candy pork

I can still smell the candy pork I made yesterday. I'm not sure if it's good -- it was hard to assess it last night, what with the smell overwhelming the taste. I'm hoping it will make a good lunch or two during the week. At the very least, it was good to do some cooking. I haven't been all that ambitious in the new kitchen. I've relied on staples and intuition, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I think I've been a bit depressed, too -- in the vein of "is that all there is?" Even though the "all" is miraculous, when I think about it, there's an inevitability about getting depressed, feeling low. It's part of being human. That doesn't sound too terribly trite, does it?

I did some scraping, priming, and painting last Sunday but was overly ambitious, what with the short winter day -- I decided to paint the ledge underneath the front windows. So I didn't have enough daylight to paint the shed door. I covered it with a blue tarp to protect it from the rain we had during the week, and today I will put on a couple of layers of paint.

I have to remind myself that I can fix some things, and other things can be fixed by others. The anxiety that wells up when I discover something amiss, the fear that I'll muck it up, the sense that I don't deserve to own a house . . . the primordial ooze of childhood. My parents, bless them, were not shy about punishing our lapses of responsibility. That wasn't all bad, of course -- I like to think that I try to behave responsibly -- but their anger left scars. Also, there is our family fear of failure. "Don't do anything dumb!" -- a family joke that was also a warning.

The feelings themselves are inevitable. But the way they overwhelm me has to do with the way they overwhelmed my parents.

december

2018 is almost over.

It is chilly with sun and blue sky. I really should get the ladder out and paint the strip of wood at the edge of the front window. And while I'm at it I could also paint the shed door. There's no excuse for not doing it. We've gotten a lot of rain in the past week or so, but it will probably be dry today and tomorrow.

Instead I am sitting here watching the traffic streaming along 101; it's far enough away to seem interesting.

I went to Berkeley last night for pizza and games. Am really, truly, the only one who is only one. Why is that? I really don't know. It's not very interesting, but this is the question that runs through my head at the end of every year. The truth is that for a long time I didn't feel all that much urgency about it, and now I'm heading straight toward 60 without a partner. I think I'll be alone when I die. Aren't we all, in a way? Looking at my parents, who have been together for more than 60 years, I wonder.