Retirement should be easy

This month has not been.

It is dumb little things, all health-related. Sleep and concentration have been off this past week. Which may be me explaining away a lack of imagination and a load of idleness.

Walking has been a help. The weather has improved. Sitting too long has its deleterious side effects.

I have been having too much fun on Netflix: The Tourist, The Night Agent, Department Q, and now Furies. Not so much FUBAR. The writing (and the direction) of the others has given much to think about.

It is now the second week of Lent, but I have not attended any services but Sunday. I meant to attend Matins today but overslept because I watched Furies for too long last night. There is that lack of discipline.

I made my third writer’s group meeting on Wednesday. This is turning into a highlight of my week. These are good people, earnest about what they are doing in a place that does not conduce with the writing life. I read “Lessons Learned On A Green Meadow.” I can see further refinements.

I have beans in the crockpot. Its broth was last night’s dinner. Eating less is necessary. 

That was why I went to Payless yesterday to get a few more items for that mess. 

Otherwise, it has been trips to the convenience store and to the writer’s meeting. I will take the bus to group, have lunch at The Dumpling House, and drop in on Payless again. Then laundry. There was an accident yesterday that needs tending to. It is also why I have not traveled much this week.

And so I will break for now.

 

The break took longer than expected. I am now writing on Sunday.

 

Friday turned out both more and less than I expected. I made it to the group session, but not the laundry. My medical issues flared, and the pain was such that I did not get to sleep until around dawn on Saturday morning.

 

 When I last saw my PO, he asked about group therapy. I was honest with him about it being pretty useless. The person running the session told us months ago it was not officially therapy since it was not tax deductible. What is that the federal government expects from this program? Why do they not know how it functions, its purposes? OTOH, it does teach me some psychological jargon and gives me some ideas. I need to catch up on my notes. At this point in time, it appears that I am condemned to cycling through the SOMS program (INSomms explains its program here for state offenders; Seventh Circuit Holds Indiana’s Sex Offender Treatment Program Unconstitutional, Best Practices in Sex Offender Treatment, Evaluating community sex offender treatment programs: A 12-Year follow-up of 724 offenders, Guiding Principles of Risk-Based Sex Offender Management, The National Reentry Resource Center, and Sex Offender Programs from the Bureau of Prisons) until I die. The federal PD told me the lifetime supervision could be modified; last year the PD office told me there was no way to modify to my supervision, even though the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2014 that lifetime supervision was not available for a first-time offender; therefore, I am stuck until death does part us. Every psychology evaluation has not found me fitting into a pathological category. When I was interviewed for this program, the woman stopped taking down my history; she had difficulty organizing it - she could not cope that I dated several women at a time for the last 20 years of freedom. Maybe that makes me a sexual offender with a risky future to her. It could be they just needed another paying customer. It does get me out of the apartment for 90 minutes on Fridays.

 

(For explaining supervised release, check out Supervision.)

 

I picked up a few more items at Payless, but not what I would need later that day.

 

Frankly, I was tired when I got back here around 3 pm and I wasted time on Netflix. Then came the trouble. Maybe it was the Coke Zero and maybe it was eating too much, but it comes down to me not sticking to my plans, again. The pain arrived in the early evening and did not stop until until around 7 AM.

 

I was still hurting when I got up and went to Payless around 2:15. Epsom salts, some ointments, and I was functional. Not that I accomplished much. No going to the laundry - I did not want to be too far from home. I spent the night reading and listening to stuff on Netflix.

 

I got an idea from Up from Darkness: Humanism in a Posthumanist Age (The Hedgehog Review), which I think I can marry with the jargon from the group sessions into a play. Anyway, I spent a lot of time researching the idea over the wee hours of Saturday morning and then last night.

 

 I went off to Payless for over-the-counter meds. That was around 3 pm. I cleaned a little, but mostly I spent Saturday night recuperating.

 

I woke this morning for church feeling drained, even a little dehydrated. Liturgy put me in a better frame of mind. 

 

I got home four hours ago, trimmed back the email, and worked on finishing this post. Now, I need to get my laundry done. It is a shiny, bright day, and I need a short walk.

 

 

 

sch