FOUR MONTHS SINCE BRAIN SURGERY

I'm down with what seems like a tenacious cold and the weather outside is wind and flood city, threatening the electricity, so I'll keep this short (not to alarm a anyone; I'm not—alarmed that is).

Amazing that only three months ago I was still have trouble reading and only a month or so ago couldn't read a long prose book like I just finished and posted on, the Monk bio.

I usually read several books at once all of them at different stages of progress so am finishing at least one or more a week, so to have completed reading only one pretty big but nonetheless sole book of only prose in four months is new, though obviously I'm pretty much back to normal re reading.

And even though I still have no compulsion to make lists and my mind seems maybe calmer but also a lot quieter and foreign without that compulsion, I notice in the post yesterday I did mention the Monk bio as now one of a trinity of favorite bios of musical originals, so...

I think I also mentioned I've been cooking a lot. One of the first, and actually only things, I was capable of doing in the first weeks after the surgery was eat. And all I wanted were home cooked comfort food (thank you to the many family members and friends who supplied a lot of it).

Since I became well enough to care for myself, the offers of others cooking for me recently has been my friend Sue when she isn't with the love of her life or busy otherwise. And I appreciate it. But when my older boy was here he reminded me of how easy it is to cook spinach in a pan on the stove top and that got me started so that now I cook something at least once a day or more (where before the surgery all I wanted to do was buy food to go or use the microwave.

As for writing, I'm capable of doing it obviously from these posts, but it still wears me out (I used to write all day when I could in the past) and if I'm the least tired or rundown, as I am today, I have to spend half the time correcting mistakes.

But I am driving again (though I haven't tried a trip to the Berkshires yet, this is the longest I've been away from there—where my older children and their families live and many friend—in over ten years.

All in all I'm about as "normal" as I've ever been, at least on the outsides, but it still feels odd to look out at the world through my post-brain surgery mind, not quite me (an old friend who hadn't spoke to me on the phone since before the operation recently told me halfway into our conversation that he could hear the difference, and he's a word man, Dale Herd, one of my alltime favorite writers as well as friend.

But to strangers and probably most people I assume I seem like nothing ever happened. Unless they care to feel the little bumps where the screws are or could get inside my head, even if only to hear the different sounds scratching my head where the plate is from anywhere else. Interesting. (And not so short after all.)

[PS: I corrected all the typos and such that I noticed as I was writing or that the computer did, but I notice in rereading this post there's other errors I missed. I'm leaving them not only so you can see the way my writing is still a little problematic, but also because after writing this and correcting what seemed like tons of typos, I'm even more tired.
PPS: I can hear the sirens every few minutes so obviously this storm is taking its toll. One of the things I have to admit I;m grateful for is being a renter! There's gonna be some home repair bills and projects tomorrow!]