This photo was taken with the job still in process; but rest assured, the tomatoes are all safely caged now, and will not run rampant through the neighborhood.

Yesterday; biking ~19 miles, diner food, then exploring. This is a little gem in St. Albans called Cohen Park.

The left ankle I sprained Thursday night is basically better. However, today, the day I went back to sitting in my office chair after 3 days off, I noticed that my habit of sitting on my feet, particularly on my left foot, was annoying to the injury. My insistence on doing it is probably what prolonged the same injury in the past (I did the same thing to myself in 2019, almost to the day, and still wasn’t 100% a month later). As I approached my dining room chair tonight, noticed the same thing – habit is to curl up the left leg and sit on it. So, I was talking about it to X, when it dawned on me that maybe this habit is WHY I keep spraining my ankle. He said, basically, “Well duh.” Ugh. It’s going to be such a tough habit to break. I can sit on my right foot instead, but that means I have to always approach the chair differently. And then I’ll probably start injuring my right ankles instead of/in addition to the left. I just CAN’T sit straight on my butt. I can’t explain it, it’s not exactly uncomfortable, but I have this URGE to curl up at least one leg underneath myself.

Today is a special kind of happy known as the “post-sick happy.” I hope there is no such thing as a third relapse.

I don’t know, not only has my get up and go got up and gone, but my zen has zoomed, my stoicism has stuffed it and my inner calm has tanked.

I don’t know, somehow getting sick AGAIN wasn’t supposed to be on the docket.

Stuff I’ve internalized via stoicism, reading, and being married to X.

You can’t get anything out of life. On a beautiful day, if not outdoors, I would say, “I should be outdoors.” If outdoors, but not doing something fun, I would say, “I should be doing something fun.” If doing something fun, I would say, “I’m not sure I’m enjoying this as much as I should.” You know what… it doesn’t matter what you do. You can’t possibly get more out of the day than you’re getting. Because you can’t get anything out of the day. It doesn’t fit. You’re in the day. You are the day. This is freeing.

Tomorrow isn’t promised. Yeah, yadda yadda yadda. Wracked with insomnia, I would make it 10x worse thinking, “But tomorrow I was going to do this, that, and the other. Now I’ll be too tired!” Who ever said you were going to do this, that, and the other anyway? Nobody ever promised you that. That wasn’t on anyone’s docket. How can you feel gypped out of something that was never owed to you to begin with?

So, this past week I would be looking out at the beautiful June day with illness rampaging through me and I’d be at peace. I didn’t think, “But now maybe our trip won’t happen! I wanted to go biking this weekend!” Those things were never promised. I didn’t think, “It’s so beautiful out! And I’m wasting it being sick!” Because I wasn’t wasting it. The day was beautiful. I couldn’t possibly get more out of it than I was already getting.

Oh, Tytania, you’re so zen.

I prefer stoic.

Oh, Tytania, so everything is perfect now?

No, I am not pleased that my breathing still feels compromised. Now I might never bike again!!!

I had a mild fever the past two nights; but not tonight.

I am ill. Pity me.

Yes, the home covid tests are negative.

Pity me anyway.

Scenes from an old rail trail going from Jeffersonville to Bakersfield. 11 miles or so. NO ONE else on the trail, till an ATV at the very end. Overgrown, weeds knee-high in some places, large stone in others, mud and puddles elsewhere, hard going. Took 36 to 108 back, rather than face the trail again; thus, something more than 11 miles coming back. X wanted to try this trail. I was glad he took some initiative. It was mostly downhill coming back which always gives a positive afterglow whatever the travails going out.

Solstice is not even here, and I feel like we’ve already lived a summer and a half.

That’s actually got potential as a band name (though nothing will ever beat Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar). Here we have the notorious R.B.G. (rose-breasted grosbeak) and of course a cardinal, both male; a rare display of simultaneous color at the feeder.