Nov. 29

I am -still- sick.  I drag myself forward nonetheless.  And outside, the world does the same- the grey hours and the brown hours and the black hours, each knocking into the next.

Nov. 28

Thanksgiving.  There are pleasures that are only available as a result suffering.  My father would have called these negative reinforcement: rewards consisting of the removal of an aversive stimulus.

I am, for good or for ill, particularly receptive to these: analgesics, rest after toil, slow recovery, sleep after sleepless nights.

Nov. 26

I wish I remembered more.

Nov. 25

Sick; job destabilizing; grieving; worried; tired.

Nov. 24

The bizarrely bitter aftertaste of hearing so many lovely tributes to my father is that I no longer feel as specifically loved; perhaps our relationship spoke more to his qualities than ours.

Nov. 23

My father's service was today.  Lots of people got up to speak and sing about my dad.  It was like looking through a kaleidoscope, fragments coalescing into a whole.  I loved catching glimpses of both the deeply known and less familiar parts of my father as refracted through the eyes of others.  I came away understanding that my dad was attentive, appreciative, and interested in seeing things as they are, and that I have inherited some measure of these qualities.

Nov. 22

It is really something to be able to make everything OK for one person, even if the okayness, and your ability to bring it about, are both poignantly temporary.