Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

Dozed off last night.

And then I was awakened by cramps in my legs. Weirdly specific cramps!

Of course, many old people get leg cramps. They're related to vascular decline and muscle deterioration. I've had those types of cramps. These weren't that. These were in my shins.

Quickly, I reviewed my mental Rolodex of differential diagnoses:

Intermittent claudification: Probably not. I'd been sleeping, not exercising.

Vascular insufficiency: Possibility. I do have varicose veins.

Parkinson's disease: I've been wondering about that one for more than a year now. I do have an intermittent tremor in my hands, particularly pronounced when I'm nervous or insufficiently rested. My mother had it, too, so I always assumed it was some idiopathic condition related to the high anxiety of intergenerational trauma. But hand tremors are a Parkinson's symptom, as are leg cramps.

Electrolyte insufficiency: Another possibility. I probably don't get enough potassium & magnesium in my diet.

Shin splints: This seemed like the most likely explanation. I went for a longish tromp yesterday, and I am out of the habit of longish tromps since to justify my gym membership, I've been going to the gym several times a week. Going to the gym has cut down on my tromping habit.

My feet are pretty flat, and my tromping shoes, old. Bad arch support!

But if this was shin splints, it certainly didn't feel like what I imagined shin splints would feel like. I imagined shin splints would be a steady aching pain. This was more like an arpeggio of pain; pain ripples that would start from nothing, build, peak, and then diminish—only to start up again.

Anyway, I spent an uncomfortable night. Didn't fall asleep till after 2am.

###

Brian was my only real friend in this area. We'd hang out a couple of times a week, and our banter was so lively & fulfilling that it completely satisfied my here-and-now social needs.

In his absence, I have absolutely no one to hang out with in the here & now.

Oh, I'm always texting and chattering on the phone. Which actually does fulfill many of the needs for companionship.

But I begin to feel like a scientist in a remote Antarctic outpost. Or like the protagonist of E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops.

There's organizational clatter. The Shawangunk Dems are always on me to show up at some demonstration or other, or man a table at the Blueberry Festival. But such activities never culminate in a cozy Scrabble game, or an invitation to a dinner party, or a fabulous one-on-one tawk fest.

Either the people here are complete boors or all their friendship slots are filled so there's no room for me. (There's a third possibility, of course, and that is that I am repulsive! 😀 But let's not go there.)

Anyway, so far I am maintaining my equanimity, but this is not Mentally Healthy.

###

I've been looking at Ithaca craigslist postings. Interestingly, housing is significantly less expensive up there—I suppose because by no stretch of the imagination can Ithaca be termed an NYC commuter town.

Also, because I strongly suspect, the Cornell and Ithaca College student populations—which the Ithaca housing market expanded to support—are going to decline significantly. Double whammy of the Trump administration's War on Cornell and the decline in importance of a college education, doncha know.

Even if the collective household doesn't work out, moving to the Ithaca area seems like a smart idea.

I have the basis for a friendship circle in Ithaca: Molly & Derrick are well-connected and would be happy to introduce me to all their friends. And RTT is there, and he is an Energy Center, a true "Connector" in the Malcolm Gladwell sense. When I was up there last, RTT took me to Personal Best, the brewery-cum-bar where he works, which has something of the feeling of the bar in Cheers. Everybody there—including many people my age!—was like, Wow! You're RTT's Mom! Instant celebrity!

So, yeah.

Much better place.