I go in for my preoperative screening.

I am having surgery next Friday for a variety of things — nothing life-threatening, all minor in and of themselves, but doing them all at once. This will likely impede my mobility for a bit. I’m figuring on three weeks out of work.

I haven’t mentioned this much, I know, mostly because it’s really not that big a deal; all routine stuff. The one thing I do think about is that while these procedures are not major, some of them are related to age and wear and tear.

I know I sometimes seem to be a bit obsessed with my age in comparison to those in the scene around me, but if truth be told, it has more to do with fascination than any real fear or upset. The changes in how I view people, how I view myself, how people view me, etc., are really something to watch.

People say that age is just a number. I don’t feel “old” most of the time, though I do feel “older;” but the body tells you otherwise now and then. Tells you, “not forever, buddy; here’s a twinge to remind you of that…”

At any rate — all this by way of saying I won’t be around much tomorrow.

with the word “crumble.”

I see it everywhere — in my soup, my pants, my Palm Pilot, my love.

I am willing to say it if not entirely willing to witness or endure it.

There are more accurate words to describe this mood, but none sound better.

Still, the crumble that can be told is not the true crumble.

I will use the word, with its hard beginning and swallowed end, until a better one comes along.

i look at the outlines
of edges and chips
and can roughly discern
how it all used to fit

till i turn from the mirror

a beater/low-end laptop for a specific purpose.

Should run a pretty recent version of Windows (except ME), have the cojones for minimal broadband Web work, and a copy of Word would be nice.

CD-ROM a plus; CD-RW pretty snazzy. If not a RW, a basic floppy drive wou;dnt’ be out of line.

Main criteria: the type of unit that wouldn’t kill me if I lost it.

Any one got one? Any price range thoughts? Any thing else I should be thinking of?

[And no — not a Mac, or Linux, or anything else. This needs to be a mass-market, easily interchangeable unit. I’ll likely be getting a Mac (again! yay) for my next heavy duty ‘puter.]

That is all.

Y’know, I went back and read a bunch of the Zero Point Zero columns tonight.

I did some good work there, now that I’ve got some distance from it. I absolutely hated them at the end, but I’m ok with them now.

Might be time, soon, to consider a compilation. But I dont’ know how or where to begin, and I don’t have a lot of time to do it.

Any ideas?

Twelve people, locked in a room, plow through mounds of evidence and testimony for seven days and determine that based on what was presented, they do not have sufficient evidence to find Jackson guilty of anything.

The rest of us, based on our superior intelligence, decide that they’re idiots, based on the coverage we’ve seen of the case from the media we indict regularly for being sensationalist.

God, I love this country.

I think Jackson’s a creep. I have an opinion about his guilt. I also think I haven’t got a clue if he’s really guilty or not.

The people entrusted to make that decision did have some clue. I have no idea what they were thinking; but I’m willing to bet they thought about it harder than any of us did.

this is interesting, from the childhood memories perspective. I never saw them play; one of the few big 70s bands I can say that about.

Pink Floyd reunites.

I now return to my depression and angst.

if you should be, and you’re not, and when you shouldn’t be, you are, you’re probably clinical.

this is not to say that depression is always clinical in nature.

sometimes, it’s just about plain old suckage and self-esteem crapola.

sometimes, it’s guilt.

and sometimes, it’s just the recognition that life comes with consequences that are not always pleasant, but which are unavoidable. that’s all.

that’s all.

sometimes, there doesn’t even seem to be a poem in it.

EDIT: Guess I was wrong on the last point. Goddamn sadistic muse.

Today I have been very busy finding things to do in the basement that kept me quiet, isolated, and cool.

I was told earlier today that lithium, my main maintenance medication, is in serious short supply and I had to go running around to get a prescription filled at a pharmacy that still has it. If you’re using it, stock up now; I’ve been told the supply restrictions won’t let up until the end of July. Manufacturer issues. Ugh. Scary.

Now, I am doing school work, researching the antifeminist undercurrents of the Red Scare of the 1920s.

In other matters: Thinking hard. Feeling my way ahead.

Too much to feel and think about.