pot-pourri

I haven't posted much lately. Not for lack of writing — I've half-written almost fifty posts in the past few months, mostly of a reflective nature. I've been doing a lot of navel-gazing, which has been hard but good for me (at least if you believe Socrates). But I'm once again going to hold off on saying any of those things aloud and instead toss out a few fragments of what's on my mind today.

I just bought new pants, and my waist size is down four inches since the stroke. Small progress, but progress it is, and I'll take it. That's pretty much all from diet, as the damned foot injury has kept me from doing any significant exercise for a year. But that really does seem to be mostly over now (it's still painful, but not excruciatingly so, and the pain seems to be independent of how much I walk). So I'm going to be trying to exercise more and accelerate my progress. I'm tired of being a lump on a log.

Also, in the small miracles department, I am now the proud owner of a pair of men's dress shoes that don't hurt. They were, of course, by far the cheapest of the half-dozen pair I tried. Zappos rocks.

Another friend has been diagnosed with cancer. His prognosis appears to be good, though his diagnosis is not yet complete. I have offered, as I always do, to answer any questions or just commiserate. But I realized last year, while another friend was going through chemo, that fifteen years difference in cancer treatment is much the same thing as fifteen years difference in computers. My friend last year was able to work throughout chemo: I used to come home from chemo and collapse for three days, and be unable to keep food down for twice that. I had a hard time not saying "you don't know how lucky you are" — which, all else aside, would be a truly bizarre thing to say to a cancer patient. So for all that I still want to be there for other people going through the experience, I'm not sure I really have much to offer. Imagine some guy who was a complete master of everything you could to on a Mac II ci, and hasn't touched a computer since. Would you want computer advice from this man?

And now for two things completely different: two Internet videos that I came across this week, both delightful, in wholly dissimilar ways.

The trailer for Paprika, "the latest eye-popping anime from Satoshi Kon." If the movie is half as good as the trailer, it will be pretty damned cool.

A paradox: A film clip from 1930 of a vaudeville dance routine that it is far too easy to watch as a parody of the subsequent 75 years of popular dance: the twist, the funky chicken, Riverdance!, swing dancing, break dancing, disco, even the moon walk... I've watched it a half-dozen times and my grin just keeps getting bigger.