TLDR: It's Me!

Consider this entry always a work in progress.

I wouldn't call myself interesting. But that's not really up to me, right? I'm older, pretty normal looking. It's easy for me to disappear into a crowd.

By trade, I make trash cakes at the grocery store but would rather be making art. There's a wide range of activities I miss. Poor health has knocked me back, and the moves I make are somewhere between 'coping w/the new normal' and 'scaling back the things I do to preserve the function I have.

What exactly do I call poor health?

Pulmonary:

I'm on a lot of asthma meds, and I have more bad air days than I care to admit. There are certain things I cannot do, things I cannot wear, and plans I cannot make because when and how severely I'm impacted is so unpredictable. I'm pushed back even further every time I have a respiratory infection. As of 2023, I finally caught covid. My recovery has been long and difficult, but, thankfully, I continue to improve.

Sight:

Until more recent years, I was severely nearsighted. At age 38, I had surgery for early cataracts in both eyes. The old lenses were replaced with multifocals, so the glasses are on the inside essentially. The surgeries triggered posterior vitreous detachment.

--PVD is supposed to be a natural part of aging, and would have still likely have occurred earlier than for someone with better eyesight. There is an elevated risk for retinal tear, and much more so for highly myopic eyes.

--It typically lasts months, but, for me, has moved onto a matter of years and still going. I'll experience times of high activity, seeing flashes of light and vitreous debris my brain hasn't learned to ignore. This obstructs my vision, and I need reading glasses for awhile, until it settles down and eventually fires back up.

--I also have early glaucoma. I'll be on eyedrops for the rest of my life, but the hope is to avoid a surgery later on, to relieve the pressure, another risk for retinal tear. Although, it has made my eyelashes grow.

Gut Stuff:

I'm a gluten sensitive individual. It comes by way of genetics, and I've been on the diet since 2006. Being GF forced me to learn to cook. I do not miss the incredible gut pain I had most of my life, dismissed merely as an irritation.

In aging, my cholesterol has started to rise, so now I'm managing that, too. My issues with food are merely challenges to meet and guide me in realigning to make life better.

All that's truly lost, in any of this, is being more convenient for other people. The true challenge of not being in perfect or passable health. I have to be extremely careful, even of the people who want me in their lives. Is anyone sick? If I'm invited, can I keep up with what they want to do, when they want to do it? Do I pack a meal in case no one's willing to go where I can eat, or if there's catered event? No one will ask these questions but you. After the adjustment has been made, the answer is easy once you stop sacrificing yourself to make life easy for those who wouldn't do the same for those who need the consideration.

I will forever be that wet blanket.

Music:

From my early years, I had a more traditional exposure. My mother played the French horn in symphonies and wind ensembles. She performed like a pro during the many years she did so professionally. My earliest memories are backstage with my sister, with crayons and coloring books during my mother's concerts. We went through our school years doing this, as we were learning to play instruments. I never got into boy bands, pop, or other contemporary styles. Contemporary influences don't come when you are, for all intent and purpose, peerless. My teen years, I think, were the first instances of choosing my own music. My preferences leaned more into rock and metal. I don't know enough to have an opinion, but I'm open to a taste of every genre.

I would not call myself well-practiced, but I find applied music to be fulfilling. My start was on the piano, and I spent many school years in military style marching and concert bands playing baritone/euphonium. As an oddity, I learned on treble. The original plan was to switch to trumpet, but that never happened. As such, I'd often get stuck with a tenor sax/bass clarinet/trombone part. Again, with health, I stopped after learning that playing a wind instrument (especially brass) intermittently increases ocular pressure and can worsen glaucoma. Eventually, I poked around on bass guitar and picked up the kalimba/thumb piano. As a joke, I do some musical/rhythmic stuff on my body (similar to eefing and hamboning).

Games:

Occasionally a distraction, I am far from being good at video games. I like watching people play, and the games I choose usually involve some sort of puzzle, pattern, shapes, or a combination thereof. Music in games is another appeal. In fact, a video game is the only reason I started playing the kalimba.

Outdoors:

On my healthy days, I love being outside. Never have I grown out of the fun of just wandering around in the woods or by the roadside, watching bugs, just enjoying nature and my own company. At any level of health, it's always waited for me and never requires me to catch up unless the weather turns.

If I were to name a favorite activity, it would be kayaking. These days it would be flat water only. I can handle a bit of rapids if it was necessary. I swim well enough to keep afloat, and could do some snorkeling, both things I enjoy. Potentially, I'd like to get into archery. That would depend on my vision finally settling down.

Other media:

I do watch tv, movies, anime, etc. Just not a lot and often. When I was younger, I did, clinging to an anime addiction I never had the money to satisfy. These days, I like doing two things with the media I consume: allowing myself to be entertained and learning. That leads me to a lot of nature documentaries, whether online or off.

Remainders:

I have two cool dogs that are kind of a handful.

--Brindy is a Plott hound mix from the shelter. She's gentle at heart, overprotective of me, but building a relationship is cautious business and a glacial process.

--Davey is some kind of mutt built for speed with ears as tall as he is. Everyone has a theory on what makes him up. He was a bit of an accident. The neighbors found him and took him in but weren't giving him much care. He managed to befriend Brindy, and now he's growing up here, through the better part of his puppyhood.

After wandering around, I can say I'll be present at times. Because I don't much align with anything or anywhere that people gather, it's up to me to mostly just exist and for the collective to conclude whether to interact. In general, I'll drop a comment or participate from time to time, until it gets weird.

Don't be too surprised if I reject a friend add or decline/delay interaction, either.

Multiple reasons:

--I check people out first. If I can't read your profile with my old lady eyes because the layout camoflauges the text, I can't see who you are.

--I don't want to be one in a collection among your hundreds of friends. At that point, you're just looking for a number, and there's no interest in me as a person or what I'm putting out in the open. If that's good for you, great, but I'm making a choice to curate my own experience.

--A lot of the community seems very young, and I'm alright with some interaction, but more so stepping back to let the kids be kids with the other kids. You don't need a 40 year old friend. There is some variation in this, with two main factors: intelligence and lived experience. I'll touch on this a bit lower down.

--There's a life of mine that exists outside of the internet. It demands me to be a responsible adult. This is my highest priority. If I drop out for a year, so be it. I might also be outside looking at cool bugs.

--When I upload content, I have self-destructive tendency to give into distraction and the instant gratification of any potential attention. There will be delayed response so I can stay focused on what I produce. It'll take some time to determine when this can happen. Will update when I have a clearer statement on this much needed boundary.

I'll gradually relearn how to jazz up my profile and blog a bit better. I remember MySpace, but I prefer to put out a balanced sampling rather than filling my profile with as much sparkle and flair as possible. It's just not my taste. If I really want something to be seen and be reliably so, I'll link out to the Instagerm or something.

This is more about interaction and how I consciously process people. I've been having some thoughts lately about subconsciously, but I'll add that later, for now, I'll park here what I touched on above for some of why I may or not interact, as it's become a bit paragraphy. (Still trying to grow after 4 decades of consciousness. 8P)