Grump Central: Weekly Posts Summer 2022
10 September 2022
The time has come for me to move on to the last chapter of my life. Yes, this was supposed to be it, but my heart condition and other issues have made it impractical for me to stay here. So I've sold the property, and I'm now in the process of purchasing a new home—a small, one-level affair closer to town, doctors and all that good stuff—where I can live out what few days I have remaining with far less overhead. Granted, I will of course lose the view as well as loads of other exceptional things, but that's the price to pay: I'm trading isolation and incomparable aesthetics for convenience and affordability. It may all seem rather sudden, but in reality I've been engineering such a move for quite a while, and regulars with a good memory will recall I've been hinting at it for some time. Consequently, I'll probably be offline for the next few weeks while I attend to an endless list of things in a relatively short amount of time. Oh, and don't worry, my kids will be moving with me. See you all on the other side.
3 September 2022
Verizon continues to fall significantly short of what one might consider minimal service, which is to say I go through periods of no service at all. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero bars. I feel gifted that I was able to upload today's post. And so now I'm that much closer to just saying eff everyone and everything, and just disappear. Perhaps you'll find me living under a bridge somewhere...
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27 August 2022
With September bearing down on us like a runaway freight train, I'm bracing myself for my usual fall depression. Going back to school was so traumatic while growing up that I still feel the anxiety today, albeit somewhat diminished. It's something I don't expect to outgrow, since, well, I don't have much "growing" left ahead of me. Be that as it may, I thought I'd share a little modeling triumph. I finally got around to building something I'd wanted to for the last twenty-odd years. I thought it was just a silly, inconsequential thing, but quite unexpectedly the video has taken off like a (small) missile—not "viral" by any means, but still one of the hottest titles in my channel. Honestly, I never thought something as odd as this would gain so much attention.
20 August 2022
My backyard view has changed. Notice something different between the top two photos? Look carefully: the tree dead center in the left image is absent in the right; the bottom photo shows where it went. I heard it drop, on the morning of 13 August 2022, around 9:30—it was so loud that I thought something had hit the house. Had I been looking out the window at the time, I would have seen it drop. No real drama, since it was already dead, although it was alive when I bought the property. Now it will begin to nourish the earth, and become the home of countless small creatures for years to come, playing an age-old part in the wondrous cycle of life.
Oh, and regarding last week's post... I spent some quality time—as in a couple of hours—chatting with Big V about the problem. Only after exhausting a bazillion options on my end (up to but not including giving them a blood sample and surrendering my first born), they finally checked their end. Well! Turns out they're performing maintenance on a couple of nearby towers. Of course, there was no mention of this on their system status page, and of course they could not provide an estimated time to completion. But don't you just love how they automatically assume the problem is with the customer? Anyway, the problem is still not resolved, and it's driving me to the brink of a meltdown.
13 August 2022
Bad enough that I'm constantly bedeviled by health issues; now I'm also being vexed by technology issues. Verizon Wireless is currently giving me blood pressure spikes as my service has been dropping out sporadically for the last week. It used to be I could call or text from anywhere in the house; now I must place the phone against the kitchen window, or step outside, in order to successfully send a text or place a call. I've reported the problems, but I seriously doubt it made one iota of difference. What can I do? Switch carriers? That would be a costly nightmare, given that breaking a cell phone contract is treated like a national crisis; besides, my service could go from bad to worse. Honestly, I'm half-tempted to just give up phones and internet access altogether, and become a Luddite. (Actually, if I can sell my home, I'll just disappear into some anonymous little trailer park in the middle of nowhere, never to be seen or heard from again.)
6 August 2022
Every so often I come across a photograph that speaks directly to some mysterious part of me, and I'll lose myself in the image, in the same way I'll become lost in certain music. I've no explanation as to why or how or whatever; all I know is this is one of them. I'll stare at it for who knows how long, eventually resurfacing, unaware of where I've gone. Usually the image will be railroad-related, from the early Twentieth Century, and almost certainly monochrome. I've often felt I was born either too early or too late; I don't feel completely "at home" in this time. (Answer for the curious: it's Philadelphia, near Frankford Junction.) Here are some more.
30 July 2022
Each day I awake, I begin the same sequence of thoughts. Oh. Still alive. Ah well. What do I do today? I have no clue. After I do something random: Oh. I guess I did that. Then: Forgot to eat. Getting lightheaded. After I eat something random: Is it time for bed? It is if I feel like it. I don't know what I feel, other than like crap. I watch a random video. Then: Will I sleep tonight? Maybe. Maybe not. Doesn't matter. I'll still feel like crap either way. Followed by all the same stuff the next day, underscored by the same persistent background feeling: that of staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, waiting for it to go off. Is it any wonder why I'm not terribly enthusiastic about life? Sorry for being such a Debbie Downer today, but this is the reality of my existence; it would serve no purpose to lie or sugarcoat it.
23 July 2022
Carbon copy of last week.
16 July 2022
Nothing much new this week. I've been slowly getting back into modeling—well, sort of—mostly by catching up on web pages and videos of past work. Otherwise it's been a pretty blah week, with pain and depression competing for my attention.
9 July 2022
This week, I've been doing some film watching/researching, out of which came a revised review for the 1953 classic, The War of the Worlds. Oh, and as for quitting modeling, I've had some friends gently suggest that I reconsider. I confess I may have overreacted. So, I am reconsidering...
2 July 2022
As we rush through summer like an out of control Tie Fighter, I pretty much spend my time hiding from the heat. We seem to have fallen into a pattern of weekly two- to three-day heat waves in the 90s, interspersed with "cooler" stretches in the 80s.
Today marks a sad point in my life: I dropped a diorama I was building, and some of my finest work was utterly demolished. So I have given up modeling altogether. I could not possibly face another disaster such as that. I will move on to pastimes that do not present such risks.
25 June 2022
Summer is here, and my head hasn't even made it out of winter yet. Plus, I'm dealing with some new health issues. So I rely on old photos of my kids to cheer me up.