The kids at Country Club College have left for the Christmas break and kids from other colleges are showing up for the same reason. Campuses are quiet this week, hollow.
I have always liked busy places after everyone leaves. I think I was the last one to leave the beach graduation weekend. Sunday checkout times were noon. I sat alone at sunset remembering, feeling, thinking.
In college, I liked the abandoned corners of the university. I sought them out. There were libraries that barely anyone went to, top floors that were like forgotten attics. One Christmas, I stayed on a few extra days just to wander the huge campus and to walk the abandoned streets. It was the state's only college town, and I was in love with the entire experience. My roommate had left with everyone else as the quarter ended, and nights alone in our mobile home on the outskirts were very, very different. Again, the hollowness and the quietude and the thinking, the emptiness and longing.
I'm a freak like that.
T told me he isn't feeling Christmas this year. He misses having his son at home and the whole family celebration. I said nothing. My mother's down the street neighbor puts up big decorations for every holiday, and at Christmas, he decorates the old folks places, too.
He put lights up at my mother's house two days ago, so now almost the entire street is lit up at night. But there is no Christmas joy here. I wake up to misery each morning, my mother sitting on her vibrating heating pad moaning. There is never a "hey, hey, hey, it's a brand new day!" Just pain and suffering.
I took her to the spine ortho yesterday. He asked her how the epidural injections worked. My mother gets frustrated like all hillbillies asked personal questions do. She got flummoxed and didn't know how to answer. When I told him that my mother had a bone scan and that her number was -5, his eyes popped. He looked at the medicine the osteoporosis doc was prescribing for my mother and he said, "That's a good one." Then he said, "I don't want to give your mother anymore steroid injections. They deteriorate bones. You need to get those injections," he said. Her bones are paper thin, and she could break a hip just standing.
Yea. He doesn't want to see her any longer. Next time we go to the pain med doc, I'm going to ask him about acupuncture. This medical group has it as a treatment at the outpatient rehab facility. Maybe that would give my mother some relief.
After the doc, I took my mother to a Five Guys for a hamburger. A day out. Her birthday is Saturday. She'll be 94. We will go to the Olive Garden for lunch. It has become our tradition.
But I am missing everything Christmas this year.
I am missing everything.
But hey. . . the papers were full of news this morning. I won't mention Trump. The stink of him is everywhere. But there was plenty of sex news today. The Michigan football head coach, the military doctor. And just like the Epstein case, we all want a public release of the pictures and videos. The public has a right to know!
And then there is this.
Huh. Either that guy is really busy or there are millions of little Epsteins amongst us. What's your guess? What do the ethicists say?
There is another story about a lawsuit against ChatGPT who, the suit claims, agreed with a user that his mother may be spying on him. So. . . he killed her.
And me? I can't even get the female figure to turn around.
A little, maybe. I think I'll ask Chat tonight if I should kill my mother and see what it says, and if it says, "sure," I'm going to blackmail them to get what I want.
It's a weird world out there. You should be happy to stay home and watch it on TikTok.
Once we ban social media, the world will be a better place.
If you want to come to the U.S. for a visit now, you will have to spill about your use of social media.
"I don't use it much, just a little TikTok. Have you seen those A.I. videos?"
I don't really need A.I. I have photography. But A.I. truly is fascinating, and I'm going to be on the winning side when it takes over the planet. It's coming, my friends. . . it's coming for you.
Oh. . . one more bit of news. Misinformation Theory. Misinformation, researchers (some) now believe, affects every living organism on the planet down to the microbe level. It is pandemic. Can you imagine?
Long, long ago, I read that there were researchers using living viruses as "hard drives." They were able to store computer information on them. I just looked it up to make sure I remembered right. It is true. They can write information right into the virus's DNA.
Isn't that something.
I listened to a lot of music last night. I heard this and thought of you.
Desert Places
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it – it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less –
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars – on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
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