A mere six hours later and I'm back at it. My mother used to say I was like a dog with a bone. It was not a compliment; she found it/me annoying. Anyway, here I am, looking for another bone/blog to chew. I had a wonderful weekend with friends who like to talk as much as I do. We covered a lot of territory (not ground; that suggests untilled soil and we were working in a seeded area). (Block that metaphor!) I learned a few things and came away with a list of information I have to search out. You know the saying that we all stand on the shoulders of giants and should be grateful for what they have done for us. But we also stand on the shoulders of friends, and they on us. (It sounds like a human pyramid, or maybe a pretzel.) What have you learned today? I had to make that kind of report to my father every night. (Oh, dear, two parents in one blog; this is like psychoanalysis.) It's not onerous to make that kind of assessment. So what have I learned overnight? I think I have learned, am learning, continue to learn, what is important and what is not. It's part of the aging process, I think, and I have just accelerated it for a short time as I drop out and away from some of the daily demands in order to meet my self-assigned deadline. Gradually, or rapidly, you find out what's important and you make choices, even overnight. Have to go now, my battery is running low. Anon, anon.

In one diary I read (another of my obsessions: women's diaries), the writer confessed to a terrible reluctance to change, any kind of change. Lots of people don't like to move from a familiar house or city or job, but those are major changes and unwelcome to many. But this diarist said she has trouble letting go of anything, that is, of the present moment. Whatever she's doing, she doesn't want to stop. I do that, too, to a certain extent. I can be horribly, obscenely tired, groaning with the effort to stay upright, splitting my face with yawns, needing a wake-pick to prop my eyelids open, but still I stay where I am, trying to make sense of life. Like right now. It's getting late and I have been writing all day, having started a countdown on an assignment (self-assigned) to finish something by the end of the month and here I am, not only trying to stay awake but also trying to write a blog. How stupid is that? I've mentioned before, R.D.Laing's idea that we all behave as if in a state of post-hypnotic trance left over from childhood, and my question whether we were/are ever really conscious of what we were/are doing. Memory plays a role here, both long-and short-term. (Can you remember what you ate for lunch today How about yesterday?) Memory and consciousness go hand in hand, well, they don't have hands, but you know what I mean. So if I'm as sleepy/tired as I think I am, am I going to remember what I was doing/thinking tonight tomorrow? That messy sentence is on purpose, I think. I really have to go to sleep. Let go.