Eve of a significant birthday

 Yes, it's almost arrived: 70 years. I flatter myself that I don't look that old, but I probably do. One of my band mates told me I didn't, so I will assume he's being honest. 😄 I'm still in relatively good shape physically despite having a hip replacement a year ago. It just means I can't run races anymore, but the bad hip prevented me from doing it anyway. I'm doing cycling at the gym for my cardio and yoga to stretch my body out. But there is the inevitable decline that is coming. I look back 20 or 30 years, and it doesn't seem that long ago. With any luck, I will have at least 20 left. Unfortunately, at least 3 years will be with the abomination in the White House. 

I did finally use my accumulated frequent flyer miles as I noted in an earlier post but for a much lower reward that I had originally hoped. Since the pandemic, they have been devalued so instead of first class, I got economy plus. It was a nice trip though. I am hoping we can do a lot more traveling in the next few years. I have no desire to do a cruise, unless it's a music one, like the Little Steven's Underground Cruise. I'd have to convince someone to go with me.  Though who knows? I might enjoy one. I didn't want to go to Disney World when my kids did and had a really good time. I want to see Alaska and have read that a cruise is the best way. I enjoyed the Pacific Northwest when we visited Vancouver and Seattle a few years ago. Olympia National Park was beautiful but Forks was pretty dreadful. The B&B  in Forks was awful. We should have stayed in one of the lodges in the park.  

Got to post before I head off to my class: late Antiquity. 

May 21st

 was yesterday. It's interesting how people I haven't spoken to in several years can turn up in my dreams and we converse normally. I asked for updates on family and friends and I provided details on what I have been up to in the years since our last meeting. Some are people I'd expect and am glad to see. Others are obscure people from early in my work life that I really forgot about. Still, I enjoy dreams like that.

Been a long time

Wow, I didn't realize how long it has been since I posted here. Not that I expect that anyone is reading it. Still, life is good despite the days going by faster and faster. A month past the middle of my 68th year. I am enjoying not working. I spend much of my time playing and learning music. I am probably never going to be a virtuoso piano player or a highly skilled singer but I enjoy doing both. 

I still need to use all of my accumulated frequent flyer miles before they expire. I am not building them up anymore since I don't do much air travel. Ideally first class to Europe but with American devaluing them, I'll probably be lucky if I get economy plus. 

Still frequent dreams about work and the people with whom I worked. Some really obscure former coworkers even show up, along with regulars. I was watching the show Severance on Apple TV. The halls in the office complex reminded me a lot of walking in an academic department on a campus at 4 PM on a Friday. Lots of closed doors in a sterile building.  

The Swimmer

I just finished reading The Swimmer by John Cheever. It was published in the New Yorker in 1964 so they posted a link to it to coincide with the summer fiction issue. I saw the 1968 movie within the past year. It was on Turner Movie Classics so I DVR'd it.  It starred Burt Lancaster as Ned, the man who has decided to swim home from a friend's house via the swimming pools between the two points. It was definitely a period piece, a look into the life of an erstwhile successful man - "in the grey flannel suit"- as he encounters the pool owners along the way. I have been watching movies from the 60s and 70s recently out of nostalgia for the period. I was aware of them at the time but fifty years on, they seem foreign. I guess we thought we were very modern back then too.  There's no chance that I will be able to look back on today in fifty years. I am hoping that I can make twenty years.   

May 21

A month since my last post. Still playing music regularly although my jams with the retirees may have ended. I had a bit of a dispute with the drummer who organized it. I have also stopped running because I need to have some tests to make sure that my heart is healthy. I have no symptoms so I am hoping that I will be back to it again soon.  

Mortality

Again, it's been awhile since I posted. I received a notice from Google saying one of my posts from 2012 now has a content warning. I can't figure out why as it was just something related to Breaking Bad. 

I am still enjoying retirement. I am not one of those people who say that I am busier now than when I was working. I am not but I still have a routine that I follow so that I am not sitting around bored. I'm still running, exercising and playing music, all of which I find very rewarding. 

I had a call last week from an old work colleague telling me that a former boss had died of brain cancer. He was quite young, or at least in relation to my age. I was somewhat resentful when he was hired because I was interested in the job he got. Still, he was decent and didn't overmanage me. He even bought tickets for the two of us to see the Pogues in NYC. In the end, he couldn't make it so I took my son. It was an excellent show. 

I now read the obituaries regularly. I find it encouraging when the deceased have died in their 90s as that is still a good twenty years or so from where I am now. Though, twenty years ago doesn't seem that long ago. I was reading them while visiting my old home town and saw an old high school acquaintance died. He was the driver when a good friend of mine died in a car accident. We had been out bar hopping and I think we were pretty drunk. I was tired so they dropped me off at home. Right after that, they crashed the car on a country road. The friend was thrown through the windshield and died. I don't know if it was instantly but I got a call with the upsetting news the next morning. It looked from the obit that the driver never married or had kids as he was described as a "great uncle" and seemed to be very involved with religion. I wonder whether the crash caused him to change his life because he was a bit of a wild man before that. I didn't see any of that crowd again after the funeral. 

Story So Far

Wow, time flies. I didn't realize that it has been three months since I posted here. Thinking as another new year starts, I recall that in the first week in January from 1985 through 2019, I'd be at a resort (Camelback Inn 😄) in a warm location, catching up with good friends and generally having a good time. Oh yeah, and doing work too. 

This year I was at the national meeting of American historians. I strolled through the exhibits, wondering if I'd meet any one from my life in publishing. It was mostly university presses. The big commercial ones have given up on attending, so no one looked familiar. The sessions were interesting though they impressed on me how much I am not an academic. I thought I'd want to teach upon retiring but I just don't feel like I know enough. Sure, it's more than the students but I just wouldn't want to do the prep necessary to teach a course. 

So instead I run and practice piano three times a day. I met my goal of running or walking 316 times in 2022. I ended up doing 322 days and 980 miles. I am getting better on piano and playing in two different bands, which is enjoyable. I love playing and singing.