Musings & Thoughts for Thursday, November 30, 2023, or: As M-Day Approaches, Life Goes On

Late Morning/Midday, Thursday, November 30, 2023, Lithia, Florida

“It’s strange how in childhood it feels like tomorrow won’t come until the end of forever, but in adulthood it feels like the end of forever could come tomorrow.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich, Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year

Hi, there, gang.

Well, here we are again, ushering out one month – November – and waiting for the next one to begin. On this last day of November 2023, it’s a cool Thursday transition from morning to noon. The temperature outside is warmer than yesterday: it’s 73°F/23°C under sunny skies. According to my PC’s Weather app, the feels–like temperature is 81°F/28°C. Today’s forecast for the Lithia/Fish Hawk area calls for sunny skies and a high of 77°F/25°C.

In Madison, New Hampshire, the temperature is a bit chillier. Well, a lot chillier. In my future stomping grounds, it’s 40°F/5°C under sunny skies. The feels-like temperature is 49°F/9°C. The forecast for the area also calls for sunny skies, but the high will only be 43°F/6°C.

Life Goes On

My Wednesday went as well as can be expected under the circumstances. I didn’t feel extremely depressed – just slightly depressed. My room – which won’t be my room anymore soon – looks almost devoid of my personality. All of my books, CDs, DVDs, and 99.999% of my Blu-rays are packed in moving boxes, as are my Star Wars collectibles (especially my favorite, the Star Wars The Black Series 40^th Anniversary Darth Vader with Legacy Stand with the 6-inch figures based on the first 12 Kenner action figures from 1978).

There are, of course, a few things that still say, “Yes, this is still Alex’s room…for now.” My TV and Blu-ray player are still up and connected, my shelves still hold a few items that can’t be packed till I absolutely must get ready to decamp, and I still have some clothes and other personal things in my closet, including the WWII-era footlocker – painted black way before I ever got it – that I’ve had since I was 16 years old and lived in Miami.

But the room isn’t quite as “mine” as it was, say, a month ago, and I know that as M-Day draws closer – I leave on December 12, a Tuesday – more things will be packed in boxes. And, of course, I’m a bit sad about it, because this isn’t the way things were supposed to go when I moved here in 2016.

(But, then again, if my mom’s hopes had come to fruition, I’d have stayed at “home” in Miami, presumably with the assistance of a less toxic half-sister, and I wouldn’t have needed to move here in the first place. My mother was a wonderful and intelligent woman, but she never truly grasped how unrealistic was her vision for her two adult children.)  

Anyway, back to my Wednesday….

I didn’t mess around with the manuscript for Reunion: Coda all that much; I did some “nibbling around the edges” editing to assuage my feelings of guilt over not doing any real writing on the novel, but nothing more than that. I changed a minor character’s name, corrected a few typos, and made some other minor adjustments to the text. I did not add any new material to the epistolary chapter – “The Email Chapter,” as I call it when I’m thinking about it – nor did I fiddle with the existing copy; I would have been tempted to write at least one or two new emails between Jim Garraty and Maddie, and I wasn’t in the mood to be that creative. If I wasn’t moving so soon, or if I had decided to wait till an opening at the “over 55” apartment complex that accepts subsidized rent here in Tampa was available, I would still be hell-bent on trying to finish the first draft of Reunion: Coda. But…I am moving soon, and I have decided to stop working so hard on the novel till I get settled in Madison, so….

I also wised up and went out for a walk in the early afternoon hours instead of waiting till twilight to leave the house and go to the nearby park. Again, because I no longer have a wide selection of books to choose from, I didn’t take anything with me to read on the park bench. Even though it was sunny outside, it was still chilly enough for me not to want to sit on the bench, so my walk was just a quick jaunt from here to there and back again.

Later, I gamed for a little while. I played an entire skirmish in Regiments in which I won the battle but suffered heavy casualties when the computer-controlled Warsaw Pact forces launched a strong armored counterattack at Objective Zone (OZ) CHARLIE. In that fight, my unit (the 1^st Brigade of the U.S. 3^rd Armored Division – Elvis Presley’s outfit when he did his military service in West Germany) lost several platoons of tanks and mechanized infantry, but the Soviet/East German force did not capture the OZ, and I was able to re-occupy CHARLIE with one M1A1 tank platoon and a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle platoon just before the NATO forces I was part of captured the last of the eight OZs needed to achieve a Total Victory.

I also played – with a bit less enthusiasm or patience – a Single Mission in Cold Waters (Junks on Parade, which simulates an invasion attempt by the People’s Republic of China against Taiwan. I sank some of the enemy ships, including a few of the Chinese amphibious vessels, but I was tired, cranky, and indifferent, so I ended the game prematurely even though I was doing okay as skipper of the USS Seawolf.

(Knowing that the only thing I planned to write today was this blog post, I played Junks on Parade this morning from start to finish. Despite suffering some damage from Chinese anti-submarine torpedoes, I destroyed the entire landing force and its escort of destroyers and frigates. Taiwan was made safe for democracy, and I staved off boredom. A win-win situation, don’t you agree?)

After that, I ended up watching my digital copy of The Bourne Identity until, at three in the morning, I fell asleep. I hoped to sleep until eight, but nope. I got up shortly before seven this morning, tired, a bit moody, and extremely unmotivated.

I’m going to go out for a walk in a little while, so I’ll close for now. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.