internet | Bertram's Blog

Who Visits My Blog

September 25, 2020 — Pat Bertram

Someone asked me yesterday if anyone reads my blog. She seemed shocked when I told her people all around the world have visited this blog. Most come from the USA and other English speaking countries. Others come from countries I’ve never even heard of, and yet, someone in those countries has heard of me. What an amazing thing the internet is!

Here is a map showing where my visitors originate:

Pink shows visitors, and the darker the pink, the more visitors. Apparently, if I am reading the map correctly, the only places from which no visitors have come are Svalbard, Turkmenistan, Western Sahara, Guinea-Bissau, Chad, and Central African Republic. I find this utterly astonishing. Not to be disingenuous, but I simply can’t imagine being interesting enough to attract so many different people.

Here is the incredible list of countries where visitors have come from. (The number represents visitations only, not views, since often people click on more than one blog entry, and each click is a view):

United States	400,695
United Kingdom	71,399
Canada	47,758
India	43,550
Australia	27,431
Philippines	8,063
Pakistan	7,222
Ireland	7,190
South Africa	5,205
Malaysia	4,555
New Zealand	4,548
Singapore	4,230
France	3,868
Germany	3,578
European Union	2,706
Indonesia	2,385
Netherlands	2,166
Brazil	1,754
United Arab Emirates	1,670
Italy	1,574
Hong Kong SAR China	1,434
Spain	1,381
Russia	1,358
Norway	1,297
Saudi Arabia	1,153
Thailand	1,140
Nigeria	1,,136
Denmark	1,130
Sweden	1,102
Japan	1,095
Vietnam	1,089
Bangladesh	1,075
Turkey	1,015
Lebanon	987
Belgium	966
Romania	935
Mexico	901
Kenya	882
South Korea	839
Switzerland	803
Greece	772
Poland	761
Argentina	706
Nepal	682
Israel	630
Egypt	613
Sri Lanka	601
Portugal	577
Jamaica	574
Finland	500
Trinidad & Tobago	473
Austria	462
Taiwan	433
Qatar	405
Hungary	383
Ukraine	362
Malta	351
Jordan	349
Ghana	343
Cambodia	332
Serbia	329
Czech Republic	314
Mauritius	312
Bulgaria	310
China	291
Morocco	278
Kuwait	275
Croatia	264
Slovakia	242
Puerto Rico	236
American Samoa	233
Colombia	232
Bahrain	219
Slovenia	216
Oman	196
Iraq	186
Tunisia	186
Albania	181
Algeria	176
Tanzania	172
Chile	170
Cyprus	160
Bahamas	158
Uganda	149
Zimbabwe	149
Palestinian Territories	148
Myanmar (Burma)	148
Lithuania	147
Estonia	135
Georgia	126
Iceland	124
Latvia	124
British Virgin Islands	123
Peru	117
Macedonia	107
Ecuador	106
Costa Rica	106
Venezuela	104
Guyana	103
Botswana	102
Brunei	98
Bosnia & Herzegovina	98
Belize	96
Panama	93
Armenia	92
Isle of Man	90
Jersey	86
Maldives	83
Barbados	83
Fiji	82
Bhutan	75
Luxembourg	75
Azerbaijan	74
Namibia	71
Afghanistan	70
Dominican Republic	67
Zambia	63
Syria	62
Kazakhstan	61
Yemen	59
Antigua & Barbuda	59
Ethiopia	58
Moldova	57
Grenada	56
Guatemala	55
Papua New Guinea	53
Malawi	52
Guernsey	51
Belarus	51
Macau SAR China	50
Bermuda	50
St. Lucia	49
Uruguay	48
Cayman Islands	47
Guam	46
Cameroon	46
St. Vincent & Grenadines	45
El Salvador	43
Libya	38
Senegal	38
Laos	34
Lesotho	34
Curaçao	33
Rwanda	32
Montenegro	31
Gibraltar	31
Bolivia	31
Honduras	31
Paraguay	29
Mongolia	27
Aruba	27
Nicaragua	27
Swaziland	26
U.S. Virgin Islands	25
Mozambique	24
Monaco	24
Suriname	21
Sudan	20
St. Kitts & Nevis	20
Dominica	19
Côte d’Ivoire	17
Seychelles	17
Northern Mariana Islands	16
Somalia	15
Kyrgyzstan	14
Åland Islands	14
Uzbekistan	12
Congo – Kinshasa	12
Angola	10
Vanuatu	9
Madagascar	9
Réunion	8
Anguilla	7
Liberia	7
Guadeloupe	7
Djibouti	7
Solomon Islands	6
Caribbean Netherlands	6
Faroe Islands	6
Sierra Leone	6
Turks & Caicos Islands	4
Cook Islands	4
Haiti	4
Benin	4
Liechtenstein	3
Burundi	3
French Polynesia	3
Iran	3
Gambia	3
Gabon	3
Cuba	3
Martinique	2
Sint Maarten	2
Tajikistan	2
Timor-Leste	2
Mali	2
Micronesia	2
Falkland Islands	1
French Guiana	1
St. Helena	1
Vatican City	1
Samoa	1
Burkina Faso	1
South Sudan	1
Mauritania	1
Netherlands Antilles	1
Niger	1
Congo – Brazzaville	1
Cape Verde	1
Kiribati	1
Marshall Islands	1
Montserrat	1
Greenland	1

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in blogging, culture, internet, life. Tags: blog stats, blog visitors, list of blog visitors, list of countries who have visited my blog, views vs visitations, who reads my blog. 14 Comments »

Happy Thirteenth Bloggiversary to Me!

September 24, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I created this blog exactly thirteen years ago today, back when I hadn’t yet become a published author, back when I had just acquired my first computer and didn’t even know what a blog was. I had read how important blogging was for authors, both as a way of getting known and as a way of connecting with readers, so I decided to “act as if” I were going to be published in the hopes of making it happen. I had nothing to say, no one to say it to, no reason to say anything, but I didn’t let that stop me. I started blogging on September 24, 2007, and haven’t stopped since.

Did acting as if I were going to get published work? Perhaps, though there is no direct connection that I know of. Still, one and a half years after starting this blog, my first two books were published. I now have eight books available: five suspense novels, one mystery, and two non-fiction books about grief. A ninth book will soon be published, a novel that my publisher said, “is playful, fun and well-written. It spans genres, so I’m not sure if there is an exploitable target audience. I don’t care. I like it.”

Two-and-half years after I started this blog, my life mate/soul mate died, and his death catapulted me into a world of such pain that it bled over into my posts. This blog became a place where I could try to make sense of what I was going through, to offer comfort and be comforted, to find my way to renewed life. And I struck a chord with people who were also dealing with grief. It’s no wonder my top posts are grief related: What Do You Say to Someone Who is Grieving at Christmas? with 82,261 views and The Five Major Challenges We Face During the Second Year of Grief with 38,122 views.

This blog sustained me during the years I cared for my father after Jeff’s death, and it gave me a place to rest when my father died four years later, and I was thrown out into the world, alone and orphaned.

And this blog offered me a place to call home when I set out alone on a five-month, 12,000 mile cross-country road trip, gave me a place where I could talk about all the wonders I was seeing. Often on that trip, when I was between visits with online friends, I thought of William Cowper’s words: How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet. And this blog became a place where I could whisper, “Solitude is sweet.”

Currently, as I am continuing to settle into a house of my own, it’s nice to know that whatever life throws at me, whatever problems I encounter, whatever challenges and adventures — and joys — come my way, this blog will be here for me.

During the past thirteen years, I have written 2,842 blogs, received 19,481 comments, and garnered 873,352 views. It amazes me that anyone wants to read anything that I write here. This is so much a place for just letting my thoughts roam, for thinking through problems, and (I admit it) for pontificating a bit. It’s been a kick, writing this blog, and I want to thank all of you for indulging my whims and whimsys.

Thank you for reading. Thank you all for your comments, your likes, your support. They have meant more to me (especially this past ten and a half years) than you can ever imagine.

***

Posted in Adventure, blogging, grief, internet, life. Tags: acting as if, blogging, bloggiversary, daily blogging, grief and blogging. 13 Comments »

Disappearing

September 16, 2020 — Pat Bertram

My contractor keeps disappearing on me, but now I’m wondering if perhaps it is I who am disappearing, maybe becoming so faint and indistinct that I am fading away.

Although diets don’t work for me and never have, I’ve been concerned about my knees, so I’ve been on a diet this whole year with an occasional day off to see if it would reset my metabolism (otherwise, my body gets more and more efficient, and I end up gaining weight when I should be losing). I have lost but a pound, which is absurd for the amount of effort I’ve put in, so I’m thinking that instead of losing weight, I’ve been losing substance, making it difficult for others to see me or consider my needs.

For example, today at the grocery store, I stood at the counter while two employees talked and talked and talked and talked. Finally, I asked if there was anyone who could check out my groceries, and one woman said, “Yes. Right here.” Meaning that she would help me at the counter where I was standing. But she continued to yap until I very pointedly cleared my throat. She gave me a dirty look and finally started ringing up groceries. (And people wonder why I don’t mind self-checkout. Too bad it’s not available at the local store.)

It’s not just in person that I’m disappearing. I also seem to be disappearing from the electronic world. First, there was Facebook and their blocking my blog (they said it was spam). I can still look in on the site occasionally, can still post discussions to my writing group, can still post promos for my books on my author page, but beyond that, they have disappeared me.

Even this blog is playing the disappearing game. As I mentioned before, the blog platform is discontinuing the editor box (like the box where you write an email) I’ve always used. The new editor is way more complicated, though I have learned to use it and even like a couple of the features. But it was not my choice. If I hadn’t given in and become familiar with the new editor, I would have disappeared from the blogging world too.

And then there is my phone. Apparently, my email providers will no longer accept my use of the third-party app that came with my aged phone. So . . . poof. More disappearance. I won’t be getting email notifications on my phone any more, but I don’t think that will be a problem. I’ll just wait until I go online with my computer and check the emails then.

As if all that isn’t enough, my bank disappeared my password. Again, not a problem. It’s something they do periodically and I changed it, but it does seem suspicious that the disappearance would occur just when I am disappearing elsewhere.

The only solution seems to be for me to figure out what sort of diet will allow me to lose weight and at the same time add back the substance I lost so that I don’t fade into the background any more.

***

Posted in blogging, internet, life. Tags: being ignored by grocery store clerks, blocked from Facebook, diets don't work for me, I feel like I am disappearing, third party email apps for smart phone, trying to diet, WordPress Block Editor. 9 Comments »

The Current State of This Blog

July 22, 2020 — Pat Bertram

Apparently, Facebook isn’t the only entity that thinks my blog is spam. A couple of days ago, a friend called make sure I’m okay because she hasn’t been getting my blog via email, and she worried that something had happened to me. I told her I was fine and that I was still blogging every day (even though I don’t always have something to say) and suggested she check her spam folder.

Sure enough, the last four blogs had been classified by her email provider as spam.

I think I know what the problem is — the brief bio at the bottom of every post. Even though it is just a small fraction of the post itself, apparently the spam-eating bots have been picking up on the duplication. (One message from FB mentioned that repetition was considered spam, which corroborates this surmise.)

I never used to put anything at the bottom of my posts because it seemed redundant — after all, all the information about me and my books are on sidebars and pages — but some sites illegally repost blogs without attribution, and I used to find various of my articles on those sites. (I’m sure such sites are still around, though I’ve stopped looking.) Since there’s often nothing that can be done about the theft, one suggestion I came across to counteract the attack was to make sure every blog had a bio and links so that if anyone came across the blog on other sites, it would refer back to me.

I’m glad I got in the habit — phone apps for the various blog platforms generally don’t allow for sidebars, so no one who reads my blog via their phone would see who I am and what other things I write without the bio. It’s not a problem for regular readers since they know who I am, but many new people find me via search engines (most often for questions about grief) and I want them to know about my grief book.

I could, of course, do a new bio every day if the bio really is the problem, but then I probably wouldn’t post something every day, either, because it would be too much extra work. I could also do several different bios and rotate so that the repetition comes once a week rather than every day, but my stubborn nature won’t let me be accommodating (though I did remove the link to my website, in case the links were the culprit).

And anyway, the bio itself might not be the problem. If it is, I’m grateful — it was the impetus to get me off Facebook, at least for now, and I must admit, I’m much happier living in my own little world without the contention and opinionation and strife that comes with the FB territory.

So, since I’m maintaining the current state of this blog, if you generally get my posts via email and you happen to notice that I have disappeared, please check your spam folder. I’m probably there.

***

Posted in blogging, internet, life. Tags: bio at end of blog, blog going to spam folder, blog repetition, blogging every day, Facebook won't let me post links to my blog, postaday, repetition considered to be spam. 7 Comments »

Triumph Over Obstacles

June 25, 2020 — Pat Bertram

The garage door is finally installed! The electronic opener isn’t installed, just the door itself, but that alone is a major accomplishment. Up until now, the door was mostly just propped into the opening to prevent trespassers, but now it’s on its track.

I found it interesting that today’s tarot card pick was the chariot. As usual, my question was what I needed to know today, and as usual, it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know, but it did seem apropos, not just because of the car/chariot synchronicity, but also because of the card’s meaning of triumph over obstacles.

The triumph didn’t belong to me since I had nothing to do with the installation except for a few sympathetic or encouraging remarks, but it was definitely a triumph over obstacles for the worker who had to try to make sense of nonsensical directions. (The instructions read as if they had been translated from one archaic language to another and then finally into English.) Even once the directions were puzzled out, the diagrams and photos illustrating the directions caused problems. They turned out to be backward images of what they were supposed to be. Luckily, the worker finally figured it out. I can’t imagine the horrors the workers will encounter when installing the opener, but that’s a situation for another day.

I kept wandering into the garage to see what was going on. I worried that the poor guy would think I was checking up on him, which I wasn’t — I trust him. It was more that I enjoyed seeing the door take shape.

And because — I admit it — I was bored. Since I’ve been staying away from Facebook, I have way more time and mental freedom than I’m used to. There are no conflicting political statements to befuddle me, no mined conversations with explosives ready to be tripped, no veiled (and unveiled) insults to be fielded. I don’t appreciate Facebook’s ignoring me and my request to have the block on my blog removed, but I especially don’t appreciate their doing it at this particular time because it makes it seem as if my boycott is a political statement rather than a personal one. Apparently, some major companies are boycotting Facebook because FB is not reining in those who disagree with the current political philosophy, while other people are boycotting FB because FB is deleting the content of those who disagree with that same philosophy, a good example of damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Or maybe the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Either way, it’s confusing. Either way, they are herding people to a particular way of thinking. And either way, I’m out of it for now, which is one way to triumph over the obstacles FB has placed in my path.

The point is that when I got tired of The Wheel of Time world, instead of wandering onto Facebook to see what’s going on, I wandered out to the garage to see what’s going on. Luckily, the worker didn’t seem concerned, and in fact seemed pleased to have someone to commiserate with and, at the end, to share his success.

Anyway, it’s my garage, or rather, it will be. Eventually. For now, it is still the garage builder’s workspace.

***

Posted in internet, life. Tags: boycotting facebook, FB blocked my blog, FB blocking content, garage door, garage door installation, instructions written wrong, mental freedom, the wheel of time. 4 Comments »

Learning by Osmosis

June 18, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I haven’t had a lot of problems with Windows 10 in the year and a half that I’ve been using it. It’s intuitive enough that I quickly picked up any differences between that and the previous systems I had. (First Vista, then Windows 7, which was basically Vista with a different name to offset Vista’s bad press.)

I prefer learning by intuition and osmosis when possible — it’s a lot easier than hard mental labor, for sure. (Most of what I know has come simply from reading, which is the ultimate osmosis medium. Read enough books, and things start to sink in.) This preference for intuition, osmosis, instinct, is what keeps me playing around with the decks of tarot that I inherited. If I finger them enough, perhaps the knowledge of how to read the cards will seep into my mind and I won’t have to actually study them or memorize them. The truth is, I’d like to know what they are all about, but I’m not sure I want to know badly enough to do the work. And I’m not sure I want to know what is hidden in the far recesses of my psyche anyway.

Meantime, there is the computer. It’s a wonderful tool for so many things, my most recent use being to translate an instruction booklet from an obscure Italian tarot deck into English. It’s slow going, but an interesting exercise.

One thing I do not like about the computer, Windows 10 in particular, is the way this system does updates. In previous systems, I could choose which updates to install, and if I uninstalled an update, it stayed uninstalled. Not now. There is no way to choose what to update. Windows 10 updates automatically. Oh, I could stop it updating automatically for a day or week, but then I’d have to install all the updates at once, and I’d be back where I started from. Besides, I don’t want to stop necessary updates, just problematic ones.

I mentioned yesterday that my computer no longer talks to my printer. I found out that a particular update caused the problem with the spooler, so I uninstalled the update. My printer worked perfectly! Yay. Well today, Windows reinstalled the update. Boo. I have to restart the computer to make it take effect, and I was able to put it off for a week, so I have a respite. (But if I have to restart the computer for any other reason during the week, I’m out of luck.) The best I can hope for is that in the interim, since this is a known problem, Windows will come up with a fix. I suppose if it doesn’t, I’ll uninstall the update again. Or wait until I need to use the printer and then uninstall it. So not optimal. So not an intuitive way of dealing with the matter.

And speaking of learning by osmosis — I am especially grateful someone other than me is installing the garage door. Though it seems that installing a door should be intuitive, especially for people who have done it before, the instructions for this door look as complicated as instructions for creating cold fusion would be. Not only are the directions for three different doors included in the booklet and not only does the order of those directions put the first parts last, and the last parts somewhere in the middle, but the instructions read as if they were translated from one archaic language to another and then finally into English. Even though I think putting up the door should be a two-man job, it’s a good thing there’s only one guy working, otherwise the two workers would spend all of their time discussing what the instructions mean.

Come to think of it, as complicated as the tarot is, it sure seems easier than computers and garage doors. Maybe I won’t have any problem learning how to read the cards whether by osmosis or intuition or instinct or even plain hard memory work.

Assuming, that is, I decide I want to.

***

Posted in internet, life. Tags: installing a garage door, learning tarot, translating tarot booklet, troubles with a printer, uninstalling updates, Windows 10, windows 10 automatically updates, windows 10 updater. 7 Comments »

Living in Controversial Times

June 7, 2020 — Pat Bertram

During all my years online (almost thirteen), I’ve been careful not to be too controversial. I am not a person who likes contention or welcomes insults. Too many people are reactionary, responding with emotion or the party line when anyone disagrees with their pet view of the world, and it’s not worth attracting such attention.

Admittedly, I don’t like people disagreeing me, either, but if that disagreement is accompanied by thoughtful (meaning full of thought) or thought-provoking ideas, it often leads to a new understanding of the matter. But rote remarks that simply iterate popular opinions don’t accomplish anything except to stop any dialogue and possible accord.

Unfortunately, this controversial time, with all the wrong information, misuse of statistics, and outright lies that pass for knowledge about first The Bob and then the riots has made me a bit less than close-mouthed. I’m still trying to be circumspect, so when a person I saw in real life disagreed with a comment I made, I let it go. It’s not worth discussing points of disagreement when you know nothing will come of it. Unfortunately, the person continued the discussion on Facebook with an insulting comment. Matters came to a head when I posted a controversial video on Facebook that pointed out some of the fallacies that are being disseminated, and sure enough, this person left another insulting comment. The comments weren’t bad, not what most people are faced with, but I didn’t want to deal with the situation. So I blocked the person. I’ve never done that before, but it seemed the right thing to do. I don’t know what I’ll do when I see this person around town, but that’s not a problem for today.

It just goes to show that I really do need to stay away from Facebook and other such sites, especially if I ever again let myself express unpopular opinions. I haven’t yet deleted my account, and I don’t plan to, but I am not happy with FB’s non-response to my appeals to have them remove the block they’ve put on my blog.

Luckily, I have plenty of offline things to do, such as organizing the things that are to be stored in the garage when it is finished. As hard as that work will be, especially with my bum knee, it’s easier than living in controversial times.

***

Posted in internet, life. Tags: can't get Facebook to remove a block, disagreeing with people, disseminating wrong information, don't like controversy, don't like reactionary people, small town, staying away from controversy, staying away from Facebook. 10 Comments »

Changes

May 24, 2020 — Pat Bertram

Jeff and I kept our expenses to a minimum by stocking up on things when they went on sale, and really loading up on items that had been deeply discounted. I don’t see those kinds of sales any more, which is good because I no longer like keeping a lot of things on hand. Having to get rid of cases of food and paper goods when I packed up after he died was just one more stab in the heart, especially since I couldn’t find a place to donate them. The churches didn’t even want them. I don’t remember what I ended up doing — I think an older woman found me crying and said she’d find a way to distribute the items. (She also understood my tears since she’d been widowed three times and admitted that she still cried for all of her husbands.)

The wheel of time turns, and now here I am, once again stocking up on certain items like paper towels — not because paper towels are on sale for twenty-five cents a package (the sale price Jeff and I paid), but because large packages of paper goods are the only sizes available to me right now.

I’m still not stocking up on food. I prefer to eat fresh vegetables and those don’t stay fresh for very long. I don’t use many canned goods or frozen foods. And the last time I looked for meat, I walked away without buying any because the prices were more than I wanted to pay — double what they had been a couple weeks ago. Luckily, proteins like tuna and eggs and cheese continue to be within my budget. I’m grateful I can still make it to the local grocery store once a week, and things I can’t get around here, I’ve been able to get online. I might continue shopping this way even when I feel more comfortable going to a bigger town to visit bigger stores — when shipping is free, it makes more sense to order online than to pay for gas, even when I have to stock up to get the free shipping.

I’m sure there will be other changes to my life — or maybe what I mean is I’m sure I will keep the changes I have made to accommodate these times. I will have to become sociable again, of course, at least to a small extent, but I doubt I’ll ever go back to having a full calendar. I’ve become so used to being by myself that it will take more energy than I have to get myself out of the house. (Though it will be nice seeing friends again.)

For all I know, even when the library reopens, I might keep rereading The Wheel of Time series as I did once before when there wasn’t a library available to me. It’s not that the work is so great, it’s that it is so vast. By the time I reach the end of what is essentially a 4,000,000-word novel, I’ve forgotten many of the connections and relationships that led to the final confrontation, so I need to reread the books to see what I missed. And by the end of the second read through, I’ve forgotten other connections.

And so it goes, the wheel of time. Around and around and around.

***

Posted in internet, life. Tags: changes due to the pandemic, changes in my life, making changes, shopping online, stocking up on food, stocking up on paper goods, Wheel of Time. 7 Comments »

Letter to Facebook

May 22, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I’m not sure it’s worth continuing to fight Facebook over their blocking this blog from their site, but people I respect have urged me to write them a letter and send it by USPS. So, here is the letter I came up with. What do you think?

Facebook Customer Service
1 Hacker Way
Menlo Park, CA 94025

To Whom it May Concern:

On April 29, Facebook erroneously blocked my blog from the networking site. They said the blog goes against community standards for spam, but it didn’t go against any such standards when I was paying to boost various posts.

Because of the block, all links to my blog posts, included the boosted posts, have disappeared as well as the comments and discussions the posts generated. I have left messages via the onsite support center concerning this matter, but all such messages have been ignored.

Please, a thirty-second perusal of bertramsblog.com will tell you that the blog is not spam. It’s a personal blog, a diary of sorts, telling about my grief after the death of my husband and how I learned to survive the loss. These posts have helped tens of thousands of people deal with their own grief and were often shared on FB. Although I don’t talk about grief much anymore, writing instead about being a new homeowner, people still find my posts inspirational since the posts tell them that there is life and maybe even happiness after grief.

If you won’t unblock my blog, please refund the $355 I spend boosting articles that you have since removed from your site. You have also removed all mention of these ads, but I can send you documentation of these payments on Paypal.

Thank you for your consideration.

Pat Bertram
https://www.facebook.com/PatBertramAuthor/
https://www.facebook.com/patbertram
https://bertramsblog.com/

Posted in blogging, internet, life, writing. Tags: blog about grief, FB blocked my blog, letter to Facebook, my blog is not spam. 16 Comments »

An Insular Life

May 20, 2020 — Pat Bertram

When I started with the internet, blogging first then signing up for various networking platforms, I had no patience for people who posted about the minutiae of their lives. I especially didn’t care what they ate — it didn’t seem to have any relevance in the grand scheme of a thoughtful literary life, and it certainly had nothing to do with my objective of making a name for myself as an author.

Well, here I am, a dozen or so years later, writing about my latest meal. In my defense, with the isolation, meals are basically the only thing I do of any value. And generally, if I stick to a healthy diet, my meals are boring. Salads get tiresome, as does any sort of vegetable eaten regularly for any length of time, and trying to find healthy proteins is a lost cause.

Today I decided to put some effort into making something different. (It was either this or ordering a pizza I really do not need). It might not look like much, but this spinach mushroom quiche alternative (baked eggs without a crust) turned out to be quite good.

I’m continuing to wean myself away from the computer, which leaves me with little to do but read. Since I finished my emergency stash of books, and since my email to the library with a list of books for me to pick up curbside resulted in no action, I’m in emergency-emergency mode — immersed in The Wheel of Time, a 4,000,000 word literary work that I’ve read many times before. The best thing I can say about it (besides its length — no need to look for books to read for a long time!) is that it has to be the quintessential good vs evil story. Or more accurately — sort of good some of the time vs, mostly evil all of the time.

It’s exhausting, not just the constant conflicts between the good and evil, the good and good, and evil and evil, but the sheer amount of activity. All the characters are always on the move, traveling from one part of their world to another, on foot, by horse, or by ship.

And the food they eat is even less interesting than what I generally eat — so often, they are on short rations of porridge, cheese, dried meat, and crusty rolls or bread sometimes flecked with weevils. (I must admit, though, that bread or rolls hot from the oven does sound wonderful. Minus the weevils, of course.)

I’m getting to the point where I can’t imagine a different life, though I don’t know if that is a good thing or a not-so-good thing. But it is what I have, at least for now.

And anyway, even if I couldn’t find anything more relevant in the grand scheme of things than my insular life to write about, at least I’m still writing every day.

That’s something to the good. At least, I hope it is.

***

Posted in blogging, internet, life. Tags: baked eggs, crustless quiche, emergency stash of books, food in the wheel of time, isolation, meals in isolation, the wheel of time. 9 Comments »

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