Progress reports

Sunday 10/12/25

My mother had the follow-up consultation for her gall bladder procedure. All appears well. I think she's feeling better. She is usually pretty active and seems to have had a number of things going on over these two plus weeks. I was walking a fair amount yesterday and spoke to her at length.

The kids went into Chicago with their parents to meet up with a cousin of ours who was in town in connection with her job for the marathon. Parent-teacher meetings were this past week at school. I don't know how the young man fared, but I did hear about the two girls from my mom.

Amelia, dubbed "little tirent" once by her sister--which became "LT"--was praised by her teacher for being so kind, someone who brought kids together, the most voluble of all of the students, this beacon, apparently, of affability and good nature and humor, who knows all of her letters.

Well...we were very surprised. Amelia isn't always...how shall I put this...the nicest person ever. But I guess she has this Jekyll and Hyde thing mastered pretty well.

Lilah learned to read when she was in kindergarten during COVID, just by hanging around in the room with her older brother while he was doing his remote work--you know, through the screen. Lilah loves to read. Go off in her room and read. She was at the school with her mom for some after hours thing, and she slipped away and sat in the hall and read.

I got that nice letter from my sister last Christmas about how she and Lilah had read "Thank You, Human," aloud together and how close that made her feel to her. Lilah also plays lots of sports--softball, field hockey, lacrosse, and now she's started tennis. I have a Lake Bluff softball shirt with pink lettering that I wear a lot because of Lilah. I'm representing, as they say. I was sent a photo of the three kids in the city yesterday and was struck as I often am by how much Lilah looked like my mom, who also loved to read.

Lilah doesn't like school anymore, which concerns me. She is still doing really well. Her progress report was glowing. I texted my sister with messages for the girls, saying to tell Amelia that I was so proud of her--and, frankly, a little surprised, but to omit that bit--and to tell Lilah that I was proud of her for being who I've come to expect her to be, and to keep reading, thinking, and learning, because we're always just beginning.

I have so much to put in these pages. It can feel overwhelming, save that I know it will all be gotten to, and I mustn't try and spurt ahead by dropping in something where it doesn't best go. I did get two vaccines yesterday morning after running the stairs at City Hall--for COVID and flu. Almost everyone talks about how busy they are, no matter how little they--and most people--do. What they really mean is they're inefficient, lazy, and they waste time. They go in circles rather than straight lines, but because they are in motion, they conflate this with the tending to of tasks.

You see it in everything. People are never ready to go. In the line ahead of you, at the intersection. That is where the time goes--it's in the adding up all of those stalled, distracted moments. That's where your life went. But people talk about themselves as though they're the most important person in the world, uniquely busy, uniquely in demand, but it's all pretend.

They're blips who are in part blips because they go in circles around the peripheries of their own lives, or what should be their lives. They make excuses without realizing they're doing so, they are never accountable, without realizing that's the case, they are not there for people unless it's someone they can't avoid being there for, like someone who lives under the same roof and won't in turn give them that thing that they want back unless whatever task is done, whatever that thing they want is.

There was this overweight guy--in the way of almost all guys--slouched in a chair at the back of the CVS, waiting for the pharmacist to come out and give him his shot. That kind of posture where it looks like it's going to take that person a while to so much as stand up, like even that simple act will have parts of a process to it. I knew everything I needed to about this man. I don't sit. I stand. I don't want to settle in. I'm taking care of something, and then I'm on my way.

The pharmacist comes out, and yes guy finally stands up, like he's working out the kinks following a long nap--realize he's probably sixty, but people take such bad care of themselves that it can be hard to tell--and he's shambling around and making inane small talk, asking questions whose answers were right on the sign in front of his face all while he was slouched down in his chair.

He's talking just to talk. Not to be friendly, not to acquire information. And this very simple procedure is dragging. And I know that this guy thinks he's the busiest person in the world, like most everyone thinks about themselves. And I know that if I followed him around throughout his life--or went back in time and did so from the start--all I'd see is a version of this moment again and again and again.

Finally he's done. He's had his latest version of a "Hmmm, guess I will sit and jaw a spell" encounter. I was wearing a sweatshirt. As I was waiting, I'd taken my arm out, rolled up my sleeve. All I need to do is sit down, answer the perfunctory questions, then it's shot one, shot two, I say, "All set?" the pharmacist says, "Yes," I say, "Thanks for your help," he says, "Have a nice day," and I say, "You too." It's like forty-five seconds. Good process, as they way. Or as I do.

You know the only person I know who never says how busy they are? It's me, the only person who actually always is. Or, also close to the truth, is at all, really. This is worse now than ever before, with almost everyone being a narcissist, incapable of accountability, self-awareness being virtually non-existent, and the rub off effect of our constant sociological and cultural devolution. People become the world around them, and like all of the people in that world.

No effects from these shots. Didn't feel sick or anything later. The way I handle that is by running stairs. I only get vaccines after I've run stairs and then I run stairs the first opportunity once I've gotten them. If you're sitting back on your ass, things can have at you. If you're up and at it, they are less likely to, whether that's with the body or in non-bodily ways.

Here is a video of LT--and I say that with love--when she was over at Grammie's. A very accurate summation of this child in thirty-two seconds (or, at least her non-angelic out-of-school self). The exaggerated, mocking salute/wave/see ya, wouldn't want to be ya/here, have a courtesy thing she gives, the throwing of the car into violent--but also controlled--reverse. She resembles no one here so much as Mr. Toad off on of his wild rides. Clear the roadways. Then she makes like she's going to run over my sister at the end, simultaneously flaunting what I'm sure she believes are her considerable skills. Give her some goggles and that leather motoring cap and she's a dead ringer for Toad.