Gratitude

Although I have lived in my new place in upstate New York for over a year, I still have not gotten Massive Communications Company to get me anything resembling high-speed internet. What I have is barely crawling speed. This I think as much as anything has kept me away from blogging.

Okay, not to begin this gratitude post with a complaint, but just to say that here I am, visiting my sister in Brooklyn, and her internet speed is fine, and so I will grab this opportunity for a Thanksgiving post.


This year, I am thankful for:

my family and friends who are here, and those whom I remember every day

the ability to read, write, think, work

the roof over my head

unexpected kindnesses

my rational self and my dreaming self, sometimes in fruitful combat



Hope all who happen to read this have a peaceful day, filled with kindness.

Fine, Thanks, and You?

It has been a long time, dear bloggy friends, but here I am, more or less thriving in upstate New York. This is the month or six weeks that I travel a lot for work. I have just come back from a trip that took me to a conference in a tropical location, where I got to see some friends that live there, take a three-day vacation on a beautiful beach, and then work the conference for three or so days before flying back to the north. That was a nice trip.

In a couple of days I have another conference, in a more prosaic northeastern location. In between I have had some meetings and presentations and another one tomorrow morning for which I could be more prepared.

Because I seem to have wrenched my shoulder carrying too much luggage to the tropical place, I am sitting here typing somewhat awkwardly, with a cold compress on my shoulder. In addition to taking ibuprofen for my shoulder, I am taking antibiotics because of a dental procedure that I had two days ago. I have to keep eating so I can take the antibiotics, which is unfortunate because I had been making some progress in losing weight. The pills are making me sleepy, and I feel a bit like it is all too much. But also like it will be all right.

I am going to go to bed soon, so I can get up early and finish preparing for my presentation.

With the ending of Daylight Savings Time, it suddenly feels like winter. I went to work today, a Sunday, to try to catch up on some things, and out the windows of little building where I work, I could see, somehow, that it was cold out. The colors were bright, but then night came quickly.

That's all for now.