Tag: aging

Looking Good – 9th January 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

This shiny apple, so appetising
Fools your sense without realising
Inside, the maggots, breeding more
In fact, it is rotten to the core

We sold the apple, sold it well
From the outside, no one can tell
This analogy can be multiplied
Across your beautiful nation wide

Within is decay, or already dead
No matter all the pretty words said
A conspiracy in which we all take part
Only the truth can fix this heart

Fuck the fuck off back to where you fucked on from.

Ricky LeFleur, Trailer Park Boys

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to the lady that gave me a 2-hour massage yesterday. It was painful but awesome and I’m still in pain now, but awesome now!

I slept super well last night after a spoonful of kratom and feel great this morning, though I’m too early for Tha Sut and no cafes are open yet, so I’m back here writing.

Yesterday was relaxed but the time disappeared quickly. In the morning, Amy and I took Na up to the university cafe for her English lesson and it was good to go somewhere different. Na was very sweet when she said that she will miss Amy.

After lunch, I watched the Youth Brigade/Stern Brothers documentary, which was pretty inspiring and reminded me that I also wanted to start a Better Youth Organisation in Dorset. I didn’t know what I was doing, just as the Sterns admitted but I wonder turn my life would have been like if anyone had responded to my leaflet to do something more like that.

After that, it was time for a deliciously painful massage that loosened up a few places in my body and made me contemplate my future with my hips. Will I need some kind of operation at some point? What can I do now to delay that possibility?

I left Amy in the city to meet her friends and came back to watch some TV bits and pieces and chill out with kratom and before you know it, the day’s gone.

Today we’ll go shopping and hopefully not much else. Life is great.

Conduit – 24th December 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

You’re just a filter for fine foods and wine
You get a hold of it and say, “it’s mine”
Consumers of more, you’ve got it all
And it’s lonely at the top of the fall

An empty vessel, a temporary fill
Sieved away and now it’s empty still
If you hold too long it becomes a block
Account your life by taking stock

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my wheat bag and microwave to help me with my aching neck. It’s a comfort more than a help.

Now that the winter solstice has passed, it already feels as if the sun rises much earlier and the weather a degree or two warmer. The inertia of this rolling planet is building into the next storm of heat.

I talked with Amy last night about stopping work again and she joked (maybe) about in ten months, after the new laptop I’ve ordered is paid off. I only actually need the laptop for work. If I weren’t working then the computer I have would be fine. Anyway, I would love to stop working in ten months time – if not sooner!

I would miss the kids so much though and I would definitely miss watching them grow and develop into adults. Whatever they choose to do with their lives.

Tomorrow we will go with Amy’s parents to Singha Park to eat pizza. Maybe I’ll have a beet. That’s my Christmas!

I read an interesting interview yesterday from a blog called Oldster – talking to people about how they feel and deal with getting older. I am thinking about the same kind of things. The questions and the interviewees’ answers were very interesting. I thought I should try and interview myself and answer the questions here.

Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think?

I think I really only associate myself with me as am now. Sometimes I remember things I’ve done and they feel like they happened to someone else. Like a movie or a dream.

There are two points in my life that profoundly impacted me and those memories are clear and strong but they feel like they happened to a different version of me (which they did, really). I can’t be that person again or would even want to be but I do feel nostalgic for the pleasant feeling I had during those times, which felt few and far between as they were happening during my teenage years. That is my first age (nostalgic age).

I was a ball of contradictory confusion. I was often miserable and uncertain about anything. Then I was also looking for happiness and was confident in my selfishness. I wouldn’t wish to go through those times again, except with the wisdom I have now.

The other age in my mind is from meeting Bronwyn around 1992 until around 2002. That age was really what I would say built on my foundations of youth. It wasn’t really until I came out of that that I truly discovered who I am. I’m still not always happy with that person but I found acceptance through all my experiences.

So these two stages are really my main growth stages and they stick out to me for that reason. Now, I feel that I am in a constant state of growth and it is not so much defined by a specific time. In my mind, I am still an adventurous 20-year-old as a somewhat wiser 54-year-old.

    The Week That Was – 11th March 1979

    Singy – 7th October 2021

    ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

    Rob’s singing about his cat again
    And I’m trying to sing-a-long
    I can’t quite hit the harmony
    And I get the lyrics wrong

    But the joy is in our hearts
    As we’re belting out this song
    There’s no difference between us
    We are all where we belong

    Inspired by listening to Thingy and the genius songwriting of Rob Crow and his songs about his cat Molly.

    Gratitude Journal

    I am so happy and grateful that the dentist called to remind me to go today and bring my mouth shield because I forgot it last time.

    It’s been pretty hot during the days recently and despite flooding in other parts of the country, it hasn’t rained here for a week or more now. The temperature in the evening is perfect though, and when the skies are clear, Venus and Jupiter (maybe) are super bright up above.

    When I got home on Tuesday, Amy wanted to go for a swim and despite the sun being behind the mountains, when we got to the resort pool, just 3 minutes ride from us, it was a very pleasant hour or so, which a few other families were also enjoying. Relaxing here, overlooking beautiful jungle mountains and rice fields, a clear pool, food and drink, we both once again blessed ourselves for how lucky we are.

    It’s dentist time again today. Let’s see how much these damn things will cost me this time! I’m happy to still have most of my teeth. I can still see my dentist’s face from when I was a teenager, always telling me to brush more and stop eating candy. He was trying his best but my rebellious streak thought I could survive forever.

    Well, here I am, mouth full, sometimes hurting and most times painful on the wallet. I can remember a time when mum got her first clip-in teeth and I must be older than that now. So, I can consider I’m doing well enough, right?

    The last few times I stayed with her, I was always amused in the mornings when she would wake up and ask me to hold on while she put in her teeth. A few more were required by that time. She’d also have put in her hearing aids and put on her glasses. Is that my destiny too? So long as I can put it all off a little longer, that’s ok.

    I can’t imagine not losing my hearing, considering all the loud shows I’ve been at, surely exposed more than my mum had in her lifetime. Her parents both went deaf but I don’t know about anything on dad’s side. Hopefully, I inherited something good there.