Dunkirk NY – An unexpected but gentle is snow is falling today. They are the best kind. They add a little accumulation, but not to the streets and sidewalks. The light fresh coating over the stale snow is a pleasant visual sensation, adding just a bit of curved obscurity to the sharper iced edges, filling in the footsteps and bare spots, and allowing me to gaze, mesmerized, at the large flakes descending lightly from the sky. The cold and snow makes being trapped inside a bit more tolerable, though I’d still like to be able to get out there and take a walk a few blocks up the street, just to feel the crisp cold air. It all feels so exciting in November. It will get very, very old by February.
Nothing really new to report on the knee. I ice it about 4 times a day for 30 minutes or so, which always feels so good. I keep it elevated during the day and at night while I sleep. I take tours around the house now and again just to get it moving. Range of motion and stiffness are the main complaints now. There’s little in the way of pain. I suppose the thing I have to be careful of most is not overdoing it, not feeling as if I can do more than I really should. The days are actually going by faster than had thought they would.
Last night’s movie was Pirate Radio, which was stupid and fun. The best aspect of the movie was the soundtrack. In the process of trying to find out what’s on and available to watch, though, I notice that the streaming choices are now becoming out of hand. There are simply too many streaming services out there now, and it is becoming a difficult matter to try and “cut the cord” and save money by not having cable. Between YouTube TV for live TV and all the various streaming service I have and share, I begin to wonder if going back to cable is not the smarter and simpler choice. Ordinarily I don’t watch enough screen entertainment to make all these subscriptions worthwhile, and I don’t have the patience to cancel and switch all the time. My wife consumes far more media than I do, so it’s not like I can just pull the plug on it all. But sorting out what I need and what is superfluous is becoming more tedious by the month. Too many choices.
I’ve also begun re-reading Catch-22, and it actually strikes me as somewhat unusual that I would have been allowed to read this book in high school. But the other fascinating thing about re-reading this book now is how much I actually understood about the book back then. Re-reading it now, I haven’t yet really found anything about the book that I understand more than what I did at 16. The book made as much sense to me then as it does now. I found the same mostly true of re-reading Vonnegut’s work. On the other hand, John Updike’s Rabbit Run offered far more depth and insight to me at my present age than he did at 17. Absurdism, it seems, always makes the most sense when the real world is absurd. -twl