Computers, viruses, and stuff.

Thanks to all of you who have emailed, asking me where I've been. Interesting few weeks, and I thank you for your concern. I formed about five or six or seven posts in my head, but alas my computer was in the shop. For a week. Except for one hour when it worked and then it didn't again.

Maybe I'll talk about frustration and angst and how little things really can upset us. When my computer gets weird, I just panic. I don't know how they work. I think it's magic, probably. Maybe I should take a computer class so that I won't get so agitated when it fails. Maybe I should just learn to relax and not take it so seriously. Whatever.

What I noticed is that I really felt disoriented, not having this means to communicate. I felt like I was alone in my little house and everyone else was "out there" living life without me. I know that's a bit extreme, but it kinda felt like I was disconnected from life. And then I got the flu or some icky virus and just didn't feel good for the past four or five days or so and that worried me. I'm not a good patient, I admit. Listen, I work for doctors and am really almost constantly aware of my mortality and the possibility of my demise, seeing all these sick people every day. Sometimes I warn my friends to be careful driving or to look both ways when they cross the street and they think I'm nuts, but I see the results of tragic accidents every day and it's really quite real. One of my docs is going to operate on a man tomorrow who was visiting here and got hit in a crosswalk, breaking his upper spine and neck and he's never going to be a pedestrian again or be able care for himself in any way. Ever. Like in that one second, his life and the lives of his friends and family are forever changed. So, sometimes I get weird about my own sense of mortality, and I apologize for the sad story, but maybe one of you will be a little more careful and never have to suffer like that.

So I vow to catch you up on what's been happening that's good, like my week with Auntie Sharon and our trip to Laughlin and Oatman. And that I went to visit a really cool church last Sunday with my friend Kathy, how it was the first service after the new President was elected and the crowd was pretty happy, and how colorful a group it was, and how I cried at the amazing music and the joy all around me. Maybe you can go next time with me. Or how I'm still not dating and have decided that life is about having fun and that I'm thinking of ways to have more fun that don't require a boyfriend. And how I'm having a major birthday at the end of this year and some really nice friends are trying to plan some fun outings but I just can't think that far ahead. And how the grandkids are fabulous (see www.itsallaboutthesmallstuff.blogspot.com for details and pix) and that I'm going on a cruise in a few days with 100 singles and how work is OK off and on, more on than off, and that I'm grateful that you read this. Stuff like that. Soon.