Patterns

As brief as it may be, in case it matters, a new pattern of falling asleep after dinner and waking after midnight has emerged from the relative freedom of scheduling responsibilities that not working brings and that allows me to indulge my love of the silence and darkness of the night. There are dark woods outside the window, though I usually do not look out as there is little to see and any light attracts so many bugs. The bugs have gotten so intrusive over the last century (recalling a rhyme written decades ago while waking on a beach outisde of New York City, a secluded end past Jones Beach, I believe... or was it out at the tip of Montauk... I used to love beaches and the ocean before the pollution took over). I recall riding my motorcycle (small Honda 400) out there to watch the sun rise and napping in the cool morning mist only to wake covered with bugs. I shook them off and wrote The Bugs Are Really Bad On NY Beaches and while I don't have access to the full lyric at the moment, I recall the beginning or chorus going something like...

The bugs are really bad on NY beaches
The bugs are getting bad most everywhere
It's mostly because people are like leeches
leaving dirt and shit and garbage everywhere
That's what happens when people don't care

Must have been a protest song, no doubt. Anyway, I was recalling how much more wonderful the beaches were when I was a young child and how they were changing as humans polluted the planet more and more. I wrote a 42 page photoessay in the ninth grade about pollution. Somewhere in the storage boxes are these and many thousands of other writings awaiting the one or anyone who cares to explore. The night brings memories back to life.

Listening to Lenka FB TT reminds me of how much I love her sound, attitude, and perspective (long time too) and relate to some of her lyrics enough so that I'd love to meet and talk with her. In another life I will make the actually connections I might have made in this life if I was not so preoccupied with survival. Another person inspiring me to want to visit Sidney, I like to meet her mom and what I've read about where she was born too.

Unfortunately my technology is ancient, relatively speaking (Windows Vista, enough said?) and the speakers are no longer working on this 2008-09 Toshiba laptop and I have trouble accessing a lot of stuff online because the browsers of a few years ago are no longer supported in this planned obsolescent instant terminal culture. Blink and you are no longer there.

Meanwhile, there was a bit life of going on outsode of my head today as Curly came by to pick up most of his tools (he left the electrical tool bins as he did not finish the electrical work) and to pick up his truck that he left out back. This is his house, after all, his childhood home and his mom still works the three greenhouses on the property even though she bought new a house down the road after living in the house out back for nearly four decades so I'll see them both a lot. He still has much stuff stored here though he is gradually moving stuff to his new place mostly cuz he likes the lake better than the woods these days.

After he left I went out to finally change the phone plan and I reduced my bill from about $250 a month to about $150 a month and we will not berate me for wasting all the money I wasted by not doing that months ago. I shopped for phones and pretty much narrowed it down to the iPhone and the Galaxy. The model is undecided so I need to read up more. I resisted buying the iPhone SE at $14 a month for 30 months mostly because I am used to a larger screen and I am still tentative about switching to Apple since I never used any Apple stuff. I will play with Curly's more to see the differences in operating systems and make a decision when I have more stable finances. Curly said that Excel might still have her iPhone 4 that I could learn on and Precious has one as well and she has been taking about upgrading so there are options.

For the last fifteen years or so I have had five phone lines, three of which were used by others. Precious, Rasputin, and Jane (I updated the About The People page to briefly introduce them). Rasputin stopped using the line last year and the fifth line was an emergency line I kept because it was $13 a month. I spoke to Precious and Jane and they understand they need to give me $50 a month from now on and let them know that if we go over the data limit they each owe $5 more a month and if we go over that limit more than a couple of times we'll upgrade the plan and it will be about $20 more month. I seriously must make time to review finances in detail so I can reassure myself I am not losing the car or storage stuff and I can reduce stress until I find income again and this phone plan change is a big step saving me almost $200 a month.

After the phone store and conversations I drove around a bit. I am foolishly indulging my stress and empty time with food and was craving a knish, but Pickles, the best NY Deli in the area, is only open 8am-4pm. I drove a bit more thinking maybe KFC mashed potatoes might suffices, but found a newish fish place called Something Fishy run by a family and while they seemed to lose my order as I was sitting there waiting quite a while, the high school girl who took the order was very sweet in apologizing and they gave me a bowl of hush puppies and some soup while I waited and the owner came over too. I was very happy with the service and food and told them so they knew they made up for their mistake well. Finally got home and once again, nodded off shortly after sitting down so I slept until about 1am and started listening to music and writing and that brings us here.

A lot of babbling for not much activity, aye? :)

And how are you?