8:15 AM – i wake late, out of bed at 6:50, dreamless. coffee, shower, pills, protein shake, apple, plum, strawberry, nuts. out the door and driving. 

on the way to work i pass a funeral home and crematory. the neat and healthy grass surrounding the humble and solemn looking building stands out brightly from the brown all around. i suppose, given the nature of their business, an aura of health and life is a necessity. 

the swelling of my hernia has subsided. i barely noticed it at all yesterday, and now i am able to touch and even press on it without pain, only a slight hardness and discomfort. i begin to imagine my appointment a week from now, and the doctor wondering why i am there when not the slightest thing is wrong with me… it’s the old joke about how the moment the mechanic arrives, your car starts running perfectly… 

130 PM – i too often get trapped scrolling. sometimes thirty minutes or longer can go by before i break out of whatever mental loop they’ve engineered to keep me going. sadly, it’s not even scrolling for fun much of the time. my thought process often goes like this: this is so stupid, ugh, i’ll scroll to get it off my screen, ugh this is even stupider and worse, god this is stupid, i’ll scroll a bit further… how do i end up scrolling in the first place? i suppose most of it is habit. and there is the eventual rare interesting or appealing article or image, and those are more memorable than all the shit, so i keep searching for them, even though most of it is utterly boring and insultingly stupid. try not opening the app (whichever one) for a day, and see how much more time you have… i’ve quit most of them, but unfortunately there are certain people i can only chat with on facebook. so sometimes, i get trapped there scrolling on and on and on and on… 

i have just wasted perhaps an hour trying to design a new blog/website. but at least i wasn’t scrolling. 

230PM – i walk across the street to a nearby deli for a snack. on the way i pluck a few wild black berries growing on the side of the road. juicy, sweet, natural, free. glistening little bundles of gems. how long will they last, i wonder. and too i wonder why the birds haven’t yet eaten them. 

8PM – home, water the plants, harvest several zucchinis and six cucumbers and a big handful of green beans. we mix up a vinegar brine and put the cucumbers and beans into big mason jars with the vinegar, and into the fridge. 

winston comes to say hello at the back patio door, and brenda hisses and scratches at him through the glass. she doesn’t usually throw such fits, so I lock her in the bathroom for a few minutes while winston eats. 

i don’t have many thoughts today. i don’t have many feelings. i seem to be just floating along. i take a trash bag out to the bin, and the sky is crisp in that magic hour that makes the trees look like wet oil paintings. maybe none of my days ever have meaning, until i force it upon them in retrospect. 

S is watching a youtube video about various varieties of tomatoes. i am not paying much attention until I hear the host say that the next variety of tomato is called talvez… tal vez is how one says maybe in spanish. not a very encouraging name to give to a plant. i think i would be hesitant to plant it just based on that name…

11PM – another night, here i am, and i’m so sleepy. often it ends like this. by the time i have my silence and solitude, i’m too drowsy to really enjoy it. so it goes.