I think this may end up being my last lapcom blog post for a while.

As you may have guessed from the fact that I just said that—it is, after all, the logical implication—I am writing this post on my lapcom, which I remembered to bring back to the house on Friday.  Bully for me, right?

Unfortunately, so far it hasn’t made much, if any, difference in the arthropathy—or at least arthralgia—in the bases of my thumbs.  I think just taking extra doses of NSAIDs beyond my usual seems to do as good a job on my thumbs as decreasing my use of the smartphone, and it’s not as annoying to have to carry.

I don’t really have to carry NSAIDs, actually.  I keep plenty of them at the house and at work.  This is not a luxury; it is a relative necessity.  By which I mean, while it’s not true that I would die without them, I would want to die even more than I usually do if I were not to have them available.

So, in a sense, I suppose going without them increases my risk of dying.  But then again, using them at maximum dose on a regular basis has its own risks, including to my kidneys and stomach (other things as well, but those are the main ones).

Of course, I take things to protect my stomach (and try to drink plenty of water to ease my kidneys as much as possible), but that decrease in stomach acid probably affects the absorption of a number of minerals, such as iron.  And so, I supplement those.  And so the cycle goes on, even without anyone pedaling it.

Sorry to mix that metaphor, or whatever the proper term is for what I just did.  I was unable to resist, and I didn’t see any strong reason to try to do so.

Anyway, though I can definitely write more quickly and more easily with the lapcom, I’m not convinced that it makes for better blog posts.  In fact, I get the impression that last week’s posts weren’t very well received.  Certainly, the numbers weren’t very good.  And, of course, when I go on too long, I irritate myself, as well.

That doesn’t just apply to blog writing; I have already irritated myself powerfully by “going on” as long as I have.

I did get some exercise this weekend.  I walked about four and a half miles on Saturday morning, and then on Sunday I walked a bit over five miles (not in the morning).  It was raining more or less constantly on Sunday, but I opted not to use an umbrella.  Instead, I donned a rain jacket that I had from when I used to ride my scooter* and walked in the rain.  Its hood was annoying, so after less than a block I gave up and just left it down.  It’s Florida, after all; the rain wasn’t cold in the slightest.  Honestly, I could barely tell that my head was wet, even when the rain was coming down hard.

That’s actually mildly disappointing.  I was vaguely hoping, or maybe wondering, if I might catch pneumonia, like the old cliché warnings warned about getting caught in the rain.  Of course, pneumonia isn’t caused by rain, or by any other way of getting wet.  Pneumonia is caused by bacteria mostly, occasionally by viruses, and rarely by fungi.  There is also a thing called chemical or aspiration pneumonitis, but that’s not an infection.

But getting very cold in the rain—since water is able to draw heat from the body far more effectively than air is**—can indeed use up one’s reserves of energy and make one more vulnerable to infections.  This is probably where the old wives’ tale notion arose.  But it’s just not cold in south Florida at this time of year.

Anyway, my walks didn’t end up putting me at death’s door, more’s the pity.  If anything, they have probably taken me farther away from it, at least for the moment.  That’s okay, I guess.  I mean, it’s annoying, it’s irritating, but I like to walk, and it’s nice to feel able to walk, especially given my chronic pain.  So, I’ll put up with it.

Speaking of something being irritating and annoying, I have noticed something recently—it was surely always there, though I never really paid attention to the fact—but many times when I feel that I hate something or someone (briefly) or am very angry at some situation, it’s not really a moral issue in any sense, though the feeling of anger is very often of a “self-righteous” character.  Rather, it is just annoyance, just distraction.

I can feel something very akin to pure hatred at a fly going past my head and meandering around a room in which I am sitting or standing, and I doubt that I’m alone in this.  Yet…it’s just a fly.  It’s noisy, it’s potentially dirty, it sometimes lands on one’s food, but it does essentially no actual harm and isn’t really capable of doing it***.  It’s just annoying.  It’s just irritating.  And yet, the sheer malice of the response one often feels can be staggering.

I think this is actually not much different, albeit coming from the other end of things, from how people react to people with whom they disagree, or even sometimes to the habits of a significant other that start off feeling benign and even endearing but which can become like a pebble in one’s shoe over time.  I think we overreact.  I think we give too much emotional weight to those irritations, and they then compound and develop into real animosity.  It would be better if we could keep them in perspective, if we could be mindful but not judgmental.

If you want to hate flies though, I’m fine with that.  Just try not to hate other members of your own species; they’re just as clueless as you are.  And also, try to have a good day.

*You can’t exactly use an umbrella while riding a scooter, or while riding a bike, for that matter.

**This is why being in air at seventy degrees Fahrenheit can feel pleasant, while being in water that’s the same temperature can feel quite cold.

***Mosquitoes are another matter.  They can carry diseases that still kill millions of people.