Halfway Home

Hello all. Hope everyone had a good weekend.

The big news in this corner of the blogosphere is that I received my first vaccination this past week. I'd been attempting to line up an appointment for several weeks (i.e. as soon as I was eligible), using a number of tools to search for appointments. 

One thing I learned quickly is that she who hesitates is lost - or at least shut out from that round of appointments. You basically had to responds literally within seconds upon receiving a notification or everything would be booked. 

I finally landed one through the state-run program, and was scheduled to get one in Boston on Friday afternoon at the Hynes Convention Center in the Back Bay neighborhood (for those unfamiliar with Boston, think the traditional image of Boston, with the brick house buildings and the gas lamp style streetlights; that's the Back Bay). While getting into and out of the city is a hassle, thanks to Boston's notoriously awful traffic, and I'd been hoping to find something closer, I was still genuinely pleased to finally have an appointment. 

Just as I was leaving to head into Boston on Friday, I received one of the "appointments available" text message alerts. Out of habit I opened it up - and there were suddenly multiple vaccinations available at multiple nearby locations. I hadn't seen a single one closer than about 25+ miles until this.

I decided to click the link to see what was available, expecting the usual notice that all available were taken - but lo and behold, I was able to snag one in the next town over. I could hold the reservation for three minutes, so I quickly checked to see if it was still possible to cancel the appointnent in Boston, I didn't want to take a time slot away from anyone else at either location, needless to say. Fortunately, it was possible, so I cancelled in Boston and registered for the shot at the nearby pharmacy. 

And how did the appointment (using the Pfizer vaccine, in case anyone was curious) go? Just fine. As predicted, my arm was sore around the injection site, particularly for about 8-10 hours afterwards. It's still a bit sore, but basically it's just slightly more than a typical shot. Other than that, I just feel more tired than usual today, which is also common. I've taken it easy today (no 10K runs today, needless to say).

I'm now registered for the second shot, in three weeks time, which I am very much looking forward to. I think I've mentioned that my parents, sister, nephew, and niece have already been vaccinated, so I was the lone straggler. I'm looking forward to being to see my sister and my nephew C in person without a mask for the first time in a long, long time.

So, as the post's title indicates, I'm halfway there. I felt as if I've been in one of those suspended states of animation for quite some time on a number of fronts, as past posts have indicated. Hopefully the new apartment (which I'm really enjoying - as is my little menagerie in the photo above) and this are a sign things may start to move in the right direction. Fingers crossed.

That will do it for this post. Hope everyone has a great week. :c)

***

Bonus photo: this was the view from my kitchen window on Friday, April 16th:

Suprise! We wound up with about an inch where I live, but friends in central Massachusetts received over half a foot (~16 cm). It was also very cold for April here: just above freezing all day. It was 80°F/25°C just a few days before. Similarly, yesterday was sunny/75°F (23°C); today was rainy/48°F)(°C). .Such is spring in New England...

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A few songs to wrap up this post. We'll begin with one from the late, great Levon Helm. This is his version of Buddy & Julie Miller's "Wide River To Cross," from his wonderful 2007 album Dirt Farmer:

Here's a gorgeous Julie Miller song - hymn, really - from her 1997 album Blue Pony. This is "By Way Of Sorrow":

I listen to this one a lot when I'm feeling down. She is a brilliant songwriter (as is her husband Buddy).

Finally, one last Julie Miller song, covered by Emmylou Harris on her landmark 1995 album Wrecking Ball. Here's her stunning version of "All My Tears."

As the unmistakable sound indicates, Wrecking Ball was produced by Daniel Lanois, a longtime favorite of this blog. I was fortunate enough to see Emmylou tour behind this album, with Daniel Lanois and his band backing her up. It was an incredible show, as you would imagine.

Until next time, then...

Musings: A Beautiful Forest

Hello all. Hope everyone had a good week, and is having a good weekend. 

We're expecting more snow tomorrow here in Boston - not a lot by local standards (3-5"/7.5-12.5 cm), but we had a storm earlier in the week that dumped over 16 inches in the town where I live, part of a trend of above-average snowfall so far this winter. One of the few positive things about working from home continuously since last March is not having to deal with commuting in bad weather. Small blessings, and so on.

As mentioned in my posts from last weekend, I'm determined to write much more often this year. One of the ways I'm going to encourage myself to follow through on that is to say up front what I want to actually write about. I'm generally a pretty determined person when I set a goal for myself, but I can get derailed when my depression flares up. When that happens, just getting through the day is an achievement.

That being said, I already mentioned the first thing I want to write about in my last post: my GCS (Gender Confirmation Surgery), which I had in Septembr 2017 with Dr. Brassard in Montreal. I'd planned to write this a long time ago, but, well, see above. So, that is first on the agenda.

After that are two topics - projects, really, given their size and complexity - are things I've had in mind for some time - since I started this blog in the first case, and in the past year for the second. So, this is just a brief post to get myself on the record, with witnesses (virtually speaking) for those times when I need to push myself.

For more, follow along below the jump. :c)

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Apologies For The Radio Silence...

I know I have been pretty quiet lately. I'm still dealing with the emotional fallout around the holidays with my family, as well as more stress at work and some ongoing personal matters.

Quite honestly, it takes nearly all of my energy to get out of bed in the morning, and by the time I get home I am so drained I can barely stay awake. I know it's a combination of all of the stress from the matters I mentioned above, as well as everything that has happened the past two-plus years, and the time of year.

I have SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder - which is at its worst this time of year. Making matters worse, this has been a particularly brutal winter so far. With the exception of a few days last week, it has been much colder than normal here since the beginning of November. We have also had a stormy winter - we are barely a month into the official season, and we will likely surpass our annual average by the time tonight's storm (8-10 inches) is finished.

I know the SAD will go away, and hopefully eventually the lethargy, sadness, and exhaustion will as well. But right now I just need to do the best I can to cope with it all as best I can and hope the better days ahead get here sooner rather than later.

***

Some appropriate music for this post from Daniel Lanois, who hails from northern Ontario. This is from Acadie, his 1989 debut album. This gorgeous, haunting song is called "Ice":

This song is precisely how winter feels to me. Remarkable for an artist to capture something as ephermal as an entire season in a single song. But then, Daniel Lanois is a remarkable artist.

He produced or co-produced, among many others, U2's The Unforgettable Fire, Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby, Peter Gabriel's So, Robbie Robertson's self-titled solo debut album, Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind, the Neville Brothers' Yellow Moon, and Neil Young's La Noise. If you like any of those albums, you will like his solo albums. Guaranteed.

HRT: Year One (a/k/a The Breast Is Yet To Come)

Wow... a year. It hardly seems possible.

It seems like just a moment ago that I was standing in my bedroom for what seemed like an eternity, staring at those pills in my hand <>.

And then... the journey began. :c)

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Cold Cold Cold

As a big fan of the late, lamented, My Name Is Earl, I am a believer in karma.

For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Earl was a thirty-something petty thief. After winning $100,000 in the lottery, he is promptly hit by a car while celebrating. In the hospital he becomes a firm believer in karma the way most of us do: he hears about it while watching Carson Daly in a morphine-induced stupor. 

To turn his life around, he puts together a list of every bad thing he has ever done and every person he has hurt and vows to make amends. Each episode dealt with his attempt to cross another item off his list.

My list, thankfully, isn't as long as Earl's. But I do have one, as karma occasionally reminds me.

Like today.

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