I waited until after church yesterday to email the choir about my cancer. I didn’t want my diagnosis to become the theme of the morning at church.

One of life’s little problems is that when you love someone as deeply as I love Eileen, you know that the chances are slim you will both die at the same time.

Someone has to hang on.  Married couples have this information available to them as do friends and lovers. We all die. We all don’t know when unless we choose to kill ourselves or something.

I will keep pointing out that, although my life is not over, it has been a very rewarding one. Eileen says that I love life and that is true. Mark says I am a voracious reader and this is also a joy of my life. One slight disappointment is that I haven’t developed many friendships. But I can be a challenging person to have for a friend and I prefer myself the way I am (always thinking that I can improve on most fronts).

So the trick for me now is not to fall into a false sense of security, a false sense of denial of what is happening, or a morbid understanding of my life as almost ended. The outcome (as usual) is unknown. It’s a bit like performance anxiety. You affect the quality of a performance by concentrating on its assessment as you do it. Better to let yourself experience the moment and beauty without second guessing yourself into some sort of immobile state of anxiety.

Book Note

I am finding LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media is teaching me tons of stuff.

I have thought a lot about the Internet as I watched it grow almost from its beginning.

“The internet, once a light and airy place of personal connection, has since morphed into the nervous system of modern commerce. It has also become a battlefield where information itself is weaponized.” from LikeWar

Neil Postman taught me how entertainment had reshaped politics, journalism, and church. These men are teaching me how the internet has also reshaped those three but on a global scale. Not just those three areas but the addition of others including war and terrorism.

“These new wars are not won by missiles and bombs, but by those able to shape the story lines that frame our understanding, to provoke the response that impels us to action, to connect with us at the most personal level, to build a sense of fellowship, and to organize to do it all on a global scale, again and again.” from LikeWar

We inherited some cool copper bottom pots and pans form Eileen’s Mom. I have been wanting to clean them up. This morning Eileen looked up how to do so. It turns out to be very easy. Put half inch of water and tons of salt in a frying pan. Bring to almost a boil. Put enough water in the pot to be cleaned so that it doesn’t float and sit it in the frying pan. Turn off heat and soak for ten minutes.

I have found that rinsing and drying the pot is imperative otherwise some stains return or occur.

I like the looks of these pots when they are cleaned.