My second vexing problem

My second vexing problem is no secret. It's an inability to write.

This inability works -- or doesn't work -- at two levels. First off, I struggle with writing coherent sentences and paragraphs. Which is odd, because I make my living writing. I have good editors. So while I do write a lot, I don't really consider myself a Writer in the capital letter sense. But that's coming. That's not really the main problem.

The main problem is my lack of discipline when it comes to writing even the incoherent stuff. For some reason, it's just very, very difficult to get started. It as if my writing mind is stuck in quicksand. Once I get started, and actually "moving" so to speak, it comes easier.

So my main goal lately has been developing the discipline to just write, good or bad, pretty or ugly. I was doing OK for a while, a week and a half or so. I was doing some journaling, a handwritten page each day. Then I got busy, we had visitors, and I got out of the habit.

Back where I started.

When I was a kid, I had an engine of an old two-man chainsaw. My intention was to build a go cart. I tinkered with the thing. Dad taught me the trick of spraying a little gas in the spark plug hole. The machine would start up full bore, run about 10 seconds, then quit.

What you are witnessing here is the attempts to get the two-man chainsaw engine of my literary goals running smoothly.

Chug, bang, rrrrr. Ptt.

My vexing problems

Two vexing problems are plaguing me, and they have done so most of my life.

The Number One Vexing Problem is my seemingly inability to lose weight, which I attribute to my rabid sugar consumption.

I've never believed that one actually could be addicted to sugar, like one can be addicted to cocaine or heroin. But according to a story titled "Sugar Love -- A Not So Sweet Story" in the Aug. 2013 edition of National Geographic, "an injection of sugar into the bloodstream stimulates the same pleasure center of the brain that respond to heroin and cocaine."

Oh my.

It seems to me that one way to kick the sugar addiction is to replace it with something else that might stimulate that pleasure center of the brain. It also seems that it might be counterproductive to replace chocolate chip cookies with crack, so I've decided to look for something else.

The problem? There doesn't seem to be much in my life at the moment that gives me the same kind of pleasure as eating a bowl of ice cream.

I love to run and bicycle, but you can only do that so much. I've given up cable television, and even when I had it, triggered the anger center of my brain much more than the pleasure center. ("Why is this crap on?! This is just another indication that our society is crumbling at the seams!")

I love reading, but when I sit down with a book or magazine, I almost always crave a graham cracker with Nutella. So reading triggers some kind of pleasure center, just not that one. I like music, but not that much. I like the feeling of accomplishment when I finish a chore, but only after it's completed, and I often reward myself with a cup of hot chocolate.

I also like to buy bicycling equipment and other outdoor sporting goods; but my personal finances cannot tolerate that swap. Plus, we only have so much space to store bikes.

For now, I'm just going to work on lowering my pleasure threshold. Maybe I can tweak the old brain center with two scoops of ice cream instead of two, three cookies instead, oh, say 12.

It'll never work.

Coming up: Vexing Problem Number Two: Why can't I write that novel?

Saying goodbye to Squirt

Squirt slipped away so peacefully a the end that I couldn't tell she was gone.

That disturbed me some at first, but I've decided that she used up all of her spurt, her energy, and isn't that the way to go?

Eighteen years is a long time, and I still find myself going to her bed to pet her; her presence has been such an ingrained part of our lives.

 She taught us some valuable lessons in those years. Like all dogs, Squirt had an innate sense of fun, and it was mixed with, in her case, a quiet kind of stubborn determination that wasn't evident unless you got to know her will.

She underscored the power of exercise. We're convinced that her longevity is due to the fact that we took her regularly on long walks, plenty of runs and lots of trips to the dog park. We pushed her her hip sockets began to erode, and that kept her as mobile as long as possible.

For me, that means I need to keep running until I can't run anymore, then walk until I need to stroll, then shuffle behind a walker. Don't quit.

Her time at the end got me thinking plenty about the existence of God and the joy and sadness of the nature's system of life. I'm not sure I can accept a God of the Bible, particularly as he is in the New Testament, the one who cruelly tests people, sets some rather harsh, weird rules and is prone to fits of murderous anger.

I mean, when he created us, an All-Knowing, All-Powerful God would have known we would be prone to screw up and make allowances for that.

But something is underneath it all, maybe not a grand puppeteer, but something. Squirt fought for life in her in own Zen way, and if it were purely an existence predicated on survival of the fittest, I think she would have thrown in the towel long ago. But there was something more there, a love of life, an acknowledgement that it was important. If I only knew why.

The last days of little Squirt

At 18 years old, the fact that this little American Eskimo dog is alive is pretty remarkable.

But she's always been full of moxie, this little dog, barking and running and brawling with bigger beings since she came into our lives 16 years ago.

When we first saw her, she was shivering in the back of a humane society cage, and we thought she would be this meek little lapdog. She immediately put that to rest, running and playing with Maverick, our Vizsla as if she knew him forever.

Squirt moved in quick little bursts of energy. She would nip at the heels of Mav, then squirt away from him. She always was a Squirt.

She would run with me and Mav, too. pulling on the leash like a sled dog. It was nothing for her to go five, six miles. But a few years ago, her physicality slowly started to erode. I would take her for half mile jogs, then walks, then around the block, then just up the street.

Finally she was reduced to staggering around the back yard like a drunk. Then she lost the use of her back legs.

We carry her where she wants to go. We know that she won't last long, and we agonize over the decision to put her down. Are we keeping her with us because of us, or because of her? Here's the thing: Old dogs usually tell you when they are ready to go. Something dims in their eyes, and they look at you as if asking for your help to make it all go away. So far, Squirt hasn't had that look.

She looks at you with bright little eyes, pointy ears perking around at attention.

Squirt is tough, and there's something innate in her that values life.

Back in the saddle

Tonight's bike ride won't win any Strava king of the mountain points.

I rode 1.6 miles with about an 8-mph-average, a slogging loop through the neighborhood on a single-speed mountain bike.

This was my first bike ride of the year. It was 10 degrees out. I nearly wiped out riding through a three-inch rut made in one of the city streets, where car tires wore grooves into the hard-packed snow that covers the pavement. It was dark.

I'm not sure if it was fun or not.

I had planned to go nine miles, or three loops around my Southeast Wausau neighborhood. 

I wanted to stay close to home. It's dangerous riding at night, and especially so on a night in this winter. No driver is expecting to see a cyclist at 8:30 p.m. in conditions like this, so they're apt to run me down, thinking I was no more than an illusion, a snow mirage.

That is, if the driver saw me at all. Riding through these streets, with their four-foot high snowbanks, is like riding through frozen canyons or a winter maze, and nobody in a car can see anything coming off from side streets. So they -- and I, if I'm honest -- just plow ahead and hope for the best.

Traffic was quiet, though. 

But I turned around halfway through my first loop, or about 1/6th of the way through my journey, because my headlight went dim.

I bought this light last year, and it cost about half what my first car did. I love it. It's a shining beacon that helps lead me through the darkness, and it lasts and lasts and lasts. But even it, as good as it is, needs to be recharged once in a while. I think the last time I had used it was last July.

So really, I'm lucky that it lasted the 12 minutes it did. It goes dim when it runs low on power, giving me a chance to turn around, or worry or get another light for a while longer. I'm not sure how much longer it will last when it goes into the power-saving dim mode, and I'm hoping never to find out.

It's saying much about this particular winter in that I haven't ridden at all, and here it is March 4.

Usually I can ride through most of it, with January the only month I have to take completely off, and even then I can get out for a jaunt or two.

Last year I rode six miles in a temperature of 9 degrees below zero. This year I vowed not to ride if it was below 20.

But it's been so cold, the 10 degrees tonight felt downright balmy, and I was half tempted to wear shorts.

Last year by this time, I had ridden 70 miles. Not much by many standards, but not bad either.

It's going to be tough to catch up. I need a recharge, too.

15 minutes

I've just finished a project in which I interviewed the top academic performers in the Wausau area.

It was illuminating. As I started interviewing these teens, I was impressed with their work ethic, their maturity and their optimism. I expected all that. You don't get to be a 4.0 student at any level without some belief in yourself and future, that it will someday all pay off for you. Most can see it pay off in tangible ways already, by getting scholarships, acceptance to schools such as Yale, etc.

But what surprised me overall was their intellect. Not at how sharp they were, but in really, how ordinary it was. I expected a sort of imbalance, which I have seen in the past in genius-level people. They have trouble relating to others, or lack sense of humor, or whatever. It's a stereotype, I know, and one that this project has basically shattered in me.

All of the kids were bright, of course, but they also were funny, interesting, curious. The one thing that set them apart, and some of them outright said it, was their long-term commitment and discipline toward studying. They had difficulty in some classes, but they worked at it, and overcame the problems they faced.

It's a lot different than what my approach to life. I've always sort of worked on the theory that what "I'm good at" comes naturally, and what "I'm bad at" does too. So I've always done enough to get by at the things that I'm bad at, and concentrated on what I'm good at, but in a haphazard sort of way. I've never really applied a specific kind of thoughtful discipline to anything, except maybe for running and journalism. I've also had a sort of Eeyore attitude toward it all.

These kids studied every night. Usually no matter what. If they didn't like something, they either powered through it or made some kind of game out of it to make it more fun.

I started thinking about that, and my approach to writing. I'm talking about my own writing, such as this blog, and other kinds of fun or creative type of writing that I've always wanted to do but never really have.

I need to take a more disciplined approach to it, which I always knew. I've started to do this by trying to write 15 minutes a day. I say try, because I haven't been too successful regarding it. But I plan to continue trying for that minimal amount of effort. The hope is to build on it, and slowly, the drip will fill the pail.

Only in Wausau

Shortly after moving to Wausau more than a decade ago, I began to notice that there were plenty of strange people around. There were mumblers walking and talking downtown. The biking guy who I would see everywhere, never wearing a shirt and carrying a liter bottle of Sprite, when it was 30 degrees out. The shufflers trudging like zombies along Grand Avenue, moving with their heads down and ignoring all passersby and traffic.

One of the photographers at the paper called them "The Broken People," and I believe that the high number of these people is directly due to the fact that Wausau is the county seat. This is where physical and mental health care services, such as they are, are. There is a methadone clinic here, and low-income housing options for those who have trouble negotiating mainstream society.

It's sort of sad and cool, heartening and heart-wrenching all at the same time. But overall, I'm glad to live in a city that cares at least a little bit about the welfare of troubled human beings. And I think, for the most part, most people who are healthy, fit and able tend to look out for the unfortunate souls that live in our midst.

The thing about the Broken People is that they tend to disregard general safety, pedestrian and traffic laws. They cross busy highways without looking, ride bicycles the wrong way on a four lane thoroughfare and in general do whatever they can to disrupt the flow of everyday life. I kind of like that.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran across something new. Actually, I almost ran over it. I was driving back to work from my lunch, running late as usual and thinking about a story or an interview. I took my general right turn off of Seventh Street onto Scott, and, holy cow, there was a  plump guy sitting in the middle of the street, with a woman standing over him. I first slammed on the brakes and then drove around them.

Did the woman hit the guy, I wondered. It didn't look like it. As I passed the two, I caught the woman's eyes, and there was a pleading look. I was tempted to keep going; I had deadlines to meet. But I couldn't.

I pulled over, grabbed my phone and walked back to the duo.

"He can't get up," the woman said. I looked over to the right and saw a minivan parked nearby, running. Clearly she was the first to stop, and she was looking distraught and desperate.

The guy was sitting in the street, slush and ice surrounding him, dabbing at some bleeding sores on his face with a tissue. "I'm OK," he said.

Clearly he wasn't. I don't think he was drunk, but perhaps he was a diabetic having a low-sugar episode, or he either took took too much or not enough of some sort of medication. His face looked a bit like raw hamburger, or as if had been pecked by crows. It was bleeding in several places. He had a fat face, a bit swollen. He wore shabby clothes, old-person's post-cataract surgery sunglasses and a baseball cap.

"I'm OK. This happens all the time," he said.

Really? You collapse in the middle of the street all the time?

"Look, you've got to move," I said. "You can't stay here. You'll get run over."

"I'll be OK in a minute."

"Maybe I should call someone."

"Oh, no, no," he said. "I'll be fine. You two just go. It'll be OK."

"Look," I said. "I'm not going to leave you here in the street. You've either got to get up, or I call 911."

"No! No, don't do that."

Meanwhile cars and trucks were coming around the corner, slamming on their brakes, and then veering around us. I envisioned all three of us getting clocked by a garbage truck. Maybe they would put us in the same hospital room, in beds next to each other.

"Here, help me up," he said.

The lady grabbed his right arm, I grabbed his left, we pulled and he was dead weight, like a bag of wet sand. "Push with your legs," I said. "We can't lift you if you don't help. And I'll have to call an ambulance."

He gave another effort, and he was standing. "Just lean me against that car," he said. We did.

"Oh thanks," he said. "I'm good now. It's just that I've been real depressed lately." As if that explained everything.

"I know," I said. "But you can't just collapse. Do you need some help?"

"No, I'm fine. I'm good. Thank you both. You've both been very kind. I'm all right now."

"Well, OK," I said. "I've got to get going."

"Yes, yes, so do I," said the woman, and she virtually sprinted to the minivan.

"If you're sure you're going to be OK?" I asked the man.

"Yes, yes. Thanks so much. You've been very kind."

I went back to the office. I thought about the guy, and was angry that he would put himself in jeopardy, and us too. I was angry that he wouldn't get proper help, but thought nothing of asking us for our unprofessional help. But mostly I was worried. I mean, I couldn't force him to go to the hospital, and I wasn't ready to give him a ride or adopt him or whatever.

So I called the line we use to get the duty lieutenant at the Wausau Police Department when we're making our daily calls at work. I told the officer on duty, who I knew, what happened. He said he would send a squad around to check on the guy.

I have no idea what happened. I still feel a little guilty, and a little angry.