Back to our daily routine.  Again, this space is mainly to keep me honest and conscientious.  If anyone else can bear the drudgery of following it, it’s an added incentive for me to stay kosher (as it were).

Speaking of (not very) kosher food, while eating my daily healthy-ish concoction (sautéd beef sausage, broccoli, eggs, and cheese), I read an article about STL Black-owned restaurants to support.  There are so many!  I was reminded how Black cuisines are literally all over the map, deriving from the diaspora they found themselves in by necessity.  Just a sampling: Jamaican, Haitian, Ethiopian, Cajun, Southern/Soul, French, and even vegan.  (Are Black hipsters a thing?)  By comparison, our Jewish diaspora cuisines seem so monolithic, even fossilized, like some Jews.  But that’s just me.

Segue to exercise, which I need after all the food-thoughts.  I did 10 (ten!) whole laps.  Didn’t even break a sweat.

Socializing: I thought I was going to Avdi’s tonight, but it turns out by “Thu.” he meant “Fri.”, so we’ll see.  I think he may need a live scheduling manager, not just an app.  He, unlike myself, has an actual life to keep track of.

The other three habits, meh, as mentioned.  Reading and writing go without saying, already assimilated.  Gardening will probably become the new meditation, which I’ll need in between juvenile meltdowns.  Any ideas?  Feel free to make a suggestion.

…and conveniently, look what I’ve rediscovered!  Paintbrush, updated.  Could be a habit suggestion?

Seventy is still hard to get my mind around, even a year later, but at least it had a nice respectable ring to it.  This month I’ll be entering countdown territory, and not the fireworks kind.  You have no idea, until you find yourself this old, what it’s like to feel invisible, irrelevant, incompetent, and staring down death.  You think I’m exaggerating, but just wait.  When your friends list includes dead people, and you find yourself still here, it’s just a matter of time.  Every morning I’m surprised to wake up, still this old!

That’s why I’m so preoccupied with spending what little time I have left wisely and well.  I wasted so much of my life making bad or mediocre choices and alienating or abandoning loved ones.  I know I can never make up for all the lost time, but I’m trying to live a better, more intentional life now and make a positive difference, however small.  Ironic how people put off doing good toward others until they’re too old or disadvantaged to be in a position to help.  I hate having to depend on the very people who should be able to rely on me by now.

All I can do is resist the tendency to become more sedentary and self-indulgent, as so many oldsters do.  It’s easy to just give in to tiredness or resign yourself to fading out.  After all, nobody really cares what you do at this point; you had your chance.  Now you’re boring, unattractive, and out of touch; already receding into the background like grey camouflage.  Few people can see the real person who still hopes and longs to have mattered.

OK, I’m done with the existential whine.  Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

So.  Those pesky, tedious habits.  I guess it’s a way to stay alive and activated, in preparation for stepping up to the plate of impending kid demands.  It’s not that I like being mundane, or boring us all to…the D-word.  In fact, I almost skipped a day, not feeling my best.  But I know how you, my dear 2.5 readership, have come to expect my predictable oldster-blather, so I won’t let you down.

Exercise: I did a few laps.

Cookery: I made a healthy chicken/veg soup.

Medi…wait for it…blah.  So 20th century.

Reading, already a habit.  Still doing it.

Writing: Doing it now.

Socializing: Pending…anyone out there wanna talk?