A journal of the nights of 3/1-2, 3/2-3, and (last night!) 3/3-4, during which I experienced the deepest lows and the greatest highs of hormone-driven states of being.
Meanwhile, somehow, the rest of life went on: washing up, getting my meals, ordering groceries and household supplies, mourning the deaths of old friends and admirable people, seeing doctors, getting exercise, scheduling appointments, writing blog postings, singing, fretting (pointlessly) about being completely uprooted and moved to an assisted living facility, getting income tax materials together, keeping in touch with friends (especially those in crisis or grieving, but just to renew connections going back as far as the 1940s), trying to recollect my work and activities in the 1960s (as intellectual history now potentially of significance), fending off assaults on me as an icon of DEI, answering e-mail, all while trying somehow to cope with the state of the world, which seems threatening to degrees once unimaginable, and in the face of grievous memory losses that will take months of labor to recover from (at the moment I am damaged goods, with a somewhat fried brain).
The three nights, expanding on notes I made at the time. (My memory for new things is very unsteady, so that I write stuff down. Then I have a huge pile of notes in which I have to find whatever it is that I need. So I have to try to remember where the relevant notes are. It’s all vexing, leading me to weep in frustration. But I persevere.)
From the morning of 3/2, about the night of 3/1-2.
One of the worst nights of my life, with a terrible responsibility dream; I was taxed with summarizing all of sociolinguistics, and my life depended on getting it all down and getting it all right. That had me thoroughly spooked — in a flood of cortisol, triggering sweaty panic — and infected my later dreams that night.
I went to bed at 6, got up at 4:20. Can’t say I got any restful sleep at all, so on arising found it hard to function. My first morning vitals were not as alarming as I’d feared, eventually down to what seems to be my new normal: bp 134/80 (my target bp has a systolic pressure in the 120s), pulse 66.
I’m still terrified by the world, though. Did a laundry at dawn to try to grasp hold of some kind of normal life. But I fully expect the goons to appear at my door and drag me off to a detention camp. What will become of me?
On 3/2.
I coped with the trauma of the previous night by studiously disegarding it for the moment. I wrote a silly posting: “Hung with drugs” (here). Did a 4-block walk with my helper Isaac Kalou (stopping to rest every so often, but without the gasping for breath of DoE — dyspnea ‘shortness of breath’ on exertion). Did various household tasks. Took two monumental naps. In the end, knocked out, going to bed at 5 pm.
From the morning of 3/3, about the night of 3/2-3.
Sleep was tricky at first; my sex drive returned — for me, a reliable sign of good general health — but as a juggernaut of arousal, which I eventually took care of by jacking off, so that I could slip into a night of solid pleasant sleep.
On 3/3.
A busy day: a routine appointment with my family physician, Peter Ro. Checking in every six months. He referred me to the geriatric medicine department at Palo Alto Medical Foundation, for an evaluation (still to be set up; my life is overbusy). Meanwhile, the housekeeper, Viviana Ochoa, appeared for her weekly tour of duty, and a helper I will not name appeared instead of Isaac (who was called to another client). Despite my careful instructions that she was to offer just such help as I asked for and had to allow me to practice doing as much as I could by myself (so that I can work back to greater independence), she hovered by me constantly, getting directly in my way, and was offended to tears when I insisted she back off. She will not return.
I did not get a chance to walk outside at all, but did manage a nice posting about the Dunning-Kruger effect, “You just don’t know that you don’t know” (here), pretty much relaying stuff from the American Academy website.
From the morning of 3/4 (today), about the night of 3/3-4.
And now, exceptionally good sleep, with wonderful rewarding story dreams. The polar opposite of 3/1-3. Much to plan and schedule and fret about, but I have put on the whole armor of optimistic calm.
March 4, 2026 at 1:22 pm |
Hooray for calm. I have memory issues too, of course – at our age…yeah. I usually have my smartphone within reach, so I text or email myself with memoranda. that way I will see them when I’m looking to see if I have any messages/mail, and I don’t have the problem of sorting through random scraps of paper and post-its.