What about the things that happen to use that medicine can not understand or cure? Is there, in fact, a cure for everything, and should I expect one? I admit to being odd, but food poisoning is one of those things in life that happens occasionally. We eat a lot of different things every day of our lives, and sometimes our bodies will reject one or more of them. To me, that is life, not a crisis. As usual, much of the world would not agree with me.

When I get food poisoning, I also get diagnoses, remedies, psychic energy offers, and stories about Uncle Harry, who often had an unhappy end.

People are worried about me, as they often are. It happens when people have been reading about somebody for a long time. It’s natural. I’m not the easiest person to care about.

I’ve always been a troublemaker; people who choose to be direct and open are often troublemakers. On social media, all you have to do to offend someone is wake up.

Since I put my life out in the open daily, two things happened – people started to care about me or stopped caring about me. That’s also natural.

I’ve always struggled to handle this social schizophrenia and often failed; when I was y young, I sometimes got too much attention and the wrong kind, and I learned to be safe by being invisible. Then, oddly enough, I chose to be very visible. It was healthier.

Few people know how to be old, wrote La Cochefoucauld. This is true. It takes a lot of learning, and I learn a lot daily.

But I can get in trouble just by blinking. It happened again last week.

I felt guilty about people sending me books and gifts I didn’t want and couldn’t use. It was easy to give the stuff away and sometimes throw it out, but that seemed wrong as if I was stealing from people.

And as the books I couldn’t read and the gifts I couldn’t use mounted, it became burdensome. That didn’t seem fair to people. Or, to me, to be honest. I hate getting rid of something someone spent money to buy for me.

So, of course, I wrote about it. And, of course, I got into trouble. I wasn’t surprised. I’m not dumb or blind.

I suggested that people contact me first if they wanted to send something so I could stop them if I didn’t read it or use it. To me, that was the honorable solution.

Suzanne Richey thought otherwise: “Why can’t you just be grateful for a gift? she asked.”Why does it always have to be about YOU? Common courtesy says to thank them for the theft, even if not requested. I don’t have to know a thing about anybody, but I know to be KIND.” (I wouldn’t know it from her message, but I’ll take her word for it. She’s invited to come to the farm and distribute the presents and books if she promises not to scold me.

The library has no more room.)

I don’t know how to publish a blog about my life without writing about myself, Suzanne. It is, sad to say, almost always about me or the people around me.

That is the point of a memoir; in this memoir, they lean to the narcissistic side. I feel for Suzanne Richey if she sticks with me; she’s in for some rocky reading. I’m sure I’ll upset her again, maybe even today.

People care about me, and people worry about me. That is nothing but good.

I am grateful for that, truthfully, but these are new paths we are walking, and I always believe in dialogue, even when it’s not kind or friendly. People get mad at me (and many others) for responding to critics like Suzanne, and they get mad at me if I don’t. Within minutes of posting this, people will stick up for Suzanne, saying she was trying to be friendly and helpful and did nothing wrong and I should stop being a bully, picking on people who are just being KIND.

We all know by now that I won’t stop being a pain in the ass. It’s my fate as well as my mission.

I find online communications fascinating; they are changing how we relate to one another, and I enjoy writing about them. I was, after all, a media critic. To me, it’s an important subject that affects us all, and judging by my readership stats, so do a lot of other people. In modern America, everything is controversial; we are drowning in victims eager to take offense.

The people who are supposed to be writing about it are making too much money to think about it or rock the profitable boat.

I do get sick a fair amount, as many older people do, I take a lot of medicine, and all of them have side effects nobody understands, and I live in the country and eat a lot of raw vegetables, some cooked, some not.

It’s incredibly damp this Spring and summer; the bugs are having a field day, and so are various pollens. This Spring, every inch of me was X-rayed, photographed, blood tested, and examined for several surgeries.

Modern medicine cannot resolve everything that might happen to us.

I don’t choose to move to a condo in a warmer climate; it just isn’t for me. There is some risk in that for a person with diabetes with heart disease. I’ll take it.

How about this for an idea? Maybe it’s one of those things that is not curable, that happens occasionally and needs to be accepted, not just medicated. We all know people are living too long and suffering for the chance.

I see that doctors can do beautiful things but can’t do everything. No one can give me, a human about to turn 76, a perfect life with no pain or discomfort.  There is no pill for everything. And I’m trying to figure out the point where I accept that my time is coming and try to do so graciously and without drama or more prescriptions.

I am not at that period yet, or even close, as far as I can tell. I love my life and my life with Maria on the farm, and I plan ot live it fully for a good while.  I can even have sex. But there are no pills for getting older and eventually dying.

It’s sweet that people worry about me; empathy is the most admirable of human emotions. But I believe in radical acceptance; this may be one of those times.

There is no perfect way to age or miraculous way never to suffer. I took some significant steps this Spring to be healthier and live longer. I think that will have to do for a while.