Another little step in the reinvention of my life at the age of 56.

Now lets get down to the important stuff: what to prepare for dinner Thursday night after they take all but two of the rubber bands off my teeth. I am making the assumption that I will be able to eat solid food in small nibbles. This may not be the case, but preparation, none the less is called for and I shall be ready. Also, I've picked all the books up, filed the various medical bills, dropped the payments off at the post office, washed the dishes and feel this is enough for one day of recovery, thank you, so now I'm going to think about food and some of the more subtle of life's exotics such as Tamarind sauce over fish.

Viv in her journal entry for today wondered about keeping a journal and the time it requires, the things that it precludes because you're writing this rather than doing that, even if "that" is something as simple as surfing the web. I think about that every now and then. My web site is a way to put pictures up so I have something to show for myself with all this camera equipment (Some people make prints, some people show slides, I put them on a web site.) and a publishing company of one to experiment with things that I'd never do totally alone and without feedback.

This is a kind of bell, you swack it once or twice every day and listen to the sound reverberate through your head. After a while you notice the patterns that develop and maybe you do something about them and maybe you don't. My little self obsessed thoughts about fleeing home with "The Fear", for example, seem to crop up. Organizing old books and thinking about them, what they meant when they were read, what they might mean now. Music. Why has that desire ebbed? Why do I not read? Other things. Other thoughts. In color. On the web.

I don't have a clue about what it means to live a meaningful life at the age of 56. Maybe this web site is a way to put some of it down on digital paper and think about it. Photographs? OK, I'll shoot some, but what kind and of whom? Is this just some hobby about spending money on toys, the latest gizmos, or is there an internal voice waiting to whisper where to take the next step. So I'll wait and listen and futz around with it.

My life by my measure of what is personally meaningful is good and should continue with the usual caveats about health and luck. Is this enough? To sit here in this life, go to work every day (good work, nice people), come home at night, fix a little dinner, write this page? Have a drink now and then with friends if I ever have any friends again? Might be. Sounds OK. But I'd like to look around a little and see if the old bullshitter isn't just bullshitting himself.

I've been a bachelor all my life. In retrospect that's the way it was supposed to be, but maybe that isn't altogether necessary for the future. What would I like to have a partner for? To talk, I think, and observe the life as we live it, go out to dinner now and then, sit on beach. I don't get lonely in the evenings, I don't need someone to cook dinner, I don't need someone to have around in case I need a little assistance when I'm sick, but it would be nice to have someone with whom to explore this world, someone who had her own exploration going that she might be able to share, someone who wouldn't freak out of her skull because her old man was shooting pictures all the time when he should be washing the car or digging the weeds. That would be nice. Probably won't happen, I know my history and my infinite capacity for sloth, but it might.

If I were a younger man who wanted a wife and a family and found myself sitting here as I am now I'd get off my ass and go out and find someone with the same desires and ambitions. With a different set of thoughts at 50, not particularly driven by some vision of marital blis, do I go out and find Ms. Right? I could do that, I might even do that, but how much energy do I put into it if I'm not all that uncomfortable with the way things are? If you are younger and want a wife and children you've got a biological clock to kick you in the butt. The clock that's ticking for me has more to do with time I have left and not a lot about whether I find someone today or tomorrow or next week. There should be a spark to set this off and I'm not sure where the matches are. Maybe they're here on the web.