Yesterday, I awoke as I usually do when the alarm clock went off at 7:00 a.m. I have no real need for a wake-up alarm because I'm not required to be anywhere in the morning, but I enjoy the regularity. If I awake at a regular hour, I will become tired and fall asleep at a regular hour and I've found that without the alarm, I sleep in as long as I want but then tend to become nocturnal. Which isn't a problem in and of itself, at least in theory, but stores, shops, banks, services, health care, and other businesses are generally open only in daytime hours. When I become nocturnal, staying up to 4:00 a.m. and then sleeping past noon, I miss out on a lot of things. Plus my circadian rhythms go all to hell and before I know it, I'm napping throughout the day and tossing and turning all night, never fully awake and never really asleep. I much prefer the regularity of a morning wake-up alarm, and some consistency to my hours.
A 7:00 a.m. wake-up alarm doesn't mean I have to get out of bed, though. It's a radio alarm clock, and sometimes I listen to the news on NPR for an hour or two before getting up. Sometimes I just pet the cat. Sometimes I sneak in a little light reading or just fall back asleep and start the day a couple hours later.
I'm usually up by 9:00 a.m., though. If I was kind to myself the night before, I've already prepared a pot of coffee, and I just have to turn the maker on (if not, I have to count out the scoops and fill the water tank). I keep my blood-pressure meds next to the coffee maker, and while I'm there, I take my one daily dose. Then I check and record my blood pressure before I start any other tasks, because if I don't do all that on a regularly scheduled basis, I'll forget. If it's a routine, I don't have to think about it or "remember" to take my meds and my blood pressure, I just do it.
Breakfast, in addition to my morning coffee (black), usually consists of some combination of one or more of a bowl of cereal, a bagel (naked, no schmear), a banana, an orange, and/or a cup of yogurt. It varies, depending on mood and what's in stock in my fridge, and it's casually eaten sometime between the hours of 9:00 and noon. While I'm drinking my coffee and taking my breakfast, I'm usually catching up on the news, both on MSNBC and from various email newsletters (NY Times, the Guardian, Axios, and local Atlanta services).
Yesterday, I watched the live coverage of Trump's election interference case in Georgia, and the defendants' desperate, hail-mary attempt to have the case dismissed by questioning the ethics of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. I like to stay abreast of current events and use my free time to watch live coverage of hearings and trials when I can, rather than read someone else' description of what happened. But the hearings yesterday were combative and frankly kind of nasty, and I started developing a sort of PTSD from my own courtroom experiences giving expert testimony and depositions and being cross-examined in environmental cases. I enjoy a good conversation and even debate, but I don't like arguments or fights, especially when they become personal and nasty. My distaste for dueling with attorneys constantly trying to put words in my mouth and undermining my credentials and even integrity were part of the reason I decided to retire from my career. I didn't want to do that anymore, even for money, and certainly didn't need to relive it all over again over my morning coffee.
As is my routine, while watching the news over coffee and between breakfast portions, I solved the New York Times crossword puzzle on my phone. And the mini-crossword. And the Wordle, the Spelling Bee, and the Connections and Letter Box puzzles. I feel like the puzzles are good mental exercises to keep my mind sharp, and also mental-acuity tests to let me know when I'm doddering off into age-related dementia. My challenge to myself is to keep improving my times or my scores, and if and when I can no longer think of, say, a five-letter word describing a non-fixable error ("fatal"), I'll know it's time to stop trusting my mind.
I write during the day, both this blog as well as separate posts to a Facebook sports group. Both formats also include generating, editing, and selecting images using various AI models. Yesterday's sports posts include updates on the Red Sox' spring training, the Bruins' loss to Seattle, and Caitlin Clark's record-setting performance at Iowa. While writing and composing, I listen to music over Spotify. If I recall correctly, yesterday I was listening to the new albums by composer Kali Malone (All Life Long) and jazz vibraphonist Joel Ross (nublues).
By that time, it was the afternoon, and I took my usual walk along my usual route on a portion of the Atlanta Beltline, a 2.5-mile route. It gets me outside, it's some light exercise, and a modicum of social interaction ( I stopped to chat with a neighbor yesterday, one I hadn't seen in several months).
Back home, I tuned back in to Trump's Georgia hearings and read a Marvel comic book on line. I subscribe to something called Marvel Unlimited which gives me access to almost the entire Marvel library, and right now I'm on The Runaways series (Issue 6, Nov. 19, 2003). I also subscribe to The New Yorker magazine, have since 2003, and at various times during the day I'm reading one article or another from relatively recent issues. There's usually around six or so recent issues of the magazine scattered at various places around the house - the kitchen counter, a bedside end table, by the sofa near the television, behind the toilet, etc.
Lunch is in the late afternoon to almost early evening and almost always consists of a salad. My local Publix supermarket sells a great selection of premade salads - it's certainly not the most cost-effective way to eat, but it beats trying to maintain a refrigerator full of fresh produce and toppings, and trying to constantly think of new recipe combinations. On rare occasions when the store runs out of salads, lunch is a small sub sandwich and a bag of chips, but 9 out of 10 days, or more, it's a salad.
I don't play video games before 4:00 pm - a self-imposed rule to apply a bit of discipline. I don't want to be that guy hunched over a keyboard on a sunny afternoon playing games all day. Apparently, I don't mind being that guy hunched over a keyboard blogging or posting on a sunny afternoon, but somehow gaming feels different. Yesterday, after the Georgia hearing had ended, lunch had been eaten, and I was caught up on my reading and writing, I played a few hours of Assassin's Creed - Mirage (while also tracking the Bruins game on line).
Once I've had enough of that, it's time for dinner and some television. Last night, dinner was a baked and breaded chicken breast with a side of mac-and-cheese, a staple in these parts. I ate while watching Loudermilk on Netflix (I'm currently on season two). I'm also following Alex Honnald's Arctic Ascent on the National Geographic channel, and the current season (Night Country) of HBO's True Detective (I'm a week behind because of the Super Bowl). An old habit dying hard, I still try and watch The Daily Show every night, and possibly Stephen Colbert's opening monologue. The late-night viewing is also a ritual to tell myself it's time for bed, before I stay up all night and sleep through my 7:00 a.m. alarm.
I like to make sure there are no dishes left in the sink before I go to sleep, and that there's food in the cat's bowl. If I'm kind to myself, I'll get the morning coffee ready before I go to bed, so that all I'll have to do the next morning is hit the "on" button. I like to read in bed before falling asleep and I'm currently somewhere past page 300 of George Lewis' detailed and erudite history of the AACM, A Power Greater Than Itself.
And that's a not untypical day in the R.O.M.'s life. People I talk to seem unable to understand what I do with myself without a job or volunteer work or some eccentric but time-consuming hobby. Without a partner to order me around or children with demands on my time. For my part, I can't understand how they can confuse those distractions and obligations for a meaningful life. My best explanation to those folks is to "imagine a weekend that never ends."
And look at that, the news is now telling me that Trump was just fined another $355 million dollars and barred from doing business in New York for three years, And it's now four o'clock, time to go back to Assassin's Creed.
No comments:
Post a Comment