On proprioception

This morning, I recalled the word “proprioception”, including the correct spelling, on the first try. No semi-humorous homing in on it like when my brain tried “cake pharmacy” for “confectionary”. Just the right word, spelled right, on the first try.
Fun fact: I took up bouldering *in part* to help ward off dementia, and the fact that I was able to remember a word I have never before used tells me that it is helping, or at least not hurting.
On the other hand, I for a while really suffered from the misconception that I was a lousy proprioceptor because a friend who occasionally coaches me is wont to yell things at me while I am climbing like, “MIG DU HÄNGST DA WIE EIN SACK!” and I would be like, “really? I had no idea!” Or last time, trying a route a level higher than I am used to, there was a spot where you had to do a certain move and I had no idea if I was doing it right or what I was doing wrong.
And because of this I decided that I had a serious proprioceptivity deficit.
But then I did an Internet search and read a couple articles about it and my conclusion is I am just a beginning boulderer, someone starting out at a new sport at an – let’s admit it – relatively advanced age – after a lifetime of non-sportiness and uncoordination, and so I’m not handicapped, I’m just shitty (but improving) at the new sport, which is completely normal and also great fun. If I had a problem with proprioception I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the middle of the night and navigate my house in the pitch darkness almost never treading on a cat, then sit down on the toilet (sitting, because no matter how good your proprioception is you don’t want to risk a standing wee in the dark, what if the cover is down, or someone is already sitting there? etc.), then wash and dry my hands and return to bed – finding everything perfectly (doorknob, toilet seat, sink, faucet, soap, towel) simply via orientation in space.
So my proprioception works completely fine.
I may have a vestibular disorder, however, according to one article I came across on my search, possibly vestibular neuritis or Meniere’s disease, looking at YouTube tutorials right now who needs doctors anymore welcome to the 21st century.

Nature vs. Nurture

Woman: Actually, my psychologist sister told me prematurely grey hair is not genetic, it is a trauma response.
Man, triumphantly: Oh yeah? Then why does everyone in my family have prematurely grey hair?

Far of fir

My wife carefully adjusts the draft on the “Schwedenofen”
in our living room,
which is what they call a cast-iron woodstove
with a glass door here, becaus a cat has made
itself comfortable on my chest, and
watching her (my wife) I think, People who
didn’t play with fire as childrn
have a greater fear of being burned.
Some days I wonder about the extent
to which Covid damaged my brain. Some
days it’s not so bad, some days I feel
like my laptop with the wonky “E” on
the keyboard (you hav to go back a lot
and mak sur it typed all th “e”s) and
some days I should just stay in bd.
In fact, sufficient sleep seems to make
a big difference. I got 9 hours last night,
according to my watch, but was still
physically tird because we went on a rather
long hike yesterday, and had a real
hankering for sweets, specifically a
“Punschkrapfn” which is a small rum-
filled one-portion-sized cake with pink
frosting. And as I took my morning
shower I thought of the word “Konditorei”
which is the plac where one might buy
a Punschkrapfen and wondered what the
English word would be (I often wonder this,
this in itself is not weird) but my brain’s
first suggestion this morning was
not “confectionary” or “cake shop” but
“cake pharmacy”
which, let’s admit it, is even
better than “cake shop”, which I
had prferred until then,
but on the other hand worris me a
little.
Anyway afterwards I complained
to my wife that the cake pharmacy
was close on Sundays, th very day
I have time to go there and my
wife, a skeptic like all of us, googled
it and determind that it was in fact
open on Sundays now, which it didn’t use
to be bcause they had been short
staffed and the owner was tired of
working 7-day weeks.
So, happy ending, we got our
Punschkrapfen.

Now hear me out

What if, every night, your sleeping soul is carried by the white spider from the previous day’s body to the next day’s body, so that, as every morning, you wake to a new life, with a new set of memories that, feeling genuine make the new life feel like the same old life as always, a life you remember? Because of the memories. And you go through the day carrying the burden of those memories, bent under grudges, horrors and hopes, hurting others, hurting yourself, trying to help and getting it wrong, thinking, This is the day I have some luck, until you fall asleep again at night, and wake in a new same old bed the next morning.

With a new face that feels like an old face, with scars the infliction of which you remember in detail, remember well, or vaguely, or only through stories, with bills to pay, kids to get off to school, animals to feed, a yard to mow, doctors’ appointments, laws of nature to obey.

Until one morning you look out that day’s window into the windows of a hundred thousand other apartments and wonder, who am I without these memories, which are maybe not real? These memories are only the stories I am telling myself today. What if I tell myself other stories?

What if I say, to hell with the memories, if only for today?

What’s on the menu?

Important announcement regarding apocaplexia et al.

The current simulation has exhausted its allotment of disk space and will be running in reverse until this is sorted; as a consequence, reality is temporarily suspended.
For participants, this may result in chronological dysphoria, including the sensation that time is running backwards, or along multiple vectors, or not at all.
For example, this blog, metamorphosism.com, is now older than both twitter and facebook, as pointed out by Joeri in a recent tweet.
Not only that, it is now more important and influential than either of the aforementioned former media powerhouses, which have abruptly been reduced to a mess by a billionaire* and a site for selling used furniture (not my joke), respectively.
It can be expected that someone will soon invent the RSS feed and we will be able to satisfy our need for virtual human contact through commenting on one another’s “blogs” (short for Web Logs).
__________
*in his diapers, amirite?

Results of the 2023 Metamorphosism.com International St. Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest

Sorry, am I late? When did I say I would announce the winners? I went out to a tavern with my wife for some wine and smoked meats etc. It was very nice but really loud! Anyway here I am.
Anyway I hope you’re having a nice Valentine’s Day.
We had 15 limericks entered this year, by Perry, KayO, Tony, and Zissou.
It made me very happy to see that so many people out there still place such a high value on literature and poetic participation.
And everyone entered proper limericks, well done, people!
For secret reasons, KayO and Perry share first place. Tony takes second place and Zissou third. Congratulations!
Although I announced from the beginning that there would be no prizes this year, I had hoped to send (surprise!) homemade marmalade to the winners. Unfortunately, I have concerns about how well the jars sealed, from a food-poisoning POV, so to avoid botulism being the surprise, there will in fact really be no prizes this year.
Maybe next year!
Anyway, my sincere thanks to everyone who entered, and thanks to the millions of readers who visited to enjoy the entries, practically crashing our servers.
Practically.
Now go and celebrate, or not, as is your way.
xo

The contest is here (the entries are in the comments).

Morning routine

I had planned to go bouldering with my daughter so I ate a lighter-than-usual breakfast so I would be lighter than usual while climbing, so by the time I got into town I was hungry and went into a bakery and as I stood there waiting my turn and deciding whether to get a slice of pizza or a sausage baked into what looks like a croissant* I felt for my wallet and it was missing.
I started patting all my pockets and realized i was blocking traffic so I went outside and did a more thorough search of myself – suit jacket, pants, and winter coat and although the spare notebook, crow snacks, various receipts and two random small candles were present and accounted for, because they live in my coat, everything else was missing – wallet, card holder, pens, various ID cards, spare elastic hair thing, cleaning rag for spectacles (the small one), emergency USB stick, spare lighter (in case I need to light a candle or, should the apocalypse or final uprising occur while I am out and about, a camp fire or a barricade).
Pickpocket OMG! I thought, before dismissing that theory on the basis of no pickpocket is that thorough.
What that leaves is I am a moron as usual.
That reminds me my wife is doing genealogical research and noticed a question on one old census, “Are there any idiots or lunatics in your household?”.
She did not tell me how my ancestors answered that but I know how I would.
But interesting, how those words used to be, like, scientific expressions.
I knew at once why I forgot everything (barring OCD pickpockets) – I had short-circuited my morning routine. After breakfast I was upset because my wife said, “you realize you are not telling me this for the first time” as I explained that black rye is not a different sort of rye but simply a more roughly-milled rye flour (something I explain every time I bake rye bread and someone compliments it and I say, oh, you think so? well I used some black rye flour) and I went upstairs to get dressed and my mind was busy thinking about how dumping information is a love language and time to put my pajamas into the clothes hamper and I did that and got dressed and put my phone into my pocket and went downstairs because my brain read “pajamas in hamper and phone in pocket” as “putting things away/into pockets” with the result that it did not feel weird to go directly downstairs instead of – as usual – standing by my nightstand and putting everything into my pockets (wallet, cards, hair thing, lighter, USB stick, pens, glasses cloth, IDs, etc).
Putting on shoes, I even had a hunch – some distant clump of synapses trying to warn me – that I might be forgetting something so I checked if I had crow feed (yes) and a face mask (no! good thing I checked!).
Anyway. Morning routine. Very important.
__________
*by this i of course mean “whether to purchase a slice of pizza, or a sausage baked into a croissant,” and not “whether to have the baker bake into a croissant one of two things – a slice of pizza or a sausage.”