyal followers in the back. WordStar 7 for DOS wasn't bad, but the atrocity that was WordStar for Windows, meh, horrorshow, no wonder folks switched to WordPerfect and Word, Microstar took long enough to produce a DOS program that their dominance was lost, and then they put out crap.
Then there's a PS/2, and we're not talking about video game consoles here; this one was an old machine gifted by a friend when she upgraded, haven't actually used it or found a home for it, it's just gathered dust. Ditto the ZEOS 386 tower, which is the heaviest of the lot, truly an awkward machine, begging for the installation of wheels and handles. There are at least 2 486's, one of them a laptop running Win95, an old IBM Thinkpad, the model with the butterfly keyboard. One NextGen 586, which was a non-pin compatible alternative to the Pentium; nice machine, actually, but no upgrade path, and there was the periodic problem of programs properly identifying the hardware. 2 Pentiums, Compaq DeskPros, a P95 and a P115 I think, bought used at Stuff, the P95 came with built-in SCSI support.
The remaining 11 computers are all AMDs of different vintages, mainly with Win98 installed; this computer runs Windows 7, the next most recent operating system is WinMe, I'm thinking of installing WinXP on a secondary hard-drive on this machine so I can run computer games which choke on Windows Vista and Windows 7, which is the main reason why I have the WinMe and the most modern Win98SE machine up here and not with the rest in the living room; the problem with those machines is that the sound seems to have cut out, which is a drag when playing games, and for some games a critical failure problem. If I get a new hard-drive to install as my back-up drive, I can then use the current back-up drive as an alternate OS drive, and have sound with my games; I'd also need to get a USB joy stick, as they no longer provide MIDI/Game Ports on computers and that takes care of my old joy stick. Of course, I could also check to see if my games would play with Wine, and if so I could look at installing a Linux distro. Pity my WinXP computer died, seems to be motherboard as well as the hard-drive being toast, that forced me to my current machine, at least no boot activity with a new hard-drive, which sure makes it look like toast to me, it should at least POST if the motherboard was still good.
It's going to take a couple of trips to run them all over to Free Geek, which is a local organization which will first attempt to make computers function as Linux systems, and failing that recycle them properly; if you bring in more than a couple of systems at a time they do charge, but it's minimal, and they'll try to utilize everything they can prior to sending to recycling, and given my not wanting to toss these puppies into a landfill but instead have them properly disposed of we'll find the funds for their fees.
And it's interesting being able to access my second bedroom again, it was full of dead computers. Now, the really painful part was tossing all the old software, several thousands of dollars worth that have no value now, expensive wordprocessing programs, OSs, games, etc., none of which will run on anything modern, or if you can get them to run you can't get them to print, as they're using DOS printer drivers, printer specific drivers written for each program. The great thing with Windows is that the printer has one driver for the OS, and programs talk to the OS; previously printer drivers were program specific, so each program required their own printer drivers, and once the program ceased being supported you were toast once you could no longer purchase supported printers. With Windows so long as the program can properly talk to the current version of Windows you can use any modern printer, and this, to me, is much more significant than the GUI, and is one of the things which forces OS upgrading, the need to be able to print with modern printers, as it's not cost effective to maintain old printers. Now, the thing that drove my upgrading to WinXP was that it was the minimum required to run TurboTax a couple of years ago, and that was the final straw for Win98SE, no longer running modern tax software when it was time to do my mother's taxes.
OK, my mind is starting to drift, time for afternoon meds and then food, I guess.
2 of those computers run CP/M, they're old Kaypro 2Xs, purchased back in the mid-1980s; one was used in dad's bookkeeping/tax preparations business for many years, the other was used by my sister through grad school. The most recent software they ran was WordStar 4.0, a very good wordprocessing program which dominated the CP/M world, but was sabatoged by the marketdroids when they transferred to PC-DOS; rather than properly develope and support their existing program, they chose to purchase others work and relabel it as WordStar, stabbing their loyal followers in the back. WordStar 7 for DOS wasn't bad, but the atrocity that was WordStar for Windows, meh, horrorshow, no wonder folks switched to WordPerfect and Word, Microstar took long enough to produce a DOS program that their dominance was lost, and then they put out crap.
Then there's a PS/2, and we're not talking about video game consoles here; this one was an old machine gifted by a friend when she upgraded, haven't actually used it or found a home for it, it's just gathered dust. Ditto the ZEOS 386 tower, which is the heaviest of the lot, truly an awkward machine, begging for the installation of wheels and handles. There are at least 2 486's, one of them a laptop running Win95, an old IBM Thinkpad, the model with the butterfly keyboard. One NextGen 586, which was a non-pin compatible alternative to the Pentium; nice machine, actually, but no upgrade path, and there was the periodic problem of programs properly identifying the hardware. 2 Pentiums, Compaq DeskPros, a P95 and a P115 I think, bought used at Stuff, the P95 came with built-in SCSI support.
The remaining 11 computers are all AMDs of different vintages, mainly with Win98 installed; this computer runs Windows 7, the next most recent operating system is WinMe, I'm thinking of installing WinXP on a secondary hard-drive on this machine so I can run computer games which choke on Windows Vista and Windows 7, which is the main reason why I have the WinMe and the most modern Win98SE machine up here and not with the rest in the living room; the problem with those machines is that the sound seems to have cut out, which is a drag when playing games, and for some games a critical failure problem. If I get a new hard-drive to install as my back-up drive, I can then use the current back-up drive as an alternate OS drive, and have sound with my games; I'd also need to get a USB joy stick, as they no longer provide MIDI/Game Ports on computers and that takes care of my old joy stick. Of course, I could also check to see if my games would play with Wine, and if so I could look at installing a Linux distro. Pity my WinXP computer died, seems to be motherboard as well as the hard-drive being toast, that forced me to my current machine, at least no boot activity with a new hard-drive, which sure makes it look like toast to me, it should at least POST if the motherboard was still good.
It's going to take a couple of trips to run them all over to Free Geek, which is a local organization which will first attempt to make computers function as Linux systems, and failing that recycle them properly; if you bring in more than a couple of systems at a time they do charge, but it's minimal, and they'll try to utilize everything they can prior to sending to recycling, and given my not wanting to toss these puppies into a landfill but instead have them properly disposed of we'll find the funds for their fees.
And it's interesting being able to access my second bedroom again, it was full of dead computers. Now, the really painful part was tossing all the old software, several thousands of dollars worth that have no value now, expensive wordprocessing programs, OSs, games, etc., none of which will run on anything modern, or if you can get them to run you can't get them to print, as they're using DOS printer drivers, printer specific drivers written for each program. The great thing with Windows is that the printer has one driver for the OS, and programs talk to the OS; previously printer drivers were program specific, so each program required their own printer drivers, and once the program ceased being supported you were toast once you could no longer purchase supported printers. With Windows so long as the program can properly talk to the current version of Windows you can use any modern printer, and this, to me, is much more significant than the GUI, and is one of the things which forces OS upgrading, the need to be able to print with modern printers, as it's not cost effective to maintain old printers. Now, the thing that drove my upgrading to WinXP was that it was the minimum required to run TurboTax a couple of years ago, and that was the final straw for Win98SE, no longer running modern tax software when it was time to do my mother's taxes.
OK, my mind is starting to drift, time for afternoon meds and then food, I guess.
2010-05-09
Unknown Boxes [Not what I thought it was!]
Somewhere, I have several boxes of old Tournaments Illuminated, and Complete Anachronists, relics of 20+ years of SCA activity. I thought I knew which box it was, as I'd gone through all the other boxes in the room I though they were in. But that box, whilst big enough to hold all the TIs, didn't. Instead, it was full of LPs.
This surprised me. See, I have lots of LPs, a vast collection, esoteric and fascinating in its own right, but they aren't up here in this apartment, they're down in the basement, in record boxes, awaiting the day I again had a functional phonograph; my phonograph died in grad school, and I shipped my records home after grad school, to be stored by my parents, as I didn't want to entrust them to UPS or anyone else involved in shipping things from Tucson to Parts East, known as Chicago, when I didn't have digs established yet, and not having a functioning phonograph in Chicago I never saw fit to have them shipped out from Portland, it would have been silly.
Yes, the phonograph was taken in by my parents, who got it repaired, and shipped it out to me. And it arrived in Chicago and had died in transit, the tone arm not having been properly strapped down. It's currently sitting on top of the glass front in my living room, awaiting a visit to a phonograph repair place, yet again; it's a good phonograph, direct drive, a sturdy Technics turntable of respectable vintage. And I have both of my parents' turntables, one also a Technics, one an ancient monstrosity from my grandparents which will play 78s as well as 33s and 45s.
So, anyway, there's this box of records. I looked through them as I transferred them into more reasonably sized boxes; yes, with age I've learned to pack things in smaller boxes, it's better for my back. I found that with very few exceptions I recognized these records, they were indeed mine, except for three 45s and a copy of the Messiah and some Spoken German collection. And while thumbing through, a Bloomington bus schedule dropped out.
Now, I've never been to Bloomington, Indiana, but I know someone who lived there, who lived in Tucson previously and afterwards lived here in Portland, in that very room for a bit, and then in Apt 4, across the hall. Cameron Craigie, the Once and Future Roommate, whom I shared an apartment with in Tucson and met up with in the Midwest when he got work in Bloomington after obtaining his PhD in Optical Physics, and whom we housed when he had enough of the Midwest and moved back to the PNW, sans job initially, but correctly thinking he'd do better finding work out here if he was here than he'd do hanging out in Bloomington. And I remembered, then, that he had pulled a bunch of my records out, to borrow and keep in Tucson while continuing his studies, with the promise to get them back to me, sometime, before the world ended.
Well, apparently he did, leaving them in my spare bedroom. And I really have no memory of this occurring; I thought he still had them! Now I need to sort them, and then when I get to that part of the move, reintegrate them with the records he didn't borrow.
And I am completely baffled as to where the old TIs and CAs are hiding, I'm guessing down in the basement. I'd really been hoping to find them, I want to find a good home for them, unlike all the old SCA newsletters I'm sending to recycling. They definitely aren't where I thought they were.
This surprised me. See, I have lots of LPs, a vast collection, esoteric and fascinating in its own right, but they aren't up here in this apartment, they're down in the basement, in record boxes, awaiting the day I again had a functional phonograph; my phonograph died in grad school, and I shipped my records home after grad school, to be stored by my parents, as I didn't want to entrust them to UPS or anyone else involved in shipping things from Tucson to Parts East, known as Chicago, when I didn't have digs established yet, and not having a functioning phonograph in Chicago I never saw fit to have them shipped out from Portland, it would have been silly.
Yes, the phonograph was taken in by my parents, who got it repaired, and shipped it out to me. And it arrived in Chicago and had died in transit, the tone arm not having been properly strapped down. It's currently sitting on top of the glass front in my living room, awaiting a visit to a phonograph repair place, yet again; it's a good phonograph, direct drive, a sturdy Technics turntable of respectable vintage. And I have both of my parents' turntables, one also a Technics, one an ancient monstrosity from my grandparents which will play 78s as well as 33s and 45s.
So, anyway, there's this box of records. I looked through them as I transferred them into more reasonably sized boxes; yes, with age I've learned to pack things in smaller boxes, it's better for my back. I found that with very few exceptions I recognized these records, they were indeed mine, except for three 45s and a copy of the Messiah and some Spoken German collection. And while thumbing through, a Bloomington bus schedule dropped out.
Now, I've never been to Bloomington, Indiana, but I know someone who lived there, who lived in Tucson previously and afterwards lived here in Portland, in that very room for a bit, and then in Apt 4, across the hall. Cameron Craigie, the Once and Future Roommate, whom I shared an apartment with in Tucson and met up with in the Midwest when he got work in Bloomington after obtaining his PhD in Optical Physics, and whom we housed when he had enough of the Midwest and moved back to the PNW, sans job initially, but correctly thinking he'd do better finding work out here if he was here than he'd do hanging out in Bloomington. And I remembered, then, that he had pulled a bunch of my records out, to borrow and keep in Tucson while continuing his studies, with the promise to get them back to me, sometime, before the world ended.
Well, apparently he did, leaving them in my spare bedroom. And I really have no memory of this occurring; I thought he still had them! Now I need to sort them, and then when I get to that part of the move, reintegrate them with the records he didn't borrow.
And I am completely baffled as to where the old TIs and CAs are hiding, I'm guessing down in the basement. I'd really been hoping to find them, I want to find a good home for them, unlike all the old SCA newsletters I'm sending to recycling. They definitely aren't where I thought they were.
2010-05-07
Locks and Memory, or memories
Whilst sorting through stuff today, well, more like while making sure it's nothing I need after not seeing this stuff for over ten years, and recycling papers, I came across a box that probably hasn't been looked at since I moved back from Chicago in 1994. And in this box was a combination lock. This lock was last used by myself in 1988; it locked my bicycle. I obtained this lock in the fall of 1975, the first day of school; it was my locker lock. Not having seen it in 15 years, not having used it in 22 years, I calmly spun the dial, and entered the combination, and opened it.
Yes, I remembered the combination. Good thing, too, it's not written down anywhere, I'm sure the school bookstore purged their records of that lock many years ago [I did, early on, forget the combination, called the bookstore, and they told it to me; they kept records just for that purpose.]
I can't remember any of the four addresses I had in my six years in Chicago, nor the telephone number, the same holds true for Tucson and Eugene, both of which were school-related tenures. At the moment I still have papers from Tucson and Chicago, and if I looked through them I could find that information. Shortly, in the next several weeks, all of that information will be gone, except for several boxes which have shipping labels on them and are still in use. Shortly, aside from some photographs, books, and a couple of tchotchkes, I will have nothing left from the vast majority of my life, no tangible items reflecting my experiences and history, nothing except my memories.
My memory is a quirky thing. I can remember the address and phone number of the house I grew up in in Salem, Oregon, and I could draw a diagram of how the house was laid out prior to our moving to Portland. I can actually draw floor-plans for every place I've lived, now that I think about it, even if I don't remember the address. Well, except for the first two houses, but I was very young, less than a year old when we moved into the house on Saginaw in Salem, so I have no memory of the house on State Street which we lived in initially upon moving to Salem, nor the Potter Street house in Eugene where we lived when I was born; I know the streets they were on from my parents' conversations over the years, and there is the slight chance that amongst their documents we'd have those addresses. I can't navigate Salem as well as I used to, because of the construction over the years since we moved.
In my mind I can see people that I've known over the years, worked with, gone to school with, known in fandom and the SCA, and I know who they are... except that the names are starting to fade, with time and mental disuse. Well, some of them, some of them can be dredged back up, given time. But I've always been bad with names, at least when I initially meet people, it always took a while for me to learn names, part of my memorization problems which have always been with me. Once I learn the name, I'm pretty good, I guess. And I can remember what people look like.
There was a period when I took lots of photographs, before my first real camera was stolen; I fell out of the habit, then, and never got back into it. So there are a couple of years with lots of photos, of the SCA, some of fandom, some school, but after that not much at all, I was too busy doing and not recording. Taking photos is what spectators do, and I enjoyed myself so much more if I was helping make things happen. Which means for most of my life there is no record, other than the very documents I'm in the process of discarding. Some will be kept, those which look to be of use, such as those supporting my disability claim; it may come under review sometime, so I feel the need to keep those documents, which means I'll still have copies of my last job resume, and a work history which describes in some detail what I did at various jobs, all part of documenting what I'd been able to do prior to the gradual decline. But I'm throwing out alot of memorabilia, con programs, newsletters, letters, all sorts of stuff that I look at and force myself to ask if I'll ever look at them again, and find the answer being "No, I'll never go through these again", so I discard them, the neglected record of my past.
And then I'll go through my books, and that will be hard, going through and looking at them from the perspective of what I'm honestly likely to use, as opposed to the reference librarian who wants to keep everything, but if I'm looking at moving into a considerably smaller place, I really have no choice.
And the wood shop and all my electronics and building maintenance materials, what of them to keep and how best to dispose of what I don't? Again, the question of what do I actually see myself using. I'm seeming to be functioning some better recently, but how will that carry over to various activities I haven't done in years?
So much of going through my stuff includes saying "This I used to do, but do no longer, and will never do again". There needs to be some "And this I may do again", something of planning forwards, seeing future accomplishment and activities. To be blunt, a reason for going on. I need to find things that I will be doing, that will involve me with others, for I need to be involved with my fellow man, and at some level be a contributing part of society; I do not enjoy being a spectator, and at this time I'm not even doing that.
I'm tired. Guess I'll go to bed, then.
Yes, I remembered the combination. Good thing, too, it's not written down anywhere, I'm sure the school bookstore purged their records of that lock many years ago [I did, early on, forget the combination, called the bookstore, and they told it to me; they kept records just for that purpose.]
I can't remember any of the four addresses I had in my six years in Chicago, nor the telephone number, the same holds true for Tucson and Eugene, both of which were school-related tenures. At the moment I still have papers from Tucson and Chicago, and if I looked through them I could find that information. Shortly, in the next several weeks, all of that information will be gone, except for several boxes which have shipping labels on them and are still in use. Shortly, aside from some photographs, books, and a couple of tchotchkes, I will have nothing left from the vast majority of my life, no tangible items reflecting my experiences and history, nothing except my memories.
My memory is a quirky thing. I can remember the address and phone number of the house I grew up in in Salem, Oregon, and I could draw a diagram of how the house was laid out prior to our moving to Portland. I can actually draw floor-plans for every place I've lived, now that I think about it, even if I don't remember the address. Well, except for the first two houses, but I was very young, less than a year old when we moved into the house on Saginaw in Salem, so I have no memory of the house on State Street which we lived in initially upon moving to Salem, nor the Potter Street house in Eugene where we lived when I was born; I know the streets they were on from my parents' conversations over the years, and there is the slight chance that amongst their documents we'd have those addresses. I can't navigate Salem as well as I used to, because of the construction over the years since we moved.
In my mind I can see people that I've known over the years, worked with, gone to school with, known in fandom and the SCA, and I know who they are... except that the names are starting to fade, with time and mental disuse. Well, some of them, some of them can be dredged back up, given time. But I've always been bad with names, at least when I initially meet people, it always took a while for me to learn names, part of my memorization problems which have always been with me. Once I learn the name, I'm pretty good, I guess. And I can remember what people look like.
There was a period when I took lots of photographs, before my first real camera was stolen; I fell out of the habit, then, and never got back into it. So there are a couple of years with lots of photos, of the SCA, some of fandom, some school, but after that not much at all, I was too busy doing and not recording. Taking photos is what spectators do, and I enjoyed myself so much more if I was helping make things happen. Which means for most of my life there is no record, other than the very documents I'm in the process of discarding. Some will be kept, those which look to be of use, such as those supporting my disability claim; it may come under review sometime, so I feel the need to keep those documents, which means I'll still have copies of my last job resume, and a work history which describes in some detail what I did at various jobs, all part of documenting what I'd been able to do prior to the gradual decline. But I'm throwing out alot of memorabilia, con programs, newsletters, letters, all sorts of stuff that I look at and force myself to ask if I'll ever look at them again, and find the answer being "No, I'll never go through these again", so I discard them, the neglected record of my past.
And then I'll go through my books, and that will be hard, going through and looking at them from the perspective of what I'm honestly likely to use, as opposed to the reference librarian who wants to keep everything, but if I'm looking at moving into a considerably smaller place, I really have no choice.
And the wood shop and all my electronics and building maintenance materials, what of them to keep and how best to dispose of what I don't? Again, the question of what do I actually see myself using. I'm seeming to be functioning some better recently, but how will that carry over to various activities I haven't done in years?
So much of going through my stuff includes saying "This I used to do, but do no longer, and will never do again". There needs to be some "And this I may do again", something of planning forwards, seeing future accomplishment and activities. To be blunt, a reason for going on. I need to find things that I will be doing, that will involve me with others, for I need to be involved with my fellow man, and at some level be a contributing part of society; I do not enjoy being a spectator, and at this time I'm not even doing that.
I'm tired. Guess I'll go to bed, then.
2010-04-25
Where to start?
Life is being interesting these days. On Monday, March 8th my mother didn't wake up when it was time for her morning medications. I was a little concerned, but thought that she might just be really deeply asleep, so I decided to wait an hour and see if she woke up, and then waited another hour until I decided that this was just too long for her to be unresponsive to my shaking her shoulders, etc., and called 911, whose response in regard to my saying my mother wasn't waking up was to send paramedics and an ambulance right away. That would have been around 10:00AM, I guess, well, just a bit later as I got dressed before calling. I let the paramedics in, and provided answers to their questions while they checked mom out, and finding her still not responding, and her muscles being pretty rigid, pull on her arm and it would resist and move back to the same position, and apparently she had some slight vomit that I hadn't seen due to the positioning of her head, they packed her up and took her out to the ambulance once it arrived. I tried to track down our copy of her advanced directive, but couldn't find it at the time, she'd been thinking of redoing it and it wasn't in any of the locations I could think of, and I decided that getting her to the hospital was a bit more important than looking for the advanced directive. I rode in with them, taking the perspective that I could catch a bus home if need be but wanted to be there with mom and if I rode with them I'd get to the right place. Instead of going to Kaiser, mom being a Kaiser patient, we went to OHSU [Oregon Health Sciences University] Emergency Services, guess it was closer and they were not sure what was going on. Got checked in at Emergency, they cut mom out of her clothes which she hadn't taken off from the day before, discussed with me inserting an airway to keep here breathing clear in case she were to vomit or have problems swallowing, and while I know that mom didn't want tube feeding and various other forms of life prolonging treatment, this struck me as a reasonable preventive precaution, the idea of giving her a fighting chance. I'm not sure when they installed the catheter, but when they did there was a lot and nasty looking. They got her on an IV, and took her in for a CAT scan and had me wait in the waiting room at that time. That's when I called Beth, my older sister, to let her know what was going on, got her voicemail and left a message; Beth lives in Olympia, WA, and is a self-employed Piano teacher. Beth had been down jsut a few days earlier, on Thursday, to go to a meeting with mom's doctor, who was of the opinion that it was time to start looking at some variety of long term care, that mom shouldn't be living at home any longer, her dementia and incontinence, specifically the problems keeping clean, were such that she should have assistance greater than she could have at home, that we were past the help I could give with my own problems which were why I was on disability. Anyway I left a message on Beth's voicemail, and waited. After a while, long enough to read through the only interesting magazine and then some, they came out to let me know they were moving mom to ICU, that she didn't seem to have had a stroke or anything, but she was dehydrated and still hadn't woken up. So I went with them as they transported mom to another section of the complex, up to the 12th floor of another wing, possibly another building it's hard to tell, and had me wait in a waiting room while they got mom set up. This is the one section where I'm not happy with them, it wasn't made clear to me how I could get in touch with them when I was left in an unattended waiting room, I was there for hours without any contact. During that time Beth called me, her phone was out because of construction work cutting through the trunk line to her subdivision, the phone wouldn't have the physical connection repaired until the 13th, but voicemail worked since it was voicemail and not an answering machine, they'd borrowed a cell phone from a neighbor and had finally gotten a chance to check their voicemail and found out that mom was i8n the hospital, and that they were going to come down, they'd contacted her students and rescheduled the rest of the day, and Beth had a copy of the advanced directive and would bring it. About that time I said enough was enough, I was done waiting for someone to come talk to me and was going to go looking for mom. Turns out there was a phone on the wall next to the door which could be used to contact the nurses station, I called and told them I was looking for my mother [with her name] and they checked and said I could come back, so I did and found the nurses station and they then directed me on to the room mom was in. No, wait, they had come out while I was in the waiting room, three doctors, to ask me questions about mom, but no one had said how I'd be able to go back to see her. And being in a waiting room didn't do mom any good, but if I could be back with her I could at least hold her hand and let her know someone who cared about her was there. Which was what I did, held her hand and petted her head like she was a cat, to let her know someone cared and was there, she still hadn't woken up and it was late afternoon, but they were pretty sure now that it was a bad urinary tract infection, and it had started to go systemic, so they had her on antibiotics and saline, she'd gotten very dehydrated and her kidneys weren't happy with her. Oh, and I'd also called my uncle Richard earlier, to let him know something was up. I don't remember precisely when in all this I called Richard, but I think it was before I went on mom search. Beth and Karen [Beth's partner] arrived after visiting hours were over, and had a fun time getting into the building, but snazzy staff members helped them find their way to the proper area. They sent me off to get food, I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and we were now into late evening, and they talked with doctors whilst I was off. 10:00PM or so we decided that it would serve no purpose to stay the night with mom, so they ran me home and went to stay with Allison, a friend of ours who they normally stay with when they come to town. I think they'd already started calling students to clear Tuesday, the neighbor who'd let them use a cell phone had a spare cell phone that he'd sent with them so they could do phone stuff [good neighbor, yes].
Tuesday mom started to be somewhat responsive, but only somewhat, we weren't really sure how aware she was of things, if she was really responding to us or not, as the whole time she'd been having twitches, I'd forgotten about that until now, she'd been twitching a bit the whole time this was going on, from when I first saw her Monday morning, so the whole asking her to squeeze your hand or move a foot or whatever was totally bogus because she was having these twitches and you couldn't presume any meaning to them. Her eyes being somewhat open didn't mean anything. But once or twice it seemed that she was turning slightly towards the voice of someone talking to her, but we couldn't be sure she was really responding. Partway through the day they determined she had stabalized enough to be transported to Kaiser, and I again rode over with her, Beth and Karen bringing their car, and around this time B&K decided they'd probably be here the rest of the week and to start clearing her schedule of students, because they weren't heading back to Olympia until they had some idea about where to move mom after she was released, but it sure looked like it wasn't going to be back home. And boy were they glad we'd gotten mom to sign a Power of Attorney on the previous Friday before Beth had to go back to Olympia. We'd drawn up a PoA that named me as the Agent, and Beth as an alternate, but real quick we realized that I just wasn't up to what was going to need to be done, so Beth was going to have to become the primary. If we'd started out as Beth as the primary mom might not have signed it, which is part of mom being a bit weird, but she'd signed it and we could now shift it to where the person capable of dealing with stuff would be the agent. Things have blurred together in regards to what day and precise order, but we got Beth all the information on the various life insurance policies, IRAs, etc., which could help with funding, she already had the long term care insurance policies; I might not have been up to dealing with the various people and entities, but I was able to lay my hands on the information needed for Beth to do so. I do know that Wednesday mom started being clearly responsive, they'd taken the tubes out late Tuesday before we headed out for the night, Wednesday when I drove over she was in a chair, not doing well in regard to talking, but clearly someone was home. I honestly can't remember how many days she was at Kaiser, B&K had to head back up to Olympia and see about finding a facility to transfer her to upon her discharge from Kaiser, because they really had to handle things and that meant it would be best to find a place in their neck of the woods. I was in what I refer to as "deal with it" mode, with jsut enough adrenaline permeating my system that I was functioning well, so I was making it out to see mom each day while she was at Kaiser, staying until I could feel my edge start to fade and then get home while still safe to drive. Part of my problem is that I don't seem to produce adrenaline and various other neurotransmitters properly, so I can't be relied upon, too much day to day what will I be up to, and getting myself started on things, meh, totally undependable, the gradual decline from what I used to be able to do has me totally depressed when I allow myself to think about it. Anyway, B&K found a Nursing home/rehab facility in Olympia to shift mom over to, which they did, not cheap but very good, and she was there for the better part of a month, she's gotten back pretty much to where she had been before the infection, so it's been determined that an Adult Foster Care situation is what would be best, and Thursday I think they transferred her over.
The long term care insurance may not cover this, but it's more appropriate at this time. We're going to have to sell the Portland property to fund things long term. But that requires that we have someplace for me to move to. Due to my being on disability Medicaid will allow mom to set monies aside to help me, and my IRA is enough for a good sized down payment, but the order in which monies are made available is going to be crucial, if uncle Richard or my cousin Glenn can buy out mom's interest in the family farm in Grand Ronde that will cover getting me re-situated which will then allow for disposing of this property where I'm currently living, which has been "home" since 1976, even when I lived in Chicago for six years this was home. So as funds are made available there will be a search for a place near Olympia, in one of the lumber towns most likely, where the economy is really depressed and home values are down, for me to move to so I'll be close to mom and sis. And I have to start getting my stuff organized for a move, and this is something that is difficult for me, which is a problem for precisely the reasons they approved my disability claim. I've got to sort stuff, throw stuff away, recycle stuff, dispose of things to worthy homes, sell some stuff, whatever, drastically reduce what I have and determine what things I actually might use again.
One of the things I've always identified myself as being is an Oregonian, a fourth generation native born Oregonian, and that will become a thing of the past, I'll be moving and never coming back. Of course, another thing I always believed was that I'd marry and have children, at 48 that doesn't seem so likely anymore, so looking at keeping things to pass onto further generations doesn't seem to be a consideration at this time. Beth and Karen have raised Karen's niece, Caillie [or however it is spelled, Gaelic for dance or some such thing], and look to be passing things down to her, so the family stuff is being funneled to Beth for preservation and distribution.
Well, that's three hours plus of writing, and crying at times. Maybe I won't take so long before my next entry.
Tuesday mom started to be somewhat responsive, but only somewhat, we weren't really sure how aware she was of things, if she was really responding to us or not, as the whole time she'd been having twitches, I'd forgotten about that until now, she'd been twitching a bit the whole time this was going on, from when I first saw her Monday morning, so the whole asking her to squeeze your hand or move a foot or whatever was totally bogus because she was having these twitches and you couldn't presume any meaning to them. Her eyes being somewhat open didn't mean anything. But once or twice it seemed that she was turning slightly towards the voice of someone talking to her, but we couldn't be sure she was really responding. Partway through the day they determined she had stabalized enough to be transported to Kaiser, and I again rode over with her, Beth and Karen bringing their car, and around this time B&K decided they'd probably be here the rest of the week and to start clearing her schedule of students, because they weren't heading back to Olympia until they had some idea about where to move mom after she was released, but it sure looked like it wasn't going to be back home. And boy were they glad we'd gotten mom to sign a Power of Attorney on the previous Friday before Beth had to go back to Olympia. We'd drawn up a PoA that named me as the Agent, and Beth as an alternate, but real quick we realized that I just wasn't up to what was going to need to be done, so Beth was going to have to become the primary. If we'd started out as Beth as the primary mom might not have signed it, which is part of mom being a bit weird, but she'd signed it and we could now shift it to where the person capable of dealing with stuff would be the agent. Things have blurred together in regards to what day and precise order, but we got Beth all the information on the various life insurance policies, IRAs, etc., which could help with funding, she already had the long term care insurance policies; I might not have been up to dealing with the various people and entities, but I was able to lay my hands on the information needed for Beth to do so. I do know that Wednesday mom started being clearly responsive, they'd taken the tubes out late Tuesday before we headed out for the night, Wednesday when I drove over she was in a chair, not doing well in regard to talking, but clearly someone was home. I honestly can't remember how many days she was at Kaiser, B&K had to head back up to Olympia and see about finding a facility to transfer her to upon her discharge from Kaiser, because they really had to handle things and that meant it would be best to find a place in their neck of the woods. I was in what I refer to as "deal with it" mode, with jsut enough adrenaline permeating my system that I was functioning well, so I was making it out to see mom each day while she was at Kaiser, staying until I could feel my edge start to fade and then get home while still safe to drive. Part of my problem is that I don't seem to produce adrenaline and various other neurotransmitters properly, so I can't be relied upon, too much day to day what will I be up to, and getting myself started on things, meh, totally undependable, the gradual decline from what I used to be able to do has me totally depressed when I allow myself to think about it. Anyway, B&K found a Nursing home/rehab facility in Olympia to shift mom over to, which they did, not cheap but very good, and she was there for the better part of a month, she's gotten back pretty much to where she had been before the infection, so it's been determined that an Adult Foster Care situation is what would be best, and Thursday I think they transferred her over.
The long term care insurance may not cover this, but it's more appropriate at this time. We're going to have to sell the Portland property to fund things long term. But that requires that we have someplace for me to move to. Due to my being on disability Medicaid will allow mom to set monies aside to help me, and my IRA is enough for a good sized down payment, but the order in which monies are made available is going to be crucial, if uncle Richard or my cousin Glenn can buy out mom's interest in the family farm in Grand Ronde that will cover getting me re-situated which will then allow for disposing of this property where I'm currently living, which has been "home" since 1976, even when I lived in Chicago for six years this was home. So as funds are made available there will be a search for a place near Olympia, in one of the lumber towns most likely, where the economy is really depressed and home values are down, for me to move to so I'll be close to mom and sis. And I have to start getting my stuff organized for a move, and this is something that is difficult for me, which is a problem for precisely the reasons they approved my disability claim. I've got to sort stuff, throw stuff away, recycle stuff, dispose of things to worthy homes, sell some stuff, whatever, drastically reduce what I have and determine what things I actually might use again.
One of the things I've always identified myself as being is an Oregonian, a fourth generation native born Oregonian, and that will become a thing of the past, I'll be moving and never coming back. Of course, another thing I always believed was that I'd marry and have children, at 48 that doesn't seem so likely anymore, so looking at keeping things to pass onto further generations doesn't seem to be a consideration at this time. Beth and Karen have raised Karen's niece, Caillie [or however it is spelled, Gaelic for dance or some such thing], and look to be passing things down to her, so the family stuff is being funneled to Beth for preservation and distribution.
Well, that's three hours plus of writing, and crying at times. Maybe I won't take so long before my next entry.
2009-12-15
Shed Lumber Storage, post 1
I can't recollect if I've actually posted concerning the shed that Bill was building for us, I think I haven't. It's big. 8'x20', near 10' on the tall side [it has a sloped roof], door in one end and on one side, two big windows courtesy of having replaced some and needing a home for the old windows. Sturdy. Well framed. Proper roof with shingles and everything. Still has some work that needs to get done, steps to the doors, gutter, and paint, but other than that the structure is complete. Will need to get someone else to finish it, Bill's now got hernia problems and continuing to do this kind of work, well, it just isn't going to happen.
The intent is that all of our yard related equipment and storage can shift to the shed, and that the vast majority of our lumber storage can also shift there.
To this end I've, you guessed it, bought more lumber, so that appropriate shelving can be constructed.
I'm using a tried and true shelving methodology, or at least one that I've successfully used in the past. 4"x4" uprights and base, forming an 'L' shape, with 1 1/8" holes drilled in the upright to allow for 1" steel pipe, the kind used in plumbing, to slip into and form the shelves. To encourage the pipe to stay in the holes, and to make gravity our friend, the holes are drilled at a 5 degree angle from horizontal, so everything wants to shift towards the uprights. The pipe gets wrapped in pipe insulation so that it doesn't discolor the lumber. The 'L's are joined together to form a unit via 2"x4" cross beams set into notches in the back of the 4"x4"s, and these cross beams are also attached to the shed frame. Angle brackets and bolts hold the uprights to the base legs. Once it's all put together it's solid, very solid, not going anywhere solid, and able to hold lots of lumber. Covers one entire wall of the shed, so it'll handle a lot, with the base and then six shelves coming out from the uprights, 28" sections of pipe.
There are a couple of tricky bits, one being all those angled holes. I'm currently 5/8s done with drilling them, would have been 2/3s but the drilling tool came unadjusted on me and shifted to a 15 degree slope on the last upright I was drilling, didn't realize it until I'd drilled several holes, so that upright is going to turn into base pieces. The tool I'm using is at the end of this link; this tool allows you to drill holes at a specified angle, 5 degree accuracy if you are careful, using a standard power drill. If you have a drill press and appropriate outfeed supports by all means use it, but if you don't, this puppy sells for $39.50 from Lee Valley, and Rockler, Woodcraft, and Harbor Freight all sell variants on it. A drill press would be a much easier way to go, but not having space currently to assemble my drill press, this is what I'm using. Anyway, the settings came lose thanks to vibration after drilling 30 holes, I've reset the thing and will check more frequently to make sure it doesn't come loose again. I've got 18 more holes to go, and my arms are getting sore. Then I'll need to cut the base legs, and break out the dado gear to make the notches, and go get 2"x4"s and the able braces and bolts, etc., to put the things together, and do so.
Then I'll be able to look at moving stuff into the shed from the basement. The goal is to clear out all the lumber, etc., which is underneath the plumbing, because the plumbing is at the stage where we really need to think about replacing it. The building is 90 years old, there abouts, and much of the plumbing is original; the pipe is rusting up on the inside, needs replacing.
I'm not looking forward to selecting plumbers. Frankly, I'm terrified, my various stress-related reactions are all triggering, and it's not going to be a pretty sight.
That I'm working on the storage shelving is nothing short of miraculous. The only thing I can figure out is that one of my medications just changed manufacturer, and they're using a different mix of "inert" components in it, and that I'm not reacting to them the same as I was to the previous manufacturer's product, which I need to bring to the attention of my doctor, because seriously, I'm being far more functional than I have been in some years now. This is what is known as a "good thing".
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