{"id":4069,"date":"2025-01-20T21:58:36","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T21:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/?p=4069"},"modified":"2025-01-20T21:58:36","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T21:58:36","slug":"thoughts-on-a-cold-winters-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/2025\/01\/20\/thoughts-on-a-cold-winters-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on a cold winter\u2019s day"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

A drawing of T-Rex by Wyatt and me. I drew the head and teeth. Wyatt didn’t like my horns and said they needed to be “more pointy.”<\/p><\/div>\n

A notification popped up on my phone. It was from my friend, Jina. I rarely read emails on my phone, save for things that are emergencies, and this was no different. When I returned home a few hours later, I read my email, nodded my head and spoke to my monitor. Yeah, that\u2019s right. Now you know why it takes me so long to reply to emails. I tend to talk right back at you and forget to actually type out the damned response.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think this is anything related to my trauma. It\u2019s just how my brain works. It\u2019s also why I have written about a dozen awesome posts in my head over the past month, but never actually typed them. Sometimes, I type them in dreams and forget to do it in the real world. Today, I\u2019m going to start typing them out and share them here.<\/p>\n

The beginning of 2025 has been rather busy. My flight last week to New York was mostly uneventful. Nothing was delayed on either end of the trip. I used a bunch of air miles to bump myself up to first class. From Denver to Newark, I was on a plane that had just arrived from Japan. The seat was glorious and I enjoyed being left the hell alone except when the flight wanted to make sure I was comfy and well-fed.<\/p>\n

\"\"

My seat on the United plane.<\/p><\/div>\n

I had a nice salad, which was one of several meals offered to me. All in all, the airport experience was pleasant, like they used to be when I first started flying back in 1985. Well, except it\u2019s more pleasant now because there\u2019s no smoke wafting around the cabin.<\/p>\n

\"\"

This meal was rather filling and I had a hard time finishing it.<\/p><\/div>\n

My trip to New York was mostly a pleasant one. I am now officially on my mother\u2019s bank accounts. I have all but one of her bills paid. Her Medicaid application is complete \u2013 at least I think it is. I rented a storage facility for her belongings. My nephew and I fixed her tablet so WhatsApp calls can come through again. I spoke with her on Sunday morning. She is still struggling to find her voice. She is in there. We all still have hope.<\/p>\n

While in New York, I also got to play with my great nephew, Wyatt. He\u2019s a great little five-year-old and we played with his cars, LEGOs, and dinosaurs. <\/p>\n

\"\"

Wyatt begins assembling the Jurassic Park track.<\/p><\/div>\n

I find I enjoy those simple moments where we\u2019re putting together a piece of track for cars to run on or completing a \u201cfind the hidden picture\u201d puzzle in a Highlights for Children book. We also drew dinosaurs. Wyatt is much better at this for me. The point of it all is that we had a shit-ton of fun.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Wyatt crosses off the hidden object he found in a picture.<\/p><\/div>\n

My finger is healing well. I had to have my hand numbed again to have the stitches out on December 18, mainly because they were in so tightly and trying to remove them made me cry. The graft appears to have worked though I am still experiencing numbness in my pinkie finger. My doctor said it could take up to a year to heal, so I\u2019m trying to be patient with it all. Depending on the day, it either hurts or I don\u2019t feel anything whenever I hit the \u201ca\u201d key on my keyboard. Today it hurts. My ring finger has taken over the duties of the other keys my pinkie should be hitting. It has slowed me down a little \u2013 from around 100wpm to 75wpm \u2013 and that\u2019s okay too.<\/p>\n

There are some other things I want to get posted, such as my thoughts about spending time with my friends Steve and Maria a couple of weeks ago, my friend, AJ, retiring and moving away, some books I\u2019m reading, some books I recommend, and a few other things I\u2019ve got written on a post-it note. I also want to share some of my new creative nonfiction. I know what I want to write. I just need to remember to put it down on paper and not keep it on my head.<\/p>\n

One thing I don\u2019t want to write about anymore is politics, though I know it will come up from time to time. I don\u2019t want to write about or celebrate an adjudicated rapist, conman and bully. I know the shitshow has just begun, but I don\u2019t want to ruin my mental health over the next four years, so I\u2019m actively taking a step back to stay sane.<\/p>\n

As today is MLK Day, I\u2019m going to celebrate the values I was raised with \u2013 kindness, compassion, and empathy. I hope you all do, too. I\u2019ll be back later with more of my thoughts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A notification popped up on my phone. It was from my friend, Jina. I rarely read emails on my phone, save for things that are emergencies, and this was no different. When I returned home a few hours later, I read my email, nodded my head and spoke to my monitor. Yeah, that\u2019s right. Now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[238,254,257,378],"class_list":["post-4069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings","tag-mental-health","tag-nebraska","tag-new-york","tag-travel"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4075,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4069\/revisions\/4075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}