Category: Books, TV & Music

The reality of spring

Spring always disappoints me. By this time, I’m ready for the warmer weather, but the cold and rain can’t quite quit us. My neighbor, high on life and all that, likes to say rain is wonderful! This is the way it’s supposed to be! Relish the cold – it will be hot soon enough!

OK, Earth Girl, message received, but I’m still pissed.

It rained Tuesday, but I walked anyway. I’m trying to increase my mileage as a test to see if my body will hold up for a long-distance walk of some sort. I thought I’d build up slowly (months) and eventually try to walk 10 miles three days in a row. What do you think walkers? Good plan? Bad plan?

I’m on a mission now, and I was like, rain, you can’t stop me! It actually wasn’t so bad.

Yesterday was golf, and it was cold and miserable. I played very badly. My body just won’t move properly when I’m freezing. I’m never happy about bad golf, but I have evolved. I’m no longer embarrassed. Sometimes I play great golf, and sometimes I play horrible golf. What you see is what you get.

Today is another rainy one, so in the spirit of accepting the reality of spring, I decided to make the most of it. A little Covid vaccination to kick things off. We got our second benevolent booster in the morning, but after that, I was a free agent. I went to the library and loaded up on books.

I paused as I walked across the library parking lot and reflected on the reality of nature’s cool wetness fucking up my glasses.

The “Lucky Day” stack had Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure by Rinker Buck. His previous book, The Oregon Trail, was great, so I have high hopes for this one.

As a crime fiction aficionado, I have been remiss in my Don Winslow reading. He is among the best. I absolutely loved his earlier works but am afraid to read the border trilogy, which deals with the war on drugs. I’m not sure I can get through the violence. I decided to try The Force, which is about the NYPD.

I love the library for many reasons, but I especially love the no-risk element for a book I’m uncertain about.  Oh, and I’m on the waiting list for Small Mercies, Dennis Lehane’s new book. He’s another great crime writer if you haven’t read him yet. Mystic River is maybe his most famous, probably due to the movie, but I would start with A Drink Before the War.

Then I came home and consoled myself with a tuna melt. I made it in a gratin dish without the bread, and it was just delicious. I do pride myself on eating very little processed food and was disappointed to learn canned tuna is considered a processed food. I thought, well, if I’m going to die, a tuna melt is not a bad way to go.

That said, I am going to pay more attention to labels. I thought ice cream was better than, say, candy, since ice cream is a real food, except they add all kinds of shit to it, so it’s not exactly pristine, either. I’m not going to get fanatic about what I eat, but I do want to know what’s fueling the engine. I might still go for death food, but I’ll think of it as informed consent.

After that, I went out into the garage and worked on my art for a bit. That usually makes me feel good.

I really need to clean the bathroom, but it’s not high on my list. I have all those new books, and I’m thinking it’s time to get started.

Readin’ in the rain

I will always remember the fall of 2017 because I had just retired and read all of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch books in order. Such a simple pleasure but hunkering down at home to read after a lifetime of work felt like a precious gift.

That was before the pandemic, before we discovered the dark side of hunkering down. But this staying at home thing … I still sort of like it. To commemorate the miserable rain-soaked winter of 2023, I am burning through all 19 of John Lescroart’s Dismas Hardy books in order. I would describe them as legal suspense with family intrigue, hardboiled criminal investigations and some courtroom drama.

Oh, and the setting is San Francisco.

Early on, I tried to take breaks and read other books in between, but I finally gave up and committed to the blitz. I’ll start number 16 later today and have the rest on hand, courtesy of our local library. I should be done before the rain clears later this week. No one can stop me now.

I’ll be sad when it’s over, the book marathon not the rain, but at least I can diversify my reading material again. However, I do think my compulsive nature rather enjoys the singular focus of one good series at a time. I’ve become immersed in this fictional world, and it’s been a pleasurable escape from the real one. I may just do this again with a new series.

Number 35

On the local art scene, I finally finished number 35. I’m not sure why, but this piece was a bit of a slog. I was so happy to spray on that last coat of lacquer and immediately went to work on number 36. I’m already way more excited about him than I was poor number 35, who never felt the love.

So, today marks 24 years since I was diagnosed with stage 3 primary peritoneal cancer, which is virtually the same as ovarian. I am in a small group of long-term survivors who have been free of disease since their initial treatment. I don’t know why I’ve been so lucky, but I share this information from time to time because somebody somewhere needs to know good outcomes are possible.

Reluctant travelers

We must not be the only ones who don’t have a big desire to travel in retirement, but sometimes it feels that way.

Dale and I traveled a lot when we were younger. Lived overseas and moved more than 20 times, so much of the excitement is lost on us. Our wanderlust peaked in the early 2000s.

It felt like finding a member of my tribe when I read this article about the actor Eugene Levy of Schitt’s Creek – he hates to leave the comforts of home but was convinced to do a show called The Reluctant Traveler.

Has anyone seen it? It’s on Apple TV+, which we don’t get. There’s a free episode, but you have to sign in. I hate that.

As it happens, some of us like to make a nest and hang out in it. I’m not saying I wouldn’t ever visit an exotic destination, but in a lot of ways, our home already feels like a resort. It’s about mastering the art of simple pleasures.

Dale and I don’t have a McMansion or anything, but we have a nice home and live well but within our means. We cook and eat great food, sleep on an amazing bed with deliciously comfy sheets and have a nice little stash of quality wine and weed. There’s space for me to work on my art, and Dale has a small garden. We love our pool in the summer and the spa in the winter.

The other issue is I always thought of vacations as time to recover from work. Now, every day is a vacation, so I don’t need to go anywhere to get away from it all. I can lay around and read all day at home if I want to!

All that said, I do agree it’s important to change your surroundings from time to time and experience new things. I’m the travel planner in the family, and it’s not a job I relish. I finally decided this week to accept my fate in life and embrace the role. No whining allowed.

I bought two books about traveling in California and am starting to get serious about road trips. We like one or two-nighters. I can’t imagine being gone for weeks at a time, but I know many retirees enjoy that lifestyle. I thought, well, if we have some money to spend, why not go to Napa? It’s less than two hours away, and they are happy to take your offerings.

So, I’ve booked us just one night in Napa with one winery visit and a few other stops along the way. Not sure where we’ll eat, but there’s no shortage of choices.

In the meantime, we are continuing to enjoy our little resort. We were going to watch (again) the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the DVD kept skipping. The player must be at least 20 years old. Same for the DVDs. We figured it was time to buy new, but then Dale remembered for some obscure reason we had two sets of the DVDs.

The other one works without a hitch! That’s on the agenda for this evening. We’re going to split a pan-fried steak accompanied by baked potatoes, salad and some of that tasty wine.

We were jazzed that we don’t have to buy a new player. They’re relatively inexpensive, so it’s odd we’re willing to blow some bucks in Napa but can’t bear to replace the ancient DVD player. I mean, not if we don’t have to, right? The whole idea of wandering through Best Buy trying to figure it all out is pretty exhausting.

In other entertainment news, we like bad Sci-Fi movies from the 50s and have been renting them on Amazon. Below is my watchlist.

  • Cat Women of the Moon
  • Attack of the 50-foot Woman
  • Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
  • The Blob
  • Bride of the Monster
  • Earth vs the Flying Saucers
  • The Man from Planet X
  • 20 Million Miles to Earth
  • The Atomic Man
  • The Incredible Shrinking Man
  • Queen of Outer Space
  • Conquest of Space
  • Rocketship X-M
  • The Werewolf
  • From Hell it Came
  • The Brain from Planet Arous
  • The Cyclops
  • Revenge of the Creature
  • Friend Without a Face
  • Tarantula!
  • Them!
  • The Giant Behemoth
  • I Married a Monster from Outer Space
  • The Thing
  • The Day the Earth Stood Still
  • The Space Children
  • The Flying Saucer
  • The Devil Girl from Mars
  • Curse of the Demon
  • Robot Monster

Does anyone else out there enjoy this genre? Please feel free to share your favorites! While all of the above are from the 50s, we like all the campy classics. I just added Surf Nazis Must Die from 1987.

Bottom line is there are lots of ways to have fun in retirement. Everyone finds their own path, and that’s the joy of it. For those of you who aren’t so much into travel, I hope it’s comforting to know you’re not alone.  

Riding out the storm

The weather here in California is still quite something. We discovered a leaky window that will have to be fixed, but we’re OK. A little sick of each other. Sending messages back and forth through the cat.

I’ve been hunkered down in the house riding out the storm. I finished Sea of Tranquility. I liked it, but sometimes that time travel stuff blows my mind. For the record, I also have trouble understanding how the James Webb Space Telescope sees galaxies billions of years old.  You can explain it to me all day long, but my head is still going to explode.

A good legal thriller is Scott Turow’s Suspect. Pinky, the protagonist, is a funny and smart screw-up trying to make it as a private investigator working for a lawyer. She’s also bisexual, and that’s an interesting aspect of the story.

You kind of have to wonder how a guy creates a character like that, but I guess that’s what writers do. Still, how does he know it’s authentic? Or maybe in fiction, there is no authenticity. Just characters as the writer envisions them. He’s an excellent writer, and I thought the character was great, but I’m assuming someone out there will say he got it wrong.

Anyway, I’ve been on the lookout for a new crime series to read. My original plan was to follow up on the Three Pines TV show and read the Louise Penny books. But they are quite popular right now, so I started Dead Irish, the first book in the Dismas Hardy series by John Lescroart. Dismas is a Vietnam veteran, lawyer and bartender in San Francisco. I love it so far and put the next one on my library reserve list.

The good news is there are 19 of them in all!

On the medical front, I saw the doctor about my blood pressure and took my machine with me because the readings were so odd. My BP was fine on her machine and quite elevated on mine. She tried several times and finally asked me how old it was. I dunno, eight, 10 years?

As it happens, these things are not designed to last that long. Some articles I read said two to three years max. She advised me to get a new one, which I did, and my readings are all now consistent with hers. That was a big sigh of relief.

This is my public service announcement (without guitar). Please see if your blood pressure monitor needs to retire, too.

Finally, I will share that I still dream about work quite a bit, even after five years. This week’s nightly drama was about clothes and dressing appropriately for the office. I can’t remember details from the dream, but there was some level of bullshit about not wearing the right outfit.

No big surprise, really. I did struggle with the corporate “dress for success” model and squandered a lot of money trying to fit in. I didn’t land on a good look for me until later in my career, but it was enough to get me to the finish line.

I ended up keeping just a few great pieces, and I even though I told you years ago I was donating them, I couldn’t quite make myself do it. Still hanging in my closet, waiting for the miracle …which would be like me, dressing up for anything anymore.

Men probably don’t do this, but women seriously check each other out at work. What you wear is more than a corporate uniform. It’s also a peer-to-peer evaluation system, a hierarchy of sorts and one I’m glad to see in the rear view mirror.

Another retirement bonus! Nobody cares what I wear anymore, maybe not even me.  

Cry me an atmospheric river

Gosh, we’ve been hammered here in California by much-needed rain. I’m saying we didn’t need it all at once, but that’s me. Just a kid with a dream.

Dale and I have been hanging around the house, squandering time, because guess what? We’re retired, and there’s plenty more where that came from. Going on my sixth year, I continue to be amazed by how little it takes to fill a day.

The newspaper arrived rolled up in a plastic bag, but it was soaking wet nonetheless. Dale pulled the newspaper out of the bag and actually wrung it out over the sink. Then he put it in the oven, where it dried quickly, although I found it a big crisp.

“Convection roast,” he said.

Inspired by Janice at Retirementally Challenged, this is a gentle reminder that if you should find yourself in the same position, don’t be stupid. While that’s a great resolution overall, in this case, it specifically means DO NOT PUT THE NEWSPAPER IN THE MICROWAVE.

Last night was kind of scary. I mean, a whopper of a storm. Riley, our cat, was under the bed, which is where I would have been if I could fit. Wind scares me. By happenstance, I had been using an old pair of foam earplugs to block out Dale’s occasional snoring, and lately they haven’t been working to my satisfaction.

I was asking Dale about them, and he said you can’t use the same pair over and over. Well, I wish someone had told me that before I wasted quality sleep time. I opened a new pack in the middle of the night and they completely blocked out the sounds of the storm. However, I could still hear Dale snore, which means he’s louder than a Category 3 atmospheric river.

Whilst squandering precious retirement time, I finished watching the Louise Penny series, Three Pines. Those of you who have read the books aren’t too crazy about the show. Those of us who haven’t read them seemed to like the series just fine.

Sometimes a movie or TV show will inspire me to read a particular author. I like to read a series in order, so I figured I’d start with number one and get it from the library.

I love the library and have since I was a little kid. But as an adult, I typically do not expect them to have what I want when I walk in the door. But those old ones are often on the shelves. What works better is to read reviews, make a list and add them to your reserve list. However, this is a delicate art, because you don’t want them popping into your queue all at once.

All that said, I guess everyone is on the Louise Penny kick, because the books were all checked out. I suppose I’ll have to reserve it. Sometimes I’ll buy a new book, but I hate spending money on stuff that’s been out a long time.

I did purchase The Shadow Murders, the latest in the Department Q series by Jussi Adler-Olsen. I liked it a lot, but it’s a cliffhanger. That kind of annoys me, mostly because he doesn’t exactly pop these out on a expedited schedule.

Of course I have nothing to complain about compared to Dale, who slogged through all the Game of Thrones books, only to discover the author never wrote the last one.  

I’ve heard Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel is excellent, so I’ve reserved that. The description hit all the right buttons for me: “A novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.”

Another book on my reserve list is A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley. California gold rush, prostitutes. Right up my alley.

We also recorded a slew of Twilight Zone episodes, which have been fun to watch. Perhaps that will get me through the walloping winds of the atmospheric river, that for the record, is not quite as loud as Dale.

And the beep goes on

I’ve been feeling quite happy lately but not particularly inspired to write or work on my art. I wondered if it’s a message from God that I’m not very good at either one, and I should quit, and from there I started to shut down.

Thankfully, I remembered my emerging theory that when evaluating the enjoyment factor of life after work, results are overrated. Just let go, she says to herself. In large part, retirement is about making it to the finish line and doing whatever you can get away with.

While you were busy learning Mandarin or perhaps planning your next trip to Machu Picchu, assuming you can still get in and out of there, I took it upon myself to count the number of beeps I typically encounter in a day. I’m up to 15, but I’m pretty sure I’ve missed a few.

It’s crazy how devices and appliances have wormed their way into our brains. I wonder if anyone has studied how this affects us. In a way, it’s like being zapped with a tiny dose of electricity every few minutes. That’s got to add up to something horrible, don’t you think?

My wireless cell phone charger makes a double-beep sound when you hit the elusive sweet spot. The dishwasher beeps when it starts and again when it’s done. The washing machine is special. A beep to turn it on, a beep to select the cycle, yet another for the water temperature and a final beep to start the whole thing. When it’s done, it plays a string of beeps one might call a tune or jingle.

The Washing Machine Song, not to be confused with the pizza song, which we actually wrote ourselves.

Pizza, pizza, ya, ya, ya

Pizza, pizza, ha, ha, ha

Then there’s Dale’s old watch with an alarm set for 10:22 a.m. It goes off in a flurry of beeps every single day, but he can’t hear it, and neither one of us knows how to turn it off. Good news is I’m up by then, so it’s not really a problem. Not like the smoke alarm battery, which never, ever goes off during business hours.

There’s more, but you get the idea. I mean it’s nice to have audible alerts, but in evolutionary terms, I’m sure there’s a price to pay.

So, Christmas is on. We’re not doing a tree this year, probably because I’ve complained bitterly in the past about what a pain in the ass it is. Dale likes a tree, but a man can only take so much. I suggested we try it just this once without, and if he really misses it, I’ll back off forever. I think that’s a fair deal.

We only get each other one present. A few from the sisters arrived in the mail. I suggested we put them under the coffee table in lieu of the tree, which we know now is on sabbatical. He sort of went for it, but the cat is not digging this whole scene. Everyday, the presents get pushed just a wee bit further out from under the table. It’s actually quite entertaining. If for no other reason, we’ll probably go back to the tree just to keep the cat happy.

In terms of entertainment, I can recommend a couple of good books and a streaming opportunity. For books, I can’t say enough great things about Andy Weir’s Project Mail Mary. He wrote The Martian, which I also loved.

Another excellent read was Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas by Harley Rustad. The story reminded me of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. It’s kind of sick and wrong, but I enjoy reading about these complex people who self-destruct in the wilderness.

Although I’ve never read the Louise Penny books featuring Inspector Gamache, they are on my list. Conveniently, I stumbled upon Three Pines on Amazon Prime. The show is based on her books, and there’s only one season so far, but I like it a lot.

I used to read a fair amount of science fiction but usually default to crime. After reading Project Hail Mary, I decided to make more of an effort in the sci-fi genre. Already downloaded and ready to go is Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey. Space adventure featuring a detective! Like it was made for me.

Risks and rewards of travel

Redwood Sky Walk at the zoo in Eureka, CA

I feel like I jumped the shark with that swimsuit photo. It is challenging to deal with this post-mastectomy body. I got carried away after I found a flattering swimsuit and wanted to show off a little. Still, it seems a bit too showy.

Oh, well. I guess there are worse things. I spent decades feeling bad about my body, so what the hell?

I just returned from a visit with my sister, whom I haven’t seen since before the pandemic. She lives in Eureka. The drive is about five and a half hours, but for some reason, we can’t seem to pull it off very often. We’re both super-cautious about Covid, so that’s part of it. The day before I left, we both did home Covid tests, and both were negative.  

We had a great time, mostly just visiting and watching movies. I was only there for three nights, but it was movie marathon. I don’t think any of them will win the critic’s award, but we enjoyed ourselves. Let’s see if I can remember:

  • Jungle Cruise (our favorite ride from Disneyland)
  • The Lost City (because old ladies deserve to look at Channing Tatum)
  • The Proposal (because we were on a Sandra Bullock kick)
  • Office Space (because we’re retired)
  • Bohemian Rhapsody
  • Rocketman
  • The Mountain Between Us (Kate Winslet)
  • Guardians of the Galaxy
  • Persuasion
  • Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Emma Thompson bares it all)

I may have missed one or two! It was definitely chick flick central, and I have no remorse. I’m just glad Dale didn’t tag along, as he we would have been miserable.

We also visited the local zoo. While not large, it is an exceptionally nice zoo. My favorite part was seeing two bald eagles up close. Amazing!! My other favorite part is a new feature called the Redwood Sky Walk. You can walk on a series of bridges through the redwood canopy. Very beautiful and accessible for people who use wheelchairs.

Eureka is chilly by my standards. I was bundled up, and my sister walked around like it was summer. We are very different, yet we have a lot in common, and of course, we share the experience of being raised by wolves. As children, it was difficult, but as adults, we can look back and laugh. It’s amazing we’re walking upright.

Back at home, the heat has turned extreme. I played golf yesterday, and I can definitely feel it today. I was lying on the couch, got up too fast and almost passed out. Today is all about getting hydrated.  Then a swim later this afternoon.

This visit was relatively low-risk, and the rewards were immeasurable. Being able to drive there is a huge plus. We have tickets to fly to Maine in August to visit Dale’s sisters, but the jury is still out on that one. Anticipating Covid eruptions, we bought refundable tickets.

I spent a lot of time planning the itinerary, which airports to go through, etc. The flights have already been changed twice, and now we’re going through Kennedy one way and LaGuardia the other. Exactly where I didn’t want to be in terms of Covid risk, although I’m not sure it makes much of a difference. I would guess most airports are risky.

The whole thing scares me, and I’m probably not going to go. I told Dale I would make my decision this week.

After 43 years, it’s still hard to pry anything out of him, so I don’t know what he’s going to do. He and his sister are close, so I believe he’ll go no matter what. I think I just have to do my risk/reward assessment and figure out what feels right for me at this point.  Are you traveling? How do you decide?

I hate that it has come to this, but there you have it. Reality bites. But small wins – a visit with my sister – make up for the other indignities of our times.

Speaking of indignities, I’m eager to see the primetime Jan. 6 hearing this Thursday. I mean, it’s not exactly Channing Tatum, but it will do.

Cheerfulness breaking through

Number 26

I’m emerging from a self-imposed funk, and I started to write about all the racist, sexist bullshit things that are pissing me off right now, but once I go down that rabbit hole, it’s hard to climb back out. I’ll just say this. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, but from what I’ve seen, we’d be better off if about half of the country is replaced. Bring it on.

Buffalo sent me over the edge, but I’m creeping back toward the middle now. Trying to focus on simple pleasures. Things I can control such as my body (but that’s only because I don’t have a uterus).

Oops, there I go again. Back to our regular programming.

As an avid golfer, I couldn’t wait to retire because I read somewhere you get better and better if you practice and play a lot. I’m a decent golfer, but after a few years of playing three times a week, I’m not much better than when I played twice a month. I must have missed the part that said, “Individual Results May Vary.”

This week I made the momentous decision to cut one day off my weekly golf schedule. And in the end, it really has nothing to do with how well I play. Golf is a time-sucker, and there’s too much competition on the hobby front – swimming, walking, cooking, reading, writing and making art. Oh, and I just signed up for the free version of Duolingo to learn Spanish.

The pool at the club where I swim laps is finally warm enough to swim without a thermal top. Without all that weighing me down, I felt like Flipper! I never could find a one-piece that fit, so I ended up buying these tops at Lululemon. They’re not swimsuits per se, but they work great for those of us who have had a mastectomy without reconstruction. I pair them with basic bottoms from Target.

Today is Dale’s birthday, so he’s making fajitas. I was willing to cook, but that’s what he wanted, and fajitas are his thing. I did make cheesecake! We both love it, but sometimes I think we just need a batch of graham cracker crust now and then. I’m thinking about waffles for tomorrow morning. I like this recipe from King Arthur. You can make the batter ahead and refrigerate it overnight.

I’ve been kind of burned out on streaming shows, although the new Bosch series is great. If you like seriously twisted crime fiction, I recommend The Turnout by Megan Abbott. It’s about a family of ballet dancers, and she does for ballet what she did for cheerleaders in Dare Me. It’s all sick and wrong, but that’s why you read Megan Abbott.

On a more pleasant note, I read the first two in a series of Victorian mysteries by Tasha Alexander featuring Lady Emily Ashton. They are a tad tame for me, but I liked them a lot and will probably read the rest. I’m not proud, but I have Tina Brown’s new book about the royals on reserve at the library. The Palace Papers – looks like she dishes on just about everyone, and for some reason, that appeals to me at this moment in time.  

I updated the gallery to include my last two pieces, Number 26 and Number 27. I couldn’t be happier to have discovered the joys of art later in life. With the time I’m getting back by skipping a day of golf, I think I’m going to visit Dick Blick and see what that’s all about. I’ve never been, although I do order from them online.

For many of us, it’s hard to stay positive, yet I somehow manage (for the most part). I’m reminded of the late musician Leonard Cohen, who said, “I’ve studied all the philosophies and all the theologies, but cheerfulness keeps breaking through!”

My first walking playlist

My favorite advice columnist these days is Carolyn Hax, who writes for the Washington Post. She’s not a therapist, but her responses are so intelligent and so insightful, I’d pay for some couch time with this journalist.

In a recent column, she urged a writer to respond to another person’s nasty comment with her honest feelings … something along the lines of, “What an unkind thing to say.” She said don’t let anything stand unchallenged. Invite difficult people out into the open.

Carolyn ends the column with this: “The truth is your power. Remaining calm is your superpower.”

Indeed!

After a shaky start earlier in my career, I became quite good at keeping things bottled up at work, where we used to say only the whale that surfaces gets harpooned. Or never complain, never explain. While I did speak up and was good at keeping calm in a crisis, figuring out what to say and when to say it was practically a full-time job.

Carefully choreographed restraint was useful in the workplace, but it’s not particularly helpful for the rest of our lives, when theoretically we are free to let it all hang out. But as it turns out, managing interpersonal communication is a key life skill we need more than ever in retirement.

I say that because I believe the default is to make us invisible. Have you noticed that? No longer young and jobby, sometimes it feels like no one sees or hears us anymore. At first, I was like, fine. Who cares? I’ll just keep a low profile and go about my merry way.

It worked for a while, but eventually it takes a toll. As I’ve written in previous posts, I believe my sciatica is at least partially exacerbated by repressed emotions. At first, I thought it was the big stuff, childhood drama and all that, but now I think it’s everyday communication or lack thereof.

In my last post, I wrote about my experience on the golf course, where I finally said in a very kind and truthful way how I felt about some behaviors I found unsettling. I feel great! Carolyn is right about owning your truth and staying calm.

It’s an art form. I’ve been practicing, asking more questions and being less judgmental yet stating quite clearly where I stand. As my communication skills improve, so does my back. Pain is complicated, and I understand not everyone will have the same experience, but it seems like it’s working for me. Perhaps there’s a nugget or two in this continuing saga that might help you.

My first Walking Playlist

I’m loving Spotify and have been goofing around with playlists. Yesterday, I walked for an hour to this playlist, and it was so much fun I couldn’t not share it. I didn’t use beats per minute or anything professional like that, so my advice is to keep your normal pace and not let the music drive you to do more than you safely can.

Walking is not required. Think of it as an eclectic collection of music that brings a smile to your face and makes you want to move. Maybe a little sing-a-long if you are so inclined. Below are the songs if you use a different streaming service. For an hour’s walk, I turn around somewhere in the middle of La Bamba.

  • Billie Jean – Michael Jackson
  • Yes Sir, I Can Boogie – Baccara
  • Streets of Bakersfield – Dwight Yoakam
  • Shake Your Hips – Joan Osborne
  • Everyday People – Sly & The Family Stone
  • The Holy Grail – John Fogerty
  • Bear Cat – Rufus Thomas
  • London Calling – The Clash
  • Dumas Walker – The Kentucky Headhunters
  • La Bamba – Flaco Jimenez & Steve Jordan
  • Refugee – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
  • All The Lilacs in Ohio – John Hiatt & The Jerry Douglas Band
  • Stayin’ Alive – Bee Gees
  • Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone – Texas Tornados
  • I Love to Love – Tina Charles
  • Highway 61 Revisited – Bob Dylan
  • Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone – The Band of Heathens & Ray Wylie Hubbard

Managing chronic pain

According to the neurosurgeon, most of my back problems are typical age-related degeneration. I have one disc bulge that is squeezing the spine (if I’m even saying that correctly). Basically, the result is spinal stenosis. He said that’s why I have pain in my lower buttocks. Hey, but ask Dale. He already knew I was a pain in the ass.

The neurosurgeon said I was way better off than most people with this degree of stenosis. He attributed my good fortune to physical fitness and encouraged me to keep doing whatever I’m doing. I was happy to hear I can still walk, swim and play golf, and even happier to hear him say it’s unlikely I’d ever need surgery. That’s good, because after multiple cancer surgeries, I have already fulfilled my surgical obligations.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on the mind-body connection. I started with Healing Back Pain by John Sarno. He believed repressed emotions cause most chronic pain, but other than understanding that concept and accepting it, he didn’t offer much in the way of advice.

Dr. Sarno was seen as a bit of a quack in his day, but there’s new research that vindicates him. It seems lots of medical professionals now believe chronic pain starts and ends in the brain – you just have to work a bit at reprogramming your physical responses to emotions such as anger, fear, shame and guilt.

After reading some of the newer articles like this one, I signed up for a program at Curable. There are all sorts of brain exercises and training modules to help navigate through chronic pain. Within a couple of weeks, I was virtually pain-free.

Then out of the blue, it cranked up again. There’s an emergency section of the app for when you have a flare-up, and it walks you through some ideas to help get you back on track. I thought I had dealt with all my emotional baggage and couldn’t imagine what was left.

After doing the module this morning, I’ve discovered a few more unresolved issues. Nothing big – she says – just the granddaddy of them all. Who am I? Why am I here? How much time to I have on this Earth, and what should I do with it?

I never really thought about those sorts of things when I was busy earning a living. It was just grind, grind, grind, and in retrospect, there’s something to be said for that mode of existence. In retirement, I have the pleasure of waking up in the middle of the night to engage in existential discussions with myself. But at least I can sleep in.

As long as I’m moving, I’m fine. Sitting is the worst. What else do I do when I sit? Why, write, of course. Since I haven’t written anything in a couple of weeks, I’m wondering if there’s a connection.

As I try to get rid of this butt ache, which is really, I think, an aching for knowledge, wisdom, value or purpose, choose one or all of the above, it would seem I have some work to do. I’ve decided that’s OK.

I try not to think of life as a game to win or lose. Things seem to work better for me when I forget about being MVP and just show up for practice.

P.S. If you’re looking for some great reading featuring a strong (and I mean badass) female protagonist, I highly recommend the Jane Whitefield series by Thomas Perry. Jane is a Native American who helps people disappear when bad guys are after them. Vanishing Act is first in the series. And joy of joys, there are nine of them!