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Adventures in Getting Older
Apr. 11th, 2022 01:46 pmIn proof that I am getting older, my solo podcast/youtube turned a year old while I was in the hospital. In 2014, I got typhoid in Mexico from contaminated food. Despite racist stereotypes, it isn't really food preparation uncleanliness that causes it, but the open untreated wastewater can dry out in the sun and contaminate any open salsa or whatever that is exposed to the air. Nonetheless, it caused adhesions and I already had adhesions from prior surgery. This led to total intestinal blockage. A hospital in Torreon, Mexico kindly cut them out, saving my life but causing its own set of scar tissue. In 2016, complications also convinced me that I need to have part of my stomach removed in Egypt for both weight loss and pain relief related to the same damage.
Now I get food poisoning here in the States from a package of discount fresh snow peas, inflammations ensues and we are almost back to square one. They managed to fix the problem without surgery, but I am weak and tired.
I have taken care of my voice and have permission to work from home from my teaching day job. Being the English Team Lead of an online program in a public school district does have its advantages. This is one of them. Outside of a big interview with Chapo Trap House's Matt Christman, I am also taking a break from podcasting for a few weeks. I am traveling to see my sick mother back in Georgia.
Still, as I approach five years back in the US this July, and three years since my divorce, the hospital visit made me feel decidedly aged. I have done a lot by 41--travels to four continents, started four careers, survived a couple epidemics and now a pandemic, wrote two books, burned tons of bridges, and finally, I am feeling decent.
While I am continuing my podcast, I make more from it in a month than the years of poetry writing I have done--thank you, Patreon--I want to do more poetry work. Before the pandemic started, I was doing reading semi-regularly and my book was finally getting out there. Now I have a second book, and yet I haven't submitted work to journals for over a year or two.
I also ended my journal in 2021 after six years and failed attempt to bring back the former people podcast.
So I am nursing soup today and not trying to be artful in my writing. Just reflecting. I come to this most ancient of my blogs for it. Hell, I have used LJ or dreamwitdh off and on for 23 years. Mostly because almost no one reads it now.
Now I get food poisoning here in the States from a package of discount fresh snow peas, inflammations ensues and we are almost back to square one. They managed to fix the problem without surgery, but I am weak and tired.
I have taken care of my voice and have permission to work from home from my teaching day job. Being the English Team Lead of an online program in a public school district does have its advantages. This is one of them. Outside of a big interview with Chapo Trap House's Matt Christman, I am also taking a break from podcasting for a few weeks. I am traveling to see my sick mother back in Georgia.
Still, as I approach five years back in the US this July, and three years since my divorce, the hospital visit made me feel decidedly aged. I have done a lot by 41--travels to four continents, started four careers, survived a couple epidemics and now a pandemic, wrote two books, burned tons of bridges, and finally, I am feeling decent.
While I am continuing my podcast, I make more from it in a month than the years of poetry writing I have done--thank you, Patreon--I want to do more poetry work. Before the pandemic started, I was doing reading semi-regularly and my book was finally getting out there. Now I have a second book, and yet I haven't submitted work to journals for over a year or two.
I also ended my journal in 2021 after six years and failed attempt to bring back the former people podcast.
So I am nursing soup today and not trying to be artful in my writing. Just reflecting. I come to this most ancient of my blogs for it. Hell, I have used LJ or dreamwitdh off and on for 23 years. Mostly because almost no one reads it now.
