One month until we again start to gain daylight. This means that there will be two months before we see as much daylight as today. I do not like this time of year – the darkness. It’s inconvenient. For instance, I was at Valley Center for Recycling Solutions today – was finding out what becomes of the recyclables after the Alaska State Fair is over – and noticed that at 4 p.m. it was dusk. I hustled out of there because I cannot drive the red car after dark. I did want to stay longer, but did not dare to do so. Then I got home and grabbed the headlight and tended to the horses. I would have liked to go for a ride.

So, I was inside by 5:30 p.m. I put wood in the stove. I am now writing this dispatch. I will work on the book chapter for a while and after I will do my body awareness studies. It requires considerable discipline to do in the evening what is far easier in the morning. Last night I instead read a book. And later, Pete and I watched a really stupid video about linguistic relativity that only intimated that there is such a thing. Language was not non-linear, but time was. I fell asleep watching the movie – and I was sitting up.

Watching bad movies makes me angry in the same way that being a non-working member of Alaska Prairie Home Companion did. And if you want to know more about what I’m talking about, go back in time, two days ago, and read those dispatches.

I’m pretty sure that in the great scope of things that my anger related to time-wastage is of little consequence. When I die, it isn’t going to matter anymore. I am just wondering – am I going to be increasingly more guarded with my time, the older I get, or have I already hit the chronologic plateau?

I am not good at managing the billion details that constitute my life. But I am adept at managing my time. So when others step in and begin to fritter it away for me, I get irate.

People who are my age or just a few years older are dying right and left. Most, like David Cassidy of the Partridge Family (who I did not know), I have never cared about. Every so often, someone who I cared about, but I did not know, dies. I pause, think about what their contribution was, and then do a 360, heading the opposite direction on Memory Lane.

Okay. Those in MY generation are starting to drop like flies. Yes, that’s what is happening. And in a few years, those in the generation after mine are going to start dropping like flies. I foresee that if I live to be 100 that I will end up being very lonely. Bummer. I didn’t buy into this life in order to end up having no family members or friends. Enough. Still on the downward slope in terms of my thinking. Could use a lot more light.

Next: 323. 11/22/17: Museum Day