As Roseanne Roseannadanna so aptly said, “it’s always something.” The something now is my leg. To be precise, the inside upper left leg. It’s painful all the time but the pain sharply increases with some movements. If I were a masochist I’d be in heaven sitting somewhere high enough off the ground to swing my leg back and forth at the knee.

Research on the web suggests the likely cause is poor circulation, aggravated by sitting too long (as in when staring at a computer monitor?). A suggested remedy is lying for half an hour or more with the leg propped above heart level. If that worked I’d have to devise some way to elevate one end of my bed because it’s too difficult to sleep with the leg supported by a large pillow. But the effort didn’t make any noticeable difference anyway. Some people recommend Motrin for relief. I’ll get some tomorrow.

I noticed in the Tales of the Sixth Year a complaint about the legs, feeling at one point I just couldn’t walk another step. And for some time now I’ve been unable to walk very far without sitting to rest. One reason I grew reluctant to visit Hamilton Library was that walk over to the main bus stop on University Avenue. I always had to sit for awhile about halfway through the (really not that far) stroll.

I grow old, I grow old …

It continues to be fun exploring Facebook, and I was much surprised to discover that Handsome Son and Daughter are both on there. He’s also on MySpace, even started a blog but hasn’t maintained it. Too bad. I enjoyed reading what he did write. Enjoyed the large collection of photos he has on MySpace, too. I think I’ll keep quiet about knowing, although the boys saw me looking at his page and may say something about it.

I also continue to have fun reading the Tales, am about halfway through the Sixth Year now. It really makes me want to see Tanioka, especially.

And of course there was that neverending cycle of x equals times. I’m in one today, or almost. I do have enough cash for one bottle of beer but then I managed that almost all of the time back then, too. The more things change …. ?

This is too good not to repeat:

What is love?
Is it stuck in the tree somewhere?
Or is it buried underground or under the grass?

Sometimes I think about love and all its beautiful ways,
like when you’re at sea listening to crashing waves,
moving back and forth from sea to shore.
Looking at all the seashells that the current brought forth,
wondering in your own eyes what the Lord has brought forth.

I sit here wondering about life and all it has done,
wondering on the next time that I’ll have some fun.
Its putten to me in a very clear way,
that one day I’ll be back in the gutter far far away,
dusting myself off for a clear winter’s day.
She has a hold on me holding myself,
one day to get up and look upon the shelf,
to find that there is nothing there to be taken of,
but a silly little screwdriver from the corner’s air.
Making me laugh is such a friendly sight,
especially someone like yours is absolutely a sight!
Silly little comments make me laugh,
but one day I’ll fly high in the sky to make my high,
becoming of what is layed there is of not on sight,
but what becomes of you in your dreams tonite.

Wake up! Why don’t you just let me break up!

Shameless of me, but I have to admit I am enjoying reading myself. I started by reading all the Tales of the Past and didn’t have any desire to change a thing, think it’s the best job I could do of writing a concise autobiography.

Not sure why I began reading the contemporary ones with the Fifth Year but it was a good choice, one of the best years of my life. I’m struck by one major difference between then and now, aside from the obvious one of having a room and bed, and that’s by how I was constantly reading. Definitely a major change. I haven’t finished a book since the final Harry Potter epic, haven’t been near a bookstore or the honor collection at the State Library. I don’t think this is necessarily good or bad, just different.

Reading was replaced by the Game Boy. Now the Game Boy has been replaced by the computer. I haven’t played a DS game since the laptop arrived. (The boys think that’s very funny because the same thing happened with them.)

I was also surprised by how rarely a day passed without me seeing one or more of the Bad Boys. Of course I don’t spend nearly as much time outside, almost never go to the beach park, but it is a bit odd I so infrequently see any of them in the mall. I’d certainly like to, especially Tanioka and Angelo, not to mention the Sleeptalker.

Alas, the main place I might have encountered the Sleeptalker is gone. Seventh Circle is no more. Even the web page for it is gone. I knew that dreadful women would eventually bring it to ruin.

Aside from reading the Tales, most of my computer activity is monitoring Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Bless that cute young fellow, Kert Anthony, for making it possible.

I’ve spent much of the day reading the first batch of Tales from the Fifth Year. What a bizarre life I’ve led and I think that year qualifies as one of the most. Overall, I have to say it was delightful and I’m grateful for it. I have absolutely no regrets about those homeless years, none at all.

I am appalled by how much I’ve forgotten. I can’t remember Chico. despite having had what sounds like some very sweet intimate encounters with him. (I didn’t make it up, I assure you.)

Old age does suck sometimes, it really does.

I’m happy I’ve written the Tales. It’s a great pleasure to look back a few years and see what I was doing and thinking. That year, the one before SocSec began, seems to be an especially special one.

I actually joined Facebook quite some time ago, on the recommendation of Bruce Howard, but I hadn’t spent any time on it until yesterday. I was amazed by some of the local participants, especially musicians I’ve never seen on-line elsewhere and it seems a much more active and lively place than Myspace.

Oh boy, four more days to get through until Little Payday. I got a tremendous boost today when a generous friend gave me the funds to renew my annual bus pass which is expiring on the last day of July. I thought I was going to have to pay cash to get to the mall, use the ATM and visit the Satellite City Hall to get the renewal sticker for my pass.

I really am a very lucky man to have such wonderful friends.

Given the luxury of unlimited time to explore, I’ve run into lots of little picky fixes which need to be made on my site, especially in the Tales. There were links back to lava.net and nahenahe.net, not all that important since the pages still exist on those servers, but I’m fixing them anyway.

A bigger puzzle I haven’t yet solved are those “vignettes” and where they should appear in the Collected Tales. I was often rather vague about exact dates in the Tales. Again, it doesn’t really matter.

The main challenge in my life right now is getting reliable net service. I have a wireless card and there are sometimes five networks available, only one of which (“dlink”) is always there, with a very strong signal. I connect to it but it fails to supply the network address so I get a “limited or no connectivity” message, the key word being “no”. A much weaker network, “kert anthony”, isn’t always there but when it is the computer connects automatically to it. It’s very slow but I suppose isn’t that much slower than the old days of dial-up connections.

I’d just get ClearWire, which the boys have, but you have to have a credit card to be one of their customers! Absurd that cash isn’t good enough.

Right now I think the best option is to just get my own Roadrunner link brought in. Negotiating to hook up to Elder Son’s setup is just too complicated, not helped by my recently complaining about the noise from the battle game he has been playing for over a year.

We shall see, we shall see. It’s nice to be able to have such a dilemma, especially since Hamilton Library is no longer such an attractive option. They had a large room with many tables and some thirty-or-so public access computers. It’s now a large room with empty tables. Ironically, the few remaining public access machines are in a small space where years ago they had the ancient data terminals which gave us our first taste of the internet. Budgetary problems, I was told.

Hmmmm, got plenty of those myself right now, nothing unusual for the last week of a month.

Well, whatever Akismet’s problem is, doesn’t seem to shut me up, so I can say what I’ve been wanting to write for a long time:

This is the first (not counting that little test) Tale written on my own computer in my own room.

(Or at least it’s my own room so long as I pay the rent and don’t get evicted for smuggling in booze.)

Maryse wrote a few days ago: “I hate computers.” I have to admit that I do sometimes thoroughly agree.

Akismet has determined a problem, so I’m just seeing if it’s serious enough to stop me from posting.

It seems to be that I spend about one-quarter of my life sleeping or dreaming. Recently I’ve been in a Sixties dream cycle. For example, last night someone gave me an LP (you know, those big black discs that preceded the invention of the CD). It contained tracks from a band playing things the Grateful Dead were considering for their next studio recording. I thought they were awful. (Never mind the Dead could have played “She’ll be Coming ’round the Mountain” and made it interesting.)

Oh well, it is fun being back in the Sixties, so excuse me while I rush off to bed ….