fractalnavel

... you need to have music for that.

so i'm sitting here on the night of the 30th, watching tv in splendid squalor (and pajamas), when who should show up at the door ?  why, my brother john, of course !  what other nut in the family is going to finally take matters into their own hands and take the five hour trip down to check on my current state of existence.

see, i haven't only been delinquent here, but on the phone, mail & email as well.  not that the thought hadn't occurred to me: "gee, i hope everyone is still alive & kicking" - well, perhaps not kicking - and the complementary thought as well: "gee, how will anyone ever know if anything happens to me".

it's a bit of a dilemma. 

a local friend knows that the only way to get hold of me is to drop by.  but that's hardly a satisfactory "solution".  so, as you can see, i'm making my presence known in the usual, new-era-socially-acceptable-ways again.  *sigh*  although i prefer email to phone, there's im and this blog and the family group and, finally, mail - which - woops! - i haven't pulled out of the box in a week or more.  dang.  the connected life is not for me.

nothing profound about any of this, just thought that such a visit bore mentioning, along with the outcomes thereof.

anyway, it was good to have a visitor, despite the total lack of housecleaning.  went and got steaks at aj's (slab o' cow has been haunting me of late), and just sat around & bs'ed.  after breakfast & more bs, he left the next day.  we figured sending home a picture of me lying under a fallen log out back & covered in leaves would probably be going a bit too far ;-)

still doesn't solve the problem - no one had heard from me in more than six months.  so what is the procedure for such living circumstances ?  does the landlord just walk in when the rent goes too far overdue ?  i assume that some sort of catastrophic event in any other location will go immediately recognized or reacted to when (if) discovered.  at that point everyone will know as much as there would be to know.  so i'm thinking, i need to keep at least some instructions around here in a very obvious location, labeled "if you're seeing this, it's already too late".  (note to self: hmmm - sounds like a product idea.  self: why do i always have to take care of things like this?)

i sure as hell am not going to just check in all the time, filing "flight plans" as it were.  what, don't i value my life more than that, you ask ?  apparently not, going by behavior rather than intent.  as i've been only half-joking lately, i'm on the colt 45 disability plan - and i'm not talking about the malt liquor.

so as we enter the "new year", i pause on this occasion to ponder 42 ...