I’m sure all of my readers (all four of you) noticed that I have been silent for several weeks now. I feel I owe you an explanation.
I have been recovering from a sudden health “crisis”. It kept me away from work for a full month, but it didn’t really allow me to use the time to be very productive at home. If it sounds to you like I’m being evasive about the details of my condition, you are very perceptive. It really took the mickey out of me, and I’m not quite ready to go into the specifics. Maybe there is a superstitious part of me buried deep beneath the layers of sediment and skepticism that is worried I might invoke disaster by speaking its name. Call it my Voldermort moment. Someday, I might view things more irreverently and joke about it on the blog, but that post will have to wait awhile.
(Oh, and for those keeping score at home, I will tell you this much: it had nothing to do with my kidneys. ‘Cuz that stuff was hilarious.)
My doctor approved me to return to work as of about 2 weeks ago, and I’m feeling more than 90% restored to normalcy, but I don’t mind saying that a month laid-up with a disabling illness made me carefully consider my own mortality.
Who am I kidding? I’m a Gregson. We spend half our waking hours silently railing against our inevitable demises. You should see our family crest. Against a tartan background, it features the Grim Reaper trying to reach the original Son of Greg with its scythe while my ancestor lies in his death-bed, legs raised in air and kicking frantically at the Angel of Death. (I don’t know who the artist was, but he really captured the supreme exasperation on Death’s bony face. Greg Jr., and every Gregson since, would happily surrender dignity for a few extra minutes in this mortal coil.)
Actually, when I think about it, my recent brooding about my eventual “lateness” started a couple of months before my disability leave. I was reading The Lord of the Rings for the fourth time when…sorry, what?…yes, I said fourth time. I know, I know, that brings me perilously close to being a punchline on a sitcom like The Big Bang Theory, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. I first read it when I was 12 (that’s decades ago!), once more for a university English class, and once more before the movies came out. But I have never written my full name in Dwarven runes, I have never removed chest hair only to tape it to the tops of my feet, and I couldn’t tell a silmaril from a smial if the entire fate of Middle-Earth depended on it. (Also, I have never been able to remain conscious trying to get through Tolkien’s exhaustive and exhausting Appendices. Truly obsessive fans have them highlighted using at least three fluorescent colours. Mine are only marked with dried puddles of drool.)
I just happen to enjoy the books.
However, when I recently turned the final page at the end of The Return of the King, I realized that this was my fourth and (gasp!) final time I would read the trilogy. Sure, nothing is stopping me if I want to pick them up again, but I don’t want to. At least not until after 75 years or so, when I have forgotten enough to make them fresh again. I have to face it: I don’t have that kind of time left.
This realization of course led me to consider other “lasts” ahead of me: last screenings of my favourite movies, my last ride around Echo Lake on a waterski, the last healthy follicle on my failing scalp, and worst of all, my last bite of solid food. It’s all very depressing.
I have been recovering from a sudden health “crisis”. It kept me away from work for a full month, but it didn’t really allow me to use the time to be very productive at home. If it sounds to you like I’m being evasive about the details of my condition, you are very perceptive. It really took the mickey out of me, and I’m not quite ready to go into the specifics. Maybe there is a superstitious part of me buried deep beneath the layers of sediment and skepticism that is worried I might invoke disaster by speaking its name. Call it my Voldermort moment. Someday, I might view things more irreverently and joke about it on the blog, but that post will have to wait awhile.
(Oh, and for those keeping score at home, I will tell you this much: it had nothing to do with my kidneys. ‘Cuz that stuff was hilarious.)
My doctor approved me to return to work as of about 2 weeks ago, and I’m feeling more than 90% restored to normalcy, but I don’t mind saying that a month laid-up with a disabling illness made me carefully consider my own mortality.
Who am I kidding? I’m a Gregson. We spend half our waking hours silently railing against our inevitable demises. You should see our family crest. Against a tartan background, it features the Grim Reaper trying to reach the original Son of Greg with its scythe while my ancestor lies in his death-bed, legs raised in air and kicking frantically at the Angel of Death. (I don’t know who the artist was, but he really captured the supreme exasperation on Death’s bony face. Greg Jr., and every Gregson since, would happily surrender dignity for a few extra minutes in this mortal coil.)
Actually, when I think about it, my recent brooding about my eventual “lateness” started a couple of months before my disability leave. I was reading The Lord of the Rings for the fourth time when…sorry, what?…yes, I said fourth time. I know, I know, that brings me perilously close to being a punchline on a sitcom like The Big Bang Theory, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. I first read it when I was 12 (that’s decades ago!), once more for a university English class, and once more before the movies came out. But I have never written my full name in Dwarven runes, I have never removed chest hair only to tape it to the tops of my feet, and I couldn’t tell a silmaril from a smial if the entire fate of Middle-Earth depended on it. (Also, I have never been able to remain conscious trying to get through Tolkien’s exhaustive and exhausting Appendices. Truly obsessive fans have them highlighted using at least three fluorescent colours. Mine are only marked with dried puddles of drool.)
I just happen to enjoy the books.
However, when I recently turned the final page at the end of The Return of the King, I realized that this was my fourth and (gasp!) final time I would read the trilogy. Sure, nothing is stopping me if I want to pick them up again, but I don’t want to. At least not until after 75 years or so, when I have forgotten enough to make them fresh again. I have to face it: I don’t have that kind of time left.
This realization of course led me to consider other “lasts” ahead of me: last screenings of my favourite movies, my last ride around Echo Lake on a waterski, the last healthy follicle on my failing scalp, and worst of all, my last bite of solid food. It’s all very depressing.
You know what, it may only be 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon, but if you need me, I’ll be in bed curled up in a fetal position, slowly rocking back-and-forth with the covers over my head. That is, unless my health takes a sudden dramatic turn for the worse. Then I’ll have my legs in the air, kicking like my life depends on it.
Let's be honest, I doubt that hairy feet (among other traits) is something you lack in a hobbit-like appearance.
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