She'll be back tomorrow

Sarah is taking one of the two days of this weekend off. I had to do some maintenance on her story - or - at least on the links to her story in the sidebar.

The whole thing - the combination of Sarah and 'The Kid' - now stands at more than 24,000 words. About 38 pages. About 10% of the finished book.

Okay - some random stuff.

When I wrote 'sliced apples', I was listening to 'Tally's Lullaby', by Karen Marie Garrett. I got it from iTunes. I had heard it on XM Radio, on a channel called 'The SPA', where it's all relaxing music. But something about this music speaks to me.

Jientje is coming in about a month. I am desperately hoping I can make her short stay here, in Chicago, memorable.

For months I have been trying to articulate something that has been on my mind - and I haven't been able to find the words because I haven't really been able to define the feeling. But - out of the mouths of babes. I have had this unease about the fact that I am aging - and there was a feeling of a disconnection with all the young and beautiful people out there. But I couldn't quite put my finger on the pulse of this feeling - it was just a bit too vague. I was watching television the other night - don't remember the show - but a young woman said, to a police officer, about an older man in her life, "No, I don't think of him that way. He's OLD."

There. There it was.

It isn't so much that the young see me and those people like me as incapable - it's that you see me as incomplete. And because I am incomplete, I am dismissed. Put away - ready for the shelf.

It is not a pleasant process, aging. It is made all the worse by the dismissive attitudes of the young. And that's what has been on my mind all these months.

I feel better now.

Ndinombethe.