DOD 57 part 2 under the sea

I got back from my walk just ahead of the coyotes.  The blue light of the evening dusk showed the land as it must have appeared 100 million years ago when it was covered with water.

I swam 1800 yards, 1900 more like, but I turned off my watch before I did the cool down without thinking.  The first swim in 10 days, did all the IM.

That may account in part for the lateness by the time the walk was done.

I feel 100 million years old, like a fossilized fish not knowing what I am doing here when the land is dry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ_MUfryl-w

dod 57 no name

Why do empty places and trees standing alone say so much to us?

Last night was weird, woke up for 4 hours and then slept till almost 6:30, the first time that has happened.  The sun was already up. But Tuesday my day starts at 6:30 am so I need to be awake before that.

Last night the moon was low in the east and woke me and for 3 hours, nothing could induce me to go back to sleep although I was comfortable and snuggled up from the cold.

My exercise has been off, only a short walk followed by a longer one, but neither hard yesterday as the pool was closed, I thought it was opening yesterday.  Today I go back again, probably leaving in just a couple of hours, not much time to get the desperately important next stage of work done.

Things are surreal.  I had a plan you torpedoed to some extent almost 60 days ago now, or did I?  What am I going to do this coming year?  Too much dependent on other people and none on you.

There is so much weird misunderstandings and assumptions around me. I have to add clarity and...

Time grows short on so many levels. 4 days of 2 drops at a time, one gone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpSdePGgVyQ

dod 56-not liking the man in the mirror

I have been away for 3 months and things are beginning to unravel at work.   I need to get back and see what is happening.  I thought I would go back, but I did not.  This is a test of some future, I suppose.  Did I pass or fail?

I am unprepared.  I started looking at routes back.  20 hours and there is a void there towards the end where I see nothing.  I am not ready to go back, things here are unfinished.

My dream, I suppose, was that you would come here.  And then what? You'd save me?  I'd save you?  We'd somehow destroy one another?

I am not happy about this, but everything has been up and down and I am exhausted and worried and I don't know that i can avoid what is happening there any more.

Perhaps it was cleaning and planning, once I started I could not relax or stop.

I am cold and lonely and more than a little scared although there ae so many reasons to be optimistic and not terrified at least for the moment.  The terror lies in success as much as in failure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XwOeJW_9HU

The top of 80 peaks, looking at the next closest (jakes?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivWY9wn5ps

My problems are small, but I have a big hammer and I don't know what   to do with it.  Where do you start?

dod 54 the last day

Same rainbow.  It's falling on either Hurley or if you really use your imagination, Silver City.

Yesterday I did 91 floors (1.5 hours up to 80 peaks overlook, 15,202 steps (the last 2 were the least important) and the night before I got 8hr and 49minutes of sleep.  Uninterrupted sleep is when I miss you the most.

My BPV were at a high of 137, but I think the walk actually showed something higher, I don't get that.

There will be a picture of the hike.

Are these two the same?

Planning on making turkey and rice soup with leftovers tomorrow.  Any recipes are welcome.  May make some turkey chili to go with the chicken chili in the freezer. If it sounds like too much, remember that there are still months to go and its getting colder here and once frozen, it will last indefinitely, perhaps years after I have gone...where?

I worked and hiked alone 2.5 miles. How can I be tired of company so soon? I thought it was you but maybe it is me. Either way tomorrow will be here soon enough and perhaps I will be lonely. 

dod 55 dog on a cliff

Dod or doc?  Speaking of dead, the laptop keyboard appears to be fried.  It's a relatively easy fix, maybe under warranty, but it will have to be dealt with eventually not now when i can work around it and i have a draft to get out in the next few days.

The coyotes were unusually close and active last night.  The sorghum which had washed up to the house and all along the hill was torn up by cows who came up to the house to tear at the corn-like stalks which are no more a part of my morning when I step out.

Alone again, something of a shock after the noise and crowding. First order of business when it warms up is to refill the water tank, it's 6:00 AM and I've already done a lot of cleaning, but there will be more of that today.  I'd love to take a bath at some point in time, I have to wash sheets and towels and begin to set up for being alone, dealing with trash making leftovers into soup, freezing stuff, a trip to the dump, thinking about companionship, and getting more focused on work and the deadlines this week.  It is 11/28/21.

I never stop spending time alone, this picture was me and the dog taking a walk where he trapped himself, but only to the extent he had to back off.  There's no metaphor there.

It is sort of funny seeing all the things here that have to be done this morning in the wake of the weird whirlwind of the holiday.

I was worried it would be too quiet and it may be that way, but my coffee is nice this morning, the music on the coffee shop radio is upbeat, it is clear enough to hang the sheets on the line when the washer is finished with them, there are miles to go before I sleep with important worrk and the pool opens again tomorrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZGoNuHRO1A

I know you have to deal with Omnicom and your new thing whatever that is; but i took the dog out for a cold, short walk and it is time for me to do my thing whether you hover in the back of my mind or not.

first christmas tree 53

It is cold this morning, literally freezing which is good for the ski resorts nearby as is the fairly minimal snow fall, many inches below normal; but at least the temperatures have fallen.  Distantly, you can see some snow on the tall mountain nearby; probably above 8or9 thousand feet.  The sunrises returned, florescent; but this morning we'll do something beside a sunrise although this one is particularly nice given the clouds in the east.

The small  thing (I need to get a zoomed in copy and insert it below) is in the middle of nowhere,  close to where I am and towards town.  it may be for someone who died, but it happens to be the first Christmas tree i saw this year and it brought color and pathos to my life as I drove into town although I do not know if I need pathos.

I did over 3 miles of hiking and i am tired. Yesterday was every bit as exhausting as i feared; but i have certainly made the bed i am sleeping in.  i look forward and dread Sunday with its strange goodbyes, half assurances,  recriminations and the self loathing that comes with it.  The dog was asleep on a couch this morning.

I did make a stab today at fixing the problem that was assigned to me yesterday, but i cannot expect to hear back soon; probably not even in time given the bizarre time frame I was handed.  Anyone on vacation would have missed it.

The coyotes were going crazy in the freezing cold.  It is strange for them to be so wild and vocal and then the silence. 

There is a new covid variant this week, the rich countries did not take care of the poor ones, so the poor ones gave the rich ones what they deserved.  It is nice being in the middle of nowhere and on something of a break from the real world, but it is lonely and it is like watching a movie about the end of the world, going out with insane reactions to reasonable restrictions and a whimper instead of a bang; or maybe the bang will get here soon enough.  The idiots who don't want to wear a mask are seeing the reason for doing so now, but they are not the kind of people who would understand mutations or natural selection or evolution and they have leadership in government which would surprise me if I thought human intelligence meant anything.  This is the way the universe proves me right and exonerates me; although neither of us believes that (completely may be added in my case since a part of me believes my science at that level) and it does nothing to comfort me; comfort eludes me and I think of the cows who bear their lot in the freezing rain, the snow and the cold of this morning with such Je ne sais quoi.

Would it be any different with you, or is all love pain? The people here only make me feel lonelier, because they are here for such a short time, like the coyotes who are so haunting because they howl so loud and then go quiet in the night.

dod 52 Happy thanksgiving

It has been raining since yesterday evening.

There were so many potential pictures from yesterday because it stormed and the first christmas tree of the season. That one was surprising, I will share it. 

But this one shows the promise of the future and it falls on silver city.

I lost my privacy through this weekend, Sunday will be here soon enough. 

Weird that I will spend Hanukkah alone, well the dog would be offended. I wonder if I should light candles?

And what would I want other than what I can't have?

Day 51 of the Dead

It is the Wednesday before thanksgiving.  i woke up to what could only be described as a wall of clouds around 3 sides of the house.  There could be rain today and there will be increasing cold..

Over 450 intensity minutes, 3 weeks worth, in 3 days, all my steps and floors; this place is good for my mind and my health; although dead.   Today I go see the eye doctor again, the last time before thanksgiving.  No telling what will happen there, it is unlikely to be good, but if it is not bad that is ok.

I find myself dreading the long weekend.  The work I've done the last two days was only adequate, not nearly enough even though I still have time.  I must not get complacent, there is no room for that.

I am waiting for several responses.  Those could help things.  The primary two or three or four depending on how you count them should come soon enough.  I had to buy out my cousin and that moved forward today, there being nothing left for me to do but wait and pay the taxes next month.  Don't let me forget that.  I suppose I can wait till after the formal close which I assume will be this week, although if it were in December it would not shock or disturb me.  I hope I don't have to own it for long; but I am not pleased with the lack of progress.

You do not see this, but if you did this is what I would say. If you still love me, even a little, you need to read the first story in the book that was waiting for me when I arrived here, Mysteries and Miracles of new Mexico by Jack Kutz.  it's worth reading, in its way; but mainly I love sharing the irony of the world with you, good and bad and while you have moved on, like the ghost that I apparently am, I wander the earth in search of what we had together and my science which might save mankind one day or perhaps more accurately it could were it not for the irony that accompanies me wherever I turn.

This is a sunrise I mentioned a day or two ago.  

DOD 50-The $19 sweatshirt and the Lonely tree

The sunrise today was particularly nice, but that will have to wait.  The cold is getting more pervasive.

50 days since I was murdered, an anniversary of sort.  How peculiar it feels.

I have bought very little except food since I've gotten here, despite the fact that my tennis shoes are more dead than I am and one pair of jeans fell apart (still have 3 left including my "dress up" black jeans).  The boots, though worn and full of thorns are holding up.  The one thing I have gotten the most out of is a 19.00 lightly insulated sweatshirt (hoody) which is my go to garment; still holding up despite the increasing cold. 

I just spilled almost a whole cup of coffee on my computer, and this search appeared on google (S1VQWERT YUIOPlo) fortunately, it seems to have survived although if it stops working in the middle of this post....

I mentioned this Tree earlier and promised a picture.

Most of the trees here are fairly stunted although many or 10 or 12 feet tall; few are true oak size like this one.

The computer is working, but with flukes.  I don't know whether to turn it off or leave it on.  Spraying it with dust cleaner seems to have helped.  If only I could get my on brain working as easily.

You should not take away too much from the pf post earlier.  While something of an indication of something, having someone show interest, at whatever questionable level that was shown, possibly only in hiking, is a far cry from actively dating.  Nothing wrong with that, it is just pointing out what might not otherwise be obvious.

Today I went on a three mile hike (largely in the direction opposite this tree) and got as close to the far target mountain (a video follows) as I have gotten so far, probably on the other side of this hill from whence the hidden mine entrance (?)/illusion was spotted and photographed in an earlier picture in this blog.  I was still some ways away, but with water and a snack I could have struck out for that additional distance although the way back was convoluted and i was tired.  It is possible I was as close as in the prior hike done in the heat of summer and no closer, that one being the same distance and in extreme heat without water.

https://youtu.be/eVqv3_xJ3Zc

It is scary that far into the high plains desert.  You can see things from the ridges, but between them in the canyons you could be on an empty world and you are far away from help in a manner of speaking.  I suppose you have to be there to understand.

I think it is as far again to the top of the mountain from the ridge at the tip of the hike, down one ravine, up the far hill and then down into the very deep one where you would arrive at the base of the very tall hill.  Perhaps it would have taken more than a snack at that.

 It had started clouding cold and turned mostly clear and hot, but I had dressed in layers and was relatively comfortable and protected from the sun.

Not sure if you can hear it, but when this video was taken, there was a siren going off in the distance, haunting in the loneliness and wind of the desert which is what life is without you in it.

Of course, for you there is something else and so I include the video from the other side of the hill from that closest point video, this one looking back the way from which I came although it cannot be seen over the several intervening hills.

https://youtu.be/QN6JVitstT4

There are scary decisions to be made in not going back the same way, what if there is a dead end of which there are plenty despite the scrubbed nature of the trees and spiny plants, whether to cross fields of thorny plants of look for paths over rocks, the uncertainty, largely gone now, of whether to go up this hill or the next.  Months of these hikes has reduced the uncertainty; but there is not so much confidence in my navigation abilities or luck avoiding snakes or packs of wild animals that I would be too comfortable in this outback, not to mention the incompetent hunter, I had on an orange vest when I filmed that, but many people wearing orange are shot.

I have a lot of work yet to do this month and only 7 days with which to finish which is not enough; but I have printed out the next 10 pages which require most of my attention and the rest of today and much of tomorrow will be there for this.  The time between then and Sunday is not mine, but I will be alone again after that and this will be my top priority.  On Monday I think the pool reopens which will provide me an opportunity to reset myself for the month of December which is so critical to my future plans.

It is time to eat again, though my appetite has not returned.

I am one with the lonely tree, thirsty and alone, but taller than I should be in this wild place.

dod 49: boosters

It was very cold this morning, I worked through the sunrise, missing it for the first time in a long while.  Saturday I got my booster show (no waiting except to get it), Sunday my arm hurt so I went swimming, my traditional post vaccine tradition.  The plan was just to see if I could, then to loosen it up; but I managed to do my whole swim workout.  About 500 yards in someone as fast as me (I like to think the hurt arm slowed me down, but though it hurt I don't think it slowed me down) got in my lane and it increased the speed of the workout substantially.  After the warm up (850 yards), I moved to tie myself off to do the IM, both to make it easier (the arm really hurt) and prevent wrecks in the narrow lane particular to both the fly and the back stoke.  To be even more honest, the IM slows me down and it meant getting passed which I could not abide.

An old potential flame was there, someone who discussed going hiking and asked me about it, not really a pf there.  It would have been nice to go hiking, but there was a timing issue.  It was the last day of the gym being opened and then for only a few hours, so it was not surprising for the pool to be fairly filled.  That closing made me happier that I did my whole swim although I expect to get plenty of walking exercise and to do limited upper body work with pushups and such.  Hopefully despite the work, the cold and the distractions I will do some significant upper body work during the break.

I did not exchange any words with the pf, by the way, and noted that while her car was parked near mine when I left; that was also likely a coincidence.  I did think about reaching out, but I am not the stalker type, except here which is my space, just as the pool is my space.  The pool is closed for the next 7 days, I had 1100 intensity minutes for the week so exercise has not been a problem.  It will open on the 29th and I have, I think, another 5-10 swims to do before it closes again.

The short walk of the dog, well it was just over a mile, after the vaccine and swim was very very slow after I came back to the peace and quiet here which will be disturbed this week in a couple of days and through the weekend, or at least most of it, when I will be alone with my dog again.

I finished the first set of input of the edits yesterday.  I have three more documents to insert.  It is already 88 pages of writing and 30 of drawings with more to come.  The next step is in the claims which will be an incredibly thankless and difficult set of edits which will set the stage for the reorganization of the content and ultimately cutting it down to the few pages (100 and then all the way down to 30) that it has as a limit and that is after adding 4 other documents which are significant in terms of content.

I have a group in India which has offered to do a draft for 1,000.00.  I plan to take them up on that, I sent an email to that effect.  There is another group in California which made a similar offer and I sent them an email.

It starts with the claims, but here it ends with them too; being based on applications at this stage.  They will be a guide in what to include and what to try to do in a document which covers everything in the world in 30 pages.  Still no funding; but the challenges make the content better.

The music I hear during the day often has an effect and often the post has more to do with making a place for the song than the song does emphasizing the content.

The semi-operatic "Time to say goodbye" for example plays particularly well when up on a mountain with death on one side and an impossible climb on the other; metaphors to us.   Sometimes it is merely nostalgia or silliness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2fPkzJsMU8

DOD 48 Down from the mountains

I did a long hike.

I crawled (crawled not walked) to the top of the boulder on the far left.  It was terrifying. This is about where I turned around.  It was surprisingly warm in the valley, cold on top of the mountain.

I drove through a ghost town to get here and met someone who I thought might be important for some reason, the daughter of ghosts, older now and living in a museum which had once been a schoolhouse and before that perhaps the ancestral family home.

There was a reconstructed (more accurately relocated) fort attesting to the twisted history of this place, which became safe for everyone except those who originally lived here.

I know the question on everyone's mind and yes, I am drinking more coffee here.  I am not under the same pressure; but it is there, just beyond my last day here when I have to face the reality which is my life away from this place.

Am I wasting my time?  I cannot believe it; but I am exhausted and my resources are exhausted.  I feel like the fight is against ignorance, prejudice and stupidity; against a universe which has given me so much but which will not allow me to enjoy it.  i don't know how much longer I can go on, so I have share what I have here, for you if nothing else.  What will I be when I can't go on any further?

Is this the rest of my life?  Where did  you go?  What did I do with you?  To you?  Am I no better than the universe or those who took this land and gave nothing in return.  When I am finally forced to quit, what will become of me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNS7Typ-SZ8

It is time to get to the work at hand in these subjects; but I am not ready; but let me start with this and then I will move on to the next part in time.

What do these articles have to do with my work:

https://interestingengineering.com/flipping-magnetic-poles-led-to-mass-extinctions

https://interestingengineering.com/how-earths-magnetic-field-flip-will-impact-life-on-our-planet

https://www.universetoday.com/153356/theres-so-much-pressure-at-the-earths-core-it-makes-iron-behave-in-a-strange-way/

https://www.universetoday.com/144502/its-snowing-iron-near-the-earths-core/ ?

DOD 47 the hills on fire

Managed to get my swim in.   It closes on the 22nd till the 29th, apparently.  It left me tired but I still                  spent the time necessary to get the input of the editing started, then was sidelined by a recurring upload problem with microsoft.

I have said I'm going to cover what is really immediate in the work I'm doing; not that it isn't all immediate.  I wish I could share the references with you.  It is not because it would change things, change has to start here and perhaps, well no matter.  Your choice was made the night you killed me, I suppose as was mine the day I died.

Looking close the mountains in the distance are on fire in the light of the setting sun. 

More bad news today, not at all a problem for the science and expected but it was and is hard.  Again in a few months. 

Knowing what love means doesn't mean knowing what to do next or how to deal with disappointment.

I promised to share what I am doing and how important it is, now I feel I have to say if I make it till then, if I can see, if I can care, if I can accept all of the rejection which seems to be the only thing I have in due course.

I will get to this in due course, but I am tired and I cannot believe it is this time, even as I stand here with the cold wind blowing, alone is a way that is only easy to imagine if I am truly alone, those around me seem to see through what is left of me, a dead soul wandering the earth carrying the chains I made in my life.  Is there no way to go back, no way to start again, to atone?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky0rO7pM3WI

DOD 46

 It was cold, but I did a 3 mile walk.  I took a picture of a large remote tree is coming from that walk, saved perhaps from the axe by its place far from any road; but this is a holiday public service notice which also has a tree in it.

It is almost 6am, it is 31 degrees outside and it will warm up, but not as much in the coming days and it will steadily get colder.  My time here grows short. What happens after that?

I have run into some weird things which i do not understand.  i expect the worst for reasons i do not fully understand.  I am getting closer to dealing with the project for november, 14 pages to edit and then the input work. It is a tremendous amount of work, for 11 days, but perhaps doable which would put me back on some sort of schedule.

speaking of schedules the plan for the day isto leave around 10 hopefully to work out and do a series of built up in town things.

at the end of the last post i saw my first javalina.   it was not scary as i might have imagined, more like a minature pig; but this one was near the road which i had come back to and perhaps inthe wildeven this hairy black pig like creature would have looked bigger.  how deeply i feel the cold.

i will publish this and see if i get back toit later or if i go into the next post.

day of the dead 45

A month and a half dead.  I renewed my plea to be left alone.  I am not willing to say we would be together if you had chosen that path by now, but I would be happier which is not to say that I'm happy.  Even that is not true.  I heard someone say, "I was a different person then, I just want to move on."  After several months in the desert I am not a different person, just the same person with dried skin and a different level of exhaustion.  The metaphor for me lies in the half dug mines that litter the hillsides; my own search for you and for a way to make my scientific dreams a reality, all abandoned half exploded holes in the ground, some so shallow you wonder at how quickly they were abandoned; others reflecting with huge stones piled around the expectations that remained until the piling of stones eventually broke the miner involved.

The top of my foot hurt so bad i could not sleep two nights ago.  it was a deep pain, like a broken bone, but it cannot be that.  it scares me.  what if i am found dead here next week, the dog having succumbed to thirst because of whatever it is that hurts so bad, that keeps me awake, that cannot be rubbed out.  i am old, so very old for what i have to do and I feel that way even as I take another large stone, heavy with iron, and pile it around the latest hole I've dug.

I lifted weights for only 20 minutes although I did everything back to back, in a hurry to leave before it got crowded with the covid spreading so rapidly now.  It was very hard and I did not get any intensity minutes which seemed unfair of my watch.  I had too much to do otherwise, I had to go to the police station here, a very quiet place fortunately as I was the victim of a hit and run while the car was parked and which now has a severely dented fender, a witness having done everything but get the tag of the offending driver.  Now I drive a dented car around town.

I did the right amount of work on my project today, but inefficiently. I should have finished going through the hard copy but at this rate it will be months and i don't have months; i have days.

I did two long walks in the woods two days ago, the dog and i, one last night as the sun set despite being tired from lifting weights.  each day of the those that have passed i got my intensity minutes from that.  i watched part of the first succession episode and i liked it quite a lot.

There are life and death trials under way.  Watching it makes me nervous.  The current political crisis is a mess.

I hoped to branch out my physics today; but it has mainly fallen flat; what is pending is what is pending.  I have much to do; maybe I am at scratch, maybe I am past that.

Covid is coming back, the political insanity is striking.  It is terrifying to think about what is coming and to plan for it.  I must get my project off the ground soon; before the winds supporting it fall off, before I give up, having lifted one too many stones alone.  Where are you with your things?  It pains me greatly to think of what i cannot find anywhere else.

The cold is coming on in earnest this week, the 70 degree highs are behind us.  It feels like 29 degrees this morning as the sun struggles to rise.  Another friend of mine died this week.  Where is the sympathy?

44 dancing and walking happy alone

 i found out my eyes were still a problem today.

I swam a hard 1900 yards including the im afterwards which left we partially wasted the rest of the day, but i still went for a longish hike which together got me a weeks worth of intensity minutes.  My legs are strong from walking, but I feel age and I miss you and know you are in a better place.

I have to buy out a partner this week on terms good to me; but still not something i want.  perhaps, however, it will get me where i have longed to be these last 10 years and the science thing is as well today as it can be i suppose.  if only we could share this hope.

Yesterday i was happy.  i walked and danced alone in the widerness twirling my walking stick like a maniac.  My dumb dog stopped a truck.  Today reality has come around, arguing with me telling me what i have to do, come home, be normal.  No, if you can move on, so can i.

It has been warm in the day, but the cold is coming.  The leaves changing a bright yellow danced in the wind.

It is 5AM the next day.  I could not sleep.  yesterday I did not get much done; I was resting after the long week, numbed by the bad information on my vision and the hard swim afterwards.  My goal for the next two weeks is to finish the next draft of the document due in February.  That is little enough to ask.

The pool closes on the 22nd for a short time and next month on the 18th for an extended period of time. What does next month hold and January after that?  it is so strange to contemplate.

deer in the morning 

DOD 43 from 12/21/20 green river

I can hear the bull frog calling me.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5V9nK7-OkM

What a powerful guitar rift.  There is a broken piano here, that's all.  They should require school kids to learn how to play this along with other things.

Ok, back to the present.  Has it only been 43 days?  It seems like forever.  Death is like that.

This isn't bad for a dead person, steps, floors and over 1000 intensity minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSBFehvLJDc

Today is the last day to make these changes I'm waiting for.  It makes today pass quickly and slowly at the same time.  This blog is not my happy place and I'm not happy.  Waiting is not my strongpoint, you think that isn't true, but you are wrong and not being able to share this makes it worse.

I did, however, finish what I planned, I got help from many of the quarters from which I sought it; more than I deserved perhaps.

I have promised myself, if not this blog, that I would share some revelations from that and I will given time.  

My last walk tonight was much different from the first.  The first, decked out in orange, was cross country to the second ridgeline and then back again, the second down the road and back, dancing the whole way.  All alone and dancing with my dog and my stick.  The heat of the day was gone, it was cooling rapidly on the second walk compared to the glare and heat of the first one.

My stupid dog stopped a truck.  He should have been run over.  I think he was full of himself because there were deer everywhere.  He started to chase two, but when another 4 or 5 came from behind he thought better of it; better to stop a large truck on a steep hill in the middle of the wilderness.  It was embarrassing; but fortunately, remote enough that the dog was given a pass.  Perhaps the driver will be more careful if he finds his way here and someone will be saved.  of course, it is too late for me.

 

DOD 42-Bad will hunting?

 Up at 4 again, by 5:30 there were apparently hunters(?) driving up to the deadend where this house is.  Not sure what I'll see when it is fully light, at 6:09 the sky is still only red in the east.

It is going to warm up during the day and even in the evening for the next 3 days before getting cold again.  

I need to go into town today to swim, which I don't need or want necessarily today, and to shower and shave.  Soon I will be outside and walking the dog, perhaps to check out the vehicles which trespass on the peaceful loneliness here.

The sun a couple of hours after I woke up after the scary night.

I'll check the water to see if there is enough to run the dishwasher, probably a thing.  I've checked it and the two vehicles, probably hunters; there's enough water at my current rate for a week, I'd say.  If I push things, maybe two.  The dishwasher a few times a week, no washing machine, showers in town with maybe a short one once a week, water saving practices when washing hands, etc; water off to the garden; flushing normally (ew gross, but there it is).

I think with all of this the usage is down from 100-200 gallons per day for two people and a garden, to around 50-75 gallons per day with minor modifications to my lifestyle alone.  The problem is that the pump, 3/4 of a mile away down a hill, is an unknown.  it's pretty easy to imagine having to take that 50-75 down to 25-50 on Wednesday. That would be taking a day off the dishwasher and going outside which I have to do hiking anyway.

The bright side, I get to go into town to swim whether I want or need it or not.   That means picking up a few things I can use.  I'm anxious for the shower, still hours off (till they have the short open window for the weekend); not so much to swim which I could miss and not feel bad about it.  I may stay in town and work some, the dog has been walked and he could stay in for several hours although I probably should take him out again.  I dont' like the idea of wondering who you woke up with or where; we moved too far together for it not to be a problem and left too much unfinished.

I ran into hunters who were violating several laws and had the nerve to tell me that access to public land was restricted during hunting season.  Never argue with someone with a gun, of course.  I checked the law, just the opposite is true.  I wrote a lengthy note setting out the law, including gun negligence, but only sent it to the land owner here as it is not my place to cause problems.  I did want to point out that people would be around where they were hunting; but we will see.  They were also sighting game across a maintained road which is also illegal and maybe even with 175 feet of the dwelling where I live in obscurity besides them. I printed out the note in case I run into him again.

I did my tied off swim, did around 2000 yards with 1200 im in terms of strokes, but it is much easier to do it tied off.  Then I got my steps in with the dog, my shoulders hurt and my heart hurts worse.

dod 41-a night of terror sort of

Problems with the filings (not due till Monday, but super glad I got it out of the way today) took me past my normal walk time and we were trapped  in the dark on the second walk.  Even tonight, safely back; something is outside giving the dogs fits and he has settled down next to me.  I wish it were you at my feet, but that ship has sailed and the dead get little comfort, here least of all.

Dark and in the woods here, doing a pretty short 1.4 mile walk to try to finish my steps and get my floors in.  I'll get my steps in walking around the house tonight and got the floors in after the first 1.5 mile ridge walk; but it has been scary and with the frustration and the last minute massive changes that needed to be made and everything else that is tragic and confusing right now all I could think about was how much I wanted to just be able to talk to someone who understood me.

I've hit a number, 20, in missteps that I've counted.  I am not too panicky about it although this was an important number; but I look at the progress and I am in a place I can live with; if uncomfortably.

I don't know if I've overasked this last time; but I went for it because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.  If it works, I am years away from problems and nothing but runway in front of me.  If not, well there are things to do.

Maybe this isn't the first time i've overasked.

I had two small breakfasts, a small lunch and not sure about dinner.  I go to sleep and get up so early here it adds to the unreality; but it is pitch dark at 6:44; as quiet as a tomb in the desert can be except for those terrifying things in the night; and the temperature is falling fast from almost 70 to 32 tonight.

There is so much to say and so little of it that makes it into this post.

I usually have two hours of dark before the sun starts to rise in the morning.  They are productive hours, but there is so much that I have to do.  I don't have another specific deadline until the first of February; but that deadline requires almost constant work between now and then and other things will come up, other deadlines.

Indeed if things were where I want them to be there is a deadline in a week or less; but i don't have time to think about that or care about it or worry about it.  I can meet that one in a few hours if need be.  For the moment, I'm focused on the work I finished today and what might should be done over the next few days.  If I could ask, I'd ask; but sometimes it is better to go with your first instinct although that was largely trashed as the afternoon went on.

I have to go into town to take a shower, the pump has been out for two weeks and there is not enough for me to have luxuries like showers.  I have to check the level tomorrow to see if running the dishwasher is an option; although I think that can wait a day or two.  If the power went out it would get much worse, so I am thankful for what I have.

I hope to drive into town tomorrow for a shower although that means I have to swim again.  I should swim again, but I am exhausted.

I am grilling questionable vegetables for the garden to mix with some pasta that is already made (couldn't think of wasting water for boiling right now).  I think you are having the time of your life.  i am suffering, but I am fighting the good fight that I will be posting here, if alone and in the desert although there is so much.  It is like covid only worse in some way.  so dark, quiet and alone.

There it is, plated with a crust, literally of bread.

I know you are having a much better time of it and getting what you think I get when all I have is alone (and this reasonable looking pasta dish from the garden).  You might think i begrudge you your happiness and I do; but I want you to have it despite hating everything about it and being in such a weird crushed lifeless vacuum.

A couple of days ago i found an old frying pan, very old, just metal, in the desert; bent up and abandoned from what and by whom I will never know.  there are things like that in this high plains desert dotted with mountains and old mines which have stories that they still tell today, but also full of secrets that will never be told.

At least I will not go to sleep hungry. 

If it were not too dark to see, perhaps I'd go out there tonight and see if there was enough water for a short shower, but whatever is there has to last through Wednesday at least, if not beyond.

There are ways to  find a litle comfort.  When it gets cold, i could turn on the heat, but even that is limited to what is in a tank and that dinner woud not exist without it.   I can write this and bear my heart to you and the world; and I can try to save mankind although I am met with stupidity at every turn.

There is a ghostly light moving far down in the desert appear only to vanish and then come back against the darkness. Another thing to wonder at tonight. 

dod 40 Monday looms, December teases

I hate how these deadlines sneak up, part of the reason I have them in these blog posts.

I have till Monday which basically in my mind means getting everything possible done today with whatever is left over tomorrow even though there are no official weekends here.

I have a lot of ability to to this, but it is a work problem and there is more coming to be "worked into" the filings.

Didn't get as much finished as I hoped, but have lots of lists and its still just a entry level thing largely.  I'm going to put in a couple of posts the save the world stuff.  Why couldn't I save you?

I swam 1925 yard.  Yes, a lap and a half would have been 2000, how far did you swim?  Did the 900 im thing, too much to get into; but its all of the fly which is what counts.

Made chili and half the vegetables and chicken were set aside for spagetti sauce, probably will finish that tomorrow.

DOD 39 sunrise

How are things with you.  I have this conceptual thing going which is strange, intermittent bursts of the past, but mainly separation which should get broader, more encompassing as the next two months progress.   It is allowing me to develop something, life after death or just another death, I do not know.  To some extent that is out of my hands as I wait for decisions to be made from others, the Appalachians (not your part but close), Berkeley or nowhere.  Strangely all are equally likely.  The part that is in my hands is the work I am doing which looms dangerously with only 5 days left to finish and insights that wake me up many nights, if not every night, only to find that they are already written down to one extent or the other.

This was the sunrise to days ago.  When I went for my walk in the evening, completing my steps for the day and my intensity minutes for the week, it was as red as the surface of mars.  There was a spider last night that would have been at home in a horror movie set on that dusty planet.

It's 5AM.  I have been up for an hour, but it was too cold to get started right away.  There is a heater here and even a space heater; but I haven't gotten around to using it yet.  It is getting colder.

The pump is not repaired yet, so I swam yesterday, 1900 yards including the im, and took a shower in town.  Conserving water is at a premium, but a pool full of water provides a badly needed alternative to the bath I'd like to take with you.

dod 38

Yesterday I filed the west and east coast embedded program.  Afterwards, I thought I had gotten a little strong on the qualifications issue, but in the end, it is true and if it offends, then it is the truth that offends.

I got my steps in and a week's worth of intensity minutes by jogging up the steep, rocky hill, at least after a fashion.  It is a thing I've started.  If I can survive a few more days it will get cold enough so that the snakes that I haven't seen will be less likely.  Whatever else, Javalinas, coyotes (terrifying in packs, lonely by themselves) turns up I will cross that bridge when I get to it; although it may be a ravine or cliff or even a deep mine.

Ridge walk.

This is a 1.5 mile hike along the ridge.

I'm not 100% sure about what I'm doing here.  But I am getting work done, I am making connections, I am planning  a walk deep towards this mountain, the premountain I was so close to before, still too many valleys to cross on that day and which you can see to the left of the high peak and significantly closer if you can see that sort of thing.

It was cloudy today, 2 or 3 degrees cooler than it was supposed to be and winter is coming this week.

day of the dead 36

I slept till 6 this morning after staying up a little later.  It felt good to me more on track.  The sun seemed to rise further to the south, perhaps shifting the seasons. Perhaps you need the type of view that I have here to see the events leading to a stonehenge, a place where you see the sun rise every day and a marker on the horizon to determine in which direction it moves.

There are many illusions here, from the white signal which gives this area its name to the light streaming down a spider web as it shifts in the wind to things which are impossible to explain, the ghosts and aliens of the desert. 

It would be impossible to leave here if it wasn't for this.  This is a wellhead in advance of the encroaching copper mine.  The bland looking hillside, devoid of life is the tower leftover of the deep hole already dug which will be matched by something equally hard to imagine in place of the otherwise pristine high plains desert over which this wellhead waits with its implied destruction of habitat and beauty.  There are miles and miles of empty desert, or more empty desert, but the copper is underneath these rolling hills.

I am slowly finding more talent and getting closer to where I can attract it.  I am still lost. Am I the next Einstein or is there something much less or much more that defines where I am and where I am going.  Why are the things that really matter to me so far outside by grasp, why I am so old now that this thing has been handed to me, where do I go next, who do I talk to next.

i thought to myself that your outburst might have been for me and not to harm me.  is that possible?  would it be conscious or unconscious.  Do I only think these things because i cannot imagine you intentionally harming me though i am almost undone, if not by you than by the events and hardships before and behind me?  And does it matter in the end.  The dead may not be allowed the love of the living, perhaps they can at least respect, if not love those who still live.

Cherry creek is in the path of that giant hole digging monster, I know someone who would be in a position to help out here, but it would be a wasted effort, I fear; and it is not my fight.

Day of the dead 35, 9 days to the next deadline

 I was up at 3:30, gave up on sleep by 4; but I did have an insight that was worth writing down this morning.

It is almost 6 and my coffee was cold over an hour ago.

You would think it was the eye appointment that has me awake and perhaps that is true.

There were no coyotes last night which after the night before is strange.  It is odd that terrifying as the sounds were, they did not keep me awake.

I swam 1700 yards and walked over a mile and fell asleep early so that despite the early waking, I probably got enough sleep.  My internal clock is totally broken.

Today after the eye appointment, not too serious fortunately, i lifted weights, spent a couple of hours dealing with my prescription (6 days of steroids) and finally got home todo at least some work and went for a two mile walk.  It was getting dark when i cut through the woods to climb up the back side of the hill and despite having the dog with me i found myself nervous thinking about all the howling and how isolated i was even a half mile from the house.

It will get cold soon and dark even earlier.  The sunrises are still beautiful and i saw the white signal again on my way home today.  I lost another friend, at least i heard about it soon enough to send a sympathy card.  how difficult things are.  waiting in crowded lines the talk was all about the covid surge here.  I find myself coughing when i think about it.   it was a tough day in many ways, i have been up since four, fortunately i am not tired yet.

i need to stay up a couple of hours.  i can type here but i have other things to do.  i would like to take a shower, but the pump down the hill is being worked on and has no certain return date.  there are alternatives, but i need to save water and i took a long shower and shaved after working out in the gym.

waking early led to some insights which i wrote down, added a picture and was part of the limited editing i did.  there was some good outreach too.  its pretty weird and interesting to be the crazy genius in the wilderness.  how did i audition for this role.

How i missed you this morning, waiting at the doctors office, driving around.  The dead should not have to think about the living.

Day of the dead 33; 12 days remaining to next deadline

 It's actually El Dia de los Muertos today.

The sky is red this time of the morning (before 7 and after 6); but it is always red here.  Sailors take warning, but there are almost never storms.  Take warning of UFO(s)?

I've seen eaten cows and deer, no sign of aliens.  I think I may have seen a ghost or two.

Yesterday I did 1700 yards, including all of the im.  I'm doing 200(s) here instead of 400(s).  They are still continuous but that is a difference and the heart rates (near exploding) are surprising. 

I did my 9000 steps in addition to that swim.  Today I did a 2.5 mile hike almost due S-SW and still did not make it to the third and presumably highest ridge although I did get to the target ridge which might be a good jumping off place for the next walk although it will likely put me above or beyond the ??caveopening?

last night the coyotes howled all night.   it was lonely and terrifying.

my vision fails.

i have never been more certain of my math  or more frustrated with the grant path.  I have many opportunities, but more challenges with nothing that is truely on the horizon.  the sales i need to do have not materialized.  it causes me deep anxiety.  sometimes i can barelybreath.

I have an opportunity to do something which would be fun, perhaps. it was there waiting for me but i dont know iff it waits still.  i need so badly to find some joy.  i started to edit a book, but deadlines interfeered.

i wrote this 2 days ago.  i miss you.  i am lonely in a way that i cannot explain.  i swam 1700 yards again after a very easy day.  the dog refused to hike, something unusual, the coyotes, perhaps and their terrifying packs.  i need to see a doctor tomorrow.  my hope is that i can exercise afterwards.  things are happening but they seem to be falling apart so much faster.  it is early, but i am exhausted.  the dog has come in with me.  it is too early to sleep even though i need it badly.  i have to leave for the doctor at 8.  i wonder what i will learn, if it will increase my terror

my inner ear adds to my issues, i cannot trust my senses or my feelings.