Brasklapp

I woke up this morning aching all over. Actually, I tossed and turned from sometime in the middle of the night, achy in various places. It wasn't surprising since I got my Covid-19 booster shot yesterday. And a flu shot, too. But the Covid booster has pretty much always left me feeling achy and tired the next day.

I finally dragged myself out to the hot tub for a soak this morning. I say finally because I've been telling myself, "A soak in the hot tub tonight would feel really nice" all week. But then I've felt tired and lazy and have just laid around the house instead of going out. Today I decided Just Do It after despite the body aches. Actually it was because of the body aches I went. I hoped the soak would help! Alas it did not. I was still achy after.

In a way, being tired and lethargic this morning helped me match Hawk's energy level. She's still healing from her surgery two weeks ago. She also recently adjusted her pain medication because the previous regimen she was on left her with a lot of residual pain and caused nausea. By increasing one med and decreasing another, she's now reduced the pain and gotten rid of the nausea— hooray! But she's traded one side effect for another, in that now she's more tired out. After she almost face-planted in her hash browns at Denny's the other night, last night she almost face-planted in her bowl of chicken tortilla soup at a favorite Mexican restaurant.

Update: Although painkillers didn't do anything for my body aches the aches kind of wore off on their own after lunch. Hawk and I then went shopping at Costco. It was a lot of walking for her, on crutches— about a mile! She's tired after that though not sleepy tired. She's spent the afternoon crafting downstairs while I've vegged with my computer.

October 2025 was my slowest month for blogging in years. A few quick stats:

• I posted 34 journal entries in October


• At a rate of just over 1.0 per day it's the slowest month I've had in... checks spreadsheet... 4½ years.


• Yes, I keep a spreadsheet. 🤣


• While I averaged one journal per day (actually 1.09/day) I didn't post one journal every day. In fact I missed nine days in October.


• I thought that would be my biggest number of missed days in, like, 10 years, but it turns out it's also just 4½ years. Basically, April 2021 was an unusually slow month for me. (I figured that not by looking at a spreadsheet but by eyeballing my monthly blogging by year.)

Okay, those are the stats. But the real question is "why". Why did I experience such a slowdown in my writing in October— especially compared to the relatively high 70 journal entries I wrote just two months earlier in August? Metrics don't answer meaningful question such as that though they at least tell a person where/when to ask.

The answer in this case is simple. I just didn't want to. Oh, I had more things I could've written about. There were things that happened in October I could have written about. There were things in my backlog from months earlier I could have written about. But so much of the time I just didn't care.

Earlier this year I wrote about the power of the phrase DFC— as in, I Don't Fucking Care. Used positively, it's liberating. It's a way to Marie Kondo through your life, filtering out what's not worth your time or frustration.

The downside of DFC, or Kondo-ing, is that when you're disaffected or depressed, everything can start to fail the question, "Does this bring me joy?" And that's what happened to me in October. A combination of factors, from me feeling physically listless, to the changing season signalling an end to our summery outdoors activity, to Hawk's surgery and recovery basically grounding both of us for weeks, have aligned to leave me feeling like I just don't care about doing any of the few options left.

Tonight is Halloween. Or as I've called it recently, Hallow-whatnow?

I don't celebrate. And not only don't I celebrate, but fewer and fewer people around me celebrate. Oh, the stores are all festooned with "PLeAsE GiVe uS MoNeY!11!" holiday decorations as early as August. But as I do less and less shopping in stores I'm visually assaulted with such things less and less. Plus, by the start of October Christmas decorations are already displacing Halloween decorations even as Halloween is still 4 weeks away. 🤣

Like I said, though, fewer people in my orbit celebrate. Halloween is a nonevent in our neighborhood. We're a townhouse community, so few people living here have kids, and those who do have kids have mostly younger kids— mostly too young to go trick-or-treating. And those who do have kids also tend to bundle them into their luxury SUVs and take them to carefully controlled parties. Most of them never play in the community any of the other 364 days of the year... why would their parents suddenly feel it's safe to let them walk around in the dark and knock on doors tonight?

Even my company hasn't done anything for Halloween the past few years. In the past we'd have a small costume contest. Small, as in only a few people would participate. But at least there was something. Or a few people would act on their own to dress in costumes, and it would be amuse to see them on videoconferences. This year there was nothing. No contests, no announcements, no funny surprises on camera.

I've always been a bit "Bah, humbug!" about holiday celebrations but this year it's disappointing there's been basically nothing.

Today is Day 14 of Hawk's post-op recovery. At the time of her surgery they wrapped her foot in a half-cast, half-splint with strict instructions to put no weight on it. That made her close to immobile. She could hop around short distances with the help of of a pair forearm crutches— "short distances" being like from the bed or sofa to the bathroom. Going between floors in our vertical townhouse took focus and real energy. She tried to limit herself to one trip up and down per day. Today she had a followup visit at the clinic.

For the trip to the clinic Hawk used a knee scooter. It does no good in the house because there are stairs everywhere. But it's great for covering long, flat distances like from the parking spot in the garage to the clinic's front door, and from the front door to the orthopedic department. She zoomed along on the scooter, going faster than me, walking normally. Though heavy closed doors were her bane as it was difficult to balance while exerting enough force to open them. I caught up to her every time there was a door. 😅

At the clinic today they removed the cast and replaced it with a bandage wrap and a boot.



The boot can be taken on and off. And even the wrap can be removed (by us) at home tomorrow. After that she just needs to cover her foot with a sock. And before very careful with it when it's out of the boot, of course, because it's still healing. She'll need the boot for at least another 3 weeks, possibly up to 6 weeks.

The switch to the boot has made her more mobile. Now she can put partial weight on her foot. She still uses the forearm crutches to walk, but she can move faster with them because she can put her injured foot down to balance instead of having to hop along on one leg.

Hawk celebrated the change today by asking that we visit a local bakery that has her favorite, princess cake. She boldly decided to walk (hobble) from the parking area to the cafe. It was across the street and partway up the block. She was okay getting there though it took more out of her than she expected. So she bought all the princess cake they had in the display (5 pieces) and asked me to pull up the car for her hobble back out.