Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

  • Favorite attire

    Remember when the pandemic started and we all started wearing soft pants?

    I did that. Sweat pants, pajama pants.

    And then I went softer. And shorter. And manlier.

    Bb

    I’ve been wearing the black pair of Gary’s original Jockey brand boxer briefs detailed in this post. This post from, dare I say it, 2008. Sixteen years ago. They have a tiny hole where the inseam meets the Man Gusset. (I don’t know what it’s actually called.)

    They are very comfortable and loose. I tell myself, “Because I’m actually wearing the black pair, I don’t look like I’m running around in men’s underwear.” At times I forget I’m wearing them and I run out to the porch, or even the mailbox. And of course, the cunning crotch pocket can be used to hold the mail, if I so choose.

    I tell myself the neighbors have no idea. And it makes me feel close to Gary.

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  • Symphony

    There were four pieces presented at the symphony Friday, and all the composers spoke to the audience, except Beethoven, because he is [SPOILER] dead.

    I think the two composers both used the word “Motif” and pronounced it closer to “motive” than “moh-teef.” This has shaken me to my core. Have I been saying it incorrectly all my life? Or is this a word like “Barcelona” or “Van Gogh” where only artists know the special secret pronunciation?

    The two modern pieces were gorgeous in parts and there were parts where it sounded like the orchestra was being murdered. They had the misfortune of following Beethoven, because he wrote the first and last pieces. (The maestro called it a “Beethoven sandwich.”)

    The best part of all was the pianist (from Finland!) who played the Beethoven Emperor Concerto. He had a lot to play, but there were sections in which the orchestra did all the work. It was amazing to watch him during that downtime.

    He shook out his right hand as if it needed loosening.

    He crossed his arms and clutched his elbows as if giving himself a hug of glee.

    During a particularly good orchestral part he lowered his chin and peeked at the audience as if to say “Can you hear how good this is?”

    Lots of love for him at the end. Two encores in which we got Ave Maria and a lively Finnish piece that finished (ha) abruptly.

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  • Health Summer 2026

    We cut my MS medication in half a few months ago because my immune system was plummeting. It held steady at 0.20 for … what … almost 20 years on the immunosuppressants? And then 0.18, 0.16 … and you can’t have that.

    So with that medication tweak, the house of cards started slipping and an MS symptom crept in. I felt fatigue.

    It wasn’t the overwhelming fatigue where you lie on the floor with your hands turned up because it takes too much effort to have your hands face down. But I did spend entire weekends in bed, and you can’t have that either.

    So I started Provigil/modafinil, even though the new insurance refused to pay for it. (An aside, it costs $1,000 a month, but if you get a coupon off the Internet it costs $30? Is our economy built on that nonsense? Concerning.) Anyway, I was out in the garden a week later. I don’t know how it works. Not caffiene, not uppers, so what is it? What is the mechanism?

    There will be other effects of cutting the MS meds in half, I’m sure. I blew past .20 lymphocytes and went up to .26 (normal is .80).

    I’m getting my Covid booster shot soon. I wonder if I’ll feel those post-vaccine symptoms normal people do. I certainly don’t want to catch the new “Cicada” variant. (And when did we start giving scary names to variants? Concerning.)

    I would worry about new lesions, but I have an MRI scheduled for August, so we’ll catch them then. That is if we still have MRIs, evidently the war in Iran is affecting the helium that MRIs need to function. Again, say it with me, concerning.

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  • Weekly Paint Progress: 3/26/2026

    So this is the previous …

    This is the progress …

    And this is the goal.

    D45CE5FA-2C6B-42E6-8576-34A7FC25443B

    Things got too dark, so I need to take it back to light in spots.

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  • Washer Dryer deflection

    Our twenty-year-old washer works fine. Our twenty-year-old dryer works fine. They don’t work perfectly: the washer makes noise and the dryer will not dry if you have a towel in it.

    Gary has decided we need a new washer and a new dryer.

    He did the research, analyzed, measured, compared, asked me if I wanted a steam setting for when a shirt is wrinkled, and finally we were ready to look at those stackable little ones, but set side-by-side.

    I don’t want a new washer OR dryer. I went with Mom to pick my current ones out, and she was worried I would be in a wheelchair before they were replaced again. So I want to see which lasts longer: my legs or the appliances.

    I haven’t told Gary that. So there we were, washers and dryers in front of us, salespeople to the back of us, and I spied one of those combo washers and dryers that I thought were legends.

    “WHY AREN’T WE BUYING THAT?” I demanded. He hadn’t even researched them.

    So we did not buy a washer, or a dryer, but I have bought myself time.

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  • What qualifies as an argument

    A Vignette.

    I had a lovely time watching Bugonia with Gary. Afterward, he said:

    ”Emma Stone lost a lot of weight for that movie.”

    I said, “Really? She looks the same as always.”

    ”Oh no. When she went to the award shows people were shocked at how thin she was.” Then, contemptuously, “Can’t you tell?”

    I said, “Really, I don’t see it.”

    Gary then clutched his head, doubled over, and said loudly, “WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO ARGUE? STOP DISAGREEING WITH ME.”

    So. What makes an argument? I think that if I give an opinion in response that isn’t an argument. If I debated with a fact that might be an argument. Gary says I seemed dismissive of his views.

    So, I think this is an argument:

    Gary: ”Emma Stone lost a lot of weight for that movie.”

    Me: ”YOU LIE!” or “Prove it” or “Are you saying I’m fat?”

    That’s an argument. All I said was my eyes didn’t see what his eyes saw. How is that arguing?

    I wonder how many “arguments” he has going in behind the scenes, on Facebook, with the neighbors, that I don’t know about. What’s up with him? Why does he need me to be blindly on his side?

    This is an easy fix, of course. Just a day or so of saying the sun is the moon, in faith, it is the blessed moon, but it’s … wearing.

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  • Mom’s letters: the summary

    It’s remarkable to me how consumed I have been by Mom’s letters. It’s helped me plot the jumble of my childhood. I know the date Jerry broke his collarbone and made us touch his scalp stitches. (Same day Mom flew me to Saint Louis.) But then why was David in the car with us? (Because he was seven.)

    The most notable thing is that during the divorce drama there are hundreds of letters. Carbons from Mom, responses from friends and family, and in all those letters, only one person mentions the kids. Specifically, Marilyn Ferguson, friend of Deepak Chopra, wrote of how poor David had no friends and his only playmate was Jerry, and “think what a divorce would do to David (not to mention Ellen).”

    And really, speaking in my capacity as a parenthetical phrase there, she’s right. The divorce just gutted Dave. I was with Mom in St. Louis all summer, adjusting, but Dave kept living with Jerry while Mom was in St. Louis. Then she swept back to Texas, signed the papers, and left with Dave over the course of a week.

    And would I have done the same? Absolutely. Just maybe … not so fast.

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  • TWIL: Britain celebrated Mother’s Day last week

    Britain’s version of Mother’s Day was on March 15, just a week ago. My British podcasts made reference to the past holiday and I freaked out. I learn this every few years.

    No matter that it’s been almost 20 years since Mom died, I still panic in March if I think I’ve missed Mother’s Day.

    It doesn’t help that the months March and May both start with “Ma” either.

    Sure, Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October. That’s as confusing, but missing Turkey Day isn’t the high crime that missing Mother’s Day is.

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  • Still chipping away at the diversions

    I’m also still chipping away at the broken links, and I found myself fixing a link on post shown below in some fancy intra-blog link style that you may never see again. No idea how that happened.

    The post from 2010 is similar to the AFI best movies posts, in which I beat myself up for the dozens of classic movies I still haven’t seen, only this is just the best per the New York Times.

    I Think This Still Puts Me In the 90th Percentile

    In summary, I hadn’t seen five good movies …

    1. Raging Bull
    2. Midnight Cowboy
    3. Rebel Without A Cause
    4. Goodfellas 
    5. Shampoo

    … and five good TV shows …

    1. Deadwood
    2. Homicide: Life on the Street
    3. The Shield
    4. The Wire
    5. Wiseguy

    (First I’m horrifed I hadn’t seen Goodfellas. I have seen that movie at least four times since then.)

    I still have not seen Rebel Without a Cause and Shampoo.

    But I didn’t even try the TV shows, except for The Wire. I really enjoyed that.

    I have a long weekend next month. Certainly, I could knock out those two movies. Of course, who knows what might happen if I see every movie on these lists? I might gasp out “It is finished” and perish.

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  • The state of Gary on this, the day of his birth

    Seventy-two years old, and forty years married. I’ve always thought year four was the worst year of marriage. Is year forty ten times worse? Kinda. Yeah, kinda is.

    I’ve always known that one of our hurdles is how we deal with illness. He’s a baby, expects to be spoiled; I was raised by stoics, expect to be quarantined.

    He has accepted that this really bad skin condition is going to be with him for life. He’s trying to be stoic, but while he’s accepted the resignation part of stoicism, he hasn’t adopted the SHUT UP ABOUT IT aspect of stoicism. So he’s in a holding pattern of: “There’s nothing the doctors can do, I must accept my fate and be brave and uncomplaining. But only in front of doctors. To my wife I must talk about nothing but my suffering.”

    On the other hand, for a sick guy, wow, he’s turned into a workhorse. Yesterday he dropped things off at the recycling center, bought bird food, vacuumed, got the groceries, and cooked his weird stew of squash and chicken. (The blueberries are gone because they triggered the rash, as did everything eventually but the squash and the chicken.)

    So, it’s a little maddening to hear him complain that only he can fix this problem that he claims is unfixable. I know normal lies between the two extremes of stoic and spoiled. Maybe he’ll settle there someday.

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