Friday

Grocery day. ... Pop is making a point of leaving early these days. I guess he likes not buying lunch. I don't mind: I am glad to be able to claim the kitchen and make my big steak dinner. Though, I wonder a little a bit about getting those milkshakes back into my life. ... I though Pop was looking especially despondent, facing away with head bowed wiping at his eyes, while waiting for a green light. He said he was fine. Since he hasn't eaten, I was worried that he might be getting ill, but now I suspect this might have been about me, and that maybe he was even crying a little bit. Interestingly, I seem to have gone back into falling into a 'Hallway Dialogue' type of fantasy, in which I am conversing and joking with others, and really losing myself in it. In the car, I was trying to hold back on my facial expressions and general gesticulations, but I should know that when I get lost in these daydreams, such self-control is rather beyond me. I am pretty sure I was making big facial smiles and silently laughing (and maybe not always so silent), turning my head this way and that. And Pop was likely feeling sad that his son should be a bit of a nutter. ... As for why I am falling back into this inner realm, well, first, it's not that I have been free of it all these years, but it feels like I am back in the 1990s, the early Bay Horse years, when I am still fresh in my failure and life back home. The frequency and intensity seems to be at about that high pitch. I am tempted to think that it might be because I have actually been feeling pretty good, and perhaps sort of manic. I even feel younger, like I really might be back to my 90s self. I fancy that it might be because I am now nicely settled into my routine, with Solitaire and jigsaw puzzles to help fill out my time around books and journaling. On the other hand, I also have a darker theory: maybe I am just feeling my loneliness. I am barely talking with anyone at PolitiCartoons anymore, and I don't even exist anywhere else. Or maybe these two theories work together: I am feeling good, but I am also wretchedly lonely. ... ... I just won my third straight game of Free Cell. I'm 3 for 3. You know, when you think about it, the game is actually pretty fun. Seriously, it's not just about winning readily. You actually have to work your way out of some pretty thick tangles to cross the finishing line. Or at least I do. Maybe I will reach a point where I can go from beginning to end in my sleep, but I am not there yet. Winning by itself is not necessarily satisfying, and struggling without ever being able to win is definitely no fun, but struggling and then being able to succeed, now, that must be as sweet as it gets.