I dream she is alive even now

I was going to post this because the ‘I miss her’ theme is more present in my mind than it has ever been.

 

but I find I posted it here not long ago, with totally different context.

read this.

but the quote is now all the more crushingly apt, without the detached sense of distance the speaker has in the novel.

This is a quote that has made me tear up

in the past. Today it will make me cry, if I let it.

 

The sailors say the rain misses the cloud even as it falls through light or dark into the sea. I miss her like that as I fall through my life, through time, the chaos of our time. I dream she is alive even now, but there is nothing to give weight or value to that, it is only me, and what I want to be true. It is only longing. We can want things so much sometimes. It is the way we are.

I’m obsessing over her.

I can’t stop. I can’t stop thinking about her death. I know  next to nothing, so I imagine scenarios.

each thing I imagine is horrifying.

I finally broke down and cried today, real tears, wracking sobs. It did not help; it did not make it feel any more real.

My mind won’t construct a world without her in it;mI keep looking for on twitter, bsky or facebook. I keep thinking there’s been a mistake.

I miss her so fucking much.

I’m useless. I can’t work,  can’t sleep. I’m pretending I’m ok, because no one would understand.

I don’t know how people cope with this. I’m undone by it.

i feel like this will destroy me, and i kind of want it to. Oblivion sounds better than hole she left at the center of me.

I resent the way you make me like myself

When we talked the first time, she quoted, or sang, a line from Mike Doughty’s song Rising Sign.

I’ve seen 

The dangers of your rising sign, 

But I swear 

I’d like to drink the fuel straight from your lighter

It’s all inside the wrist, 

It’s all inside the way you time it 

I resent the way you make me like myself

She said it was how she felt when we started an email dialog.

She mailed me about a story I wrote, which she’d been asked to approve for publication on a site she managed.

She read it with low expectations. But when she mailed me, it was with entirely something else. I’d made her feel something, both as a writer, and as a person, which she hadn’t expected. I got to her, inside the armor, an arrow to the heart feeling.

We exchanged a dozen or more emails over a couple of days. And then she said she had to stop, that it’d gone too far already. Not sexually, but emotionally. She’d gone from liking my writing, to liking me, to something – something more than just liking, which she wasn’t ready to have happen.

I’m good at this. I backed up, told her I could stay in safe territory, but I liked her, and didn’t want to stop talking. The dialog was too good to just end.

That was it. My knowing how to stay outside a boundary, allowed her to extend, then retract, certain self-protections. By honoring the boundary, I removed it.

She wanted to call me then – she was a phone girl. always, phone first, writing second. She’d done voice work for a living, did for many years.

I looked forward to a call, even though I’m not a phone guy. She was too funny, too clever, I knew a call would be fun.

I expected a tough broad voice, not the velvet teen seductress I heard on the phone. Not that she was young, but she had what I always think of as an ‘is your mother home’ voice – the one where callers always used to assume you’re the kid, even when you’re a grown adult.

Her name was Pam. If you knew her, you may have known her with some other name. She went by PJ, only friends and family knew that.

She made me awkward, at first. I liked her so much, I was afraid I’d say something stupid, or start to take the conversation in a dirty direction, though as it turned out that would never, ever have been a problem. 

She quoted the line from Rising Sign then, told me that’s how my writing made her feel. 

My nerves jump like a boiling pan, 

Like a skillet full of oil spits rattling on the burner, 

When I stumble onto the thought 

Of the match you lit and dropped 

And set the dial to slow yearn

Can I spell it out? 

Should I spell it out?

I’d asked her, earlier in email, about those strange places that are unexpected erogenous zones – she’d said the inside of her wrist. The line from Mike’s song, It’s all inside the wrist, was where her brain started down that track, connected the song to me and my writing.  

It’s all inside the wrist. It made me want to touch her hands, to kiss her palms. I still want that. 

That was 25 years ago, that first conversation. Our email exchange started in late November 2003; I still have those emails, saved every one. Three days later, that first phone call. 

By the middle of December she had my heart, and I had hers, both of us knowing that was forever, no matter that she lived 3000 miles from me and that for far to many reasons to write here, she couldn’t ever meet face to face.

It turns out that forever meant 7571 days; she passed away, of some surgical complication I have no details of, on April 20, 2025. 

That’s how long she loved me. 

How long I’ll love her, is a number tallied only when I am in the ground, so we don’t know how long my forever will be. 

The story that started this – a novella about a girl who was unattainable, a man whose desire was so intense it almost killed him, and in the end, did kill her, and and an ache that will never go away, was written before I met her. That novella, and the girl at the heart of it, was named Wanton, because I had a dream where I met a girl with that name. 

A year or two ago, I re-wrote much of that story, but there’s one more change it needs now, which I’ll make as soon as I can do it without tears. 

It will be a dedication:

For PJ. 

You will always be my Wanton

no titles, no time

I keep telling myself I’ll post here more, but that requires – hell, I dunno. Something.

I can’t seem to sit still long enough anymore to string more sentences together than would fit in an original-lenghth tweet.

Add to that – well, let’s not start on politics yet, shall we? I might wind up on a watchlist.

In any case, this is really just a test post to see if a new bsky plugin works, but test test test is so fucking boring.

Maybe I’ll have more to say, what, tomorrow?

I have ideas for things, I just can’t. sit. still.

#moronosphere

Yeah, sure, soon

I keep trying to come back and update.

Good fuckin’ intentions and all that.

It’s weird how I seem to be doing almost nothing, and yet feel busier than ever.

Dogs, guitars, home, health, mumble, mumble.

More coming, I swear, because why even have this thing if I don’t write?

ADHD is a hell of a thing – how did I cope with it so well for so many years without even knowing I was doing so?

At least I look good.

semi-yearly what the hell am I doing post

I used to write every day, or at least try to write every day. I used to strive to keep up with, if not everything in my life (in a classic journal sense), at least, or major events and strongly held opinions.

Today, I have to look back and thing, where the fuck was I, since I can’t even begin to remember which upheaval I was in the middle of last time I put (virtual) pen to (virtual) paper.

…checking back, I find it was July of last year, when last I updated. SO that would have been just after I left my employer of 23 years, under technically voluntary, if not exactly positive, circumstances.

Wow, a lifetime ago, kind of, and hardly any time at all.

I’m not gonna spend of bunch of time catching up, but, at least a little bit is appropriate, I think.

I spent last summer acting retired – some travel, some projects, some just-not-doing-anytyhing in a good way. My dogs loved this, if they got a vote, i’d just be a full time dog-cuddler, with excursions to the beach regularly. And i’d be ok with that.

By fall, I decided I needed more time to effectively plan retirement, so causally thougyt about going back to work. I uplaoded a fresh resume on linked (and wow, isn’t linkedin stupid).

Almost immediately, I got contacted by a recruiter major social media company who also have a sideline in VR gear. I interviewed once, for 1/2 hour, and then was offered a full time contract gig; what I do is specialized, fortunately, and it’s hard for companies to find people with the mix of skills I have (a combination of IT, HPC/batch  queuing, engineering management, and user support).

went back to work the first week of December.

Honestly, it’s been incredibly gratifying to have a company value my skills and experience; my last employer utterly failed to see what i’m good at (despite be being great at it), but instead focused only on what I wasn’t good at, and which I officially didn’t do, given my job description.

There’s a reason people hate big corporations; corporations are fucking stupid.

Meanwhile, over the summer and fall (and now winter), I made up for lost time in terms of getting tattooed. I’ve kind of lost count of the appts, but recreating, two pieces on my calves, four on my chest (i’m now at the gap-filler point on my chest, just finding things to put in small open spaces), three on my neck, one on the insides of my fingers (L A S T  C A L L), finished up a long-ago started piece on my stomach, a big piece on my side, and probably at least one more i’m forgetting.

I’ll have to put together a big post separately with an inventory of all that, but too much headache right now (and I need somebody to take photos for me, it’s too hard to do myself, even with a selfie-stand with ring light).

Meanwhile, i’m gradually re-imposing order on my life, which has been a long, long process, and will continue to be a long process. Forward motion is everything, though.

 

 

 

Job Hunt

Well, it’s been a long and interesting ride, but, after 23 years in one of high tech’s leading companies, i’m job hunting.

 

There’s a whole story here to tell, but it’s not gonna get told as yet.

 

Changes happen, for good or ill, and I do tend to land on my feet. Meanwhile if you happen to need an engineering infrastructure person with 30+ years experience, or a batch queue administrator with extensive experience in LSF, Altair Accelerator, and RTDA Network Computer, go have a look at my Linkedin or leave me a comment.

Almost half the man I used to be

scroll all the way down if you wanna go straight to the before-and-after pictures.

I could update on any one of a number of things but it seems any story I tell, needs to have another story first to set the scene.

This is why I never liked Twitter – even a short story, for me, runs long. I can’t even, as I used to say, clear my throat in 140 characters.

But anyway, i’ll loop back to family and job crap later and let’s just talk about ME for now.

Three months ago, give or take, I mentioned my progress with fitness, given that I was (at the time) four months out from rotator cuff repair.

Since that time, i’ve continued physical therapy, continued diligent and disciplined pursuit of strength and muscle mass (really, the only thing in my live i’ve ever been able to describe using words like diligent and disciplined.)

Muscle gains at my age (61) come slow, but it’s coming. The workout tracker I use (https://www.strong.app/) shows consistant progress in terms of what i’m able to lift; more reps, more weight, etc.

But it’s a completely separate area that’s really changed for me in the last few months.

I don’t know that i’ve ever mentioned diabetes here, since it was during the long downtime of moronosphere.com that I was diagnosed, but i’m type 2 diabetic, diagnosed as such about 8 years back. It’s been well controlled for a long time; I naturally eat a diabetes-friendly diet (not much sugar, no sodas, no juice, candy, etc, focus on protein, vegetables, whole grains, relatively low carb – not because I have to, but just because that’s how I like to eat). For many years i’ve controlled that well with a couple of medications (metformin, mainly). Alas, as is the way with T2D (Type 2 Diabetes), it sometimes just changes without any obvious reason. Despite good eating habits and a drastic increase in fitness level over the last 2 years, my blood sugars started to get worse.

3 months ago I started seeing a specialist, who suggested a big change in medication – she put me on a med i’d never heard of, called Tirzepatide (Mounjaro), a once-per-week injectable medication (which comes in a handy pen style injector for home use, self-injecting in belly or thighs with no fuss and no special training needed).

I’ll come back to ME, because that’s what this is about, below, but for those who are not familiar, here’s a bit of background on Mounjaro.

 

Mounjaro is extremely interesting; it controls blood sugar by triggering certain blood sugar controlling hormones, which differs from traditional medications which tend to treat insulin resistance by decreasing glucose production in the liver, for example. Tirzepatide and other similar meds instead go after more direct control. If you want to get into the pharmacology of this, go start with wikipedia, because it covers the technical details adequately and i’m not gonna try to cover that here.

What’s happened though, as treatment with Tirzepatide went through trials and then rollout a few years ago, is that it was found to have a major, positive side effect; weight loss.

Because treatment with this med tends to produce slowed digestion and a greater sense of fullness, it has a major impact on appetite control; patinets on it for T2D tended to also lose weight, sometimes significant amounts of weight, without specific diet regimens. Meds like Tirzepatide, and it’s predecessor Semaglutide have proven so successful at this that they’re now being prescribed for weight loss for non-diabetioc patients. I’ve seen studies (and I can’t find them now, but will attach if I find) showing that Tirzepatide approaches the efficiency some gastric surgeries like the sleeve gastrectomy in terms of sustained weight loss.

While Tirzepatide isn’t yet FDA approved as a weight loss medication, that’s getting close, but meanwhile, increasingly, it’s being prescribed as such, ‘off label’ as they call it, to considerable success.

So that’s pretty amazing; it’s not news to anyone that weight loss is a difficult thing for many people, and that better ways to manage weight are a Good Thing (and I say that not in a fat shaming sense, but just as a  broad statement that health is good, and management of weight is, for many people, part of being health for all sorts of reasons; T2D for example, is massively improved if one can lower body fat percentage).

There are issues, of course. First and foremost, Tirzepatide has absolutely gnarly side effects, including nausea and all sorts of GI impacts; it’s not unusual to have patients starting on it barfing all day or completely unable to eat. Less common side effects include insomnia, fatigue, aches, etc.

Worse though, for patients, is that it’s fucking expensive; a grand ($1000) per month if you have to pay out of pocket. Insurance in the US being what it is, coverage is complicated. Some insurance just won’t cover; some want patients to exhaust all alternate medication options (including having to try insulin, in some cases). The insurance coverage for this is a maze for some patients, and as always, US provate insurance is often structured to avoid-paying-at-all-cost, since ultimately it’s all for-profit business. There are, evidently, manufacturers coupons to help offset cost for those not covered, but likewise, THAT is a maze, which is often complicated and which keeps changing.

I’ve seen stories though, of patients having huge success, getting blood sugar/A1C under control, and then being classed as ‘non diabetic’ and having coverage withdrawn (curing diabetes isn’t a thing, you have it forever; medication manaages it, but doesn’t cure it). This is akin to telling a bipolar patient that because mediucation makes them functional, they’re cured and don’t need medication. yes, it’s that absurd.

But then there’s the whole, complex question of off-label use of a diabetic medication, for non-diabetic patients.

Sometime in the last couple of years, with the success of use for weight loss, fitness influencers and celebrities began flogging the two meds (ozempic/mounjaro) as magic weight loss solutions, and prescription for non-diabetics took off. I don’t know the exact story about when and who started this trend, though you can find mention of it herehere and on redit, threads like this. Googling will find you a hundred more.

This is all terrific for patients who find it useful, but it’s had a couple of unexpected side effects, so to speak. First, the manufacturers of both meds, Novo and Eli-lily respectively, hit on a gold mine and had stock prices take off. But second, because production of things like this is complex and expensive, both medications ran into supply problems as demand suddenly outpaced supply capacity. Suddenly patients are unable to get a medication they need to take every week without skip, and which, for diabetics, could potentially cause life threatening effects. While I expect that to resolve itself as Eli-Lily ramps production in 2023, it makes for an extremnely stressful situation for patients like me who are now on this med to manage T2D.

 

All that aside, the experience for me has been extremely interesting.

I’ve been heavy my whole life – since I was a kid. While some of that time I was extremely strong, even at my peaks of fitness (as a teenager when I hiked daily and lifted weights over, and then later in my 30’s when I had my first go at the gym rat lifestyle and power lifting), I was never anything you’d call ‘cut’; the muscles were all well padded. My weight peaked out at something like 265, which was a lot on my 5’9″ frame, even though i’m broad shouldered and deep chested. While my upper body is just big, my lower body isn’t, and at 265 I was a big guy.

Gradual lifestyle changes over last 10 years got my weight down around 225, where I hovered for a long time, but as I got into my late fifties and dealt with onset of T2D, that was more than my doctor wanted me carrying. But i’m not, and never have been, a dieter. That never worked for me. The lowest I ever got in my adult life was around 200 lbs, and that was after a significant illness ten years ago or so.

The last two years, my increase in weight lifting got me down to around 210 (which is what my driver’s license says I am, and has sinnce  got my license in 1977, but which really hasn’t been correct since around then).

But then I started on Mounjaro three months ago.

I touched on side effects above in a general sense, but it’s been nasty. The first few weeks, on lowest dose (2.5) I was so nauseous I barely ate, about 3 days of each week. Even when not nauseous, I had absolutely zero interest in food. I more or less stopped eating those first 3 weeks, aside from what I could force myself to eat (mainly protein since without that, building muscle is impossible). Cooking Thanksgiving dinner was a huge chore and eating it was only to share the event with family, not because I wanted it. My birthday (that same holiday week), I wasn’t able to eat at all.

The side effects, as is typical, have tapered off; as I have gone up in dose, I get a bad few days on the first injection, but then stabilize. I’m able to get enough food in now that my weight ins’t crashing downwards, i’m mostly able to get my 1g proton per pound of body weight target for muscle building. But my appetite remains suppressed. I just don’t feel like eating at least 3 days of the week. I’ ve also suffered a lot of insomnia and fatigue and had to take some vacation days in early Dec because I was too fatigued and ill to work.

So, what’s the effect on by blood sugar, which is the point of all this? I’m still at a low dose (5mg, going to 7.5 next week), so I don’t yet expect a lot of improvement. But i’m seeing my sugars mostly in target range (between 80 and 130), which is better that it was. But i’m not yet sufficiently contriolled, and my A1C isn’t where we want it, so i’ll continue to increase in dose and to monitor my levels.

But the effects on my body is dramatic. My prior lowest weight of adult life was around 200 lbs, and that was one time. Today, the scale showed 182, which is a trend now of a couple of pounds lost per week, after an initial drop of 10 lbs.

I’m continuing to work out and focus on protein, and for the first time ever, i’m seeing the beginnings of a six pack. I can see my obliques. I can see my pecs growing, despite the fact that i’m lifting far less weight and the muscles are far smaller than in the past. But actually seeing it, for the first time in my life, it’s pretty amazing for me.

I used to wear XXl tee shirts and sweat pants, not that long ago. I’m now buying size L tee shirts, and my size M sweat pants and now too big for me (I have no hips to speak of); i’m currently wearing my daughter’s size S sweat pants.

I wish i’d had the foresight to take nude or at least shirtless pix when this started. I can’t find any. But below are before and after shots, best representing the changes in my body over the last few months.

The one on the left is xmas 2020, with a beasutiful guitar my family bought me for xmas.

The one on the right is Jan 26, 2023, same guitar, but lesser by about 35 lbs.