That list that I just posted moments ago is so incomplete in my mind. Yes, I did do all of those things, but so many other things are missing. For example, none of the comic books and or magazines that I read during the month are included. A quick look at my records shows that my comic book database grew by about forty issues this month. Nor did I list any of the new songs that I added to my music collection. Listening to music is a great part of my life and a handful of new albums came to my attention this month. Then there are the various television programs that I watched at home and movies I saw in the theater. I guess what I want to say is that the month was busier than what was posted. At least it felt extremely busy to me and I suspect that June will be just as active if not more packed with happenings.
]]>So another month comes to a close and I have to wonder what I accomplished. Let me make a quick laundry list of items.
14 days of exercise
7 days of showings
1 play at the Milwaukee Rep
1 concert of The Flight of the Conchords enjoyed
1 exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum seen
1 Brewers game attended
1 copy of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly read
1 copy of the Paul Theroux book Dark Star Safari started
My goal had been to exercise more than I had the previous month. I do not think that that goal was met. In fact I think that I exercised the exact same amount of days. For various reasons I seem to have trouble breaking that three days a week mark. Sigh.
At least I read a book and got a good start on another one. Reading more was another goal of mine and I appear to be making progress on that one. I hope to have a solid list of completed books by the end of summer.
For me this has been an extremely busy week. Let me give a quick summation of all that happened. As soon as I came home from Monday morning, my wife and I were off on our holiday adventure. We ate breakfast at Perkins and spent the remainder of the day at the Milwaukee Public Museum for the Body Works exhibit. Then on Tuesday was the Brewers baseball game. Wednesday was dinner and the latest dismal installment in the Indiana Jones saga. Thursday was the end of Lost and Tudors for us. So this meant that my plan for today included some reading, a little exercise and not much else. I needed a little down time before I went back to work.
]]>Season four of Lost came to an end last night and I am pleased with the way that it ended. I liked the fact that the stories of Desmond, Jin, Michael and Sawyer all had satisfactory endings. Oh, one might argue that any of them could return in season five, but I think their story arcs have come to an end. A cameo appearance in a flashback appearance is all that I expect to see of any of them and I am fine with that decision. Hurley, Jack, Kate, Sayid and Sun are more than enough to keep my interest. Plus we still have Ben and the last days of John Locke to see.
I suspect that other people still probably felt cheated and wanted more answers from this most recent episode. There will be much shouting and ranting on message boards as well as some new speculation on what is going to happen next. Personally I think the season did quite well after suffering from the writers strike. Besides there are two more seasons of seventeen hours left to complete the tale of Oceanic 815.
]]>With his Batman R.I.P. story, Grant Morrison has made me interested in reading Batman again. When Morrison first came onto the book probably more than a year ago, I was there eager to see what he could bring to the famous detective. I was quickly more than a little disappointed. I love Talia al Ghul, but bringing her back with a child in tow that belongs to Bruce and her was not something that I found that entertaining to read. Damian was an irritant if anything and I soon left the book. Now I am back and I am curious to see if Grant can keep my attention this time.
I can't quite say what appeals to me the most about this latest story. I like the fact that Bruce has a love interest and that it is someone other than Selina or Talia. Since I am not a Batman expert, I am not sure if this is a new character or not, but as of now I like Jezebel Jet. If she is a new character, Grant seems to be following in the tradition of Stan Lee who also loved alliteration when it came to naming characters. From what I have seen and read she seems very human and if anything is needed in Batman' life is someone human. Both Bruce Wayne and Batman are such remote characters that they border on the dull.
Now with Jezebel in Bruce's life we have someone who is willing to stand up to him and tell him that he needs to get over the death of his parents. I confess that I screamed yes under my breath when she said those lines to him. In all the years of reading about Batman, his motivation always struck me as somewhat weak. Yes, it was traumatic, but why relive that moment over and over again. Isn't the human mind capable of healing such scars?
Last night I attended a professional baseball game for the first time in twenty years. As for why there was such a long gap, I can not say. I have no real dislike of the sport nor do I have any real passion for it. Maybe my lack of interest is what kept me away for so long. I do know why I was there last night. I was there because it cost me nothing. My work had gotten special seats in a private booth compliments of a vendor of ours. The element of being free and being able to see some of the people from my department in a non work setting was my primary reason for going. Plus my wife said that it would probably be a nice change of pace for me. She had been to one of these special suites for her work in the past and said that they were nice.
Now having gone, I am happy that I went and the local team even provided a bottom of the ninth inning win for me. I doubt that I will be buying season tickets any time soon, but it was a different way to spend a few hours and I enjoyed the free food and special seating. I imagine that if I were someone who appreciated baseball, the game would have had more meaning for me.
I know that I have said it before, but I have yet to change my mind. Michael Palin is a great host for travel series so Sunday morning after work I eagerly sat through four episodes of his latest series called Michael Palin's New Europe. The web site describes the program as thus:
"Michael Palin explores the countries that were, for much of his life, hidden behind the Iron Curtain, and now are very much part of the New Europe of post-Soviet times."
There are only seven episodes, but I found all of them to be very interesting. Palin travels through twenty countries and of that count; I have only seen six firsthand. Yes, for the most part Eastern Europe is still new territory for me and I hope to change that in the future. Now thanks to Palin I have become aware of a country called Moldova and I also got to learn more about Ukraine, Romania and Croatia which are all places that I want to see in my travels.
A day later and I am still enjoying the debut album from Santogold. As of now my favorite track would be Anne. Something fresh and fun at the same time. Good summer music.
Work surprised me with a quiet first night back and I appreciated it. Now my hope is that stays true for the next two days. If that happens, it would be wonderful.
Even though there are many episodes of Bleach left to watch, I started another anime series called Shigofumi. The concept of letters being delivered from the dead is an interesting one. Plus it is a welcome change of pace from the mecha genre.
One hundred thirty-nine pages. I could have read it in a day, but it took me two. Now having finished it, I want to start at the beginning and read it again. Moving. Real. True. How else can I describe the book The Diving Bell & the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby? A few weeks back, I had seen and loved the film based on the book. The story made me want to cry and maybe I did a little. I am not certain anymore. What I do know is that Jean-Do experienced something that had an impact on me. To be struck down by a stroke at the age of forty-two is crushing to say the least. To be caught in what is known as locked-in syndrome could not be anymore spirit killing. Jean-Do, however, was different. He tried to remain positive. He tried to appreciate his new view of life. He wanted to share his new world. He wanted to reach out and he did. Through the blinking of one eye, he wrote a book and I am glad that he did.
Both my grandma and grandpa on my mother's side had strokes. For my grandfather the after effects wore him down slowly. His one arm was somewhat stiff and his one eye watered. His speech was unaffected, but he was a humbled man. His energy had been reduced. His body was less robust. He was feeble if not fragile. It was sad to the see the transformation. Despite this change in him, my grandma stood by him and did her best to meet all of his needs. It had to be emotionally exhausting.
Then years later after my grandfather was gone, my grandma was knocked down by stroke. Sadly unlike my grandfather, she was alone when it happened and as they say that made all the difference. There was no immediate medical attention. No one was there to call for help. Instead of help, she was alone on the kitchen floor, I think. That detail doesn't matter. What does matter is that it was hours before a relative found her in this sad condition.
Surprisingly, she did rebound the best that she could from such a blow. Mobility was taken from her, but that was not a certainty at first. It took weeks of therapy to realize that she would never walk again. Oddly, what I remember in connection to this fact is that the previous December she had climbed the stairs to my newly purchased home. I was proud to have her see what I had purchased. I was an adult, because I owned my own home.
For months, I would visit my grandma at the nursing home, talking with her, listening to her and encouraging her to get better. In some small ways, she did get better, but she was never the same. The drooling became less. Her speech improved and overall some semblance of strength returned to her body. Her mind though was slipping. Then when the next time a stroke came, it was far worse than the first time. There was no coming back this time.
Perhaps, these personal memories were with me when I first watched and then read about the experience of Jean-Dominique Bauby. What would a stroke do to me? How would I react to said physical lightning bolt? Would it be better if it happens to me when I am older and most of life is behind me? How would it affect my family, my wife? Why do I think these things?
I told myself that I was going to do some research on my Russian trip, but got sidetracked when I felt the urge to find some new music. A quick stop at emusic and I added the remainder of the Challengers album by The New Pornographers, In Rainbows by Radiohead and a disc by someone calling herself Santogold. The site had suggested it to me and after sampling the first four or five tracks, I felt that it was worth a download. Now it remains to be seen if I still like it a month from now.
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