Well, here we are again.  The cycle continues.  It’s not a motorcycle or a bicycle, of course; that would be silly.  And I’m not referring to something as fundamental as the Krebs Cycle, though of course, as long as I’m alive, that is constantly whirring in pretty much every cell of my body.

No, I’m referring to the cycle of days and weeks of my pseudo-life.  I’m back at the train station this morning, writing this on my “smart”* phone, having taken what I hope will be pretty close to my final Uber here.  I say that because, yesterday, I walked both to and from the train station, totaling over 12 miles for the day, and the ill-effects on my joints and back and so on are minimal.  I have no new blistering, no worsening of or new pains in my back or sides or hips or anything**.  I had a minor threatening back spasm yesterday evening, probably from fluid status changes.  That’s all right.  I drank a lot of fluids during the day and in the evening, and I think that took care of that.  It’s just a bit sore there now, and it’s certainly not more than a standard deviation worse than my average*** level of pain.

I plan to walk back to the house from the train this evening‒I have nothing better to do with my time, and I can listen to audiobooks and/or podcasts as I do it.  Then for the rest of the week, and hopefully for the rest of the time I’m here, I’ll walk to and from the train station every day.  The shoes I’ve chosen seem to be good; I may even get another pair or two, just so I can spread the wear and tear out.

[That was three words that rhyme in that one last sentence:  pair, wear, and tear.  So, there.]

I had a nice conversation with my sister on the phone last night as I walked back, and it even continued once I got to the house, at least for a while.  She’s the only one I talk to at all, really, except in passing to people at work.  It’s no surprise that I can talk to her even when I can’t tolerate talking to anyone else.   After all, I’ve literally known her all my life.  And she’s known me all my life (though not all of her life, since she is older than I am).

I used to call my Mom once or twice a week, usually twice, and we would talk for a while, but obviously that doesn’t happen anymore.  I mean, I could talk to my Mom, so to speak, but it would hardly be a conversation, since she cannot reply.  I don’t expect to be able to speak to her once I’m in the state she’s currently in, alas, though I suppose I could be wrong about that.  I don’t think I am (obviously) but I am not convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt.

I’m convinced beyond what I consider any reasonable doubt, but that’s not an insurmountable standard, as any unjustly convicted victim of the criminal justice system would surely agree (and there are almost certainly many of these poor souls languishing in prison, since we only ever directly learn about the ones who are eventually exonerated).

I’m on the train now, by the way, on my way to the office, ready to face another day at work.  At least, I’m as ready as I’m going to be.  I certainly am capable of doing what I do at the office, such as it is, even on payroll day.  But it’s not as though I’m excited or enthused about it.

Still, I don’t expect to be enthusiastic about work.  It’s work.  They pay you to do it.  Even when I was writing fiction every day, I didn’t feel enthusiastic about it when I did it in the mornings.  I felt a general positive sense about the stories, and about the characters and whatnot, but it wasn’t enthusiasm or “motivation” in the business-speak, life-coach type way the word seems often to be expressed.  Certainly there was never any “ooh-rah” feeling.  It was personal discipline to carry through on a commitment (self made and self directed) that also became a habit.

I think writing fiction did stave off my depression for a while, or at least it kept it more in check.  Those days are gone, though, likely never to return.  I mean, I really like Outlaw’s Mind so far, and The Dark Fairy and the Desperado was fun as far it’s gone (for me), and I think Neko/Neneko and Changeling in a Shadow World would be good, and it might even be worthwhile, someday, to try to recreate my first novel Ends of the Maelstrom or write the sequels of Mark Red or the prequel to Son of Man.  But I don’t think writing and/or finishing any of those is likely to happen.

Maybe if some wealthy benefactor/patron were willing to keep me alive and in a reasonably safe and tolerably comfortable situation, I might be convinced to start writing fiction again.  I know that I can write a lot when I choose to do it.  Just look how much gobbledygook I put out every day here on this blog.

I used to write over 2000 words a day on my fiction in the mornings before work (even when I was “up the road”) and sometimes I got quite carried away.  Unanimity had to be split into 2 parts because it was over half a million words long before I finished.  That’s slightly longer than It and around the length of the unabridged version of The Stand.  And I was not writing “full time”.

But I have no will to write fiction now.  There’s only so much one can do such a thing “into the void”, at least when one has nothing else of value in one’s life, before it feels like a thoroughgoing waste of effort.  Even this blog tends to feel utterly pointless‒it is utterly pointless, like most things I do, but it doesn’t always feel that way‒and I know there are people who read it.

I don’t know what point I’m trying to make.  Oh, wait, I just mentioned that it’s pointless, so I shouldn’t expect to have a point or to make one.  Maybe that is the point.  That would be rather circular and paradoxical and “meta” as they used to say before Zuckerberg pissed all over the word, and even stole the term “metaverse” which I had long planned to use in things like DFandD and CiaSW.  I know he didn’t know I meant to do that, and he surely had no malice toward me.  But, though I do not consider him to have willfully (or even willingly) done me wrong, I still am sorely miffed by his (quite lame) arrogation of the term.

All right, that’s enough for this day, and I’m almost at my stop.  Have a good day…please.  Someone ought to do it, and I’m neither talented nor skilled at such things, so I’m leaving that task to you readers.

*I suppose, to be fair, that it really is smart, depending on how you define the term.  That’s almost tautological, though, now that I think about it.  Depending on how one defines the term, my phone could honestly be called a dleefigle phone.

**My goal is to be able to walk as long as I might choose, indefinitely, without being stopped by any acute occurrence such as new onset of pain, blistering, etc.

***I avoided the more precise mathematical term “mean” level of pain because in the context of pain, “mean” can have multiple and misleading meanings…ha ha.