I’m taking a few days off for a health issue. Sorry to those who read daily. Go read some older stuff, please. Thank you for reading. Be well.

— Tony

My girlfriend and I are currently dealing with COVID.  She’s sick but seems to be improving; I am just getting started with it. 

Not much energy to write right now. I’m sorry about that. Hope to be back soon. 

T

You’ve likely noticed a pretty significant drop in my output of late, and I’d like to explain why.

First off, I’m spending a great deal of time and energy in caring for my mother, who is 94 and was recently diagnosed with moderate dementia. She has severe mobility issues, still live alone in the family home, with my sister living next door and me about 25 minutes away. My sister is pretty sick too with a fairly rare autoimmune disorder and associated flare ups and consequent conditions that especially of late have rendered her less than able to do all she typically does. Hence, I’ve been there a lot handling issues and daily concerns, including estate and insurance stuff related to the estate of my late father. It’s a lot and is both physically and emotionally exhausting, so my energy for doing this work is pretty depleted, though I’m still up by first light most mornings to try. 

Second, my finances are disastrous right now; my consulting practice, always slow at this time of year, has been downright anemic and I’m scrambling for every dollar. That takes time and energy, too. 

Third — on top of everything else, my own health is not great. Diabetes complications like neuropathy in my feet and fingers makes it very hard to do certain daily tasks and adds to my exhaustion at the end of the day. There is, also, a cognitive problem going on — short term memory issues and ability to negotiate complex thinking at times aren’t easy to deal with, and I’m usually pretty much in a fog by late afternoon and evening on many days. (Not saying more about this issue, and not entertaining advice. I know what’s going on. Some of it is aging, some of it is not. Right now, that’s all I’m going to say.)

I recently received an award for a history of achievements and support of poetry in this area. It was sweet, but I’m unable to think of it as other than a “lifetime achievement award.” Can’t help thinking the the timing is about right for that. (A joke, but more than a little sobering.) 

Still, I’m plugging away at a full length manuscript; still doing readings; still producing work and maintaining my Patreon site as an alternate way of getting work out there and generating income. I’m still here, and I hope that certain things my sister and I are doing to bring professional in home care to my mom will ease some burdens in relatively short order. 

Thanks for reading. Still here, a little slower than before, but still going. I’ll be here as long as I can be. Promise.

T

I’ve pretty much stopped writing at the moment.

Kinda like a light switch turned off — or on, perhaps. Like, oh, look. This isn’t really necessary.

Feels pretty good, I must say. Surprising.

I don’t expect this to last forever, but it might. I mean, I might die before I return to the Work. Anything is possible.

Plenty here to read in the meantime. 

Thanks,
T

My father passed away this morning at the age of 89 from advanced Parkinson’s disease. I will be away from writing here for several days, at least.  

I will be back. Thanks. 

Just letting everyone know that my output these days is low because we are dealing with multiple health crises in my family at the moment, and I’m the only member of the crew who is (crossed fingers) on my feet most consistently right now. 

I’m trying to get things finished and posted but…

Be patient. I’ll be back soon.  

Thanks.

3819. That’s the number of days that have elapsed since January 1, 2010.

3500. That’s the number of new poems I’ve posted on this blog since then, counting today’s post. A little under a poem a day for a little under 10.5 years.

I have more than that on the blog from before that date, transferred here from LiveJournal (no idea how many — too much work to figure it out when so few had tags back then); have digital files of a couple thousand more going back to about 1996; more in notebooks and binders back to the early 70s; more lost to time and the mysteries of moving and mildew, I’m sure.

So — I don’t want to double that number for an overall total, but maybe 6000 or so total lifetime? Maybe there are only a few out of that that are worth holding onto, but I still hold on to them.

If it seems obsessive to do this, you should know that I refer to this record keeping as “the Pursuit of the Meaningless Goal.” It was something suggested to me by a therapist years ago as one way of controlling one aspect of the symptoms of bipolar disorder — I won’t say more than that.

It’s part of the continuing effort to say that the Work, the body of Work, is more important than any one poem to me.

I’m going to take a few days off, I think. I have things to do elsewhere. Just needed to note the moment.

Thanks for reading.  Plenty more to read here. 

Sorry for the reduced output of late.  Dealing with an attack of something stomach related, possibly pancreatitis, and it’s knocked me for a loop.

I’ll be back in form in the next day or so.

T