Notes

         Up at seven via the cat who surmised via the sun, it was time. You got dressed and Carol helped you put on the ‘boot’ so you could pick up the papers. It takes a while to walk with a two inch wedge under your right heel but at least the boot comes off and you don’t have to have surgery. Confirmation of this will come next Monday after an early morning date with the MRI at West Chester on Thursday.

         No complaints. It is not so bad. The rupture appears to be about four inches up on the calf rather than down in the heel area. At the doctor’s office in Montgomery the diagnosis was “a torn Achilles’ tendon”. At South Pointe Hospital  ER in Cleveland it was “a ruptured Achilles’ tendon.” At the specialist’s office in Mason the diagnosis is “a ruptured Achilles’ tendon at mid-calf”. Upon checking the dictionary the difference between torn and rupture is that a ‘tear’ of tissue is by force while a rupture is a tear of tissue without force. I assume a sports related injury would be a tear but an old man falling back a step onto the concrete garage floor would be an accident. 


         In any case, I feel much better having looked up the two words as it may have bugged me into consciousness even after death if the Merlyn books were real. I have a difficult time with words when I don’t understand their exact meaning in context. It would be worthy of doubt and debate for a long time, not obsessively, but from time to time I would wonder about it until I looked up the words and was satisfied with what I read. I assume this is not an abnormality. Surely most everyone is interested in discerning differences in word meanings, otherwise there would be no commercial enterprise in selling dictionaries.

         You have been running errands with Carol as the driver. She has a hair appointment in less than an hour. You are ready to do some work and then read a new magazine or two as well as get caught up with some other magazines. > Ah, wanting to write and writing are two different things. Nothing comes to mind though you put the fingers to flourish across the keys.

         I am stuck with no setting, Amorella.

         You would be surprised how often that happens among the newly dead in these books. You sense how that feels.

         It is more unsettling than anything else. Nothing to stand on.

         That’s the reason ‘floating’ or ‘bobbing along’ is popular.

         You know how to raise a smile, I will say that.

         Take a break, watch the rest of CSI Miami that aired last night. Carol is about to leave for her appointment. Take a nap. There will be time to work on this. A setting will come to you I promise.

         I can’t help thinking of the desolate heath and (Shakespeare’s) MacBeth’s witches. Then I am reminded that some of my ancestors were killed by MacBeth, some quite famously so. But, I have compassion for the man, the real MacBeth. I’m sure it was a terrible time for all the Celtic tribes in the Isles.

         Post this so you will be rid of it and better able to move on later this afternoon. These three ladies are, after all, from Greek format, not from Shakespeare’s.

         I never thought of a culture as a programmed format before. The juxtapositioning is interesting. It is though. Cultural conditioning is a format, a base for communal thought to rest in. I am immediately reminded of Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B. F. Skinner. I used that in one of my classes but I forget which one, maybe a short lecture or so. How is it possible to escape a format such as this?

         I think of it simply as ducklings trailing behind their mother.

         You mean, being human, that is, having humanity is a format?

         Why not? All creatures have to survive and procreate first.

         I know, but --

         Is surviving as a species beyond your sense of dignity?

         Surviving sounds rather mundane to me. I am not sure why actually, but it does.

         You need to do some thinking, boy.

         I mean mundane in the sense that surviving is a given, that is what life attempts to do. Culture, though, seems more than a few steps higher. Surely it is beyond the common instinct of lesser animals.

         Human culture should be beyond common instinct, is that what you are saying here?

         I think we are morally bound to raise ourselves higher. I know not everyone agrees with that and it sounds so didactic. This is all rather embarrassing to get caught up in such thoughts. Amorella, it comes down to this, people have been preaching one thing or another for thousands of years and it hasn’t changed our species moral fabric all that much. It leads me to the darker gallows’ humor scenario. And old Jonathon Swift pops into mind. A misanthrope if there ever was one. And, alas, from time to time, I see myself that same way.

         Well, that’s settled. Post. Take the break.  – Amorella.  

        Twenty-one hundred, twenty three hours and you are at Kroger’s on Tylersville for essentials.

         I thought I would have time to work after NCIS but now this and I still have the toilet to fix. I forgot about that. I don’t see how I can do anything on this scene three tonight. I don’t know what to do anyway. It seems like we were busy with errands of one kind or another today. Walmart again, then ink (which I have to install on Carol’s printer tonight). The printer is two years old and it runs out of black ink for the first time, so I am not complaining, but here we are.

         It is not like you to make excuses, orndorff. Survival take time. Things to do. One priority that you are pretty good at is taking care of your own, that is, you and family first. Relax. If you have time and we can write tonight fine. If not, tomorrow. The toilet needs fixed and the printer needs ink for what Carol has to do for the Blue Ash Retired Teachers’ luncheon on Thursday. She has errands tomorrow too.

         Maybe I will have time to begin the scene. I really do want to see the setting of the three, Clotho, Lacheis, and Atropos. I do have the earlier scene now posted for reference.

         You fixed the toilet and plan to do the ink tomorrow morning. You also have the bed to make as Carol washed the sheets and neither of you has made it. She is watching The Good Wife, one of her favorites. Enough for tonight, post what you have, make the bed, then sleep in it, orndorff. – Amorella.