Tasks

1. Failure: Off till 5/6

2. Book Three Melody: 400 new words
Notes: A guess: this chapter will be in the 5K range.

3. Angel: Book Three: Off till 5/4

4. Random Chance: 300 new words
Notes: It's been almost 2 years since I've actually written anything in it!

5. LOTR: Off

6. Port Story: 200 new words
Notes: Very slow-going. When plodding along, it's necessary to perform a calculus of fine moments. It doesn't often lead to lots of words coming out (though sometimes it does), but it is the way out of the Plod.

7. Hidden Bookmarks: 300 new words
Notes: the notes for Port Story apply equally here.

8. Rumpel: Off till 5/13

Special Projects: Transcribing Montaigne day 2/3.

Extra notes: I must think it's February. Sheesh! I've noticed that my notes above, for several days, said, "Off till 3/6" or "Off till 3/4." I noticed the error and promptly changed the months to 4/6 or 4/4, which was still wrong! It's May 1 today!

I've done stuff like that my entire life. I wouldn't doubt if I'm a little aphasic (if that's the correct term). I switch male and female pronouns all the time--"he" for "she" and vice-versa, especially if I'm in a hurry. I switch nouns of all kinds all the time too--especially people's names. I can't tell if all this is getting worse as I age; Alzheimer's Disease, early-onset dementia, all that crap is genuinely frightening.

Throughout my life I have had great difficulty focusing on anything else if I'm really locked in with something beforehand. I'm a terrible multitasker. For me, it's one thing, or no-things. If you don't mind me messing up your name and putting things where they don't belong and forgetting where I put half of them, then I'm your multitasking man.

It's May first. Jesus H. Christ, how time is flying by! It's gone by so fast that the back of my mind is still convinced it's February! I remember being a little boy and how so many times back then I'd wish-wish-wish! that time would hurry up so that I could get to some exciting new thing or activity or person. Of course, looking back, I can't help but feel that five decades ago was really just yesterday, and that five decades hence is really no farther away than tomorrow.

Scary, that.

Five decades hence I very likely won't exist. This earthly go-round will be over for me. Perhaps sooner.

I knew a swimming coach back in Loveland, Colorado. He was a real jerk, a total asshole. But he had a real talent for creating champion swimmers. He was eleven years older than me, and a perennial Masters-level swimming champion himself. He was in great shape, not an inch of fat on him. I spoke to him when I had to; he was always quite demeaning and condescending to me whenever I did.

One of those times--one of the last times I spoke to him, actually--he tried to convince me to get back into the water, to join the Masters' team he also coached. I declined. This was back in the early 90s, when I was in my early 30s. At that time I too had no belly fat, and was pretty lean and hard. He appraised me critically and said, "You aren't going to last into your fifties if you don't take care of yourself, Shawn."

On my birthday, 2018, at the age of sixty-seven, this coach hopped into the pool for an early-morning workout with his team, swam to the other end, and sank like a rock to the bottom. I wasn't aware he had died until several months later, when I saw his obituary.

I wonder if time passed as fast for him till that final moment as it does for me now.