So many brains out there: pregnancy brain, chemo brain, grief brain … I have grief brain.

Today is Valentine’s Day for some. For me, it’s the end of the first month since my stepsister died by suicide and also two days after my late dad’s birthday. I’ve been stressed about looking for jobs and maintaining coding skills during this time. Or I have until I woke up this morning and realized that I have lost two family members in one month.

I expected to find escape through coding tutorials and tweaking old bits of code, and that has been helpful here and there, but it hasn’t taken root. Before the 14th, much of my empty time was spent planning a new small app, thinking about how to fix a problem or style something better, or how I could make something of my own from Wes Bos’s tutorials. Now, when it is quiet, my mind wanders to what I’ll say at a service or to various friends and family members. I can’t get myself to thinking about anything else.

Always, we begin again. I’ve written that before. I’ve tried to think about that for each day, but currently, I’m working on that hourly. I think that I have found a solution of sorts. I wear a FitBit. At 10 to the hour, it reminds me if I’ve not taken a certain number of steps. When you’re sad, you really don’t take those steps. I can go on a long walk, but getting up to move about? Not doing it. Now I am letting my FitBit notification tell me not only to get up and walk around but to begin again. Every hour, I’ll be trying to get back into job applications and learning new coding skills, but if I drift into sadness and staring into space (I am good at that right now), my little FitBit reminds me at 10 til to get up and move. So I do. I get up and move, and when I sit down, I try to start again. I don’t worry about what I did not achieve in the hour.

Hourly, I begin again.

My dad enjoyed his pets and writing about them. I’ll end this with some emails he wrote to anyone willing to read them. This one is about Gus (the male schnauzer) and Moj0 (the female Italian greyhound):

D.C v Gus (2009)

I had a doctor’s appointment today. Nothing major. Just a check up. I’d put Moj into her crate and was rounding up Gus. Livestock is often an issue at the Pokolodies. But I’d found him, roaming our back yard. I called, and he came in like the German he is. Gus is nothing if he’s not a discipline freak. Duty. Honor. Country.

We were walking down the hall, and I was explaining my need to leave to him and Moj, if only temporarily. He likes to be part of the family decisions, so I was doing my including-him-in thing. I told him I was going to be gone. Fine. He trotted down the hall. I told him I was going to the doctor. Fine. He trotted down the hall. And then I said, “You know what doctors are. They’re like the vet for humans.”

He stoned. He didn’t move a muscle. He stood there in the hall, intently staring at me. “Vet?”

I had to go back to him and say a bunch of words without the word “vet” in there, assuring him he wasn’t going to the vet. After a long moment, Gus started walking again. He carefully approached and stealthily moved past the back door that leads to the car that leads to the drive that winds up at the vet’s office. Once past the door and headed toward our bedroom where his crate’s located, he sensed he was out of danger, that he’d fooled me one more time. He pranced along like the proud puppy he is.

Loose lips sink ships. Apparently, they also verbally coldcock a Schnauzer.

After he retired from being a lawyer, my dad started blogging about the Cowboys on his former partners’ Web site. My dad is a bit clueless. He writes everything in Word and forwards it to one of the partners, who puts his post up. Don’t ask him about RSS, Google Reader, Memes, or anything else. He doesn’t care. It’s his way to think that he’s not into this new-fangled blogging thing. The only thing that might change his mind are all the spam comments he gets.

Dad vs. Spam (2009)

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Comment:
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Perhaps it was a mistake on my part to use the word “screwed” in an internet blog posting.

I must admit, however, that a guy could get excited about meeting Rybka. She sounds nice. As I recall, “Kyivska” means athletic, supple and willing in Russian. Or “she bitch from hell.” I get that confused.

Truth be told, I’m worried that if I blog this blog, I’ll wind up having blog with every blog who’s blogged this blog. And I don’t have an electric condom.

p.s. Without being too detailed, what’s the diff between escort services for men and escort services for men men?

The apple and the tree: