I’m writing this post on my phone because I didn’t feel like bringing my laptop when I left the office yesterday.  I thought about it, but there didn’t seem to be any point in doing it, so I figured, at least for the evening and then the morning, I’d give myself slightly less to carry.

I keep thinking of ideas of things to get and then finding myself realizing‒or at least suspecting‒that they are wastes of time and effort.  For instance, I keep seeing people riding those electric, stand-up scooters that look like the old-fashioned kids’ scooters, to get to and from the train station.  At first I was merely puzzled to see so many adults using such things, but then I thought they looked kind of handy and maybe even a little fun.  My balance and coordination aren’t great, but many of the people riding them look no more fit than I.

Anyway, I watched some videos about them and began looking at them on Amazon, but eventually I thought, if I’m going to get something to get me to the train and around the neighborhood, why don’t I just get a bicycle?  In Florida, you can use bicycles pretty much year-round.  You have to deal with rain, but that would be the case on an electric scooter, too.  At least they give one some good, low impact exercise.

I had bought a bicycle several months ago‒a nice, good quality, lightweight street bike.  Unfortunately, I discovered that one had to lean way forward on it even with the seat at its lowest point because of the style of bike, and the handlebars weren’t extendable.  You could buy separate extenders for them, but even that didn’t do all that much.  I have trouble with the leany over type bikes because, for one thing, I’m not all that coordinated, and I always feel off-balance on such devices, but more importantly, with my “failed back surgery syndrome”, leaning that way just leaves me in a lot of pain for the rest of a given day.

Thankfully, one day when my former housemate came by to do some work for the landlord, he found that the bike made his back feel better when he tried it out (at my suggestion), so I gave it to him.  At least it will be useful for someone.  But such errors tend to put me off trying again.

Still, I started looking around on Amazon at better bikes for me, something where I could be sure to be upright.  I thought about a hybrid bike‒I guess that term means they can be used off-road or on-road‒but it’s hard to tell if they’re high enough in the handlebars and low enough and comfortable enough in the seat.  I even considered one of those grown-up tricycle things, because they look truly useful for stuff like shopping, and there’s no worry about incoordination.  Unfortunately, they don’t exactly lend themselves to commuting, so that kind of made one of those not a great option.

Then I started looking at those “cruiser bikes” or whatever they call them‒those old school style bikes, with wide handlebars, low, broad seats, and so on.  They’re not as light as a street bike, but they’re clearly more what I would have in mind for my back and slightly better for my balance.  I’ve been looking at some, and they do seem good, though the good ones are no cheaper than the quite nice bike I had already bought and given away.

But as I think about bikes and electric scooters and things like that for commuting and whatnot, I keep thinking, “These are things for people who are planning on being around for a while.  These are comparatively long-term investments.  These are things for people trying to adjust for a prolonged existence.”

And thinking about that just makes me despondent.  I don’t want to be around long enough for it to matter whether I have a bike, or just walk around, or whatever.  I don’t want to have to wait around for when people are in the next Artemis mission to orbit the moon, let alone when they next land on it.  I don’t want to have to endure long enough to see the 60th anniversary David Tennant Doctor Who specials in November 2023, let alone wait until the year after that for the next series.  There are no movies I’m interested in seeing, no books I’m looking forward to reading, no shows I want to watch*.  There’s really just nothing into which it’s worth investing time and energy, not for me.  Certainly I, myself, am not such a worthwhile investment.

So, I don’t think I’m going to get a bike, or rejoin Netflix, and I can’t even get excited about Doctor Who or the moon missions or any of it.  As Lestat said to Louis, the wine has no taste, the food sickens me (though I wish it sickened me more), there seems no reason for any of it.  Even the thought of rereading the Anne Rice stories doesn’t appeal.  Nothing is very much fun anymore.

I feel like I’m just spoiling the party for others by sticking around, so I should take my cue from the Beatles song and just go…there’s nothing for me here, so I should disappear.  In any case, even if I can’t just disappear, it seems futile and draining to do things that seem to look toward some kind of possible future.  I don’t even like buying new clothes anymore; I get frustrated when I have to replace a pair of trousers because another got splashed with bleach, for instance.

Ultimately, I’m just tired, I guess, and I don’t want to have to keep moving just to keep moving, just because it’s what I do and have always done, whether it’s on an electric scooter, or a bicycle, or a train, or my own feet.  I’m not going anywhere.  Putting in the effort is just an exercise in futility and highlights the futility of exercise.

Oh, well.  I don’t know what I’m going to do.  I guess I’ll just have to wait and see, unfortunately.

*I will admit that Wednesday looks intriguing; I love the character, and it looks like the actress is excellent.  They have Wednesday playing the cello in the show, which appeals to me as a cellist.  But I would have to re-sign up for Netflix to watch that, and I don’t think it’s worth it.  Plus, odds are I wouldn’t get through it before losing interest.  I couldn’t even get into Stranger Things, for crying out loud.

[P.S. I just had a bad interaction with Amazon because an item I ordered for our office (for delivery between 7 and 11 am, as offered specifically by Amazon) was attempted at 6:43 am.  I was in the office, but the door was locked, because it was not yet time for the order to be delivered.  But the driver did not even try to knock…I’m hard of hearing, but not THAT hard of hearing that in the silence of quarter to 7 I wouldn’t have heard the knock.  I did SEE the driver pulling away after rushing to the door to try to catch them.  I have copied and pasted the text of my interaction with the Amazon customer support chat, and pasted it into a potential blog post for later today.  I don’t look particularly good in the interaction–I probably come across as nearly hysterical, frankly–but it still might be worth other people knowing about this failure, and it will probably influence any decision to buy a bike if I should lean back in that direction.  Anyway, I have that saved as a draft, and if anyone is interested, I’ll post it.  It might do you some good to laugh at my insanity, anyway.]