sitrep/20231026

in

I've cut my working hours down to one early morning stare / type session, (more/less) from the time I awaken at 0445 until 0715, replacing (temporarily, probably – though I do like how knowing that this is all I get each day lights a fire under my ass) the second chunk of work with reading and, as has been the wont of late, nodding off. Helps prepare me for the afternoon of visiting and death prep. My greatest fear in all of this being that I'll run out of prep before he runs out of breath. Not big on familial / communal sharing of grief: prefer to process it by myself (in the car ride or in the journal) or, as has been the case in this latest round of familial dying off, project-managing each and every decision and wearing the weight of it on my shoulders.

(I HAVE THE POWER (of attorney).)

His brain fog is foggier by the day; hoping that he doesn't have to deal with it much longer – I know it pisses him off – but he remains, for the most part, lucid (though less himself), the last month+ being not a sudden decline but the final act of a decline that's been in process for the last few years, at least since his sister and brother died in 2020, and certainly since my mother last year.

Chorus from Dylan's Mississippi ringing in my ears: "Got nothing for you / had nothing before / don't even have anything for myself anymore..."

nothing is sacred (until all the words are written and even then)

in

Lesson of the workweek thus far being that no component is sacred until the whole story/project/whatever is done (and, as the title would suggest, even then): I've (again) committed the cardinal sin of letting a passage languish in Mississippi a day too long (as Bob Dylan would say) and attached to it too permanent a responsibility before the whole was even close to revealing the totality of its narrative and rhythmic needs / permutations. Answer to problem of lack of forward motion lay, of course, in the spaces between the passage I was treating as holy and, as such, the scalpel has come out, the delete key (or copy/paste into a "Cut" file, as is my usual method) is working at full functionality and the words are flowing again – at least until the next time I decide to ignore my own advice which will probably be sooner rather than later.