Wednesday night, and I came home after work and vacuumed the front room and scrubbed some cat barf spots on the carpet and pet the cats for a little bit and watched the start of the White Sox-Dodgers game, but I wanted to try and make some progress- anything- on any of the books I picked up for the Anza project. I took two of them over to Chili’s to read while getting some dinner. I know I am in the hinterlands when I don’t function real well at home. I’ve just been eating out a lot. Part of that has been because I’ve been too lazy to shop. Part of that has been because I am too lazy to shop, I skip a meal during the day, and come home hungry. And part of that is also because I don’t want to cook because, without air conditioning, the house is too hot to cook in.

I’m not functioning too well at home right now. I’m just not managing a whole lot too well, it feels like lately. Loneliness has had an extra edge recently, but I am so people averse any more. I wish for closeness and collegiality and partnership and connection, but I just don’t trust a lot any more. And the sad kicker seems to be that, outside of my family, people I do try to lean into leave me. And usually, that’s fair, because I am not a deep roots guy. I’m hard to get close to. Socializing asks a lot from me, and can tire me out easily. And I’m not particularly good at incentivizing anyone to stick around near me. I don’t put a lot out there, unless I experience reciprocation and a clear mutuality in incremental sharing. And I end up wondering what’s mentally, socially wrong with me, that I cannot seem to develop healthy relationships and friendships any more. Or, at least, any more than I kind of did in the past. And I am left to conclude that I’m just not great with people. At times, it seems it would just be easier to disappear, feeling untethered from most important things in life anyways. Except for my family, which keeps me connected to something warm and alive.

Even as I keep going back to this Anza thing, I ask myself “Why am I doing this?” Why am I putting time in trying to learn about a dead guy from 250 years ago who may not really be that important to anyone else? Why? What am I looking for here? Or what am I running from? People chase all kinds of stuff, and I find I feel mostly like a wisp of smoke just hoping to hang as a cogent cloud in the air for “long enough”, whatever that is. Because I have few anchors.

Burt I do it. I go back to Anza. Maybe in him, I hope to find some answers for myself. Or some answers for something else. Or a story I can put words to. Something more interesting than my life.

A dull headache has sat around my eyes for a few days, coincided with an earache that hung around for a week after my crown was installed. Maybe it’s the moisture in the air. Maybe I am not drinking enough. Or eating enough. Or sleeping enough.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I used to know a lot more, I thought.

It seems as some people get older, they come to know more in life. I find I know less.

—

Pity helps nothing. Pity helps nothing. Go with humor. Right, Mr. Sitter?

Hey- the Cubs won six straight though! That’s something.

Bedtime.