3040 He Could Nearly Ride In Front.

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Those of you who have been here a long time will know that I have a handful of stories I tell over and over. A few weeks ago, when this stress induced insomnia started, I was doomscrolling Reddit and happened upon a “thread” about paranormal encounters that “convinced you ghost were real”. My story wasn’t really that, but I was looking for anything to get my mind off of things, so I told the one about getting struck by an unseen force. It’s not really a spooky tale and I think that’s part of what makes it come across as genuine. Anyway, there wasn’t a lot of activity in this “thread” but the next day I got contacted by someone who wanted to tell the story on their podcast. That kind of thing is really big on youtube right now so I guess various channels peruse Reddit looking for content to fill time. I agreed to let them present it on their program since there isn’t really anything to stop them from just taking it anyway. It has already been published on other shows way back in the early 2000nds anyway. This time I asked for the story to be attributed to me by way of a link to the comic, if it didn’t break up the flow of the presentation. As far as I know it hasn’t been featured yet. Over the next few weeks one person appeared in my DMs to ask for the same thing and I said yes to all of them with the same attribution request. Only one of them actually told me what their channel was called, and I had actually seen it in search results, but I wasn’t familiar with it. There is not paranormal podcast that I know of where the host has a really good voice. Some are okay and some are just bad. On top of that many of them are barely literate and mispronounce words that I would consider common like “duvet”. I understand that sometimes you only ever hear a word spoken so when you see it in print you may not know how to pronounce it, but… c’mon. That kind of thing is so extremely common with youtubers it really disheartens me. People just do not love language anymore. I don’t pretend to be an expert on linguistics but there’s so much richness and nuance available to you in your communication if you delve into vocabulary a little. I guess you could call that a pet peeve. It’s funny because mom gets annoyed with me when I say guillotine incorrectly, which I do because the incorrect way is way more common to hear and I tend to default to what I hear if I’m speaking casually. (Just as an aside, it’s strange how often she and I bring up the guillotine in casual conversation. The fact that it’s enough for this to be a “thing” between us is a bit worrying now that I think about it…) I always correct her when she says “warsh” instead of wash, which is almost always the case. Anyway, all that aside, at some point in the future my simple ghost story may, or may not, feature on several podcasts all at once. If any of them bother to tell me I’ll drop a link or something. As I say, many of you will have read the story here before but still, it might be fun.

The linguistics thing puts me in mind of some genealogy stuff mom has told me a few times. On her side of the family, at one point, one of our relations was a US senator. I forget his name at the moment, but he was very popular and successful. An educated man. I think he founded a town maybe, or the post office in a town? I forget the details because she has told me a massive amount of stuff over time and I’ve never been good at remembering names. I think he was the one who went blind, which is a problem in our family, and he had surgery to correct it somewhat. That was way back in time, like, 100 years maybe? So you know it had to have been harrowing. Anyway, I bring him up because at some point our family on that side was well off and erudite. Then you move on to my great grandmother, by way of my grandfather, and she presented herself a dirt farmer with of particular wit. A trait that she passed on to my grandfather and his siblings to various degrees. The thing is it wasn’t that they were dullards, but they had all been convinced that they were on some level. Someone had instilled in them a negative mindset that festered and I wonder where it started. There are gaps in our knowledge of what happened between having a senator in the family to becoming poor schmucks. That negative mindset has been waning in the last couple of generations generally and our natural charm and intelligence has begun to reassert itself in my various cousins. I’m very curious about who it was that broke the chain though. I hope mom finds out more of this family history so the mystery can be solved in my mind.

Her final radiation treatment is tomorrow. Chemo is not scheduled yet. She is holding up well enough in spite of having balance issues and nausea, in addition to it also being tiring. Your continued prayers are appreciated. It makes her feel good to know that people are interceding on her behalf. It’s strange how many people have randomly offered up advice and support who have no connection to me whatever. I will often ask eBay sellers about the history of the items I have bought and recently these interactions have escalated into conversations where they haven’t usually in the past. In these cases the seller has been a cancer survivor and they have given me tips about getting through it not only fer her but also myself. It just strikes me as strange that it would start happening when it hasn’t in the past. It’s also a bit concerning how many eBay sellers are cancer survivors… It’s statistically concerning.

Anyway, I guess I’ll leave it there. I hope you have an nice Wednesday. If you find value in my work I would very much appreciate it if you would peruse the various links where support can be offered. I’m told the economy is doing well, but I’m certainly not feeling it… I’ll be back on Friday with another page. Until then, enjoy the long lasting flavor.