It’s Friday again.  I’m making that announcement right from the start, in case anyone is surprised by that fact, or wasn’t specifically aware, or—I suppose—is reading this on some day other than the day I post it (or some multiple of seven days after that).

There’s nothing much new that’s good going on in the world since yesterday.  Or, well, there’s nothing new that’s good going on in my life, nor among the events that I see and read about in the news or perceive from the other people with whom I interact.  I would guess that there really are probably quite a few good things, new and otherwise, in the world, by most any reasonable definition of the word “good” you might choose, as long as you’re not being contrary.  Unfortunately, for me anyway, few to none of those good things—new or otherwise—seem to have much to do with me.

For instance, I haven’t written any new fiction.  That may actually be a good thing in and of itself, though.  I don’t know that my fiction is a net good in the world, or even a gross good, though sometimes it is definitely good and gross (ha ha).

I haven’t said or done anything pleasant or positive when interacting with other people since yesterday, that I can recall.  I also haven’t played any music, though I have listened to some, briefly.

Between the last sentence and this one, I just ran my thumb along the surfaces of the fingers of my left hand, and they feel very close to being as smooth and thin as those of the right hand.  Similarly, typing feels almost the same in both hands, though there’s still a residual difference of feeling.  My calluses are fading quickly.

It’s not “the last day of the week” for me—I will work tomorrow, which means I’ll be writing another post tomorrow, if all goes as expected, and WordPress will congratulate me on a new streak of writing.  It’s just as well that I’m working tomorrow, since it’s not as though I have anything better to do.  And it’s not as though I would be able just to lie around quietly in the house in which I currently live, because of the various and sundry things that are being done regarding updating and improving it and getting ready potentially to move other people in and move me to another room.

That house itself has become a nearly constant source of annoyance in recent months.  It’s certainly not someplace to which I can retire in peace and quiet at the end of the day.  I need to get away from it.  I need to get away from everything.  Or I need to get everything and everyone else away from me, but since it’s much easier to remove myself than to affect literally everything else in the universe, that’s probably the best approach to take.

I’m in quite a lot of pain this morning; I don’t know if it’s apparent in my writing.  Probably not, unless I explicitly write “I am in pain”, or words to that effect.  Written language doesn’t carry any embedded, secondary signal about pain or the lack thereof.  I suppose some fictional, superhumanly perceptive psychologist might well be able to infer the fact that I’m in worse-than-usual pain by my general attitude and word choice and the like, but I’m pretty convinced that such Holmesian mind-sleuths are entirely fictional.  Real world neurotypical people do have some innate ability to “read the room”, as they say, but it’s a very coarse instrument, and none of them seem any good at reading me, let alone getting messages from my writing.  Even when I write something that feels flagrantly over-obvious like, “I want to die,” my words seem to fall upon deaf eyes (so to speak).

Of course, there’s been no day for many years now that I haven’t started in pain (and continued thusly), but some days are worse than others—this is almost inescapably the case regarding any multifactorial aspect of the world.  Even in Antarctica in the winter, some days are colder than others.

Still, today’s pain is rather above the mean, at least subjectively.  And the main issue with pain, as a source of suffering, is the subjective experience, which is not anything currently measurable from outside.  I know that no new, serious damage has been done to my body since yesterday*, but nevertheless my pain is significantly worse now than it was when I went to bed last night.  These things happen, and often.  They don’t really help me stay cheerful, so I apologize to anyone who came to this blog hoping for some whimsy.

I think I’ll start to end now—with the blog post, at least.  I hope to draw to a close on all other things in the very near future as well, if I can only work up the gumption to do it, but there will probably be further bulletins about that as events warrant.  Or maybe the only bulletin about it will be the sudden cessation of bulletins, from which readers will be forced to draw their own conclusions.

It’s not likely to happen between today and tomorrow, though, because that would be rude to people at work, especially to the person who would have to fill in for me tomorrow.  I don’t like to be too rude if I can help it, and I don’t like to inconvenience the people around me more than necessary.  I’m already an unpleasant enough presence to have to endure on a regular basis; I can at least try to avoid making too big a mess for other people to clean up.  Still, I’m quite certain that, after a brief period of minor inconvenience, it will be overall better for everyone else for me to be removed from their equations.

*Well…I’m pretty sure.  I suppose I could have had some suddenly worsening degenerative process, or a malignancy, or some infection that could have developed rapidly overnight.  Still, most of those come with other symptoms and/or signs that I think I would notice.  Also, this exacerbation is within the character of innumerable other localized pain exacerbations that I’ve experienced in the past, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude provisionally that no new damage beyond the steady daily accumulation of entropy has happened to my body.