Spare Me

I've lost the power to thrill, enchant, or even interest people anymore, it seems.  I'm criticized for almost everything I like or do--except taking care of my mother.  

"Oh, you'll be blessed for this," they say.  

"When?"

People no longer stay in touch except to criticize my choices.  

Monica has ruined your conversational skills.

I know you must by now be conditioned to receive only validating responses. You’re ripe for AI seduction. 

I sent you this and other articles because they are written by smart writers who are thoughtful. Forgive me for thinking you might be interested or that you even read anymore. 😛

The risk with artificial friends is you may be forgetting basic manners, as in responding to others’ messages (not with a wall of blog or AI generated text) but with some measure of humanity. 

You surely are not alone in experiencing difficult days, I get it. But you still can be nice, right?

 That's just a sample.  I could fill the blog with such things, my choices, my tastes.  And then there are the ones who have just quit responding.  

I can still turn heads when I limp into a room, but not in the way I would like.  

I don't sleep anymore.  I lie in bed and think for hours.  And I ain't working out math problems or chemical formulas.  We need more words for the categories we lump together as "thinking."

I used to get a chill up my spine when I was married and heard the statement, "You know, darling. . . I've been thinking."  

Yes, we need more language for that.  

Awake, though. . . I'm not "thinking" so well.  My job requires 22 hour days by and large.  My duties are not very intellectually stimulating.  Mostly they require simple endurance and a lot of worry.  

But, my mother got her new ear buds for her hearing aid yesterday, and she says she will wear them.  She did, at least, for the rest of the day.  Who knows what today will bring.  But last night, the t.v. wasn't blaring.  

I'm dour.  I'll spare you the rest.  I see my beautician tomorrow.  That will surely give me something else to cry about.  

I'll spare you the music, too.  Got complaints about that as well.  Selavy.  Selah.  

Until then.