Well, I’m on the laptop (computer) again today.  I specify that it is the computer because I want to make it clear that I’m not on anyone’s actual lap top.  I don’t think there is anyone out there whose lap could tolerate me sitting on it—I suppose Santa Claus could maybe use his magic, but it’s a bit early in the year for him, even given holiday-time mission creep—and probably even fewer laps on which I would be able to tolerate sitting.  And one cannot really be on a lap around a race track or in a swimming pool, unless one is actually going around that track or swimming, either of which activity would make it very difficult to type.  I guess the top of such a lap could be thought of as its beginning, as in “taking it from the top” in music.  But that wouldn’t change the writing difficulty.

That’s a weird opening to a blog post.  Sorry.  I think I’m particularly weird in the morning, or at least I’m a particular kind of weird in the morning.  I know that, as with many people suffering from depression, my mood is often at its worst in the morning, but sometimes I’m at my least weird and my most sane—from my own point of view, anyway—in the morning relative to the middle of the day or the afternoon or the evening.  Often I feel most sane when I’m most depressed.

It’s quite frustrating when, by the end of the day, my energy level lifts a bit, because then I have a hard time relaxing and getting to sleep.  But, of course, it’s not as though I can sleep in, or sleep late to make up for staying up too late.

I will say, though, that last night I got nearly four hours of sleep (pretty uninterrupted once I got to sleep), and it felt surprisingly deep.  I had at least one dream of which I was vaguely aware, because it was interrupted when my alarm sounded.  I don’t remember anything about the dream, other than that it was a dream, and I awakened feeling quite disoriented*, thinking it must be much later than it was.  It wasn’t.  It was just as late as it was, as one might expect.

My work friend who had the stroke is apparently doing pretty well, which is good news.  It feels so ironic to me how often people around me, ones who have a lot for which to live, and who have good reasons to be healthy, and who have families and friends, are stricken with significant health problems.

I’m referring to serious, dangerous health problems here.  I have some health problems—chronic pain, stuff like that—and I certainly have mental health issues.  But I’m the person I know whose life could most easily tolerate significant health setbacks, or at least the one whose ill-health and/or death would have the least impact on those around me and the world at large.  Even so, on I go.

Yet my life, such as it is, is in fact steadily eroding.  It has already become quite a poor, puny, pathetic little remnant of a life.  I don’t do anything other than go from my one room (with attached bathroom/shower) to work and back, and I write this blog.  I don’t play guitar or write fiction or sing or any of that anymore.  I’m getting more and more tired of even non-fiction books.

I don’t watch any ongoing TV shows other than things like Loki, which is quite limited, and Doctor Who.  Unfortunately, even the latter is something that I wish I could watch with someone…and not via a cheesy-ass “watch party” thing online.  I don’t understand how those could be any fun at all.

I have a hard time even visualizing people I know when I’m not around them.  I mean, I know they exist, of course, but I can’t readily imagine what they might be doing, or that they’re doing anything in particular, if I’m not with them.  I know they exist, but I only really feel them existing when I’m in their presence.

Maybe that’s part of the whole ASD thing, I don’t know, but it’s always been very difficult for me to maintain any form of relationship over significant distances.  There have been exceptions, but you could count them on maybe half the fingers of one hand.  And those exceptions always involved nearly-continuous communication.

Still, while of course I know, intellectually, that other people are all still there when I’m not in their presence, I don’t seem intuitively to model them except when they’re nearby—and when they’re nearby, I don’t so much model them as watch them in a kind of analytic way (though I do feel the noise of their emotions).

So, when I’m alone, I often feel*** truly and completely and fundamentally alone in the universe.  I often feel that way even when other people are around, though there are some distractions and intellectual engagement that help make that a bit easier.  But there have been relatively few people in my life with whom I feel really connected, and eventually most of those people have gone far away or cut ties with me or died or whatever.

Who can blame them?

So, anyway, that’s the deal.  It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s payroll day.  And tomorrow will be my traditional Thursday post.  I sometimes entertain the notion of writing blog posts in the afternoon or evening, and seeing if the content is different in character, and if anyone would notice.  But to do that would require serious restructuring of my routines and schedules and things, and I don’t think I’m up for it.  Also, morning is when I have time to do this.

I’m awake anyway, so I might as well use that fact for something productive…if that’s how this can be described.

Please try to have a good day.

*It’s weird how the Brits tend to use “disorientated” even though the root word is disorient, not disorientate (which sounds, perhaps, like the name of Catherine Tate’s sibling or child**).  I guess even in the states we say “disorientation”, but I think that’s just because “disoriention” would not flow very well.  I’m probably biased.  One related thing I find frustrating, and found especially frustrating when I was in medical practice (and training) was how many doctors, even American ones, would refer to the state of having been dilated as “dilatation” instead of just “dilation”.  It feels like they lost control of themselves, and only just barely were able to resist saying “dilatatatatatatation”.  It makes no good sense.

**Of course, Catherine Tate is her stage name, so it would be weird for a sibling or child of hers to have the last name “Tate”, to say nothing of the first name “Disorien”.

***I don’t think I’m alone, of course.  I’ve never been tempted by the philosophical position of solipsism; it doesn’t make any sense, at least in its literal form.  But I definitely feel a sort of intuitive pseudo-solipsism in some senses and at some times.  By that I mean I am the only person I have any actual sense of persistently existing.  On the other hand, I can sometimes “feel” other people’s emotions, in a sense, when they’re around, and one on one that can be good when one is a doctor.  However, when there are a lot of other people around it can quickly be overwhelming, especially if it’s also literally noisy.  Two kinds of cacophony is too much.